"Realf of Grandturzel has got his bit all safe.""He has been an ill friend to him," said Tyler, "even if he should not have harmed him now," (as a trembling domestic assured him that no prisoner had entered the palace) "and he deserves that his head should be carried on a pole before us to London Bridge."
Director
It was the August of another year. Reuben's new land on Boarzell was tawny with oats. He had at last broken into that defiant earth and taken handfuls of its treasure. To-day he inspected his crop, and planned for its reaping. With parted lips and a faint sensuous gleam in his eyes he watched it bow and ripple before the little breeze that stole over the hedges from Tiffenden. He drank in the scent of the baking awns, the heat of the sun-cracked earth. It was all dear to himall ecstasy. And he himself was dear to himself because the beauty of it fell upon him ... his body, strong and tired, smelling a little of sweat, his back scorched by the heat in which he had bent, his hand strong as iron upon his sickle. Oh Lord! it was good to be a man, to feel the sap of life and conquest running in you, to be battling with mighty forces, to be able to fight seasons, elements, earth, and nature....It became now all the more necessary to smash Realf. He could no longer be content with keeping just ahead of him; he must establish a sort of two-power standard, and crush his rival to the earth. That was not a good summer for expansiona drought baked up the greater part of Sussex, and there was an insect plague in the hopsnevertheless, Reuben bought thirty-five acres of Boarzell, on the east slope, by the road. He was tormented by a fear that Realf would buy the land if he[Pg 235] did not, and, moreover, during May two boards had appeared advertising it as "an eligible building site"; which was possibly bluff, possibly unusual cunning on the part of Flightshot, made resourceful by its straits.