Naomi slept too, huddled in a chair, every now and then a sob quivering through her. The winter dawn slowly crept in on her, showing her pitiful figureshowing Mrs. Backfield sick and puffy with tears, Reuben dry-eyed beside the bed, and Harry respited in sleep. Outside the crest of Boarzell was once more visible in the growing lightdark, lumpish, malevolent, against the kindling of the sky.
"Yours!"Their attitude, at first constrained, soon became more cordial than either would have thought possible in earlier days. Richard made no tactless references to his brothers and sisters, and admired and praised everything, even the pigsties that had used to make him sick. They went out into the fields and inspected the late lambs, Richard showing that he had lost every trace of shepherd-lore that had ever been his. His remarks on shearing gave Reuben a very bad opinion of the English Bar; however, they parted in a riot of mutual civility, and Richard asked his father to dine with him at the Mermaid in a couple of days.The shadows of evening were deepening, and the monk still stood gazing upon the town, and living over again the past, when a female with an infant in her arms, and leading a child by the hand, passed by. But she again turned to look upon him, first timidly, then more confidently, till snatching her hand from the slight grasp of the child, she sprung towards him, and sinking at his feet, caught his right hand in both hers, and pressed it to her bosom."Don't you miss them at all?"His vigilance increased when their first love affairs began. At first they would gabble innocently to him about pretty girls they had seen in Rye, but they soon found out such conversation was most unwelcome. Reuben looked upon love as the biggest curse and snare of life; if David and William fell in love they would lose interest in Odiam, they would do something silly like Robert, or mad like Caro, or bad like Rose. Love was the enemy of Odiam, and Reuben having trodden it down himself was not going to see it rise and stamp on his boys. He gave them the benefit of his experience in no measured terms:
