Chapter II: Book I: The Beginning of the Fight (1)

§ 1.

It was five years later, in the February of 1840.

A winter sunset sparkled like cowslip wine on the wet roofs of Odiam. It slipped between the curtains of the room where Reuben watched beside his dead father, and made a golden pool in the dusk.

Joseph Backfield had been dead twelve hours. His wife had gone, worn out with her grief, to rest on the narrow unaccustomed bed which had been put up in the next room when he grew too ill to have her at his side. Reuben knew that Harry was with her--Harry would be sitting at her head, his arm under the pillow, ready for that miserable first waking, when remembering and forgetting would be fused into one pain. Reuben knew that they did not need him, that they had all they wanted in each other--now, as during the nights and days of illness, when he had never felt as if he had any real link with those three, his father and mother and Harry.

This evening he sat very still beside the dead. Only once he drew down the sheet from his father's face and gazed at the calm features, already wearing that strange sculpt look which is the gift of death. The peaceful lips, the folded hands, seemed part of an embracing restfulness. Reuben's heart warmed with a love in which was little grief. He thought of his father's life--calm, kindly, comfortable, ambitionless. He had been happy; having wanted little he had attained it and had died enjoying it.

Reuben recalled the last five years--they had been fat years. One by one small comforts, small luxuries, had been added to the house, as the farm throve modestly, fulfilling itself within the narrow boundaries its master had appointed. And all the time that mocking furious crest of Boarzell had broken the sky in the south--telling of beauty unseized, might unconquered, pride untamed.

So now was it strange that clashing with his sorrow, and his regretful love for one who, if he had never truly loved him, had always treated him with generosity and kindness, there should be a soaring sense of freedom and relief?--a consciousness of standing on the edge of a boundless plain after years of confinement within walls? For Reuben was master now. Odiam was his--and the future of Odiam. He could follow his own will, he could take up that challenge which Boarzell Moor had flung him five years ago, when he fought and was flogged because he loved the red gaping clay between the gorse-stumps.

His plans of conquest were more definite now. He had been forming them for five years, and he could not deny that during his father's illness he had shaped them with a certain finality. The road was clear before him, and to a slight extent fate had been propitious, keeping open a way which might well have been blocked before he began to tread it. Reuben had never been able to settle what he should do if the Squire's first project were fulfilled and the Moor sold in building plots. House property entered with difficulty into his imagination, and he coveted only Boarzell virgin of tool and brick. Luckily for him, Bardon's scheme had completely failed. The position of the common was bad for houses, windy and exposed in days when the deepest hollows were the most eligible building sites; the neighbourhood was both unfashionable and unfruitful, therefore not likely to attract either people of means or people without them. Also there were grave difficulties about a water supply. So Boarzell remained desolate, except for the yearly jostle of the Fair, and rumour said that Bardon would be only too glad to sell it or any piece of it to whoever would buy.

If Sir Peter had been alive he would probably have given the common back to the people, but Sir Miles was more far-sighted, also of prouder stuff. Such a policy would give the impression of weakness, and there was always a chance of selling the land piecemeal. Reuben's ambition was to buy a few acres at the end of that year, letting the Squire know of his plan to buy more--this would encourage him to keep Boarzell inclosed, and would act as a check on any weak generosity.

There was no reason why this ambition should not be fulfilled, for now that he himself was at the head of affairs it would be possible to save money. Reuben's lips straightened--of late they had grown fuller, but also sterner in that occasional straightening, which changed the expression of his mouth from half-ripened sensuality to a full maturity of resolve. Now he was resolved--there should be changes at Odiam. He must give up that old easy, "comfortable" life on which his father had set such store. A ghost seemed to whisper in the room, as if the voice of the dead man once more declared his gospel--"I've no ambitions, so I'm a happy man. I döan't want nothing I haven't got, and so I haven't got nothing I döan't want."

Yes--there was no denying his father had been happy. But what a happiness! Even there by his side Reuben despised it. He, Reuben, would never be happy till he had torn up that gorse and lopped those firs from the top of Boarzell. In a kind of vision he saw the Moor with wheatfields rolling up to the crest, he smelt the baking of glumes in brown sunlight, the dusty savour of the harvest-laden earth. He heard the thud of horses' hoofs and the lumber of waggon-wheels, the shouts of numberless farm-hands. That sinister waste, profitless now to every man, should be a source of wonder and wealth and fame. "Odiam--the biggest farm in Sussex. Backfield made it. He bought Boarzell Moor acre by acre and fought it inch by inch, and now there's nothing like it in the south." ...

He sprang up and went to the window, pulling back the curtain. The sun had gone, and the sky was a grey pool rimmed with gold and smoke. Boarzell, his dreamland, stood like a dark cloud against it, shaggy and waste. There in the dimness it looked unconquerable. Suppose he should be able to wring enough money from the grudging earth to buy that wilderness, would he ever be able to subdue it, make it bear crops? He remembered words from the Bible which he had heard read in church--"Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?"

He brought his fist down heavily on the sill. He was just as confident, just as resolute as before, but now for the first time he realised all that the battle would mean. He could fight this cruel, tough thing only by being cruel and tough himself. He must be ruthless as the wind that blustered over it, hard as the stones that covered it, wiry as the gorse-roots that twisted in its marl. He must be all this if he was even to start the fight. To begin with, he would have to make his mother and Harry accept the new state of things. They must realise that the old soft life was over, that they would have to work, pull from the shoulder, sacrifice a hundred things to help fulfil his great ambition. He must not spare them--he must not spare anyone; he would not spare them, any more than he would spare himself.

§ 2.

Joseph Backfield was buried four days later. His body was carried to the church in a hay-waggon, drawn by the meek horses which had drawn his plough. Beside it walked Blackman, the only farm-hand at Odiam, in a clean smock, with a black ribbon tied to his hat. Five men from other farms acted with him as bearers--they were volunteers, for old Joseph had been popular in the neighbourhood, dealing sharply with no man.

Immediately behind the cart walked Reuben with his mother on his arm. Her face was hidden in a clumsy black veil, which the Rye mantua-maker had assured her was the London fashion, and she was obviously ill at ease in the huge black shawl and voluminous skirts which the same fashion, according to the Rye mantua-maker, had decreed. Her hand pulled at Reuben's sleeve and stroked it as if for comfort. It was a smallish hand, and wonderfully soft for a farmer's wife--but then Mary Backfield had not lived like an ordinary farmer's wife. Under the thick veil, her face still had a certain soft colour and youthfulness, though she was nearly forty, and most women of her position were wrinkled and had lost their teeth by thirty-five. Also the curves of her figure were still delicate. She had been cherished by her husband, had done only light household work for him and borne him only two children. She carried the tokens of her happiness in smooth surfaces and soft lines.

After Mrs. Backfield and her eldest son, walked Harry and his sweetheart, Naomi Gasson. They had been sweethearts just three months, and were such a couple as romance gloats over--young, comely, healthy, and full of love. Years had perfected the good looks of "beautiful Harry." He was a tall creature, lithe and straight as a birch tree. His face, agreeably tanned, glowed with youth, half dreamy, half riotous; his eyes were wild as a colt's, and yet tender. Naomi was a fit mate for him, with a skin like milk, and hair the colour of tansy. She wore a black gown like Mrs. Backfield, but she had made it herself, and it was friendly to her, hinting all the graciousness of her immaturity. These two tried to walk dejectedly, and no doubt there was some fresh young sadness in their hearts, but every now and then their bodies would straighten with their happiness, and their eyes turn half afraid from each other's because they could not help smiling in spite of the drooped lips.

Then came old Gasson, Naomi's father, and well-known as a shipbuilder at Rye--for this was a good match of Harry's, and Reuben hoped, but had no reason to expect, he would turn it to Odiam's advantage. After him walked most of the farmers of the neighbourhood, come to see the last of a loved, respected friend. Even Pilbeam was there, from beyond Dallington, and Oake from Boreham Street. The Squire himself had sent a message of condolence, though he had been unable to come to the funeral. Reuben did not particularly want his sympathy. He despised the Bardons for their watery Liberalism and ineffectual efforts to improve their estates.

It was about half a mile to the church--over the hanger of Tidebarn Hill. The morning was full of soft loamy smells, quickening under the February sun, which is so pale and errant, but sometimes seems to have the power to make the earth turn in its sleep and dream of spring. Peasmarsh church-tower, squab like a toadstool, looked at itself in the little spread of water at the foot of the churchyard. Beside this pool, darkened with winter sedges, stood Parson Barnaby, the Curate-in-Charge of Peasmarsh, Beckley, and Iden. His boots under his surplice were muddy and spurred, for he had just galloped over from a wedding at Iden, and his sweat dropped on the book as he read "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth."

Before committing the body to the ground, he said a few words in praise of the dead man. He spoke of his generosity to his neighbours, his kindness to his dependents, his excellences as a husband and a father. "This, brethren, was indeed a man after God's own heart. He lived simply and blamelessly, contented with his lot, and seeking no happiness that did not also mean happiness to those around him. The call of the world"--by which Mr. Barnaby meant Babylonish Rye--"fell unheard on ears attuned to sweet domestic sounds. Ambition could not stir him from the repose of his family circle. Like a patriarch of old, he sat in peace under his vine and his fig-tree...."

Reuben stood motionless at the graveside, erect, like a soldier at attention. People in the crowd, who wearied of the dead man's virtues, whispered about the eldest son.

"Surelye!--he's a purty feller, is young Ben. To-day he looks nearly as valiant as Harry."

"He's a stouter man than his brother."

"Stouter, and darker. What black brows he has, Mus' Piper!"

"How straight he stands!"

"I wäonder wot he's thinking of."

§ 3.

Reuben was strangely silent on the walk home. His mother made one or two small remarks which passed unheeded. She noticed that his arm, on which her hand lay, was very tense.

When they came to the group of cottages at the Forstal, a girl ran down the garden path and leaned against the fence. She was a pretty brown girl, and as they went by she smiled at Reuben. But he did not seem to see her, he walked steadily on, and she slunk back to the house, biting her lips. "Dudn't he see me, or wur he jest pretending not to?" she muttered.

At Odiam dinner was waiting. It was a generous meal, which combined the good things of this world with the right amount of funereal state. Several of the neighbours had been invited, and the housewife wished to do them honour, knowing that her table boasted luxuries not to be found at other farms--a bottle of French wine, for instance, which though nobody touched it, gave distinction to the prevalent ale, and one or two light puddings, appealing to the eye as well as to the palate. As soon as the meal was over and the guests had gone, Reuben took himself off, and did not reappear till supper-time.

During dinner he had been even more thoughtful than the occasion warranted, leaving his mother and Harry to talk to the company, though he had taken with a certain dignity his place as host and head of the house. Now at supper he was still inclined to silence. A servant girl laid the dishes on the table, then retired. Mrs. Backfield and Harry spoke in low tones to each other.

... "Mother, how much did this chocolate cost wot we're drinking?" Reuben's voice made them both jump.

"How much? why, two shillings a pound," said Mrs. Backfield, rather surprised.

"That's too much." Reuben's brows and mouth were straight lines.

"Wot d'you mean, Reuben?"

"Why, two shillings is too much fur farm-folks lik us to give fur a pound of chocolate. It's naun but a treat, and we can do wudout it."

"But we've bin drinking chocolate fur a dunnamany years now--your poor fäather always liked it--and I döan't see why we should stop it."

"Look'ee, mother, I've something to tell you. I've a plan in my head, and it'll justabout mean being shut of a lot of things besides chocolate. I know fäather dudn't care much about the farm, about mäaking it grow and buying more land, and all that. But I do. I mean to buy the whole of Boarzell."

There was a gasping silence.

"The whole of Boarzell," repeated Reuben.

He might have said the whole world, to judge by his mother's and Harry's faces.

"Yes--I mean every bit, even the bit Grandturzel's got now. Squire he wöan't be sorry to sell it, and I mean to buy it piece by piece. I'll buy my first piece at the end of this year. We must start saving money at wunst. But I can't do naun wudout you help me, you two."

"Wot d'you want to go buying Boarzell fur?" asked Mrs. Backfield in a bewildered voice; "the farm's präaper as it is--we döan't want it no bigger."

"And Boarzell's wicked tedious stuff," put in Harry; "naun'll grow there but gorse."

"I'll have a good grain growing there in five year--döan't you go doubting it. The ground wants working, that's all. And as fur not wanting the farm no bigger, that wur fäather's idea--Odiam's mine now."

"Why can't we jest go on being happy and comfortable, lik we wur before?"

"Because I've thought of something much grander, surelye. I'm going to mäake us all gurt people, and this a gurt farm. But you've got to help me, you and Harry."

"Wot d'you want us to do?"

"Well, first of all, we must save all the money we can, and not go drinking chocolate and French wine, and eating sweet puddens and all such dentical stuff. And then, Harry and me, we're valiant chaps, and there never wur enough work for us to do. I'm going to send Blackman away--Harry and I can do quite easily wudout him and save his wages."

"Send away Blackman!--oh, Ben, he's bin with us fifteen year."

"I döan't care if he's bin a hunderd. There äun't enough work for three men on this farm, and it's a shame to go wasting ten shilling a week. Oh, mother, can't you see how glorious it'll be? I know fäather wanted different, but I've bin thinking and dreaming of this fur years."

"You always wur queer about Boarzell. But your fäather 'ud turn in his grave to think of you sending off Blackman."

"He'll easily git another pläace--I'll find him one myself. And, mother--there's something more. Now you haven't got fäather to work fur, you'll find the time unaccountable long. Wot if you let Becky go, and did the cooking and that yourself?"

"Oh, Reuben...."

"You shouldn't ought to ask mother that," said Harry. "She 'äun't used to work. It's well enough fur you and me, we're strong chaps, and there's no reason we shouldn't pull to a bit. But mother, she'd never do wudout the girl--you see, there's the dairy and the fowls as well as the house."

"We could help her out of doors."

"Lard!--you want some work!"

Reuben sprang to his feet. "Yes--I do! You're justabout right there. I'm starved fur work. I've never really worked in my life, and now I want to work till I drop. Look at my arm"--and he showed them his brown hairy arm, where the muscles swelled in lumps under the skin--"that's a workman's arm, and it's never worked yet--präaperly. You let me send off Blackman and Becky, and see how we manage wudout 'em. I'll do most of the work myself, I promise you. I couldn't have too much."

"You're a queer lad, Reuben--and more masterful than your poor fäather wur."

"Yes--I'm master here." He sat down, and looked round the table quite calmly. A vague uneasiness disturbed Mrs. Backfield and Harry. For some unfathomable reason they both felt a little afraid of Reuben.

He finished his supper and went out of the kitchen. Harry and his mother sat for a moment or two in silence.

"He always wur queer about Boarzell," said Mrs. Backfield at last; "you remember that time years ago when he got mixed up wud the riot? I said to his fäather then as I was sure Ben 'ud want to do something crazy wud the farm. But I never thought he'd so soon be mäaster," and a tear trickled over her smooth cheek.

"I döan't see no harm in his buying a bit of Boarzell if it's going cheap--but it äun't worth mäaking all ourselves uncomfortable for it."

"No. Howsumdever, we can't stand agäunst him--the pläace is his'n, and he can do wot he likes."

"Hush--listen!" said Harry.

The sound of voices came from the passage outside the kitchen. Reuben was talking to the girl. A word or two reached them.

"Durn! if he äun't getting shut of her!"

"I never said as I'd do her work."

Harry sprang to his feet, but his mother laid her hand on his arm.

"Döan't you go vrothering him, lad. It'll only set him agäunst you, and I döan't care, not really; there'll be unaccountable liddle work to do in the house now your poor fäather's gone, and Blackman wöan't be eating wud us. Besides, as he said, I'll find the days a bit slow wud naun to occupy me."

"But it's sass of him to go sending off the girl wudout your leave."

"He's mäaster here."

"Ho! we shall see that."

"Now you're not to go quarrelling wud him, Harry. I'd sooner have peace than anything whatsumdever. I äun't used to being set agäunst people. Besides, it wöan't be fur long."

"No--you're justabout right there. I ought to be able to wed Naomi next April year, and then, mother--think of the dear liddle house we shall live in, you and she and I, all wud our own fields and garn, and no trouble, and Ben carrying through his own silly consarns here by himself."

"Yes, dearie, I know, and it's unaccountable good of you and Naomi to let me come wud you. I döan't think we should ought to mind helping your brother a bit here, when we've all that to look forrard to. But he's a strange lad, and your fäather 'ud turn in his grave to see him."

§ 4.

For the next few months Odiam was in a transitional state. It was gradually being divested of its old comfortable ways, and clad in new garments of endeavour. Gradually the life grew harder, and gradually the tense thought, the knife-edged ambition at the back of all the changes, came forward and asserted themselves openly.

Harry and his mother had not realised till then how hard Reuben could be. Hitherto they had never truly known him, for he had hidden in himself his dominant passion. But now it was nakedly displayed, and they began to glimpse his iron and steel through the elusive nebulousness that had veiled them--as one might see the body of a steam-engine emerge through the clouds of draping smoke its activity has flung round it.

They could not help wondering at his strenuousness, his unlimited capacity for work, though they failed to understand or sympathise with the object that inspired them. Blackman, grumbling and perplexed, had gone off early in March to the milder energies of Raisins Farm; Becky, for want of a place, had married the drover at Kitchenhour--and it was no empty boast of Reuben's that he would take the greater part of their work on his own shoulders. From half-past four in the morning till nine at night he laboured almost without rest. He drove the cows to pasture, milked them, and stalled them--he followed the plough over the spring-sown crops, he groomed and watered the horses, he fed the fowls, watched the clutches, fattened capons for market--he cleaned the pigsty, and even built a new one in a couple of strenuous days--he bent his back over his spade among the roots, over his barrow, wheeling loads of manure--he was like a man who has been starved and at last finds a square meal before him. He had all the true workman's rewards--the heart-easing ache of tired muscles, the good bath of sweat in the sun's heat, the delicious sprawl, every sinew limp and throbbing, in his bed at nights--and then sleep, dreamless, healing, making new.

But though Reuben bore the brunt of the new enterprise, he had no intention of sparing others their part. All that he by any exertions could do himself he did, but the things which inevitably he could not compass, because he had only two hands, one back, one head, and seven days a week to work in, must be done by others. He showed himself unexpectedly stiff, and Mrs. Backfield and Harry found themselves obeying him as if he were not the son of the one and only a year older than the other. As a matter of fact, custom gave Reuben authority, in spite of his years. He was the master, the eldest son inheriting his father's lordship with his father's farm. Mrs. Backfield and Harry would have been censured by public opinion if they had set themselves against him.

Besides, what was the use?--it was only for a few months, and then Harry would be in a little house of his own, living very like his father, though more dreamily, more delicately. Then Mrs. Backfield would once more wear muslin aprons instead of sacking ones, would sit with her hands folded, kid shoes on the fender.... Sometimes, in the rare moments they had together, Harry would paint this wonderland for her.

He had been left a small sum by his father--resulting from the sale of a water-meadow, and securely banked at Rye. Naomi, moreover, was well dowered; and Tom Gasson, anxious to see the young couple established, had promised to help them start a grass farm in the neighbourhood. The project had so far gone no further than discussion. Reuben was opposed to it--he would have liked Harry to stay on at Odiam after his marriage; Naomi, too, would be useful in many ways, her dowry supplying a much-felt want of capital. However, he realised that in this direction his authority had its limits. He was powerless to prevent Harry leaving Odiam, and there was nothing to do but to wring as much as possible out of him while he stayed. Of his mother's planned escape he knew nothing.

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.

Marriage was beginning to enter into his scheme. Some day he must marry and beget children. As the farm grew he would want more hands to work it, and he would like to think of others carrying on its greatness after he was dead. He must marry a woman with money and with health, and he was not so dustily utilitarian as not also to demand something of youth and good looks.

Since his father's death he had denied himself woman's company, after two years lived in the throb and sweetness of it. A warm and vigorous temperament, controlled by a strong will, had promised a successful libertinism, and more than once he had drunk the extasies of passion without those dregs which spoil it for the more weakly dissolute. But now, with that same fierce strength and relentless purpose which had driven him to do the work of two men, to live hard, and sleep rough, he renounced all the delights which were only just beginning. Henceforth, with his great ambition before him, there could be nothing but marriage--prudent, solid, and constructive. His girl at the Forstal knew him no more, nor any of her kind. He had set himself to build a house, and for the sake of that house there was nothing, whether of his own or of others, that he could not tame, break down, and destroy.

§ 5.

By the end of the year Reuben had saved enough money to buy five acres of Boarzell, in the low grounds down by Totease. He had saved chiefly on the wages of Blackman and Becky, though, against that, he had been forced to engage outside help for the hay in June, and also for the wheat in August. However, he had been lucky enough to secure tramp labour for this, which meant payment largely in barn-room and bread.

Then there had been a host of minor retrenchments, each in itself so small as to be almost useless, but mounting together into something profitable. Chocolate had vanished from the Odiam supper-table, their bread was made of seconds, the genuines being sold to Iden Mill; they ate no meat on week-days except bacon, and eggs were forbidden in puddings. Reuben managed to get a small sale for his eggs and milk at the Manor and the curate's house, though he had not enough cows and poultry to make his dealing of much advantage.

Mrs. Backfield was the one to bear the brunt of these economies. She had been a trifle pampered during the latter days of her marriage, and set far more store than her sons on dainty food; also the work which she performed so well was a tax on her unaccustomedness. But she never grumbled, and this was not only because escape was near at hand. Strange to say, in these new days of his lordship, Reuben began to fill a place in her heart which he had never filled before. While her husband was alive, he had never really come inside her life, he had been an aloof, inarticulate being whom she did not understand. But now that he had asserted himself, she found herself turning towards him. She would have worked without prospect of release--indeed, as the days went by, Harry and his home and her promised idleness dwindled in her thoughts.

When Reuben told her he could now buy his first piece of Boarzell, she went through the day's work full of joy. Though, as far as the land itself was concerned, she would far rather have had new chintz covers for the parlour chairs.

They never sat in the parlour now.

Harry's pleasure was obviously insincere, just a mask put on out of kindness to his brother. Naomi was coming over on a few days' visit, and everything else was smoke. No one, Reuben reflected, as he walked over to Flightshot to see Sir Miles's agent, no one cared a rap about Boarzell. His mother thought more of her food and of her furniture, thought more of him and Harry, while Harry thought of nothing but Naomi. He would have to wage his fight alone.

The transaction was prompt and satisfactory. Reuben did not haggle over the price, and was careful to let the agent know of his eagerness to buy more--otherwise, he was afraid that the Squire might either give the land back to the people, pushed by his Liberal politics, or else part with it for a song to some speculator. So he paid really a bit more than the land was worth, and made the agent a confidant of his dreams.

"It'll want a tedious lot of fighting, will that plot," he asserted, to counteract any idea his eagerness might give that Boarzell was a mine of hidden fertility--"Dunno as I shall mäake anything out of it. But it's land I want--want to mäake myself a sort of landed praprietor"--a lie--"and raise the old farm up a bit. I'd like to have the whole of Boarzell. Reckon as Grandturzel 'ud sell me their bit soon as I've got the rest. They'll never mäake anything out of it."

He walked home over Boarzell, scarcely conscious of the ground he trod. He felt like a new-crowned king. As he looked round on the swart hummocks of the Moor, and its crest of firs, dim and bistred against the grey afternoon clouds, he found it hard to realise that it was not all his, that he still had almost the whole of it to fight for, acre by acre. He hurried towards his own little plot, bought, but as yet unconquered, still shagged with gorse and brittle with shards.

It was down in the hollow by Totease, as unpromising an estate as one could wish, all on a slope, gorse-grown at the top, then a layer of bracken, and at the Totease fence a kind of oozy pulp, where a lavant dribbled in and out of the grass; to Reuben, however, it was a land of milk and honey. He turned up the soil of it with his foot, and blessed the wealden clay.

"No flints here," he said; "reckon there's some stiff ground on the hill--but it's only the surface. Heather äun't growing--that's a tedious good sign. I'll have oats here--the best in Peasmarsh."

He stood staring at the grass with its dribbles of lavant and spines of rushes. The wind brought the sound of someone singing. At first he scarcely noticed, then gradually the song worked in with his daydream, and ended by rousing him out of it. He strolled across his domain, and marked half a dozen sturdy willows which must come out somehow roots and all. He climbed into the bracken zone, and from thence saw Harry sitting by a gorse thicket some hundred yards off with Naomi Gasson.

The wind puffed gently towards him, bringing him the song and the soft peach-smell of the gorse. Harry was a musician already of note among the farms; he had a beautiful voice, and there was very little he could not do with his fiddle, though of late this had been neglected for the claims of work and love. To-day he was singing an old song Reuben knew well--"The Song of Seth's House":

"'The blackbird flew out from the eaves of the Manor,
The Manor of Seth in the Sussex countrie,
And he carried a prayer from the lad of the Manor,
A prayer and a tear to his faithless ladie.

"'To the lady who lives in the Grange by the water,
The water of Iron in the Sussex countrie,
The lad of Seth's House prays for comfort and pity--
Have pity, my true love, have pity on me!

"'O why when we loved like the swallows in April,
Should beauty forget now their nests have grown cold?
O why when we kissed 'mid the ewes on the hanger,
Should you turn from me now that they winter in fold?

"'O why, because sickness hath wasted my body,
Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie?
O why, because brothers and friends all have left me,
Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie?

"'One day when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow,
And years of despair and remorse been your fate,
Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor,
And turn to your true love--and find it too late.'"

Harry's voice was very loud and clear, with that element of wildness which is a compensation for no training. When he had finished "The Song of Seth's House" he started another, but broke off in the middle of it, and Reuben saw the two heads suddenly droop together, and fuse, the golden hair and the brown.

Naomi leaned against Harry, and his hand stole up and down her arm, stroking its whiteness. Reuben stood watching them, and for a moment he hungered. This was what he had cast away.

He turned from them sharply, and threw himself down on the dead bracken. Then suddenly the hunger passed. The reek of the moist earth rose up in his nostrils; it was the scent of his love, who was sweeter to him than ever Naomi was to Harry. His hand stole over the short, mould-smelling grass, caressing it. He had a love more beautiful than Harry's, whose comeliness would stay unwithered through the years, whose fruitfulness would make him great, whose allure was salted with a hundred dangers.... His fingers dug themselves into the earth, and he embraced Boarzell with wide-flung trembling arms. "My land!" he cried--"mine!--mine!"

§ 6.

The neighbourhood sniggered when it heard of Odiam's new land. When it heard of Reuben's plans for it and the oats that were to be it grew openly derisive. The idea of anyone thinking he could grow oats on Boarzell was an excellent joke. Young Backfield, however, ignored public opinion, and bought rape-dust for manure.

He was as jealous of this strip of earth as of a wife--he would allow nobody to work there but himself. Alone and unhelped he grubbed up the bracken, turned the soil, and scattered rape-dust and midden till they had to shut their windows at Burntbarns. He believed that if the ground was properly manured it would be ready for sowing in the autumn. The only difficulty now was the trees; they were casting malevolent shadows, and dredging up the goodness out of the earth.

Where Ditch of Totease or Vennal of Burntbarns would have taken a couple of woodmen and a saw, Reuben took nothing but an axe and his bare arms. His muscles ached for this new carouse of exertion.

"Let me give you a hand," said Harry that day at dinner.

"No--why should I?"

"You'll never do it yourself," said Naomi, who was spending a few days at Odiam.

"Oh, wöan't I!" and Reuben showed his strong white teeth.

"How many trees are there?"

"Half a dozen--willers. The real trouble will be gitting their roots out."

"And will you do that alone?"

"I'll see about it."

Naomi looked across at Reuben without speaking. Her lips, a pale coral-pink, were parted, showing two tiny teeth. She was not the type he favoured--she was too soft and bloodless--but he could not help feeling flattered by the frank admiration he saw in her eyes. He knew that this last year of wind and sun and healthy work had narrowed the gulf between him and Beautiful Harry. He was as hard as iron and as brown as a nut, and there was a warm red glowing through the swarthiness of his cheeks like the bloom on a russet pear.

Harry looked up from his plate, and the gaze became three-cornered. Reuben, defiant of his brother, grew bold, and ogled, whereupon Naomi grew timid, and dropped her eyes; Harry found himself speaking with a rasp:

"I'm coming to help you, Reuben. You'll never tackle them rootses--it äun't everything you can do surelye!"

"I can do that much. You stay here and play the fiddle to Naomi."

Harry somehow felt he had been insulted, and opened his mouth to retort. But his brother suddenly began talking about an accident to a labourer at Grandturzel, and the occasion dropped.

After dinner Reuben set out with his axe, and Harry and Naomi sat together on the floor beside the kitchen fire. He gave her kisses like the wind, swift and cool. She was the only woman he had kissed, and she had never been kissed by any other man. Their love had its wildnesses, but not the wildnesses of fire--rather of the dancing boughs of some spring-caught wood, rioting together in May. Now and then he would sing as he held her to him, his fresh young voice ringing up to the roof....

Later in the afternoon they went out together. It seemed a pity to stay indoors in the soft swale, and Harry had to look at some poultry at Doozes. Naomi walked with her arm through his, her grey cloak over her shoulders.

"I wonder if Reuben's still at it?" said Harry, as the footpath began to skirt the new land.

"Yes--I see him yonder. He doesn't see us, I reckon."

They stood on the hillside and looked down at Reuben. He had felled five trees, and was now getting his axe into the sixth. They watched him in silence, and Naomi found herself remembering the way he had looked at her at dinner.

"He's a valiant man," said Harry.

Naomi saw him sweep the axe above his shoulder, and the ease and strength of his swing gave her a strange tingling sensation in her breast. The axe crashed into the wood, then Reuben pulled it up, and the muscles of his back made two long, ovoid lumps under his blue shirt. Again the axe swung and fell, again Naomi's body tingled as with a physical exhilaration.

The January twilight deepened, and soon Reuben's blue shirt was all that was clear in the hollow. The bites of the axe cracked out on the still air--and suddenly with a soft swish of boughs the tree fell.

§ 7.

That night Reuben came to supper as hungry as a wolf. He was in a fine good humour, for his body, pleasantly tired, glowing, aching, tickled with the smell of food, was giving him a dozen agreeable sensations.

"Got some splendid fire-wood fur you, mother," he said after a few minutes' silence enforced by eating.

"And wot about the rootses?" asked Harry, "wull you be digging those out to-morrer? It'll be an unaccountable tough job."

"Oh, I've found a way of gitting shut of them rootses--thought of it while I wur working at the trees. I'm going to blast 'em out."

"Blast 'em!"

"Yes. Blast 'em wud gunpowder. I've heard of its being done. I'd never dig all the stuff out myself--yards of it there be--willer rootses always wur hemmed spready."

"It's never bin done in these parts."

"Well, it'll be done now, surelye. It'll show the folk here I mean business--and that I'm a chap wud ideas."

There was indeed a mild excitement in the farms round Boarzell when Reuben's new plan became known. In those times gunpowder was seldom used for such purposes, and the undertaking was looked upon as a treat and a display....

"Backfield's going to bust up his willer-rootses--fine sight it'll be--like as not blow his own head off--I'll be there to see."

So when Reuben came to his territory the next afternoon he found a small crowd assembled--Ditch, Ginner, Realf of Grandturzel, Coalbran of Doozes, Pilcher of Birdseye, with a sprinkling of their wives, families, and farm-hands. He himself had brought Naomi, and Harry was to join them when he came back from an errand to Moor's Cottage. Reuben felt a trifle important and in need of spectators. This was to be the crowning act of conquest. When those roots were shattered away there would be nothing but time and manure between him and the best oat-crop in Peasmarsh.

A quarter of an hour passed, and there was no sign of Harry. Reuben grew impatient, for he wanted to have the ground tidied up by sunset. It was a wan, mould-smelling afternoon, and already the sun was drifting through whorls of coppery mist towards the shoulder of Boarzell. Reuben looked up to the gorse-clump on the ridge, from behind which he expected Harry to appear.

"I can't wait any longer," he said to Naomi, "something's kept him."

"He'll be disappointed," said Naomi softly.

"I can't help that--the sun's near down, and I must have everything präaper by dark."

He went to where the fuse lay like a snake in the grass, and struck his flint.

"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.

Suddenly Naomi cried out:

"There's Harry!"

A shadow appeared against the copper sky, and ran towards them down the hill.

For a moment nobody seemed to realise what was boding. Then they heard a shout that sounded like "Wait for me!" Naomi felt something rise in her throat and sear the roof of her mouth like a hot cinder. She tried to scream, but her parched tongue would not move. She staggered forward, but Reuben flung her back.

"Stop!" he shouted.

Harry did not seem to hear.

"Stop!" yelled Reuben again. Then he cried, "Stand back!" to the crowd, and ran towards his brother.

But it was too late. There was a sudden roar, a sheet of flame, a crash, a dreadful scream, and then a far more dreadful silence.

One or two flames sang out of a hole in the ground, but scarcely anything could be seen for the pall of smoke that hung over Boarzell, black, and evil-smelling. The fumes made men choke, then they shuddered and drew together, for through the smell of smoke and gunpowder came the horrible smell of burnt flesh.

Reuben was lying on his face a few yards in front of the others. For some seconds nobody moved. Then Backfield slowly raised himself on his arms.

"I'm not hurt," he said in a shaking voice.

"Harry!" cried Naomi, as if someone were strangling her.

Reuben tottered to his feet. His face was black, and he was still half stunned by the explosion.

"Harry!" cried Naomi--and then fainted.

The smoke clouds were lifting, and now everyone could see a smouldering object that lay close to the hole, among bits of wood and stone.

Reuben ran towards it, Ditch and Realf followed him. The others huddled stupidly together like sheep.

"His clothes are still burning--here, help me, you!" cried Reuben, beating at the flames with his hands.

"He's dead," said Realf.

"Oh Lord!" wailed Ditch--"Oh Lord!"

"He's bin hit on the head wud a piece of wood. I reckon he died painlessly. All this came afterwards."

"Wipe the blood off his face."

"Tell his poor girl he died wudout suffering."

"He äun't dead," said Reuben.

He had torn off the rags from his brother's heart, and felt it beating.

"He äun't dead."

"Oh Lord!" wailed Ditch.--"Oh Lord!"

"Here, you chaps, fetch a gëat and put him on it--and döan't let Naomi see him."

Naomi had been taken back to Odiam, when Harry, still motionless and apparently dead, was lifted on a gate, and borne away. Dark curds of smoke drifted among the willows, and the acrid smell of powder clung to the hillside like an evil ghost. The place where Harry had lain was marked by charred and trampled grass, and a great pool of blood was sinking into the ground ... it seemed to Reuben, as he turned shudderingly away, as if Boarzell were drinking it up--eagerly, greedily, as a thirsty land drinks up its first watering.

§ 8.

Dr. Espinette from Rye stood glumly by Harry's bed. His finger lay on the fluttering pulse, and his eye studied the little of the sick man's face that could be seen between its bandages.

"It's a bad business," he said at last; "that wound in the head's the worst of it. The burns aren't very serious in themselves. You must keep him quiet, and I'll call again to-morrow morning."

"When ull he wäake up?" asked Mrs. Backfield in the feeble voice her tears had left her.

"I don't know--it may be in an hour or two, it mayn't be for a week."

"A week!"

"I've known them unconscious longer than that. But, cheer up, ma'am--we're not going to let him slip past us."

The doctor went away, and after a time Reuben was able to persuade his mother to go and lie down in the next room. He had quite recovered from the shock of the explosion; indeed, he was now the only calm person in the house. He sat down by Harry's bed, gazing at the unconscious face.

How horrible everything had been! How horrible everything was still, with that loggish, inanimate thing lying there, all that was left of Beautiful Harry. Reuben wondered if he would die. If so, he had killed him--he had ignored his own inexperience and played splashy tricks with his new land. But no--he had not killed him--it was Boarzell, claiming a victim in the signal-rite of its subjection. He remembered how that thirsty ground had drunk up Harry's blood. Perhaps it would drink up much more blood before he had done with it--perhaps it would one day drink up his blood.... A vague, a sudden, a ridiculous fear clutched his thoughts; for the first time he felt afraid of the thing he had set out to conquer--for the first time Boarzell was not just unfruitful soil, harsh heather clumps and gorse-roots--it was something personal, opposing, vindictive, blood-drinking.

He sprang to his feet and began pacing up and down the room. The window square was black. He was glad he could not see Boarzell with its knob of firs. Gradually the motion of his legs calmed his thoughts, he fell to pondering more ordinary things--had his mother remembered to stand the evening's milk in the cream pans? She had probably forgotten all about the curate's butter to be delivered the next morning. What had Harry done about those mangolds at Moor's Cottage? Durn it! He would have to do all the work of the farm to-morrow--how he was to manage things he didn't know, what with the dairy and the new chicks and the Alderney having garget. He stopped pacing, and chin in hand was considering the expediency of engaging outside help, when a voice from the bed cried feebly:

"Oh!"

Reuben went to Harry's side, and bent over him.

"Oh," moaned his brother, "oh!--oh!"

"I'm here, old feller," said Reuben with a clumsy effort at tenderness.

"Bring a light, do--I can't abide this dark."

Reuben fetched the candle to the bedside.

"Where's Naomi?"

"She's asleep. Do you want her?"

"No--let her sleep. But bring me a light fur marcy's sake."

"I've brought it--it's here by the bed."

"I can't see it."

"You must--it's right in your eyes."

"I can't--oh!"

He started up in bed and gripped his brother's hand. He thrust his head forward, his eyeballs straining.

"Take it away! take it away!" he screamed.

"Wot?" cried Reuben, sick with the new-born terror.

"That black stuff in front of my eyes. Take it away! Take it away!"

He tore his hand free, and began clawing and beating at his face.

Reuben's teeth were chattering.

"Kip calm, lad--kip calm. There's naun there, naun, I tell you."

"Oh, oh!"--screamed Harry--"Oh, oh, oh!"

The outcry brought Mrs. Backfield from the next room, Naomi shivering in her wake. Reuben was trying to hold Harry down in bed.

Through the long night they wrestled with him, blind and raving. At first it seemed as if Naomi's presence soothed him, and he would let her stroke his arms and hands. But after a time he ceased to recognise her. He gabbled about her a good deal, but did not know she was there. His delirium was full of strange tags--a chicken brood he was raising, a sick cow, a jaunt into Rye with Realf of Grandturzel, a dozen harmless homely things which were all transfused with an alien horror, all somehow made frightful, so that Reuben felt he could never look on chickens, cows or Rye again without a shudder.

Sometimes there were crises of extraordinary violence when he was with difficulty held down in bed, and these at last wore him out. Towards dawn he fell into a troubled sleep.

Naomi slept too, huddled in a chair, every now and then a sob quivering through her. The winter dawn slowly crept in on her, showing her pitiful figure--showing Mrs. Backfield sick and puffy with tears, Reuben dry-eyed beside the bed, and Harry respited in sleep. Outside the crest of Boarzell was once more visible in the growing light--dark, lumpish, malevolent, against the kindling of the sky.

§ 9.

The next few days were terrible, in the house and on the farm. Indoors the women nursed Harry, and outdoors Reuben did double work, sleeping at night in an arm-chair by his brother's side.

Harry had recovered consciousness, but it could not be said that he had "come to himself." "Beautiful Harry," with all his hopes and ardours, his dreams and sensibilities, had run away like a gipsy, and in his place was a new Harry, blind and mad, who moaned and laughed, with stony silences, and now and then strange fits of struggling as if the runaway gipsy strove to come back.

Dr. Espinette refused to say whether this state was permanent or merely temporary. Neither could he be sure whether it was due to his injuries or to the shock of finding himself blind. Reuben felt practically convinced that his brother was sane during the few moments he had spoken to him alone, but the doctor seemed doubtful.

Reuben was glad to escape into his farm work. The atmosphere of sickness was like a cloud, which grew blacker and blacker the nearer one came to its heart. Its heart was that little room in the gable, where he spent those wretched nights, disturbed by Harry's moaning. Out of doors, in the yard or the cowshed or the stable, he breathed a cleaner atmosphere. The heaviness, the vague remorse, grew lighter. And strange to say, out on Boarzell, which was the cause of his trouble, they grew lightest of all.

Somehow out there was a wider life, a life which took no reck of sickness or horror or self-reproach. The wind which stung his face and roughed his hair, the sun which tanned his nape as he bent to his work, the smell of the earth after rain, the mists that brewed in the hollows at dusk, and at dawn slunk like spirits up to the clouds ... they were all part of something too great to take count of human pain--so much greater than he that in it he could forget his trouble, and find ease and hope and purpose--even though he was fighting it.