"Retire, kerns!" said De Boteler, glancing with anger at Oakley and the galleyman, "and settle your vile feuds as ye may. Disturb not this noble presence longer."
"Of course I love youbut it doesn't follow I want to belong to you. Can't we go on as we are?""But you'll never leave me at the time of the hay-harvest, and Emily due to calve in another month?"
TWO:The sun set, and Reuben had given up even the attempt to work. He wandered on Boarzell till the outline of its crest was lost in the black pit of night. Then a new anxiety began to fret him. Possibly all was going well since everybody said so, butsuppose the child was a girl! Up till now he had scarcely thought of such a thing, he had made sure that his child would be a boy, someone to help him in his struggle and to[Pg 84] reap the fruits of it after he was gone. But, suppose, after all, it should be a girl! Quite probably it would bewhy should he think it would not? The sweat stood on Reuben's forehead.
TWO:The court-yards were thronged with the retainers of the Baron, beguiling the hour until the ceremony called them into the hall. This apartment, which corresponded in magnificence and beauty with the outward appearance of the noble pile, was of an oblong shape. Carved representations of battles adorned the lofty oaken ceiling, and suspended were banners and quarterings of the Sudley and De Boteler families. Ancestral statues of oak, clad in complete armour, stood in niches formed in the thick walls. The heavy linked mail of the Normans, with the close helmet, or skull cap, fastened under the chin, and leaving the face exposed, encased those who represented the early barons of Sudley; while those of a later period were clad in the more convenient, and more beautiful armour of the fourteenth century. The walls were covered with arms, adapted to the different descriptions of soldiers of the period, and arranged so, as each might provide himself with his proper weapons, without delay or confusion.Besides, David and William had come to a dangerous age, they were beginning to form opinions and ideas of[Pg 398] their own, they were beginning to choose their own friends and pastimes. But what Reuben distrusted most was their affection for each other, it was more fundamental to his anxieties than any outside independence. From childhood they had been inseparable, but in past years he had put this down to the common interests of their play, for there were few boys of their own age on the neighbouring farms. But now they were grown up the devotion persistedthey still did everything together, work or play. Reuben knew that they had secrets from him, their union gave him a sense of isolation. They were fond of him, but he was not to them what they were to each other, and his remoteness seemed to grow with the years.
TWO:"Well, I can't help it. I expect that as uncle knew I was well provided for, married and settled and all that, he thought he'd rather leave his stuff to someone who wasn't."
"Dissolve this society! impudent knave!" retorted the foreman: "I should like to know what new profession ye are fit for: how could ye live but for me? Think ye the sheriff would expose himself by communing with such untaught knaves? No more sulkiness, or I take you at your word. Give me another swoop of the goblet." It was handed to him, and, after ingulphing a long draught, he slowly drew breathhis eyes were observed to brighten with some new idea, and, in a moment after, he started from his seat, exclaiming, in a burst of joy:The idea prospered in Reuben's thoughts that night. The next morning he was full of it, and confided it to his mother and Naomi.
荣誉榜
THREE:He had quite changed the look of Boarzell. Instead of the swell and tumble of the heather, were now long stretches of chocolate furrows, where only the hedge mustard sometimes sprang mutinously, soon to be rooted up. Reuben, however, looked less on these than on the territories still unconquered. He would put his head on one side and contemplate the Moor from different angles, trying to size the rough patch at the top. He wondered how long it would be before it could all be his. He would have to work like a fiend if he was to do it in his lifetime. There was the Grandturzel inclosure, too.... Then he would go and whip up his men, and make them work nearly as hard as he worked himself, so that in the evening they would complain at the Cocks of[Pg 374] "wot a tedious hard m?aster Mus' Backfield wur, surelye!""Go with him! Who is he? His purpose cannot be an honest one, or he would not conceal himself. Who is he, Stephen?" she repeated in a loud voice, and clinging more closely to the hand he was striving to disengage.
THREE:"Who married them?" asked Calverley, in a stifled voice.
