"This mortgage business alters 'em a bit. I'll have to think it over. Maybe I'll let you hear to-morrow mornun."The Fair was quite deserted, the tenants of Socknersh and Totease climbed to their windows. Someone fetched the constable from Peasmarsh, but after surveying the battlefield from a distance he strategically retired. At Flightshot Manor the Squire was troubled. The Inclosure of Boarzell had been no piece of land-grabbing on his part, but a move for the good of his estate. He had always wanted to improve his tenants' condition, but had been thwarted by lack of means. He wondered if he ought to give orders to stop the fence-building.
ONE:"I'm afraid not. Of course, one can never speak with absolute certainty even in a case like this. But" and the doctor wasted some medical technicalities on Reuben.
ONE:Reuben was revoltedalso a little hurt. It seemed to him that Naomi was neglecting the boys he was so proud of. Albert was nearly four years old, a fine sturdy child, worth a dozen puling Fannys, and Robert and Pete were vigorous crawlers and adventurers, who ought to rejoice any mother's heart. Richard was still in an uninteresting stagebut, hem it all! he was a boy.
"Aye, that I will, mother," replied Holgrave, kissing her cheek which had assumed its accustomed paleness; "and ill befall the son that will not!""No fault of mine, squire," answered Byles, in a sullen tone; "there was no such thing as getting the creature out; and if Sam or I had been caught, it would have been worse still. But bad as Stephen is, he wouldn't have thought of accusing us, if it hadn't have been for that old she-fox, his mother."Reuben, as was usual with him, tried to drown sorrow in hard work. He spent his whole day either in the yard or in the fields or out on Boarzell. He was digging a ditch round his new land, to let off the winter rain, and throughout the cool November damps he was on the Moor, watching the sunset's fiery glow behind the gorse, seeing the red clay squash and crumble[Pg 121] thickly under his spadespouting out drops of blood. In time all this fire and blood brought him back into his old purpose. Gradually the lust of conquest drove away regret. He had no more cause for self-reproach than an officer who loses a good soldier in battle. It is the fortune of war. And Naomi had not died without accomplishing her work and giving him men to help him in the fight."And there wur Rose," added Pete, anxious to supply instances.
