The price was now agreed upon, and the purse that accompanied the pursuivant's dress was more than sufficient to satisfy the exorbitant demand of the foreman.
Caro watched the year bud and flowerMay came and creamed the hedges with blossom and rusted the grass with the first heats. Then June whitened the fields with big moon-daisies and frothed the banks with chervil and fennel. The evenings were tender, languorous, steeped in the scent of hay. They hurt Caro with their sweetness, so that she scarcely dared lift her eyes to the purpling twilight sky, or breathe the wind that swept up heavy with hay and roses from the fields. July did nothing to heal herits yellow, heat-throbbing dawns smote her with despairits noons were a long-drawn ache, and when in the evening hay and dust and drooping chervil troubled the air with shreds and ghosts of scent, something almost akin to madness would twist her heart.
ONE:The farm men came tumbling from the attics"Whur, m?aster?"There was a lamb there on the last evening in February, its tiny body and long, weak legs all rosed over with the glow. Above it Richard crouched, grammar in hand. There had been a lull in the snowstorm during the afternoon, but now once more the wind was piping and screaming over the fields and the whiteness heaping itself against the wall.
The cool and determined tone of the chief justice exasperated the abbot; and, fixing a stern glance upon the judge,The truth was that Reuben had now become desperate. He could not give in to Rose. If he sacrificed his farm to her in the smallest degree he ran the risk of ruin. He was torn in two by the most powerful forces of his life. On one side stood Odiam, trembling on the verge of catastrophe, needing every effort, every sacrifice of his, every drop of his sweat, every drop of his blood. On the other stood Rose, the dearest human thing, who demanded that for her sake he should forget his farm and the hopes bound up in it. He would not do soand[Pg 290] at the same time he would not lose Rose. Though her love no longer gave him the gift of peace, he still clung to it; her presence, her voice, her touch, still fired and exalted him. He would not let her goand he would not let Odiam go."My old f?ather used to say'I want nothing that I haven't got, and so I've got nothing that I d?an't want, surelye.'"It was as if someone had suddenly laid a cold hand on Robert's heart. He guessed that his father suspected him. His ears turned crimson, and his hands trembled and fumbled as he opened the back of the cart and took out his string of properly skinned and gutted conies.