FORE:The bondmen, or legally speaking, the villeins, concluded the array. These were either attached to the soil or to the person. The former were designated villeins appendant, because following the transfer of the ground, like fixtures of a freehold, their persons, lands, and goods, being the property of the lord; they might be chastised, but not maimed. They paid a fine on the marriage of females; who obtained their freedom on marriage with a free man, but returned again to bondage on surviving their husband. The latter class were called villeins in gross, and differed nothing from the others except in name; the term signifying that they were severed from the soil, and followed the person of the lord. Neither of the classes were permitted to leave the lands of their owner; and on flight or settlement in towns or cities, might be pursued and reclaimed. An action for damages lay against those who harboured them, or who refused to deliver them up,the law also provided a certain form of writ by which the sheriff was commanded to seize, or obtain them by force. There was one mode, however, of nullifying the right of capture. If the runaway resided on lands of the king, for a year and a day, without claim, he could not be molested for the future; although he was still liable, if caught beyond the precincts of the royal boundary, to be retaken.During the next ten years the farm went forward by strides. Reuben bought seven more acres of Boarzell in '59, and fourteen in '60. He also bought a horse-rake, and threshed by machinery. He was now a topic in every public-house from Northiam to Rye. His success and the scant trouble he took to conciliate those about him had made him disliked. Unprosperous farmers[Pg 124] spoke windily of "spoiling his liddle game." Ditch and Ginner even suggested to Vennal that they should club together and buy thirty acres or so of the Moor themselves, just to spite him. However, money was too precious to throw away even on such an object, especially as everyone felt sure that Backfield would sooner or later "bust himself" in his dealings with Boarzell.
We Open in Jamalpur Branch in 2010
