Evidently he had pleased the multitude, for there was now a thick crowd in the central space, and already dancing had begun. Farm-hands in clean smocks, with bright-coloured handkerchiefs round their necks, gambolled uncouthly with farm-girls in spotted and striped muslins. Young farmers' wives, stiff with the sedateness of their bridehead, were drawn into reluctant capers. Despairing virgins renewed their hope, and tried wives their liveliness in unaccustomed arms. Even the elders danced, stumping together on the outskirts of the whirl as long as their breath allowed them.
"I tell you, steward," said the smith who had before spoken, and stepping so near Calverley that he involuntarily drew back, "if you prize your life, you will call no man here a bondman. I am freethat man is free" pointing to Holgrave, "and we are all freeall sworn brothers; and no one shall dare," raising his voice, "to brand, with such a name, a mother's son among us! You have received fair warning, and leave to go: retire nowinstantly, if you are wise! Clear a passage there for my Lord de Boteler's steward! There is now room for you to passyour retainers are waiting withoutand now take the man you call a bondman, and away with you all. What! you will not lay hold of him? Take him, I say!" elevating his voice"seize the villein, and drag him back to his bondage! What! not a finger, after all the trouble you have taken?then, away with you alone!away!" And Calverley, from the mere instinct of obedience to a superior power, moved towards the door. "And if ever," continued the smith, "you are found hunting in this forest again for bondmen, as you call them, we may chance to give you a lodging where you will have little reason to complain that the sun shines too brightly!"And winking in the sea,The monk was at length perceived, for the treasurer, on raising his eyes, met the glance of father John. "My lord bishop," said he, "yonder stands the monk, John Ball!"
ONE:"It's unaccountable hard to know what to do about labour. Now as these fellers are gitting eddicated they think no end of theirselves and 'ull ask justabout anything in wagesas if a man hoed turnups any better for being able to read and write."
ONE:"By my faith, Sir Robert," said De Boteler, "Stephen Holgrave wants no counsel while that old dame so ably takes his part. But a truce with this mummery. Come alongour time is more precious than wasting it in hearing such varlets."
THREE:For an instant, as the monk spoke, the smith's cheek glowed, and he thought it was not kindly done to reprove, in so marked a manner, one who, through rescuing him, had been compelled to fly like a felon, and assume a name that did not belong to his father. However, he had been accustomed to pay implicit obedience to the monk.How horrible everything had been! How horrible everything was still, with that loggish, inanimate thing lying there, all that was left of Beautiful Harry. Reuben wondered if he would die. If so, he had killed himhe had ignored his own inexperience and played splashy tricks with his new land. But nohe had not killed himit was Boarzell, claiming a victim in the signal-rite of its subjection. He remembered how that thirsty ground had drunk up Harry's blood. Perhaps it would drink up much more blood before he had done with itperhaps it would one day drink up his blood.... A vague, a sudden, a ridiculous fear clutched his thoughts; for the first time he felt afraid of the thing he had set out to conquerfor the first time Boarzell was not just unfruitful soil, harsh heather clumps and gorse-rootsit was something personal, opposing, vindictive, blood-drinking.
"D?an't t?ake on lik that," said Reuben, "tell me wot you've come fur.""No, not a syllable;" replied Calverley in almost a fever of excitement, "but be quick, and say what you know?"The rest of that day Reuben was a little happier. He felt comforted and stimulated, life was not so leaden. In the evening he worked a little in the hop-gardens. They were almost cleared now, and the smoke of the drying furnaces was streaming through the cowls of the oasts, shedding into the dusk a drowsy, malt-sweetened perfume. When the moon hung like a yellow splinter above Iden Wood, the pickers went home, and Reuben[Pg 326] turned in to his supper, which for the first time since Rose's flight he ate with hearty pleasure."Reckon that lot had just about crunched me up. [Pg 14]I feel all stove in."
