FORE:His sons were now growing upAlbert was nearly eighteen, and Peter, though a year younger, looked a full-grown man, with his immense build and dark hairy skin. Pete was still the most satisfactory of Reuben's children, he had a huge and glad capacity for work, and took a real interest in Odiam's progress, though it was not his life, as it was his father's. It was strange, Reuben thought, that none of the other boys seemed to have a glimmer of enthusiasm. Though they had grown up under the shadow of Boarzell, and from their earliest childhood taken part in the struggle, they seemed still to think more about the ordinary things of young men's lives than the great victory before them. It was disappointing. Of course one expected it of girls, but Reuben's heart ached a little because the men children on whom he had set such hope and store cared[Pg 127] so little about what was life itself to him. It is true that Robert worked well, nearly as well as Pete, but that was only because he was of a docile, tractable nature. He did not share his father's dreamsBoarzell to him was only a piece of waste ground with some trees on it."I am afraid, Isabella," replied De Boteler, "that the knave has escaped us. Dean Forest is a royal demesne, and a bondman, remaining unclaimed, in such a place, for a year and a day, can claim the privilege of a king's villein."
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