"I never said as I'd do her work."Opinion in Peasmarsh was divided. There was a general grudging admiration of the man who seemed able, in defiance of the Scriptures, to make Leviathan his servant. No one could deny that Backfield had performed a job which the neighbourhood from the first had declared to be impossible. He was dislikednot because anyone particularly envied him the land he bought so eagerly and so strenuously shaped, but because of his utter disregard of what other men prized and his willingness to sacrifice it for the sake of what they did not prize at all. He was a living insult to their[Pg 397] hearths, their homes, their wives, their children, their harmless recreations, the delights of their flesh, all those things which he had so readily set aside to win his great ambition. It was not for what he wanted that they hated him so much as for the things he did not want.
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ONE:"Odiam!" shrieked Albert.The Backfields had always been Tory, just as they had always been Church, because Liberalism and Dissent[Pg 86] were "low," and unworthy of yeomen farmers. But they had never felt very keenly about politics, which, except at election times, had not come much into their lives. Even at the elections the interest had been slight, because up till ten years ago Rye had been a pocket borough, and its Radical member went up to Parliament without any of the pamphlet-writing, bill-sticking, mud-throwing, or free-fighting, which stirred the blood in other towns.
TWO:"That's too much." Reuben's brows and mouth were straight lines.
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ONE:Then suddenly she was silentand Reuben kissed her.
TWO:"Surelye! It all fizzled out, soon as them beasts saw the constables. Fifty speshul constables sworn in at Rye Town Hall, all of 'em wud truncheons! You couldn't expect any rabble-scrabble to face 'em."The Crimean War had meant the stoppage for a time of Russian grain supplies, and Reuben had taken every advantage of this. He had some forty acres under grain cultivation, mostly oats, but also some good kinds of wheat and barley. In rotation with these were peas and clover, turnips and mangolds. He also had twenty acres of hopsthe rest was pasture for his neat Dutch and Jersey cows, which, with the orchard and poultry yard, were still the most profitable if not the most glorious of his exploits. The bull had not proved so splendid an investment as he had hoped; the farmers of the district could not afford big hiring fees, and at present his space was too limited for extensive breeding of his own stock. However, he exhibited Alfriston King at Lewes Agricultural Show, and won a first prize for him. The next year he sold him to a big cattle breeder down Horeham way, and bought a cheaper but more serviceable animal for his own business.
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TWO:
FORE:"You wur frightened, so I saw you wurn't ready, and I tried to m?ake you feel as naun had happened."
FORE:'Tis that he may gain some more hundreds this way in,
FORE:At last they reached the lane by Eggs Hole Cottage, which with shimmering star-washed front looked towards the south. He stopped, and she slid to the ground. Then suddenly the words came.
FORE:"What are you gazing at, Byles," asked Calverley."I'm not so old, then, after all."
TWO:"By the green wax, but I do! I can never practise my own calling again; and, at any rate, have tried cheating, and lying, and so on, long enoughand what have I got by them?the honestest blockhead in England cannot be worse off than John Oakley! So, as I have said, I shall e'en try what honesty will do! Besides, I owe them something for saving me from the gallows. But I cannot do without drink!and drink, except a beggarly cup of ale or so, is not to be had among themand so, steward, you must give me money."
TWO:As usual the local printing-presses worked hard over pamphlets and posters, and as a Rye election was nothing if not personal, Reuben was soon enlightened as to the Radical opinion of him. Posters of a startlingly intimate and insulting nature began to appear about the town; a few were displayed in Peasmarsh, and some were actually found on the walls of his own barns.
$ 0$ 600
TWO:
TWO:"I reckonI expect he will. But don't you mind him, little sister. He isn't worth it."
At this moment of perplexity, some medicine, that she had obtained from Edith, occurred to her, and, with a feeling of confidence, and almost of extacy, she took a phial from a shelf in a cupboard where she had placed it, and, pouring out the contents in a large spoon, hesitated an instant ere she administered it. "Let me see," said she; "surely it was a large spoonful Edith told me to giveyet all that was in the phial doesn't fill the spoon. Surely I can't be wrong: noI remember she said a large spoonful, and we didn't talk of any thing elseso I must be right." But Mary still hesitated, till, hearing a sudden noise in the court-yard, which, she conjectured, was her mistress returned, and as the child was getting worse every moment, she leaned back its head, and, forcing open its mouth, compelled the patient, though with difficulty, to swallow its death. The draught was taken; the rigid muscles relaxed, and for a minute the child lay motionless in her lap; but in an instant after, Mary could scarcely suppress a shriek at the horrid sight that met her gaze. The eyes opened, and glared, and seemed as if starting from the headthe fair face and the red lips, were blue, deepening and deepening, till settling in blacknessthe limbs contractedthe mouth opened, and displayed a tongue discoloured and swollenthen came a writhing and heaving of the body, and a low, agonized moan: and, as Mary looked almost frantic at this dreadful sight, Edith's words, when she had given her the phial, "that there was enough there to kill," suddenly occurred to herand then, too, came, with a dreadful distinctness, the remembrance of the true directions which Edith had given.Reuben was glad to escape into his farm work. The atmosphere of sickness was like a cloud, which grew blacker and blacker the nearer one came to its heart. Its heart was that little room in the gable, where he spent those wretched nights, disturbed by Harry's moaning. Out of doors, in the yard or the cowshed or the stable, he breathed a cleaner atmosphere. The heaviness, the vague remorse, grew lighter. And strange to say, out on Boarzell, which was the cause of his trouble, they grew lightest of all.The young Backfields were beginning to grow into individualities. Albert, the eldest, was eight, and showed certain tokens of a wilful nature, which had not much chance where his father was concerned. Strange fits of dreaminess alternated with vigorous fits of passion. He was a difficult child to manage, for in addition to his own moods he had a certain corrupting influence over his more docile brothers. Reuben already kept him at work most of the dayeither at the village school, or scaring birds from the orchard or the grain fields.