BOOK I

THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT

§ 1.

It was five years later, in the February of 1840.

A winter sunset sparkled like cowslip wine on the wet roofs of Odiam. It slipped between the curtains of the room where Reuben watched beside his dead father, and made a golden pool in the dusk.

Joseph Backfield had been dead twelve hours. His wife had gone, worn out with her grief, to rest on the narrow unaccustomed bed which had been put up in the next room when he grew too ill to have her at his side. Reuben knew that Harry was with her--Harry would be sitting at her head, his arm under the pillow, ready for that miserable first waking, when remembering and forgetting would be fused into one pain. Reuben knew that they did not need him, that they had all they wanted in each other--now, as during the nights and days of illness, when he had never felt as if he had any real link with those three, his father and mother and Harry.

This evening he sat very still beside the dead. Only once he drew down the sheet from his father's face and gazed at the calm features, already wearing that strange sculpt look which is the gift of death. The peaceful lips, the folded hands, seemed part of an embracing restfulness. Reuben's heart warmed with a love in which was little grief. He thought of his father's life--calm, kindly, comfortable, ambitionless. He had been happy; having wanted little he had attained it and had died enjoying it.

Reuben recalled the last five years--they 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 south--telling of beauty unseized, might unconquered, pride untamed.

So now was it strange that clashing with his sorrow, and his regretful love for one who, if he had never truly loved him, had always treated him with generosity and kindness, there should be a soaring sense of freedom and relief?--a consciousness of standing on the edge of a boundless plain after years of confinement within walls? For Reuben was master now. Odiam was his--and the future of Odiam. He could follow his own will, he could take up that challenge which Boarzell Moor had flung him five years ago, when he fought and was flogged because he loved the red gaping clay between the gorse-stumps.

His plans of conquest were more definite now. He had been forming them for five years, and he could not deny that during his father's illness he had shaped them with a certain finality. The road was clear before him, and to a slight extent fate had been propitious, keeping open a way which might well have been blocked before he began to tread it. Reuben had never been able to settle what he should do if the Squire's first project were fulfilled and the Moor sold in building plots. House property entered with difficulty into his imagination, and he coveted only Boarzell virgin of tool and brick. Luckily for him, Bardon's scheme had completely failed. The position of the common was bad for houses, windy and exposed in days when the deepest hollows were the most eligible building sites; the neighbourhood was both unfashionable and unfruitful, therefore not likely to attract either people of means or people without them. Also there were grave difficulties about a water supply. So Boarzell remained desolate, except for the yearly jostle of the Fair, and rumour said that Bardon would be only too glad to sell it or any piece of it to whoever would buy.

If Sir Peter had been alive he would probably have given the common back to the people, but Sir Miles was more far-sighted, also of prouder stuff. Such a policy would give the impression of weakness, and there was always a chance of selling the land piecemeal. Reuben's ambition was to buy a few acres at the end of that year, letting the Squire know of his plan to buy more--this would encourage him to keep Boarzell inclosed, and would act as a check on any weak generosity.

There was no reason why this ambition should not be fulfilled, for now that he himself was at the head of affairs it would be possible to save money. Reuben's lips straightened--of late they had grown fuller, but also sterner in that occasional straightening, which changed the expression of his mouth from half-ripened sensuality to a full maturity of resolve. Now he was resolved--there should be changes at Odiam. He must give up that old easy, "comfortable" life on which his father had set such store. A ghost seemed to whisper in the room, as if the voice of the dead man once more declared his gospel--"I've no ambitions, so I'm a happy man. I döan't want nothing I haven't got, and so I haven't got nothing I döan't want."

Yes--there was no denying his father had been happy. But what a happiness! Even there by his side Reuben despised it. He, Reuben, would never be happy till he had torn up that gorse and lopped those firs from the top of Boarzell. In a kind of vision he saw the Moor with wheatfields rolling up to the crest, he smelt the baking of glumes in brown sunlight, the dusty savour of the harvest-laden earth. He heard the thud of horses' hoofs and the lumber of waggon-wheels, the shouts of numberless farm-hands. That sinister waste, profitless now to every man, should be a source of wonder and wealth and fame. "Odiam--the biggest farm in Sussex. Backfield made it. He bought Boarzell Moor acre by acre and fought it inch by inch, and now there's nothing like it in the south." ...

He sprang up and went to the window, pulling back the curtain. The sun had gone, and the sky was a grey pool rimmed with gold and smoke. Boarzell, his dreamland, stood like a dark cloud against it, shaggy and waste. There in the dimness it looked unconquerable. Suppose he should be able to wring enough money from the grudging earth to buy that wilderness, would he ever be able to subdue it, make it bear crops? He remembered words from the Bible which he had heard read in church--"Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?"

He brought his fist down heavily on the sill. He was just as confident, just as resolute as before, but now for the first time he realised all that the battle would mean. He could fight this cruel, tough thing only by being cruel and tough himself. He must be ruthless as the wind that blustered over it, hard as the stones that covered it, wiry as the gorse-roots that twisted in its marl. He must be all this if he was even to start the fight. To begin with, he would have to make his mother and Harry accept the new state of things. They must realise that the old soft life was over, that they would have to work, pull from the shoulder, sacrifice a hundred things to help fulfil his great ambition. He must not spare them--he must not spare anyone; he would not spare them, any more than he would spare himself.

§ 2.

Joseph Backfield was buried four days later. His body was carried to the church in a hay-waggon, drawn by the meek horses which had drawn his plough. Beside it walked Blackman, the only farm-hand at Odiam, in a clean smock, with a black ribbon tied to his hat. Five men from other farms acted with him as bearers--they were volunteers, for old Joseph had been popular in the neighbourhood, dealing sharply with no man.

Immediately behind the cart walked Reuben with his mother on his arm. Her face was hidden in a clumsy black veil, which the Rye mantua-maker had assured her was the London fashion, and she was obviously ill at ease in the huge black shawl and voluminous skirts which the same fashion, according to the Rye mantua-maker, had decreed. Her hand pulled at Reuben's sleeve and stroked it as if for comfort. It was a smallish hand, and wonderfully soft for a farmer's wife--but then Mary Backfield had not lived like an ordinary farmer's wife. Under the thick veil, her face still had a certain soft colour and youthfulness, though she was nearly forty, and most women of her position were wrinkled and had lost their teeth by thirty-five. Also the curves of her figure were still delicate. She had been cherished by her husband, had done only light household work for him and borne him only two children. She carried the tokens of her happiness in smooth surfaces and soft lines.

After Mrs. Backfield and her eldest son, walked Harry and his sweetheart, Naomi Gasson. They had been sweethearts just three months, and were such a couple as romance gloats over--young, comely, healthy, and full of love. Years had perfected the good looks of "beautiful Harry." He was a tall creature, lithe and straight as a birch tree. His face, agreeably tanned, glowed with youth, half dreamy, half riotous; his eyes were wild as a colt's, and yet tender. Naomi was a fit mate for him, with a skin like milk, and hair the colour of tansy. She wore a black gown like Mrs. Backfield, but she had made it herself, and it was friendly to her, hinting all the graciousness of her immaturity. These two tried to walk dejectedly, and no doubt there was some fresh young sadness in their hearts, but every now and then their bodies would straighten with their happiness, and their eyes turn half afraid from each other's because they could not help smiling in spite of the drooped lips.

Then came old Gasson, Naomi's father, and well-known as a shipbuilder at Rye--for this was a good match of Harry's, and Reuben hoped, but had no reason to expect, he would turn it to Odiam's advantage. After him walked most of the farmers of the neighbourhood, come to see the last of a loved, respected friend. Even Pilbeam was there, from beyond Dallington, and Oake from Boreham Street. The Squire himself had sent a message of condolence, though he had been unable to come to the funeral. Reuben did not particularly want his sympathy. He despised the Bardons for their watery Liberalism and ineffectual efforts to improve their estates.

It was about half a mile to the church--over the hanger of Tidebarn Hill. The morning was full of soft loamy smells, quickening under the February sun, which is so pale and errant, but sometimes seems to have the power to make the earth turn in its sleep and dream of spring. Peasmarsh church-tower, squab like a toadstool, looked at itself in the little spread of water at the foot of the churchyard. Beside this pool, darkened with winter sedges, stood Parson Barnaby, the Curate-in-Charge of Peasmarsh, Beckley, and Iden. His boots under his surplice were muddy and spurred, for he had just galloped over from a wedding at Iden, and his sweat dropped on the book as he read "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth."

Before committing the body to the ground, he said a few words in praise of the dead man. He spoke of his generosity to his neighbours, his kindness to his dependents, his excellences as a husband and a father. "This, brethren, was indeed a man after God's own heart. He lived simply and blamelessly, contented with his lot, and seeking no happiness that did not also mean happiness to those around him. The call of the world"--by which Mr. Barnaby meant Babylonish Rye--"fell unheard on ears attuned to sweet domestic sounds. Ambition could not stir him from the repose of his family circle. Like a patriarch of old, he sat in peace under his vine and his fig-tree...."

Reuben stood motionless at the graveside, erect, like a soldier at attention. People in the crowd, who wearied of the dead man's virtues, whispered about the eldest son.

"Surelye!--he's a purty feller, is young Ben. To-day he looks nearly as valiant as Harry."

"He's a stouter man than his brother."

"Stouter, and darker. What black brows he has, Mus' Piper!"

"How straight he stands!"

"I wäonder wot he's thinking of."

§ 3.

Reuben was strangely silent on the walk home. His mother made one or two small remarks which passed unheeded. She noticed that his arm, on which her hand lay, was very tense.

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 back to the house, biting her lips. "Dudn't he see me, or wur he jest pretending not to?" she muttered.

At Odiam dinner was waiting. It was a generous meal, which combined the good things of this world with the right amount of funereal state. Several of the neighbours had been invited, and the housewife wished to do them honour, knowing that her table boasted luxuries not to be found at other farms--a bottle of French wine, for instance, which though nobody touched it, gave distinction to the prevalent ale, and one or two light puddings, appealing to the eye as well as to the palate. As soon as the meal was over and the guests had gone, Reuben took himself off, and did not reappear till supper-time.

During dinner he had been even more thoughtful than the occasion warranted, leaving his mother and Harry to talk to the company, though he had taken with a certain dignity his place as host and head of the house. Now at supper he was still inclined to silence. A servant girl laid the dishes on the table, then retired. Mrs. Backfield and Harry spoke in low tones to each other.

... "Mother, how much did this chocolate cost wot we're drinking?" Reuben's voice made them both jump.

"How much? why, two shillings a pound," said Mrs. Backfield, rather surprised.

"That's too much." Reuben's brows and mouth were straight lines.

"Wot d'you mean, Reuben?"

"Why, two shillings is too much fur farm-folks lik us to give fur a pound of chocolate. It's naun but a treat, and we can do wudout it."

"But we've bin drinking chocolate fur a dunnamany years now--your poor fäather always liked it--and I döan't see why we should stop it."

"Look'ee, mother, I've something to tell you. I've a plan in my head, and it'll justabout mean being shut of a lot of things besides chocolate. I know fäather dudn't care much about the farm, about mäaking it grow and buying more land, and all that. But I do. I mean to buy the whole of Boarzell."

There was a gasping silence.

"The whole of Boarzell," repeated Reuben.

He might have said the whole world, to judge by his mother's and Harry's faces.

"Yes--I mean every bit, even the bit Grandturzel's got now. Squire he wöan't be sorry to sell it, and I mean to buy it piece by piece. I'll buy my first piece at the end of this year. We must start saving money at wunst. But I can't do naun wudout you help me, you two."

"Wot d'you want to go buying Boarzell fur?" asked Mrs. Backfield in a bewildered voice; "the farm's präaper as it is--we döan't want it no bigger."

"And Boarzell's wicked tedious stuff," put in Harry; "naun'll grow there but gorse."

"I'll have a good grain growing there in five year--döan't you go doubting it. The ground wants working, that's all. And as fur not wanting the farm no bigger, that wur fäather's idea--Odiam's mine now."

"Why can't we jest go on being happy and comfortable, lik we wur before?"

"Because I've thought of something much grander, surelye. I'm going to mäake us all gurt people, and this a gurt farm. But you've got to help me, you and Harry."

"Wot d'you want us to do?"

"Well, first of all, we must save all the money we can, and not go drinking chocolate and French wine, and eating sweet puddens and all such dentical stuff. And then, Harry and me, we're valiant chaps, and there never wur enough work for us to do. I'm going to send Blackman away--Harry and I can do quite easily wudout him and save his wages."

"Send away Blackman!--oh, Ben, he's bin with us fifteen year."

"I döan't care if he's bin a hunderd. There äun't enough work for three men on this farm, and it's a shame to go wasting ten shilling a week. Oh, mother, can't you see how glorious it'll be? I know fäather wanted different, but I've bin thinking and dreaming of this fur years."

"You always wur queer about Boarzell. But your fäather 'ud turn in his grave to think of you sending off Blackman."

"He'll easily git another pläace--I'll find him one myself. And, mother--there's something more. Now you haven't got fäather to work fur, you'll find the time unaccountable long. Wot if you let Becky go, and did the cooking and that yourself?"

"Oh, Reuben...."

"You shouldn't ought to ask mother that," said Harry. "She 'äun't used to work. It's well enough fur you and me, we're strong chaps, and there's no reason we shouldn't pull to a bit. But mother, she'd never do wudout the girl--you see, there's the dairy and the fowls as well as the house."

"We could help her out of doors."

"Lard!--you want some work!"

Reuben sprang to his feet. "Yes--I do! You're justabout right there. I'm starved fur work. I've never really worked in my life, and now I want to work till I drop. Look at my arm"--and he showed them his brown hairy arm, where the muscles swelled in lumps under the skin--"that's a workman's arm, and it's never worked yet--präaperly. You let me send off Blackman and Becky, and see how we manage wudout 'em. I'll do most of the work myself, I promise you. I couldn't have too much."

"You're a queer lad, Reuben--and more masterful than your poor fäather wur."

"Yes--I'm master here." He sat down, and looked round the table quite calmly. A vague uneasiness disturbed Mrs. Backfield and Harry. For some unfathomable reason they both felt a little afraid of Reuben.

He finished his supper and went out of the kitchen. Harry and his mother sat for a moment or two in silence.

"He always wur queer about Boarzell," said Mrs. Backfield at last; "you remember that time years ago when he got mixed up wud the riot? I said to his fäather then as I was sure Ben 'ud want to do something crazy wud the farm. But I never thought he'd so soon be mäaster," and a tear trickled over her smooth cheek.

"I döan't see no harm in his buying a bit of Boarzell if it's going cheap--but it äun't worth mäaking all ourselves uncomfortable for it."

"No. Howsumdever, we can't stand agäunst him--the pläace is his'n, and he can do wot he likes."

"Hush--listen!" said Harry.

The sound of voices came from the passage outside the kitchen. Reuben was talking to the girl. A word or two reached them.

"Durn! if he äun't getting shut of her!"

"I never said as I'd do her work."

Harry sprang to his feet, but his mother laid her hand on his arm.

"Döan't you go vrothering him, lad. It'll only set him agäunst you, and I döan't care, not really; there'll be unaccountable liddle work to do in the house now your poor fäather's gone, and Blackman wöan't be eating wud us. Besides, as he said, I'll find the days a bit slow wud naun to occupy me."

"But it's sass of him to go sending off the girl wudout your leave."

"He's mäaster here."

"Ho! we shall see that."

"Now you're not to go quarrelling wud him, Harry. I'd sooner have peace than anything whatsumdever. I äun't used to being set agäunst people. Besides, it wöan't be fur long."

"No--you're justabout right there. I ought to be able to wed Naomi next April year, and then, mother--think of the dear liddle house we shall live in, you and she and I, all wud our own fields and garn, and no trouble, and Ben carrying through his own silly consarns here by himself."

"Yes, dearie, I know, and it's unaccountable good of you and Naomi to let me come wud you. I döan't think we should ought to mind helping your brother a bit here, when we've all that to look forrard to. But he's a strange lad, and your fäather 'ud turn in his grave to see him."

§ 4.

For the next few months Odiam was in a transitional state. It was gradually being divested of its old comfortable ways, and clad in new garments of endeavour. Gradually the life grew harder, and gradually the tense thought, the knife-edged ambition at the back of all the changes, came forward and asserted themselves openly.

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 them--as one might see the body of a steam-engine emerge through the clouds of draping smoke its activity has flung round it.

They could not help wondering at his strenuousness, his unlimited capacity for work, though they failed to understand or sympathise with the object that inspired them. Blackman, grumbling and perplexed, had gone off early in March to the milder energies of Raisins Farm; Becky, for want of a place, had married the drover at Kitchenhour--and it was no empty boast of Reuben's that he would take the greater part of their work on his own shoulders. From half-past four in the morning till nine at night he laboured almost without rest. He drove the cows to pasture, milked them, and stalled them--he followed the plough over the spring-sown crops, he groomed and watered the horses, he fed the fowls, watched the clutches, fattened capons for market--he cleaned the pigsty, and even built a new one in a couple of strenuous days--he bent his back over his spade among the roots, over his barrow, wheeling loads of manure--he was like a man who has been starved and at last finds a square meal before him. He had all the true workman's rewards--the heart-easing ache of tired muscles, the good bath of sweat in the sun's heat, the delicious sprawl, every sinew limp and throbbing, in his bed at nights--and then sleep, dreamless, healing, making new.

But though Reuben bore the brunt of the new enterprise, he had no intention of sparing others their part. All that he by any exertions could do himself he did, but the things which inevitably he could not compass, because he had only two hands, one back, one head, and seven days a week to work in, must be done by others. He showed himself unexpectedly stiff, and Mrs. Backfield and Harry found themselves obeying him as if he were not the son of the one and only a year older than the other. As a matter of fact, custom gave Reuben authority, in spite of his years. He was the master, the eldest son inheriting his father's lordship with his father's farm. Mrs. Backfield and Harry would have been censured by public opinion if they had set themselves against him.

Besides, what was the use?--it was only for a few months, and then Harry would be in a little house of his own, living very like his father, though more dreamily, more delicately. Then Mrs. Backfield would once more wear muslin aprons instead of sacking ones, would sit with her hands folded, kid shoes on the fender.... Sometimes, in the rare moments they had together, Harry would paint this wonderland for her.

He had been left a small sum by his father--resulting from the sale of a water-meadow, and securely banked at Rye. Naomi, moreover, was well dowered; and Tom Gasson, anxious to see the young couple established, had promised to help them start a grass farm in the neighbourhood. The project had so far gone no further than discussion. Reuben was opposed to it--he would have liked Harry to stay on at Odiam after his marriage; Naomi, too, would be useful in many ways, her dowry supplying a much-felt want of capital. However, he realised that in this direction his authority had its limits. He was powerless to prevent Harry leaving Odiam, and there was nothing to do but to wring as much as possible out of him while he stayed. Of his mother's planned escape he knew nothing.

Naomi often came over to Odiam, driving in her father's gig. Reuben disliked her visits, for they meant Harry's abandonment of spade and rake for the weightier matters of love. Reuben, moiling more desperately than ever, would sometimes catch a glimpse of her coloured gown through the bushes of some coppice, or skirting a hedge beside Harry's corduroy. He himself spoke to her seldom. He could not help being conscious of her milky sweetness, the soft droop of her figure under its muslins, her voice full of the music of stock-doves. But he disliked her, partly because she was taking Harry from Odiam, partly because he was jealous of Harry. It ought to be he who was to make a wealthy marriage, not his brother. He chafed to think what Naomi's money might do for the farm if only he had control of it.

Marriage was beginning to enter into his scheme. Some day he must marry and beget children. As the farm grew he would want more hands to work it, and he would like to think of others carrying on its greatness after he was dead. He must marry a woman with money and with health, and he was not so dustily utilitarian as not also to demand something of youth and good looks.

Since his father's death he had denied himself woman's company, after two years lived in the throb and sweetness of it. A warm and vigorous temperament, controlled by a strong will, had promised a successful libertinism, and more than once he had drunk the extasies of passion without those dregs which spoil it for the more weakly dissolute. But now, with that same fierce strength and relentless purpose which had driven him to do the work of two men, to live hard, and sleep rough, he renounced all the delights which were only just beginning. Henceforth, with his great ambition before him, there could be nothing but marriage--prudent, solid, and constructive. His girl at the Forstal knew him no more, nor any of her kind. He had set himself to build a house, and for the sake of that house there was nothing, whether of his own or of others, that he could not tame, break down, and destroy.

§ 5.

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.

Then there had been a host of minor retrenchments, each in itself so small as to be almost useless, but mounting together into something profitable. Chocolate had vanished from the Odiam supper-table, their bread was made of seconds, the genuines being sold to Iden Mill; they ate no meat on week-days except bacon, and eggs were forbidden in puddings. Reuben managed to get a small sale for his eggs and milk at the Manor and the curate's house, though he had not enough cows and poultry to make his dealing of much advantage.

Mrs. Backfield was the one to bear the brunt of these economies. She had been a trifle pampered during the latter days of her marriage, and set far more store than her sons on dainty food; also the work which she performed so well was a tax on her unaccustomedness. But she never grumbled, and this was not only because escape was near at hand. Strange to say, in these new days of his lordship, Reuben began to fill a place in her heart which he had never filled before. While her husband was alive, he had never really come inside her life, he had been an aloof, inarticulate being whom she did not understand. But now that he had asserted himself, she found herself turning towards him. She would have worked without prospect of release--indeed, as the days went by, Harry and his home and her promised idleness dwindled in her thoughts.

When Reuben told her he could now buy his first piece of Boarzell, she went through the day's work full of joy. Though, as far as the land itself was concerned, she would far rather have had new chintz covers for the parlour chairs.

They never sat in the parlour now.

Harry's pleasure was obviously insincere, just a mask put on out of kindness to his brother. Naomi was coming over on a few days' visit, and everything else was smoke. No one, Reuben reflected, as he walked over to Flightshot to see Sir Miles's agent, no one cared a rap about Boarzell. His mother thought more of her food and of her furniture, thought more of him and Harry, while Harry thought of nothing but Naomi. He would have to wage his fight alone.

The transaction was prompt and satisfactory. Reuben did not haggle over the price, and was careful to let the agent know of his eagerness to buy more--otherwise, he was afraid that the Squire might either give the land back to the people, pushed by his Liberal politics, or else part with it for a song to some speculator. So he paid really a bit more than the land was worth, and made the agent a confidant of his dreams.

"It'll want a tedious lot of fighting, will that plot," he asserted, to counteract any idea his eagerness might give that Boarzell was a mine of hidden fertility--"Dunno as I shall mäake anything out of it. But it's land I want--want to mäake myself a sort of landed praprietor"--a lie--"and raise the old farm up a bit. I'd like to have the whole of Boarzell. Reckon as Grandturzel 'ud sell me their bit soon as I've got the rest. They'll never mäake anything out of it."

He walked home over Boarzell, scarcely conscious of the ground he trod. He felt like a new-crowned king. As he looked round on the swart hummocks of the Moor, and its crest of firs, dim and bistred against the grey afternoon clouds, he found it hard to realise that it was not all his, that he still had almost the whole of it to fight for, acre by acre. He hurried towards his own little plot, bought, but as yet unconquered, still shagged with gorse and brittle with shards.

It was down in the hollow by Totease, as unpromising an estate as one could wish, all on a slope, gorse-grown at the top, then a layer of bracken, and at the Totease fence a kind of oozy pulp, where a lavant dribbled in and out of the grass; to Reuben, however, it was a land of milk and honey. He turned up the soil of it with his foot, and blessed the wealden clay.

"No flints here," he said; "reckon there's some stiff ground on the hill--but it's only the surface. Heather äun't growing--that's a tedious good sign. I'll have oats here--the best in Peasmarsh."

He stood staring at the grass with its dribbles of lavant and spines of rushes. The wind brought the sound of someone singing. At first he scarcely noticed, then gradually the song worked in with his daydream, and ended by rousing him out of it. He strolled across his domain, and marked half a dozen sturdy willows which must come out somehow roots and all. He climbed into the bracken zone, and from thence saw Harry sitting by a gorse thicket some hundred yards off with Naomi Gasson.

The wind puffed gently towards him, bringing him the song and the soft peach-smell of the gorse. Harry was a musician already of note among the farms; he had a beautiful voice, and there was very little he could not do with his fiddle, though of late this had been neglected for the claims of work and love. To-day he was singing an old song Reuben knew well--"The Song of Seth's House":

"'The blackbird flew out from the eaves of the Manor, The Manor of Seth in the Sussex countrie, And he carried a prayer from the lad of the Manor, A prayer and a tear to his faithless ladie.

"'To the lady who lives in the Grange by the water, The water of Iron in the Sussex countrie, The lad of Seth's House prays for comfort and pity-- Have pity, my true love, have pity on me!

"'O why when we loved like the swallows in April, Should beauty forget now their nests have grown cold? O why when we kissed 'mid the ewes on the hanger, Should you turn from me now that they winter in fold?

"'O why, because sickness hath wasted my body, Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie? O why, because brothers and friends all have left me, Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie?

"'One day when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow, And years of despair and remorse been your fate, Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor, And turn to your true love--and find it too late.'"

Harry's voice was very loud and clear, with that element of wildness which is a compensation for no training. When he had finished "The Song of Seth's House" he started another, but broke off in the middle of it, and Reuben saw the two heads suddenly droop together, and fuse, the golden hair and the brown.

Naomi leaned against Harry, and his hand stole up and down her arm, stroking its whiteness. Reuben stood watching them, and for a moment he hungered. This was what he had cast away.

He turned from them sharply, and threw himself down on the dead bracken. Then suddenly the hunger passed. The reek of the moist earth rose up in his nostrils; it was the scent of his love, who was sweeter to him than ever Naomi was to Harry. His hand stole over the short, mould-smelling grass, caressing it. He had a love more beautiful than Harry's, whose comeliness would stay unwithered through the years, whose fruitfulness would make him great, whose allure was salted with a hundred dangers.... His fingers dug themselves into the earth, and he embraced Boarzell with wide-flung trembling arms. "My land!" he cried--"mine!--mine!"

§ 6.

The neighbourhood sniggered when it heard of Odiam's new land. When it heard of Reuben's plans for it and the oats that were to be it grew openly derisive. The idea of anyone thinking he could grow oats on Boarzell was an excellent joke. Young Backfield, however, ignored public opinion, and bought rape-dust for manure.

He was as jealous of this strip of earth as of a wife--he would allow nobody to work there but himself. Alone and unhelped he grubbed up the bracken, turned the soil, and scattered rape-dust and midden till they had to shut their windows at Burntbarns. He believed that if the ground was properly manured it would be ready for sowing in the autumn. The only difficulty now was the trees; they were casting malevolent shadows, and dredging up the goodness out of the earth.

Where Ditch of Totease or Vennal of Burntbarns would have taken a couple of woodmen and a saw, Reuben took nothing but an axe and his bare arms. His muscles ached for this new carouse of exertion.

"Let me give you a hand," said Harry that day at dinner.

"No--why should I?"

"You'll never do it yourself," said Naomi, who was spending a few days at Odiam.

"Oh, wöan't I!" and Reuben showed his strong white teeth.

"How many trees are there?"

"Half a dozen--willers. The real trouble will be gitting their roots out."

"And will you do that alone?"

"I'll see about it."

Naomi looked across at Reuben without speaking. Her lips, a pale coral-pink, were parted, showing two tiny teeth. She was not the type he favoured--she was too soft and bloodless--but he could not help feeling flattered by the frank admiration he saw in her eyes. He knew that this last year of wind and sun and healthy work had narrowed the gulf between him and Beautiful Harry. He was as hard as iron and as brown as a nut, and there was a warm red glowing through the swarthiness of his cheeks like the bloom on a russet pear.

Harry looked up from his plate, and the gaze became three-cornered. Reuben, defiant of his brother, grew bold, and ogled, whereupon Naomi grew timid, and dropped her eyes; Harry found himself speaking with a rasp:

"I'm coming to help you, Reuben. You'll never tackle them rootses--it äun't everything you can do surelye!"

"I can do that much. You stay here and play the fiddle to Naomi."

Harry somehow felt he had been insulted, and opened his mouth to retort. But his brother suddenly began talking about an accident to a labourer at Grandturzel, and the occasion dropped.

After dinner Reuben set out with his axe, and Harry and Naomi sat together on the floor beside the kitchen fire. He gave her kisses like the wind, swift and cool. She was the only woman he had kissed, and she had never been kissed by any other man. Their love had its wildnesses, but not the wildnesses of fire--rather of the dancing boughs of some spring-caught wood, rioting together in May. Now and then he would sing as he held her to him, his fresh young voice ringing up to the roof....

Later in the afternoon they went out together. It seemed a pity to stay indoors in the soft swale, and Harry had to look at some poultry at Doozes. Naomi walked with her arm through his, her grey cloak over her shoulders.

"I wonder if Reuben's still at it?" said Harry, as the footpath began to skirt the new land.

"Yes--I see him yonder. He doesn't see us, I reckon."

They stood on the hillside and looked down at Reuben. He had felled five trees, and was now getting his axe into the sixth. They watched him in silence, and Naomi found herself remembering the way he had looked at her at dinner.

"He's a valiant man," said Harry.

Naomi saw him sweep the axe above his shoulder, and the ease and strength of his swing gave her a strange tingling sensation in her breast. The axe crashed into the wood, then Reuben pulled it up, and the muscles of his back made two long, ovoid lumps under his blue shirt. Again the axe swung and fell, again Naomi's body tingled as with a physical exhilaration.

The January twilight deepened, and soon Reuben's blue shirt was all that was clear in the hollow. The bites of the axe cracked out on the still air--and suddenly with a soft swish of boughs the tree fell.

§ 7.

That night Reuben came to supper as hungry as a wolf. He was in a fine good humour, for his body, pleasantly tired, glowing, aching, tickled with the smell of food, was giving him a dozen agreeable sensations.

"Got some splendid fire-wood fur you, mother," he said after a few minutes' silence enforced by eating.

"And wot about the rootses?" asked Harry, "wull you be digging those out to-morrer? It'll be an unaccountable tough job."

"Oh, I've found a way of gitting shut of them rootses--thought of it while I wur working at the trees. I'm going to blast 'em out."

"Blast 'em!"

"Yes. Blast 'em wud gunpowder. I've heard of its being done. I'd never dig all the stuff out myself--yards of it there be--willer rootses always wur hemmed spready."

"It's never bin done in these parts."

"Well, it'll be done now, surelye. It'll show the folk here I mean business--and that I'm a chap wud ideas."

There was indeed a mild excitement in the farms round Boarzell when Reuben's new plan became known. In those times gunpowder was seldom used for such purposes, and the undertaking was looked upon as a treat and a display....

"Backfield's going to bust up his willer-rootses--fine sight it'll be--like as not blow his own head off--I'll be there to see."

So when Reuben came to his territory the next afternoon he found a small crowd assembled--Ditch, Ginner, Realf of Grandturzel, Coalbran of Doozes, Pilcher of Birdseye, with a sprinkling of their wives, families, and farm-hands. He himself had brought Naomi, and Harry was to join them when he came back from an errand to Moor's Cottage. Reuben felt a trifle important and in need of spectators. This was to be the crowning act of conquest. When those roots were shattered away there would be nothing but time and manure between him and the best oat-crop in Peasmarsh.

A quarter of an hour passed, and there was no sign of Harry. Reuben grew impatient, for he wanted to have the ground tidied up by sunset. It was a wan, mould-smelling afternoon, and already the sun was drifting through whorls of coppery mist towards the shoulder of Boarzell. Reuben looked up to the gorse-clump on the ridge, from behind which he expected Harry to appear.

"I can't wait any longer," he said to Naomi, "something's kept him."

"He'll be disappointed," said Naomi softly.

"I can't help that--the sun's near down, and I must have everything präaper by dark."

He went to where the fuse lay like a snake in the grass, and struck his flint.

"Stand back everybody; I'm going to start her."

The group huddled back a few yards. The little flame writhed along towards the stump. There was silence. Reuben stood a little way in front of the others, leaning forward with eager, parted lips.

Suddenly Naomi cried out:

"There's Harry!"

A shadow appeared against the copper sky, and ran towards them down the hill.

For a moment nobody seemed to realise what was boding. Then they heard a shout that sounded like "Wait for me!" Naomi felt something rise in her throat and sear the roof of her mouth like a hot cinder. She tried to scream, but her parched tongue would not move. She staggered forward, but Reuben flung her back.

"Stop!" he shouted.

Harry did not seem to hear.

"Stop!" yelled Reuben again. Then he cried, "Stand back!" to the crowd, and ran towards his brother.

But it was too late. There was a sudden roar, a sheet of flame, a crash, a dreadful scream, and then a far more dreadful silence.

One or two flames sang out of a hole in the ground, but scarcely anything could be seen for the pall of smoke that hung over Boarzell, black, and evil-smelling. The fumes made men choke, then they shuddered and drew together, for through the smell of smoke and gunpowder came the horrible smell of burnt flesh.

Reuben was lying on his face a few yards in front of the others. For some seconds nobody moved. Then Backfield slowly raised himself on his arms.

"I'm not hurt," he said in a shaking voice.

"Harry!" cried Naomi, as if someone were strangling her.

Reuben tottered to his feet. His face was black, and he was still half stunned by the explosion.

"Harry!" cried Naomi--and then fainted.

The smoke clouds were lifting, and now everyone could see a smouldering object that lay close to the hole, among bits of wood and stone.

Reuben ran towards it, Ditch and Realf followed him. The others huddled stupidly together like sheep.

"His clothes are still burning--here, help me, you!" cried Reuben, beating at the flames with his hands.

"He's dead," said Realf.

"Oh Lord!" wailed Ditch--"Oh Lord!"

"He's bin hit on the head wud a piece of wood. I reckon he died painlessly. All this came afterwards."

"Wipe the blood off his face."

"Tell his poor girl he died wudout suffering."

"He äun't dead," said Reuben.

He had torn off the rags from his brother's heart, and felt it beating.

"He äun't dead."

"Oh Lord!" wailed Ditch.--"Oh Lord!"

"Here, you chaps, fetch a gëat and put him on it--and döan't let Naomi see him."

Naomi had been taken back to Odiam, when Harry, still motionless and apparently dead, was lifted on a gate, and borne away. Dark curds of smoke drifted among the willows, and the acrid smell of powder clung to the hillside like an evil ghost. The place where Harry had lain was marked by charred and trampled grass, and a great pool of blood was sinking into the ground ... it seemed to Reuben, as he turned shudderingly away, as if Boarzell were drinking it up--eagerly, greedily, as a thirsty land drinks up its first watering.

§ 8.

Dr. Espinette from Rye stood glumly by Harry's bed. His finger lay on the fluttering pulse, and his eye studied the little of the sick man's face that could be seen between its bandages.

"It's a bad business," he said at last; "that wound in the head's the worst of it. The burns aren't very serious in themselves. You must keep him quiet, and I'll call again to-morrow morning."

"When ull he wäake up?" asked Mrs. Backfield in the feeble voice her tears had left her.

"I don't know--it may be in an hour or two, it mayn't be for a week."

"A week!"

"I've known them unconscious longer than that. But, cheer up, ma'am--we're not going to let him slip past us."

The doctor went away, and after a time Reuben was able to persuade his mother to go and lie down in the next room. He had quite recovered from the shock of the explosion; indeed, he was now the only calm person in the house. He sat down by Harry's bed, gazing at the unconscious face.

How horrible everything had been! How horrible everything was still, with that loggish, inanimate thing lying there, all that was left of Beautiful Harry. Reuben wondered if he would die. If so, he had killed him--he had ignored his own inexperience and played splashy tricks with his new land. But no--he had not killed him--it was Boarzell, claiming a victim in the signal-rite of its subjection. He remembered how that thirsty ground had drunk up Harry's blood. Perhaps it would drink up much more blood before he had done with it--perhaps it would one day drink up his blood.... A vague, a sudden, a ridiculous fear clutched his thoughts; for the first time he felt afraid of the thing he had set out to conquer--for the first time Boarzell was not just unfruitful soil, harsh heather clumps and gorse-roots--it was something personal, opposing, vindictive, blood-drinking.

He sprang to his feet and began pacing up and down the room. The window square was black. He was glad he could not see Boarzell with its knob of firs. Gradually the motion of his legs calmed his thoughts, he fell to pondering more ordinary things--had his mother remembered to stand the evening's milk in the cream pans? She had probably forgotten all about the curate's butter to be delivered the next morning. What had Harry done about those mangolds at Moor's Cottage? Durn it! He would have to do all the work of the farm to-morrow--how he was to manage things he didn't know, what with the dairy and the new chicks and the Alderney having garget. He stopped pacing, and chin in hand was considering the expediency of engaging outside help, when a voice from the bed cried feebly:

"Oh!"

Reuben went to Harry's side, and bent over him.

"Oh," moaned his brother, "oh!--oh!"

"I'm here, old feller," said Reuben with a clumsy effort at tenderness.

"Bring a light, do--I can't abide this dark."

Reuben fetched the candle to the bedside.

"Where's Naomi?"

"She's asleep. Do you want her?"

"No--let her sleep. But bring me a light fur marcy's sake."

"I've brought it--it's here by the bed."

"I can't see it."

"You must--it's right in your eyes."

"I can't--oh!"

He started up in bed and gripped his brother's hand. He thrust his head forward, his eyeballs straining.

"Take it away! take it away!" he screamed.

"Wot?" cried Reuben, sick with the new-born terror.

"That black stuff in front of my eyes. Take it away! Take it away!"

He tore his hand free, and began clawing and beating at his face.

Reuben's teeth were chattering.

"Kip calm, lad--kip calm. There's naun there, naun, I tell you."

"Oh, oh!"--screamed Harry--"Oh, oh, oh!"

The outcry brought Mrs. Backfield from the next room, Naomi shivering in her wake. Reuben was trying to hold Harry down in bed.

Through the long night they wrestled with him, blind and raving. At first it seemed as if Naomi's presence soothed him, and he would let her stroke his arms and hands. But after a time he ceased to recognise her. He gabbled about her a good deal, but did not know she was there. His delirium was full of strange tags--a chicken brood he was raising, a sick cow, a jaunt into Rye with Realf of Grandturzel, a dozen harmless homely things which were all transfused with an alien horror, all somehow made frightful, so that Reuben felt he could never look on chickens, cows or Rye again without a shudder.

Sometimes there were crises of extraordinary violence when he was with difficulty held down in bed, and these at last wore him out. Towards dawn he fell into a troubled sleep.

Naomi slept too, huddled in a chair, every now and then a sob quivering through her. The winter dawn slowly crept in on her, showing her pitiful figure--showing Mrs. Backfield sick and puffy with tears, Reuben dry-eyed beside the bed, and Harry respited in sleep. Outside the crest of Boarzell was once more visible in the growing light--dark, lumpish, malevolent, against the kindling of the sky.

§ 9.

The next few days were terrible, in the house and on the farm. Indoors the women nursed Harry, and outdoors Reuben did double work, sleeping at night in an arm-chair by his brother's side.

Harry had recovered consciousness, but it could not be said that he had "come to himself." "Beautiful Harry," with all his hopes and ardours, his dreams and sensibilities, had run away like a gipsy, and in his place was a new Harry, blind and mad, who moaned and laughed, with stony silences, and now and then strange fits of struggling as if the runaway gipsy strove to come back.

Dr. Espinette refused to say whether this state was permanent or merely temporary. Neither could he be sure whether it was due to his injuries or to the shock of finding himself blind. Reuben felt practically convinced that his brother was sane during the few moments he had spoken to him alone, but the doctor seemed doubtful.

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.

Somehow out there was a wider life, a life which took no reck of sickness or horror or self-reproach. The wind which stung his face and roughed his hair, the sun which tanned his nape as he bent to his work, the smell of the earth after rain, the mists that brewed in the hollows at dusk, and at dawn slunk like spirits up to the clouds ... they were all part of something too great to take count of human pain--so much greater than he that in it he could forget his trouble, and find ease and hope and purpose--even though he was fighting it.

He mildly scandalised his neighbours by blasting--privately this time--the tree stumps yet in the ground. According to their ethics he should have accepted Harry's accident as the voice of Providence and abstained from his outlandish methods--also some felt that it was a matter of delicacy and decent feeling not to repeat that which had had such dire consequences for his brother. "I wonder he can bear to do it," said Ginner, when 'Bang! Bang!' came over the hummocks to Socknersh.

But Reuben did it because he was not going to be beaten in any respect by his land. He was not going to accept defeat in the slightest instance. So he blew up the stumps, tidied the ground, and spread manure--and more manure--and yet more manure.

Manure was his great idea at that moment. He had carefully tilled and turned the soil, and he fed it with manure as one crams chickens. It was of poor quality marl, mostly lime on the high ground, with a larger proportion of clay beside the ditch. Reuben's plan was to fatten it well before he sowed his seed. Complaints of his night-soil came all the way from Grandturzel; Vennal, humorously inclined, sent him a bag of rotten fish; on the rare occasions his work allowed him to meet other farmers at the Cocks, his talk was all of lime, guano, and rape-cake, with digressions on the possibilities of seaweed. He was manure mad.

The neighbours despised and mistrusted his enthusiasm. There he was, thinking of nothing but his land, when Harry, his only brother, lay worse than dying. But Reuben often thought of Harry.

One thing he noticed, and that was that the housework was always done for him by his mother as if there were no sickness to fill her time. Always when he came home of an evening, his supper was waiting for him, hot and savoury. He breakfasted whenever he had a mind, and there were slices of cold pie or dabs of bread and meat for him to take out and eat as he worked--he had no time to come home to dinner now. Really his mother was tumbling to things wonderfully well--she looked a little tired sometimes, it is true, and the lines of her face were growing thinner, but she was saving him seven shillings a month and the girl's food; and all that money and food was feeding the hungry earth.

Naomi helped her with the nursing, and also a little about the house. She had refused to go home to Rye, though Harry did not seem to recognise her.

"For sometimes," she said, "I think he does."

§ 10.

Towards the middle of February a change took place in Harry. At first it was little more than a faint creep of life, putting a little glow in his cheeks, a little warmth in his blood. Then the wounds which had been healing so slowly began to heal quickly, his appetite returned, and he slept long and sweetly at nights.

Mrs. Backfield's hope rekindled, but the doctor soon damped it down. This sudden recrudescence of physical health was a bad sign, for there was no corresponding revival of intellect, and now the prostration of the body could no longer account for the aberration of the mind. It was unlikely that Harry would ever recover his wits--the injuries to his skull, either with or without the shock of his blindness, had definitely affected his brain. The strong, clear will, the gay spirits, the quick understanding, the tender sensibilities which had made him so bright and lovable a being, were gone--how much of shreds and scraps they had left behind them to build up the semblance of a man, did not yet appear.

His looks would be only slightly marred. It was the optic nerve which had been destroyed, and so far there was nothing ugly in the eyes themselves, except their vacant rolling. The eyelashes and eyebrows had been burnt off, but they were growing again, and a scar on his cheek and another on his forehead were not likely to show much in a few weeks' time. But all the life, the light, the soul had gone out of his face--it was like a house which had been gutted, with walls and roof still standing, yet with its essential quality gone from it, a ruin.

Reuben thought long and anxiously about his brother. He did not speak much of him to his mother or Naomi, for he knew that they would not understand the problem that confronted him. He felt worn by the extra load of work, and his brain fretted, spoiling his good sleep. He was back in his own room now, but he slept worse than in Harry's; he would lie awake fighting mentally, just as all day he had fought physically--life was a continuous fight.

It was hard that just at the outset of his enterprise, fresh obstacles should be thrown in his way. He saw that it was practically impossible for him to go on working as he did; already he was paying for it in stiff muscles, loss of appetite, fitful sleep, and drugged wakings. Also he was growing irritable and frayed as to temper. If he went on much longer doing the work of three men--he had always done the work of two--he would end by breaking up completely, and then what would become of Odiam? He would have to engage outside help, and that would mean quite ten shillings a week--ten shillings a week, two pounds a month, twenty-six pounds a year, the figures were like blisters in his head during the long restless nights. They throbbed and throbbed through his dreams. He would have to spend twenty-six pounds a year, just when he was saving so desperately to buy more land and fatten what he already had. And in addition he would have to pay for Harry's keep. Not only must he engage a man to do his work, but he would have to support in absolute idleness Harry himself. He was quite unfit for farm work, he would be nothing but an expense and an incubus.

In those dark furious hours, Reuben would wish his brother had died. It was not as if life could be sweet to him. It was terrible to see him mouching and mumbling about the house, to hold even the brief converse with him which everyday life enforced. He had not as yet grown used to his blindness, indeed it would be difficult for him to do so without wits to stimulate and direct his other senses, and it was dreadful to see him tumbling over furniture, breaking things and crying afterwards, spilling food on his clothes and his beard--for now that he could not shave himself, and others had no time to do it for him, he wore a large fair beard, which added to his uncouthness.

Oh that his brother had died!

One day Reuben was so tired that he fell asleep over his supper. His mother cleared the table round him, glancing at him with fond, submissive eyes. Each day she had come to love him more, with an obedient love, almost instinctive and elemental, which she had never felt for the gentle husband or considerate son. This evening she laid her shawl over his shoulders, and went to her washing-up.

Suddenly a weird noise came from the parlour, a strange groaning and wailing. Reuben woke up, and rubbed his eyes. What was that? It was horrible, it was uncanny--and for him it also had that terrifying unnaturalness which a sudden waking gives even to the most ordinary sounds.

Then gradually out of the horror beauty began to grow. The sound passed into an air, faltering at first, then flowing--"Dearest Ellen," on Harry's violin.

"I'm glad he's found something to amuse him, poor son," said Mrs. Backfield, coming in to see if Reuben had waked.

"He's not playing badly, is he, mother?"

"Not at all. They say as sometimes blind folk are unaccountable good at music."

Reuben did not answer; she knew by his attitude--chin in hand--that he was thinking.

That night he thought it out.

Munds of Starvecrow had had a brother who fiddled at fairs and weddings and earned, so Munds said, thirty pounds a year. He had also heard of others who made as good a thing of it. If Harry earned thirty pounds a year he would pay the wages of an extra farm-hand and also something towards his own keep. They must find out exactly how many of the old tunes he remembered, and get somebody musical to teach him new ones.

The idea prospered in Reuben's thoughts that night. The next morning he was full of it, and confided it to his mother and Naomi.

Naomi, a little paler and more wistful than of old, still spent an occasional day or two at Odiam. At first she had made these visits for Harry's sake, flattering herself that he was the better for her presence; then when even her faith began to fail, she still came, partly to help Mrs. Backfield, partly driven by such feelings as might drive an uneasy ghost to haunt the house of his tragedy. Reuben saw little of her, for his work claimed him, but he liked to feel she was there, helping his mother with work which it was difficult for her to carry through alone to Odiam's best advantage.

She heard of Reuben's plan with some shrinking.

"He--he wouldn't like it," she stammered after a pause.

"You'll never go sending our Harry to fiddle at fairs," said Mrs. Backfield.

"Why not? There's naun shameful in it. Munds's brother did it for twenty years. And think of the difference it'll mäake to us--thirty pound or so a year, instead of the dead loss of Harry's keep and the wages of an extra man beside. I tell you, mother, I wur fair sick about the farm till I thought of this."

"It's always the farm wud you, Reuben. You might sometimes think of your own kin."

"I tell you Harry wöan't mind--he'll like it. It'll be something to occupy him. Besides, hem it all, mother! you can't expect me to kip him idling here, wud the farm scarce started yet, and nearly the whole of Boarzell still to buy."

But it was useless to expect either Mrs. Backfield or Naomi to appreciate the momentousness of his task. Were women always, he wondered, without ambition? However, though they did not sympathise, they would not oppose him--Naomi because she was not skilful at opposition, his mother because he was gradually taking the place of Harry in her heart.

He had more trouble when a day or so later he asked Naomi to inspect Harry's musical equipment.

"You see, I döan't know one tune from another, so I can't do it myself. You might git him to play one or two things over to you, Naomi, and find out what he remembers."

"I'd rather not," said Naomi, shuddering.

"Why?"

"Oh--I just can't."

"But why?"

She could not tell him. If he did not understand how every note from Harry's violin would jab and tear the tortured memories she was trying to put to sleep--if he did not understand that of himself, she would never be able to explain it to him.

As a matter of fact he did understand, but he was resolute.

"Help me, Naomi," he pleaded, "fur I can't manage wudout you."

His eyes searched her face. People who met him only casually were generally left with the impression that he had black eyes, but as a matter of fact they were dark blue. A hidden power forced Naomi's eyes to meet them ... they were narrow and deep-set, with extraordinarily long lashes. She gazed into them for a moment without speaking. Then suddenly her own filled with an expression of hatred, and she ran out of the room.

But he had won his point. That evening Naomi made Harry play over his "tunes," while Reuben sat in the chimney corner watching them both. Harry's memory was erratic--he would play through some well-known airs quite correctly up to a certain point, and then interpolate hysterical variations of his own. At other times memory failed him altogether, but his natural quickness of ear seemed to have increased since his blindness, and it only needed Naomi to sing the passage over for him to fill up the gaps.

She took him through "The Woodpecker Tapping," "Dearest Ellen," "I'd mourn the hopes that leave me," "The Song of Seth's House," and "The Blue Bells of Scotland." Each one of them was torment to her gentle heart, as it woke memory after memory of courtship--on the gorse-slopes of Boarzell, among the chasing shadows of Iden Wood, on the Rother marshes by Thornsdale, where the river slinks up from the Fivewatering ... or in this very kitchen here, where the three of them, divided from one another by dizzy gaps of suffering, desire and darkness, were gathered together in a horrible false association.

But Harry's face was blank, no memories seemed to stir for him, he just fiddled on, now and then receiving Naomi's corrections with an outbreak of childish temper. On these occasions Reuben would stamp his foot and speak to him in a loud, angry voice which inevitably made him behave himself.

Naomi always took advantage of these returns to docility, but later that evening in the dairy, she suddenly swung round on Mrs. Backfield and exclaimed petulently:

"I hate that Ben of yours!"

§ 11.

Harry made good progress, and Reuben decided that he was to start his career at the October Fair. There had been a fiddler at the Fair for years, partly for the lasses and lads to dance to, partly for the less Bacchic entertainments of their elders. It was at the Fair that men took his measure, and engaged him accordingly for weddings and such festivals. Luck would have it that for the last two years there had been no official fiddler--old Abel Pinch having been seduced by a semi-urban show, which wandered round London, camping on waste grounds and commons. The musical element had been supplied by strays, and Reuben had no doubt but that he should now be able to instal his brother honourably as chief musician.

He advertised him in the neighbourhood for some weeks beforehand, and gossip ran high. Condemnation of Backfield's ruthlessness in exploiting his brother was combined with a furtive admiration of his smartness as a business man. It was extraordinary how little he cared about "lowering himself," a vital matter with the other farmers of his position. Just as he had thought nothing of working his own farm instead of indulging in the dignity of hired labour, so he thought nothing of making money at Boarzell Fair with the gipsies and pikers.

Naomi no longer protested. For one thing Harry seemed to like his fiddling, and was quite overjoyed at the prospect of playing at the Fair. Strangely enough, he remembered the Fair and its jollities, though he had forgotten all weightier matters of life and love.

"Where shall I stand?--by the gipsies' tent?--or right forrard by the stalls? I'd like to stand by the stalls, and then maybe when I'm not fiddling they'll give me sweeties."

"You must behave yourself," said Reuben, in the tones he would have used to a child--"you mustn't go vrothering people to give you sweeties."

"I'll give you some sweeties, Harry," said Naomi.

"Oh, will you?--Then I'll love you!"

Naomi turned away with a shudder, her eyes full of inexpressible pain.

Reuben looked after her as she went out of the room, then he took a couple of strides and caught her up in the passage.

"It's I who'm täaking you to the Fair, remember," he said, his hand on her arm.

"Oh, no ... I couldn't go to the Fair."

"Nonsense--you're coming wud me."

"Oh, Ben, don't make me go."

It was the cry of her weakness to his purpose.

"I shall mäake you ... dear."

She flung herself from him, and ran upstairs. That night at supper she took no notice of him, talking garrulously all the time to Mrs. Backfield.

But she went to the Fair.

In the soft grey gown that the first of the cold demanded she walked with her arm through Reuben's up the Moor. Her bonnet was the colour of heather, tied with wide ribbons that accentuated the milkiness of her chin. Reuben wore his Sunday clothes--drab shorts and a sprigged waistcoat, and a wide-brimmed hat under which his face looked strangely handsome and dark. Harry shuffled along, clutching his brother's coat-sleeve to guide himself. Mrs. Backfield preferred to stay at home, and Reuben had not tried to make her come.

All Peasmarsh went to the Fair. It was a recognised holiday. All farm work--except the most barely necessary--was put aside, and the ploughman and dairymaid rollicked with their betters. The road across Boarzell was dark with them, coming from all quarters--Playden, Iden, Beckley, Northiam, Bodiam--Old Turk's Farm, Baron's Grange, Corkwood, Kitchenhour--even from Blackbrook and Ethnam on the Kentish border.

The tents and stalls were blocked as usual round the central crest of pines. It was all much as it had been five years ago on the day of the Riot. There was the outer fringe of strange dwellings--tents full of smoke and sprawling squalling children, tilt carts with soup-pots hanging from their axles over little fires, and gorgeously painted caravans which stood out aristocratically amidst the prevalent sacking. There was a jangle of voices--the soft Romany of the gipsies, the shriller cant of the pikers and half-breeds, the broad drawling Sussex of the natives. Head of all the Fair, and superintending the working of the crazy merry-go-round, was Gideon Teazel, a rock-like man, son, he said, of a lord and a woman of the Rosamescros or Hearnes. He stood six foot eight in his boots and could carry a heifer across his shoulders. His wife Aurora, a pure-bred gipsy, told fortunes, and was mixed up in more activities than would appear from her sleepy manner or her invariable position, pipe in mouth, on the steps of her husband's caravan. Gideon loved to display his devotion for her by grotesque endearments and elephantine caresses--due no doubt to the gaujo strain in him, for the true gipsies always treated their women in public as chattels or beasts of burden, though privately they were entirely under their thumbs.

Reuben brought Naomi and Harry into the middle of the Fair. Many people stared at them. It was Harry's first public appearance since his illness, and one or two comments louder than the general hum came to Naomi's ears and made them pink.

Harry was soon established on the upturned cask beside the fighting booth which had always been the fiddler's place. He began to play at once--"Nice Young Maidens"--to all appearances quite indifferent to the jostle round him. Naomi could not help marvelling at Reuben, too--he was so cool, possessed and assured, so utterly without anything in the way of embarrassment or self-consciousness.

Wonder was succeeded by wrath--how dare he be calm in the face of such terrible things? She tried to pull her hand out of his arm, but he held his elbow close to his side, and the little hand lay there like an imprisoned mouse.

"Let's go away," she whispered, half nervously and half angrily, "I hate standing here."

"I want to see how he's going to manage," said Reuben. "What'll he do when he comes to the end of this tune?"

"Oh, do let's go away."

He did not answer, but stood there imperturbable, till Harry, having successfully finished "Nice Young Maidens," started "The Woodpecker Tapping" without any ado.

"He's safe enough now--we may as well go and have a look round."

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 away--watching "The Coronation of Queen Victoria" and "Scenery on the West Coast of Scotland" rumble slowly past with many creaks--they 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.

Unluckily, the object of sparring, as practised locally, was to draw as much blood from the adversary as possible. The combatants went straight for each others' noses, in spite of the conjurations of Buck, and Naomi soon exercised her privilege as a town girl, and said she felt faint. Reuben took her out, and they walked round the stalls, at one of which he bought her a cherry ribbon for her fairing. At another they bought gingerbread. Gradually her spirits began to revive--she applauded his power at the shooting gallery, and when they came to the cocoanut shie, she was laughing out loud.

Reuben seemed to have an endless supply of money. He, whom she had seen deny himself white bread and tobacco, and scold his mother if she used eggs to make a pudding, did not seem now to care how much he spent for her amusement. He vowed, laughing, that she should not leave the shie till she had brought down a nut, and the showman pocketed pennies till he grinned from ear to ear, while Naomi threw the wooden balls in all directions, hitting the showman and the spectators and once even Reuben himself. At last he took her arm, and putting himself behind her managed after one or two attempts to guide a successful throw. They went off laughing with her prize, and came once more to the open ground where Harry was still playing his fiddle.

Evidently he had pleased the multitude, for there was now a thick crowd in the central space, and already dancing had begun. Farm-hands in clean smocks, with bright-coloured handkerchiefs round their necks, gambolled uncouthly with farm-girls in spotted and striped muslins. Young farmers' wives, stiff with the sedateness of their bridehead, were drawn into reluctant capers. Despairing virgins renewed their hope, and tried wives their liveliness in unaccustomed arms. Even the elders danced, stumping together on the outskirts of the whirl as long as their breath allowed them.

Harry played "The Song of Seth's House," which in spite of--or because of--its sadness was a good dancing tune. There was no definite step, just anything the dancers fancied. Some kicked up their heels vigorously, others slid them sedately, some held their partners by the hand, others with both arms round their waist.

Then suddenly Naomi found herself in the thick of the crowd, at once crushed and protected by Reuben's six foot three of strength. At first she was shocked, chilled--she had never danced at a fair before, and it seemed dreadful to be dancing here with Reuben while Harry fiddled. But gradually the jovial movement, the vigour and gay spirits of her partner, wore down her reluctance. Once more she was impressed by that entire absence of self-consciousness and false pride which characterised him. After all, why should they not dance here together? Why should they stand glum while everyone else was merrymaking? Harry did not notice them, and if he did he would not care.

"The blackbird flew out from the eaves of the Manor, The Manor of Seth in the Sussex countrie, And he carried a prayer from the lad of the Manor, A prayer and a tear to his faithless ladie."

She found herself bending to the rhythm of the music, swaying in Reuben's arms. He held her lightly, and it was wonderful how clever he was in avoiding concussion with the other dancers, most of whom bumped about regardless of anybody else.

"To the lady who lives in the Grange by the water, The water of Iron in the Sussex countrie, The lad of Seth's House prays for comfort and pity-- Have pity, my true love, have pity on me!"

A sudden weariness passed over Naomi, and Reuben led her out of the dance and brought her a drink of mild icy ale. He did not offer to take her home, and she did not ask to go. If he had offered she would have gone, but she had no will of her own--all desire, all initiative was drowned in the rhythm of the dance and the sadness of the old tune.

"O why when we loved like the swallows in April, Should beauty forget now their nests have grown cold? O why when we kissed 'mid the ewes on the hanger, Should you turn from me now that they winter in fold?"

He led her back into the crowd, and once more she felt his arms round her, so light, so strong, while her feet spun with his, tricked by magic. She became acutely conscious of his presence--the roughness of his coat-sleeve, the faint scent of the sprigged waistcoat, which had been folded away in lavender. And all the while she had another picture of him in her heart, not in his Sunday best, but in corduroys and the blue shirt which had stood out of the January dusk, the last piece of colour in the day. She remembered the swing of his arm, the crash of the axe on the trunk, the bending of his back as he pulled it out, the muscles swelled under the skin ... and then the tingling creep in her own heart, that sudden suffocating thrill which had come to her there beside Harry in the gloam....

The dusk was falling now, splashed by crude flares over the stalls, and once more that creep--delicious, tingling, suffocating--was in her heart, the intoxication of the weak by the strong. It seemed as if he were holding her closer. She grew warm, and yet she would not stop. There was sweat on her forehead, she felt her woollen gown sticking to her shoulders--but she would not rest. The same old tune jigged on--it was good to dance to, and Harry liked playing it.

"O why, because sickness hath wasted my body, Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie? O why, because brothers and friends all have left me, Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie?"

The dance was becoming more of a rout. Hats fell back, even Naomi's heather-coloured bonnet became disorderly. Kerchiefs were crumpled and necks bare. Arms grew tighter, there were few merely clasping hands now. Then a lad kissed his partner on the neck while they danced, and soon another couple were spinning round with lips clinging together. The girls' hair grew rough and blew in their boys' eyes--there were sounds of panting--of kissing--Naomi grew giddy, round her was a whirl of colour, hands, faces, the dusk and flaring lights. She clung closer to Reuben, and his arms tightened about her.

"One day when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow, And years of despair and remorse been your fate, Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor, And turn to your true love--and find it too late."

§ 12.

Reuben was pleased with the results of that Fair Day. Harry had been a complete success. Even on the day itself he was engaged to fiddle at a local wedding, and thenceforth no festival was complete without him. He became the fashion in Peasmarsh. His birth and family gave proceedings an air of gentility, and his tragic story imparted romance. Also his real musical gifts were appreciated by some, as well as his tirelessness and good nature. Occasionally he would have fits of crazy ill-temper, but only required firm handling. Reuben saw that his brother, instead of being entirely on the debit side of Odiam's accounts, would add materially to its revenues. He became exceedingly kind to Harry, and gave him apples and sweets.

That autumn he had sown his oats. He sowed English Berlie, after wavering for some time between that and Barbachlaw. Quantities of rape cake had been delivered in the furrows with the seed, and now the fields lay, to the eye, wet and naked--to the soul, to Reuben's farmer-soul, full of the hidden promise which should sprout with May.

He had a man to help him on the farm, Beatup, an uncouth coltish lad, with an unlimited capacity for work. Reuben never let him touch the new ground, but kept him busy in barn and yard with the cattle. Mrs. Backfield worked in the house as usual, and she now also had charge of the poultry; for Reuben having given them up to her when he was single-handed, had not taken them back--he had to look after Beatup, who wanted more watching than Harry, and he also had bought two more pigs as money-makers. He was saving, stinting, scraping to buy more land.

Mrs. Backfield sometimes had Naomi to help her. Naomi often came to stay at Odiam. She did not know why she came; it was not for love of Mrs. Backfield, and the sight of Harry wrung her heart. She had fits of weeping alternating with a happy restlessness.

Ever since the day of the Fair a strange feeling had possessed her, sometimes just for fitful moments, sometimes for long days of panic--the feeling of being pursued. She felt herself being hunted, slowly, but inevitably, by one a dozen times more strong, more knowing, more stealthy than herself. She heard his footsteps in the night, creeping after her down long labyrinths of thought, sometimes his shadow sped before her with her own. And she knew that one day he would seize her--though she struggled, wept and fled, she knew that one day she would be his at last, and of her own surrender. The awful part of that seizing would be that it would be a matter of her will as well as his....

She was afraid of Reuben, she fled before him like a poor little lamb, trembling and bleating--and yet she would sometimes long for the inevitable day when he would grasp her and fling her across his shoulders.

She could not discipline her attitude towards him--sometimes she was composed, distant even in her thoughts; at others a kind of delirious excitement possessed her, she flushed and held down her head in his presence, could not speak to him, and groped blindly for escape. She would, on these occasions, end by returning to Rye, but away from Reuben a restless misery tormented her, driving her back to Odiam.

She sometimes asked herself if she loved him, and in cold blood there was only one answer to that question--No. What she felt for him was not love, but obsession--if she had never loved she might have mistaken it, but with her memories of Harry she could not. And the awful part of it was that her heart was still Harry's, though everything else was Reuben's. Her desires, her thoughts, her will were all Reuben's--by a slow remorseless process he was making them his own--but her heart, the loving, suffering part of her, was still Harry's, and might always be his.

She was not continuously conscious of this--sometimes she forgot Harry, sometimes he repulsed her, often she was afraid of him. But in moments of quiet her heart always gave her the same message, like distant music, drowned in a storm.

One day she was in the dairy at Odiam, skimming the cream-pans. The sunshine, filtered to a watery yellow by the March afternoon, streamed in on her, putting a yellow tinge into her white skin and white apron. Her hair was the colour of fresh butter, great pats and cakes of which stood on the slabs beside her. There was a smell of butter and standing milk in the cold, rather damp air. Naomi skimmed the cream off the pans and put it into a brown bowl.

Suddenly she realised that Reuben had come into the dairy, and was standing beside her, a little way behind.

"Hullo, Ben," she said nervously--it was one of her nervous days.

"How's the cream to-day?"

"Capital."

He dipped his finger into the pan, and sucked it.

"Oughtn't it to stand a bit longer?"

"I don't think so."

"Taste it----"

He dipped his finger again, and suddenly thrust it between her lips.

She drew her head away almost angrily, and moved to the next pan.

Then he stooped and kissed her quite roughly on the neck, close to the nape.

She cried out and turned round on him, but he walked out of the dairy.

For a moment Naomi stood stockish, conscious only of two sensations in her body--the taste of cream on her lips, and a little cold place at the back of her neck. She began to tremble, then suddenly the colour left her cheeks, for in the doorway of the wash-house, three yards off, stood Harry.

He did not move, and for some unaccountable reason she felt sure that he knew Reuben had kissed her. A kind of sickness crept up to her heart; she held out her hands before her, and tottered a little. She felt faint.

"Harry!" she called.

He came shuffling up to her, and for a moment stood straining his blind eyes into her face.

"Harry--will you--will you take this basin of cream to your mother?"

He was still looking into her eyes, and she was visited by a terrible feeling that came to her sometimes and went as quickly--that he was not so mad as people thought.

"Will you take it?"

He nodded.

She gave him the cream bowl. Their hands accidentally touched; she pulled hers away, and the bowl fell and was broken.

§ 13.

The next day Naomi left for Rye, where she stayed three weeks. She was mistaken, however, in thinking she had found a place of refuge, the hunt still went on. Reuben knew that his kiss had given him a definite position with regard to her, and Naomi knew that he knew. Twice he came over and visited her at Rye. He never attempted to kiss her again, and carefully avoided all talk of love. Indeed, her father was generally in the room. He was much taken with young Backfield, who was ready to talk shipping and harbour-work with him for hours.

"He's a solider man than ever poor Harry was," said old Gasson to Naomi, "more dependable, I should think. Reckon he'll do well for himself at Odiam. She'll be a lucky girl whom he marries."

Naomi had no mother.

Reuben was pleased with the impression he had made. He was now working definitely. At first he had merely drifted, drawn by the charm of the female creature, so delicate, soft and weak. Then commonsense had taken the rudder--he had seen Naomi's desirableness from a practical point of view; she was young, good-looking, sound if scarcely robust, well dowered, and of good family--fit in every way to be the mother of his children. Since Harry was debarred from marrying her, his brother could even more profitably take his place. Her money would then go direct to his ambition; he realised the enormous advantage of a little reserve capital and longed for a relaxation of financial strain. The Gassons were an old and respected family, and an alliance with them would give lustre to Odiam. Also he wanted children. He was fond of Naomi for her own sake. Poor little chicken! Her weakness appealed to him, and he rather enjoyed seeing her fluttering before his feet.

Towards the middle of April she came back to the farm to help Mrs. Backfield with her house-cleaning. She clung to the older woman all day, but she knew that Reuben would at last find her alone.

He did. She was laying the supper while Mrs. Backfield finished mending a curtain upstairs, when he marched suddenly into the room. He had come in from the yard, and his clothes smelt of the cow-stalls and of the manure that he loved. His face was moist; he stood in front of her and mopped his brow.

"I'm hungry, Naomi. Wot have you got fur me?"

"There's eggs...."

"Wot else?"

"Bread ... cheese...."

She could scarcely frame the homely words. For some unaccountable reason she felt afraid, felt like some poor creature in a trap.

"Wot else?"

"That's all."

"All! But I'm still hungry. Wot more do you think I want?"

She licked her lips.

He leaned over the table towards her.

"Wot more have you got fur me?"

"Nothing, I--I'm going upstairs. Let me pass, please."

"Maybe I want a kiss."

"Oh, no, no!" she cried, trying to edge between him and the wall.

"Why not?"

He put his hands on her shoulders, she felt the warmth and heaviness of them, and was more frightened than ever because she liked it.

"Maybe I want more than a kiss."

She was leaning against the wall, if he had released her she could not have run away. She was like a rabbit, paralysed with fear.

He bent towards her and his lips closed on hers. She nearly fainted, but she did not struggle or try to scream. It seemed years that they stood linked by that unwilling kiss. At last he raised his head.

"Will you marry me, Naomi?"

"No---- Oh, no!"

"Why?"

"No--no--I can't--I won't!"

Strength came to her suddenly; it was like awaking from a nightmare. She thrust him from her, slipped past, and ran out of the room.

The next morning she returned to Rye. But she could not stay there. Her heart was all restlessness and dissatisfaction. Soon Mrs. Backfield announced that she was coming back.

"I reckoned she would," said Reuben.

She arrived in the swale. A tender grey mist was in the air, smeething Boarzell, mingling with the smoke of Odiam chimneys, that curled out wood-scented into the dark. As Naomi climbed from the carrier's cart which had brought her, she smelled the daffodils each side of the garden path. The evening was full of pale perfumes, of ghostly yellows, massing faintly amidst the grey.

Reuben stood in the doorway and watched her come up the path, herself dim and ghostly, like the twilight and the flowers. When she was close he held out his arms to her, and she fell on his breast.

§ 14.

From thenceforward there was no looking back. Preparations for the wedding began at once. Old Gasson was delighted, and dowered his girl generously. As for Naomi, she gave herself up to the joys of bride-elect. Her position as Reuben's betrothed was much more important than as Harry's. It was more definite, more exalted, the ultimate marriage loomed more largely and more closely in it. She and Reuben were not so much sweethearts as husband and wife to be. Their present semi-attached state scarcely counted, it was just an unavoidable interval of preparation for a more definite relationship.

She was glad in a way that everything was so different, glad that Reuben's love-making was so utterly unlike Harry's. Otherwise she could never have plunged herself so deep into forgetfulness. She was quite without regrets--she could never have imagined she could be so free of them. She lived for the present, and for the future which was not her own. She was at rest. No longer the pursuing feet came after her, making her life a nightmare of long flights--she was safe in her captor's grasp, borne homeward on his shoulder.

She was not exaltedly happy or wildly expectant. Her anticipations were mostly material, buyings and stitchings. She looked forward to her position as mistress of Odiam, and stocked her linen cupboard. As for Reuben, her attitude towards him had changed at once with surrender. If he no longer terrified, also he no longer thrilled. She had grown fond of him, peacefully and domestically so, in a way she could never have been fond of Harry. She loved to feel his strong arm round her, his shoulder under her head, she loved to nestle close up to him and feel his warmth. His kisses were very different from Harry's, more lingering, more passionate, but, paradoxically, they thrilled her less. There had always been a touch of the wild and elfin in Harry's love-making which suggested an adventure in fairyland, whereas Reuben's suggested nothing but earth, and the earth is not exciting to those who have been in faery.

At last the wedding-day came--an afternoon in May, gloriously white and blue. Naomi stood before her mirror with delicious qualms, while one or two girl friends took the place of her mother and helped her to dress. She wore white silk, very full in the skirt, with a bunch of lilies of the valley in the folds of the bodice, which was cut low, showing the soft neck that in contrast to the dead white of the silk had taken a delicious creamy cowslip tint. Her lovable white hat was trimmed with artificial lilies of the valley, and she had white kid gloves and tiny white kid shoes.

She was very happy, and if she thought of Harry and what might have been, it only brought a delightful sad-smiling melancholy over her happiness like a bridal veil.

"How do I look?" she asked her friends.

"You look charming!"--"how well your hat becomes you!"--"how small your feet seem in your new shoes!"--"how sweet you smell!"--chorused the girls, loving her more than ever because they envied her, after the manner of girls.

Naomi walked to church on her father's arm. She held her head down, and her bridesmaids saw her neck grow pink below the golden fluff on the nape. She hid her face from Reuben and would not look at him as they stood side by side before Rye altar. No one could hear her responses, they were spoken so faintly, she was the typical Victorian bride, all shy, trembling, and blushing.

Only once she dared look up, and that was when they were walking solemnly from the communion table to the vestry--then she suddenly looked up and saw Reuben's great strong shoulder towering above her own, his face rather flushed under its sunburn, and his hair unusually sleek and shining with some oil.

They did not speak to each other till he had her in his gig, driving up Playden Hill. Then he muttered--"Liddle Naomi--my wife," and kissed her on the neck and lips. She did not want him to kiss her, because she wished to avoid crumpling her gown, and also she was afraid Reuben's horse might choose that moment to kick or run away. But of course such reasons did not appeal to him, and it was a dishevelled and rather cross little bride whom he lifted out at Odiam.

The wedding supper was to be held at the bridegroom's house, as old Gasson's rooms were not large enough, and he objected to "having the place messed up." During the marriage service Mrs. Backfield had been worrying about her pie-crusts--indeed she almost wished she had stayed at home. Naomi helped her dish up the supper, while Reuben received the guests who were beginning to arrive, some from Rye, some from the neighbouring farms. There had been a certain amount of disgusted comment when it became known that Backfield was marrying his brother's sweetheart; but criticism of Reuben always ended in reluctant admiration for his smartness as a business man.

"He'll go far, that young feller," said Realf of Grandturzel.

"Where's Harry?" Vennal asked.

"Sh-sh--döan't you go asking ork'ard questions."

"They wöan't have him to fiddle, I reckon," said Realf.

"I shud say even young Ben wudn't do that."

"Why not?" put in Ditch--"he döan't know naun about it. He's forgotten she ever wur his girl."

"You can't be sure o' that, Mus' Ditch--only the Lard knows wot mad folkses remember and wot they forget. But there's the supper ready; git moving or we'll have to sit by the door."

Odiam's strict rule had been relaxed in honour of the wedding, and a lavish, not to say luxurious, meal covered two long tables laid end to end across the kitchen. There was beef and mutton, there was stew, there were apple and gooseberry pies, and a few cone-shaped puddings, pink and white and brown, giving an aristocratic finish to the supper.

Naomi and Reuben sat at the head of the table, Mr. Gasson and Mrs. Backfield on either side of them. Harry was not present, for his methods of feeding made him rather a disgusting object at meals. Naomi had put herself tidy, but somehow she still felt disordered and flustered. She hated all this materialism encroaching on her romance. The sight of the farmers pushing for places at the table filled her with disgust--the slightest things upset her, the untidy appearance of the dishes after they had been helped, some beer stains on the cloth, even her husband's hearty appetite and not quite noiseless eating. The room soon became insufferably hot, and she felt herself getting damp and sticky--a most unlovely condition for a bride.

When the actual feeding was over there were speeches and toasts. Vennal of Burntbarns proposed the health of the bride, and Realf of Grandturzel that of the groom. Then Mrs. Backfield's health was drunk, then Mr. Gasson's. There were more toasts, and some songs--"Oh, no, I never mention her," "The Sussex Whistling Song," and old farmhouse ballads, such as:

"Our maid she would a hunting go, She'd never a horse to ride; She mounted on her master's boar, And spurred him on the side. Chink! chink! chink! the bridle went, As she rode o'er the downs. So here's unto our maiden's health, Drink round, my boys! drink round!"

Naomi felt bored and sick; twice she yawned, and she stretched her tired shoulders under her dress. At last Reuben noticed her discomfort.

"You're tired--you'd better go to bed," he whispered, and she at once gladly rose and slipped away, though she would not have gone without his suggestion.

"Can I help you, dear?" asked Mrs. Backfield as she passed her chair. But Naomi wanted to be alone.

She stole out of the kitchen into the peace of the dark house, ran up the stairs, and found the right door in the unlighted passage. The bedroom was very big and cold, and on the threshold she wrinkled up her nose at a strange scent, something like hay and dry flowers.

She groped her way to the chimney-piece and found a candle and a tinder-box. The next minute a tiny throbbing flame fought unsuccessfully with the darkness which still massed in the corners and among the cumbrous bits of furniture. Naomi's new kid shoes were hurting her, and she bent down to untie them; but even as she bent, her eyes were growing used to the dim light, and she noticed something queer about the room. She lifted her head and saw that the outlines of the dressing-table and bed were rough ... the scent of dry grass suddenly revolted her.

She looked round, and this time she saw clearly. About the mirror, along the bed-head, and garlanding the posts, were crude twists and lumps of field flowers--dandelions buttercups, moon daisies, oxlips, fennel, and cow-parsley, all bunched up with hay grass, all dry, withered, rotting, and malodorous. There was a great sheaf of them on her pillow, an armful torn up from a hay-field, still smelling of the sun that had blasted it....

In a flash Naomi knew who had put them there. No sane mind could have conceived such a decoration or seeing eyes directed it. Harry, exiled from church and feast, had spent his time in a crazy effort to honour the happy pair. He knew she was to marry Reuben, but had not seemed to take much interest. Doubtless the general atmosphere of festivity and adornment had urged him to this.

How dreadful! Already she saw an insect crawling over the bed--probably there were lots of others about the room; and these flowers, all parched, dead, and evil-smelling, gave a sinister touch to her wedding day. A lump rose in her throat, the back of her eyes was seared by something hot and sudden.... Oh, Harry ... Harry....

Then misery turned to rage. It was Reuben who had brought her to this, who had stolen her from Harry, forced her into marrying him, and exposed her to this anguish. She hated Reuben. She hated him. With all the fierceness of her conquered soul and yielded body she hated him. She would have nothing more to do with him, she would be revenged on him, punish him ... a little hoarse scream of rage burst from her lips, and she turned suddenly and ran out of that dreadful room.

She ran down the passage, panting and sobbing with rage. Then at the stair head something even blacker than the darkness met her. It seized her, it swung her up, she was powerless as a little bird in its grasp. Her struggles were crushed in the kind strong arms that held her, and rage was stifled from her lips with kisses.

##