TWO:"And that son of a harlot from Little Bethel wurn't wud him, I trust?"Manure was his great idea at that moment. He had carefully tilled and turned the soil, and he fed it with manure as one crams chickens. It was of poor quality marl, mostly lime on the high ground, with a larger proportion of clay beside the ditch. Reuben's plan was to fatten it well before he sowed his seed. Complaints of his night-soil came all the way from Grandturzel; Vennal, humorously inclined, sent him a bag of rotten fish; on the rare occasions his work allowed him to meet other farmers at the Cocks, his talk was all of lime, guano, and rape-cake, with digressions on the possibilities of seaweed. He was manure mad.
TWO:It was. He came knee-deep into the water with the horses, and, not seeing the women, plunged his head into the cool reed-sweetened stickle.