TWO:Reuben recalled the last five yearsthey had been fat years. One by one small comforts, small luxuries, had been added to the house, as the farm throve modestly, fulfilling itself within the narrow boundaries its master had appointed. And all the time that mocking furious crest of Boarzell had broken the sky in the southtelling of beauty unseized, might unconquered, pride untamed.
TWO:"Sam," said Byles, "is not that a light in the cottage?"
TWO:Reuben faced his adversity with set teeth and a dogged countenance. He had not been farming thirty odd years to be beaten casually by the weather. Scorching heat and blighting cold, the still blanker doom of the trickling, pouring rainthe wind that seeded his corn, and beat down his hay, and flung his hop-bines together in muddled heapsthe pests that Nature breeds by the ten million out of her own putrefyings and misbegettingsall things in life from the lowest maggot to the fiercest stormhe was out to fight them. In challenging Boarzell he had challenged them all.
TWO:"T?ake careshe might hear you."