"Wur it you or him wot thought of the Scott's Float G?ate?""I dunno?un't seen un this mornun. Ahthur he be!""Pardon!" interrupted Turner"there is no pardon wanted: let them do as they ought to do, and there will be no rising."
FORE:He was dismayed by the lack of local enthusiasm. He dug up one or two of his own pastures and planted wheat; he even sacrificed ten acres of his precious hops,[Pg 410] but nobody seemed inclined to follow his example. The neighbourhood was ornately patriotic, flags flew from the oast-houses at Socknersh, union Jacks washed to delicate pastel shades by the chastening rainwhile the Standard misleadingly proclaimed that the Royal Family was in residence at Burntbarns. On Odiam the boys sang:"Sack your chaff, nowcan't you sack your chaff?"
ONE:Robert and Peter also did their share, feeding fowls, weeding vegetables. Robert was a stolid, well-behaved child, a trifle uninteresting, but hard-working and obedient. Pete was Reuben's delighta wonderfully sturdy little fellow, who often amazed his father and Beatup by his precocious feats of strength. To amuse them he would sometimes shoulder Beatup's tools, or pick up a bag of chicken-meal with his teethhe could even put his back against a young calf and prevent it entering a gate or reaching its stall. Reuben was careful not to let him strain himself, but he loved to handle his son's arms and shoulders, feeling the swell of the muscles under the skin. He even taught him the rudiments of boxing; he had had some practice himself as a boy in the Fair sparring booth, and though of late years he had been too busy to keep it up, he was a good teacher for little Pete, who could soon lick all his brothers and even deliver respectable punishment on Beatup's[Pg 122] nether limbs. Richard at the age of six was not of any great agricultural value, but at the village school he outshone the elder boys. Sometimes he gave Reuben anxious moments, for the smell of the midden now and then made him sick, which was scarcely a hopeful sign."I don't want you."
TWO:
Towards the close of the day, father John came to see his sister. "You are ill, my child," said the monk, as he drew a chair to the side of the bed, and gazed anxiously at her pallid cheek and swollen eyes. Margaret answered incoherently.In a few minutes after this was effected, Richard's quick eye was suddenly attracted by an appearance on the beach.Meanwhile, the farm was doing well; indeed, it was almost back at its former glory. Having laid the foundations, Reuben could now think of expansion, and he engaged two more farm-hands.Things had been getting worse and worse ever since. No labourer would work for themno neighbour would purchase from, or sell them, any necessaries, and all the produce of Gray's individual industry was carried to Gloucester; for at the populous market of that city, he sold and bought without it being known that the ban of excommunication cut him off from all social intercourse with his kind.
