ONE:"Vulgar, am I?" he said ruefully. "No matter, child, we w?an't go quarrelling. Come, dry your dear eyes, and maybe to-morrow I'll drive you over to Rye to see the market."
TWO:There was so much of good feeling in this rude speech, that Holgrave turned to the smith and grasped his hard hand.
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ONE:"Stand back everybody; I'm going to start her."The group huddled back a few yards. The little flame writhed along towards the stump. There was silence. Reuben stood a little way in front of the others, leaning forward with eager, parted lips.
TWO:Reuben was standing by the table, erect, and somehow dignified in spite of the mess he was in.
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ONE:At this moment of perplexity, some medicine, that she had obtained from Edith, occurred to her, and, with a feeling of confidence, and almost of extacy, she took a phial from a shelf in a cupboard where she had placed it, and, pouring out the contents in a large spoon, hesitated an instant ere she administered it. "Let me see," said she; "surely it was a large spoonful Edith told me to giveyet all that was in the phial doesn't fill the spoon. Surely I can't be wrong: noI remember she said a large spoonful, and we didn't talk of any thing elseso I must be right." But Mary still hesitated, till, hearing a sudden noise in the court-yard, which, she conjectured, was her mistress returned, and as the child was getting worse every moment, she leaned back its head, and, forcing open its mouth, compelled the patient, though with difficulty, to swallow its death. The draught was taken; the rigid muscles relaxed, and for a minute the child lay motionless in her lap; but in an instant after, Mary could scarcely suppress a shriek at the horrid sight that met her gaze. The eyes opened, and glared, and seemed as if starting from the headthe fair face and the red lips, were blue, deepening and deepening, till settling in blacknessthe limbs contractedthe mouth opened, and displayed a tongue discoloured and swollenthen came a writhing and heaving of the body, and a low, agonized moan: and, as Mary looked almost frantic at this dreadful sight, Edith's words, when she had given her the phial, "that there was enough there to kill," suddenly occurred to herand then, too, came, with a dreadful distinctness, the remembrance of the true directions which Edith had given.
TWO:He lifted her bodily and laid her on the bed. But she was still half insane
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TWO:"You've killed her! it's your doing ... you're a murderer!" she screamed at Reuben."And she asked us particular to say as she'd never regretted the day she left Odiam, or wished herself back there, nuther."
FORE:However, Reuben did not disgrace them. On the contrary, more than one admiring glance drifted to the Backfields' table, and remarks were overheard about "that picturesque old man." Reuben had dressed himself with care in a suit of dark grey cloth and the flowered waistcoat he had bought when he married Rose. His collar was so high and stiff that he could hardly get his chin over it, his hair was brushed and oiled till its grey thickness shone like the sides of a man-o'-war, and his hands looked quite clean by artificial light.
FORE:Margaret ceased to speak, and her tears dropped fast on the little innocent she was so anxiously watching; presently it gave a faint sigh, and the mother's agonizing shriek, told her husband that the breath was its last. Holgrave had beheld in silence the death-pang of his child; and now, when the cry of the mother announced that it had ceased to be, he turned from the bed and rushed to the door without uttering a word.
FORE:Chapter 16"And what do you want with an acre? What is an acre but a man's toya child's silly name for a picture it can't understand. Have you ever heard Pan's pipes?"
FORE:"I d?an't see no harm in his buying a bit of Boarzell if it's going cheapbut it ?un't worth m?aking all ourselves uncomfortable for it.""Men of Kent!" shouted Tyler, indignant at this pacific proposal, "what, do you suppose King Richard and his council, who are cooped up yonder, will think of us while we stand talking and gaping here? Think ye they will take off the poll-tax, or free the bondman? or open the prison door of our holy prophet, while they see us waiting like so many beggars, for them to read what is written on the sheepskins? I hold, that leaving half our brave fellows here, to let them know that if we do not mount their walls, we have an eye upon them, the rest should go on and see what is to be done in other parts of London. Who knows but we might get hold of that mortal fiend, John of Gaunt; if we once had him, by St. Nicholas! we might ask for what we liked. Stephen Holgrave, do you keep watch here, and let no one come or go: should there be any thing to be said, you know what to saythat is enough." And then, marshalling off a strong and picked body from among his followers, the smith hurried forward, accompanied by the galleyman and Kirkby, through the city, injuring neither person nor property, but only exacting from every one they encountered in their progress, a shout and a God-speed for the true commons.
FORE:But the shrieks were again repeated, and father John commanding Kirkby to follow, passed rapidly through the apartments, where every thing presented the trace of the spoiler. In many of them were stretched, or rather huddled together, peasants in the last stage of inebriety, some on the beds, and others on the carpets; and the shattered garniture of this abode of Richard and his fair mother, served but to mark its recent costliness and splendour.
TWO:Though he had spent, on and off, some years in Rye, he had seen very little of the surrounding country, and did not know that Odiam was the farm of his adventure. Caro had told him her name, and he had heard of Ben Backfield, but did not remember much about him. The episode did not affect him very deeply. At dinner he asked his aunt the name of Backfield's farm, and forgot it as he walked down Wish Ward that evening, wearing his best guernsey and breeches, his hands in his pockets, his pipe in his mouth, his earrings glittering in the forest of his hair.
TWO:"Send to Rye, then. Let 'em swear in some special constables, and drive the fellows off. But as for[Pg 10] stopping the workthat would be to play into their hands."
"It's true, then! Oh Lard! it's true!"While the guide paused for a moment to recollect the way to the head-quarters of the insurgents, some one who passed was heard speaking in a tone which fell upon Stephen's ear like a sound he ought to remember; he sprang from the side of his comrades, and, standing before the strangers, demanded, "With whom hold you?"The rest of that day Reuben was a little happier. He felt comforted and stimulated, life was not so leaden. In the evening he worked a little in the hop-gardens. They were almost cleared now, and the smoke of the drying furnaces was streaming through the cowls of the oasts, shedding into the dusk a drowsy, malt-sweetened perfume. When the moon hung like a yellow splinter above Iden Wood, the pickers went home, and Reuben[Pg 326] turned in to his supper, which for the first time since Rose's flight he ate with hearty pleasure."Pollute not thy hand with the blood of the base," said Edith, grasping her son's arm"Judgment is mine, saith the Lord!"Thus, in a very small way, and with continual hard work and anxiety, the farm was beginning to revive. Reuben felt that he was recapturing his prestige in the neighbourhood, and, when his labours allowed him, assisted the good work by drinking slow glasses of sherry in the bar of the Cocks, and making patronising remarks about his neighbours' concerns.