When they came to the group of cottages at the Forstal, a girl ran down the garden path and leaned against the fence. She was a pretty brown girl, and as they went by she smiled at Reuben. But he did not seem to see her, he walked steadily on, and she slunk[Pg 29] back to the house, biting her lips. "Dudn't he see me, or wur he jest pretending not to?" she muttered.
ONE:"The wife of a vassal would not have taste enough to buy such as these; and there is but one about Winchcombe who could work so well. And, by my faith, I now remember that it was part of the tenure by which I some time since granted land, to present a pair of gloves.Was it not a fair-looking damsel, one Stephen Holgrave's wife, that brought them?""But you're all I've gotone go, and t'other stay."
TWO:"Holgrave," resumed the steward, with an incredulous smile, "has no intention of shortening his life:" and then he strove, with all his eloquence, to persuade her it was a mere feint.Isabella's quick eye had observed the action of Calverley and the momentary embarrassment of De Boteler; and as the idea of her lost child was connected with every thing strange or doubtful that she saw, her mind was instantly filled with a thousand surmises.Had any trace of Holgrave been discovered? Had the obstinate monk made any disclosure that Calverley, by some fortunate chance might have become acquainted with? These, and a variety of other conjectures, possessing less colour of reason, so much engrossed her thoughts, that she could scarcely command her feelings sufficiently to pay that graceful and courteous attention to her guests, for which she was in general so much distinguished. No opportunity, however, offered of satisfying her curiosity until the guests had retired for the night; and then, upon entering the ante-room of her chamber, De Boteler was sitting listening to the steward's statement.
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ONE:Bessie was a sturdily built little person, but the weight of her was a rich delight, and if his arms strained, they strained with tenderness as well as with effort. Under them her frock crushed and gave out a fragrance of crumpled cotton, her hand was warm against his neck, and on his cheek tickled her soft hair. The shadows ran towards them from the corners of the field, slipping like ghosts over the grass, and one or two pale stars kindled before them, where the sky dropped into the woods.... An owl lifted his note of sadness, which wandered away over the fields to Ellenwhorne....Now, however, having vital interests at stake, Reuben became an absorbed and truculent Conservative. He never called in at the Cocks without haranguing the company on the benefits of the wheat-tax, and cursing Cobden and Bright. On the occasion of the '42 election, he abandoned important obstetric duties in the cow-stable to Beatup, and rode into Rye to record his vote for the unsuccessful Tory candidate. The neighbourhood was of Whig tendencies, spoon-fed from the Manor, but the Backfields had never submitted to Bardon politics; and now even the fact that the Squire held Reuben's land of promise, failed to influence him.
TWO:"By the green wax! all this ranting is unprofitable. No one could call Black Jack an informer when his word was pledged," interrupted the foreman. "The affair of the lushburgs has passed awayit shall rest so, though I might pocket some good pieces by a breach of faith, which, after this obstinacy, would not detract much from my honour. This woman is nothing to us, and surely the judge, who is paid to hang criminals, knows more about the guilt or innocence than I or my eleven. He told us, as plainly as man could speak, that she deserved to be hanged. But, remember, galleyman, neither you nor I break our fast till our opinions are unanimous?" Black Jack winked at his companions but the action was unnoticed by the stranger."Wot do you do to make a man kiss you?"
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ONE:Triumphant he'll drive old MacKinnon awayNaomi turned away with a shudder, her eyes full of inexpressible pain.
TWO:"Maybe it seems right enough to you now?"and Reuben pointed to the blazing stacks.
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FORE:Chapter 2Almost the whole south was filled by the great lumpish mass of the Moor, no longer tawny and hummocky, but lined with hedges and scored with furrows, here and there a spread of pasture, with the dotted sheep. A mellow corn-coloured light rippled over it from the west, and the sheep bleated to each other across the meadows that had once been wastes....
FORE:Unluckily, however, he was not made for a career of prolonged fraud, and he ingloriously foundered in that sea of practical details through which the cunning man must steer his schemes. He fixed the number of rabbits to be sold at Rye as ten a week, pocketing the surplus whether it were one or six. This was a pretty fair average, but its invariable occurrence for seven or eight weeks could not fail to strike Reuben, whose brain was not placid and slow-moving like his son's.Reuben mumbled something inarticulate, and Beatup took himself off. His master's head fell between his clenched hands, and as the cow gave a sudden slavering cough in the straw, a shudder passed over his skin, and he hunched himself more despairingly.
FORE:Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie?
FORE:The only part of the farm that was not doing well was Grandturzel. The new ground had been licked into shape under Reuben's personal supervision, but the land round the steading, which had been under cultivation for three hundred years, yielded only feeble crops and shoddy harveststhings went wrong, animals died, accidents happened.
TWO:The crest of Boarzell was marked by a group of firs, very gaunt and wind-bitten, rising out of a mass of gorse, as the plumes of some savage chief might nod mangily above his fillet. When the gorse was in bloom,[Pg 2] one caught the flare of it from the Kentish hills, or away westward from Brightling and Dallington. This day in the October of 1835, the flowerets were either nipped or scattered, or hidden by the cloths the gipsies had spread to dry on the bushes.
$ 0$ 600
TWO:
TWO:That gave the crowd its freedomhitherto the conflict had been squeezed into two representatives, leaving some hundred men merely limp spectators; but with the collapse of his proxy, each man felt the rage in him boil up.
TWO:After the dance, which did not last long, as poor Robert trod so heavily on his partner's feet that she soon begged him to stop, they strolled off round the Fair. Robert thought that if he made it a custom to roam among the booths his father would not notice his final disappearance so quickly. Lord! he was getting a hemmed crafty fellow. All the boys were allowed a shilling or two to spend at the Fair, so Robert treated Emily to a ride on the merry-go-round and five sea-sick minutes in the swings. Then he took Mrs. ButtonRealf's married daughter, who had come over from Hove, to see the Panorama and a new attraction in the shape of a fat lady, which struck him as disgusting, but made her laugh tremendously.
He received his father very kindly, giving him a seat close to the table so that he might have a refuge for his cup and saucer, and introducing him to a gentleman who, he said, was writing a book on Sussex commons and anxious for information about Boarzell.By the end of the year Reuben had saved enough money to buy five acres of Boarzell, in the low grounds down by Totease. He had saved chiefly on the wages of Blackman and Becky, though, against that, he had been forced to engage outside help for the hay in June, and also for the wheat in August. However, he had been lucky enough to secure tramp labour for this, which meant payment largely in barn-room and bread.He sat on a stool at the foot of Brindle's stall, and watched her as she lay there, slobbering her straw. His face was grim and furrowed, lines scored it from nose to mouth and across the forehead; his hair was damp and rough on his temples, his eyes were dull with sleeplessness."Maybe I want more than a kiss."
TWO:That gave the crowd its freedomhitherto the conflict had been squeezed into two representatives, leaving some hundred men merely limp spectators; but with the collapse of his proxy, each man felt the rage in him boil up.
