BOOK V

ALMOST UNDER

§ 1.

Reuben did not go back to Cheat Land for several weeks. Those five minutes had been too much for him. He would never again risk putting himself in the power of things he did not understand. Besides, he felt vaguely that after what had happened Alice would not want to see him. She had humiliated herself, or rather he had humiliated her--for she had put out in one swift dark minute all the powers of her nature to bind him, and she had failed. He remembered her voice when she whispered, "But not too late," and her eyes afterwards, smouldering in shadow, and her little hands held out to him.... There had been nothing definite, obvious, or masterful, yet in those few words and actions her whole self had pleaded on its knees--and he had turned away.

But sometimes what kept him from her more than the thought of her humiliation was the thought of his own. For sometimes it seemed almost as if she had humbled him more than he had humbled her. He could not tell whether this sick feeling of shame which occasionally swamped him was due to the fact that he had so nearly surrendered to her or to the fact that he had not quite done so. Sometimes he thought it was the latter. The whole thing was ridiculous and perplexing, a lesson to him not to adventure into subtleties but to keep in communion with the broad plain things of earth.

Early in May he found a visit to Cheat Land forced upon him. Jury wanted to buy a cow of his, but one of the sudden chills to which he was liable kept him indoors. Reuben was anxious to sell the animal, and, there being one or two weak points about her, would trust nobody but himself with the negotiations. However, the visit would be quite safe, for he was not likely to see Alice alone, indeed it was probable that he might not see her at all.

On reaching the farm he heard several voices in the kitchen, and found the invalid in an arm-chair by the fire, talking to an oldish man and a rather plump pretty girl of about twenty. Jury was an intellectual, incompetent-looking fellow, who seemed elderly, but at the same time gave one the impression that this was due to his health. His grey hair straggled over temples where the skin was stretched tight and yellow as parchment, his cheeks were hollow, his eyes astonishingly like his daughter's. He was one of the arguments against the marriage.

Alice had let Reuben in. She looked a little tired, but otherwise quite cheerful, and she welcomed him simply and naturally.

"This is Miss Lardner," she said, introducing him to the girl, "and Mr. Lardner of Starvecrow."

"I heard as how Starvecrow had been bought at last," said Reuben; "not a bad farm, Muster, if you're fur green crops mostly."

"Potatoes," said Lardner, "potatoes--if farmers 'ud only grow potatoes and not think so much of grain and rootses, we shudn't hear of so many of 'em going bust."

The conversation became agricultural, but in spite of the interest such a topic always had for him, Reuben could not help watching the two girls. Miss Lardner, whom Alice called Rose, was a fine creature, so different from the other as to make the contrast almost laughable. She was tall and strapping--in later life she might become over stout, but at present her figure was splendid, superbly moulded and erect. She looked like a young goddess as she sat there, one leg crossed over the other, showing her white stocking almost to the knee. There was something arrogant in her attitude, as if she was aware of the splendour of her body, and gloried in it. Her face too was beautiful--though less classically so--rather broad, with high flat cheek-bones, and a wide full-lipped mouth which would have given it almost a Creole look, if it had not been for her short delicate nose and her fair ruddiness. Her hair seemed to hesitate between gold and brown--her eyes between boldness and languor.

Reuben found himself glancing at her continually, and though she seldom met his eyes, he knew that she was aware of his scrutiny. He sometimes felt that Alice was aware of it too.

As the conversation wore on, and became more general, Lardner said something about going over to Snailham and taking Rose home on the way.

"Oh, no, Uncle--I don't want to go. Alice has asked me to stay to supper."

"But you can't go home alone, and I can't wait wud you, surelye."

"I'll take Miss Lardner home," said Reuben.

Directly he had said the words, he looked over at Rose to see how she would receive them. Her eyelashes lay black and curly against her cheek, then they lifted slowly, and her eyes looked out from under the half-raised lids with a kind of demure roguishness. At the same time her lower lip seemed to quiver and plump out, while the corners of her mouth rose and curled. He suddenly felt a desire to plant a kiss fairly on that wet red mouth, which from away across the room seemed to pout towards him.

§ 2.

Supper was a quiet meal. Old Jury and his invalid wife sat at each end of the table, while Alice did most of the helping and waiting. They seemed a sorry three to Reuben, pale, washed out, and weakly, their eyes bright as birds' with the factitious light of their enthusiasms for things that did not matter. They ate without much appetite, picking daintily at their food, their knives never in their mouths. Reuben found himself despising them as he despised the Bardons.

Rose did not talk much, but she ate heartily--she must be as healthy as she looked. Once or twice during the meal Reuben caught himself staring at her lips--they were extraordinarily red, and at the end of the meal the juice of her pudding had stained them purple.

She said that she must leave directly after supper. Alice fetched her hat, which was not the kind that Reuben had ever seen on country girls, being of the fashionable pork-pie shape. All her clothes were obviously town-made; she wore a blue stuff dress, tight-fitting round her bust and shoulders, full and flounced in the skirt--afterwards he heard that Rose had spent some years with relations in London before coming to live at Starvecrow.

He gave her his arm, said good-bye to Alice in the doorway, and went through the little garden where flowers crowded out vegetables in a very unbusiness-like way, into the lane which wound past Cheat Land and round the hanger of Boarzell, to the farms of the Brede Valley.

Rose, a little to his surprise, began to chatter volubly. She talked very much like a child, with naïve comments, about simple things. She asked trivial questions, and screamed with delight when some dusk-blinded bird flew against her breast and dashed down heavily into the ruts. She exclaimed at the crimson moon which rose behind the hedge like a hot penny--she laughed at the slightest provocation; and yet all the while he was conscious of an underlayer of shrewdness, he had an extraordinary conviction of experience.

Besides, while she laughed and babbled like a child, her eyes continually rose towards his with a woman's calculated boldness. They spoke something quite different from her lips--the combination was maddening; and those lips, too, in their rare silences, were so unlike the words they uttered that he scarcely knew whether he wanted most to silence them completely or never let them be silent.

"I don't like Alice Jury," she prattled, "she says just the opposite of what you say. She never lets herself agree with anyone. She's a contradictious female."

Then suddenly she was silent--and Reuben kissed her.

He crooked his arm round her and held her close to him, standing there in the lane. Her lips slowly parted under his, then suddenly she threw her head back in a kind of ecstasy, giving him the white expanse of her neck, which he kissed, giddy with a soft fragrance that rose from her clothes, reminding him a little of clover.

She was so obviously and naïvely delighted, that when he drew himself up, his idea of her was again one of extreme childishness. And yet it was evident that she was used to kisses, and that he had kissed her at her own unspoken invitation.

They walked on down the lane. Rose's chatter had ceased, and a complete silence dropped between the hedges. The moon had risen higher, and the western hazels were bloomed with light. The moon was no longer crimson in the dark sky, but had burnt down to copper, casting a copper glow into the mists, staining all the blues that melted into one another along the hills. Only the middle of the lane was black--like a well. Reuben and Rose could see each other's faces in a kind of rusty glimmer, but their feet stumbled in the darkness, and her hand lay clutching and heavy on his arm.

At last they came to Castweasel--three old cottages and a ruined one, leaning together in a hollow like mushrooms. Beside the ruined cottage a tree-trunk was lying, and Rose suddenly stretched herself with a little sigh.

"I'm tired--let's sit down and rest a bit."

They sat down on the log, and she immediately crept close to him like a child. He put his arm round her, and once again she thrilled him with her own delight--she stole her arms round his neck, holding his head in the crook of her elbows, and laughed with her mouth against his. Then her hands crept into his hair, and rumpled it, while she whispered like a child finding some new virtue in its toy--"How thick! how thick!" At last she drew his head down to her breast, holding it there with both hands while she dipped her kisses on his eyes....

Reuben was in ecstasy by this time. It was years since he had caressed a woman, except casually, for he considered that women interfered with his work. Rose's eagerness could not cheapen her, for it was so childlike, and she continued to give him that sense of deep experience which robbed her attitude of insipidity. Her delight in his kisses was somehow made sweeter to him by the conviction that she could compare them with other men's.

She began to laugh--she became gay and mettlesome. Her whole nature seemed changed, and he found it hard to think of her as the beautiful yet rather lumpish girl who had sat in the silence of a good appetite at the Cheat Land supper-table. Behind them the ruin of the old cottage sent out bitter-sweet scents of decay--its crumbling plaster and rotting lath perfumed the night. Fragrances strove in the air--the scent of Rose's clothes, and of her big curls tumbling on his shoulder, the scent of still water, of dew-drenched leaves, and damp, teeming soil--sweet vagabond scents of bluebells, puffed on sudden breezes....

Reuben was growing drunken with it all--he strained Rose to him; she was part of the night. Just as her scents mingled with its scents, so he and she both mingled with the hush of the lightless, sorrowless fields, the blots of trees, the woods that whispered voicelessly.... Above the hedges, stars winked and flashed, dancing in the crystalline air. Right overhead the Sign of Cancer jigged to its image in Castweasel Pool. Reuben looked up, and through a gate he saw Boarzell rearing like a shaggy beast towards him. He suddenly became more aware of Boarzell than of anything in the night, than of the flowers or the water or the stars, or even Rose, drowsing against his shoulder with parted lips. Boarzell filled the night. The breeze became suddenly laden with scents of it--the faint bitterness of its dew-drenched turf where the bracken-crosiers were beginning to uncurl, of its noon-smelling gorse, of its heather-tangle, half budding, half dead, of its fir-needles and its fir-cones, rotting and sprouting. All seemed to blend together into a strong, heady, ammoniacal smell ... the great beast of Boarzell dominated the night, pawed Reuben, roared over him, made him suddenly mad, clutching Rose till she cried out with pain, kissing her till she broke free, and stood before him pale and dishevelled, with anger in her eyes.

He sprang to his feet, the mood had passed--the beast of Boarzell had ceased to worry him.

"I'm sorry," he said sheepishly.

"And well you may be," said Rose, "you've torn my gown."

They walked on down the lane; she pouted and swung her hat. Reuben, anxious to propitiate, picked primroses under the hedge and gave them to her.

She looked pleased at once, and began to eat them.

"Wot," said Reuben, "you eat flowers?"

"Yes," she answered, "I love eating primroses--pick me some more."

So for the rest of the walk to Starvecrow, he picked primroses, and she nibbled them with her white teeth, which were small and even, except for the two canines, which were pointed like a little animal's.

§ 3.

During the next day or two Reuben thought a great deal about Rose Lardner. He made covert enquiries about her in the neighbourhood. He found out that she was an orphan and old Lardner's only surviving relative. He was an extremely prosperous man, and at his death Rose would have all his money. Moreover, rumour gave him a cancer which would carry him off before very long.

Reuben turned over these facts in his mind. He realised what a fine thing it would be for Odiam if he married Rose. Here was the very wife he wanted--of good standing in the neighbourhood, and something of an heiress, young and healthy, and likely to give him stout boys, and also exceedingly attractive in herself.

Under the circumstances he hardly knew what held him back, what made the whole idea vaguely repugnant to him. Surely it could not be his feeling for Alice Jury. The terrible thought suggested itself that his love for Alice would survive all the outward signs of its demolition, that though beaten and killed and destroyed it would haunt him disembodied. That was the secret of its power--its utter lack of corporiety, its independence of the material things a strong man could bend to his will, so that, as it were, one could never lay hands on it, but chased it for ever like a ghost.

Nevertheless, he called at Starvecrow and renewed his impressions of Rose. They did not want much adjustment; he found her as he had found her that first evening--childlike in all things save love, indolent, languorous, and yet with gay bursts of spirit which made her charming. He noticed too how well dressed she was--he admired her stuff gown and neat buttoned boots, so different from what he was accustomed to see on the feet of his womenfolk; he admired the crinkle and gloss of her hair, so beautifully waved and brushed, and scented with some lotion--her hands, too, well kept and white with shining pink nails, her trim muslin collar, the clover scent of her garments ... it was all new, and gave him somehow a vague feeling of self-respect.

When they were alone she was as eager as ever for his love. He had a precious ten minutes with her in the parlour at Starvecrow, at the end of which in came old Lardner, with talk of crops and beasts. Reuben considered that he had some knowledge of farming--which was a long way for him to go--and took him into confidence about some of Odiam's affairs. The farm was still causing him anxiety, and he felt in need of ready money. He wanted to establish a milk round, with a dairy shop in Rye, but he could not spare the capital.

That visit was the first of several others. Starvecrow took the place of Cheat Land--indeed, he seldom went near Cheat Land now. Rose gave him all the refuge he wanted from the vexings and thwartings of his daily life. She was not, like Alice, a counter-irritant, but a sweet drowse of tenderness and beauty in which he forgot his disappointment, thinking of nothing but the lovely woman he caressed.

She gave him sympathy, too, in a childlike way. She did not like it if he interrupted his love-making to tell her about his plans for Boarzell, but at other moments she seemed to enjoy hearing him talk of his ambition; and often, when the jar and failure of things depressed him, she would take him in her arms, and soothe him like a baby with--"Of course you'll have Boarzell, my Reuben; of course it will be yours--you're so strong and masterful, you're bound to get all you want."

Her delight in him never seemed to fail. Sometimes it seemed to him strange that the difference in their ages did not affect her more. She never gave him a hint that she thought him too old for her. He once told her that he was nearly fifty, but she had answered with a happy laugh that she did not like boys.

As a matter of fact, Reuben at fifty was a lover of whom any girl might still be proud. If a little grey had come into his hair, it had merely been to give it the gleam of polished iron, and contrast it more effectively with the swarthiness of his skin. His teeth were as white and even as when he was twenty, for he had never risked spoiling them by too much tobacco--his eyes, dark and bright, were like a boy's; his broad back was straight, and his powerful arms could lift even the plump Rose to his shoulder. He once carried her on his shoulder all the way from Tide Barn to the beginning of Starvecrow lane.

§ 4.

Towards the end of August, Reuben asked Rose to marry him.

The request was not so much the outcome of passion as might have been imagined from the form it took. It was true that he was deeply enamoured of her, but it was also true that for three months he had endured the intoxication of her presence without definitely, or even indefinitely, claiming her for his own. He had held himself back till he had thoroughly weighed and pondered her in relation to his schemes--he was not going to renounce Alice for a wife who would be herself a drawback in another way.

However, though he had never deceived himself that Rose's sympathetic tendernesses meant any real sharing of his ambition, he was soon convinced that to marry her would be materially to help himself in the battle which was now dragging a little on his side. He wanted ready money--her settlements would provide that; and her heirship of Lardner held out dazzling hopes for the future. He wanted children--where could he find a healthier mother? He wanted to raise the dignity of Odiam, and could hardly have thought of a better means than marriage with the niece of one of the wealthiest and most important farmers in the parish. To crown all, he gave himself an adorable woman, young, lovely, tender, and gay. This consideration could not have dragged him contrary to his ambition, but combined with it, it could give to an otherwise very practical and material plan all the heats of passion and the glories of romance.

The only disappointment was Rose's reception of his offer. At first she was unaffectedly surprised. She had looked upon the whole affair as a flirtation, of which she had had several, and had never expected it to take such a serious turn.

Even when she had recovered from her surprise, she refused to give him an answer. He became suddenly alarmed lest she thought him too old, and pressing her for her reasons, found that the real matter was that she did not want to sacrifice her freedom.

"Wot do you mean, sweetheart? Döan't you love me?"

"Of course I love you--but it doesn't follow I want to belong to you. Can't we go on as we are?"

"You queer me, Rose. How can we go on as we are?--it's like walking on a road that never leads nowhere."

"Well, that's very nice--I don't always want to go somewhere every time I take a walk, I much prefer just wandering."

"I döan't."

"Because you're so practical and business-like, and I'm afraid you'd try and make me practical and business-like too. That's why I said I wanted to be free."

"You shall be free, Rose--I promise you. You shall do wotsumdever you please."

"Absolutely 'wotsumdever'?"

"Yes--wudin reason, of course."

"Ah, that's it. Your reason mightn't be my reason."

"You wudn't find me unreasonable, dear."

"Well, I shall have to think it over."

She thought it over for two months, during which Reuben suffered all the torments of his lot. She soon came to realise and appreciate her powers; she dangled hopes and fears with equal zest before his eyes, she used his anxieties to stoke the furnaces of his passion, till she had betrayed him into blazes and explosions which he looked on afterwards with uneasy shame.

Once in sick amazement at himself he took refuge at Cheat Land, and sat for an hour in Alice Jury's kitchen, watching her sew. But the springs of his confidence were dried, he could not tell Alice what he felt about Rose. She knew, of course. All the neighbourhood knew he was in love with Rose Lardner, and watched the progress of his courtship with covert smiles.

Rose used often to come to Odiam, where she was at first rather shy of Reuben's children, all of whom were older than herself. In time, however, she outgrew her shyness, and became of an exceedingly mad and romping disposition. She ran about the house like a wild thing, she dropped blackberries into Caro's cream, she tickled Pete's neck with wisps of hay, she danced in the yard with Jemmy. Reuben grew desperate--he felt the hopelessness of capturing this baby who played games with his children; and yet Rose was in some ways so much older than they--she loved to say risky things in front of the innocent Caro, and howled with laughter when she could not understand--she loved to prod and baffle the two boys, who in this respect were nearly as inexperienced as their sister. Then, on the walk home with Reuben, over Boarzell, she would retail these feats of hers with gusto, she would invite his kisses, sting up his passion--she tormented him with her extraordinary combinations of childishness and experience, shyness and abandonment, innocence and corruption.

In time the state of his own mind reduced Reuben to silence about his longings. He somehow lost the power of picturing himself married to this turbulent, bewildering creature, half-woman, half-child. He clung to her in silent kisses; leading her home over Boarzell, he would suddenly turn and smother her in his arms, while his breast heaved with griefs and sighings he had not known in the earlier weeks of his courtship.

Rose noticed this difference, and it piqued her. She began to miss his continual protestations. Sometimes she tried to stir them up again, but her bafflings had reacted on herself; she handled him clumsily, he was too mazed to respond to her flicks. Then she became sulky, irritable, slightly tyrannous--even stinting her kisses.

One night early in October he was taking her home. They had crossed Boarzell, and were walking through the lanes that tangle the valley north of Udimore. She walked with her arm conventionally resting on his, her profile demure in the starlight. He felt tired, not in his body, but in his mind--somehow life seemed very aimless and gloomy; he despised himself because he craved for her arms, for her light thoughtless sympathy.

"Why döan't you speak to me, Rose?"

"I was thinking."

"Wot about?"

"Oh, clothes and things."

He stopped suddenly in their walk, as he had often done, and seized her in his arms, swinging her off her feet, burying his face in her wraps to kiss her neck. She kicked and fought him like a wild cat, and at last he dropped her.

"Why wöan't you let me kiss you?"

"Because I won't."

She walked quickly, almost running, and he had to stride to keep up with her.

"You're justabout cruel," he said furiously.

"And so are you."

"Wot have I done?"

"You've changed your mind about wanting to marry me."

He stared at her with his mouth open.

"Rose...."

"Well, don't gape at me. You know you have."

"I justabout haven't. It's you----"

"It isn't me. I only asked for a little time to think it over, and then you go and cool off."

"I--cool off! My dear, I dudn't ever. I never understood--you're such a tedious liddle wild thing."

"Well, do you want to marry me?"

"Rose!"

"And you'll let me do as I like?"

"Rose, marry me."

"Very well--I will. But it's funny I should want to."

Then suddenly her expression changed. Her eyes half closed, her lips parted, and she held out her arms to him with a laugh like a sob.

§ 5.

Reuben and Rose were married in the January of '70. It was the earliest date compatible with the stocking of her wardrobe, a business which immediately absorbed her to the exclusion of everything else.

Meantime Reuben, having repapered the parlour and given a new coat of whitewash to the best bedroom ceiling, discussed settlements with old Lardner. These did not turn out as large as he had hoped--the old man was close, and attempts on his generosity only resulted in embarrassing doubts as to the disinterestedness of his son-in-law's affections. Reuben comforted himself with the thought that Lardner most certainly had a cancer.

At the wedding Rose fairly dazed the onlookers. She wore a dress of heavy white satin, with a white lace veil--and a bustle. It was the first bustle that had ever been seen in Peasmarsh, or even in Rye. In itself it was devastating enough, but it soon acquired a prophetic and metaphorical significance which made it even more impressive. Spectators saw in it the forecast of Odiam's downfall--"He can't stand that," said Brazier, the new man at Totease, "she's a Jezebubble."--"Only it äun't her head as she's tired this time," said Ticehurst.--"She shud have worn it in front of her, and then we shud have bin interested," said Cooper of Kitchenhour.

Alice Jury and her father were in church. Reuben saw them as he marched up the aisle with an enormous flower in his buttonhole, accompanied by Ginner of Socknersh as his best man. It struck him that she looked more pretty and animated than usual, in a woolly red dress and a little fur cap under which her eyes were bright as a robin's. Even then he felt a little offended and perplexed by her behaviour--she should have drooped--it would have been more becoming if she had drooped.

The remnants of his family were in a front pew--Pete with an elaborately curled forelock, Jemmy casting the scent of cheap hair oil into the prevalent miasma of camphor and moth-killer, and between the two boys, Caro in an unbecoming hat which she wore at a wrong angle, while her dark restless eyes devoured Rose's creamy smartness, from her satin shoes to the wave of curling-irons in her hair. Harry had been left at home--he was in an impossible mood, tormented by some dark current of memory, wandering from room to room as he muttered--"Another wedding--another wedding--we're always having weddings in this house."

After the ceremony nearly a hundred guests were fed at Starvecrow. All the most important farmers of the neighbourhood were there, except of course Realf of Grandturzel. Rose was like her name-flower, flushed and scented. Very different from his earlier bride, she sat beside Reuben with head erect and smiling lips--she drank with everyone, and the wine deepened the colour of her cheeks and made her eyes like stars. She talked, she laughed, she ate, she was so happy that her glances, full of bold languor, swept round the table, resting on all present as well as the chosen man--she was a gay wife.

Dancing at weddings was dying out as a local fashion, so when the breakfast was over the guests melted away, having eaten and drunk themselves into a desire for sleep. Reuben's family went home. He and Rose lingered a little with her uncle, then as the January night came crisping into the sky and fields, he drove her to Odiam in his gig, as long ago he had driven Naomi. She leaned against his shoulder, for he wanted both hands for his horse, and her hair tickled his neck. She was silent for about the first time that day, and as eager for the kisses he could give her while he drove as Naomi had been shy of them. Above in the cold black sky a hundred pricks of fire shuddered like sparks--the lump of Boarzell was blocked against a powder of stars.

At Odiam Rose shook off her seriousness. Supper was ready, and undaunted by the huge meal she had already eaten, she sat down to it with a hearty appetite. Her step-children stared at her curiously--Rose had a gust of affection for them. Poor things!--their lives had been so crude and dull and innocent. She must give them a little brightness now, soften the yoke of Reuben's tyranny--that girl Caro, for instance, she must give her some pretty clothes and show her how to arrange her hair becomingly.

Supper was a very gay meal--the gayest there had ever been at Odiam. Rose laughed and talked, as at Starvecrow, and soon her husband and the boys were laughing with her. Some of the things she said were rather daring, and Caro had only a dim idea of what she meant, but Rose's eyes rolling mischievously under the long lashes, and the tip of her tongue showing between her lips, gave her words a devilish bite even if only half understood. Somehow the whole atmosphere of the Odiam kitchen was changed--it was like the lifting of a curtain, the glimpsing of a life where all was gay, where love and ambition and all solemn things were the stuff of laughter.

The boys beat the handles of their knives on the table and rolled in their chairs with wide-open mouths as if they would burst; Reuben leaned back with a great pride and softening in his eyes, round which many hard lines had traced themselves of late; Caro's lips were parted and she seemed half enchanted, half bewildered by the other woman's careless merriment. Only Harry took no interest and looked dissatisfied--"Another wedding," he mumbled as he dribbled his food unnoticed over the cloth--"we're always having weddings in this house."

It was strange that during this gay meal the strongest link was forged between Rose and Caro. Two natures more utterly unlike it would be hard to find--Caro's starved ignorance of love and aged familiarity with dustier matters made her the antithesis of Rose, a child in all things save those of the affections; but the two women's hearts met in their laughter. It was Rose who invited, Caro who responded, for Rose in spite of her years and inexperience had the one advantage which made her the older of the two. She was drawn to Caro partly from essential kindness,

## partly because she appreciated the luxury of pitying her--Caro

responded with all the shy devotion of a warped nature going out towards one who enjoys that for which it unconsciously pines. Rose's beauty, jollity, and happiness made her a goddess to the less fortunate girl.

After supper Rose turned towards her.

"Will you come up and help me unpack?"

Caro flushed with pleasure--a light had kindled in her grey life, and she found herself looking forward to days of basking.

They went up together to the huge low-raftered bedroom, which struck horribly cold.

"Ugh!" said Rose--"no fire!"

"But it's a bedroom."

"That's no reason for not having a fire. I shall freeze. Let's have the servant up to light one."

"Oh, no. I'll light it; Mary's busy clearing the table. But I reckon as fäather wöan't be pleased."

"I'll make him pleased. You leave father to me for the future."

Caro fetched some wood and turf and laid the fire, to which Rose applied a match, feeling that by this she had done her share of the work. Then they began to unpack. There were two trunks full of clothes, and Rose complicated matters by refusing to take things out as they came but diving after various articles she particularly wanted.

"I want my blue negleegy--I must show you my blue negleegy," she panted, up to her elbows in underlinen.

"Oh, here it is! what do you think of it?"

"It's silk!" said Caro in a hoarse whisper.

"Of course it is--and the very best silk too. I'll put it on. Please undo my dress."

Caro helped her off with her wedding-dress, and after having recovered her breath, which she lost completely at the sight of the lace on her chemise, she helped her arrange the "negleegy," and watched her open-mouthed as she posed in it before the fragment of looking-glass.

"Isn't it chick?" said Rose, "I got it in Hastings--they say it is copied from a Paris model. Now let's go on with the unpacking."

They went on--that is to say Rose leaned back in her chair and directed Caro as she took the things out of the trunks. The girl was fairly bewildered by what she saw--the laced chemises, the flounced petticoats, the dainty nightgowns with transparent necks. "But you'll show through," she said in tones of horror as she displayed one of these, and could not understand why Rose rolled in her chair with laughter.

There were little pots of cream and bottles of hair-lotion, there were ebony-backed brushes, patent leather shoes, kid gloves, all sorts of marvels which Caro had seen nowhere but in shops. As she unpacked she felt a kind of soreness in her heart. Why should Rose have all these beautiful things, these laces, these perfumes, these silks and ribbons, while Caro wore nothing but stuff and calico or smelt of anything sweeter than milk? As she glanced at Rose, leaning back in the most comfortable chair to be found in that uncomfortable room--the firelight dancing on the silken ripples of her gown, her neck and arms gleaming through clouds of lace--the soreness woke into a pain. Rose had something more even than silks and laces. She had love. It was love that made her hold her chin so proudly, it was love that made her cheeks flush and her eyes glow. And no one had ever loved Caro--she had never heard a man's voice in tenderness, or felt even so much as a man's hand fondle hers....

"Caro, would you mind brushing my hair?"

Rose was taking out the pins, and curls and tendrils of hair began to fall on her shoulders. Caro took the brush, and swept it over the soft mass, gleaming like spun glass. A subtle perfume rose from it, the rub of it on her hand was like silk. Rose's eyes closed as the brush stroked her, and her lips parted slowly into a smile.

Then suddenly, without warning, all this love and happiness and possession became too much for Caro--she dropped the brush and the scented hair, and burst into passionate tears.

§ 6.

Reuben at once laid out his wife's money to the best advantage. He bought twenty cows, good milkers, and started a dairy business in Rye. A shop was opened near the Landgate, which sold milk, butter, cream, and eggs from Odiam. He also tried to establish a milk-round in Rye, sending circulars to inns and private houses. He engaged a young woman to serve in the shop, and boys to drive his milk-carts. This meant a big expenditure, and almost all Rose's money was swallowed up by it.

Reuben was surprised at Lardner's attitude. The old man refused to look upon this spending of his niece's dowry as an excellent investment, which would soon bring in returns a hundredfold--he would have preferred to see her money lying safe and useless in Lewes Old Bank, and accused Backfield of greed and recklessness. Reuben in his turn was disgusted with Lardner's parsimony, and would have quarrelled with him had he not been afraid of an estrangement. The farmer of Starvecrow could not speak without all sorts of dreadful roars and clearings in his throat, and Reuben hopefully observed the progress of the cancer.

Rose herself did not much care how her money was spent as long as she had the things she wanted. First of these at present was Reuben's love, and that she had in plenty. She was a perpetual source of delight to him; her beauty, her astounding mixture of fire and innocence, her good humour, and her gaiety were even more intoxicating than before marriage. He felt that he had found the ideal wife. As a woman she was perfect, so perfect that in her arms he could forget her short comings as a comrade. After all, what did it matter if she failed to plumb the depths of his desire for things outside herself, as long as she herself was an undying source of enchantment?--smoothing away the wrinkles of his day with her caresses, giving him love where she could not give him understanding, her heart where she could not give her brain. During the hours of work and fret he would long for her, for the quiet warm evenings, and the comfort which the wordless contact of her brought. She made him forget his heaviness, and gather strength to meet his difficulties, giving him draughts of refreshment for to-morrow's journey in the desert.

His times were still anxious. Even if the milk-round turned out a success, it was bound to be a loss to him during the first year. A multiplication of servants also meant for a man like Reuben a multiplication of trials. He would have liked to do all the work himself, and could trust no one to do it properly for him. His underlings, with their detached attitude towards the farm, were a perpetual source of anxiety and contempt. His heart sickened for those stalwart sons he had dreamed of in the days of his first marriage--a dream which mocked him daily with its pitiful materialisation in the shred of family that still worked for Odiam. Reuben longed for Rose to have a child, but the months passed, and she had no favourable answer to his repeated questionings, which struck her at first as amusing, later as irritating, and at last--at the suggestion of one or two female friends--as indelicate.

She herself had no wish for motherhood, and expressed this so openly that in time Reuben began to entertain dark doubts of her, and to feel that she would avoid it if she could. Yet she in herself was so utterly sweet that he could not find it in his heart to be angry, or use anything but tender remonstrance when she vexed him with her attitude towards life in general and marriage in particular.

She gulped at pleasure, and she gave him so much that he could not deny her what she craved for, though the mere decorativeness of her tastes amazed and sometimes appalled him. She coaxed him to buy her new curtains and chair-covers for the parlour, and to turn it into a room which could be used, where she could lounge in her pretty frocks, and entertain her women-friends--of whom she had a startling number--to afternoon tea, with cream, and little cakes that cost an amount of money altogether disproportionate to the space that they filled in one's inside. She demanded other entertainments too--visits to Rye, and even to Hastings, and jaunts to fairs other than the sanctioned one on Boarzell.

Reuben was delighted with her fashionable clothes, the dainty things with which she managed to surround herself, her fastidious care for her person, her pomadings, her soapings, her scentings--but he sometimes had vague doubts of this beautiful, extravagant, irresponsible creature. He was like a man stirring in a happy dream, realising in the midst of it that he dreams, and must some day awake.

§ 7.

The year '71 was on the whole a bad one. The summer was parched, the autumn sodden, and the winter frozen. Reuben's oats after some excellent promises failed him abruptly, as was the way with crops on Boarzell. His wheat was better in quality but poor in quantity, his mangolds had the rot, and his hops, except for the old field by the lane, were brown and ragged with blight.

This would have been bad enough in any year, but in times when he bore the burden of his yet profitless milk-round it was only a little short of catastrophe. Making every allowance for a first year, that milk-round had disappointed him. He found private custom hard to win, and even the ceasing of French dairy supplies, owing to the Franco-Prussian war, did not bring him the relief he had hoped. One or two small farms on the borders of Rye catered in dairy stuff for its inhabitants, and he found them hard to outbid or outwit. Also, owing to the scarcity of grass feed, it was a bad milk year, and poor supplies were put down by consumers to the new milkman, and in more than one case custom was withdrawn.

Reuben faced his adversity with set teeth and a dogged countenance. He had not been farming thirty odd years to be beaten casually by the weather. Scorching heat and blighting cold, the still blanker doom of the trickling, pouring rain--the wind that seeded his corn, and beat down his hay, and flung his hop-bines together in muddled heaps--the pests that Nature breeds by the ten million out of her own putrefyings and misbegettings--all things in life from the lowest maggot to the fiercest storm--he was out to fight them. In challenging Boarzell he had challenged them all.

In time his struggle began to modify his relations with Rose. At first he had told himself that her uselessness was only apparent. Though she herself did no fighting, she gave such rest and refreshment to the soldier that he went forth strengthened to the war. He had almost begun to attribute to her his daily renewed courage, and had once or twice been moved to show his gratitude by acts of expensive indulgence.

Now slowly he began to see that this gratitude was misleading--better receive no comfort from Rose than pay for it too dear. He must make her understand that he could not afford to keep a useless and extravagant wife, however charming she might be. Rose must do her share, as Naomi had done, as his mother had done, as his children had done.

Sometimes he would expostulate with her, and when she met his expostulations with blandishments, he would feel himself yielding, and grow so furious that he would turn upon her in rage and indignation. Rose was not like Naomi; in her own words "she gave as good as she got," and once or twice, for the first time in his life, Reuben found himself in loud and vulgar altercation with a female. He had never before had a woman stand up to him, and the experience was humiliating.

He had used to turn from Boarzell to her for rest, and now he found himself turning from her to Boarzell. It was part of the baffling paradox that the thing he fought should also be the thing he loved, and the battlefield his refuge. Out on the Moor, with the south-west wind rolling over him like the waves of some huge earth-scented sea, he drank in the spirit of conflict, he was swept back into the cleanness and singleness of his warfare. It was then that Boarzell nerved him for its own subduing, stripped his heart of softness, cleansed it of domestic fret. Rose and her love and sweetness were all very well, but he was out for something greater than Rose--he must keep in mind that she was only a part of things. Why, he himself was only a part of things, and in his cravings and softenings must be conquered and brushed aside even as Rose. In challenging Boarzell he had challenged the secret forces of his own body, all the riot of hope and weakness and desire that go to make a man. The battle was not to be won except over the heaped bodies of the slain, and on the summit of the heap would lie his own.

§ 8.

The last piece of land had been exceptionally tough even for Boarzell. It was a high strip, running right across the Moor from the edge of the twenty-acre piece acquired in '67, over the high-road, to the borders of Doozes. The soil was amazingly various--it started in the low grounds almost as clay, with runnels of red water in the irrigation ditches, then passing through a stratum of marl it became limish, grey and brittle, powdering under the spade. Reuben's ploughs tore over it, turning up earth of almost every consistency and colour, till the new ground looked like a smeared palette. Towards Doozes it became clay again, and here oats would grow, sedge-leaved and tulip-rooted, with puffy awns. On the crest was rubble, poor stuff where even the heather seemed to fight for existence.

Reuben struggled untiringly--he tried manure as in his first enterprising days, and a horrible stink of guano told traffic on the road it was passing through Odiam territory. Spades and ploughshares and harrows scored and pulped the earth. Sometimes with breaking back and aching head, the sweat streaming over his skin, he would lift himself stiffly from the plough-handles, and shake his fist at the desert round him. He had never had such a tussle before, and put it down to the fact that he was now for the first time on the high ground, on the hard and sterile scab of the marl, where it seemed as if only gorse would grow. He felt as if now for the first time he was fighting against odds, his earlier struggles were tame compared with this.

Often in the evenings, when the exhausting work of the day was done, he would wander out on the Moor, seeking as usual rest on the field of his labours. The tuft of firs would grow black and featureless against the dimming sky, and stars would hang pale lamps above the fog, which smoked round Boarzell, veiling the fields, till it seemed as if he stood alone on some desert island, in the midst of a shoreless sea. All sounds would be muffled, lights and shadows would blur, and he would be alone with the fir-clump and the stars and the strong smells of his land.

He would wait there till the dew hung in pearls on his clothes and hair, and the damp chills of the night were in his bones. Then he would creep down from the Moor, and go back into the warmth and love of the house--yet with this difference now, that he never quite forgot.

He would wake during the night after cruel dreams of Boarzell stripped of its tilth, relapsed into wildness; for a few agonised moments he would wonder if the dream were true, and if he had not indeed failed. Sometimes he had to get out of bed and steal to the window, to reassure himself with the sight of his diggings and fencings. Then a horrible thought would attack him, that though he had not yet actually failed, he was bound to fail soon, that his task was too much for him, and only one end possible. He would creep back into bed, and lie awake till dawn and the restarting of the wheel.

One comfort was that these evil summers had blighted Grandturzel too. Realf's fruit and grain had both done badly, and he had been unfortunate with his cows, two of which had died of garget. It was now that the characters of the two rivals were contrasted. Realf submitted at once to adversity, cut down his expenses, and practically withdrew from the fight. Ambitious and enterprising when times were good, he was not the man to be still ambitious and enterprising when they were bad. The greatness of his farm was not so much to him as the comfort of his family. He now had a little son, and was anxious that neither he nor Tilly should suffer from bad speculations. He despised Reuben for putting Odiam before his wife and children, and defying adversity at the expense of his household.

"He'll do fur himself," he said to Tilly, as he watched her bath the baby before the fire, "and where'll his old farm be then?"

"He's more likely to do fur someone else," said Tilly, who knew her father.

"Wot about this gal he's married?"

"I'm sorry fur her."

"But she döan't look as if she wanted it, surelye. I never see anything so smart and well-set-up as she wur in church last Sunday."

"Still, I'm sorry fur her--I'm sorry fur any woman as he takes up with. Now, Henry, you can't kiss baby while I'm bathing him."

It sometimes grieved Tilly that she could not do more for her brothers and sister. Pete did not want her help, being quite happy in his work on the farm. But Jemmy and Caro hated their bondage, and she wished she could set them free. Reuben had sternly forbidden his children to have anything to do with the recreant sister, but they occasionally met on the road, or on the footpath across Boarzell. Once Caro had stolen a visit to Grandturzel, and held the baby in her arms, and watched her sister put him to bed; but she was far too frightened of Reuben to come again.

On Reuben's marriage Tilly had hoped that Rose might do something for Caro, and indeed the girl had lately seemed to have a few more treats and pleasures in her life; but from what she had heard and from what she saw, the younger sister was afraid that Rose's good offices were not likely to make for Caro's ultimate happiness. Then comfortable little Tilly would sigh in the midst of her own, and wish that everyone could have what she had been given.

Benjamin occasionally stole afternoons in Rye--if he was discovered there would be furious scenes with Reuben, but he had learned cunning, and also, being of a sporting nature, was willing to take risks. Some friends of his were building a ship down at the Camber. Week by week he watched her grow, watched the good timber fill in her ribs, watched her decks spread themselves, watched her masts rise, and at last smelt the good smell of her tarring. She was a three-masted schooner, and her first voyage was to be to the Canaries. Her builders drank many a toast with Backfield's truant son, who gladly risked his father's blows to be with them in their work and hearty boozing. He forgot the farmyard smells he hated in the shipyard smells he loved, and his slavery in oaths and rum--with buckets of tar and coils of rope, and rousing chanties and stories of strange ships.

Next spring the news came to Odiam that Benjamin had run away to sea.

§ 9.

It was Rose who had to tell Reuben.

Benjamin had given no one the faintest hint of his plans; indeed for the last two or three weeks his behaviour had been unusually good. Then one morning, when Reuben was at Robertsbridge market, he disappeared--Handshut could not find him to take his place in the lambing shed. Rose was angry, for she had wanted young Handshut to hang some curtains for her--one cause of disagreement between her and Reuben was her habit of coaxing the farm-hands to do odd jobs about the house.

That same evening, before her husband was back, a letter came for Rose. It was from Benjamin at Rye, announcing that he was sailing that night in the _Rother Lady_ for Las Palmas. He was sick of the farm, and could not stand it any longer. Would Rose tell his father?

Rose was not sorry to see the last of Benjamin, whom she had always despised as a coarse lumpkinish youth, whose clothes smelt strongly either of pitch or manure. But she dreaded breaking the news to Reuben. She disliked her husband's rages, and now she would have to let one loose. Then suddenly she thought of something, and a little smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.

Reuben came in tired after a day's prodding and bargaining in Robertsbridge market-place. Rose, like a wise woman, gave him his supper, and then, still wise, came and sat on his knee.

"Ben ..."

"Well, liddle Rose."

"I've some bad news for you."

"Wot?"

"Jemmy's gone for a sailor."

He suddenly thrust her from him, and the lines which had begun to soften on his face as he held her, reappeared in their old harshness and weariness.

"Gone!"

"Yes. I had a letter from him this evening. He couldn't stand Odiam any longer, so he ran away. He's sailed for a place called Palma."

Reuben did not speak. His hands were clenched on the arms of his chair, and for the first time Rose noticed that he looked old. A faint feeling of disgust came over her. She shivered, and took a step backwards as if she would leave him. Then her warm good nature and her gratitude to the man who had made her so happy, drove away the unnatural mood. She came close, and slipped her soft arms round his neck, pressing her lips to his.

He groaned.

"You mustn't fret, Reuben."

"How can I help it?--they're all gone now save one ... my boys...."

"Perhaps there'll be others."

She had slid back to his knee, and the weight and warmth of her comforted him a little. He lifted his head quickly at her words.

"Others?"

"Yes, why not?"

Her bold sweet eyes were looking into his and her mouth was curved like a heart.

"Rose, Rose--my dear, my liddle dear--you döan't mean----"

"Of course I mean. You needn't look so surprised. Such a thing has been known to happen."

"Döan't go laughing at me, but tell me--when?"

"In October."

"Oh, God! oh, God!"

His rapture and excitement alarmed her. His eyes blazed--he threw back his head and laughed in ecstasy. Then he seized her, and crumpled her to him, covering her face, her neck, her hair, her ears, with kisses, murmuring broken phrases of adoration and gratitude.

Rose was definitely frightened, and broke free with some violence.

"Oh, stop it, Ben! can't you see you're spoiling my dress? Why should you get in such a taking? You've had children before, and they've all been failures--I expect this one will only be like the rest."

§ 10.

Rose's child was born towards the end of October. Once more Reuben had a son, and as he looked down on the little red hairless thing all his hopes and dreams were built anew. He had always lived too near the earth to let experience thump him into cynicism. He raised as glorious dreams over this baby as he had raised over the others, and seen crumble into ashes. Indeed, the fact that his earlier hopes had failed made him warm himself more gratefully at this rekindling. He saw himself at last raised out of the pit of difficulty--he would not lose this boy as he had lost the others, he would perhaps be softer and more indulgent, he would at all events be wiser, and the child should indeed be a son to him and to Odiam. "Unto Us--Reuben and Odiam--a child is born; unto Us a son is given."

He was soon confirmed in his idea that the birth had brought him luck. Before little David was a week old, the welcome news came that Lardner had died. For some time he had been able to swallow only milk food, and his speech had been reduced to a confused roaring, but his death at this juncture seemed to Reuben a happy coincidence, an omen of good fortune for himself and his son.

He was so pleased that he forgot to veil his pleasure before Rose, whose grief reminded him of the fact that Lardner was a near and dear relation, whose death must be looked upon as a chastisement from heaven. In a fit of compunction for his behaviour, he ordered a complete suit of mourning, in which he attended the funeral. He was soft and benign to all men now, and soothed Rose's ruffled spirit by showing himself to her in all the glory of a top-hat with crape weepers before setting out for Starvecrow.

He himself had helped plan the obsequies, which were carried out with all possible pomp by a Rye undertaker. After the ceremony there was a funeral meal at Starvecrow, where sedate joints and solemn whiskies were partaken of in the right spirit by the dozen or so men and women who were privileged to hear old Lardner's will. This was read by the deceased's lawyer, and one or two pleased malicious glances were darted at Reuben from under decorously lowered lids. He sat with his fists doubled upon his knees, hearing as if in a nightmare:

"I bequeath the farm of Starvecrow, with all lands, stock, and tools pertaining thereto, also the house and fixtures, together with seven thousand pounds to Henry Robert Crick of Lone Mills, Ontario, Canada, my dear son by Marion Crick.... My household furniture and fifty pounds free of legacy duty I bequeath to my niece, Rose Backfield, wife of Reuben Backfield of Odiam."

Reuben felt dazed and sick, the solemn faces of the mourners seemed to leer at him, he was seized by a contemptuous hatred of his kind. There was some confused buzzing talk, but he did not join in it. He shook hands deliriously with the lawyer, muttered something about having to get back, and elbowed his way out of the room. Pete had driven over to fetch him in his gig, as befitted the dignity of a yeoman farmer and nephew-by-marriage of the deceased, but Reuben angrily bade him go home alone. He could not sit still, he must walk, stride off his fury, the frenzy of rage and disgust and disappointment that consumed him.

What business had old Lardner to have a natural son? Never had the laws of morality seemed to Reuben so august and necessary as then, or their infringement more contemptible. He was filled with a righteous loathing of this crapulous libertine who perpetuated the vileness of some low intrigue by bequeathing his worldly goods to his bastard. Meantime his virtuously married niece was put off with fifty pounds and some trashy furniture. Reuben fairly grovelled before the seventh commandment that afternoon.

He staggered blindly along the road. His head swam with rage, and also, it must be confessed, with something else--for he was not used to drinking whisky, which some obscure local tradition considered the only decent beverage at funerals. His face was flushed, and every now and then something would be whirled round by the wind and whip his cheeks and blind him momentarily in a black cloud. At first he was too confused to grapple with it, but when two long black arms suddenly wound themselves about his neck, nearly choking him, he remembered his hat with the crape weepers, and his rage from red-hot became white-hot and cinerating. He tore off the hat with its long black tails, and flung it into the ditch with a volley of those emasculate oaths which are all the swearing of a Sussex man.

Afterwards he felt better, but he was still fuming when he came to Odiam, and dashed up straight to Rose's bedroom, where she lay with the ten-days-old David and a female friend from Rye, who had come in to hear details about her confinement. Both, not to say all three, were startled by Reuben's sudden entrance, crimson and hatless, his collar flying, the dust all over him.

"Here! Wot d'you think?" he shouted; "if that old man äun't left all his money to a bastard."

"Don't be so excited, Ben," said Rose; "you've no business to come bursting in here like this."

"Remember your wife's delicate," said the lady friend.

"Well, wot I want to know is why you dudn't tell me all this afore."

"How could I? I didn't know how uncle was going to leave his money."

"You might have found out, and not let me in fur all this. Here I've bin and gone and spent all your settlements on a milk-round, which I'd never have done if I hadn't thought summat more 'ud be coming in later."

"Well, I can't help it. I expect that as uncle knew I was well provided for, married and settled and all that, he thought he'd rather leave his stuff to someone who wasn't."

"I like that--and you the most expensive woman to keep as ever was.

"Hold your tongue, Ben. I'm surprised at you."

"I justabout will speak. A purty mess you've got me into. You ought to have told me before we married as he had a son out in Canada."

"I didn't know. This is the first I've heard of it. Anyhow, you surely don't mean to say you married me for my money."

"Well, I wouldn't have married you if you hadn't got none."

"For Shame!" said the lady friend.

Rose burst into tears, and young David, interrupted in the midst of an excellent meal, sent up a piercing wail.

"You'd better go downstairs till you know how to speak to your wife properly," said the female from Rye.

"My wife's deceived me!" shouted Reuben. "I made sure as she'd come in fur thousands of pounds when old Lardner died, and all she's got out of him is fifty pounds and his lousy furniture."

"Furniture?" said Rose, brisking up; "why from what you said I thought there was nothing. I could do with some furniture. I want a bedstead with brass knobs."

"Well, you shan't have it. I'll justabout sell the whole lot. You can't prevent me."

Rose's sobs burst forth afresh. Her friend ran up to her and took her in her arms, badly squeezing poor David, who became purple and entirely animal in his remonstrances.

Then the two women fairly stormed at Reuben. They told him he was a money-grubber, an unnatural father, that he had been drinking, that he ought to be ashamed of himself, that he had only got what he deserved. Reuben tried to stand up to them, but Rose had an amazing power of invective, and her friend, who was a spinster, but sometimes forgot it, filled in the few available pauses so effectively that in the end the wretched husband was driven from the room, feeling that the world held even worse things than wealthy and perfidious libertines.

§ 11.

Of course there was a reconciliation. Such things had begun to loom rather large in Reuben's married life. He had never had reconciliations with Naomi--the storms had not been fierce enough to warrant a special celebration of the calms. But he and Rose were always being reconciled. At first he had looked upon these episodes as sweets of matrimony, more blessed than any amount of honeymoon, but now he had gone a stage further and saw them merely as part of the domestic ritual--that very evening when he held Rose and the baby together in his big embrace he knew that in a day or two he would be staling the ceremony by another repetition.

He now began to crave for her active interest in his concerns. Hitherto he had not much missed it, it had been enough for him if when he came in tired and dispirited from his day's work, she had kissed him and rumpled back the hair from his forehead and called him her "poor old man." Her caresses and sympathy had filled the gap left by her help and understanding. But now he began to want something more. He saw the hollowness of her endearments, for she did nothing to make his burden lighter. She refused to realise the seriousness of his position--left stranded with an under taking which he would never have started if he had not been certain of increased capital in the near future. She was still extravagant and fond of pleasure, she either could not or would not master the principles of economy; she saw the fat lands of Odiam round her, and laughed at her husband when he told her that he was crippled with expenses, and in spite of crops and beasts and barns must live as if he were a poor man.

Of course, he had been rash--he saw now that he had been a fool to speculate with the future. But who could have foretold that heir of Lardner's?--no one had ever heard of him in Peasmarsh, and most people were as astonished as Reuben though not so disgusted. Sometimes he had an uneasy feeling that Lardner himself had not thought much about his distant son till a year or two ago. He remembered how the old man had disapproved of the way Rose's settlements were spent, and horrible conjectures would assail him that some earlier will had been revoked, and Rose disinherited because her uncle did not wish to put more money into her husband's pocket.

After all, fifty pounds and some furniture was very little to leave his only niece, who had lived with him, and had been married from his house. It was nonsense to plead the excuse that she was comfortably settled and provided for--the old man knew that Backfield had made a desperate plunge and could not recoup himself properly without ready money. He must have drawn up his will in the spirit of malice--Reuben could imagine him grinning away in his grave. "Well, Ben Backfield, I've justabout sold you nicely, haven't I?--next to no capital, tedious heavy expenses, and a wife who döan't know the difference between a shilling and a soverun. You thought you'd done yourself unaccountable well, old feller, I reckon. Now you've found out your mistake. And you can't git even wud me where I am. He! He!"

Reuben would imagine the corpse saying all sorts of insulting things to him, and he had horrible nightmares of its gibes and mockery. One night Rose woke in the dubious comfort of the new brass bed--which she had wheedled Reuben into sparing from the auction--to find her husband kneeling on his pillow and pinning some imaginary object against the wall while he shouted--"I've got you, you old grinning ghosty--now we'll see who's sold!"

She thought this immensely funny, and retailed it with glee to her female friends who continued to invade the place. The multitude of these increased as time went by, for Rose had the knack of attaching women to herself by easy bonds. She was extremely confidential on intimate subjects, and she was interested in clothes--indeed in that matter she was even practical, and a vast amount of dressmaking was done on the kitchen table, much to the disorganisation of Caro's cooking.

Sometimes there would be males too, and Reuben found that he could be jealous on occasion. It annoyed him to see a young counter-jumper from Rye sitting in the parlour with an unmanly tea-cup, and he would glare on such aristocracy as a bank-clerk or embryo civil servant, whose visits Rose considered lent a glamour to Odiam. Like a wise woman she used her husband's jealousy to her own advantage. She soon grew extremely skilful in manipulating it, and by its means wrung a good deal out of him which would not otherwise have been hers.

It was true that her young men were not always on the spot when she wanted them most, but on these occasions she used the drover Handshut, a comely, well-set-up young fellow, of independent manners. Reuben more than once had to drive him out of the kitchen.

"I wöan't have my lads fooling it in the house," he said to his wife, when he found her winding a skein of wool off Handshut's huge brown paws--"they've work enough to do outside wudout spannelling after you women."

Rose smiled to herself, and when she next had occasion to punish Reuben, invited his drover to a cup of tea.

Then there was an angry scene, stormings and tears, regrets, taunts, and abuse--and another reconciliation.

§ 12.

In time, as these battles became more usual, the family were forced to take sides. Peter supported Reuben, Caro supported Rose. There had been an odd kind of friendship between the downtrodden daughter and the gay wife ever since they had unpacked the latter's trunks together on her wedding night and Caro had cried because Rose had what she might never have.

Rose approved of this attitude--she liked to be envied; also Caro was useful to her in many ways, helping her in the house, taking the burden of many irksome duties off her shoulders, leaving her free to entertain her friends or mix complexion washes. Moreover, there was something in Caro which appealed in itself, a certain heavy innocence which tickled the humour of the younger, more-experienced woman. Once her stepdaughter had asked her what it felt like to be kissed, which had sent Rose into rockings of laughter and a carnival of reminiscence. She liked to dazzle this elderly child with her "affairs," she liked to shock her a little too. She soon discovered that Caro was deeply scandalised at the thought of a married woman having men friends to visit her, so she encouraged the counter-jumpers and the clerks for Caro's benefit as well as Reuben's.

It never occurred to her to throw these young people together, and give the girl a chance of fighting her father and satisfying the vague longings for adventure and romance which had begun to put torment into her late twenties. She often told her it was a scandal that she had never been allowed to know men, but her own were too few and useful to be sacrificed to the forlorn. Besides, Caro had an odd shy way with men which sometimes made them laugh at her. She had little charm, and though not bad-looking in a heavy black-browed style, she had no feminine arts, and always appeared to the very worst advantage.

Those were not very good times for Caro. She envied Rose, and at the same time she loved her, as women will so often love those they envy. Rose's attitude was one of occasional enthusiasm and occasional neglect. Sometimes she would give her unexpected treats, make her presents of clothes, or take her to a fair or to see the shops; at others she would seem to forget all about her. She thought Caro a poor thing for not standing up to Reuben, and despised her for her lack of feminine wiles. At the same time she would often be extremely confidential, she would pour out stories of love and kisses by moonlight, of ardent words, of worship, of ecstasy, and send Caro wandering over strange paths, asking strange questions of herself and fate, and sometimes--to the other's delight--of Rose.

"Wot do you do to make a man kiss you?"

"Oh, I dunno. I just look at him like this with my eyes half shut. Then if that isn't enough I part my lips--so."

The two women had been bathing. It was one of Rose's complaints that Odiam did not make enough provision for personal cleanliness in the way of baths and tubs. Reuben objected if she made the servant run up and downstairs ten times or so with jugs of hot water to fill a wash-tub in her bedroom--they had once had a battle royal about it, during which Rose had said some humorous things about her man's washing--so in summer she relieved the tension by bathing in the Glotten brook, where it ran temporarily limpid and reclused at the foot of the old hop-garden. She had persuaded Caro to join her in this adventure--according to her ideas it was not becoming for a woman to bathe alone; so Caro had conquered her objections to undressing behind a bush, and tasted for the first time the luxury of a daily, or all but daily, bath.

Now they were dry and dressed once more, all except their stockings, for Rose loved to splash her bare feet in the water--she adored the caress of water on her skin. It was a hot day, the sun blinked through the heavy green of the sallows, dabbling the stream with spots and ripples of light. June had come, with a thick swarthiness in the fields, and the scent of hayseed scorching into ripeness.

Rose leaned back against a trunk, a froth of fine linen round her knees. She splashed and kicked her feet in the stream.

"Yes--I've only to look at a man like this ... and he always does it."

"But not now!" cried Caro.

"What do you mean by 'not now'?"

"Now you're married."

"Oh, no--I'm talking of before. All the same...."

"Wot!"

"Nothing. You'd be shocked."

Caro looked gloomily at the water. She did not like being told she would be shocked, though she knew she would be.

At that moment there was a sound of "git back" and "woa" beyond the hedge. The next minute two horses stepped into the Glotten just by the bend.

"That must be Handshut," said Rose.

It was. He came knee-deep into the water with the horses, and, not seeing the women, plunged his head into the cool reed-sweetened stickle.

"Take care--he'll see us!"--and Caro sharply gathered up her legs under her blue and red striped petticoat. Rose continued to dabble hers in the water, even after Handshut had lifted his head and looked in her direction.

"Rose!" cried Caro.

"Well, why shouldn't he see my legs? They're unaccountable nice ones."

"All the more reason----"

"Not at all, Miss Prude."

Caro went crimson to the roots of her hair, and began pulling on her stockings. Rose continued to splash her feet in the water, glancing sidelong at Handshut.

"He's a nice lad, ain't he?"

Caro vouchsafed no reply.

"Reuben knows he's a nice lad, and he knows I know he's a nice lad. Hasn't he got a lovely brown skin?"

"Hush."

But Rose was in a devilish mood.

"Look here," she said suddenly, "I'm going to prove the truth of what I told you just now. I'm going to make that boy kiss me."

"Indeed you äun't."

"Yes I am. I'll go down and talk to him at the bend, and you can creep along and watch us through the hedge; and I'll shut my eyes and maybe

## part my lips, and he'll kiss me, you see if he don't."

"I won't see anything of the kind. I'm ashamed of you."

"Nonsense--it's only fun--we'll make a bet on it. If I fail, I'll give you my new white petticoat with the lace edging. And I'll allow myself ten minutes to do it in; that's quite fair, for it usually takes me longer."

"And what am I to give you if you succeed?"

"Nothing--the kiss'll be enough for me. I've been wanting to know what he was like to kiss for many a long day."

"Well, I'm justabout ashamed of you, and I wöan't have anything to do with it."

"You can keep out then."

"Wot if I tell fäather?"

"You wouldn't tell him--you wouldn't be such a sneak. After all, what's a man for, if it isn't to have a bit of fun with? I don't mean anything serious--it's just a joke."

"What'll Handshut think it?"

"Just a joke too. You're so glum, Caro--you take everything so seriously. There's nothing really serious in a kiss."

"Oh, äun't there!"

"No--it's just something one enjoys, same as cakes and bull's-eyes. I've kissed dozens of people in my time and meant nothing by it, nor they either. It's because you've no experience of these things that you think such a lot of 'em. They're quite unimportant really, and it's silly to make a fuss."

For some obscure reason Caro did not like to see herself credited with the harshness of inexperience. She did her best to assume an air of worldly toleration.

"Well, of course if it's only fun.... But fäather wudn't think it that."

"No, and I shouldn't like him to. You _are_ funny, Caro. Don't watch me if you're shocked--you can know nothing about it, and then you won't be to blame. But I'm going to have my lark in spite of you."

"Put on your stockings first," said Caro sternly.

Rose made a face at her, but pulled on a pair of gauzy stockings, securing them with garters of pale blue ribbon. Then she scrambled to her feet and edged her way through the reeds and bushes to where young Handshut stood at the bend.

He was not visible from where Caro sat, for he had come out of the water, and for a minute or two she vowed that she would have nothing to do with Rose's disgraceful spree. But after a time her curiosity got the better of her. Would Rose be able to do as she said--persuade her husband's drover to kiss her, simply by looking at him through half-closed eyes? Of course Handshut was very forward, Caro told herself, she had often disliked his attitude towards his mistress--he would not want much encouragement. All the same she wanted to see if Rose succeeded, and if she succeeded--how. She craned her neck, but could see nothing till she had crept a few yards through the reeds. Then she saw Rose and Handshut sitting just beyond the hedge, by the water's rim.

The horses were drowsing in the stream, flicking at the flies with their tails. Rose's dress made a brave blue splash against the green, and the gold-flecked chestnut of her hair was very close to Handshut's brown curls. Caro could dimly hear their voices, though she could not distinguish what they said. Five minutes had passed, and still, though close, there was a decent space between them. Then there was a little lull in the flow of talk. They were looking at each other. Caro crept nearer, something like a hot cinder in her heart.

They were still looking at each other. Then Handshut began to speak in a lower voice than usual; he stopped--and suddenly their heads stooped together, the gold and the brown touched, mingled, lingered, then drew slowly apart.

Caro sprang to her feet. The couple in the field had risen too, but they did not see her through the hedge. Her heart beat fiercely with an uncontrollable anger. She could have shouted, screamed at them--at her rather, this gay, comfortable, plump, spoilt wife, who had so many kisses that she could look upon one more or less as fun.

Rose's merry, rather strident laugh rang out on the hushed noon. Handshut stood facing her with his head held down; then she turned away from him and laughed again. Her laugh rose, fluttered--then suddenly broke.

It snapped like a broken knife. She turned back towards Handshut, and they faced each other once more. Then Caro saw a strange and rather terrible thing. She saw those two who had kissed for fun stumble together in an embrace which was not for fun at all, and kiss with kisses that were closer to tears than laughter.

§ 13.

There was a convention of silence between Caro and Rose. From that day forward neither made any allusion to the escapade which had ended so unexpectedly. At the same time it was from the other's silence that each learned most; for Caro knew that if her eyes had deceived her and that last kiss been like the first, for fun, Rose would have spoken of it--while Rose knew that Caro had seen the transmutation of her joke into earnest, because if she had not she would have been full of comments, questions, and scoldings.

Sometimes Caro in her innocence would think that she ought to speak to Rose, warn her, and plead with her to go carefully. But a vague fright sealed her lips, and she was held at a distance by the reserve in which the merry communicative Rose had suddenly wrapped herself. Those few minutes by the brookside had changed her, though it would be hard to say exactly in what the change lay. Caro was both repelled and baffled by it. A more skilled observer would say that Rose had become suddenly adult in her outlook as well as her emotions. For the first time she had seen in its sorrowful reality the force which she had played with for so many years. The shock disorganised her, drove her into a strange silence. Love and she had always been hail-fellow-well-met, they had romped and rollicked together through life; she had never thought that her good comrade could change, or rather--more unimaginable still--that she should suddenly discover that she had never really known him.

She was sobered. Her attitude towards things insensibly altered--to her husband, her child, her servants she was different, and yet in such a manner that none could possibly lay hands on the difference. Reuben's jealousies and suspicions were increased. She avoided Handshut, and she flourished the shopmen and clerks but feebly, yet he mistrusted her in a way he had never done when her enthusiasms were flagrant. This was not due to any psychological deduction, rather to a vague kind of guess, an intuition, an uneasiness that communicated itself from her to him.

Rose had begun to question her attitude towards her husband. She had hitherto never doubted for a moment that she loved him--of course she loved him! But now she asked herself--"If I love him, how is it that our most tender moments have never meant so much to me as that second kiss of Handshut's?" None of Reuben's kisses stood out in her memory as that kiss, he had never made the thrill of life go through her, he had never filled her heart to bursting with joy so infinite that it was sorrow, and sorrow so exquisite that it was joy. She would observe Reuben, and she would see him--old. He was fifty-four, and his hair was grey; there were crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes, and straight lines between his brows, where he had furrowed them as the pitiless sun beat down upon his face. There were other lines too, seamed and scored by hard struggles. He was strong as an ox, but she told herself he was beginning to move a bit stiffly. He had exposed himself so ruthlessly to the wet and cold that his joints had become rheumatic. It was nothing very much, but he liked to have her rub them occasionally, and up till then she had liked it too. Now she suddenly saw something dreary and preposterous in it--here she was married to a man thirty years older than herself, his chattel, his slave. She did not really love him--how could she, with all those years between them? She was fond of him, that was all--and he was getting older, and horribly cantankerous; and she was young--oh, God! she had never known till then how young.

Then suddenly it all changed. One day she found herself alone with Handshut--and nothing happened. His manner was quite that of the respectful servant towards his mistress, he made no allusion to the scene by the brook, spoke entirely of indifferent things. And she, she herself--that was the biggest, best surprise of all--did not feel the slightest embarrassment, or the slightest pang. On the contrary, all the passion which had scorched and withered her heart since the day of the kiss, seemed to die away, leaving her the old Rose, gay, confident, and at peace with all men.

She had been a fool--she had brooded over a little trivial incident till it had assumed unwarranted proportions and frightened her. Nothing whatever had happened to her and Handshut--they had shared a joke, that was all. She did not love him, she loved her husband, and she was a fool to have thought anything else. Love was not a drama or a tragedy, but a game and a lark, or at times a comfortable emotion towards one's lawful husband, who was the best and finest man in the world.

The joy of this discovery quite restored Rose, and she flirted with Handshut so outrageously in front of Reuben, that afterwards they had one of the biggest quarrels of their lives.

§ 14.

'Seventy-four was another bad year for Odiam, and it was more hopeless than its predecessors, for Reuben had now no expectations to sustain him. His position was really becoming serious. In '68 he had bought more land than he could afford, for fear that Grandturzel would buy it if he did not, and in '71 he had started his accursed milk-round, which had proved nothing but an expense and a failure. He still clung to it, for the shop by the Landgate gave him prestige, and he had always hoped that affairs would mend, but he was gradually coming to realise that prestige can be bought too dear, and that his affairs were too heavily clogged to improve of their own accord.

He must take steps, he must make some sacrifice. He resolved to sell the milk-round. It was either that or a mortgage, and a mortgage was far the greater ignominy. After all he had not had the round more than two or three years, it had never flourished, and the parting wrench would not be a bad one. Of course his reputation would suffer, but hard cash was at the present moment more valuable than reputation.

Unfortunately it was also more difficult to get. Those years had been bad for everybody, and none of the surrounding farmers seemed disposed to add to his burdens by so uncertain a deal. If the thing had not thriven with Backfield it was not likely to thrive with anyone else. For the first time Reuben cursed his own renown.

However, he hoped better things from the next spring. If lambing was good and the season promising, farmers would not be so cautious. Meantime he would keep Odiam in chains, he would save every penny, skim, pare, retrench, and learn the lesson of his lean years.

Unfortunately he had reckoned without Rose--Rose saw no need for such drastic measures. Because her man had been venturesome and stupid, made rash speculations, and counted on a quite unwarranted legacy, that was no reason for her to go without her new spring gown or new covers for her parlour chairs. She was once more expecting motherhood, and considered that as a reward for such self-sacrifice the most expensive luxuries were inadequate.

At the same time, feeling quite at ease about herself and Handshut, she led Reuben a freakish dance of jealousy, going to extravagant lengths in the hope of breaking down his resistance and goading him into compliance. But she did not find jealousy such a good weapon as it had used to be. Reuben would grow furious, thundery and abusive, but she never caught him, as formerly, in the softness of reaction, nor did the fear of a rival stimulate any more profitable emotion than rage.

The truth was that Reuben had now become desperate. He could not give in to Rose. If he sacrificed his farm to her in the smallest degree he ran the risk of ruin. He was torn in two by the most powerful forces of his life. On one side stood Odiam, trembling on the verge of catastrophe, needing every effort, every sacrifice of his, every drop of his sweat, every drop of his blood. On the other stood Rose, the dearest human thing, who demanded that for her sake he should forget his farm and the hopes bound up in it. He would not do so--and at the same time he would not lose Rose. Though her love no longer gave him the gift of peace, he still clung to it; her presence, her voice, her touch, still fired and exalted him. He would not let her go--and he would not let Odiam go.

The struggle was terrible; it wore him out. He fought it desperately--to neither side would he surrender an inch. Sometimes with Rose's arms about him, her soft cheek against his and her perfidy forgotten, he would be on the brink of giving her the pretty costly thing, whatever it was, that she wanted at the expense of Odiam. At others, out in his fields, or on the slope of Boarzell--half wild, half tamed--with all those unconquered regions swelling above him, he would feel that he could almost gladly lose Rose altogether, if to keep her meant the sacrifice of one jot of his ambition, one tittle of his hope. Then he would go home, and find her ogling Handshut through the window, or giving tea in her most seductive manner to some young idiot with clean hands--and round would go the wheel again--round and round....

As a matter of fact he had never been so secure of Rose as then; the very shamelessness of her flirtations was a proof of it--a whoop of joy, so to speak, at finding herself free of what she had feared would be a devastating passion. But who could expect Reuben to guess that? He saw only the freak of a treacherous nature, turning from him to men younger and more compliant than himself. Jealousy, from a fit, became a habit. He grew restless and miserable--he would run in suddenly from his work to see what his wife was doing, he would cross-examine Caro, he would even ask Pete to keep an eye on her. Sometimes he thought of dismissing Handshut, but the lad was an excellent drover, and Reuben had bursts of sanity in which he saw the foolishness of such a sacrifice. Rose flirted nowadays with every man she met--she was, he told himself furiously, a thoroughly light and good-for-nothing girl--she was not worth the loss of a fellow like Handshut.

Thus the days dragged on wretchedly for everyone except Rose, and in time they grew wretched for her too. She began to tire of the cracklings of the flame she had kindled, of Reuben's continued distrust and suspicion, of Caro's goggle-eyed disapproval, of Peter's spying contempt. The time of her lying-in drew nearer, she had to give up her gay doings, and felt frightened and alone. Everyone was against her, everyone disapproved of her. She began to wish that she had not found her love for Handshut to be an illusion, to wish that the kiss beside the Glotten brook had been in reality what she had dreamed it.... After all, is it not better to embrace the god and die than to go through the unhappy days in darkness?

§ 15.

One evening when Reuben was out inspecting a sick cow, Rose lay on the sofa languidly shelling peas. Once more it was June, and a rusty heat was outside blurring the orchard. Her fingers often lay idle in the bowl of peas, for though her task relieved the sweltering boredom which had weighed on her all day, every now and then a great lassitude would sweep over her, slacking her muscles, slacking her thoughts, till she drooped into a vague stagnation of sorrow.

She felt horribly, uselessly tired, her gay spirits had trickled from her in sheer physical discomfort, and in her heart an insistent question writhed like a little flame.

Two tears formed slowly in the corners of her eyes, welled at last over the silky, spidery lashes, and rolled down her cheeks. In themselves they were portents--for Rose hardly ever cried. More wonderful still, she did not know that she was crying, she merely became stupidly conscious of a smudging of those motionless trees beyond the garden, and a washing of the hard, copper-coloured sky.

She feebly put up her hand and brushed the veil away--already something strange had loomed through it, whipping her curiosity. A man was at the window, his head and shoulders dark against the sunset.

"Handshut!"

"Yes, ma'am."

She frowned, for she seemed to catch a ring of mockery in the respectful words. She wondered if it had always been there.

"Where's master?"

"In the shed with Brindle."

"And how is she?"

"I dunno--we've sent for the veterinary."

There was silence. Outside the flowers rustled in the slow hot breeze. The background of trees was growing dim, a web of shadow at the foot of the garden.

Handshut still leaned on the sill, and she realised that if his words were decorous, his attitude was not. Surely he had something better to do than hang in at her window. Half his face was in shadow, half was reddened by the smouldering sky--it was the face of a young gipsy, brown, sullen, and mocking. She suddenly pulled herself into a sitting posture.

"What are you staying for?--I reckon the master wants you."

"No--it's you that wants me, surelye."

The blood ebbed from her lips. She felt afraid, and yet glad. Then suddenly she realised what was happening and dragged herself back into dignity and anger.

"I don't want you."

"Yes you do."

"Kindly go at once, or I shall call someone."

"Rose!"

Once more she fell back into her state of terror and delight. His coolness seemed to paralyse her--she could not act. She could only lie and watch him, trembling. Why had he changed so?--he, who had never faltered in his attitude of stiff respect under her most outrageous and flirtatious digs.

"Rose," he said again, and his voice quivered as he said it, "you do want me a liddle bit now."

"What--what makes you think so?"

He shrugged his shoulders--there must have been some foreign streak in his yokel's blood.

"I döan't think it--I know. A year agone you dudn't want me, so I kipt back, I wurn't a-going to mäake you suffer. You wur frightened of that kiss...."

He had spoken it--her terror. "Don't!" she cried.

"You wur frightened, so I saw you wurn't ready, and I tried to mäake you feel as naun had happened."

"Yes, I thought you were a gentleman," she said with a sudden rap of anger.

"I äun't that. I'm just a poor labouring man, wot loves you, and wot you love."

She tried to speak, but the words burnt up in her mouth.

"And a labouring man you love's worth more than a mäaster you döan't love, I reckon."

She shrank back on the sofa, folding her arms over her breast and gripping her shoulders.

"You needn't look so frightened. I'm only saying it. It wöan't mäake no difference--unless you want it to."

"How dare you speak to me like this?"

"Because I see you're justabout miserable, and I thought I'd say as how I'm beside you--only that."

"How--how d'you know I'm miserable?"

"Plain enough."

The sky had faded behind him and a crimson moon looked over his shoulder.

"Plain enough," he repeated, "but you needn't be scared. I'll do naun you döan't want; I'll come no nearer you than I am now--unless you call me."

She burst into tears.

He did not move. His head and shoulders were now nothing but a dark block against the purple and blue of the sky. The moon hung just above him like a copper dish.

"Döan't cry," he said slowly--"I'm only looking in at the window."

She struggled to her feet, sobs shaking and tearing her, and stumbled through the darkness to the door. Still sobbing she dragged herself upstairs, clinging to the rail, and every now and then stopping and bending double. Her loud sobs rang through the house, and soon the womenfolk were about her, questioning her, soothing her, and in the end putting her, still weeping, to bed. While outside in the barn Reuben watched in agony beside a sick cow.

§ 16.

When late the next morning a woman ran out of the house into the cow-stable, and told Reuben that his wife had given him a fine boy, he merely groaned and shook his head.

He sat on a stool at the foot of Brindle's stall, and watched her as she lay there, slobbering her straw. His face was grim and furrowed, lines scored it from nose to mouth and across the forehead; his hair was damp and rough on his temples, his eyes were dull with sleeplessness.

"Wöan't yer have summat t'eat, mäaster?" asked Beatup, looking in.

All Reuben said was:

"Has the Inspector come?"

"No, mäaster--I'll bring him räound soon as he does. Wöan't you have a bite o' cheese if I fetch it?"

Reuben shook his head.

"Mäaster----" continued the man after a pause.

"Well?"

"I hear as how it's a liddle son...."

Reuben mumbled something inarticulate, and Beatup took himself off. His master's head fell between his clenched hands, and as the cow gave a sudden slavering cough in the straw, a shudder passed over his skin, and he hunched himself more despairingly.

Odiam had triumphed at last. Just when Reuben's unsettled allegiance should have been given entirely to the wife who had borne him a son, his farm had suddenly snatched from him all his thought, all his care, his love, and his anxiety, all that should have been hers. It seemed almost as if some malignant spirit had controlled events, and for Rose's stroke prepared a counter-stroke that should effectually drive her off the field. The same evening that Rose had gone weeping and shuddering upstairs, Reuben had interviewed the vet. from Rye and heard him say "excema epizootica." This had not conveyed much, so the vet. had translated brutally:

"Foot-and-mouth disease."

The most awful of a farmer's dooms had fallen on Reuben. The new Contagious Diseases of Animals Act made it more than probable that all his herd would have to be slaughtered. Of course, there would be a certain amount of compensation, but government compensation was never adequate, and with the multitudinous expenses of disinfecting and cleansing he was likely to sustain some crippling losses, just when every penny was vital to Odiam. He knew of a man who had been ruined by an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia, of another who had been forced by swine-fever to sell half his farm. Besides, any hope of a deal over his milk-round was now at an end. His dairy business, whether in town or country, was destroyed, and his reputation would be probably as unjustly damaged, so that he would not be able to adventure on that road for years--perhaps never again.

Small wonder, then, that the birth of a son brought no joy. The child was born to an inheritance of shame, the heir of disaster. Reuben's head bowed nearly to his knees. He felt old and broken. He began to see that it was indeed dreadfully possible that he had thriven all these years, conquered waste lands, and enriched fat lands, only to be overthrown at last by a mere arbitrary piece of ill-luck. How the disease had broken out he could not tell--he had bought no foreign cattle, indeed recently he had bought no cattle at all. He could not blame himself in the smallest degree; it was just a malignant capricious thrust--as if fate had wanted to show him that what had taken him years of labour and battle and sacrifice to build up, could be destroyed in as many days.

A little hope sustained him till the Inspector's visit--the vet. might have been mistaken, the Inspector might not order a wholesale destruction. But these faint sparks were soon extinguished. The loathed epidemic had undoubtedly lifted up its head at Odiam, and Reuben's entire herd of Jersey, Welsh, and Sussex cattle was doomed to slaughter.

The next few days were like a horrible jumbled nightmare, something malignant, preposterous, outside experience. Three men came over from the slaughterhouse at Rye, and plied their dreadful work till evening. The grey and dun-coloured Jerseys with their mild, protruding eyes, the sturdy Welsh with their little lumpy horns, the Sussex all coloured like a home-county landscape in reds and greys and browns--bowed their meek heads under the ox-killer, and became mere masses of meat and horn and hide. Profitless masses, too, for all the carcases were ordered to be burned.

The nightmare had its appropriate ending. Sixty dead beasts were burned in lime. Boarzell became Hinnom--it was the most convenient open space, so Reuben's herd was burned on it. From a dozen different pyres streamers of white smoke flew along the wind, and a strange terrible smell and tickling of the nostrils troubled the labourer on the westward lands by Flightshot or Moor's Cottage.

The neighbourhood sat up in thrilled dismay, and watched Odiam pass through its hour. The farm was shut off from civilisation by a barrier of lime--along every road that flanked it, outside every gate that opened on it, the stuff of fiery purification was spread. The fields with their ripening oats and delicately browned wheat, the orchards where apples trailed the boughs into the grass, the snug red house, and red and brown barns, the black, turrets of the oasts, all cried "Unclean! Unclean!"

Odiam was a leper. None might leave it without rubbing his boots in lime, no beasts could be driven beyond its hedges. More, the curse afflicted the guiltless--the markets at Rye and Battle were forbidden, the movements of cattle were restricted, and Coalbran once indignantly showed Reuben a certificate which he found he must have ready to produce every time he moved his single cow across the lane from the hedge pasture to the stream fallow.

Public opinion was against Backfield, and blamed him surlily for the local inconvenience.

"Döan't tell me," said Coalbran in the bar, "as it wurn't his fault. Foot-and-mouth can't just drop from heaven. He must have bought some furriners, and they've carried it wud 'em, surelye."

"Serve un right," said Ticehurst.

"Still, I'm sorry for him," said Realf of Grandturzel--"he's the only man hereabouts wot's really made a serious business of farming, and it's a shame he should get busted."

"He äun't busted yet," said Coalbran.

"But you mark my words, he will be," said Ticehurst; "anyways I shud lik him to be, fur he's a high-stomached man, and only deserves to be put down."

"He's down enough now, surelye! I saw him only yesterday by the Glotten meadows, and there was a look in his eye as I'll never forget."

"And yit he's as proud as the Old Un himself. I met him on Thursday, and I told him how unaccountable sorry we all wur fur him, and he jest spat."

"I offered to help him wud his burning," said Realf, "and he said as he'd see me and my lousy farm burnt first."

"He's a tedious contradictious old feller--he desarves all he's got. Let's git up a subscription fur him--that ud cut him to the heart, and he wudn't täake it, so it ud cost us naun, nuther."

The rest of the bar seemed to think, however, that Reuben might take the money out of spite, so Coalbran's charitable suggestion collapsed for lack of support.

Meantime, so fast bound in the iron of his misery that he scarcely felt the prick of tongues, Reuben lived through the final stages of his nightmare--those final stages of shock and upheaval when the fiery torment of the dream dies down into the ashes of waking. He wandered over his land in his lime-caked boots, scarcely talking to those at work on it, directing with mere mechanical activity the labour which now seemed to him nothing but the writhings of a crushed beetle. Everyone felt a little afraid of him, everyone avoided him as much as possible--he was alone.

His nostrils were always full of the smart of lime, and the stench of those horrible furnaces belching away on the slopes of the Moor. Would that burning never be done? For days the yellowy white pennons of destruction had flown on Boarzell, and that acrid reek polluted the harvest wind. Boarzell was nothing but a huge funeral pyre, a smoking hell.... "And the smoke of her went up for ever and ever."

§ 17.

An atmosphere of gloom lay over Odiam; Reuben brought it with him wherever he went, and fogged the house with it as well as the barns. Even Rose felt an aching pity for her strong man, something quite different from the easy gushes of condolence which had used to be all she could muster in the way of sympathy.

But Reuben did not take much notice of Rose, nor even of his little son. Now and then he would look at them together, sigh impatiently, then go out of the room.

Sometimes he would be more interested, and, in a fit of reaction from his proud loneliness, turn to her as of old for comfort. But those were the bitterest hours of all, for in them he would glimpse a difference, an aloofness. She had been much quieter since the birth of the second boy, she had not recovered her health so rapidly, and her eyes were big in the midst of bistred rings. She had given up flirting with Handshut, or with the young men from Rye, but she did not turn from them to her husband. Though he could see she was sorry for him, he felt--vaguely, uncertainly, yet tormentingly--that she was not all his, as she had been in brighter months. Sometimes he did not much care--sometimes a dreadful passion would consume him, and once he caught her to his breast and bruised her in his arms, crying--"I wöan't lose you--I wöan't lose you too."

Rose could not read his mood; one day she would feel her husband had been alienated from her by his sorrow, another that his need of her was greater than ever. She herself carried a heavy heart, and in her mind a picture of the man who was "only looking in at the window." She seemed to see him standing there, with the moon rising over his shoulder, while from behind him something in the garden, in the night, called ... and called.

She could still hear that call, muted, tender, wild--the voice of her youth and of her love, calling to her out of the velvet night, bidding her leave the house where the hearth was piled with ashes, and feel the rain and the south wind on her lips. There was no escape in sleep, for her dreams showed her that window framing a sky soft and dark as a grape, with the blackness of her lover's bulk against it, while the moon rose over his shoulder, red, like a fiery pan....

She felt afraid, and did not know where to turn. She avoided Handshut, who stood remote; and though her husband sometimes overwhelmed her with miserable hungry love, he often scarcely seemed to notice her or her children, and she knew that she counted far less than his farm. He was terribly harsh with her now, frowning by the hour over her account-books, forbidding this or that, and in his gloom scarcely noticing her submission.

July passed. Odiam was no longer cut off from the rest of the world by lime. Reuben with the courage of despair began to organise his shattered strength. He discharged Piper--now that his cows were gone he could easily do with a hand less. He sometimes wondered why he had not discharged Handshut, but the answer was always ready--Handshut was far the better workman, and Odiam now came easily before Rose. Not that Reuben's jealousies had left him--they still persisted, though in a different form. The difference lay in the fact that now he would not sacrifice to them the smallest scrap of Odiam's welfare.

He sometimes asked himself why he was still jealous. Rose no longer gave him provocation, she was much quieter than she had used to be, and seemed busy with her children and straitened house-keeping. It was once more a case of instinct, of a certain vague sensing of her aloofness. Often he did not trouble about it, but sometimes it seared through him like a hot bar.

One evening he came home particularly depressed. He had just finished the most degrading transaction of his life--the raising of a mortgage on the Flightshot side of his land. It was horrible, but it was unavoidable. He could not now sell his milk-round, and yet he absolutely must have ready money if he was to stand up against circumstances. The mortgagee was a wealthy Rye butcher, and Reuben had hopes that the disgraceful affair might be kept secret, but also an uneasy suspicion that it was at that moment being discussed in every public-house.

He went straight to find Rose, for that mood was upon him. The due of loneliness which his shame demanded had been paid during the drive home from Rye, and now he quite simply and childishly wanted his wife. She was in the kitchen, stooping over some child's garment, the little frills of which she was pleating in her fingers. She lifted her head with a start as he came in, and he saw that her face was patched with tearstains.

"Wot've you bin crying for?" he asked as he slid a chair close to hers. He wondered if the humiliation of Odiam had at last come to mean to her a little of what it meant to him.

"I haven't been crying."

"But your face ..."

"That's the heat."

He drew back from her a little. Why should she lie to him about her tears?

"Oh, well, if you döan't choose to tell me ... But I've eyes in my head."

She seemed anxious to propitiate him.

"How did it go off? Have you settled with Apps?"

He nodded.

"It's all over now--I've touched bottom."

"Nonsense, Ben. You mustn't say that. After all there's nothing extraordinary about a mortgage--uncle had one for years on a bit of his farm at Rowfant. Besides, think of all you've got left."

He laughed bitterly. "I äun't got much left."

Then suddenly he turned towards her as she sat there by him, her head bowed over her work--her delicate, rather impertinent nose outlined against the firelight, her cheek and neck bewitched with running shadows.

"But I've got you."

A great tenderness transported him, a great melting. He put his arm round her waist, and made as if to pull her close.

She drew back from him with a shudder.

It was only for a moment--the next she yielded. But he had seen her reluctance, felt the shiver of repulsion go through her limbs. He rose, and pushed back his chair.

"I'm sorry," he said in a low thick voice--"I'm sorry I interrupted your--crying."

Then he went out, and gave Handshut a week's notice.

§ 18.

Rose was intensely relieved. She felt that at last and for ever the tormenting mystery would have gone from her life. Once Handshut was away, she told herself, she would slip back into the old groove--a little soberer and softer perhaps, but definitely free of that Reality which had been so terribly different from its toy-counterfeit.

Once Handshut was gone, her heart would not pursue him. It was his continual presence that tormented. True, he never sought her out, or persecuted her, or even spoke to her without her speaking first--he only looked in at the window.... But a woman soon learns what it means to have a man's face between her and the simplicities of life in her garden, between her and the divinities of the stars and moon.

Rose did not find in her love a sweetness to justify the bitterness of its circumstances. The fact that it had been awakened by a man who was her inferior in the social-agricultural scale, who could give her nothing of the material prosperity she so greatly prized, instead of inspiring her with its beauty, merely convinced her of its folly. She saw herself a woman crazed, obsessed, bewitched, and she looked eagerly forward to the day when the spell should be removed and she should go back chastened to the common, comfortable things of life.

But meantime a strange restlessness consumed her, tinctured by a horrible boldness. There were moments when she no longer was afraid of Handshut, when she felt herself impelled to seek him out, and make the most of the short time they had together. There could be no danger, for he was going so soon ... so few more words, so few more glances.... Thus her mind worked.

She was generally able to control these impulses, but as the days slipped by they grew too strong for her untrained resistance. She felt that she must make the most of her chances because they were so limited--before he went for ever she must have one more memory of his voice, his look--his touch ... oh, no! her thoughts had carried her further than she had intended.

She found herself beginning to haunt the places where she would be likely to meet him--the edge of the horse-pond or the Glotten brook, the door of the huge, desolate cow-stable, where six cheap Suffolks emphasised the empty stalls. Reuben did not seem to take any notice of her, he had relieved his feelings by dismissing Handshut, and his farm had swallowed him up again. Rose felt defiant and forlorn. Both her husband and her lover seemed to avoid her. She would lean against the great wooden posts of the door, in the listless weary attitude of a woman's despair.

Then two days before the end he came. As she was standing by the barn door he appeared at the horse-pond, and crossed over to her at once. He had seen that she was waiting for him--perhaps he had seen it on half a dozen other occasions when she had not seen him.

Rose could calm the silly jumps of her heart only by telling herself that this was quite an accidental meeting. She made an effort to be commonplace.

"How's Topsy's foal?"

"Doing valiant. Will you come out wud me to-morrow evenun to see the toll-burning?"

She flushed at his audacity.

"No!--how can I?"

"You can quite easy, surelye. Mäaster's going to Cranbrook Fair, and wöan't be home till läate. It's the last night, remember."

She made a gallant effort to be the old Rose.

"What's that to me?--you've got some cheek!"

"I'm only not pretending as much as you are. Why shud you pretend? Pretending 'ull give you naun sweet to remember when I'm gone."

"What tolls are they going to burn?"

"The gëates up at Leasan and Mockbeggar, and then over the marsh to Thornsdale. It 'ud be a shame fur you to miss it, and mäaster can't täake you, since he's going to Cranbrook."

"It would never do if people saw us."

"Why? Since your husband can't go, wot's more likely than he shud send his man to täake you?"

Rose shuddered. "I'm not coming."

Handshut turned on his heel.

§ 19.

Already the turnpike gates had disappeared from the greater part of Sussex, but they still lingered in the Rye district, for various reasons, not always bearing close inspection. There had been an anti-toll party both before and after the famous Scott's Float gate had catastrophically ended Reuben's political career--and at last this had carried the day. All the gates were to come down except those on the Military Road, and the neighbourhood was to celebrate their abolition by burning them in tar.

Reuben, still proud and sore, stood aloof from local jollities--besides, he had heard that there were to be some cheap milkers for sale at Cranbrook Fair, and he was anxious to add a little to his dairy stock. Though a large milk-round was out of the question, the compensation money he had received from Government would allow him to carry on a small dairy business, as in humbler days. Of course, the fact that he had lost over sixty cows from foot-and-mouth disease would materially damage his prospects even in a limited sphere, but a farm which let its dairy rot was doomed to failure, and Reuben was still untamed by experience, and hoped much from small beginnings.

So early that morning he drove off in his gig, accompanied by Pete, who had a good eye for cattle, and had moreover challenged the Canterbury Kid for a purse of five guineas. Rose watched them go, and waved good-bye unnoticed to her man, as he leaned forward over the reins, thinking only of how much he could spare for a yearling. She went back into the house, and stoned plums. After dinner she mended the children's clothes, with a little grimace for the faded ribbons and tattered frills which Reuben would not allow her to renew. Then she took the baby and little David for an airing in the orchard--Handshut, raking unromantically in the midden, saw her sitting, a splash of faded violet under an apple tree--then she bathed them and put them to bed.

All this was a propitiatory offering to the god of the hearth, who, however, did not take the slightest notice, or stay as he so easily might (so the scripture saith) that hunger for her beloved which was gnawing at the young wife's heart. Instead, it seemed to grow in its devouring pain--her domesticity stimulated rather than deadened it, and by the time her day's tasks were over it had eaten up her poor heart like a dainty, and she was its unresisting prey.

After the children were in bed she changed her dress, putting on the best she had--a washing silk with pansies sewn over it, one of her wedding gowns. She frowned at it as she had frowned at the babies' dresses--it was so old-fashioned, and worn in places. She suddenly found herself wishing that she loved Reuben so much as not to mind wearing old clothes for his sake. For the first time she could visualise such a state of affairs, for she had met the man for whom she would have worn rags. If only that man had been Reuben, her lawful husband, instead of another! "But I'll be true to him! I'll be true to him!" she murmured, and found comfort in the words till she realised that it was the first time that she had ever glimpsed the possibility of not being true.

She went down into the kitchen, where Caro was baking suet.

"Caro, I'm going out to see the gates burned. I expect I'll be back before Ben is, but if I'm not, tell him where I'm gone."

"You can't go by yourself--he wudn't like it."

"I'm not going by myself--Handshut's taking me."

Caro's suety hands fell to her sides.

"Rose--you know--how can you?--that's worse than alone, surelye!"

"Nonsense! What's more natural that one of my servants should come with me, since my husband can't?"

"Your servant...."

"Yes, my servant."

Caro, regardless of the suet on her hands, hid her face in them.

"Oh, Rose, I can't tell him--I daren't. Why, he turned away Handshut because of you."

"He did not, miss--you're impudent!"

"Well, why shud fäather git shut of the best drover he ever had on his farm, if it äun't----"

"Be quiet! I won't hear such stuff. I'm not going to be a prisoner, and miss my fun just because you and Ben are jealous fools."

"But I daren't tell him where you've agone."

"I dare say you won't have to--I'm not staying out all night."

She laughed one of her coarse screaming laughs, with the additional drawback of mirthlessness; then she went out of the room, leaving Caro sobbing into suety palms.

Outside in the yard, Handshut stood by the pump, apparently absorbed in studying the first lights of Triangulum as they kindled one by one in the darkening sky.

Rose pattered up to him in the shabby white kid shoes that had been so trim and smart five years ago.

"I've changed my mind."

"Then you äun't coming."

"Yes, I am."

"Then you haven't changed it."

§ 20.

The roads outside Rye were dark with people. A procession was forming up at Rye Foreign, and another at the foot of Cadborough Hill. Outside the railway station a massed band played something rather like the Marseillaise, while the grass-grown, brine-smelling streets were spotted with stragglers, hurrying up from all quarters, some carrying torches that flung shifting gleams on windows and gable-ends.

Immense barrels of tar had been loaded on four waggons, to which four of the most prosperous farmers of the district had harnessed teams. Odiam was of course not represented, nor was Grandturzel, but three bell-ringing sorrels had come all the way from Kitchenhour, while the marsh farms of Leasan, the Loose, and Becket's House, accounted for the rest.

The crowd surged round the waggons, cheered, joked, sang. The whole of Rye was there--prosperous tradesmen from the High Street or Station Road, innkeepers, farmers, shop-assistants, chains of fishermen in high boots, jerseys, and gold ear-rings, coast-guards from the Camber, and one or two scared-looking women clinging to stalwart arms.

Rose shrank close to Handshut, though she did not take his arm. Sometimes the crowd would fling them together, so that they were close as in an embrace, at others they would stand almost apart, linked only by sidelong glances. The flare of a torch would suddenly slide over Handshut's face, showing her its dark gipsy profile, and she would turn away her eyes as from something too bright to bear.

Every now and then the crowd would start singing inanely:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs, Rate, skate, and crabs. God save the Queen!"

It was like a muddled dream--people seemed to have no reason for what they did or shouted; they just ebbed and flowed, jostled and jambed, ran hither and thither, sang and laughed and swore. Rose looked round her to see if she could recognise anyone; now and then a face glowed on her in the torch-light, then died away, once she thought she saw the back of a tradesman's daughter whom she knew--but her chief feeling was of an utter isolation with her loved one, as if he and she stood alone on some sea-pounded island against which the tides of the world roared in vain.

At last the crowd began to move. The band had crushed through to the front of it, and was braying Rule Britannia up Playden Hill; then came the waggons, then the stout champions of freedom, singing at the pitch of their lungs:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs, Rate, skate, and crabs. God save the Queen!"

The stars winked on the black zenith, while troubled winds sped and throbbed over the fields that huddled in mystery and silence on either side of the road--where noise and skirmish and darting lights, with the odours of warm human bodies, and the thudding and scrabbling of a thousand feet, proclaimed the People's holiday.

They flowed through Playden like a torrent through an open sluice, sweeping up and carrying on all sorts of flotsam--villagers from cottage doors, ploughboys from the farms down by the Military Canal, gipsies from Iden Wood ... a mixed multitude, which the central mass absorbed, till all was one steaming and shouting blackness.

The first gate was at Mockbeggar, where the road to Iden joins that which crosses the Marsh by Corkwood and Baron's Grange. In a minute it was off its hinges, and swealing in tar, while lusty arms pulled twigs, branches, even whole bushes out of the hedges to build its pyre.

Rose shrank close to Handshut, so close that the clover scents of her laces were drowned in the smell of the cowhouse that came from his clothes. She found herself liking it, drinking in that soft, mixed, milky odour ... till a cloud of stifling tar-smoke swept suddenly over them, and she reeled against him suffocating, while all round them people choked and gasped and sneezed.

The fire was lighted, a great crimson tongue screamed up in front of two motionless poplars, leaped as high as their tops, then spread fan-shaped, roaring. Men and women joined hands and danced round the blaze--in the distance, above the surging pack of heads, Rose could see them jumping and capering, with snatches of song that became screams every minute.

The fire roared like a storm, and the wood crackled with sudden yelping reports. The dancing girls' hats flew off, their hair streamed wide, their skirts belled and swirled ... there was laughter and obscene remarks from the onlookers. Many from the rear pressed forward to join the dance, and those who were trampled on screamed or cursed, while one or two women fainted. Rose felt as if she would faint in the heat and reek of it all. She leaned heavily against Handshut and closed her eyes ... then she realised that his arm was round her. He held her against him, supporting her, while either she heard or thought she heard him say--"Döan't be scared, liddle Rose--I'm wud you. I wöan't let you fall."

She opened her eyes. The people were moving. The Mockbeggar gate had been accounted for, and they rolled on towards Thornsdale. The jamb was not so alarming, for a good many revellers had been left behind, dancing round the remains of the bonfire, crowding into the public-house, or scattering in couples over the fields.

But though the jostling was no longer dangerous, Handshut still kept his arm about Rose, and held her close to his side. Now and then she made a feeble effort as if to free herself, but he held her fast, and she never put out her full strength. They walked as if in a dream, they two together, not speaking to anyone, not speaking to each other. Rose saw as if in a dream the Sign of Virgo hanging above Stone. The dipping of the lane showed the Kentish marshes down in the valley, with the hills of Kent beyond them, twinkling with lights. The band lifted the strains of Hearts of Oak and Cheer, Boys, Cheer above the thud of marching feet, or occasionally drifted into sentiment with Love's Pilgrim--while every now and then, regardless of what was being played, two hundred throats would bray:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs, Rate, skate, and crabs. God save the Queen!"

It was about nine o'clock when they came to Thornsdale, down on the Rother levels; the moon had risen and the marsh was smeethed in white. The air was thick with a strong-scented miasma, and beside the dykes long lines of willows faded into the mist. Here another orgy was started, in grotesque contrast with the pallid sleep of water. The gate that barred the Kent road was torn down, the bonfire prepared, the dance begun.

The mists became patched with leaping shadows, and a dull crimson wove itself into the prevailing whiteness. Flaming twigs and sparks hissed into the dykes, rolls of acrid tar-smoke spread like a pall over the river and the Highnock Sewer, under which their waters were spotted with fire. The ground was soon pulped and poached with the jigging feet, and mud and water spurted into the dancers' faces.

It was all rather ugly and ridiculous, and as before at Mockbeggar, the crowd began to straggle. This time there was no public-house to swallow up strays, but the marsh spread far and wide, a Land of Promise for lovers, who began to slink off two by two into the mists. Some who were not lovers formed themselves into noisy groups, and bumped about the lanes--waking the farmers' wives from Bosney to Marsh Quarter.

Rose felt Handshut's arm clinging more tenderly about her, and she knew that he wanted to lead her away from the noise and glare, to the coolness and loneliness of the waterside. She wanted to go--her head ached, her nostrils tingled, and her eyes were sore with the fumes of tar, her ears wearied with the din.

"Let's go home," she said faintly--"it's getting late."

"We can go back by Corkwood across the marshes. It'll be quicker, and we shan't have no crowd spanneling round."

They elbowed their way into the open, and soon the noise had died into a subdued roar, not so loud as the sigh of the reeds, while the bonfire showed only as a crimson stain on the eastward piling fogs.

In time the contrast of silence grew quite painful. It ached. Only the sough of the wind in the reeds troubled it--the feet of Rose and Handshut were noiseless on the grass, they breathed inaudibly, only the breath of the watching night was heard.

They skirted the Corkwood dyke, from which rose the stupefying, sodden, almost flavorous, smell of dying reeds--a waterfowl suddenly croaked among them, and another answered her with a wail from beyond Ethnam. The willows were shimmering silver dreams, bathed in the light of the moon which hung above the Fivewatering and had washed nearly all the stars out of the sky--only Sirius hung like a dim lamp over Great Knell, while Lyra was faint above Reedbed in the north.

Rose walked half leaning against Handshut. She felt a very little feeble thing in the power of that great amorous night. The warm breath of the wind in her hair, the caress of moonlight on her eyes, the throbbing, miasmic, night-sweet scents of water and grass, the hush, the great sleep ... all tore at her heart, all weakened her with their huge soft strength, all crushed with their languors the poor resistance of her will.

The tears began to roll down her cheeks, they shone on her face in the moonlight--they fell quite fast as she walked on gripped against her lover's heart. She was leaning more and more heavily against him, for her strength was ebbing fast--oh, if he would only speak!--she could not walk much further, and yet she dared not rest beside him on that haunted ground.

At last they came to where the high land rose out of the levels like a shore out of the sea, with a lick of road on it, winding up to Peasmarsh. It was here that Rose's uncertain strength failed her, she lurched against Handshut, and still encircled by his arms slid to the grass.

They were in a huge meadow, sloping upwards to mysterious, night-wrapped hedges. The moonlight still trembled over the marsh, kindling sudden streaks of water, steeping fogs, silvering pollards and reeds. One could distinctly see the little houses on the Kent side of the Rother, Ethnam, and Lossenham, and Lambstand, some with lights blinking from them, others just black patches on the moon-grey country. Rose looked out towards them, and tried to picture in each a hearth beside which a husband and wife sat united ... then suddenly they were blotted out, as Handshut's face loomed dark between her and them, and his lips slowly fastened on her own.

For a moment she yielded to the kiss, then suddenly tore herself away.

"Rose ..."

"Let me go--I can't."

"Rose, why shud you pretend? You döan't love the mäaster, and you do love me. Why shudn't we be happy together?"

"We--I can't."

"Why?--I love you, and you love me. Come away wud me--you shan't have a hard life----"

"--It's not that."

"Wot is it then?"

"It's--oh, I can't--I'm his wife."

She pushed him from her as he tried to take her in his arms again, and stumbled to her feet.

"It's late--I--I must go home."

"Rose, you queer me."

He had risen too, and stood before her in mingled pain and surprise. He thought her resistance mere coyness, and suddenly flung his arms round her as she stood.

She began to cry.

"No, no--don't be so cruel! Let me go!--I'm his wife."

§ 21.

The walk home was dreary, for Rose and Handshut misunderstood each other, and yet loved each other too. She was silent, almost shamefaced, and he was a little disgusted with her--he felt that she had misled him, and in his soreness added "willingly."

They scarcely spoke, and the night spread round them its web of pondering silence. Aldebaran guttered above Kent, and the blurred patch of the Pleiades hung over the curded fogs that hid the Rother. There was no wind, but every now and then the grass rippled and the leaves fluttered, while a low hissing sound went through the trees. Sometimes from the distance came the shouts of some revellers still at large, echoing weirdly over the moon-steeped fields, and divinely purged by space and night.

Sobs were still thick in Rose's throat, when they came to Handshut's cottage, a little tumble-down place, shaped like a rabbit's head. She stopped.

"Don't come any further."

"Why?"

"It would be better if I wasn't seen with you."

He looked at her white face.

"You're frighted."

"No."

"Yes--and I'm coming wud you, surelye."

"I should be frightened if you came."

She managed to persuade him to go his different way--though the actual moment of their parting was always a blur in her memory. Afterwards she could not remember if they had kissed, touched hands, or parted without a word. Her throat was still full of sobs when she came to Odiam; she was panting, too, for she had run all the way--she did not know why.

The house was swimming in the light of the western moon. Its strange curves and bulges, its kiln-shaped ends, and great waving sprawl of roof all shone in a white glassy brilliance, which was somehow akin to peace. There was a soft flutter of wind in the orchard and in the sentinel poplars, while now and then came that distant night-purged scrap of song:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs, Rate, skate, and crabs. God save the Queen!"

Rose wondered uneasily what time it was. Surely it could not be very late, and yet the house was shut up and the windows dark.

She gently rattled the door-handle. There was no denying it--the house was locked up. It must be later than she thought--that walk on the Rother levels must have been longer than it had seemed to her thirsty love. A thrill of fear went through her. She hoped Reuben would not be angry. She was his dutiful wife.

She stood hesitating on the doorstep. Should she knock? Then a terrible thought struck her. Reuben must have meant to lock her out. Otherwise he would have sat up for her, however late she had been. She started trembling all over, and felt her skin grow damp.

She began to knock, first softly, then more desperately. She must get in. Nothing was to be heard except her own despairing din--the house seemed plunged in sleep. Rose's fear grew, spread black bat's wings, and darkened all her thoughts--for she knew that someone must have heard her, she could not make all this racket quite unheard.

What could she do? Caro slept at the back of the house, and it struck her that she had better go round, and throw up some earth at her window. Perhaps Caro would let her in. She stepped back from the door, and was just turning the corner of the house when a window suddenly shot open above her, and Reuben's tousled head looked out.

"There's no use your trying to git in."

Rose gave a faint scream. In the moonlight her husband's face looked distorted, while his voice came thick and unnatural.

"Ben!"

"Go away. Go away to where you've come from. I shan't let you in."

"You can't keep me out here. It isn't my fault I'm late--and I'm not so very late, either."

"It's one o'clock o' the marnun."

She felt her heart grow sick. If she had been happy for four hours, why, in God's name, had they not passed like four hours instead of like four minutes?

"Ben, I swear I didn't know. I was up to no harm, I promise you. Please, please--oh please let me in!"

"Not I--at one o'clock o' the marnun--after you've bin all night wud a----"

"Ben, I swear I'm your true wife."

She fell against the wall, and her hair, disordered by embraces, suddenly streamed over her shoulders. The sight of it made Reuben wild.

"Git off--before I täake my gun and shoot you."

"Oh, Ben!..."

"Höald your false tongue. You're no wife o' mine from this day forrard. I wöan't be cuckolded in my own house."

His face was swollen, his eyes rolled--he looked almost as if he had been drinking.

"Ben, don't drive me away. I've been true to you, indeed I have, and Handshut's going to-morrow. Let me in--please let me in. I swear I've been true."

"I want none o' your lying swears--at one o'clock o' the marnun. Go back to the man you've come from--he'll believe you easier nor I."

"Ben, I'm your wife."

"I tell you, you're no wife of mine. I'm shut of you--you false, fair, lying, scarlet woman. You needn't cry and weep, nuther--none 'ull say as Ben Backfield wur a soft man fur woman's tears."

He shut the window with a slam. For some moments Rose stood leaning against the wall, her sobs shaking her. Then, still sobbing, she turned and walked away.

She walked slowly down the drive till she came to the little path that led across the fields to Handshut's cottage. A light gleamed from the window, and she crept towards it through tall moon-smudged grass--while from the distance came for the last time:

"Soles, plaice, and dabs, Rate, skate, and crabs. God save the Queen!"

§ 22.

A glassy yellow broke into the sky like a curse. It shone on Reuben's eyes, and he opened them. They were pink and puffed round the rims, and the whites were shot with little blood-vessels. His cheeks were yellow, and round his mouth was an odd greyish tinge. He had lain dressed on his bed, and was surprised to find that he had slept. But the sleep had brought no refreshment--there was a bad taste in his mouth, and his tongue felt rough and thick.

He sat up on the tumbled bed and looked round him. Rose's nightgown was folded on her pillow, and over a chair lay a pair of the thin useless stockings he had often scolded her for wearing. A drawer was open, and from it came the soft perfume that adhered to everything she put on. He suddenly sprang out of bed and shut it with a kick.

"Durn her!" he said, and then two sobs tore their way painfully up his throat, shaking his whole body.

An hour later he went down. He had washed and tidied himself, none the less he disconcerted the household. Caro had lain awake all night,

## partly from misery, partly because of the baby, which she had been

obliged to take charge of in the mother's absence. She had brought it down into the kitchen with her, and it had lain kicking in its cradle while she prepared the breakfast. She was worn out already after her sleepless night, and could not prevent the tears from trickling down her face as she cut bread for the meal.

"Stop that!" said Reuben roughly.

Except for this, he did not speak--nor after a few attempts on the former's