
FORE:Alice Jury said nothing, and Reuben began to feel vaguely uncomfortable. What queer eyes she had!they seemed to bore into him like nails. He suddenly rose to his feet.The hay-harvest of 1904 was a good oneof course Realf's hay had too much sorrel in it, there was always something wrong with Realf's cropsbut generally speaking the yield was plentiful and of good quality. Reuben rejoiced to feel the soft June sun on his back, and went out into the fields with his men, himself driving for some hours the horse-rake over the swathes, and drinking at noon his pint of beer in the shade of the waggon. In the evening the big hay-elevator hummed at Odiam, and old Backfield stood and watched it piling the greeny-brown ricks till darkness fell, and he went in to supper and the sleep of his old age.

FORE:The family was forbidden to speak of the absent sons. No one ever wrote to Robert in Lewes gaol or to Albert living on London's cruel tender-mercies. The shame of them was to be starved by silence. Soon most of the children had forgotten them, and they lived solely in Tilly's unhappy thoughts or Richard's angry ones, or in certain bitter memories of their father's, sternly fought.

FORE: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.

FORE:Early the next spring Reuben had a stroke of luck, for he was able to sell the remainder of his lease of the Landgate shop to a greengrocer. With the proceeds he bought half a dozen more cows, and grounded his dairy business more firmly. In spite of his increased herd he still had several acres of superfluous pasture, and pocketing his pride, advertised "keep" for stock, which resulted in his pocketing also some much-needed cash. His most immediate ambition was to pay off the mortgage he had raised a year ago, and restore to Odiam its honourable freedom."YesBenjamin went round. But he ?un't there."
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