"Reuben knows he's a nice lad, and he knows I know he's a nice lad. Hasn't he got a lovely brown skin?""Well, I shan't go scolding you, lad," said Joseph Backfield, "fur I reckon you've bin punished enough. Though it wur unaccountable lucky you dudn't git anything worse. I hear as how Pix and Hearsfield are to be transported, and there'll be prison for some thirty more. Wot dud yer want to go mixing up in them things fur?"Richard bitterly abused his father to Anne, as they met in the midst of the strife of their two families:
ONE:The light trembled and pearled, and in a swift last clearness she saw the great Moor rolling up against the sky, purple with heather, golden with gorse, all strength and life. It seemed to mock her savagely"I liveyou die. You dieI live." It was this hateful land which had killed her, to which she had been sacrificed, and now it seemed to flaunt its beauty and life and vigour before her dying eyes. "I liveyou die. You dieI live."
TWO:He would have been exceedingly indignant if in bygone days anyone had ever hinted that he did not[Pg 389] love the sons and daughters whom he had beaten, kicked out of doors, frustrated, suppressed, or driven to calamity. All the same, he acknowledged that there was a difference between his feelings towards Rose's children and Naomi's. Though Naomi was the wife more pleasant to remember, Rose's were the children he loved best. They had not grown up in the least like her, and he was glad of that, for he would have hated to confront again her careless, lovely face, or the provoking little teeth of her smile; they were Backfields, dark of hair and swarthy of skin, David with grey eyes, William with brown.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
ONE:
TWO:Reuben was delighted with her fashionable clothes, the dainty things with which she managed to surround herself, her fastidious care for her person, her pomadings, her soapings, her scentingsbut he sometimes had vague doubts of this beautiful, extravagant, irresponsible creature. He was like a man stirring in a happy dream, realising in the midst of it that he dreams, and must some day awake.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
ONE:"That's a strange thing to see in a shepherd's hand."
TWO:"Aye, and enough too!" said Turner; "and, mind ye, nothing but rentno service. Let every man be free to work, and get money for his work, and give money for his land, and know what he has to pay: I don't like your servicesso many days' labour, or so much corn, or so many head of cattle, and so on: and then, if any thing happens that he fails to the very day, though the land should have been held by his great-grandfather, why he has no claim to it! 'Tis time all this should be done away with.But now go on with the rest."
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
TWO:Reuben was delighted with her fashionable clothes, the dainty things with which she managed to surround herself, her fastidious care for her person, her pomadings, her soapings, her scentingsbut he sometimes had vague doubts of this beautiful, extravagant, irresponsible creature. He was like a man stirring in a happy dream, realising in the midst of it that he dreams, and must some day awake.
FORE:The monk silently bent his head."That is their weapons, my liege," said Woodstock.
FORE:He compared his present feelings with the miserable humiliation he had endured in '65. Queer!that election seemed almost as real and vivid to him as this one, andhe did not know whyhe found himself feeling as if it were more important. His mind recaptured the details with startling clearnessthe crowd in the market-place, the fight with Coalbran, the sheep's entrails that were flung about ... and suddenly, sitting there in his arm-chair, he found himself muttering: "that hemmed g?ate!"
FORE:Rose's merry, rather strident laugh rang out on the hushed noon. Handshut stood facing her with his head held down; then she turned away from him and laughed again. Her laugh rose, flutteredthen suddenly broke.
FORE:"Archers, do your duty!" shouted Calverley; but at the moment some voices without exclaimed suddenly, "My lord comes! My lord comes!" and the bowmen drew back, and Holgrave instinctively dropped his axe.His sons were now growing upAlbert was nearly eighteen, and Peter, though a year younger, looked a full-grown man, with his immense build and dark hairy skin. Pete was still the most satisfactory of Reuben's children, he had a huge and glad capacity for work, and took a real interest in Odiam's progress, though it was not his life, as it was his father's. It was strange, Reuben thought, that none of the other boys seemed to have a glimmer of enthusiasm. Though they had grown up under the shadow of Boarzell, and from their earliest childhood taken part in the struggle, they seemed still to think more about the ordinary things of young men's lives than the great victory before them. It was disappointing. Of course one expected it of girls, but Reuben's heart ached a little because the men children on whom he had set such hope and store cared[Pg 127] so little about what was life itself to him. It is true that Robert worked well, nearly as well as Pete, but that was only because he was of a docile, tractable nature. He did not share his father's dreamsBoarzell to him was only a piece of waste ground with some trees on it.
FORE:
FORE:"Life is worth while," said Alice, "in itself, not because of what it gives you."
TWO:Reuben was paralysed with horror. In another minute they would break down his hedgea good young hedge that had cost him a pretty pennyand be all over his roots. For a moment he stood as if fixed to the spot, then suddenly he pulled himself together. At all costs he must save his roots. He could not tackle the women single-handed, so he must go for the madman.
TWO:"What dost thou here, John Kirkby, and why these screams?"
$ 0$ 600
TWO:"Because I've thought of something much grander, surelye. I'm going to m?ake us all gurt people, and this a gurt farm. But you've got to help me, you and Harry."
"Love Ino. I've loved but one woman."Naomi followed him out of the little crowd which had grouped round Harry, and they wandered into the Panorama tent to see the show. After having sat for half an hour on a crowded bench, in an atmosphere thick with foul tobacco and the smell of clothes long stored awaywatching "The Coronation of Queen Victoria" and "Scenery on the West Coast of Scotland" rumble slowly past with many creaksthey moved on to the sparring booth, where Buck Washington, now a little knotted and disabled by a bout of rheumatism, arranged scraps between the ploughboys of the neighbouring farms.Harry and his mother had not realised till then how hard Reuben could be. Hitherto they had never truly known him, for he had hidden in himself his dominant passion. But now it was nakedly displayed, and they began to glimpse his iron and steel through the elusive nebulousness that had veiled themas one might see the body of a steam-engine emerge through the clouds of draping smoke its activity has flung round it."YesI know he is ambitious, but surely he doesn't want unwilling helpers."
TWO:Chapter 11
