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ONE:They skirted the Corkwood dyke, from which rose the stupefying, sodden, almost flavorous, smell of dying reeds��a waterfowl suddenly croaked among them, and another answered her with a wail from beyond Ethnam. The willows were shimmering silver dreams, bathed in the light of the moon which hung above the Fivewatering and had washed nearly all the stars out of the sky��only Sirius hung like a dim lamp over Great Knell, while Lyra was faint above Reedbed in the north. TWO:"And Boarzell's wicked tedious stuff," put in Harry; "naun'll grow there but gorse."

ONE:"How can I help it?��they're all gone now save one ... my boys...." TWO:Naomi often came over to Odiam, driving in her father's gig. Reuben disliked her visits, for they meant Harry's abandonment of spade and rake for the weightier matters of love. Reuben, moiling more desperately than ever, would sometimes catch a glimpse of her coloured gown through the bushes of some coppice, or skirting a hedge beside Harry's corduroy. He himself spoke to her seldom. He could not help being conscious of her milky sweetness, the soft droop of her figure under its muslins, her voice full of the music of stock-doves. But he disliked her, partly because she was taking Harry from Odiam, partly because he was jealous of Harry. It ought to be he who was to make a wealthy marriage, not his brother. He chafed to think what Naomi's money might do for the farm if only he had control of it.As time wore on, and her hopes were once more roused, she became quite obsessed by the idea of having a girl. She thought of nothing but the little frocks, the ribbons with which she would tie the pretty hair. She pictured the times she and her daughter would have together, the confidences they would exchange��for old Mrs. Backfield grew more and more silent and unreceptive, and her neighbours were not of her mould. They would tell each other everything ... she had dreams of an impossible little pink-and-white girl like a doll, with golden curls and blue eyes and a white muslin frock. In her dreams she would stretch out her arms to this ached-for child, and would wake sobbing, with the tears running down her face.

ONE:Turner was prepared for direct and haughty questions from the baron; but the covert and gentle manner of the lady rather disconcerted him: however, though he paused with a momentary embarrassment, yet, contrary to Isabella's expectation, he firmly, but with a kind of native propriety, replied��"You talk strange language," replied Calverley in a voice that had lost all its assumed gentleness. "But��remember��I have not sought your sister's love to be thus baffled��remember!��--" Calverley was here interrupted by a quick knocking at the door. TWO:Thursday broke clear and windy��little curls of cloud flew high against spreads of watery blue, and the wind raced over Boarzell, smelling of wet furrows. As usual[Pg 163] everyone at Odiam was going to the Fair��even Mrs. Backfield, for Reuben said that he would not let the girls go without her. Caro and Tilly were now fifteen and sixteen, and their father began to have fears lest they should marry and leave him. Tilly especially, with her creamy complexion like Naomi's, and her little tip-tilted nose, freckled over the bridge, gave him anxious times. He sternly discouraged any of the neighbouring farmers' sons who seemed inclined to call; he was not going to lose his daughters just when Mrs. Backfield's poor health made them indispensable. It could not be long before his mother died��already her bouts of rheumatism were so severe that she was practically crippled each winter��and when she died Tilly and Caro must take her place.The parchment being handed to Calverley, he instantly recognized the hand, and, in answer to De Boteler's question, replied��

FORE:Margaret bent her head forward and covered her face with her hands, but made no reply. In vain the monk reiterated his request. In vain he exhorted her��in vain he assured her that no evil should befal her husband from whatever disclosure she might make. Margaret still hid her face and remained silent. Her silence discomposed the monk. He continued to gaze upon her with a troubled countenance. Anger for the cruelty that could premeditatedly deprive a mother of her offspring, and alarm for the consequences that might result to Holgrave, could have been read in his contracted brow and anxious glance. His sister's unwillingness to speak confirmed his suspicions, and he felt as fully convinced that the child that lay before him was the baron's son as if he himself had witnessed the theft.That same day, Calverley summoned, or rather packed, a jury at which he himself presided; and a verdict of wilful murder was returned against Edith. Apprehensive, however, that the charge of poisoning might not be sustained upon the unsupported testimony of Mary Byles, he easily influenced the credulous jurors to believe that witchcraft had as much to do with the child's death as poison. His usual tact, however, had forsaken him on this occasion, and it was not until the verdict was announced and recorded, that the unwelcome conviction flashed across his mind, that the temporal courts could exercise no jurisdiction over the crime of witchcraft. It was now too late to alter the language of the inquisition. It had gone forth to hundreds who awaited its promulgation with intense anxiety; and the language of the verdict that "Edith Holgrave delivered to Mary Byles, a certain charmed or poisonous drug, for the purpose of destroying Roland De Boteler, and which said drug was administered to, and caused the death of, the said Roland," was, in a few hours, familiar to the whole town and neighbourhood.