iCu5-i.. (!}
.-- t i
Keep Your Card in This Poem
Books will be teued only on preaenfate of
library ords.
. tfeltss (abated otherwise, books may be
for 'two week, Borrower? teeing boon oarW* dt*
or mutilated am to report at
oirwl the as! borrower idB be fetid
for all .imperfection* dfee?d
"1!^ card holder 10 w^wrfble far all
^
Bwtaitf far wftixliie books 2o a day plus tsoit d
' <Lo0t 'cards aud chai^ d mii be i
ported promptly.
Public Library
Kansas City, Mo.
is
SUSSEX GORSE
SUSSEX GORSE
THE STORY OF A FIGHT
BY
SHEILA K AYE-SMITH
New T&rk
Alfred A. Knopf
1933
CONTENTS
fAGtt
PROLOGUE. THE CHALLENGE * i
BOOK I THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT , , 22
BOOK II THE WOMAN'S PART , 78
ROOK III THE ELDER CHILDREN , * ,120
BOOK IV TREACHERIES . . 192
BOOK V ALMOST UNDER * *, 243
BOOK VI STRUGGLING UF f , . 331
BOOK VII THE END IN SIGHT , ^ . 382
BOOK VI I i THK VICTORY * . 432
SUSSEX GORSE
PROLOGUE
THE CHALLENGE
Si-
TT)OARZELL FAIR had been held every year on
Jj Boareell Moor for as long as the oldest in Peas-
marsh could remember. The last Thursday in
October was the date, just when the woods were
crumpling into brown, and fogs blurred the wavy
sunsets.
The Moor was on the eastern edge of the parish, five
miles from Rye, Heaving suddenly swart out of the
green water-meadows by Socknersh, it piled itself
towards the sunrise* dipping to Leasan House, It was
hummocked and tussocked with coarse grass here and
there a spread of heather, growing, like aH southerly
heather, almost arboreally, In places the naked soil
in sores made by coney-warrens or uprooted
bushes. Stones and roots, sham, shards, and lumps of
marl, mixed themselves into the wealden clay, which
oozed in red streaks of potential fraitfulness through
their sterility.
The crest of Boanselt was marked by a group of firs,
gaunt and wind-bitten, rising out of a mass of
goise, as the plumes of some savage chief might nod
xnaogily above his fillet. When the gorse was in bloom t
2 SUSSEX GORSE
one caught the flare of it from the Kentish hills, or away
westward from Brightling and Dallington. This day in
the October of 1835, the flowerets were either nipped or
scattered, or hidden by the cloths tfce gipsies had spread
to dry on the bushes.
The gipsies always camped on the flanks of the Fair,
which they looked on with greater detachment than the
gaujos who crowded into its heart, either selling or
buying, doing or being done. Just within the semi-
circle of their earth-coloured tents were the caravans
of the showmen, gaudily painted, with seedy horses at
tether, very different from the Romany gris. Then
came the booths, stalls piled with sweets in an interest-
ing state of preservation, trays of neck and shoulder
ribbons, tinsel cords, tin lockets with glass stones, all
fairings, to be bought out of the hard-won wages of
husbandry in love. Then there was the panorama,
creaking and torn in places, but still giving a realistic
picture of the crowning of King William ; there was the
merry-go-round, trundled noisily by two sweating cart-
horses ; there was the cocoa-nut shy, and the fighting
booth, in the doorway of which half-breed Buck
Washington loved to stand and display his hairy chest
between the folds of his dressing-gown ; and there was
the shooting-gallery, where one could pot at the card-
board effigies of one's hates, Lord Brougham who had
robbed the poor working man of his parish relief, or
Boney, still a blood-curdler to those who had the
building of the Martello towers.
To-day business was bad. Here and there a plough-
boy pulled up his slop and fumbled for pennies in his
corduroys, but for the most part the stalls were deserted >
even in certain cases by their holders, This was not
because the Fair was empty. On the contrary, it was
much more crowded than usual; but the crowd
clotted into groups, al discussing the same thiiig the
PKQH)GUE~~THE CHALLENGE 8
It was some months since Sir John Bardon, Squire
of the Manor of Flightshot, had taken advantage of the
Inclosure Act and manoeuvred a biE for the indosure
of BoaxzeU. Since then there had been visits of com-
missioners, roamings of surveyors, deliveries of schedules,
strange talk of turbary and estovers, fire-bote and house-
bote. The neighbourhood was troubled, perplexed*
Then perplexity condensed into indignation when all
that Inclosure stood for became known no more
pasturage for the cow or goat which meant all the
difference between wheaten and oaten bread, no more
wood-gleaning for fire or wind-beaten roof, no more of
the tussocky grass for fodder, or of gorse to toughen
palings against escaping fowls*
Then, when Fair-time came, people began to mutter
11 no more Fair/ 1 It was as hard to imagine Boaredl
without the Fair as without its plume of firs. The
Squire gave out his intention of tolerating the Fail*, as
long as it did not straggle from the crest. But this failed
to soothe the indignant and sore, for it was humbHng to
have the Fair as a matter of toleration. Also at that
time there was talk of fences. All the Moor had been
mapped out, the claims considered, the road repaired,
and now nothing more was to be done except to put up
the fences which would definitely seal Boarzell as
Flightshot's own*
Thaw was naturally a party who championed Manor
rights Sir John Bardon was a good landlord, and would
have been better had his budget cramped him less. Now
he would sell BoatreE in building plots, and his tenants
would imp the benefit He had not indosed the knd
for himself* More houses would mean more trade for
shops and forms, Peasmarsh might flower into a^country
town, * * ,
But the majority was anti-Bardon. There were
grumblags about allotments, especially from copy-
holders* The commissioners had been oil-hand in their
4 SUSSEX GORSI
treatment of claims, Ignoring everyone except free-
holders, of whom there were only two,
" They say as how Realf s not done badly fur himself
at Grandturzel," said old Vennal of Burntbarns ; " forty
acres they gave him, and aH bush and timber rights/*
" And what about Odlam ? " asked Ticehurst of Hole.
99 1 haven't seen Backfield these three weeks, but there's
a tale going raound as how the commissioners have bin
tedious sharp, and done him out of everything he hoped
to getsurelye ! "
11 And him freehold ! *
" Sixty acres/*
" How did they do it ? "
<c Oh, it's just a tale that's going raound says
found some lawyer's mess in his title-deed* His father
never thought of common rights when he bought the
land, and it seems as how they must be written dowa
just lik anything else, ... But there's young Ben
BackMd talking to Coalbran. He'll tell us, I reckon/'
They went over to a man and a lad, standing together
by the gingerbread stall.
" We was wondering wot yer faather had got out o 1
them commissioners, Ben/' said Ticehturst
Reuben Backfield scowled* His thick black brows
scowled easily, but the expression of Ms face was open
and cheerful, would have been kindly even, were it not
for a certain ruthlessness of the Hps, There was
character in his face than is usual with a boy of fifteen
otherwise he looked younger than his age, for though
tall and weE-knit, his limbs had all the graceful im-
maturity and supple clumsiness one sees in the Embs ol
calves and foals.
" Faather aun't got naun haven't you heard ? He
made his claim, and then they asked to see the title-
deeds, and it turned out as how he hadn't got no common
rights at aH leastways so the lawyers said/*
** But lie used to send the on, didn't he ? >p
PROLOGUETHE CHALLENGE 6
** Yesnow and agaun- didn't know It wum't right.
Seems it *ud have been better if he'd sent 'em oftener ;
there's no understanding that lawyer rubbidge. Now he
mayn*t taake so much as a blade of grass/ 1
" Realf of Grandtnrzel has got his bit all safe."
Reuben spat.
" Yes they couldn't pick any holes in his "claim, or
they would have, I reckon. The Squire *ud like every
rood of Boarzell, though the Lard knows wot hell do
wtid it now he's got it/'
41 Your ffiaiher must be in lamentable heart about all
this, surelye/ 1
The boy shrugged and frowned.
41 He doan't care much. Feather, he likes to be
comfortable, and this Inclosure wSan't make much
difference to that. Taun't as if we wanted the pasture
badly, and PSather he doan*t care about land/ 1
He dragged the last word a little slowly, and there was
the faintest hint of a catch in his voice,
" And your mother, and Harry ? "
11 They d5an't care, auther it's only me/*
"Lard, boy! tad why should you care if they
dSan't ? "
Reuben did not speak, but a dull red crept
over the swarthiness of his cheeks, and he turned
away.
He walked slowly, Ms hands In his pockets, to where
the gable of the booth jutted between him and his
questioners. From here he could see the slope of
Boan&Q, rolling slowly down to some red roofs and
poplars, These roofs and poplars were Odia% the farm
which his grandfather had bought, which his father had
tiled and fattened . . * and now it was humbled,
robbed of its ri^bits and his father stiE went whistling
to the bam, because, though fifty acres had been with*
held from him by a quibble, he still had a bright fire*
with, a pretty wife aad healthy boys Reside jit*
6 SUSSEX GORS1
Reuben's Up curled. He could not help despising
his father for this ambitionless content.
" We're no worser off than we wur before, Joseph
Backfield had said a day or two ago to his complaining
boy " we've our own meadows for the cows 'tfion't
as if we were poor people."
" But, faather, think wot we might have had forty
acres inclosed for us, like they have at Grandturzei 11
'"Might havemight have' that dSan't trouble
me. It's wot I've got I think about And then, say we
had it wot *nd you maake out o* Boarzett ? nasty
mess o* marl and shards, no good to anyone as long as
thistles aun't fashionable eating. 1 *
" I cud maake something out of Boaradl."
At this his father burst into a huge fit of laughter, and
Reuben walked away.
But he knew he could do it That morning he churned
the soil with Ms heel, and knew he could conquer it * * .
He could plant those thistle-grounds with wheat. * . *
Coward ! his father was a coward if he shrank from
fighting BoatzdL The land could be tamed just as
young bulls could be tamed. By craft, by strength, by
toughness man could fight the nature of a waste as well
as of a beast. Give Mm Boarzell, and he would have
his spade in its red back, just as he would have his ring
in a bull's nose. * . *
But it was all hopeless, Most Hkely in future aH that
would remain free to him of Boarzell would be this Fait
ground, crowded once a year. The rest would be MJt
over fat shop-keepers would grow fatter oh, dum It j
He dashed his hand over his eyes, and then swung
round, turning back towards the groups, lest he
become weak in soEtude. Somehow the character of the
crowd had changed while he had been away. Angry
mtinnurs surged through it like waves,
against one another, a rumour blew like foam from
to
PROLOGUE THE CHALLENGE 7
"They're putting up the fences workmen from
Tonbridge fences down by Socknersh."
" Drat 'em I durn 'em ! "
" And why shudn't there be fences ? What good did
this old rubbidge-plaace ever do anyone? Scarce a
mouthful fur a goat. Now it'll be built on, and there'll
be money fur everybody/'
" Money fur Bardon."
"Money fur us all. The Squire aun't no Tory
grabber."
" Then wot dud he take our land fur ? "
" Wot wur the use of it ? save fur such as wanted a
quiet plaace fur their wenching."
" Put up yer fists ! "
The fight came, the battering of each other by two
men, seemingly because of a private insult, really
because they were representatives of two hostile groups,
panting to be at each other's throats. They fought
without science, staggering up and down, swinging arms
like windmills, grabbing tufts of hair. At last old Buck
Washington the bruiser could stand it no longer, and
with a couple of clouts flung them apart, to bump on the
ground and sit goggling stupidly at each other through
trickles of blood.
That gave the crowd its freedom hitherto the con-
flict had been squeezed into two representatives, leaving
some hundred men merely limp spectators ; but with
the collapse of his proxy, each man felt the rage in him
boil up.
" Come, my lads, we'll pull down their hemmed
fences t "
" Down wud the fences I down wud Bardon 1 "
" Stand by the Squire, men we'll all gain by it."
' "Shut the Common to wenchers 1 "
But the Anti-Inclosure party was the strongest it
swept along the others as it roared down to Socknersh,
brandislxing sticks and stones and bottles that had all
8 SUSSEX GORS1
appeared suddenly out of nowhere, shouting and
stumbling and rolling and thumping. * . Reuben was
carried with it, conscious of very little save the smell of
unwashed bodies and the bursting rage in his heart,
2.
The fences were being put up in the low grounds by
Socknersh, a leasehold farm oil the fringe of the Manor
estate. The fence-builders were not local men, and had
no idea of the ill-feeling in the neighbourhood. Their
first glimpse of it was when they saw a noisy black
crowd tilting down BoarzeE towards them nothing
definite could be gathered from its yells, for cries aid
counter-cries clashed together, the result being a con-
fused " Wah-wabrwah/ J accompanied by much clatter-
ing of sticks and stones* thudding of feet and thumping
of ribs.
When it came within ten yards of the fences, it
doubted itself suddenly after the manner of crowds* It
stopped, surged back, and mumbled, ** Down with the
fences ! n shouted someone " Long live the Squire I "
shouted someone else. Then there was a pause, almost
a silence.
Suddenly a great htdlish lad sprang forward, rushed
up to one of the fence-stakes, and flung it with a tangle
of wire into the air.
" Down wud Bardon 1 lf
The spell of doubt was broken, A dozen otters sprang
towards the palings, a dozen more were after them to
smite. The workmen swung their tools. The fight began.
It was a real battle with defences and sallies. The
supporters of the Inclosure miraculously knotted
together, and formed a guard for the labourers, who
with hammers ready alternately for nail or feead, bent
to their work. They had no personal concern ia the
matter, but they resented being meddled wltk
The Squire's party was- mutch the weakest
PEOLOGUE THE CHALLENGE 9
but luck had given it the best weapons of that chance
armament Alee of Ellenwhonie had a fine knobbed
stick, worth a dozen of the enemy's, while Lewnes of
Coldblow had an excellently broken bottle. Young
Elphee had been through the bruiser-mill, and routed
his assailants with successive upper-cuts. The anti-
Bardonites, on the other hand* were inclined to waste
their strength ; they fought in a congested, rabblesome
way ; also they threw their bottles, not realising that a
bottle is much better as a club than a missile. The
result was that quite early in the conflict their amnau-
nition gave out, and they were reduced to sticks and
fists,
This made the two parties fairly equal, and the tide of
battle ebbed and flowed. Now a bit of fence was put up,
then it was torn down again ; now it looked as if the
fence-builders were going to be swept off the Moor, then
it looked as if their posts were going to straggle up to
Totease,
The Fair was quite deserted, the tenants of Socknersh
and Totease climbed to their windows. Someone
fetched the constable from Peasmarsh, but after
surveying the battlefield from a distance he strategi-
cally retired. At Flightshot Manor the Squire was
troubled. The Inclosure of BoarzeU had been no piece
of land-grabbing on his part, but a move for the good of
his estate. He had always wanted to improve his
tenants' condition, but had been iiwarted by lack
of means. He wondered if he ought to give orders to stop
the feace-building*
" Sir, that would be foHy ! " cried his son,
11 But It seems that there's a regular riot going on -
quite a number of people have been hurt, and two
ploughlands trodden up, Kadwell went over, but says
he can do nothing/'
ff Send to Rye, then* Let "em swear in some special
constables* apd <irive the fellows oft But as for
10 SUSSEX GORSE
stopping the work that would be to play into their
hands. 1 *
So the fight raged on, the Battle of BoarzelL Un~
foitunatefy it did not rage on BoarzeU itself, but on its
fruitful fringe, where the great ploughfields lapped up
to the base of the Moor, taking the sunset on their wet
brown ridges. Poor dinner's winter wheat was all
pulped and churned to ruin, and the same doom feE on
Ditch's roots. Sometimes it seemed as if the Squire's
men would attain their object, for the fence very
tottery and uncertain, it must be confessed had wound
a bit of the way past Totease towards Odiam. Dusk had
fallen, but the men still worked, for their blood was up,
However, the Squire's party began to fed their lack of
numbers ; they were growing tired, their arms swung
less confidently, and then Lewnes* bottle was broken
right up at the neck, cutting his hand. He shouted that
he was bleeding to death, and frightened the others.
Someone sent a stone into Alce's eye. Then he too
made a terrible fuss, threw down his stick, and ran
about bleeding among the workmen,
The ground, soft with autumn rains, was now one
great mud broth, and the men were daubed and spattered
with it even to their hair. The attackers pressed on the
wavering ring one of the fence-builders was hit, and
pitched down, taking a post and a whole trail of wire
over with him about thirty yards of fence cane down
with the pull, and flopped into the mud. The ring broke*
" Hop it, lads ! " shouted a workman. Their pro-*
tectors were gone, mixed indescribably with their
assailants, They must run, or they would be lynched*
A hundred yards off a Totease barn-door gaped , and
the workmen sprinted for it* In the darkness they watt
able to reach it without losing more than one of their 1
number, who fell down and had the wit to pretend to be
dead* The crowd seethed after them, bat the door was
abut, and the heavy bolts rattled behind it
PROLOGUE THE CHALLENGE 11
The barn was part of the farmhouse, and from one of
the tipper windows Ditch, furious at having his roots
messed up, made pantomime to the effect that he would
shoot any man who came further than the yard.
It was then for the first time that Reuben was
frightened. Hitherto there had been too much violence
and confusion for Mm to feel intensely, even rage. He
had thrown stones, and had once been hit by a stone
a funny dull sore pain on his shoulder, and then the
feeling of something sticky under his shirt. But he
had never felt afraid* never taken any initiative, just
run and straggled and shouted with the rest. Now he
was frightened it would be dreadful if the farmer fired
Into that thick sweating mass in the midst of which he
was jammed*
Then, just because he was afraid, he flung up his arm,
and the stone he had been grasping crashed into Ditch's
window, sending the splintering glass into the room, He
had no thought of doing it, scarcely knew he had done
itit was just because he was horribly frightened,
The next moment there was a bang and Ditch's gun
scattered duck-shot into the crowd. Men yelled, fought,
struggled, stumbled about with their arms over their
faces. For a moment nothing but panic moved them,
but the next rage took its place. A volley of stones
answered the gun, which being an old one and requiring
careful loading, could not be brought into action again
for some minutes.
11 Bum him down 1 Burn him down ! the hemmed
murderer I "
Than began a regular siege* Stones showered upon
the farmhouse roof, the Shiver of broken glass tinkled
through the duH roar of the attackers, groans and
screams answered the bursting bang of the shot-gun.
Men to faggots f mna the wood-pfle, and ruu
with them towards the house* Then some tore up a
itysttck, but ttie wind caught the bay and blew it
12 SUSSEX COBS! ,
everywhere, flinging swathes and streamers of it Into
the rioters' faces, giving them sudden armfuls of it,
making their noses and eyes smart with the dust and
litter.
It was quite dark now. The hdk of BoaraeH loomed
black behind the straggle, its fir crown standing out
against a great wall of starless sky. Then suddenly
something began to blazeno one seemed to know what,
for it was behind the crowd ; but it roared and crackled,
and sparks and great burning strands flew out from it,
threatening house and besiegers alike with destruction.
They had piled the faggots against the door of the
barn. The workmen inside were tumbling about in the
dark, half ignorant of what was going on*
11 Bring a light ! " called someone. A boy dashed up
with a handful of flaming straw it blew out of his hand
and flared away over the roof, scattering showers of
sparks. A man yelled out that his shirt was burning.
" Bring a light ! " someone called again. Then someone
else shouted " The constables from Rye ! '*
The crowd ebbed back like a wave, carrying Reuben,
now screaming and terrified, towards where some-
thing unknown burned with horrible crackles and
roaring.
" The constables from Eye I "
The crowd was like a boa-constrictor, it seamed to
fold itself round him, smashing his ribs. He screamed*
half suffocated. His forehead was Mistered with heat.
Again the crowd constricted, A dizziness came this
time with the suffocation, and strange to say, as
consciousness was squeezed out of him like wind out of
a bellows, he had one last visit of that furious hate which
had made Mm join the battle hate of those who had
robbed his father of BoarzeQ, and hate of BoarttU,
Itself, because he would never be able to tame it as one
tames a bull with a ring in its
He choked^ and Ml into the darkness.
PROLOGUE THE CHALLENGE- 18
3.
His first sensation on returning to consciousness was
of being jolted. It was, like most half-realised experi-
ences, on the boundary line between sensation and
emotion, an affair almost of the heart. Then gradually
it became more physical, the heart-pain separated
itself from the body-pain. His body was being jolted,
his heart was just sick with the dregs of hate.
Then he saw Orion hanging over him, very low in ttie
windy sky, shaking with frost. His eyes fixed them-
selves on the constellation, then gradually he became
aware of the sides of a cart, of the smell of straw, of the
movement of other bodies that sighed and stirred
beside him* The physical experience was now complete,
"and soon the emotional had shaped itself. Memory
came, rather sick. He remembered the fight, his terror,,
'the flaming straw, the crowd that constricted and
crushed him like a snake* His rage and hate rekindled,
but this time without focus he hated just everyone
and everything. He hated the wheels which jolted Mm,
his body because it was bruised, the other bodies round
him, the stars that danced above him, those unknown
footsteps that tramped beside him on the road*
Where was he ? He raised himself on his elbow, and
immediately a head looked over the side of the cart.
11 Wot's the matter wud you ? " asked a gruff voice.
'* I want to know where I'm going, surelye."
" You're going to Rye, that's where you're going, just
fur a tiaste of the rope's end, you young varmint/ 1
The tones were not unkindly, and Reuben plucked up
courage,
" Is the fight over ?"
f f Surelye I It all fizzled out, soon as them beasts saw
the constables. Fifty speshul constables sworn in at
Rye Town Hall, all of 'em wttd truncheons! You
couldn't expect any rabble-scrabble to face 'e
14 SUSSEX GORS1
" Reckon that }.ot had justabout crunched me up,
I feel all stove in*"
11 And you'll feel stove in furder when the Crier's dona
wild you."
It was part of the Rye Town Crier's duties to flog the
unruly youth of the district, Reuben made a face
not that he minded being flogged, but he fdt badly
bruised already. He feU back on the straw, and buried
his head in it. They were on the Playden road, near
Bannister's Town, and he would have time for a sleep
before they came to Rye. Sleep helped things wonder-
fully.
But the strange thing was that he could not sleep, and
stranger still, it was not the ache of his body that kept
him awake, but the ache of Ms heart, Reuben was used
to curling up and going to sleep like a little dog ; only
once had he lain awake at night, and that was with the
toothache, Now he had scarcely any pain ; indeed, the
duU bruised feeling made him only more drowsy, but In
his heart was something that made him tumble and toss,
just as the aching tooth had done, made him want to
snarl and bite. He rolled over and over in the straw,
and was wide awake when they came to Rye, Neither
did he sleep at all in tie room where he and some other
boys were locked for the night. The Battery gaol was
full of adult rioters, so the youthful element only some
half-dozen captured' was shut up in the constable's
house, where it played marbles and twisted aims till
daylight
The other boys were much younger than Reuben, who
thumped their heads to let off some of Ms uncomfortable
feelings. Indeed, there was talk of putting Mm with the
grown-up prisoners, tiU the magistrate realised that
juveniles were tnore easily disposed of. The scene at the
court-house was so hurried that he scarcely knew he had
been tried till the constable took Mm by the coEar aad
threw him out of the dock. Then came some dreary
PROLOGUE THE CHALLENGE 15
moments of waiting in a little stuffy, whitewashed room,
while the Town Crier dealt with the victims separately,
Reuben did not in the least mind being flogged it
was aU in the day's work and showed scant sympathy
for those fellow-criminals who cried for their mothers,
Most of the cramp and stiffness had worn off, and his
only anxiety was to have the thing over quickly, so that
he could be home in time for supper.
At one o'clock he was given some bread and cheese,
which he devoured ravenously ; then he spent an hour
in thinking of the sausages they always had for supper
at Odiam on Fridays, At two the constable fetched
him to his doom ; he was grumbling and muttering to
himself, and on arriving at the execution chamber it
turned out that he had had words with the Town Crier,
because the latter thought he had only six boys to flog,
so had put on his coat and was going off to the new
sluice at Scott's Float, meaning to get back comfortably
in time for an oyster and beer supper at the London
Trader. Having seven boys to flog made all the differ-
encehe would be late, both at the sluice and the
supper*
He took off his coat again, growling, and for the first
time Reuben felt shame. It was such a different matter,
this, from being beaten by somebody who was angry with
one and with whom one was angry. He saw now that
a beating was one of the many things which axe aE right
as long as they are hot, but damnable when they are
cold* He hunched his shoulders, and felt his ears burn,
and just the slightest stickiness on Ms forehead*
One thing he had made up his mind to he would not
struggle or cry* Up till now he had not cared much
what he did in that way ; if yeJHng had relieved his
feelings he had yelled, and never felt ashamed of it ; but
to*4ay he realised thai if he yelled he would be ashamed.
So he drove his teeth into his lower lip and fought
through the next tew minutes in silence.
16 SUSSEX GGRSfir
He kept Ms body motionless, but in Ms heart strange
things were moving. That hatred which had ran through
him like a knife just before he lost consciousness in the
battle of Boarzell, suddenly revived and stabbed Mm
again. It was no longer without focus, and it was no
longer without purpose, Boarzell , , . the name seemed
to dance before him in letters of fire and blood. He was
suffering for Boarzell his father had not been robbed,
for his father did not care, but he, Reuben, had been
robbed and he had fought for Boarzell on Boaizdl, and
now he was bearing shame and pain for Boarzell. Some*
how he had never till this day, till this moment, been so
irrevocably bound to the land he had played on as a
child, on wMch he had driven his father's cattle, which
had broken with its crest the sky he gazed on from Ms
little bed, Boarzell was his, and at the same time he
hated Boarzell, For some strange reason he hated it as
much as those who had taken it from Mm and as those
who were punishing him because of it. He wanted to
tame it, as a man tames a bull, with a ring in its nose,
There, at the post, quivering with a pain he scarcely
felt, Reuben swore that he would tame and conquter
BoanfcIL The rage, the fight, the degradation, the
hatred of the last twelve hours should not be in vain,
In some way, as yet unplanned, Boarzell should one day
be Ms not only the fifty acres the commissioners had
tweaked from Ms father, but the whole of it, even that
mocking, nodding crest of firs. He would subdue it ; It
should bear grain as meekly as the most fruitful field ;
it should feed fat cattle; it should make the name of
Odiam great, the greatest in Sussex, It should ba his,
and the world should wonder*
He left the post with a great oath in his heart, and %
thin trickle of blood on Ms cMn.
PROLOGUE THE CHALLENGE IT
4-
It was still early in the afternoon when Reuben set
out homewards, but he had a long way to go, and felt
tired and bruised. The constable had given him an
apple, but as soon as he had munched up its sweetness,
life became once more grey. The resolve which for a
few minutes had been like a flame warming and lighting
his heart, had now somehow become just an ordinary
fact of life, as drearily a part of his being as his teeth or
his stomach. One day he would own Boarzell Moor,
subdue it, and make himself great but meantime his
legs dragged and his back was sore.
All the adventure and excitement he had been
through, with no sleep, and eccentric feeding, combined
to make him wretched and cast down. Once he cried a
little, crouching low under the hedge, and thoroughly
ashamed of himself.
However, things grew better after a time. The road
broke away from the fields, and free winds blew over it*
On either side swelled a soft common, not like Boarzell,
bpt greea and watery. It was grown with bracken, and
Reuben laughed to see the big buck rabbits loppetting
about, with a sudden scuttle and bob when he dapped
Ms hands. Then a nice grinning dog ran with him a
mile of the way, suddenly going off on a hunt near
Starvecrow, Reuben came to Odiam aching with
nothing worse than hunger.
Odiam Faun was on the northern slope of Boarzell-
siKty acres, mostly grass, with a sprinkling of hops and
grain. There was a fine plum orchard, full of old
gnarled trees, their branches trailing with the weight of
continued crops. The house itself was red and weather-
stung as an August pippin, with strange curves in its
gable-ends, which had once been kilns. It was one of
those squat, thick, warm-tinted houses of Sussex which
have stood so long as to acquire a kind of naturalisa*
18 SUSSEX GORSE
lion into the vegetable kingdom it was difficult to
imagine it had ever been built, it seemed so obviously a
growth, one would think it had roots in the soil like an
oak or an apple tree.
Reuben opened the door, and the welcome, longed-for
smell stole out to him smothering the rivalry of a
clump of chrysanthemums, rotting in dew.
" Sossiges," he whispered, and ran down the passage
to the kitchen.
Here the sound of voices reminded him that he might
have difficulties with his family, but Reuben's attitude
towards his family, unless it forced itself directly into
his life, was always a little aloof.
" Well, lad/' said his father, " so you're back at last/'
" You knew where I wur ? "
" Lucky we dud or we'd have bin in tedious heart
about you, away all night/ 1
Reuben pulled up his chair to the table* His father
sat at one end, and at the other sat Mrs, Backfield ;
Harry was opposite Reuben*
ft If only you wud be a good boy lik Harry/ 1 said his
mother.
Reuben looked at Harry with detachment. He was
not in the least jealous of his position as favourite son
he had always accepted it as normal and inevitable* His
parents did not openly flaunt their preference, and they
were always very kind to Reuben- witness the gentle-
ness with which he was received to-day after his escapade
but one could not help seeing that their attitude
towards the elder boy was very different from what they
felt for the younger.
The reasons were obvious ; Harry was essentially of a
loving and dependent nature, whereas Reuben seemed
equally indifferent to caresses or commands- He was
not a bad son, but he never appeared to want affection,
and was always immersed in dark affairs of his own.
Besides, Harry was a beautiful boy. Though only a year
PROLOGUE THE CHALLENGE 19
younger than Reuben, in the midst of the awkward age,
his growing limbs quite lacked the coltishness of his
brother's. He was like Reuben, but with all the little
variations that make the difference between good and
ordinary looks. Just as he had Reuben's promising
body without that transitory uncouthness so natural to
his years, so he had Reuben's face, more softly chiselled,
more expressive and full of fire. His brows were lighter,
his eyes larger, his hair less shiny and tough, growing in
a soft sweep from his forehead, with the faintest hint of a
curl at his ears. Neighbours spoke of him as " beautiful
Hairy." Reuben pondered him occasionally he would
have liked to know his brother better, liked to love him,
but somehow could never quite manage it. In spite of
his clinging nature, there was something about Harry
that was unhuman, almost elfin* The fattier and mother
did not seem to notice this, but Reuben felt it, scarcely
knowing how or why.
To-night Harry did not ask him any questions, he just
sat dreamily listening while Reuben poured out his
story, with aU the enthusiasms and all the little reserva-
tions which were characteristic of him. Once Harry put
out his hand and stroked Ms mother's, once he smiled
at his father.
11 Well, I shan't go scolding you, lad," said Joseph
Backfield, f< fur I reckon you've bin punished enough.
Though it wur unaccountable lucky you dudn't git
anything worse* I hear as how Fix and Hearsfield are
to be transported, and there'll be prison for some
thirty more* Wot dud yer want to go mixing up in
them things fur ? n
" 1 wur justabout mad/*
11 How, mad ? "
"Mad that they shud shut up Boarzelli and that
Odiam shudn't have its rights/'
"Wot's Odiam to you? It aun't yours, it's
mine, tad if I d5an*t care about the land, why
20 SUSSEX GQRSE
shud you go disgracing yourself and tis aU because
of it ? "
" You ought to, care, surelye ! "
A dull brick-red had crept into the brown cheeks, and
Reuben's brows had nearly met over his nose*
" Ought to 1 Listen to that, mother. Dud you ever
hear the like ? And if I cared, my lad, where wud you
all be ? Where wud be that plate o 1 sossiges you're
eating ? It's just because I aun't a land-grabber lik so
many I cud nauin that you and Harry sit scrunching
here instead of working the flesh off your boons, that
your mother wears a muslin apron 'stead of a sacking
one, that you have good food to eat, and white bread,
'stead of oaten. Wot's the use of hundreds of acres if
you aun't comfortable at hoame ? I've no ambitions, so
I'm a happy man. I dfian't want nothing I haven't got,
and so I haven't got nothing I ddan't want. Surelye ! "
Reuben was silent, his heart was full of disgust* Some-
how those delicious sausages stuck in his throat, but he
was too young to push away his plate and refuse to eat
more of this token of his father's apathy and Odiam's
shame. He ate silently on, and as soon as he had
finished rose from table, leaving the room with a mumble
about being tired.
When he was half-way upstairs he heard his mother
call him, asking him if he would like her to bathe his
shoulders. But he refused her almost roughly, and
bounded up to the attic under the crinkled eaves, which
was his own, his sanctuary his land.
It was odd that his parents did not care. Now he
came to think of it, they did not seem to care about
anything very much, except Harry. It never struck
him to think it was odd that he should care when they
did not.
He sat down by the window, and leaning his elbow on
the sill, looked out. It was still windy, and the sky was
shredded over with cloud* lit by the paleness of a hidden
PROLOGUE THE CHALLENGE 21
moon. In the kitchen, two flights below, a fiddle
sounded. It was Harry playing to his parents as he
always played In the evening, while they sat on either
side of the fire, nodding, smiling, half-asleep. Clods !
Cowards ! A sudden rage kindled in his heart against
those three, his father, hip mother, and beautiful Harry,
who cared nothing about that for which he had suffered
all things.
The crest of BoarzeU was just visible against the
luminous sky. There was something sinister and
challenging about those firs. The gorse round their
trunks seemed in that strange half-stormy, half-peaceful
night to throw off a faint glimmer of gold. The fiddle
wept and sang into the darkness, and outside the window
two cherry trees scraped their boughs together.
Reuben's head dropped on his arm, and he slept out of
weariness. An hour later the cramp of his shoulders
woke him ; the fiddle was silent, the moon was gone,
and the window framed a level blackness. With a little
moan he flung himself dressed on the bed.
BOOK I
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT
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 Backfieid 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 Hairy 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 paki, 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 ait em-
bracing restfulness. Reuben's heart wanned with a
love in which was little grief. He thought of his father's
, kindly, comfortable, ambitioniess. He had
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 28
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 uncon-
quered, 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, lie 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
virgia 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
24 SUSSEX GORSE
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 doan't want nothing I haven't got, and
so I haven't got nothing I ddan't want/*
Yes there was no denying his father had beea
happy. But what a happiness 1 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 BoarzeJL 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 BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 25
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, BackfieW 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 dream-
land, 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 aH 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 lie would spare himself.
26 SUSSEX GORSE
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 stnock, 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 Hairy/* 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
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 27
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 fanners of the neighbour-
hood, 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, Beekley, and Idea. 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 kitow that my
28 SUSSEX GORSE
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 depen-
dents, 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 Ms 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/'
rl Stouter, and darker. What black brows he lias,
Mus' Piper ! "
<c How straight he stands ! "
" I waonder 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 wiiich 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
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 29
back to the house, biting her lips, " Dudn't he see me,
or war 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,
11 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/ 1
" But we've bin drinking chocolate fur a dunnamany
years now your poor faather always liked it and I
doan't see why we should stop it."
11 Look'ee, mother, I've something to tell you. I've a
plan In my head, and it'll justabout mean being shut of
80 SUSSEX GORSE
a lot of things besides chocolate, I know faather dudn't
care much about the farm, about maaking 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.
* f 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 Grandturzcl's
got now* Squire he woan't be sorry to sell it, and 1
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 Boarzcfl fur ? " asked
Mrs. Backfield in a bewildered voice ; l( the farm's
praaper as it is we doan f t want it no bigger/'
11 And BoaizclTs wicked tedious stuff/' put in Harry ;
11 naun'U grow there but gorse,"
11 m have a good grain growing there in five year
doan't you go doubting it. The ground wants working,
that's all. And as fur not wanting the farm no bigger,
that wur faather's idea (Mam's mine now/ 1
" Why can't we jest go on being happy and comfort-
able, lik we wur before ? "
" Because I've thought of something much grander,
surelye. I'm going to maake 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 ? "
<r Well, first of all, we must save aH the money we can,
and not go drinking chocolate and French wine, and
eating sweet puddens and all such denticnl 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 Ms wages/ 1
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 81
'* Send away Blackmail ! oh, Ben, he's bin with us
fifteen year/'
" I ddan't care if he's bin a hunderd. There aun'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 faather
wanted different, but I've bin thinking and dreaming
of this fur years/'
" You always wur queer about BoarzelL But your
faather 'ud turn in his grave to think of you sending off
Blackman/*
" He'll easily git another plaace I'll find him one
myself. And, mother there's something more. Now
you haven't got faather 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 aun'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 *praaperly* You let me send off
Blackman and Becky, Mid see how we manage wudout
'em, m 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 faather wur/'
82 SUSSEX GORSE
" YesI'm master here/' He sat down, and looked
round the table quite calmly. A vague uneasiness
disturbed Mrs. Backfield and Harry, For some un-
fathomable 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 BoarzeH/' said Mrs.
Backfield at last ; " you remember that time years ago
when he got mixed up wud the riot ? I said to his
faather then as I was sure Ben 'ud want to do something
crazy wud the farm. But I never thought he'd so soon
be mSaster," and a tear trickled over her smooth cheek.
** I doan't see no harm in his buying a bit of Boaraell
if it's going cheap but it aun't worth maaklng all our-
selves uncomfortable for it, 1 *
" No* Howsumdever, we can't stand agaunst him
the plaace 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.
" Burn ! if he aun'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,
" Ddan't you go vrothering him, lad. It'll only set
him agaunst you, and I doan't care, not really ; there'll
be unaccountable liddle work to do in the house now
your poor faather's gone, and Blackman wdan'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 maaster here/*
41 Ho! we shall see that"
*' Now you're not to go quarrelling wud Mm, Harry.
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT S3
Td sooner have peace than anything whatsumdever,
I aun't used to being set agaunst people. Besides, it
woan'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. 1 '
** Yes, dearie, I know, and it's unaccountable good of
you and Naomi to let me come wud you. I doan'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 faather *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 com-
fortable 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 Kitcheixhour and it was no empty boast of
84 SUSSEX
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 Ms 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 rewardsthe 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 enter-
prise, he had no intention of sparing others their part,
AH 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* Back-
field 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
beea censured by public opinion if they had set them-
selves 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,
'THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 85
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 result-
ing from the sale of a water-meadow, and securely
banked at Rye. Naomi, moreover, was well dowered ;
and Torn 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 Ms 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
faon grew he would want more hands to work it, and
86 StJSSEX GORSE
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. J
Since his father's death he had denied himself woman's
company, after two years lived in the throb and sweet-
ness of it. A warm and vigorous temperament, con-
trolled by a strong will, had promised a successful
libertinism, and more than once he had drunk the
extasies of passion without those clregs 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 Boarzeil, in the low grounds
down by Totease. He had saved chiefly on the wages
of Blackman and Becky, though, against that, he hac?
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 genulncs berng sold to Idea
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 87
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 brant 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 per-
formed so well was a tax on her unaccustoxnedness. 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 Mm and
Harry, while Harry thought of nothing but Naomi.
He would have to wage Ms fight alone.
Xke twisaptiott was prompt and satisfactory, Reubeu
88 SUSSEX GORSE
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 maake anything out of it. But it's
land I want want to maake myself a sort of landed
praprietor " a lie" and raise the old farm up a bit.
I'd like to have the whole of BoarzdL Reckon as
Grandturzel 'ud sell me their bit soon as I've got the
rest. They'll never maake anything out of it,"
He walked home over Boarzell, scarcely conscious of
the ground he trod. He felt like a i>ew-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, aH 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 wealdcn clay*
" No flints here/* he said ; ** reckon there's some stiff
ground on the hill but it's only the surface. Heather
aun*t growing that's a tedious good siga* I'll have
oats here the best in Peasmarsh, 1 *
Jte stood staring at the grass with its dribbta of
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 89
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 Susses: 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 ia 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 i
'* * O why when we loved like the swallows in April,
Should beauty forget now their nests have grown cold ?
why when we kissed 'laid the ewes on the hanger,
Should you turn from me now that they winter in fold ?
" * 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, my faithless ladie ?
11 * 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,
Ana turn to your true love and find it too late/ "
Harry's voice was very loud and clear, with that
of wfldness which is a compensation for EO
40 SUSSEX GORSE
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 tip
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 comeli-
ness 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 I 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
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 41
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, woan'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 Ms 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;
11 I'm coming to help you, Reuben. You'll never
tackle them rootses it aw't everything you can da
i **
42 SUSSEX GORSE
" I can do that much. You stay here and play the
fiddle to Naomi/ 1
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/ 1
They stood on the hillside and looked down at
Reuben, He had felled five trees, and was now getting
Ms 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/ 1 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
bis blue shirt* Again the axe swung and fell,
THE BEGINNING OP THE FIGHT 43
Naomi's body tingled as with a physical exhilara-
tion.
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/ 1
" Blast 'em 1 "
" 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 wilier rootses always wur hemmed
spready/'
" It's never bin done in these parts/'
f * 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. . . .
" Backfidd's going to bust up his willer-rootses
fine sight it'll be like as not blow Ms own head off
I'll be there to see/*
Q whea Reuben c$me to hjis territory the next
44 SUSSEX GOKSE
noon he found a small crowd assembled Ditch, Ginner,
Realf of Grandturzel, Coalbran of Doozes, Pllcher 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 ta
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
Hany, Reuben grew impatient, for he wanted to have
the ground tidied up by sunset. It was a wan, mould-
smeUing 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, " some-
thing's kept him/'
" Hell be disappointed/ 1 said Naomi softly,
" I can't help that the sun's near down, and I must
have everything praaper by dark/*
He went to where the fuse lay like a snake in the
grass, and struck his flint,
14 Stand back everybody; I'm going to start her/ 1
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 ;
11 There's Hariy 1 "
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,
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 45
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 I " 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 gun-
powder 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 t n 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 1 " 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*
lf 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/'
46 SUSSEX GOESE
" Wipe the blood off his face."
" Tell Ms poor girl he died wudout suffering/*
** He aun*t dead/* said Reuben.
He had torn of! the rags from his brother's heart, and
felt it beating.
" He aun't dead."
" Oh Lord ! " wailed Ditch." Oh Lord ! "
" Here, you chaps, fetch a geat and put him on it
and doan't let Naomi see him."
Naomi had been taken back to Odiain, 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 citing
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,
58.
Dr. Espinette from Rye stood glumly by Harry's bed*
His finger lay on tine 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 ; lf that wound
in the head's the worst of it. The bums aren*t very
serious in themselves. You must keep him quiet, and
I'll call again to-morrow morning/ 1
" When till he waake up ? " asked Mrs. Backfield In
the feeble voice her tears had left her,
<f I don't know it may be in an hour or two, it mayn't
be for a week. 1 *
" A week ! "
fl I've known them unconscious longer than that,
But, cheer up, ma^amwe're not going to let him slip
past tis."
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 47
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 drank 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 ? Burn 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
48 SUSSEX GOESE
engaging outside help, when a voice from the bed cried
feebly :
" Oh 1 "
Reuben went to Harry's side, and bent over him*
" Oh/' moaned his brother, " oh ! oh 1 "
" I'm here, old feller/' said Reuben with a clumsy
effort at tenderness.
" Bring a light, do I can't abide this dark* 11
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 natin there,
naun, I tell you/ 1
" Oh, oh ! " screamed Harry" Oh, oh, oh ! "
The outcry brought Mrs. Backficld 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 fust it seemed, as if Naomi's
presence soothed him, and he would let her stroke his
aims and hands. But after a time he ceased to rccog**
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 49
nise 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 harm
less 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 out-
doors 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 ran 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 f 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,
SO SUSSEX GORSB
of finding himself blind. Reuben felt practically con-
vinced 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 Boaxzell* 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 Ms 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 purposeeven though he was fighting it.
He mildly scandalised his neighbours by blasting-
privately this time the tree stumps yet in the ground
According to their ethics he should have accepted
Harry's accident as the voice of Providence and ab-
stained from his outlandish methods also some felt
that it was a matter of delicacy and decent feeling not
to repeat that which had had such dire consequences
for his brother. " I wonder he can bear to do it/' said
Ginner, when f Bang 1 Bang ! * came over the hummocks
to Socknersh.
But Reuben did it because he was not going to be
beaten in any respect by his land. He was not going to
accept defeat ia the slightest instance* So lie blew up
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 51
the stumps, tidied the ground, and spread manure
and more manure and yet more manure.
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. Com-
plaints of his night-soil came all the way from Grand-
turzel ; 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.
The neighbours despised and mistrusted his enthu-
siasm. There he was, thinking of nothing but his land,
when Harry, his only brother, lay worse than dying.
But Reuben often thought of Harry.
One thing he noticed, and that was that the house-
work was always done for him by his mother as if there
were no sickness to fill her time. Always when he came
home of an evening, his supper was waiting for him,
hot and savoury. He breakfasted whenever he had a
mind, and there were slices of cold pie or dabs of bread
and meat for him to take out and eat as he worked he
had no time to come home to dinner now. Really his
mother was tumbling to things wonderfully well she
looked a little tired sometimes, it is true, and the lines
of her face were growing thinner, but sh.e was saving
Mm seven shillings a month and the girl's food ; and all
that money and food was feeding the hungry earth,
Naomi helped her with the nursing, and also a little
about the house. She had refused to go home to Rye,
though Harry did not seem to recognise her.
" For sometimes/ 1 she said, " I think he does."
S2 SUSSEX GORSE
10.
Towards the middle of February a change took place
in Harry, At first it was little more than a faint creep
of life, putting a little glow in his cheeks, a little warmth
in his blood. Then the wounds which had been healing
so slowly began to heal quickly, his appetite returned,
and he slept long and sweetly at nights.
Mrs. Backfield's hope rekindled, but the doctor soon
damped it down. This sudden recrudescence of physical
health was a bad sign, for there was no corresponding
revival of intellect, and now the prostration of the body
could no longer account for the aberration of the mind*
It was unlikely that Harry would ever recover his wits
the injuries to his skull, either with or without the shock
of his blindness, had definitely affected his brain. The
strong, clear will, the gay spirits, the quick under-
standing, the tender sensibilities which had made him
so bright and lovable a being, were gone how much of
shreds and scraps they had left behind them to build
up the semblance of a man, did not yet appear.
His looks would be only slightly marred. It was the
optic nerve which had been destroyed, and so far there
was nothing ugly in the eyes themselves, except their
vacant rolling* The eyelashes and eyebrows had been
burnt off, but they were growing again, and a scar on
his cheek and another on his forehead were not Mkely
to show much in a few weeks' time. But aH the life,
the light, the soul had gone out of his face it was like
a house which had been gutted, with walls and roof
still standing, yet with its essential quality gone from
it, a rain,
Reuben thought long and anxiously about his brother.
He did not speak much of him to his mother or Naomi,
for he kaew that they would not understand the problem
that confronted him. He felt worn by the extra load of
work, and his brain fretted, spoiling Ms good sleep* He
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 58
was back in his own room now, but he slept worse tham
in Harry's ; he would lie awake fighting mentally, fust
as all day he had fought physically life was a con-
tinuous fight.
It was hard that just at the outset of his enterprise,
fresh obstacles should be thrown in his way. He saw
that it was practically impossible for him to go on
working as he did ; already he was paying for it in stiff
muscles, loss of appetite, fitful sleep, and drugged
wakings. Also he was growing irritable and frayed as to
temper. If he went on much longer doing the work of
three men he had always done the work of two he
would end by breaking up completely, and then what
would become of Odiain ? He would have to engage
outside help, and that would mean quite ten shillings a
week 'ten shillings a week, two pounds a month, twenty-
six pounds a year, the figures were like blisters in his
head during the long restless nights. They throbbed
and throbbed through his dreams. He would have to
spend twenty-six pounds a year, just when he was
saving so desperately to buy more land and fatten what
he already had. And in addition he would have to pay
for Harry's keep. Not only must he engage a man to
do his work, but he would have to support in absolute
idleness Harry himself. He was quite unfit for farm
work, he would be nothing but an expense and an
incubus.
In those dark furious hours, Reuben would wish his
brother had died. It was not as if life could be sweet
to him. It was terrible to see him mouching and
mumbling about the house, to hold even the brief
converse with him which everyday life enforced* He
had not as yet grown used to his blindness, indeed it
would be difficult for him to do so without wits to stimu-
late and direct Ms other semses, and it was dreadful to
see Mm tumbling over furniture, breaking things and
crying afterwards, spilling food on his clothes and hfe
54 SUSSEX GORSE
beard for now that he could not shave himself, and
others had no time to do it for him, he wore a large fair
beard, which added to his uncouthncss.
Oh that his brother had died !
One day Reuben was so tired that he fell asleep over
his supper, His mother cleared the table round him,
glancing at him with fond, submissive eyes. Each day
she had come to love him more, with an obedient love,
almost instinctive and elemental, which she had never
felt for the gentle husband or considerate son* This
evening she laid her shawl over his shoulders, and went
to her washing-up,
Suddenly a weird noise came from the parlour, a
strange groaning and wailing. Reuben woke up, and
rubbed his eyes* What was that ? It was horrible, it
was uncanny and for him it also had that terrifying
UHnaturalness which a sudden waking gives even to the
most ordinary sounds.
Then gradually out of the horror beauty began to
grow. The sound passed into an air, faltering at first,
then flowing" Dearest Ellen/ 1 on Harry's violin,
" I'm glad he's found something to amuse him, poor
soul/' said Mrs. BackField, coming in to see if Reuben
had waked.
11 He's not playing badly* is he> mother ? Jl
" Not at all. They say as sometimes blind folk are
unaccountable good at music/*
Reuben did not answer ; she knew by his attitude-
chin in hand that he was thinking.
That night he thought it out.
Munds of Starvecrow had had a brother who fiddled
at fairs and weddings and earned, so Munds said, thirty
pounds a year. He had also heard of others who made
as good a thing of it. If Harry earned thirty pounds a
year he would pay the wages of an extra farm-hand and
also something towards his own keep. They must find
out exactly how many of the old tunes he remem-
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 55
bered, and get somebody musical to teach him new
ones.
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.
Naomi, a little paler and more wistful than of old,
still spent an occasional day or two at Odiam* At first
she had made these visits for Harry's sake, flattering
herself that he was the better for her presence ; then
when even her faith began to fail, she still came, partly
to help Mrs. Backfield, partly driven by such feelings as
might drive an uneasy ghost to haunt the house of his
tragedy. Reuben saw little of her, for his work claimed
him, but he liked to feel she was there, helping 'his
mother with work which it was difficult for her to carry
through alone to Odiain's best advantage.
She heard of Reuben's plan with some shrinking.
" He he wouldn't like it," she stammered after a
pause.
" You'll never go sending our Harry to fiddle at
fairs/ 1 said Mrs. Backfield.
" Why not ? There's naun shameful in it. Munds's
brother did it for twenty years. And think of the
difference it'll maake to us thirty pound or so a year,
instead of the dead loss of Harry's keep and the wages
of an extra man beside. I tell you, mother, I wur fair
sick about the farm till I thought of this/*
" It's always the farm wud you, Reuben. You might
sometimes think of your own kin."
" I tell you Harry woan't mind he'll like it. It'll
be something to occupy him. Besides, hem it all,
mother 1 you can't expect me to kip him idling here,
wud the farm scarce started yet, and nearly the whole of
BoarzeU still to buy."
But it was useless to expect either Mrs. Backfield or
Naomi to appreciate the momentousness of his task.
Were women always, he wondered, without ambition?
56 SUSSEX GORSE
However, though they did not sympathise, they would
not oppose him Naomi because she was not skilful at
opposition, his mother because he was gradually taking
the place of Harry in her heart.
He had more trouble when a day or so later he asked
Naomi to inspect Harry's musical equipment.
" You see, 1 doan't know one tune from another, so I
can't do it myself. You might git him to play one or two
things over to you, Naomi, and find out what he
remembers/'
" I'd rather not/' said Naomi, shuddering.
" Why ? "
" Oh I just can't."
" But why ? "
She could not tell him. If he did not understand how
every note from Harry's violin would jab and tear the
tortured memories she was trying to put to sleepif he
did not understand that of himself, die would never be
able to explain it to him.
As a matter of fact he did understand, but he was
resolute,
" Help me, Naomi/ 1 he pleaded, " fur I can't manage
wudout you."
His eyes searched her face. People who met Mm only
casually were generally left with the impression that he
had black eyes, but as a matter of fact they were dark
blue. A hidden power forced Naomi's eyes to meet
them . , . they were narrow and deep-set, with extra-
ordinarily long lashes. She gazed into them for a
moment without speaking. Then suddenly her own
filled with an expression of hatred, and she ran out of
the room.
But he had won his point. That evening Naomi made
Harry play over his " tunes/ 1 while Reuben sat in the
chimney corner watching them both, Harry's memory
was erratic he would play through some wei-known
airs quite correctly up to a certain point, and then
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 57
interpolate hysterical variations of his own. At other
times memory failed him altogether, but his natural
quickness of ear seemed to have increased since his
blindness, and it only needed Naomi to sing the passage
over for him to fill up the gaps.
She took him through " The Woodpecker Tapping/'
" Dearest Ellen/ 1 " I'd mourn the hopes that leave me/'
" The Song of Seth's House/' and " The Blue Bells of
Scotland/ 1 Each one of them was torment to her
gentle heart, as it woke memory after memory of court-
ship on the gorse-slopes of Boarzell, among the
chasing shadows of Iden Wood, on the Rother marshes
by Thornsdale, where the river slinks up from the Five-
watering . , . or in this very kitchen here, where the
three of them, divided from one another by dizzy gaps
of suffering, desire and darkness, were gathered together
in a horrible false association.
But Harry's face was blank, no memories seemed to
stir for him, he just fiddled on, now and then receiving
Naomi's corrections with an outbreak of childish temper.
On these occasions Reuben would stamp his foot and
speak to him in a loud, angry voice which inevitably
made him behave himself.
Naomi always took advantage of these returns to
docility, but later that evening in the dairy, she suddenly
swung round on Mrs. Backfield and exclaimed petu-
lently :
" I hate that Ben of yours ! "
.
Harry made good progress, and Reuben decided that
he was to start his career at the October Fair. There
had been a fiddler at the Fair for years, partly for the
lasses and lads to dance to, partly for the less Bacchic
entertainments of their elders. It was at the Fair that
men took his measure, and engaged him accordingly for
weddings and such festivals. Luck would have it that
58 SUSSEX GORSE
for the last two years there had been no official fiddler-
old Abel Pinch having been seduced by a semi-urban
show, which wandered round London, camping on waste
grounds and commons. The musical element had been
supplied by strays, and Reuben had no doubt but that
he should now be able to instal his brother honourably
as chief musician.
He advertised him in the neighbourhood for some
weeks beforehand, and gossip ran high. Condemnation
of Backfield's ruthlessness in exploiting his brother was
combined with a furtive admiration of his smartness as a
business man. It was extraordinary how little he cared
about " lowering himself/' a vital matter with the other
farmers of his position. Just as he had thought nothing
of working his own farm instead of indulging in the
dignity of hired labour, so he thought nothing of
making money at Boarzell Fair with the gipsies and
pikers.
Naomi no longer protested. For one thing Harry
seemed to like his fiddling, and was quite overjoyed at
the prospect of playing at the Fair, Strangely enough,
he remembered the Fair and its jollities, though he had
forgotten all weightier matters of life and love*
" Where shall I stand ? by the gipsies' tent ? or
right forrard by the stalls ? I'd like to stand by the
stalls, and then maybe when I'm not fiddling they'll give
me sweeties."
" You must behave yourself/ 1 said Reuben, in the
tones he would have used to a child" you mustn't go
vrothering people to give you sweeties."
" I'll give you some sweeties, Harry/' said Naomi,
" Oh, will you ? Then I'll love you ! "
Naomi turned away with a shudder, her eyes full of
inexpressible pain.
Reuben looked after her as she went out of the room,
then he took a couple of strides and caught her up in the
passage.
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 59
" It's I who'm taaking you to the Fair, remember/'
he said, his hand on her arm*
" Oh, no ... I couldn't go to the Fair."
" Nonsense you're coming wud me."
** Oh, Ben, don't make me go."
It was the cry of her weakness to his purpose*
" I shall maake you . . . dear."
She flung herself from him, and ran upstairs. That
night at supper she took no notice of him, talking
garrulously all the time to Mrs. Backfield.
But she went to the Fair,
In the soft grey gown that the first of the cold
demanded she walked with her arm through Reuben's
up the Moor. Her bonnet was the colour of heather,
tied with wide ribbons that accentuated the milkiness
of her chin. Reuben wore his Sunday clothes drab
shorts and a sprigged waistcoat, and a wide-brimmed
hat under which his face looked strangely handsome
and dark. Harry shuffled along, clutching his brother's
coat-sleeve to guide himself. Mrs. Backfield preferred to
stay at home, and Reuben had not tried to make her
come.
All Peasmarsh went to the Fair. It was a recognised
holiday. All farm work except the most barely
necessary was put aside, and the ploughman and
dairymaid rollicked with their betters. The road across
Boarzell was dark with them, coming from all quarters
Playden, Men, Beckley, Northiam, Bodiam Old
Turk's Farm, Baron's Grange, Corkwood, Kitchenhour
even from Blackbrook and Ethnam on the Kentish
border.
The tents and stalls were blocked as usual round the
central crest of pines. It was all much as it had been
five years ago on the day of the Riot. There was the
outer fringe of strange dwellings teats full of smoke
and sprawling squalling children, tilt carts with soup-
pots hanging from their axles over little fires,
60 SUSSEX GORSE
gorgeously painted caravans which stood out aristo-
cratically amidst the prevalent sacking. There was a
jangle of voices the soft Romany of the gipsies, the
shriller cant of the pikers and half-breeds, the broad
drawling Sussex of the natives. Head of all the Fair,
and superintending the working of the crazy merry-go-
round, was Gideon Teazel, a rock-like man, son, he said,
of a lord and a woman of the Rosaxnescros or Hearnes.
He stood six foot eight in his boots and could carry a
heifer across his shoulders. - His wife Aurora, a pure-
bred gipsy, told fortunes, and was mixed up in more
activities than would appear from her sleepy manner or
her invariable position, pipe in mouth, on the steps of
her husband's caravan, Gideon loved to display his
devotion for her by grotesque endearments and
elephantine caresses due no doubt to the gaujo
strain in him, for the true gipsies always treated their
women in public as chattels or beasts of burden, though
privately they were entirely under their thumbs.
Reuben brought Naomi and Harry into the middle of
the Fair, Many people stared at them. It was Harry's
first public appearance since his illness, and one or two
comments louder than the general hum came to Naomi's
ears and made them pink.
Harry was soon established on the upturned cask
beside the fighting booth which had always been the
fiddler's place. He began to play at once " Nice
Young Maidens " to all appearances quite indifferent
to the j ostle round him. Naomi could not help marvelling
at Reuben, too he was so cool, possessed and assured,
so utterly without anything in the way of embarrassment
or self-consciousness.
Wonder was succeeded by wrath how dare he be
calm in the face of such terrible things ? She tried to
pull her hand out of his arm, but he held Ms elbow dose
to his side, and the little hand lay there like an im-
prisoned mouse.
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 61
" Let's go away," she whispered, half nervously and
half angrily, " I hate standing here/'
" I want to see how he's going to manage/' said
Reuben. " Whatll he do when he comes to the end of
this tune ? "
" Oh, do let's go away."
He did not answer, but stood there imperturbable^
till Harry, having successfully finished "Nice Young
Maidens/ 1 started " The Woodpecker Tapping " without
any ado,
" He's safe enough now we may as well go and have
a look round."
Naomi followed him out of the little crowd which had
grouped round Harry, and they wandered into the
Panorama tent to see the show. After having sat for
half an hour on a crowded bench, in an atmosphere
thick with foul tobacco and the smell of clothes long
stored away watching "The Coronation of Queen
Victoria " and " Scenery on the West Coast of Scot-
land" rumble slowly past with many creaks they
moved on to the sparring booth, where Buck Washing-
ton, now a little knotted and disabled by a bout of
rheumatism, arranged scraps between the ploughboys
of the neighbouring farms.
Unluckily, the object of sparring, as practised locally,
was to draw as much blood from the adversary as
possible. The combatants went straight for each
others' noses, in spite of the conjurations of Buck, and
Naomi soon exercised her privilege as a town girl, and
said she felt faint. Reuben took her out, and they
walked round the stalls, at one of which he bought her
a cherry ribbon for her fairing. At another they bought
gingerbread. Gradually her spirits began to revive
she applauded his power at the shooting gallery, and
when they came to the cocoanut shie, she was laughing
out loud.
Reuben seemed to have an endless supply of money.
62 SUSSEX GORSE
He, whom slie had seen deny himself white bread and
tobacco, and scold his mother if she used eggs to make
a pudding, did not seem now to care how much he spent
for her amusement. He vowed, laughing, that she
should not leave the shie till she had brought down a
nut, and the showman pocketed pennies till he grinned
from ear to ear, while Naomi threw the wooden balls in
all directions, hitting the showman and the spectators
and once even Reuben himself. At last he took her arm,
and putting himself behind her managed after one or
two attempts to guide a successful throw. They went
off laughing with her prize, and came once more to the
open ground where Harry was still playing his fiddle.
Evidently he had pleased the multitude, for there was
now a thick crowd in the central space, and already
dancing had begun. Farm-hands in clean smocks, with
bright-coloured handkerchiefs round their necks, gam-
bolled uncouthly with farm-girls in spotted and striped
muslins, Young farmers' wives, stiff with the sedate-
ness of their bridehead, were drawn into reluctant
capers. Despairing virgins renewed their hope, and
tried wives their liveliness in unaccustomed arms. Even
the elders danced, stumping together on the outskirts
of the whirl as long as their breath allowed them.
Harry played " The Song of Seth's House/' which in
spite of or because of its sadness was a good dancing
tune. There was no definite step, just anything the
dancers fancied. Some kicked up their heels vigorously,
others slid them sedately, some held their partners by
the hand, others with both arms round their waist.
Then suddenly Naomi found herself in the thick of
the crowd, at once crushed and protected by Reuben's
six foot three of strength. At first she was shocked,
chilled she had never danced at a fair before, and it
seemed dreadful to be dancing here with Reuben while
Harry fiddled. But gradually the jovial movement,
the vigour and gay spirits of her partner, wore down her
THE BEGINNING OP THE FIGHT 68
reluctance. Once more she was impressed by that
entire absence of self -consciousness and false pride which
characterised him. After all, why should they not dance
here together? Why should they stand glum while
everyone else was merrymaldng ? Harry did not notice
them, and if he did he would not care.
* f 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."
She found herself bending to the rhythm of the music,
swaying in Reuben's arms. He held her lightly, and it
was wonderful how clever he was in avoiding concussion
with the other dancers, most of whom bumped about
regardless of anybody else.
" 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 I *'
A sudden weariness passed over Naomi, and Reuben
led her out of the dance and brought her a drink of mild
Icy ale. He did not offer to take her home, and she did
not ask to go. If he had offered she would have gone,
but she had no will of her own all desire, all initiative
was drowned in the rhythm of the dance and the sad-
ness of the old tune.
'* why when we loved like the swallows in April,
Should beauty forget now their nests have grown cold ?
why when we kissed 'mid the ewes on the hanger,
Should you turn from me now that they winter in fold ? "
He led her back into the crowd, and once more she
felt his arms round her, so light, so strong, while her
feet spun with his, tricked by magic. She became
acutely conscious of his presence the roughness of Ms
coat-sleeve, the faint scent of the sprigged waistcoat,
which had been folded away in lavender. And all the
64 SUSSEX GORSE
while she had another picture of him in her heart, not
in his Sunday best, but in corduroys and the blue shirt
which had stood out of the January dusk, the last
piece of colour in the day. She remembered the swing
of his arm, the crash of the axe on the trunk, the bend-
ing of his back as he pulled it out, the muscles swelled
under the skin , , . and then the tingling creep in her
own heart, that sudden suffocating thrill which had
come to her there beside Harry in the gloam. . . .
The dusk was falling now, splashed by crude flares
over the stalls, and once more that creep delicious,
tingling, suffocating was in her heart, the intoxication
of the weak by the strong. It seemed as if he were
holding her closer. She grew warm, and yet she would
not stop. There was sweat on her forehead, she felt
her woollen gown sticking to her shoulders but she
would not rest. The same old tune jigged on it was
good to dance to, and Harry liked playing it.
" why, because sickness hath wasted my body,
Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie ?
why, because brothers and friends all have left me,
Should you leave me too, my faithless ladie ? "
The dance was becoming more of a rout. Hats fell
back, even Naomi's heather -coloured bonnet became
disorderly. Kerchiefs were crumpled and necks bare.
Arms grew tighter, there were few merely clasping
hands now. Then a lad kissed his partner on the neck
while they danced, and soon another couple were
spinning round with lips clinging together. The girls'
hair grew rough and blew in their boys' eyes there
were sounds of panting of kissing Naomi grew giddy,
round her was a whirl of colour, hands, faces, the dusk
and flaring lights. She clung closer to Reuben, and his
tightened about her.
" 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/*
THE BEGINOTNG OF THE FIGHT 65
12.
Reuben was pleased with the results of that Fair
Day. Harry had been a complete success. Even on
the day itself he was engaged to fiddle at a local wedding,
and thenceforth no festival was complete without him.
He became the fashion in Peasmarsh. His birth and
family gave proceedings an air of gentility, and his
tragic story imparted romance. Also his real musical
gifts were appreciated by some, as well as his tireless-
ness and good nature. Occasionally he would have
fits of crazy ill-temper, but only required firm handling,
Reuben saw that his brother, instead of being entirely
on the debit side of Odiam's accounts, would add
materially to its revenues. He became exceedingly
kind to Harry, and gave him apples and sweets.
That autumn he had sown his oats. He sowed
English Berlie, after wavering for some time between
that and Barbachlaw. Quantities of rape cake had
been delivered in the furrows with the seed, and now
the fields lay, to the* eye, wet and naked to the soul, to
Reuben's farmer-soul, full of the hidden promise which
should sprout with May,
He had a man to help him on the farm, Beatup, an
uncouth coltish lad, with an unlimited capacity for work.
Reuben never let him touch the new ground, but kept
him busy in barn and yard with the cattle, Mrs. Back-
field worked in the house as usual, and she now also
had charge of the poultry ; >lor Reuben having given
them up to her when he was single-handed, had not
taken them back he had to look after Beatup, who
wanted more watching than Harry, and he also had
bought two more pigs as money-makers. He was saving,
stinting, scraping to buy more land.
Mrs. Backfield sometimes had Naomi to help her.
Naomi often came to stay at Odiam, She did not know
why she came ; it was not for love of Mrs. Backfield,
66 SUSSEX GORSE
and the sight of Harry wrung her heart. She had fits
of weeping alternating with a happy restlessness.
Ever since the day of the Fair a strange feeling had
possessed her, sometimes just for fitful moments, some-
times for long days of panic the feeling of being
pursued. She felt herself being hunted, slowly, but
inevitably, by one a dozen times more strong, more
knowing, more stealthy than herself. She heard his
footsteps in the night, creeping after her down long
labyrinths of thought, sometimes his shadow sped
before her with her own. And she knew that one day he
would seize her though she struggled, wept and fled,
she knew that one day she would be his at last, and of
her own surrender. The awful part of that seizing
would be that it would be a matter of her will as well
as his. . , .
She was afraid of Reuben, she fled before him like a
poor little lamb, trembling and bleating and yet she
would sometimes long for the inevitable day when he
would grasp her and fling her across his shoulders.
She could not discipline her attitude towards him
sometimes she was composed, distant even in her
thoughts; at others a kind of delirious excitement
possessed her, she flushed and held down her head in
his presence, could not speak to him, and groped blindly
for escape. She would, on these occasions, end by return-
ing to Rye, but away from^ Reuben a restless misery
tormented her, driving her back to Odiam.
She sometimes asked herself if she loved him, and in
cold blood there was only one answer to that question
No. What she felt for him was not love, but obsession
if she had never loved she might have mistaken it,
but with her memories of Harry she could not. And the
awful part of it was that her heart was still Harry's,
though everything else was Reuben's. Her desires, her
thoughts, her will were all Reuben's by a slow remorse-
less process he was making them his own but her heart,
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 67
the loving, suffering part of her, was still Harry's, and
might always be his.
She was not continuously conscious of this some-
times she forgot Harry, sometimes he repulsed her,
often she was afraid of him. But in moments of quiet
her heart always gave her the same message, like distant
music, drowned in a storm.
One day she was in the dairy at Odiam, skimming the
cream-pans. The sunshine, filtered to a watery yellow
by the March afternoon, streamed in on her, putting a
yellow tinge into her white skin and white apron. Her
hair was the colour of fresh butter, great pats and cakes
of which stood on the slabs beside her. There was a
smell of butter and standing milk in the cold, rather
damp air. Naomi skimmed the cream off the pans and
put it into a brown bowl.
Suddenly she realised that Reuben had come into the
dairy, and was standing beside her, a little way behind.
" Hullo, Ben," she said nervously it was one of her
nervous days.
" How's the cream to-day ? "
" Capital/ 1
He dipped his finger into the pan, and sucked it.
" Oughtn't it to stand a bit longer ? "
" I don't think so."
Taste it "
He dipped his finger again, and suddenly thrust it
between her lips.
She drew her head away almost angrily, and moved
to the next pan.
Then he stooped and kissed her quite roughly on the
neck, close to the nape.
She cried out and turned round on him, but he walked
out of the dairy.
For a moment Naomi stood stockish, conscious only
of two sensations in her body the taste of cream on
her lips, and a little cold place at the back of her neck
68 SUSSEX GORSE
She began to tremble, then suddenly the colour left he,T
cheeks, for in the doorway of the wash-house, three
yards off, stood Harry.
He did not move, and for some unaccountable reason
she felt sure that he knew Reuben had kissed her. A
kind of sickness crept up to her heart ; she held out her
hands before her, and tottered a little. She felt faint*
" Hany ! " she called.
He came shuffling up to her, and for a moment stood
straining his blind eyes into her face.
" Harry will you will you take this basin of cream
to your mother ? "
He was still looking into her eyes, and she was visited
by a terrible feeling that came to her sometimes and
went as quickly that he was not so mad as people
thought.
" Will you take it ? "
He nodded.
She gave him the cream bowl. Their hands acci-
dentally touched ; she pulled hers away, and the bowl
fell and was broken.
13-
The next day Naomi left for Rye, where she stayed
three weeks. She was mistaken, however, in thinking
she had found a place of refuge, the hunt still went on,
Reuben knew that his kiss had given him a definite
position with regard to her, and Naomi knew that he
knew. Twice he came over and visited her at Rye.
He never attempted to kiss her again, and carefully
avoided all talk of love. Indeed, her father was generally
in the room. He was much taken with young Backfield,
who was ready to talk shipping and harbour-work with
him for hours.
" He's a solider man than ever poor Harry was/ 1
said old Gasson to Naomi, " more dependable, I should
think. Reckon he'll do well for himself at Odiam,
She'll be a lucky girl whom he marries."
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 69
Naomi had no mother.
Reuben was pleased with the impression he had
made. He was now working definitely. At first he had
merely drifted, drawn by the charm of the female
creature, so delicate, soft and weak. Then common-
sense had taken the rudder he had seen Naomi's
desirableness from a practical point of view ; she was
young, good -looking, sound if scarcely robust, well
dowered, and of good family fit in every way to be the
mother of his children. Since Harry was debarred from
marrying her, his brother could even more profitably
take his place. Her money would then go direct to his
ambition; he realised the enormous advantage of a
little reserve capital and longed for a relaxation of
financial strain. The Gassons were an old and respected
family, and an alliance with them would give lustre to
Odiam. Also he wanted children. He was fond of Naomi
for her own sake. Poor little chicken ! Her weakness
appealed to him, and he rather enjoyed seeing her
fluttering before his feet.
Towards the middle of April she came back to the
farm to help Mrs. Backfield with her house -cleaning.
She clung to the older woman all day, but she knew
that Reuben would at last find her alone.
He did. She was laying the supper while Mrs. Back-
field finished mending a curtain upstairs, when he
marched suddenly into the room. He had come in from
the yard, and his clothes smelt of the cow-stalls and of
the manure that he loved. His face was tnoist; he
stood in front of her and mopped his brow.
" I'm hungry, Naomi. Wot have you got fur me ? "
" There's eggs . . ."
11 Wot else?"
" Bread . . . cheese , . ."
She could scarcely frame the homely words. For
some unaccountable reason she felt afraid, felt like sotne
poor creature iu a trap.
70 SUSSEX GORSE
" Wot else ? "
" That's all"
"All! But I'm still hungry. Wot more do you think
I want?"
She licked her lips.
He leaned over the table towards her.
" Wot more have you got fur me ? "
"Nothing, I I'm going upstairs. Let me pass,
please/'
" Maybe I want a kiss/'
" Oh, no, no ! " she cried, trying to edge between him
and the wall.
" Why not ? "
He put his hands on her shoulders, she felt the
warmth and heaviness of them, and was more frightened
than ever because she liked it,
" Maybe I want more than a kiss/'
She was leaning against the wall, if he had released
her she could not have run away. She was like a rabbit,
paralysed with fear.
He bent towards her and his lips closed on hers. She
nearly fainted, but she did not struggle or try to scream,
It seemed years that they stood linked by that unwilling
kiss, At last he raised his head.
" Will you marry me, Naomi ? "
"No Oh, no!"
"Why?"
" No no I can't I won't ! "
Strength came to her suddenly ; it was like awaking
from a nightmare. She thrust him from her, slipped
past, and ran out of the room.
The next morning she returned to Rye. But she could
not stay there. Her heart was all restlessness and dis-
satisfaction. Soon Mrs. Backfield announced that she
was coming back.
" I reckoned she would/' said
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 71
She arrived in the swale. A tender grey mist was in
the air, smeething Boarzell, mingling with the smoke of
Odiam chimneys, that curled out wood-scented into the
dark. As Naomi climbed from the carrier's cart which
had brought her, she smelled the daffodils each side of
the garden path. The evening was full of pale per-
fumes, of ghostly yellows, massing faintly amidst the
grey.
Reuben stood in the doorway and watched her come
up the path, herself dim and ghostly, like the twilight
and the flowers. When she was close he held out his
arms to her, and she fell on his breast.
14.
From thenceforward there was no looking back.
Preparations for the wedding began at once. Old
Gasson was delighted, and dowered his girl generously.
As for Naomi, she gave herself up to the joys of bride-
elect. Her position as Reuben's betrothed was much
more important than as Harry's. It was more definite,
more exalted, the ultimate marriage loomed more
largely and more closely in it. She and Reuben were
not so much sweethearts as husband and wife to ba
Their present semi-attached state scarcely counted, it
was just an unavoidable interval of preparation for a
more definite relationship.
She was glad in a way that everything was so different,
glad that Reuben's love-making was so utterly unlike
Harry's, Otherwise she could never have plunged
herself so deep into forgetfulness. She was quite with-
out regrets she could never have imagined she could
be so free of them. She lived for the present, and for
the future which was not her own. She was at rest,
No longer the pursuing feet came after her, making her
life a nightmare of long flights she was safe in her
captor's grasp, borne homeward o& his shoulder.
72 SUSSEX GORSE
She was not exaltedly happy or wildly expectant.
Her anticipations were mostly material, buyings and
stitchings. She looked forward to her position as
mistress of Odiam, and stocked her linen cupboard* As
for Reuben, her attitude towards him had changed at
once with surrender^ If he no longer terrified, also he
no longer thrilled. She had grown fond of him, peace-
fully and domestically so, in a way she could never
have been fond of Harry. She loved to feel his strong
arm round her, his shoulder under her head, she loved
to nestle close up to him and feel his warmth. His
kisses were very different from Harry's, more lingering,
more passionate, but, paradoxically, they thrilled her
less. There had always been a touch of the wild and
elfin in Harry's love-making which suggested an adven-
ture in fairyland, whereas Reuben's suggested nothing
but earth, and the earth is not exciting to those who
have been in faery.
At last the wedding-day came an afternoon in May,
gloriously white and blue. Naomi stood before her
mirror with delicious qualms, while one or two girl
friends took the place of her mother and helped her to
dress. She wore white silk, very full in the skirt, with a
bunch of lilies of the valley in the folds of the bodice,
which was cut low, showing the soft neck that in con-
trast to the dead white of the silk had taken a delicious
creamy cowslip tint. Her lovable white hat was trimmed
with artificial lilies of the valley, and she had white kid
gloves and tiny white kid shoes.
She was very happy, and if she thought of Harry and
what might have been, it only brought a delightful sad-
smiling melancholy over her happiness like a bridal
veil.
" How do I look ? " she asked her friends.
" You look charming ! " " how well your hat
becomes you ! " " how small your feet seem in your
new shoes I ""how sweet you smell t "chorused
THE BEGINNING OP THE FIGHT 78
the girls, loving her more than ever because they
envied her, after the manner of girls.
Naomi walked to church on her father's arm. She
held her head down, and her bridesmaids saw her neck
grow pink below the golden fluff on the nape. She hid
her face from Reuben and would not look at him as
they stood side by side before Rye altar. No one could
hear her responses, they were spoken so faintly ; she
was the typical Victorian bride, all shy, trembling, and
blushing.
Only once she dared look up, and that was when they
were walking solemnly from the communion table to
the vestry then she suddenly looked up and saw
Reuben's great strong shoulder towering above her
own, his face rather flushed under its sunburn,
and his hair unusually sleek and shining with
some oil.
They did not speak to each other till he had her in
his gig, driving up Playden Hill. Then he muttered
" Liddle Naomi my wife/' and kissed her on the neck
and lips. She did not want him to kiss her, because she
wished to avoid crumpling her gown, and also she was
afraid Reuben's horse might choose that moment to
kick or run away. But of course such reasons did not
appeal to him, and it was a dishevelled and rather cross
little bride whom he lifted out at Odiam.
The wedding supper was to be held at the bridegroom's
house, as old Gasson's rooms were not large enough, and
he objected to " having the place messed up." During
the marriage service Mrs. Backfield had been worrying
about her pie-crusts indeed she almost wished she had
stayed at home. Naomi helped her dish up the supper,
while Reuben received the guests who were beginning
to arrive, some from Rye, some from the neighbouring
farms. There had been a certain amount of disgusted
Comment when it became known that Backfield was
marrying his brother's sweetheart; but criticism of
74 SUSSEX GORSE
Reuben always ended in reluctant admiration for his
smartness as a business man.
" Hell go far, that young feller/' said Realf of Grand-
turzel.
" Where's Harry ? " Vennal asked.
" Sh-sh doan't you go asking ork'ard questions/'
" They woan't have him to fiddle, I reckon/ 1 said
Realf.
" I shud say even young Ben wudn't do that"
" Why not ? " put in Ditch " he doan't know naun
about it. He's forgotten she ever wur his girl."
" You can't be sure o' that, Mus' Ditch only the
Lard knows wot mad folkses remember and wot they
forget. But there's the supper ready ; git moving or
we'll have to sit by the door."
Odiam's strict rule had been relaxed in honour of the
wedding, and a lavish, not to say luxurious, meal
covered two long tables laid end to end across the
kitchen. There was beef and mutton, there was stew,
there were apple and gooseberry pies, and a few cone-
shaped puddings, pink and white and brown, giving an
aristocratic finish to the supper.
Naomi and Reuben sat at the head of the table, Mr.
Gasson and Mrs. Backfield on either side of them. Harry
was not present, for his methods of feeding made him
rather a disgusting object at meals. Naomi had put
herself tidy, but somehow,, she still felt disordered and
flustered. She hated all this materialism encroaching
on her romance. The sight of the farmers pushing for
places at the table filled her with disgust the slightest
things upset her, the untidy appearance of the dishes
after they had been helped, *some beer stains on the
cloth, even her husband's hearty appetite and not quite
noiseless eating. The room soon became insufferably
hot, and she felt herself getting damp and sticky a
most unlovely condition for a bride.
th$ actual feeding was over there were specolxe$
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 75
and toasts. Vennal of Burntbarns proposed the health
of the bride, and Realf of Grandturzel that of the groom.
Then Mrs. Backfield's health was drunk, then Mr.
Gasson's. There were more toasts, and some songs
" Oh, no, I never mention her/' " The Sussex Whistling
Song/' and old farmhouse ballads, such as :
" Our maid she would a hunting go.
She'd never a horse to ride ;
She mounted on her master's boar,
And spurred him on the side.
Chink 1 chink I chink 1 the bridle went,
As she rode o'er the downs.
So here's unto our maiden's health,
Drink round, my boys 1 drink round ! "
Naomi felt bored and sick ; twice she yawned, and she
stretched her tired shoulders under her dress. At last
Reuben noticed her discomfort.
" You're tired you'd better go to bed/' he whispered,
and she at once gladly rose and slipped away, though
she would not have gone without his suggestion.
" Can I help you, dear ? " asked Mrs. Backfield
as she passed her chair. But Naomi wanted to be
alone.
She stole out of the kitchen into the peace of the dark
house, ran up the stairs, and found the right door in the
unlighted passage. The bedroom was very big and cold,
and on the threshold she wrinkled up her nose at a
strange scent, something like hay and dry flowers.
She groped her way to the chimney-piece and found
a candle and a tinder-box. The next minute a tiny
throbbing flame fought unsuccessfully with the darkness
which still massed in the corners and among the cum-
brous bits of furniture. Naomi's new kid shoes were
hurting her, and she bent down to untie them ; but even
as she bent, her eyes were growing used to the dim
light, and she noticed something queer about the room.
She lifted her head a&d saw that the outlines of ths
76 SUSSEX GORSE
dressing-table and bed were rough ... the scent of dry
grass suddenly revolted her.
She looked round, and this time she saw clearly.
About the mirror, along the bed-head, and garlanding
the posts, were crude twists and lumps of field flowers
dandelions buttercups, moon daisies, oxlips, fennel,
and cow-parsley, all bunched up with hay grass, all dry,
withered, rotting, and malodorous. There was a great
sheaf of them on her pillow, an armful torn up from a
hay-field, still smelling of the sun that had blasted it. . . .
In a flash Naomi knew who had put them there. No
sane mind could have conceived such a decoration or
seeing eyes directed it. Harry, exiled from church and
feast, had spent his time in a crazy effort to honour the
happy pair. He knew she was to marry Reuben, but
had not seemed to take much interest. Doubtless the
general atmosphere of festivity and adornment had
urged him to this.
How dreadful 1 Already she saw an insect crawling
over the bed probably there were lots of others about
the room ; and these flowers, all parched, dead, and
evil-smelling, gave a sinister touch to her wedding day.
A lump rose in her throat, the back of her eyes was
seared by something hot and sudden, , . Oh, Harry
. . . Harry . . .
Then misery turned to rage. It was Reuben who had
brought her to this, who had stolen her from Harry,
forced her into marrying him, and exposed her to this
anguish. She hated Reuben. She hated him. With all
the fierceness of her conquered soul and yielded body
she hated him. She would have nothing more to do
with him, she would be revenged on him, punish him * . .
a little hoarse scream of rage burst from her lips, and
she turned suddenly antf ran out of that dreadful
room.
She ran down the passage, panting and sobbing with
Then at th^ stair h^&d something even blacker
THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT 77
than the darkness met her. It seized her, it swung her
up, she was powerless as a little bird in its grasp. Her
straggles were crushed in the kind strong arms that
held her, and rage was stifled from her lips with
kisses.
BOOK II
THE WOMAN'S PART
A I elegy of oats.
Reuben's oats were a dismal failure. All the
warm thrilling hopes which he had put into
the ground with the seed and the rape cake, all the
watching and expectation which had imparted as many
delights as Naomi to the first weeks of his married life
all had ended in a few rows of scraggy, scabrous mur-
rainous little shoots, most of which wilted as if with
shame directly they appeared above the ground, while
the others, after showing him and a derisive neighbour-
hood all that oats could do in the way of tulip-roots,
sedge-leaves, and dropsical husk, shed their seeds in
the first summer gale, and started July as stubble.
There was no denying it, Boarzell had beaten
Reuben in this their first battle. That coarse, shaggy,
unfruitful land had refused to submit to husbandry.
Backfield had not yet taken Leviathan as his servant
His defeat stimulated local wit,
" How's the peas gitting on, Maaster ? " Ditch of
Tot ease would facetiously enquire. " I rode by that
new land of yours yesterday, and, says I, there's as fine
a crop of creeping plants as ever I did see."
" 'Taun't peas, thick 'un/' Vennal would break in
uproariously, " it's turnips each of 'em got a root like
my fist."
" And here wur I all this time guessing as it wur
78
THE WOMAN'S PART n
cabbages acause of the leaves/' old Giimer would finish,
not to be outdone in badinage.
Reuben always accepted such chaff good-humouredly,
for he knew it was prompted by envy, and he would have
scorned to let these men know how much he had been
hurt. Also, though defeated, he was quite undaunted.
He was not going to be beaten. That ^intractable slope
of marl should be sown as perm&nent pasture in the
spring, and he would grow oats on the new piece he
would buy at the end of the year with his wife's fortune.
Naomi's money had been the greatest possible help.
He had roofed the Dutch barn, and retarred the oasts,
he had bought a fine new plough horse and a waggon,
and he was going to buy another piece of Boarzell
ten or twelve acres this time, of the more fruitful clay-
soil by the Glotten brook. Naomi was pleased to see
all the new things. The barn looked so spick-and-span
with its scarlet tiles, and the oasts shone like polished
ebony ; she loved to stroke the horse's brown, snuffling
nose, and " Oh, what a lovely blue ! " she said when she
saw the waggon.
She could not take much interest in Reuben's
ambitions, indeed she only partly understood them.
What did he want Boarzell for ? it was so rough and
dreary, she was sure nothing would grow there. She
loved the farm, with the dear faces of the cows, and the
horses, and the poultry, and even the pigs, but talk of
crops and acres only bored her. 1 Sometimes Reuben's
enthusiasm would spill over, and sitting by the fire
with her in the evening, he would enlarge on all he was
going to do with Boarzell this year, next year, ten
years hence. Then she would nestle close to him, and
murmur "Yes, dear" . . . "yes, dear" . . . "that
will be glorious "while all the time she was thinking of
his long lashes, his strong brown neck, the dear weight
of his arm on her shoulder, and the kiss that would be
hers when he took his pipe out of his mouth*
80 SUSSEX GORSE
From this it may be gathered that the sorrow and
hate of Naomi's wedding night had been but the
reaction of a moment. Indeed she woke the next
morning to find herself a very happy wife. She fell back
into her old attitude towards Reuben affection, trust,
and compliance, with which was mixed this time a little
innocent passion. She loved being with him, was
scrupulously anxious to please him, and would have
worked her hands to pieces for his sake.
But Reuben did not want her to work. She was
rather surprised at this at first, for she had expected
that she would go on helping Mrs. Backfield as she had
done before her marriage. Reuben, however, was quite
firm his wife was not to redden her skin by stooping
over fires, or coarsen her hands by dabbling them in
soapsuds. An occasional visit to the dairy or some half-
playful help on bread-baking days was all he would
allow.
" But won't it be too hard for mother ? " Naomi had
objected.
" Mother? she's used to it, and she's tougher than
you ; liddle creature.'*
" But I could help just a bit."
" No, no I woan't have you go wearing yourself out.
Doan't let's hear no more about it."
Naomi had submitted, as she always submitted, and
after a while obedience was made easy. In August she
realised that she was going to have a child and any
conscientious desires which might have twinged her at
the sight of Mrs. Backfield's seaming face and bending
shoulders, were lost in the preoccupations of her own
condition.
At first she had not been pleased. She was only
nineteen, not particularly robust, and resented the loss
of her health and freedom ; but after a while sweet
thoughts and expectations began to warm in her. She
loved little babies, and it would be delicious to have
THE WOMAN'S PART 8f
one of her own. She hoped It would be a girl, and
thought of beautiful names for it Victoria, Emilia,
Marianna, and others that she had seen in the Keep-
sake. But her delight was nothing to Reuben's, She
had been surprised, overwhelmed by his joy when she
told him her news. He, usually so reserved, had become
transported, emotional, almost lyrical so masterful,
had humbled himself before her and had knelt at her
feet with his face hidden in her gown.
She could never guess what that child meant to
Reuben. It meant a fellow labourer on his farm, a
fellow fighter on Boarzell, and after he was dead a Man
to carry on his work and his battle. At last he would
have someone to share his ambition that child should
be trained up in the atmosphere of enterprise ; as other
fathers taught their children to love and serve God, so
Reuben would teach this son to love and serve Odiana.
He would no longer strive alone, he would have a
comrade, a soldier with him. And after this boy there
would be other boys, all growing up in the love of Odiam,
to live for it.
He treated his wife like a queen, he would not allow
her the smallest exertion. He waited on her hand and
foot and expected his mother to do the same. Every
evening, or, later in the year, in the afternoon, he would
come home early from his work, and take her out for a
walk on his arm. He would not allow her to go alone,
for fear that she might overtire herself or that anything
might frighten her. He insisted on her having the
daintiest food, and never eating less than a certain
quantity every day ; he decided that the Odiam chairs
Were too hard, and bought her cushions at Rye. In
fact he pampered her as much as he denied everybody
else and himself,
Naomi soon came to enjoy her coddling, even though
occasionally his solicitude was inclined to be tiresome.
As time wore on fre would not let her walk up and down
82 SUSSEX GORSE
stairs, but carried her up to bed himself, and down
again in the morning. She grew fat, white, and lan-
guorous. She would lie for hours with her hands
folded on Tier lap, now and then picking up a bit of
sewing for a few minutes, then dropping it again. She
was proud of her position in comparison with other
farmers' wives in the same circumstances. Their men
kept them working up to the last week.
During this time she saw very little of Harry and
scarcely ever thought of him. She no longer had any
doubts as to his being quite mad.
2.
In the autumn Reuben bought ten more acres of
Boarzell a better piece of land than the first, more
sheltered, with more clay in the soil. Hops would do
well on the lower part of it down by the brook.
He also bought three Jersey cows; they would
improve the small dairy business he had established,
and their milk would be good for Naomi. His watchful-
ness of his wife had now almost become tyranny. He
scolded her if she stooped to pick up her scissors, and
would not let her walk even in the garden without him*
Naomi submitted languidly. Her days passed in a
comfortable heaviness, and though she occasionally felt
bored, on the whole she enjoyed being fussed over and
waited on. During those months her relations with
Reuben's mother became subtly changed. Before her
marriage there had been a certain friendship and
equality between them, but now the elder woman took
more the place of a servant.* It was not because she
waited on Naomi, fetched and carried Reuben did that,
and was her master still. It was rather something in her
whole attitude. She had ceased to confide in Naomi,
ceased perhaps to care for her very much, and this gave a
certain menial touch to her services* It would be hard
THE WOMAN'S PART 88
to say what had separated the two women perhaps it
was because one toiled all day while the other lay idle,
perhaps it was a twinge of maternal jealousy on Mrs,
Backfield's part, for Reuben was beginning to notice her
less and less. After a time Naomi realised this estrange-
ment, and though at first she did not care, later on it
came to distress her. Somehow she did not like the
idea of being without a woman associate in spite of
her love for Reuben, now more passive and more
languid, like every other emotion, she craved instinc-
tively for someone of her own sex in whom she could
confide and on whom she could rely.
The year dipped into winter, then rose again into
spring. Lambs began to bleat in the pens, and with the
last of them in March came Naomi's baby.
Reuben was nearly mad with anxiety* His mother's
calm, the doctor's leisureliness, the midwife's bustling
common sense, struck him as callous and unnatural.
Even Naomi greeted him with a wan, peaceful smile,
when frantic with waiting, he stole up to her room. Did
they all realise, he wondered, what was at stake?
Suppose anything should happen. ... In vain the
doctor assured him that everything was normal and
going on just as it should.
He went out and did a little work, but after an hour
or so flung down the chicken-coop he was making, and
rushed into the house. His usual question received its
usual answer. He thought the doctor a hemmed fraud
and the doctor thought him a damned fool.
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, but suppose 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 iu his struggle and to
84 SUSSEX GORSE
reap the fruits of it after lie was gone. But, suppose,
after all, it should be a girl ! Quite probably it would be
why should he think it would not ? The sweat stood
on Reuben's forehead.
Then suddenly he saw something white moving in the
darkness. It was coming towards him. It was his
mother's apron.
He ran to meet her, for his legs tottered so that he
could not walk. He could not frame his question, but
she answered it :
" All's well . . . it's a boy."
3-
Naomi spent a peaceful and happy convalescence.
Everything combined for her blessedness. The soft
April days scattered their scent and sunshine on her bed,
where she lay with her baby, full of drowsy hopes. Even
Boarzell's firs had a mellowness about them, as if her
motherhood had sweetened not only herself and those
about her, but the grim face of nature militant.
Her memories of those days were full of the smell of
daffodils blown in at her window from the garden and of
primroses set by Reuben in a bowl beside the bed of
Reuben stooping over her, smoothing back her hair,
and stroking her face with hands that quivered strangely,
or holding the baby as if it were made of fire and glass.
As soon as she was well enough the christening took
place in Peasmarsh church. The heir of all the Back-
fields was important enough to receive three Christian
names Reuben after his father, Thomas after old
Gasson, and Albert after the Prince Consort. " I shall
call him Albert/' said Naomi.
That spring and summer Reuben worked with a light
heart. His fatherhood made him proud and expansive.
He would boast about the baby to Beatup, tell him how
many ounces it had gained in the week, enlarge on its
THE WOMAN'S PART 85
strength and energy, with intimate detail? concerning
its digestion all of which were received open-mouthed
by Beatup who knew pretty well as much about babies
as he did about oecumenical councils.
" He'll soon be able to do a bit of work wud us,
Beatup/' said Reuben apocalyptically. " I'll have him
on when he's ten or thereabouts, and at fifteen he'll be
doing full man's work. I shouldn't wonder as how I'd
never want another hand but you we could manage
the plaace, I reckon, till the lad's old enough, and then
there'll be others. . . ."
" Yus, Maaster," said Beatup.
The second piece of land had thriven better than the
first. The hops were sturdy and promising beside the
brook, and on the higher grounds the new pastures
fattened. Reuben had decided to dig up a couple of his
old grass meadows and prepare them for grain-sowing
in the autumn. The soil was good, and it was only his
father's want of enterprise which had kept so much of
Odiam as mere grazing land. As for the cows, there
was ample provision for them on the new pastures,
which Boarzell would continue to yield, even if it refused
oats " But I'll have oats there some day, I reckon,"
said Reuben, " oats, and barley, and maybe wheat."
He pictured Odiam chiefly as a great grain farm
though there might be more money in fruit or milk,
these would be mere temporary profit-making concerns,
means to an end ; for glory and real permanent fortune
lay in wheat. He was terribly anxious lest the Corn
Laws should be repealed, a catastrophe which had
threatened fanning for several years. For the first time
he began to take an interest in politics and follow the
trend of public opinion. He could not read, so was
forced to depend on Naomi to read him the newspaper
he occasionally had three days old from Rye.
The Backfields had always been Tory, just as they
had always been Church, because Liberalism and Dissent
86 SUSSEX GORSE
were " low/' and unworthy of yeomen farmers. But
they had never felt very keenly about politics, which,
except at election times, had not come much into their
lives. Even at the elections the interest had been slight,
because up till ten years ago Rye had been a pocket
borough, and its Radical member went up to Parliament
without any of the pamphlet-writing, bill-sticking, mud-
throwing, or free-fighting, which stirred the blood in
other towns.
Now, however, having vital interests at stake, Reuben
became an absorbed and truculent Conservative. He
never called in at the Cocks without haranguing the
company on the benefits of the wheat-tax, and cursing
Cobden and Bright. On the occasion of the '42 election,
he abandoned important obstetric duties in the cow-
stable to Beatup, and rode into Rye to record his
vote for the unsuccessful Tory candidate. The neigh-
bourhood was of Whig tendencies, spoon-fed from the
Manor, but the Backfidds had never submitted to
Bardon politics ; and now even the fact that the Squire
held Reuben's land of promise, failed to influence him.
The Bardons were strongly anti-Corn Law, but their
opposition had that same touch of inefficiency which
characterised all their dealings and earned Reuben's
contempt. In spite of their Liberalism they had been
driven for financial considerations to inclose Boarzell
then even the inclosure had failed, and they were now,
also against their will, surrendering the land piecemeal
to a man who was in every way their opposite and
antagonist. They agitated feebly for Repeal, but were
unable to make themselves heard. They visited the
poor, and doled out relief in ineffectual scraps, Reuben
despised them. They were an old line effete played
out* He and his race would show them what was a Man.
THE WOMAN'S PART 87
4.
That summer Naomi realised that she was going to
have another child. She was sorry, for her maternal
instincts were satisfied for the present, and she had
begun to value her new-returned health. It would be
hard to have to go back to bondage again,
However, there was no help for it. Reuben was over-
joyed, and once more she slipped under his tyranny.
This time she found it irksome, his watchfulness was a
nuisance, his anxiety was absurd. However, she did
not complain. She was too timid, and too fond of him.
" I hope it'll be a girl this time," she said one after-
noon, when according to custom she was walking along
Totease Lane, his arm under hers.
" A girl Oh, no ! I want another boy. 11
" But we've got a boy, Reuben. It would be nice to
have a girl now. 1 '
" Why, liddle creature ? "
" Oh, I justabout love baby girls. They're so sweet
and aU their dresses and that , - . Besides we don't
want two boys."
To her surprise Reuben stopped in the road, and burst
out laughing.
" Two boys ! not want two boys ! Why, we want
ten boys ! if I cud have twenty, I shudn't grumble."
" What nonsense you're talking, Backfield," said
Naomi primly.
" I aun't talking nonsense, I'm talking sound sense.
How am I to run the farm wudout boys ? I want boys
to help me work all that land. I'm going to have the
whole of Boarzell, as I've told you a dunnamany times,
and I'll want men wud me on it. So doan't you go talk-
ing o* girls. Wot use are girls ?< none ! They just
spannel about, and then go off and get married."
" But a girl 'ud be useful in the house she could help
mother when she's older."
JB8 SUSSEX GORSE
" No, thankee. However hard she works she aun't
worth half a boy* You give me ten boys, missus, and
then I doan't mind you having a girl or so to please
yourself/'
Naomi was disgusted. Reuben had once or twice
offended her by his coarseness, r out she could never
get used to it.
" Oh, how can you speak to me so ! " she gulped.
"Now, you silly liddle thing, wot are you crying
for ? Mayn't I have a joke ? "
" But you're so vulgar ! "
Reuben looked a little blank. None of the details of
his great desire had hitherto struck him as vulgar,
" Vulgar, am I ? " he said ruefully. " No matter,
child, we woan't go quarrelling. Come, dry your dear
eyes, and maybe to-morrow 111 drive you over to Rye
to see the market."
Naomi obediently dried her eyes, but it was rather
hard to keep them from getting wet again. For in her
heart she knew that it was not the vulgarity of Reuben's
joke which had upset her, but a certain horrible con-
vincingness about it. It was not so merely a joke as he
would have her think.
During the days that followed her attitude towards
him changed subtly, almost subconsciously. A strange
fear of him came over her. Would he insist on hei
bearing child after child to help him realise his great
ambition ? It was ridiculous, she knew, and probably
due to her state of health, but sometimes she found
herself thinking of him not so much as a man as a thing ;
she saw in him no longer the loving if tyrannical husband,
but a law, a force, to which she and everyone else must
bow. She even noticed a kind of likeness between him
and Boarzell swart, strong, cruel, full of an irrepres*
sible life*
THE WOMAN'S PART 89
5-
The following spring Naomi gave birth to twin boys.
With these twins really started the epic of her maternity.
She was not to be one of those women for whom mother-
hood is a little song of baby shoes and blue sashes, and
games and kisses and rockings to sleep. Hers was
altogether a sterner business, her part in a battle it
was motherhood for a definite purpose, man and woman
taking a leaf out of nature's book, playing her game to
their own advantage, using her methods only to crush
her at last. In a word it was epic and the one draw-
back was that Naomi had never been meant for an epic
part in life. She of all women had been meant for baby
shoes and blue sashes, and here she was with her shoulder
against Reuben's, helping him in the battle which even
he found hard. . . .
However, as yet there were few misgivings. That
faintness of spirit which had come over her during the
last few months of her pregnancy, faded like a ghost in
the first joyous days of her deliverance. Reuben's
pride, delight, and humble gratitude were enough to
make any woman happy, even without those two dear
fat little babies which the doctor said were the finest
twins he had ever seen. Naomi was one of those women
who, even without very strong maternal instincts,
cannot resist a baby. The soft limbs, the big downy
heads, the groping wet mouths of her boys were a sheer
physical delight to her. She even forgot to regret that
one of them was not a girl.
She made a quick recovery, and Robert and Peter
were christened at Easter-time. Naomi looked every
inch the proud mother. Her slight figure had acquired
more matronly lines, and she even affected a more
elderly style of dress. For some time afterwards, proud
and beloved, she really felt that motherhood was her
vocation, and when in the course of the summer she
90 SUSSEX GORSE
realised that her experiences were to be repeated, she
was not so sorry as she had been before. She hoped
desperately it would be a girl but this time said nothing
to Reuben.
Once more her attitude towards him had changed.
She no longer felt the timid passion of the first months
after her marriage, but she also no longer felt that
sinister dread and foreboding which had succeeded it.
She looked upon him less as her husband, inspiring
alternately love and terror, than as the father of her
children. She saw him, so to speak, through them.
She loved him because they were his as well as hers.
She spoke less of " I " and " he/' and more of " us/ 1
" we/' and " ours/'
All the same she was bitterly disappointed when the
following year another boy was born. She sobbed into
her pillow, and even Reuben's delight and little Richard's
soft kicks against her breast, could not comfort her. In
fact she felt secretly angry with Reuben for his joy.
He did not think of her and what she wanted. He
thought only of his dirty old farm, and that dreary,
horrible BoarzelL
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 un-
receptive, 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.
Then, at last, after experiences which had had bore-
THE WOMAN'S PART 91
dom added to their pain by repetition, she murmured
" What is it, mother ? " and a real, breathing, living,
crying, little girl was put into her arms.
6.
The positions of husband and wife were now reversed.
It was Reuben who sulked and gloomed, looking at the
baby askance, while Naomi moved in a daydream of
peace and rapture and desire satisfied. She was too
happy to care much about her husband's disappoint-
ment. She would never have believed it if anyone had
told her in the first weeks of her marriage that she
could have a joy and not mind if he did not share it, a
child and not fret if he did not love it. But now her
child sufficed her, or rather she had learned the lesson
of wives, to suffice herself, and could love and rejoice
without a comrade.
She had forgotten the Arabellas and Mariannas of
the Keepsake, and the baby was called Fanny after
Naomi's own mother, whom she dimly remembered.
Fanny became the centre of Naomi's life ; she was not
as healthy as the other children, and her little pains
and illnesses were all so many cords drawing her closer
to her mother's heart. Though she required twice as
much attention as the boys, Naomi never fretted or
grew weary, as she had sometimes done in the service
of the other little ones on the contrary, she bloomed
into a new beauty, and recovered the youthMness she
had begun to lose.
Strange to say, Harry, who had paid little attention
to the earlier babies, seemed drawn to this one. He
would hang round Naomi when she had her in her lap,
and sometimes gingerly put out a hand and stroke the
child's limbs. Naomi could not bear that he should
touch her; but he amused Fanny, so she tolerated
him. He had fallen into the habit of many half-witted
92 SUSSEX GORSE
people and occasionally made strange faces, which
though repulsive to everyone else, filled Fanny with
hilarious delight. Indeed they were the first thing she
" noticed/ 1
" Oh, the pretty baby ! save the pretty baby ! "
Harry would mutter and shriek, and he would wander
about the house crying" Save the pretty baby ! "
till Naomi declared that he gave her the shivers.
" Keep him out of the way, can't you, Backfield ? "
she said to her husband,
In Reuben's eyes Naomi was just as irritating and
ridiculous as Harry. She made foolish clothes for
Fanny, quite unfit for a child in her position muslins
and ribbon bows, little knitted shoes, which she was
forever pulling off to kiss the baby's feet. She would
seat her on some high big chair in which she lolled with
grotesque importance, and would kneel before her and
call her " Miss Fanny/ 1
"There, Miss Fanny see what a grand baby you
are. Soon all the boys will be courting you see if they
don't. You shall always wear silk and muslins and sit
on cushions, and you will always love your mother,
won't you, dear little miss ? "
Reuben was revolted also a little hurt. It seemed
to him that Naomi was neglecting the boys he was so
proud of. Albert was nearly four years old, a fine
sturdy child, worth a dozen puling Fannys, and Robert
and Pete were vigorous crawlers and adventurers, who
ought to rejoice any mother's heart. Richard was still
in an uninteresting stage but, hem it all ! he was a
boy.
Nearly as bad as her indifference to the children she
had already borne, was her indifference to the child she
was about to bear. She was expecting her confinement
in the spring, but she did not seem to take the slightest
interest in it or the slightest care of herself. Again and
again she would start up from the sofa where she had
THE WOMAN'S PART 93
lain down by his orders, because she heard Fanny
crying upstairs. She risked injuring herself by con-
tinually carrying her about or by stooping over her as
she rolled on the floor.
Reuben often spoke to her severely, but with no
result. There was a time when he could never chide
her without her crying, but now she hardly seemed to
care.
As the autumn wore on Fanny became more and more
ailing and Naomi more and more preoccupied. There
were doctor's visits to be paid for, and on one or two
occasions Naomi had sent for him unnecessarily. It
maddened Reuben to think that he was not master of
his own household, but though he could always enforce
obedience in person, he was compelled continually to be
out of doors, even sometimes away from the farm, and
he could not control what went on in his absence.
Odiam was passing through anxious times. The ex-
pected and dreaded had happened the Corn Laws had
been repealed, and cursing fanners grubbed up their
wheatfields, hoping no more from grain. Reuben was
bitterly disappointed, the whole future of Odiam was
bound up with grain, the most honourable and in the
long run tnost profitable of a farm's concerns. In his
dreams he had seen wind-rippled waves of wheat roll-
ing up to BoarzelTs very crest, he had seen the threshed
corn filling his barn, or rumbling to Iden Mill. Now the
cheap abundant foreign grain would fight his home-sown
harvests. He would have to depend for revenue on
milk and hops, and grow wheat only as an expensive
decoration. Peel was a traitor ; he had betrayed the
staunch grain-growing Tories who had inconvenienced
themselves with muddy rides to vote for his supporters.
For a year or so Reuben hated the Conservatives, and
would not vote at all at the next election.
He had trouble, too, with his new grass. One of his
Jersey cows suddenly died, and it turned out that it
94 SUSSEX GORSE
had eaten some poisonous plant which had insinuated
itself into the pasture. It was as if Boarzell fought
treacherously with stabbings in the dark as well as
blastings in the open. The night the Jersey died, Reuben
sat with his head buried in his arms on the kitchen
table, while Naomi carried her Miss Fanny about the
room, and told her about the beautiful silk gowns she
would wear when she grew up.
7-
That autumn he had sown catch-crops of Italian rye
grass, which gave the stock a good early winter feed,
He had grown sharper in his dealings with the land, he
knew how to take it at a disadvantage, snatch out a
few roots* Every inch of the farm was now at work,
for every blade of grass now counted. He had even
dug up the garden, casting aside rose-bushes, sweet-
peas, and dahlias for dull rows of dram-head cabbages,
potatoes, kale, and beans. And manure . . . there was
manure everywhere, lying under the very parlour
windows, sending up its effluvium on the foggy winter
air till it crept into even the close-shut bedroom,
making Naomi conscious of Reuben in her dreams.
She was inclined to be sulky in those days. She dis-
liked the smell of manure, she disliked being made to
dream of Reuben, towards whom she now felt a vague
hostility. What business had he to go and saddle her
with another child? Surely she had enough four
boys and a girl. What business had he to make her
languid and delicate just when she needed all her
health for the ailing Fanny ? He was so unsympathetic
about Fanny, too, one really might think he did not
care what the poor little creature suffered.
Naomi began to complain about him to the neigh-
bours. She joined in those wifely discussions, wherein
every woman plaintively abused her own man, and rose
at once in fury if another woman ventured to do so.
THE WOMAN'S PART 95
" Backfield he scarcely takes any notice of me now
always thinking about his farm. Talks of nothing but
hops and oats. Would you believe it, Mrs. Ditch, but
he hardly ever looks at this dear little Fanny. He
cares for his boys right enough, because when they're
grown up they'll be able to work for him, but he just-
about neglects his girlie that's what he does, he
neglects her. The other night, there she was crying
and sobbing her little heart out, and he wouldn't let
me send for the doctor. Says he can't afford to have
the doctor here for nothing. Nothing, indeed ! . . ."
So Naomi would maunder to her acquaintance ; with
Reuben she confined herself to hints and innuendoes.
Sometimes she complained to Mrs. Backfield, but her
husband's mother was unsympathetic.
" You doan't know when you're in luck/' she said as
she thumped the dough " nothing to do but bath and
dress the children, and yet you grumble. If you had
to work like me "
" I don't know why you do it. Make Backfield get
a girl to help you,"
" And pay eight shillings a month when he wants the
money so badly 1 No, if a woman can't work fur her
son, I doan't see much good in her. Some women "
rather venomously " even work fur their husbands."
" You know well enough he won't let me work for
him."
" I never said as you ought to work fur him all I
said wur as you shouldn't ought to grumble."
A loud wail from Fanny in her cradle drove the retort
from Naomi's lips. She sprang from the arm-chair
where she had been resting, and ran heavily across the
room to the baby's side.
" What's the matter, my darling ? Come to mother,
little Miss Fanny. Oh, I know something's wrong with
her, or she wouldn't cry so. She's got such a sweet
temper really."
96 SUSSEX GORSE
She picked the child out of the cradle, and began to
walk up and down the room, rocking it in her arms.
Fanny's wails grew louder, more long-drawn, and more
plaintive.
Reuben came in, and his brows contracted when he
saw what his wife was doing. There was a slight mois-
ture on her forehead, and she strained the child violently
to her breast.
" Come, Naomi, put her down. It's bad for you to
carry her about like this."
"Oh, Reuben, I'm sure she's ill. Can't we send
Beatup over for the doctor ? "
" No, we can't. There's naun the matter wud her
really. She's always crying, "
Naomi faced him almost spitefully.
" If one of the boys had hurt his little finger you'd
have doctor in at once. It's only because it's Fanny.
You don't love her, you "
" Now none o' that, missus," said Reuben roughly
" you put the child back in her cradle, and go and lie
down yourself. I doan't want to have to fetch doctor
in to yaw."
Naomi had not acquired the art of flouting him
openly. She tearfully put Fanny into her cradle, and
lay and sulked on the sofa for the rest of the evening.
That night she dreamed that her new baby was born,
and that Reuben had taken away Fanny and given her
to Beatup. Beatup was carrying her down to the pond
to drown her as he drowned the kittens, and Naomi
stood in the garden with immovable weights on every
limb listening to the despairing shrieks of her little girl.
They were dreadful shrieks, not like a baby's at all.
They still sounded when Naomi woke. She sat up
in bed, uncertain as to whether she were dreaming or
not. Then from Fanny's little bed beside the big one
came something terrible a low long wail like an animal's
dying into a moan. It seemed as if her heart stopped
THE WOMAN'S PART m
beating. She felt the sweat rush out all over her body.
The next minute she was out of bed, groping for Fanny
in the darkness.
She found her and lifted her in her arms ; once more
that dreadful wailing moan came from the little body,
mingling this time with a snore from Reuben. Naomi,
still grasping Fanny, managed to light a candle. The
child's face was deadly white and drawn in a strange
way, while her lips were blue.
" Reuben ! " shrieked Naomi.
He did not wake. Worn out with hard work and his
anxiety about his farm, he still slept heavily, rolled in
the blanket. A sick insane rage seized Naomi. She
sprang on the bed, tore the clothes off him, shook him,
beat him, pulled his hair, while all the time she grasped
the now silent Fanny convulsively between her left arm
and her breast.
" My child's dying. Get up, you brute. Fetch the
doctor. My child's dying ! "
For a moment Reuben was bewildered with his sudden
waking, but he soon came to himself at the sight of his
wife's distorted face and the inanimate lop-headed
baby. He sprang up, pulled on his trousers, and in
two minutes had bundled the half-conscious but utterly
willing Beatup out of his attic, and sent him off on the
fastest horse to Rye. Then he came back into the bed-
room. Naomi was sitting on the floor, her hair falling
over her shoulders, the baby unconscious on her lap.
" Give her to me, child let me look."
" No, no get away," and Naomi once more caught
up Fanny to her breast.
" I'll go and fetch mother."
Mrs. Backfield arrived in a washed-out bed-gown. A
fire was lit and wat^r put on to boil. Fanny's, however,
did not seem just an ordinary case of " fits " ; she lay
limp in her mother's arms, strangely blue round the
mouth, her eyes half open.
9* SUSSEX GORSB
" Oh, what is it ? what is it ? " wailed Naomi
" can't we do anything ? Oh, why doesn't the doctor
come ? "
Suddenly the baby stiffened on her lap. The limbs
became rigid, the face black. Then something rasped
in its throat.
"Bring the water! Bring the water!" screamed
Naomi, hardly knowing what she said.
Mrs. Backfield poured the water into a basin, and
Naomi lifted Miss Fanny to put her into the steaming
bath.
" It's no use/' said Reuben. He knew the child was
dead.
But Naomi insisted on putting Fanny into the basin.
She held her up in it for a moment, Then suddenly let
her drop, and fell forward, wailing.
Reuben and Mrs. Backfield tried in vain " :;"
her, and put her back to bed. She was lr
woman. She who had always been so timid <. ; ,-aV^ ? ,
peevish at the worst, now shouted, kicked an *. vH.
"You've killed her! it's your doing . . - v; 1 ; : i
murderer ! " she screamed at Reuben.
He lifted her bodily and laid her on the bed 1> i * ;/
was still half insane
" I hate you ! I hate you ! " she cried, i <>.; J? r*v
herself about.
When the doctor arrived an hour later, b 4 < H
were needed after all, For Naomi gave birth > 1: * *
boy at dawn.
8.
Naomi had met her tragedy. In coarse of time she
recovered from her confinement, but all the joy of life
and motherhood had gone from her. It was inexplicable
to Reuben that she could mourn so hopelessly over the
death of a little weak girl, who would have been nothing
but a care and an expea^e if she had lived. It was
THE WOMAN'S PART 99
inexplicable that she could take no interest in young
Benjamin, a sound, weE-made little fellow in spite of
his premature birth. For the first time she was unable to
suckle her baby, and Reuben was forced to engage a
nurse, not liking the responsibility of bringing him up
by hand.
But he was very good to Naomi, He tried to forget
her indifference to his beloved boys, and to soothe and
strengthen her into something like her old self. She did
not repulse him. All the violence and the desperation
in her had burnt themselves out during that night of
frenzy. She lay in bed hour after hour without moving,
her long hair which was now beginning to come out in
handfuls when she brushed it spread over the pillow.
Her muscles were slack, she lay without any suppleness,
> wv r!*rtr.rt the mattress. After some weeks she was
: :),;, . r ;- ! ! p, and go about her duties with the children,
Sn, ") ? v; ; *j>oke of her misery, she ate, she sewed, she
r."Q* ^ c } ed with the neighbours, as before. But
ii'jtii ^.JM.V, /a s g ne f rom ^ er k er e Y e sometimes had
A lu.ani i )ving look, her shoulders stooped, and her
i'i.W fv"!Y,V '" JlOW.
ii4 v i x $till fond of her children, but in a listless,
r .iu' toiie.ji way. Sometimes when she had them all
*,;,', jj 'ir^'i, "und her, for their bedtime or a bath, she
uvi- ! d -T the tears welling up in her eyes till all the
tiik fcrc/ ^ere blurred. Poor mites ! what future lay
*h?'d oi :' u -em ? They were their father's slaves as well
rs -v.i* i; : utmost would be ground out of them as it
'hs/i ><-" Around out of her.
Once more she had taken up her unwilling part in
BoarzelTs epic. She was expecting another child foi
the following spring. This would be her seventh.
She was no longer merely dissatisfied. In her heart
she passionately rebelled. She hated herself, and her
condition, for now she hated Reuben. The vague
hostility she had felt towards him during Fanny's short
100 SUSSEX GORSE
life had given place to a definite hatred. She looked upon
Reuben as the murderer of her child, and she hated him.
During the first days of her grief he had been so kind to
her that she had grown dependent on him and hatred
was delayed, but now dependence and dazed gratitude
had passed away, and in their place was a sick, heavy
loathing for the man whose neglect and indifference she
believed had killed her child. She could not endure the
thought of giving him another. Sometimes she thought
she would like to kill herself, but she was too weak a
soul for anything desperate.
In those days she could not bear the sound of Harry's
fiddle, and he was told he must not play it in the house.
9-
The Repeal of the Corn Laws did not ha\ < ^ u >^'
effect on Odiam as Reuben had feared, ; ( ,; * v>
in '46 and '47 were unusually good, an; ; : .
revival of prosperity throughout the countr .,--.. s .;
the low price of grain. It was not to be exp u 1 w
ever, that he would forgive at once the part; A i ; i r, u
betrayed agricultural interests. He trar,:; :v u
political allegiance to Disraeli, whose feudalist r ,;V. ' ?^
won his entire respect. It was a great trial ' : \ ',;
he could not read the newspapers, for nowac > ; / . :
not care to have Naomi read to him. She use 1 ?
times, but her utter lack of interest and und, ;; i r ;,
was no longer atoned for by a voice love-mo- . 1 ^ ; ^r
a soft hand stroking his. He resolved that none of his
children should share his disabilities, and already the
infant Albert toddled daily to a little house in the
village where two vague-looking sisters taught the
rising generation mysteries hidden from their parents.
Reuben could spell out one or two words, and could
write " Reuben Backfield " in big printing letters at the
bottom of any dooiment he had to sign, but he had no
time' to educate himself further.
THE WOMAN'S PART 101
He was now twenty-seven, looking in some ways
.strangely older, in others far younger, than his age. The
boy in him had not had much chance of surviving
adolescence. Life had come down too hard on him. A
grim struggle does not nourish youth, and mentally
Reuben was ten or twelve years ahead of twenty-seven.
His splendid health and strength, however, had main-
tained a physical boyishness, expressing itself in zeal
and high spirits, a keen appetite, a boundless capacity
for work, an undaunted enterprise. He was always
hungry, he fell asleep directly his head touched the
pillow, and slept like a child beside the tossing and
wakeful Naomi.
His work had made him splendid. His skin was the
:jjtvir ' : soil he tilled, a warm ruddy brown, his hair
\\;\: ;;].:/.'; 1 growing low on the forehead, and curling
, , Jt nd the ears. The moulding of his neck and
; , 3, dark, bright, and not without laughter in
3th, big, white, and pointed, like an animal's
- - ?! ,tj. of clean and vigorous manhood. He was
mil KH ikably a finer specimen than Harry. Harry
kf ':..Kt it, a great measure his good looks. Not only
u.v.i i '*.'"> :ancy of his face robbed it of much of its
; for more beautiful than shape or colouring
1 i ad been the free spirit that looked out of his
</'*> tr his constant habit of making hideous
T ';,'-,<; H i i{ 1 d worked it into lines, while the scar of his
'iiM!hv; *. aetimes showed across his cheek. Add to
. i"U>r,) and a shambling gait, and it is no longer
' "?i , ih* > Harry/' nor even the ghost of him, so much
as^ Some changeling, some ill-done counterfeit image, set
up by vindictive nature in his stead.
Harry was no more his mother's favourite son. She
was not the type of woman to whom a maimed child
is dearer than half a dozen healthy ones. On the
contrary he filled her with a vague terror and repulsion.
She spoke to him gently, tended him carefully, even
102 SUSSEX GORSE
sometimes forced herself to caress Mm but for the
most part she avoided him, feeling as she did so a vague
shame and regret.
On the other hand, her devotion to Reuben grew more
and more absorbing and submissive. Her type was
obviously the tyrant-loving, the more primitive kind,
which worships the strong of the tribe and recoils
instinctively from the weak. Where many a woman,
perhaps rougher and harder than she, would have flung
all the love and sweetness of her nature upon the
blasted Harry, she turned instead to the strong, stalwart
Reuben, who tyrannised over her and treated her with
less and less consideration . . . and this after twenty
years of happy married life, during which she had idled
and been waited on, and learned a hundred dainty ways.
She had no patience with Naomi's simmering
rebellion; she scoffed at her complaints, and always
took Reuben's part against her.
" As long as there's men and women in the world, the
men 'ull be top and the women bottom."
" Why ? " asked Naomi.
" Because it wur meant so. If we'd bin truant fur
masters d'you think we'd have bin made so liddle and
dentical like ? "
" But we're a sight smarter than men."
" Yes that makes up to us a bit, but it ddan't do us
any real good . * . only helps us git round a man some-
times when we can't git over him/'
" Then it does us some good after alL A sad state
we'd be in if the men always had their own way/ 1
" You take it from me that it's much better when a
man has his own way than when he hasn't. Then he's
pleased wud you and makes life warm and easy for you.
It's women as are always going against men wot are
unhappy. Please men and tl^ey'U be good to you and
you'll be happy, doan't please them and they'll be bad
to you and you'll be miserable. Exit womep who've fQ
THE WOMAN'S PART 103
ever grumbling, and making a fuss about doing wot
they've got to do whether they like it or not, and are
cross-grained wives, and unwilling mothers ..." and
so on, and so on.
Yet Mrs. Backfield did not, any more than Naomi,
understand Reuben's great ambition.
10.
That autumn Naomi entered on a time of black
depression an utter gloom and weariness of body and
min^. It was no mere dull staggering under blows,
i, ' \L in its blindness and lack of acute feeling it
1 ear-eyed misery, in which every object was as
if, ,- s it was dark, like one of those sudden clearings
'^-;uy landscape, when trees, hedges, meadows,
; the frowning sky, outstanding and black in
1 i- ' r i , i > r avid than in sunshine.
../! *\v \ ~:;v what she was her husband's victim,
, . > i - '^ enterprise. He had never really loved
' ; ', . en attracted by her her beauty, her
t t . ^ ^ 'eeding, had appealed to him. But
* , i ! w ! / ^ had married her. He had married
i ,*' 4 t :, ?hich he was now spending on his
fa ""> ^ ,< ,- * carried her because he wanted
chL *v>^ i " ;. - il e most suitable mother he could
find, .u'., !v. "! ," '"'*;j really loved her.
Anc ; ' -dii never really loved himu That was
anothe^ me things she saw clearly. She had married
him because his strength and good looks, his ardent
wooing, had turned her head, because she had been
weak and he had been masterful. But she had never
loved him.
She had been a fool, and now she was paying the
price of folly, which is always so much heavier than the
price of sin. Here she was at twenty-five, prematurely
Old, ^xtxa^sted, sick ol life^ and utterly alone,
104 SUSSEX GORSE
was no one to turn to in her wretchedness. Her neigh-
bours were incapable of giving her real help or sympathy,
Mrs. Backfield invariably took Reuben's part and
resented the slightest criticism of him, old Gasson was
hard and selfish, and not particularly interested in his
daughter.
She wished, with all the wormwood that lies in use-
less regrets, that she had never married. Then, para-
doxically, she would not have been so utterly alone.
She would have had at least the help of sweet memories
undefiled. She could have taken refuge in them^from
her sorrow, built them perhaps at last into hope. Now
she had to thrust them from her, for they were one and
all soiled by her unfaithfulness.
For the first time she began definitely to reproach
herself for her treatment of Harry. Though she could
never have married him, she could at least have been
faithful to him.
" O why, because sickness hath wasted my body,
Should you do me to death with your dark treacherie ?,
why, because brothers and friends all have left m*
Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie I "
Moreover, she still sometimes had a vague feeling that
at the start Harry had not been quite so mad as people
thought, that he might perhaps have recovered if she
had made him understand that she was true to him,
still hoping. No doubt that was all nonsense, but she
could not quite smother the idea that she had betrayed
Harry. Perhaps it was partly because even before his
accident she had cast longing eyes at Reuben, Once
again she called up memories of him cutting down
willows on his new land, and she acknowledged miserably
to herself that in that hour she had already been un-
faithful to Harry in her heart, and that all that came
afterwards was but the following up of that initial act
of treachery. A strong arm, a broad back, a blue shirt
m the January twilight . * , sugul NaeOmi h&d set out
THE WOMAN'S PART 105
on a road every step of which was now over rough
stones and broken shards,
In February her child was born another girl. But
this time Reuben was not sorry, for he realised that his
mother would not last for ever, and that he must have
a girl to take her place. It might have been expected
that a baby girl would comfort Naomi for the lost
Fanny, but such was not the case. It seemed as if with
Fanny she had lost all power of loving and of rising
again. Once more she was unable to feed the child, and
her convalescence was dragging and miserable. When
at last she was able to go about, a permanent ill-health
seemed to have settled on her, the kind that rides tired
women, making their faces sallow, their hair scanty,
filling their backs with strange pains. She grew fretful,
too, and her temper was none of the best.
n.
That year Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell,
and limed them for oats. He felt that now he had
strength to return to his first battle, and wring a grain
crop out of that grudging soil. The new piece of ground
abutted the Odiam lands on the Flightshot side, and he
could see it from his window. Before going to bed at
night, he would lean out and feast his eyes on it as it
lay there softly covered in the dark, or glimmering in the
faint star-dazzle of spring. Sometimes it seemed almost
as if a breath came from it, a fragrance of sleep, and he
would sit there inhaling it till Naomi peevishly begged
him to shut the window and come to bed. Then in the
mornings, when he woke according to healthy habit at
five, he would sit up, and even from the bed he could
see his land, waiting for him in the cold whiteness ^of
dawn, silently calling him out to the freshness of its
many dews.
He still kept the f $xm modestly, for he w^ wxious tQ
106 SUSSEX GORSE
be able to do without help except from Beatup. His
young family were also an expense. For a few years
more he must expect to have them rather heavily on his
hands . . . then Albert and the twins would be able to
do a little work, and gradually both the capacity and
number of his labourers would increase, till at last
perhaps he would be able to discharge Beatup, and
Backfield alone fight Backfidd's battle.
Meantime he was worried about Naomi, It says much
for the ineffectiveness of her emotions that he had not
till just then realised her hostility towards him. Now
that he saw it, he put it down to her ill-health, and re-
established the tyrannous watch over her which he had
kept up in the old days. He was sorry for her, and knew
now that he had made a mistake in marrying her. He
should have chosen a sturdier, more ambitious mate.
However, there was no help for it, he could not give up
the battle because his fellow-fighter had no stomach for
it. He was grieved for the loss of her beauty, and would
make things as easy for her as possible, but he could not
let her off altogether. She must do her share in the
struggle which was so much greater than either of them.
She had rested from child-bearing a year, but he still
longed desperately for children, and she became a
mother again at the end of '49.
The baby was a girl, and Reuben was bitterly dis-
appointed. One girl was quite enough, and he badly
wanted more boys. Besides, Naomi was very ill, and
the doctor told him in private that she ought not to have
any more children, at least for some time.
' " She never was a strong woman, and these repeated
confinements have quite worn her out. You have seven
children, Mr. Backfield, and I think that ought to be
enough for any man/'
" But two of them are girls it's boys I want,
surelye ! "
" Areu't five boys enough for you ? M
THE WOMAN'S PART 107
No they aun't."
" Well, of course, if she has a thorough rest from all
work and worry, and recovers her health in the mean-
time, I don't say that in three or four years . . . But
she's not a strong subject, Mr* Backfield, and you'd do
well to remember it."
12.
Reuben was very kind to Naomi during her illness. He
helped his mother to nurse her, and spent by her side all
the time he could spare from the farm. He was too
strong to vent on her personally the rage and dis-
appointment with which circumstances had filled
him. He pitied her fragility, he even pitied her
for the antagonism which he saw she still felt to-
wards him.
At nights he slept upstairs in one of the attics, which
always smelt of apples, because it was next to the loft
where the apples were stored. He was happy there, in
spite of some dark hours when the deadlock of his
married life kept him awake. He wondered if there was
a woman in the world who could share his ambitions for
Odiam. He expected not, for women were an ambition-
less race. If Naomi had had a single spark of zeal for
the great enterprise in which he and she were engaged,
she would not now be lying exhausted by her share in it.
He had honoured her by asking her to join him in this
splendid undertaking, and all she had done had been to
prove that she had no fight in her.
He could now gaze out on Boarzell uninterrupted.
The sight of the great Moor made his blood tingle ; his
whole being thrilled to see it lying there, swart, un-
conquered, challenging. How long would it be, he
wondered, before he had subdued it? Surely in all
Sussex, in all England, there had never been such an
undertaking as this . . . and when he was triumphant,
Achieved his great ajnbition, wou his heart's desire^
108 SUSSEX GORSE
how proud, how glorious he would be among his
children. . , .
The wind would carry him the scent of gorse, like
peaches and apricots. There was something in that
scent which both mocked and delighted him. It was an
irony that the huge couchant beast of Boarzell should
smell so sweet surely the wind should have brought
him a pungent ammoniacal smell like the smell of
stables ... or perhaps the smell of blood.
But, after all, this subtle gorse-fragrance had its
suitableness, for though gorse may cast out the scent of
soft fruit from its flowers, its stalks are wire and its
roots iron, its leaves are so many barbs for those who
would lay hands on its sweetness. It was like Boarzell
itself, which was Reuben's delight and his dread, his
beloved and his enemy.
The day would come when Boarzell would no longer
drench the night with perfume, when the gorse would
be torn out of its hide to make room for the scentless
grain. Then Reuben would no longer lean out of his
window and dream of it, for dreams, like the peach-
scent of the gorse, would go when the corn came. But
those days were not yet.
Naomi's illness dragged. Sometimes Reuben sus-
pected her of malingering, she so obviously did not want
to get well. He guessed her reasons, and took an
opportunity to tell her of the doctor's verdict. The
struggle was in abeyance -at least her share of it.
Nature which was really what he was fighting in
Boarzell had gained a temporary advantage, and his
outposts had Been forced to retire. *
Naomi began now decidedly to improve. She put on
flesh, and showed a faint interest in life. Towards the
end of April she was able to come downstairs. She was
obviously much better, and old Mrs, Backfield hinted
that she was even better than she looked. Reuben
watched over hex anxiously, delighted to notice day fry
THE WOMAN'S PART 10&
day fresh signs of strength. She began to do little
things for the children, she even seemed proud of them.
They were splendid children, but it was the first time
that she had realised it. She helped the scholastic
elders with their sums and made frocks for the little
girls. She even allowed baby Mathilda to wear Fanny's
shoes.
The summer wore on. The sallow tints in Naomi's
skin were exchanged for the buttery ones which used to
be before her marriage. Her hair ceased to fall, her
cheeks plumped out, her voice lost its weak shrillness.
She made herself a muslin gown, and Reuben bought
ribbons for it at Rye.
The husband and wife now lived quite independently.
They no longer made even the pretence of walking on
the same path. Naomi played with the children, did a
little sewing and housework exactly what she chose
and occasionally went over to Totease or Burntbarns
for a chat with the neighbours. She once even spent a
couple of nights at her father's, the first time since her
marriage that she had slept away from Odiam.
As for Reuben, he worked as hard as ever, but never
spoke of it to his wife. He seemed to enjoy her society
at meals, and now and then would take her out for a
stroll along the lanes, or sit with her in the evening by
the kitchen fire. Once more he liked to have her read
him the papers ; and though she understood no more
than she had ever done, her voice had ceased to be dull
and fretful. Then at night he would go up to his attic
and drink in the smell of gorse at the window, till he
grew drowsy and shut himself in with the smell of
apples.
After a time they began to notice a convergence in
these independent ways. It seemed as if only by
running apart had they learned at last to run together.
A certain friendliness and comradery began to estab-
lish itself between them. Reuben began to talk to Naomi
110 SUSSEX GORSE
about politics and agricultural doings, and gradually
her character underwent a strange blossoming. She
became far more adult in her opinions ; she took interest
in matters outside her household and immediate sur-
roundings..- He never spoke to her of his plans for
Boarzell, for that would have brought them back into
the old antagonism and unrest ; but when she read the
papers to Mm he would discuss them with her, occasion-
ally interrupt her with comments, and otherwise show
that he had to do with an intelligent being. She in her
turn would enquire into the progress of the hops or the
oats, ask him if his new insect-killer was successful, or
whether Ditch had done well with his harvest, or how
much Realf 's had fetched at the corn-market.
Three months passed in this new way. Reuben would
never have believed that Naomi could be a companion
to him, especially after the last few hostile years. As
for her, she looked young and pretty again ; delicious
slim lines had come into her figure no longer the slack
curves and emaciation of recent months, or the matronly
fullness of earlier times. Her health seemed completely
restored.
Then came a day early in December, when they were
walking home together through the mud of Totease
Lane, their faces whipped into redness by the south-
west wind, Naomi wore a russet cloak and hood, and
her hair, on which a few rain-drops glistened, was
teasing her eyes. She held Reuben's arm, for the rats
were treacherous, and he noticed the spring and freedom
of her walk/.' A sudden turn of the lane brought them
round due west, and between them and the sunset stood
Boarzell, its club of firs knobbily outlined against the
grape-red sky. It smote itself upon Reuben's eyes
almost as a thing forgotten there, half blotting out the
sunset with its blackness. Unconsciously his arm with
Naomi's hand on it contracted against his side, while
the colour deepened on his cheek-bones.
WOMAN'S PART 111
" Naomi/'
" What is it ? "
" Boarzell."
She lifted her eyes to the shape between her and the
sky, and as unconsciously he had flushed so uncon-
sciously she shuddered.
" Well, what about it ? " she asked in a voice that
stuck a little.
" It's wunnerful . . ." he murmured, " all that
great big dark Moor, wot's going to be mine/'
She did not speak.
" Mine ! " he repeated almost fiercely.
Then suddenly she began to plead :
" Can't you let it alone, Reuben ? we we've been
so happy these last months not worrying about it. Must
we ever start again ? "
Her voice came anxiously, timidly like a child's.
He dropped her hand from his arm.
" Yes we must," he said shortly.
They reached Odiam, both feeling that the glory of
those last three months had departed. The sight of
Boarzell, lying black and bullish across their path, had
made them realise that their happiness was but an
interval, an interlude between more significant, more
sinister things. Naomi had lost her peace and confidence,
she seemed to avoid her husband, was tongue-tied in
his presence, gave him a hurried good night from the
door, Reuben was silent and meditative when his eyes
rested on Naomi they were half regretful.
That night he lay awake long hours in the smell of
apples. He pondered many things. Those past months
had been sweet in their revived tenderness, their simple
freedom. But Boarzell had reasserted itself Naomi
was now quite well again she must no longer shirk her
duties. She must have more children.
It was cruel, he knew. She had already given him
seven, she could not realise that her task was not yet
112 SUSSEX GOKSE
done. She had just felt what it was to be well and
strong again after long months of illness. It would be
cruel to impose on her once more the pains and weariness
of motherhood. It would be cruel But, hem it all !
was not th$ thing he was fighting cruel? Was not
Boarzell cruel, meeting his endeavours with every form
of violence and treachery ? If he was to conquer it he
too must be crutel, must harden his heart, and press
forward, without caring how much he or anyone bled on
the way. He could not stop to consider even his nearest
and dearest when his foe had neither mercy nor ruth
for him.
13-
It was the August of another year. Reuben's new
land on Boarzell was tawny with oats. He had at last
broken into that defiant earth and taken handfuls of
its treasure. To-day he inspected his crop, and planned
for its reaping. With parted lips and a faint sensuous
gleam in his eyes he watched it bow and ripple before
the little breeze that stole over the hedges from Tiffen-
den. He drank in the scent of the baking awns, the
heat of the sun-cracked earth. It was all dear to him
all ecsrtasy. And he himself was dear to himself because
the beauty of it fell upon him ... his body, strong and
tired, smelling a little of sweat, his back scorched by the
heat in which he had bent, his hand strong as iron upon
his sickle. Oh Lord ! it was good to be a man, to feel
the sap of life and conquest running in you, to be battling
with mighty forces, to be able to fight seasons, elements,
earth, and nature. . . .
He turned and walked slowly homewards, a smile on
his lips. As he passed the orchard, where a crop of
plums was ripening, the shrill whir of a bird -rattle
made him look up. There in the long grass stood his
young Albert, dutifully scaring sparrows from the trees.
He had been there all the afternoon, and Reuben
THE WOMAN'S PART 113
beckoned to Mm to come in to tea. Further on, in the
yard, he encountered Robert feeding the chickens out
of an enormous bowl carried by Pete, whose arms with
difficulty embraced its girth. He summoned these two
in. His family trotted after him at a respectful distance.
They did not speak, except to say " Oo " occasionally
to each other.
In the kitchen a substantial meal was prepared. It
was the children's supper, and was to last Reuben till
he came in at nine o'clock and had a bowl of broth before
going to bed. Old Mrs. Backfield was settling the
children round the table. Caro and Tilly showed only
their heads above the cloth, a piece of neck proclaimed
Benjamin's extra inches, while Richard had quite two
buttons to his credit. Harry sat at the bottom beside
Caroline ; when he heard Albert's rattle, he seized it
and began making a hideous din. Caro and Tilly began
to cry, and Reuben snatched the rattle away.
He sat down, and immediately his mother put a plate
of hot bacon before him. She was vexed because it was
the only meat he allowed himself on week-days. The
children ate bread and milk, and thrived on it, to judge
by their round healthy faces. Reuben was proud of
them. They were fine children, and he hoped that the
one that was coming would be as sturdy.
" How is she ? " he asked Mrs. Backfield.
" She slept a bit this afternoon. I took her a cup of
tea at five, but I think the heat tries her."
" I'll go up and see her soon as I've finished Harry,
taake your hand out of the baby's plaate."
As soon as the supper was over, Reuben still munching
^read and bacon went up to his wife's room. The
sunlight was gone, but the sky was blood-red behind
Boaizdl's hulk, and a flushed afterglow hung on the
ceiling and moved slowly like a fire over the bed. The
corners of the room, the shadows cast by the furniture,
were black and smoky. On Naomi's face, on her body
114 SUSSEX GORSE
outlined under the sheet, the lights crimsoned and
smouldered. There was a strange fiery reflection in her
eyes as she turned them to the door.
" Well, my dear, how are you ? "
" I'm very well, thank you, Backfield."
She always said that.
He came over to the bed and looked down on her.
Her eyes were haunting . . . and the vestiges of youth
about her face. But he no longer pitied or spared.
Boarzell had taught him his first lesson that only the
hard shall triumph in the hard fight, and that he who
would spare his brother shall do no better than he who
would spare himself.
He sat down beside her and took her hand.
" I hear you had some sleep this afternoon/'
" Yes I slept for an hour. I think I'm better/'
Her voice was submissive or indifferent.
" I've bin on the new land all to-day. It's doing
justabout splendid. Those oats are as dentical as wheat
not a sedge-leaf adin them/'
She made a faint sound to show that she had heard
him.
"Albert's bin in the orchard scaring sparrers, and
Robert and Pete wur helping wud the chickens. My
family's gitting quite valiant now, Mrs. Backfield,"
"Yes."
" I'll soon be able to have Richard on, and then
there's still Jemmy to f oiler -and George/'
" Mmm."
" Now doan't you put me off wud Georgina/'
Her mouth stretched mechanically into a smile, and
at the same time a tear' slid out of the corner of her eye,
and rolled slowly over her thin cheeks. In the red,
smouldering light of the sky behind Boarzell it looked
like a tear of blood.
THE WOMAN'S PART 115
14-
Early in September George arrived. Reuben's face
kindled when the doctor told him he had escaped
Georgina,
The doctor, however, did not look pleased.
" Perhaps now you have enough boys ? " he said rather
truculently.
" Well, there's six . . ."
" I hope that's enough to satisfy you. Because there
won't be any more She's dying."
" Dying ! "
He repeated the word almost stupidly.
" Yes " said Dr. Espinette. He did not feel inclined
to mince matters with Backfield.
" But but can't you do anything for her, surelye ? "
" I'm afraid not. Of course, one can never speak with
absolute certainty even in a case like this. But "
and the doctor wasted some medical technicalities on
Reuben.
The young man turned from him, half-dazed. Dying !
Naomi ! A sudden wild pang smote through his heart
for the mother of his children.
" Do something for her 1 you can you must."
" I'm going over to Gablehook now, but I'll call in on
the way back. I'm afraid there's not much hope ; how-
ever, I'll do my best."
Reuben's sudden pallor and blank eyes had softened
his heart a little. But, he reflected the next moment,
there was no sense in pitying Backfield.
Reuben did not wait any longer he dashed out of the
room and upstairs to his wife's door.
He knocked. From within came a faint sound of
moaning. He knocked again. The midwife opened the
door.
" Go away," she said, " we can't let you in/ 1
110 SUSSEX GORSE
" I want to see Naomi/*
" You can't."
11 1 must. Hem it ! aun't I her husband i "
"You can come back in an hour or two. But
you must go now " and she shut the door in his
face.
Reuben slunk away, angry and miserable.
He pottered about the farm all the morning. Somehow
these terrible events reminded Mm of the birth of his
first child, when he had moped and fretted and sulked
and all for nothing. That seemed twenty years ago.
Now he did not fret for nothing. His wife was dying,
still young, still sometimes beautiful His mind was
full of jumbled memories of her he saw her as Harry's
sweetheart, sitting with him on Boarzell while he sang ;
he saw her in the dairy where he had first kissed her
stooping over the cream ; he saw her as his bride, flushed
and timid beside him at the wedding-feast, as the
mother of his boys, proud and full-bosomed. But
mostly his thoughts were more trivial and tattered
memories of her in certain gowns, in a cap she had
bought because, having three little boys, she thought
she must " dress older " ; memories of little things she
had said " Why don't you keep bees, Reuben ? Why
don't you keep bees ? They're such pretty things, and
I like the honey. . . ."
Towards two in the afternoon he came in, tired and
puff-eyed with misery, his brain all of a jangle. " Why
don't you keep bees, Reuben ? Why don't you keep
bees ? "
He sat down at the table which the children had left,
and mechanically began to eat. His healthy young
body claimed its dues, and almost without knowing it
he cleared the plate before him. Harry sat in the
chimney corner, murmuring, "Why doan't you kip
bees, Reuben ? Why doan't you kjp bees? " showing
that he had uttered his thoughts aloud, just as the
THE WOMAN'S PART 117
empty platters showed him he had made a very good
dinner.
At last, strengthened by the food, he went up to
Naomi's room again. This time he was admitted.
She lay propped high on the pillows, and he was
astonished to see how well she looked, much better than
before the baby was born. The infant George lay like
a rather ugly doll on his grandmother's lap. He was not
so healthy as the other children, indeed for a time it had
been doubtful whether he would live.
Naomi smiled feebly, and that smile, so wan, so
patient, so utterly wistful, so utterly unregretful, with
which almost every mother first greets the father of her
child, went straight to Reuben's heart. He fell on his
knees by the bed, and covered her hand and her thin
arm with kisses.
" Naomi, my darling, my love, git well you mustn't
die and leave me."
Actually his tears fell on her hand, and a rather bitter
compassion for him drove away the tnore normal mood.
He had killed her, and he was sorry for it. But if he had
it all to do over again he would do it, for the sake of the
land which was so much more to him than her life.
" My sweet/' he murmured, holding her palm against
his mouth, " my liddle creature, my liddle sweet. Git
well, and you shan't never have to go through this
agaun. Six boys is all I'll want to help me, surelye
and you shall rest and be happy, liddle wife, and be
proud of your children and the gurt things they're
going to do."
She smiled with that same bitter compassion, and
stroked his head with her feeble hand.
" How thick your hair is,' 1 she said, and weakly took
a handful of it, as she had sometimes done when she
was well.
When he left her, ten minutes later, she struck; him as
better. He could not quite smother the hope that Dr,
118 SUSSEX GORSE
Espinette was mistaken and that she would recover
with nursing and care. After all, even the doctor him-
self had said that one could never be certain. He felt
his spirits revive, and called Beatup to go with him to
the hop-fields.
Naomi heard him tramp off, talking of " goldings "
and " fuggles." She lay veiy still, hoping that the
light would soon go, and give rest to her tired eyes but
she was too utterly weary to ask Mrs. Backfield to draw
the curtains. Her mother-in-law put the baby back in
its cradle, then sat down at the foot of the bed, folding
her arms over her breast. She was tired after her
labours in the house and in the sick-room, and soon
she began to doze. Naomi felt more utterly alone than
before.
Her fingers plucked nervously at the sheet. There
seemed to be a strange tickling irritation in her skin,
while her feet were dreadfully cold. She wondered
rather dully about the baby she supposed he could not
come to any harm over there in the cradle by himself;
but really she did not care much it was all one to her
what happened to him.
Gradually the sun slanted and glowed, and a faint
ripple of air stole into the room, lifting the hair on her
forehead, tangled and damp. It struck her that she
must be looking very ugly she who had used to be such
a pretty girL
The light trembled and pearled, and in a swift last
clearness she saw the great Moor rolling up against the
sky, puiple with heather, golden with gorse, all strength
and life. It seemed to mock her savagely " I Hve
you die. You die I live." It was this hateful land
which had killed her, to which she had been sacrificed,
and now it seemed to flaunt its beauty and life and
vigour before her dying eyes. " I live you die. You
die I live/'
Yes. she was dying and she hoped that she would die
THE WOMAN'S PART 119
before Reuben came back. She did not want to feel
again that strange, half-bitter compassion for him. The
tears ran quite fast down her cheeks, and her eyes were
growing dim. This was the end, and she knew it. The
evening was full of tender life, but for her it was the end.
Ambition and folly had stolen her out of all this fresh-
ness before the spring of her life had run. She was like
a young birch tree blighted with its April leafage half
uncurled.
The tears splashed and dribbled on, till at last for
some purely physical reason they stopped. Then a
familiar tune swam into her head. She had been told
of people who heard music when they were dying.
" At last when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow,
And years of remorse and despair been your fate,
Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor,
And turn to your true love and find it too late."
But hjer mind was too dim even for regrets. Instead,
she seemed to see herself dancing with Reuben at
" Boarzell Fair, when the dusk had been full of strange
whirling lights, whispers, and kisses.
Dancing ! . . , dancing ! . . . Dying ! . . . dying 1
Even the tune had faded now, and she could see nothing
only a grey patch where the window had been. She
was not frightened, only very lonely. Her legs were
like ice, and the inside of her mouth felt all rough and
numb.
. . . Even the window had faded. Her head had
fallen sideways on the pillow, and behind Boarzell the
sky had kindled into a sheet of soaring triumphant
flame.
" I live you die. You die I live."
BOOK III
THE ELDER CHILDREN
FOR some time after Naomi's death Reuben was
sick with grief. Her going had been so cruel,
so unexpected and he could not forget how
they had found her, her eyelashes wetted with tears.
He also missed her in the house her soft pale face
and gentle ways. He forgot the sallowness and the
peevishness of later years, and pictured her always
with creamy roseal skin and timid voice. He was the
only one who missed her. Mrs. Backfield's softer
feelings seemed to have been atrophied by hard work
she grew daily more and more like a machine; the
children were too young to care much, and Harry was
incapable of regret. However, the strange thing about
Harry was that he did indeed seem to miss someone,
but not Naomi. For the first time since little Fanny's
death he began to ask for her, and search for her about
the house" Where's the pretty baby ? oh, save the
pretty baby I " he would wail " she's gone, she's gone
the pretty baby's gone."
Reuben, as was usual with him, tried to drown
sorrow in hard work. He spent his whole day either in
the yard or in the fields or out on Boarzell. He was
digging a ditch round his new land, to let off- the winter
rain, and throughout the cool November damps he was
on the Moor, watching the sunset's fiery glow behind
the gorse, seeing the red day squash and crumble
120
THE ELDER CHILDREN 121
thickly under his spade spouting out drops of blood.
In time all this fire and blood brought him back into his
old purpose. Gradually the lust of conquest drove
away regret. He had no more cause for self-reproach
than an officer who loses a good soldier in battle. It is
the fortune of war* And Naomi had not died without
accomplishing her work and giving him men to help
him in the fight.
The young Backfields were beginning to grow into
individualities. Albert, the eldest, was eight, and
showed certain tokens of a wilful nature, which had not
much chance where his father was concerned. Strange
fits of dreaminess alternated with vigorous fits of passion.
He was a difficult child to manage, for in addition to
his own moods he had a certain corrupting influence
over his more docile brothers. Reuben already kept
him at work most of the day either at the village
school, or scaring birds from the orchard or the grain
fields.
Robert and Peter also did their share, feeding fowls,
weeding vegetables. Robert was a stolid, well-behaved
child, a trifle uninteresting, but hard-working and
obedient. Pete was Reuben's delight a wonderfully
sturdy little fellow, who often amazed his father and
Beatup by his precocious feats of strength. To amuse
them he would sometimes shoulder Beatup's tools, or
pick up a bag of chicken-meal with his teeth he could
even put his back against a young calf and prevent it
entering a gate or reaching its stall. Reuben was
careful not to let him strain himself, but he loved to
handle his son's arms and shoulders, feeling the swell of
the muscles under the skin. ^ He even taught him the
rudiments of boxing ; he had had some practice himself
as a boy in the Fair sparring booth, and though of late
years he had been too busy to keep it up, he was a good
teacher for little Pete, who could soon lick all his brothers
and even deliver respectable punishment on Beatup's
122 SUSSEX GORSE
nether limbs. Richard at the age of six was not of any
great agricultural value, but at the village school he
outshone the elder boys. Sometimes he gave Reuben
anxious moments, for the smell of the midden now and
then made him sick, which was scarcely a hopeful sign.
The younger children were to their father so many
bundles meek and mute, but good to count as they
sat at table with porridge bowls and staring eyes. It
never occurred to him to pick any of them up and
caress them. Indeed they had no very distinct person-
alities apart from Odiam, though Tilly sometimes
looked uncomfortably like Naomi,
2.
Towards the end of '53, Reuben bought a pedigree
bull at Rye market. He knew that he could increase
his importance and effectiveness in the neighbourhood
if he started as a cattle-breeder, and there was also a
sound profit to be made by the animal's hiring fees.
The next year he bought ten acres more of Boarzell for
grass.
He had now spent the whole of Naomi's dowry, and
knew that he was not likely to get anything more out
of old Gasson, whose housekeeper had during the last
year smartly married him. However, he felt that the
money had been laid out to the very best advantage,
for Odiam was paying its way, and had, besides, of late
become the most important farm in the neighbourhood
except Grandturzel. Reuben watched Grandturzel
jealously, though he was careful to hide his feelings. It
had the advantage of forty acres of Boarzell, granted by
the commissioners* Luckily old Realf was not very
enterprising.
In spite of the farm's new activities, he found that he
could still manage without engaging fresh labour. The
odds and ends of work which his boys took off him and
THE ELDER CHILDREN 128
Beatup left them free to attack the bigger enterprises.
And as Odiam grew the children would grow. Even
now they were all impressed for service, except little
George, who was delicate and, moreover, subject to
fits. Their work was varied they scared birds from the
crops, fed the poultry, collected the eggs, drove the cows
to and from pasture, fed the pigs, ran errands to the
neighbouring farms. In course of time Albert learned
milking, and could saddle old Crump the roan, or put
him into the gig.
Then, in the house, the little girls were useful. Mrs.
Backfield was not so energetic as she used to be. She
had never been a robust woman, and though her
husband's care had kept her well and strong, her frame
was not equal to Reuben's demands; after fourteen
years' hard labour, she suffered from rheumatism,
which though seldom acute, was inclined to make her
stiff and slow. It was here that Caro and Tilly came
in, and Reuben began to appreciate his girls. After all,
girls were needed in a house and as for young men and
marriage, their father could easily see that such follies
did not spoil their usefulness or take them from him.
Caro and Tilly helped their grandmother in all sorts of
ways they dusted, they watched pots, they shelled
peas and peeled potatoes, they darned house-linen,
they could even make a bed between them.
Needless to say there was not much playtime at
Odiam.
3-
During the next ten years the farm went forward by
strides. Reuben bought seven more acres of Boarzell
in '59, and fourteen in '60, He also bought a horse-rake,
and threshed by machinery. He was now a topic in
every public-house from Northiam to Rye, His success
and the scant trouble he took to conciliate those about
him had made him disliked. Unprosperous farmers
124 SUSSEX GORSE
spoke windily of " spoiling his liddle game.' 1 Ditch and
Ginner even suggested to Vennal that they should club
together and buy thirty acres or so of the Moor them-
selves, just to spite him. However, money was too
precious to throw away even on such an object, especi-
ally as everyone felt sure that Backfield would sooner or
later " bust himself " in his dealings with Boarzell.
After all, he had only fifty-six acres out of a possible
three hundred, and had not made much profit out of
them, judging by the austerity of ways at Odiam.
Horse-rakes and steam-threshers could not blind his
neighbours to the absence of muslin curtains and
butcher's meat, "And the way he's working them
pore childer, too ... all of ; em hard at it from mornun
till evenun, surelye . . . enough to make their mother
turn in her grave, pore girl ... not but wot she hadn't
every reason to expect it, considering the way he treated
her," etc, etc.
At Flightshot Manor comment was more enlightened.
" I can't understand, papa," said Anne Bardon, " how
you can go on selling land to that odious Backfield."
" Well, my dear, he pays me good money for it, and
I'm in precious need of that just now."
" But in time the whole Moor will fall into his hands
see if it doesn't. And he's a Tory, a reactionary. It
would be a dreadful thing for the parish if he became a
big landowner."
Anne's politics were the most vigorous in the family.
" My dear, if anyone else would buy the Moor, I'd be
only too pleased to sell it to them. But so far there
hasn't been a nibble. Backfield's the only man who has
the temerity to think he could make anything out of a
desert like Boarzell, and I must say I admire his pluck.' 1
lf It's only because he has no imagination. He's a
thick-skinned brute, and I hate the idea of a man like
that becoming powerful. Why don't you give the land
back to- the parish? Acknowledge that grandpapa's
THE ELDER CHILDREN 125
inclosure has failed, and let the people have their
common again/'
" It's all very well for you to talk, Anne/' said her
brother Ralph, " you have your godmamma's fortune,
and don't need to think of money. But papa and I have
to think of it, and after all we're making a little, a very
little, out of Boarzell just enough to keep up the Village
Institute. As time goes on, and Backfield gets richer and
more ambitious, we shall sell larger pieces at higher rates,
and then we'll be able to repair those wretched cottages
at Socknersh, and do a lot more besides/'
"I think it would be better if you gave up the
Institute and let the cottages tumble down. It's no
good trying to raise the people if you leave a man like
Backfield loose among them."
" I think you exaggerate his importance, and fail to
realise that of the improvements we are making in
Peasmarsh. I can't help thinking, as most of the people
round here think, that Backfield will, as they call it,
'bust himself over the Moor. After all he's not
educated, and an uneducated man is hampered even in
the least intellectual undertakings."
" I do not agree with you, papa/'
Anne turned away from her father and brother, and
walked towards the window. She disliked arguing, she
thought it undignified. She was a tall woman, about
twenty-eight years old, severely yet rather imposingly
dressed, with a clear complexion, grey eyes, and a nose
which was called by her friends aquiline, by her enemies
hooked. She despised the Squire in his truck with
Odiam, yet she was too fair-minded not to see the
considerations that weighed him. And even she, as she
gazed from the window, at the southward heap of
Boarzell stony, gorsy, heather - shagged, and fir-
crowned could not withhold a certain admiration
from the man who expected of his own arm and tool to
subdue it
126 SUSSEX GORSE
4-
The Crimean War had meant the stoppage for a time
of Russian grain supplies, and Reuben had taken every
advantage of this. He had some forty acres under
grain cultivation, mostly oats, but also some good kinds
of wheat and barley. In rotation with these were
peas and clover, turnips and mangolds. He also had
twenty acres of hops the rest was pasture for his neat
Dutch and Jersey cows, which, with the orchard and
poultry yard, were still the most profitable if not the
most glorious of his exploits, The bull had not proved
so splendid an investment as he had hoped ; the farmers
of the district could not afford big hiring fees, and at
present his space was too limited for extensive breeding
of his own stock. However, he exhibited Alfriston
King at Lewes Agricultural Show, and won a first prize
for him. The next year he sold him to a big cattle
breeder down Horeham way, and bought a cheaper but
more serviceable animal for his own business.
His sons were now growing up Alberfcjwas nearly
eighteen, and Peter, though a year younger, looked a
full-grown man, with his immense build and dark
hairy skin. Pete was still the most satisfactory of
Reuben's children, he had a huge and glad capacity for
work, and took; a real interest in Odiam's progress,
though it was not his life, as it was his lather's. It was
strange, Reuben thought, that none of' che other boys
seemed to have a glimmer of enthusiasm. Though they
had grown up under the shadow of Boarzell, and from
their earliest childhood taken part in the struggle, they
seemed still to think more about the ordinary things of
young men's lives than the great victory before them.
It was disappointing.-' Of course one expected it of
girls, but Reuben's heart ached a little because the men
children on whom he had set such hope and store cared
THE ELDER CHILDREN 127
so little about what was life itself to him. It is true
that Robert worked well, nearly as well as Pete, but that
was only because he was of a docile, tractable nature.
He did not share his father's dreams Boarzell to him
was only a piece of waste ground with some trees on it.
As for Albert and Richard, they did not even work
well, and they grumbled and shirked as much as they
dared. They had ambitions, but so utterly at variance
with Odiam's as to be worse than none. Albert wanted
to be a poet and Richard to be a gentleman.
What there was in either Reuben or Naomi to make a
poet of their eldest son would be hard to say. Perhaps
it was the glow of their young love, so golden and
romantic during the first year of their marriage. If so,
there was something of bitter irony in this survival
and transmutation of it. Odiam was no place for poets,
and Reuben tried by every means in his power to
knock the poetry out of Albert. It was not the actual
poetry he objected to so much as the vices which went
with it forgetfulness, unpracticalness, negligence.
Albert would sometimes lose quite half an hour's work
by falling i; f o a dream, he also played truant on occa-
sions, and wQuld disappear for hours, indeed now and
then for a (fay or more, wandering in the fields and
spinneys, tasting the sharp sweetness of the dawn and
the earth-flavoured sleep of the night.
For though he did not care for Odiam he loved the
country round ;f , and made a wonderland and a dream-
land of it. Ift did not see in Boarzell Robert's tree-
capped waste, though neither did he see his father's
enemy and heart's delight. He saw instead a kind of
enchanted ground, full of mysteries of sun and moon,
full of secrets that were sometimes beautiful, sometimes
terrifying. It seemed to have a soul and a voice, a low
voice, hoarse yet sweet ; and its soul was not the soul
of a man or of a beast, but the soul of a fetch, some
country sprite, that clumped, and yet could skip ... he
128 SUSSEX GORSE
used to feel it skipping with him in the evening wind
when the dusk made the heather misty round his knees
. . . but he knew that it danced heavy-footed round the
farm at night, clumping, clumping, like a clod.
Reuben had no sympathy with these fancies when
they took his son out of hard-working common sense
into idle-handed, wander-footed dreams, or when
perhaps he found them scribbled on the back of his
corn accounts. He did not spare the rod, but Albert
had all the rather futile obstinacy of weak-willed people,
and could be neither persuaded nor frightened out of
his dreams.
However, though he was a great trouble to his father,
he was not so irritating as Richard. He had the advan-
tage that one could lay hands on him and vent one's
fury in blows, but Richard had an extraordinary knack
of keeping just on the safe side of vengeance. For one
thing he was the best educated of all Reuben's children,
and the result of education had been not so much to
fill his mind as to sharpen his wits to a formidable
extent. For another, he loathed to be beaten, and used
all his ingenuity to avoid it. Reuben could flog Albert
for going off to the Moor when he was told to clean out
the pigsties, but he could not flog Richard for being
sick at his first spadeful. As a matter of fact he did
actually perpetrate this cruelty when Richard's squeam-
ishness caused him any gross inconvenience, but there
was no denying that the boy was on the whole successful
in avoiding his dues.
Richard had been the brightest light in the Misses
Harmans' school. His teachers had often praised him,
and on one occasion suggested in their ignorance that he
should take up a more intellectual trade than farming.
Then when the Curate-in-Charge' had inspected the
school he had been struck by Richard's clever, thoughtful
answers, and had, for some montHs after his leaving,
lent Wm books. Reuben on discovering this, had gone
THE ELDER CHILDREN 12&
over at once to the parsonage, and with all the respect
due to a Minister of the Established Church, had in-
formed Mr. Munk that he didn't want no nonsense put
into his boy's head, and spades and spuds were for
Richard's hands, not books.
" I'm going to maake a farmer of un, your reverence."
" But he says he doesn't want to be a farmer."
" That's why I've got to maake un one, surelye."
5-
Reuben had sold Alfriston King for two hundred
pounds, and this new capital made possible another
enterprise he bought twenty head of sheep. For some
time he had considered the advantages of keeping sheep.
It was quite likely that his new land on Boarzell would
be mostly pasture, at all events for some time to coine,
and sheep, properly managed, ought to be a good source
of revenue as well as a hall-mark of progress. He did
not want Odiam to be a farm of one idea ; his father
had kept it ambitionlessly to grass, but Reuben saw
grain-growing, dairy-keeping, cattle-breeding, sheep-
rearing, hops, and fruit, and poultry as branches of its
greatness.
He decided that the sheep should be Richard's special
charge they, at all events, could not make him sick ;
and if he was kept hard at work at something definite
and important it would clear his mind of gentility non-
sense. Reuben also had rather a pathetic hope that it
might stir up his ambition.
Richard grumbled of course, but discreetly. His
brothers were inclined to envy him Albert saw more
romance and freedom in keeping sheep than in digging
roots or cleaning stables, Pete was jealous of an honour
the recipient did not appreciate, Robert and Jemmy
would have liked a new interest in their humdrum lives.
Richard was initiated into the mysteries of his art by a
180 SUSSEX GORSE
superannuated shepherd from Doozes, only too glad of
a little ill-paid casual labour.
None of the Backfield boys was ever paid a penny of
wages. Reuben's idea in employing them was to save
money, besides he feared that his young men with full
pockets might grow independent. It was essential to
his plan that he should keep them absolutely dependent
on him, otherwise they might leave home, marry without
his consent, or at best fritter away their or rather his
time by running after girls or drinking at pubs. It is
true that now and then stalwart Pete made a few shillings
in the sparring-booth at the Fair, but Reuben could trust
Pete in a way he could not trust the other boys, so he
did not offer much objection.
Pete had once given a shilling to Richard, who had
bought with it a second-hand Latin grammar, which be
kept carefully hidden under his pillow by night, and in
his pocket by day. He had an idea that the mastery of
its obscurities would give him a key to freedom, but he
had had so far little opportunity of studying it, as he
worked and slept with his brothers. Richard did not
extort the same sympathy for his rebellion as Albert.
Albert had a certain influence over Pete and Jemmy,
which he maintained partly by a definite charm of
personality, partly by telling them tales after they were
in bed at night. They had never betrayed his copy of
Byron, also bought with a shilling from Pete, but
Richard dared not trust them with his Lilly. Some day
he would manage to irritate them show his contempt
for their bearish manners, scoff at their talk, or other-
wise insult them and they would deliver him over,
grammar and all, into his father's hands.
His new occupation, however, gave him undreamed-of
opportunities. One of the advantages of shepherding was
that it alternated periods of strenuous work with others
of comparative idleness. During these Richard would
pore over his " hie, haec, hoc/' and parse and analyse on
THE ELDER CHILDREN 131
bits of waste paper. He learned very quickly, and was
soon casting about for means to buy a Greek grammar.
He felt that his father could not possibly keep him at
the farm if he knew both Latin and Greek.
Thus Richard lived through the feasts and fasts of the
Shepherd's Year. In spring there were hazy, drowsy
days when he sat with his book under the hedge some
hole close by where he could stuff it if Reuben came that
wa y now and then lifting an eye to the timid, foolish
faces buried in the sun-stained meadow-grass. Then
later came the dipping, the collie Havelock barking and
blustering at one end of the bath, while old Comfort
poked the animals through it with his crook, and
Richard received them terrified and evil-smelling at the
other side. He grew furious because his hands were all
sore and blistered with the dip. Reuben laughed at him
grossly " Yur granny shall maake you a complexion
wash, surelye 1 "
Then came the shearing, that queen of feasts. The
local band of shearers called at Odiam for the first time,
and were given an inaugural welcome. Richard sulked
at the honour paid him as shepherd he felt it was
indeed a case of King among Sweepers. However, in
point of fact, he enjoyed the actual shearing well enough.
It was a warm July day, the air full of the scent of
hayseed ; the sheep came hustling and panting into the
shearing-pens, and the shearers stripped them with
songs and jokes and shouts of " Shear close, boys ! "
There was also ale in buckets, brought out by a girl hired
for the occasion, who was stout and pretty and smiled at
Richard. And it was good to watch the yellowish piles
of fleece grow at one's knees, and comical to see the poor
shorn sheep stagger up from the ground, all naked and
confused, hardly knowing themselves, it seemed.
When the shearing was done there was supper in the
kitchen at Odiam, with hjige drinks of " black ram,"
and sheep-shearing songs such as " Come, all my jolly
132 SUSSEX GORSE
boys," and " Here the rose-buds in June." Also the
Sussex Whistling Song :
" There was an old Fanner in Sussex did dwell,
And he had a bad wife, as many knew well,"
But Richard did not enjoy the supper as much as the
shearing, for most of the men over-ate themselves, and
all of them over-drank. Also the pretty serving-girl
forsook him for Albert, who on one ^ occasion was
actually seen to put his arm round her waist,, and hold it
there till a scowl from his father made him drop it.
Then in winter came the lambing, which is the
shepherd's Lent. Richard and the old man from
Doozes kept long vigils in the lambing hut, and those
nights and days were to young Backfield dreams of red,
fuggy solitude, the stillness broken only by the slip of
coals in the brazier, or the faint bleating of the ewes
outside while sometimes mad Harry's fiddle wept
down the silences of Boarzell.
Richard began to take a new interest in his flock-
hitherto they had merely struck him as grotesque.
Their pale silly eyes, their rough, tic-ridden fleeces, their
scared repulsiveness after the dipping, their bewildered
nakedness after the shearing, had filled him either with
amusement or disgust but now, when he saw them
weakly lick the backs of their new-born lambs, while the
lambs' little tails quivered, and tiny, entreating sounds
came from their mouths, he found in them a new
beauty, which he had found nowhere else in his short,
hard life the beauty of an utterly loving, tender, and
helpless thing.
He had his Lilly with him in the hut, for there were
long hours of idleness as well as of anxiety, but he was
careful to hide away the book if Reuben came to inspect ;
for he knew that his father would have sat through the
empty hours in concentration and expectancy, his ears
straining for the faintest sound. He would have thought
THE ELDER CHILDREN 183
of nothing but the ewes, and he looked to everyone to
think of nothing else. But Richard studied Latin, and
the old Doozes man put in plenty of light, easily startled
sleep.
6.
Towards the end of February there was a period of
intense cold, and some heavy falls of snow. Snow was
rare in that south-east corner, and all farm-work was to
a certain extent dislocated. Reuben would have liked
to spread blankets over his corn-fields and put shirts on
his cattle. Adverse weather conditions never failed to
stir up his inborn combativeness to its fiercest. His sons
trembled as his brain raged with body-racking plans
for fighting this new move of nature's. Richard was
glad to be away from farmyard exertions, most of which
struck him as absurd. He was now busy with the last
of his lambing, the snow blew against the hut from the
north-east, piling itself till nothing was to be seen from
that quarter but a white lump* Inside was a crimson
stuffiness, as the fumes of the brazier found their way
slowly out of the little tin chimney. Sometimes before
the brazier a motherless lamb would lie. f;
There was a lamb there on the last evening 1 , in
February, its tiny body and long, weak legs all rosed
over with the glow. Above it Richard crouched,
grammar in hand. There had been a lull in the snow-
storm during the afternoon, but now once more the
wind was piping and screaming over the fields and the
whiteness heaping itself against the wall.
Suddenly he heard a knock at the door, and before he
could answer, it flew open, and the icy blast, laden with
snow, rushed in, and whirled round the hut, fluttering
the pages of Lilly's grammar and the fleece of the lamb.
" Shut that door 1 " cried Richard angrily, and then
realised that he was speaking to a lady.
had shut the door* and stood against it % a
134 SUSSEX GORSE
rather commanding figure, in spite of her snow-covered
garments and dishevelled hair.
Oh ma'am ! " said Richard, rising to his feet, and
recognising Miss Anne Bardon.
" I trust I'm not in the way/' she said rather coldly,
" but the storm is so violent, and the drifts are forming
so fast, that I hope you will not mind my sheltering
here."
Richard was embarrassed. Her fine words dis-
concerted him. He had often watched Miss Bardon
from a respectful distance, but had never spoken to her
before.
''You're welcome, ma'am," he replied awkwardly,
and offered her his chair.
She sat down and held her feet to the brazier. He
noticed that her shoes were pulped with wet, and the
water was pouring off her skirts to the floor. He did not
dare speak, and she evidently did not want to. He felt
the colour mounting to his face ; he knew that he was
dirty and unkempt, for he had been hours in the hut
his hands were grimed from the brazier, and he wore an
old crumpled slop. She probably despised him.
Suddenly he noticed that the wet of her garments was
dropping on the lamb. He hastily gathered it up in his
arms. <&
" What ,<a dear little creature 1 "
She spoke quite graciously, and Richard felt his
spirits revive.
" His mother's dead, and I have to be looking after
him, surelye."
" Poor little thing I' 1
She asked him a few questions about the lambing,
then :
" You're one of Mr. Backfield's sons, are you not ? "
" Yes, ma'am. I'm Richard."
" I've seen you before in church, I think^ Are you
your lather's shepherd ? "
THE ELDER CHILDREN 135
" Yes, ma'am."
" Again I hope I am not in your way. I've been over
to see the carter's widow at Socknersh he died two
days ago, you know, and she hasn't a penny to go on
with. Then when I saw the storm coming I thought I
would take a short cut home across the fields ; I was
caught after all and here I am ! "
She smiled suddenly as she finished speaking. It was
a sweet smile, rather aloof, but lighting up the whole of
her face with a sudden flash of youth and kindness.
Richard gazed at her, half fascinated, and mumbled
lamely " you're welcome, ma'am."
She suddenly caught sight of his Latin grammar.
" That's a strange thing to see in a shepherd's hand."
He felt encouraged, for he had wanted her to see the
difference between him and an ordinary shepherd, but
had been too awkward to show her.
" I've had it three months I can construe a bit of
Horace now."
" Acquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem,"
said Anne.
" Omnes eodem cogimen," said Richard, and blushed.
There was silence, but not of the former discouraging
sort. Richard was even bold enough to break it :
" I never knew ladies cud speak Latin."
" Some can. I was educated with my brother, you
know, and when we construed Horace I was always
five or six pages ahead. What made you want to learn
Latin ? "
" I want to git out o' this."
" Out of your farm duties, you mean ? "
" Yes."
" But surely your father would let you adopt some
other profession if he knew you did not like this one ? "
Richard shook his head.
" He wants justabout all of us we've got to push on
the fanxu"
186 SUSSEX GORSE
" Yes I know he is ambitious, but surely he doesn't
want unwilling helpers,"
" Oh, he doan't mind who it is, so long as the work's
done/ 1
" And don't you care about the farm ? "
" I, ma'am ? no. I want to be a gentleman."
Anne was growing interested. This farm boy was
gloriously unlike others of his kind that she had met.
" And you think that if you learn Latin, it'll help you,
be a gentleman someday ? "
Yes and Greek, when I've adone wud the Latin."
" Have you many books ? "
" No only this one."
" Then I must lend you some books."
Richard flushed with pleasure. After all he was not
acquitting himself so badly with this fine lady. They
talked together for a few more minutes, the boy trying
to clip his speech like hers. He noticed how much
shorter and crisper it was than his while he said
11 doan't," she could say " don't " twice.
They were interrupted by the entrance of the Doozes
shepherd, accompanied by a swirl of flakeless wind. The
old man was astonished and rather scandalised to find
Anne Bardon. She looked positively rakish sitting
there in her steaming clothes, her hat over one ear, her
hair in wisps, and her face more animated and girlish
than any of his kind had ever seen it.
Old Comfort scraped and mumbled, and fussed over
the lamb, which the two Latinists had entirely forgotten.
Then Richard, seeing himself free and the sky clear,
offered to help her through the drifts to Flightshot. She
let him accompany her as far as the edge of the Manor
estate, where the going was no longer dangerous.
" Your servant, ma'am," he said, as he opened the
gate ; and she answered classically ;
" Vale I "
THE ELDER CHILDREN la?
7-
On the whole, the most unsatisfactory of Reuben's
sons was Albert. Richard might be more irritating, but
Albert had that knack of public sinning which gives a
certain spectacular offensiveness to the most trivial
faults. Any trouble between Reuben and his eldest son
invariably spread itself into the gossip of ten farms ; the
covert misdoings of and private reckonings with the
other boys gave place to tempestuous scandals, windy
stormings, in which Albert contrived to grab the general
sympathy, and give a decorative impression of martyr-
dom.
At the same time he tantalised Reuben with vague
hints of enthusiasm, sometimes almost making him
think that, undependable and careless as he was, he had
in him certain germs of understanding. But these were
mere promises that were never fulfilled. Albert would
whet Reuben's hopes by asking him questions about the
country round : Why was such and such a farm called
Stilliand's Tower or Puddingcake ? Why were there
about six places called Iden Green within a square of
twenty miles ? Was there any story to account for the
names of Mockbeggar, Golden Compasses, Castweasel,
or Gablehook? But directly Reuben digressed from
these general questions to the holy particulars of Odiam
and Boarzell, he would lose his interest and at last even
his attention, escaping into some far-wandering dream.
Reuben could not understand how his sons could care
so little about that which was all things to him. He had
brought them up to his ambitions they were not like
Naomi, thrust into them in later, less-impressionable
years. He had not been weak with them, and not been
cruel yet only Pete was at all satisfactory. However,
he was not the man to sit down and despair before his
lie made the best of things as they
138 SUSSEX GORSE
ground work out of his lads, since he could not grind
enthusiasm, and trusted to the future to stir up a greater
hope. He somehow could not believe that his boys
could go through all their lives not caring for Odiam.
Albert continued weakly and picturesquely to offend.
He was now nearly twenty-one, and had begun to run
after girls in a stupid way. Reuben, remembering how
sternly he had deprived himself of pleasures of this kind,
ruthlessly spoiled his son's phiknderings . . . but the
crime he could not forgive, which set the keystone on Ms
and the boy's antagonism, was the publication of some
verses by Albert in the Rye Advertiser.
To begin with, it was a Liberal paper, and though the
verses were of a strictly non-political kind, dealing
chiefly with Amelia's eyes, it seemed to Reuben shock-
ingly unprincipled to defile oneself in any way with
Radical print. But even without that the thing was
criminal and offensive.
"I woan't have no hemmed poetry in my family I "
stormed Reuben, for Albert had as usual stage-managed
a " scene." " You've got your work to do, and you'll
justabout do it."
" But faather, it didn't taake up any of my time,
writing that poem. I wrote it at my breakfast one
mormin two months ago "
" Yes, that's it instead of spending twenty minnut
at your breakfast, you spend forty. You idle away my
time wud your hemmed tricks, and I woan't have it, I
tell you, I woan't have it. Lord ! when I wur your age,
I wur running the whole of this farm alone every
stroak of work, I did it. I didn't go wasting time over
my meals, and writing rubbidge fur low-down Gladstone
paapers. Now doan't you go sassing me back, you
young good-fur-nothing, or I'll flay you, surelye 1 "
Albert could not help a grudging admiration of his
father. Reuben could be angry and fling threats, and
yet fceep at the same time a certain splendour^ which no
THE ELDER CHILDREN 189
violence or vulgarity could dim. The boy, in spite of
his verses, which were execrable enough, had a poet's eye
for the splendid, and he could not be blind to the
qualities of his father's tyranny, even though that
tyranny crushed him at times. Reuben was now forty-
three ; a trifle heavier in build, perhaps, but otherwise
as fine and straight a man as he had been at twenty.
His clear brown skin, keen eyes, thick coal-black hair,
his height, his strength, his dauntless spirit, could not
fail to impress one in whom the sense of life and beauty
was developing. Albert even once began a poem to
his father :
" You march across the mangold field,
And all our limbs do shake. . . ."
But somehow found the subject more difficult to
grapple than the fascinations of Amelia.
With Richard things were different. He despised
Reuben as bestial, and sometimes jeopardised his skin
by nearly showing his contempt. He now had a
peculiar friendship with Anne Bardon. They had met
accidentally a second time, and deliberately half a
dozen more. In Richard Anne had made a discovery
he appealed to her imagination, which ran on severe
lines. She sympathised with his ambition to break free
from the grind and grossness of Odiam, and resolved to
help him as much as she could. She lent him books, and
guided him with her superior knowledge and education.
Their meetings were secret, from her family as well as
his. But they were dignified there was no scurrying
like rabbits. Richard's work kept him mostly on the
Flightshot borders of Odiam, and often the grave Anne
would walk down to the hedge, and help him construe
Tacitus or parse from Ovid. There was an old tree by
the boundary fence, in the hollow of which she put new
books for him to find, and into which he would return
fee had fimsfeeck She was very careful to maintain
140 SUSSEX GORSE
the right attitude towards him ; he was always her
humble servant, he never forgot to call her " ma'am."
But the disciple of Anne Bardon could aspire to be
master among other men. Richard began to startle and
amuse his family by strange new ways. He took to
washing his neck every morning, and neatly combed his
hair. He cut up an old shirt into pocket-handkerchiefs*
He began to model his speech on Miss Bardon's
clipping it, and purging it ridiculously. Reuben would
roar with laughter.
" ' Pray am I to remove this dirt ? ' Did you ever
hear such praaperness and denticalness ? all short and
soft lik the Squire himself. You wash out all that
mucky sharn, my lad, if that's wot you mean."
8.
Robert Backfield was a member of Peasmarsh choir.
He had a good, ringing bass voice, which had attracted
the clerk's notice, and though Reuben disapproved of
his son's having any interests outside Odiam, he
realised that as a good Tory he ought to support the
Church especially as the hours of the practices did not
clash with Robert's more important engagements.
Peasmarsh choir consisted of about eighteen boys and
girls, with an accompaniment of cornets, flutes, and a
bass viol the last played by an immensely aged drover
from Coldblow, who, having only three fingers on his
left hand, had to compromise, not always tunefully,
with the score. The singing was erratic. Eighteen
fresh young voices could not fail to give a certain
pleasure, but various members had idiosyncrasies which
did not make for the common weal such as young
Ditch, who never knew till he had begun to sing
whether his voice would be bass or alto, all intermediary
pitches being somehow unattainable or Rosie Hubble
from Barjine % who was always four bajs behind tUe
THE ELDER CHILDREN 141
or even young Robert himself, who in crises of
enthusiasm was wont to sing so loud that his voice
drowned everyone else's, or in a wild game of follow-
my-leader led the whole anthem to destruction.
Robert loved these choir practices and church sing-
ings. Though he never complained of his hard work, he
was unconsciously glad of a change from the materialism
of Odiam. The psalms with their outbreathings of a
clearer life did much "to purge even his uncultured soul
of its muddlings, the hymns with their sentimental far-
awayness opened views into which he would gaze
enchanted as into a promised land. He would come in
tired and throbbing from the fields, scrape as much mud
as possible off his boots, put on his Sunday coat, and
tramp through the dusk to the clerk's house . . the
little golden window gleaming to him across Peasmarsh
street and pond was the foretaste of the evening's sweet-
ness.
The practices were held in the clerk's kitchen, into
which the choristers would crush and huddle* On full
attendance nights all elbows touched, and occasionally
old Spodgram's bow would be jolted out of his hand, or
someone would complain that Leacher was blowing his
trumpet down his neck. Afterwards the choristers would
wander home in clusters through the fields ; the clusters
generally split into small groups, and then the groups
into couples. The couples would scatter widely, and
vex their homes with late returnings.
Robert was first of all part of a cluster which included
young Coalbran from Doozes, Tom Sheane from Dingles-
den, the two Morfees from Edzell, Emily Ditch* and
Bessie Lamb from Eggs Hole. Then in time the
company reduced itself to Robert, Emily, and Bessie
and one wonderful night he found himself with Bessie
alone. How they had chosen each other he could not
say. All he knew was that for some time she had
become woven with the music into his thoughts. She
142 SUSSEX GORSE
was a poor labourer's daughter, living in a crumbled,
rickety cottage on Eggs Hole Farm, helping her mother
look after eight young children. She was only seventeen
herself j sturdy yet soft, with a mass of hay-coloured
hair, and rather a broad face with wistful eyes. Robert
thought she was beautiful but Robert thought that old
Spodgram's playing and the choir's singing were
beautiful.
Though they were technically a Couple, they never
spoke of love. They never even kissed or held each
other's hands, however tenderly the velvet darkness
called. He told her about his work at Odiam about the
little calf that was born that day, or the trouble he had
had, patching the rent in the pigsty, or how the
poultry had not taken well to their new food, but pre-
ferred something with more sharps in it. She in her
turn would tell him how she had washed little Georgie's
shirt taking advantage of a warm day when he could
run about naked how her mother had lamentable hard
pains all down her back, how her father had got drunk
at the harvest supper and tried to beat her.
Sometimes they looked in the hedges for birds' nests,
or watched the rabbits skipping in the dusk. They
would gape up at the stars together and call the con-
stellations by names of their own Orion was " the gurt
tree," and Cassiopeia was "the sheep trough," and
Pegasus was " the square meadow."
It was all very wonderful and sweet to Robert, and
when at last he crept under the sheets in the apple-
smelling garret he would dream of him and Bessie
wandering in the Peasmarsh fields or sometimes in
those starry meadows where the hedges shone and
twinkled with the fruit of constellations, and Charles
drove his waggon along a golden road, and sheep ate
from a flickering trough under a great tree of lamps.
THE ELDER CHILDREN 148
9-
Bessie tinted the world for Robert like a sunrise. All
through the day he carried memories of lightless woods,
of fields hushed in the swale, of the smudge of her old
purple cotton beside him of, perhaps, some dim divine
moment when his hand had touched hers hanging at
her side.
Then winter came, with carol-singing, and the
choristers tramped round, lantern-led, from farm to
farm. There in the fluttering light outside Kitchenhour,
Old Turk, EUenwhorne, or Edzell, Robert would watch
Bessie's chicory-flower eyes under her hood, while the
steam of their breath mingled in the frosty air, and they
drooped their heads together, singing to each other,
only to each other, " Good King Wenceslas," " As
Joseph was a-walking," or " In the Fields with their
Flocks."
As they were both simple souls, their love only made
the words more real. Sometimes it seemed almost as if
they could see up in the white glistering field behind the
barn, the manger with the baby in it, the mother watch-
ing near, and the ox and the ass standing meekly beside
them in the straw. Bessie said she felt sure that the
shepherds watched their flocks by night in the little old
meadow at the corner of Totease . . . she once thought
she had heard them singing. But she would not go and
look.
As the year climbed up again into spring, a tender
pity for Bessie mingled with Robert's love. It was not
the pity which begets love, but the sweeter kind which
is begotten of it. Robert forgot all about his own hard
life, the monotonous ruthless grind of work, the absence
of all softness, homeliness, or sympathy, the denial of
all gaiety and sport. He thought only of Bessie's
troubles, -and would have given the world to lighten
144 SUSSEX GORSE
them. He longed to give her some little treat, or a
present. But he had no money. For the first time he
inwardly rebelled against the system which kept him
penniless. None of the boys had any money, except
Pete on Fair days not even Albert, for the Eye
Advertiser did not pay its poets. For the first time
Robert saw this as unjust.
March blew some warm twilights to Peasmarsh, and
the choristers began their summer lingering. Bessie
and Robert often took the longer way home by Ellen-
whorne he would not leave her now till they were at
her cottage door, and often he would run home hare-
footed from Eggs Hole, afraid that he might be shut
out of Odiam, and perhaps his precious comradeship
discovered and put under the tyrant's ban.
Then came an evening in April, when the air smelled
of primroses' and young leaves. The choir practice was
early, and rifts of sunshine sloped up the clerk's kitchen,
linking in one golden slant Robert's dark healthy face
just under the ceiling, Bessie's shoulders pressed against
his arm, the frail old hands of Joe Hearsfield on his
flute, and the warm plum-brown of the bass viol close
to the floor. To Robert it was all a dream of holiness
and harmony. Old Spodgram confined himself almost
entirely to two notes, Miss Hubble insisted on her four
bars of arrears, young Ditch extemporised an alto of
surprising reediness, and Robert bellowed the last lines
of the last verse just as the other choristers were loudly
taking in breath preparatory to line three but the
whole thing was to him a foretaste of Paradise and the
angels singing ever world without end.
When the practice was over it was still light, and
Robert and Bessie turned inevitably along the little
bostal that trickles through the fields towards Ramstile.
As usual they did not speak, but in each glowed the
thought that they had a. full two hours to live through
together in the mystery of these sorrowless fields*
THE ELDER CHILDREN 145
The sun set as they came to Ellenwhorne. They
stood and watched it dip behind the little cluster of roofs
and oast-houses in the west. The turrets of the oasts
stood out black against the crimson, then suddenly
they purpled, faded into their background of night-
washed cloud.
The fields were very dark in their low corners, only
their high sweeps shimmered in the ghostly lemon glow.
Out of the rabbit-warrens along the hedges, from the
rims of the woods, ran the rabbits to scuttle and play.
Bessie and Robert sawthe bob of their white tails through
the dusk, and now and then a little long-eared shape.
The boy and girl were still silent. But in the con-
sciousness each had of the other, kindled and spread a
strange dear poignancy. They walked side by side
through the dusk, now faintly cold. Dew began to
tremble and shine on the grass, to pearl the brambles
and glimmer on the twigs.
Robert looked sideways at Bessie. She was colour-
less in the dark, or rather coloured all over with the
same soft grey, which gathered up into itself the purple
of her gown and the pale web of her hair. In her eyes
was a quiver of starlight.
Their feet splashed on the soaking grass, and suddenly
Bessie stopped and lifted her shoe :
" It's justabout wet, Robby."
He looked.
So it be I shudn't have brought you through all
this damp grass. We shud have gone by the lane, I
reckon."
" Oh, no," she breathed, and her voice and the half-
seen glimmer of her eyes troubled him strangely.
" Lookee, I'll carry you you mustn't git wet."
She opened her lips to protest, but the sound died, on
them, for he stooped and swept her up in his arms. She
slipped her hand to his neck to steady herself, and they
went forward again towards the south.
146 SUSSEX GORSE
Bessie was a sturdily built little person, but the weight
of her was a rich delight, and if his arms strained, they
strained with tenderness as well as with effort. Under
them her frock crushed and gave out a fragrance of
crumpled cotton, her hand was warm against his neck,
and on his cheek tickled her soft hair. The shadows
ran towards them from the corners of the field, slipping
like ghosts over the grass, and one or two pale stars
kindled before them, where the sky dropped into the
woods. ... An owl lifted Ms note of sadness, which
wandered away over the fields to Ellenwhorne. . . .
Her young face bowed to his neck, and suddenly his
lips crept round and lay against the coolness of her
cheek. She did not move, and he still walked on, the
grass splashing under his feet, the rabbits scampering
round him, showing their little cotton-tails in the dark.
Then his mouth stole downwards and groped for hers.
Their lips fluttered together like moths. Then suddenly
she put her arms round his neck, and strained his head
to her, and kissed him and kissed him, with queer little
sobs in her throat. . . .
He still walked on through the deepening night and
skipping rabbits. He never paused, just carried her and
kissed her ; and she kissed him, stroking his face with
her hands and all without a word.
At last they reached the lane by Eggs Hole Cottage,
which with shimmering star-washed front looked towards
the south. He stopped, and she slid to the ground.
Then suddenly the words came.
" Oh, my liddle thing ! My dear liddle thing ... my
sweet liddle thing ! "
" Robby, Robby "
They kissed each other again and again, eagerly like
children, but with the tears of men and women in their
eyes.
" Robby ... I love you ... I love you so 1 "
" Oh, you liddle thing ! "
THE ELDER CHILDREN 147
They were hungry . . . their arms wound about each
other and their faces pressed close, now cheek to cheek,
now with lips fluttering together in those sweet kisses
of youth which have so much of shyness in their passion.
Suddenly a light kindled in the little house. Bessie
slipped from him, and ran up the pathway into the dark
gape of the door.
10.
In August Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell,
and the yoke tightened on Odiam. All had now been
pressed into service, even the epileptic George. From
morning till night feet tramped, hoofs stamped, wheels
rolled, backs bent, arms swung. Reuben himself
worked hardest of all, for to his actual labour must be
added long tramps from one part of the farm to the otlier
to superintend his sons' work. Besides, he would allow
nothing really important to be undertaken without him,
He must be present when the first scythe swept into the
hay, when his wonderful horse-reaper took its first step
along the side of the cornfield, he must himself see to the
spreading of the hops over the drying furnaces in the
oasts, or rise in the cold twinkling hour after midnight
to find out how Buttercup was doing with her calf.
Pete made an able and keen lieutenant, but the other
boys were still disappointing. It is true that Benjamin
worked well and was often smart enough; but he had a
roving disposition, which was more dangerous than
Albert's, since it led him invariably down to the muddy
Rother banks at Rye, where the great ships stood in
the water, filling the air with good smells of fish and
tar. Jemmy would loaf for hours round the capstans
and building-stocks, and the piles of muddy rope that
smelled of ooze, and he would talk to the sailormen and
fishermen about voyages to the Azores and the Cape
or to the wild seas south of the Horn, and would come
home prating of sails and smoke-stacks* charts and logs.
148 SUSSEX GORSE
and other vain things that had nothing to do with
Odiam. Reuben remembered that the boy's mother
came of a family of ship-builders and sailormen, and he
would tremble for Jemmy's allegiance, and punish his
truancies twice as severely as Albert's.
Another trial to him now was that Robert seemed
half-hearted. Hitherto he had always worked con-
scientiously and well, even though he had never been
smart or particularly keen ; but now he seemed to loaf
and slack he dawdled, slipped clear of what he could,
and once he actually asked Reuben for wages ! This
was unheard-of not one of Reuben's sons had ever
dreamed of such a thing before.
" Wages ! wot are you wanting wages fur, young
raascal ? You're working to save money, not to earn
it. You wait till all yon Moor is mine, and Odiam's
the biggest farm in Sussex, before you ask fur wages."
Up till then Robert had never troubled much about
money. He did not want to buy books like Albert and
Richard, neither did he care for drinking in Rye pubs
with fishermen like Jemmy. But now everything was
changed. He wanted money for Bessie, He wanted
to marry her, and he must have money for that, no
matter how meanly they started ; and also he wanted
to give her treats and presents, to cheer the dullness of
her life. Reuben had indeed been wise in trying to keep
the girls away from his sons !
There are no two such things for sharpening human
wits as fullness of love and shortness of cash. Robert's
brain was essentially placid and lumbering, but under
this double spur it began to work wonders. After much
pondering he thought of a plan. It was part of his
duties to snare rabbits on BoarzelL Every evening he
went round and inspected the traps, killed any little
squealing .prisoners that were in them, and sold them
on market days at Rye. It was after all an easy thing
to report and hand over the money for ten rabbits a
THE ELDER CHILDREN 149
week, while keeping the price of, say, three more, and
any other man would have thought of it sooner.
In this way he managed to do a few little things to
brighten Bessie's grey life and his own too, though he
did not know it was grey. Every week he put aside a
shilling or two towards the lump sum which was at
last to make their marriage possible. It was Reuben's
fight for Boarzell on an insignificant scale though
Robert, who had not so much iron in him as his father,
could not resist spending money from time to time on
unnecessary trifles that would give Bessie happiness.
For one thing he discovered that she had never been to
the Fair. She had never known the delights of riding
on the merry-go-round, throwing balls at Aunt Sally,
watching the shooting or the panorama. Robert
resolved to take her that autumn, and bought hier a
pair of white cotton gloves in preparation for the day.
Unluckily, however, he was not made for a career of
prolonged fraud, and he ingloriously foundered in that
sea of practical details through which the cunning man
must steer his schemes. He fixed the number of rabbits
to be sold at Rye as ten a week, pocketing the surplus
whether it were one or six. * This was a pretty fair
average, but its invariable occurrence for seven or
eight weeks could not fail to strike Reuben, whose
brain was not placid and slow-moving like his son's.
The one thing against the idea that Robert was
swindling him was that he thought Robert utterly
incapable of so much contrivance. However, he had
noticed several changes in the boy of late, and he re-
solved to wait another two weeks, keeping Ms eyes open
and his tongue still. ^ Each week ten rabbits were re-
ported sold at Rye and the money handed over to him*
On the morning of the next market day, when Robert's
cart, piled with eggs, fruit, vegetables, and poultry, was
at the door, Reuben came out and inspected it,
" Let's see your conies," be said briefly,
150 SUSSEX GORSE
It was as if someone had suddenly laid a cold hand on
Robert's heart. He guessed that his father suspected
him. His ears turned crimson, and his hands trembled
and fumbled as he opened the back of the cart and took
out his string of properly skinned and gutted conies.
Reuben counted them ten* Then he pushed them
aside, and began rummaging in the cart among cabbages
and bags of apples. In a second or two he had dragged
out five more rabbits. Robert stood with hanging head,
flushed cheeks, and quivering hands, till his father ful-
filled his expectations by knocking him down.
" So that's the way you queer me, you young villain.
You steal, you hide, you try to bust the farm. It's luck
you're even a bigger fool than you are scamp, and I've
caught you justabout party."
He kicked Robert, and called up Richard to drive
the cart over to Rye.
An hour later the whole of the boy's plans, and worse
still his sinews of war, were in the enemy's possession.
Reuben ransacked his son's mind as easily as he ran-
sacked Ms pockets and the careful obvious little hiding-
place under his mattress where lay the twenty-two
shillings of which he had defrauded Odiam. His love
for Bessie, his degraded and treacherous hopes, filled the
father with shame. Had he then lived so meanly that
such mean ambitions should inspire his son ?
" A cowman's girl 1 " he groaned, " at Eggs Hole,
too, where they doan't know plums from damsons!
Marry her 1 I'd sooner have Albert and his wenches."
" I love her/' faltered Robert.
" Well, you'll justabout have to stop loving her,
that's all. I'm not going to have my plaace upset by
love. Love's all very well when there's something wud
it or when there's nothing in it. But marrying cow-
men's girls wudout a penny in their pockets, we can't
afford to kip that sort o' love at Odiam."
" Faather," pleaded Robert, " you loved my mother/'
THE ELDER CHILDREN 151
" Yes but she wur a well-born lady wud a fortun.
D'you think I'd have let myself love her if she'd bin
poor and a cowman's daughter? Not me, young
feller ! "
" But you can't help loving, surelye."
" Well, if that's wot you think, the sooner you find
out that you can help loving the better. Did I ever
hear such weak womanish slop ! Help loving ? You'll
help it before you're many days older. Meantime you
kip away from that girl, and all them hemmed choir-
singings which are the ruin of young people.' 1
The colour rushed into Robert's cheeks, and some-
thing very unfamiliar and very unmanly into his eyes.
i'ii - he began desperately. But even Robert
had the wit not to finish his sentence.
For the next two or three days the boy was desperate.
His manhood was in a trap. He thought of a dozen plans
for breaking free, but whichever way he turned the steel
jaws seemed to close on him. What could he do ? He
was not strong and ruthless like his father, or he might
have broken his way out ; he was not clever like Richard,
or he might have contrived it. Money, money that
was what lay at the bottom of his helplessness. Even
if he had a very little he could take Bessie away and
marry her, and then they could both find work together
on a farm. But he had not a penny. He tried to
borrow some of Pete, but Pete showed him his empty
pockets :
" If you'd asked me after the Fair, lad, I might have
been able to let you have a shillun or two. But this time
o' year, I'm as poor as you are.' 1
Meantime Bessie knew nothing of the darkness in
her lover's life. She was working away sturdily and
patiently at Eggs Hole, looking forward to meeting him
152 SUSSEX GORSE
on practice night, and going with him to the Fair a
week later.
Saturday came, the day which had always been
Robert's Sabbath, with a glimpse into Paradise. He
toiled miserably with the horses, Reuben's stern eye
upon him, while hatred rose and bubbled in his heart.
What right had his father to treat him so ? to make a
prisoner and a slave of him ? He vowed to himself he
would break free ; but how ? how ? . , , A chink of
pence in Reuben's pocket seemed lik a mocking answer.
In the evening the taskmaster disappeared, to gloat
over his wheatfields. Robert knew he would not be
back till supper-time ; only Albert was working with
him in the stable, and he felt that he could persuade
his brother to hold his tongue if he disappeared for an
hour or two.
" I want to go into Peasmarsh," he said to Albert ;
" if Faather comes and asks where I am, you can always
tell him Fve gone over to Grandturzel about that colt,
can't you now ? "
" Reckon I can," said Albert good-naturedly, know-
ing that some day he might want his brother to do the
same for him.
So Robert put on his Sunday coat as usual and
tramped away to the village. The only drawback was
that from the high wheatfield Reuben distinctly saw
him go.
He reached the clerk's house a little while after the
practice had started, and stood for a moment gazing in
at the window. A terrible homesickness rose in his
heart. Must he really be cut off from all these delights ?
There they stood, the boys and girls, his friends, singing
"Disposer Supreme" till the rafters rang, Perhaps
after to-night he would never sing with them again.
Then his eyes fell on Bessie, and the hunger drove him in.
He took his place beside her, but he could not fix his
mind on what they sang. In the intervals between the
THE ELDER CHILDREN 153
anthems he was able to pour out instalments of his
tragedy. Bessie was very brave, she lifted her eyes to
his, and would not let them falter, but he felt her little
coarse fingers trembling in his hand.
"I doan't know what I'm to do, my dear/' he
mumbled ; " I think the best thing 'ud be fur me to git
work on a farm somewheres away from here, and then
maybe in time I cud put a liddle bit of money by, and
you cud join me."
" Oh, doan't leave me, Robert."
For the first time the courage dimmed in her eyes.
"Wot else am I to do ? " he exclaimed wretchedly ;
" 'taun't even as if I cud go on seeing you here. Oh,
Bessie 1 I can't even taake you to the Fair on
Thursday ! "
" Wot does a liddle thing lik that count when it's all
so miserable ? "
" Disposer Supreme,
And judge of the earth,
Who choosest for thine
The weak and the poor ..."
The anthem crashed gaily into their sorrow, and
grasping the hymn-sheet they sang together.
" Woan't you be never coming here no more ? "
whispered Bessie in the next pause.
" Depends on if my faather catches me or not."
He drank in the heat and stuffiness of the little room
as a man might drink water in a desert, not knowing
when the next well should be. He loved it, even to the
smoke-stains on the sagging rafters, to the faint smeU
of onions that pervaded it all.
" All honour and praise,
Dominion and might,
To God, Three in One,
Eternally be,
Who round us hath shed
His own marvellous light,
And called us from darkne$$
His glory to see/ 1
154 SUSSEX GORSE
Young Ralph Bardon had come into the room, an<3
stood by the door while the last verse was being sung.
He was there to give an invitation from his father, for
every year the Squire provided the choristers with a
mild debauch at Flightshot. Robert had been to several
of these, and they glittered in his memory the laughter
and games, the merry fooling, the grand supper table
gay with candles. What a joke it had been when
someone had given the salt to Rosie Hubble instead of
the sugar to eat with her apple pie, .and when some
other wag had pulled away Ern Ticehurst's chair from
under him. . . .
" Thank you, sir thank you kindly."
The invitation had been given, and the choristers
were crowding towards the door. Robert followed them
mechanically. It was raining hard.
" Oh, dear, oh, dear/' said Bessie, " I never brought
my cloak."
" You must put on my coat."
He began taking it off when he heard someone beside
them say :
" I have a great-coat here."
Robert turned round and faced Bardon, whose eyes
rested approvingly on the gleaming froth of Bessie's
hair.
" I'm driving home in my gig with a rug and hood,"
continued the young man, " so I've no need of a great-
coat as well."
Robert opened his mouth to refuse. He was offended
by the way the Squire looked at Bessie. But on second
thoughts he realised that this was no reason for de-
priving her of a wrap ; his own coat was too short to
be much good. After all he could see that the acquaint-
ance went no further.
Bessie had, however, already taken the matter out of
his hands by saying " Thank you kindly, sir."
" You see, this is my very best gown," she confided
THE ELDER CHILDREN 155
to Robert outside the house, " and I doan't know wot
I shud do if anything happened to it.*'
" Well, you're not to taake that coat back to Flight-
shot yourself. Give it to me when we come to Eggs
Hole, and 111 see that he has it.' 1
" Very well, dear," she answered meekly.
They did not speak much on that walk home. Their
minds seemed dank and washed out as the night. Their
wet fingers gripped and twined . . . what was the use of
speaking? Everything seemed hopeless -no way to
turn, no plans to make, no friends to look to.
It was quite dark when they reached Eggs Hole, and
parted after kisses no longer as shy as they used to be.
On arriving at Odiam, Robert was seized by his
father and flogged within an inch of his life,
12.
Reuben thought that he had efficiently broken his
son's rebellion. All the next day Robert seemed utterly
cowed. He was worn out by the misery of the last few
hours, and by the blows which in the end had dulled all
the sore activities of mind and soul into one huge
physical ache. Reuben left him alone most of the day,
smiling grimly to himself when he saw him. Robert
spent several hours lying on the hay in the Oast barn,
his mind as inert and bruised as his body. He had
ceased to contrive or conjecture, even to dread.
Towards evening, however, a new alarm stirred him
a little. He remembered Bardon's coat, which he had
brought back with him to Odiam. If he did not take it
over to Flightshot, the young Squire might call for it at
Eggs Hole.* Robert was most anxious that he should
not meet Bessie again ; he could not forget the admira-
tion in his eyes, and was consumed with fear and
jealousy lest he should try to take his treasure from
him, or frighten or hurt her in any way. It is true that
Bardon had a blameless record, ^nd also a most shy and
156 SUSSEX GORSE
fastidious disposition, but Robert was no psychologist.
Aad if anyone had said that the Squire's gaze had
merely been one of tolerant approval of a healthy
country-wench, and that he would not have taken the
peerless Bessie as a gift, and rather pitied the man who
could see anything to love in that bursting figure and
broad yokelish facethen Robert would not only have
disbelieved him, but fought him into the bargain.
So he managed with an effort to pull himself together
and walk a couple of miles across the fields to the Manor,
He was climbing the gate by Chapel Barn when some-
thing fell out of the pocket of the coat. Unluckily it
fell on the far side of the gate, ..and Robert with many
groans and curses forced his stiff body over again, as the
object was a smart shagreen pocket-book, evidently of
some value. It had dropped open in its fall, and as he
picked it up, a bank-note fluttered out and eddied to the
grass. It was a note for ten pounds, and Robert scowled
as he replaced it in the pocket-book.
It was a hemmed shame lif e was crooked and unfair,
in spite of the Disposer Supreme and Judge of the Earth.
For the first time he doubted the general providence of
things. Why should young Bardon with his easy
manners and roving lustful eye have a pocket full of
money to spend as he pleased, whereas he, Robert, who
loved truly and wanted to marry his love, should not
have a penny towards his desires ? This was the first
question he had ever asked of life, and its effect was to
upset not only the little store of maxims and truisms
which made his philosophy, but those rules of conduct
which depended on them* One did not take what did
not belong to one because in church the Curate said,
" Thou shalt not steal," whereat the choristers would
sing, " Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts
to keep this law/ 1 Nevertheless, that bank-note spent
the last mile of the way in Robert's pocket.
The act was not really so revolutionary as might at
THE ELDER CHILDREN 1ST
first appear, for up to the very steps of the Manor he
kept on telling himself that he would put it back. But
somehow he did not do so when he handed the coat to
the man-servant the pocket-book was still in his stable-
smelling corduroys.
Well, he had taken it now it was too late to give it
'back, Besides, why should he not have it ? Those ten
pounds probably did not mean much to the Squire, but
they meant all things to him and Bessie. He could
marry her now. He eould take her away, find work on
some distant farm, and comfortably set up house. The
possibilities of ten pounds were unlimited at all events
they could give him all he asked of life.
In the middle of the night he woke up feeling quite
differently. A sick and guilty horror overwhelmed Mm.
He must have been delirious the day before, light-
headed with pain and misery. Now he saw clearly what
he had done. He was a thief. He had committed a
terrible sin broken one of the Ten Commandments. He
might be caught and put in prison, anyhow, the God
who said, " Thou shalt not " would punish him and
perhaps Bessie too. The sweat poured down Robert's
forehead and off his cheeks. The future seemed to be
closing in upon him with iron walls. He trembled,
cowered, and would have said, " Our Father " if he
dared* Oh God, why had he done this dreadful thing ?
Luckily his body was so tired that even his kicking
mind could not keep it awake. Suddenly, in the midst
of all his remorse and terror, he fell asleep, and did not
wake till sunshine two hours old was on his pillow.
When he woke, the nightmare had passed. Instead,
he saw things as he had seen them yesterday. He could
marry Bessie and he must do so quickly, seize his
chance for fear it should slip from him again. This time
he must not muddle things. Above all he must avoid
coming into conflict with his father he was more afraid
of Reuben than of all the police in Sussex.
158 SUSSEX GORSE
13-
All that day he expected to hear that the theft had
been discovered. The Squire would be sure to remember
his pocket-book and where he had put it. However,
time passed and nothing happened. It was possible that
young Bardon had not yet found out his loss. But
Robert felt sure that when, sooner or later, the money
was missed, it would be traced to him. He must act
quickly. Oh Lord! how he hated having to act
quickly ! It was now a race between him and fate
and Fate must have smiled. . . .
First of all he had to see Bessie. He could not send
her a letter, for she could not read. He must somehow
manage to go over to Eggs Hole. He would not tell her
how he had come by the ten pounds. A pang went
into his heart like a thorn as he realised this, but he felt
that if she knew she might refuse to go away with him,
He would marry her first, and confess to her afterwards.
Perhaps some day they might be able to return the
mone y meantime he would say that a friend had lent
it to him. The thought of this, his first lie to her, hurt
him more than the actual theft.
He managed to slip over to Eggs Hole that evening.
Albert, whom his father had not treated gently on the
day of the choir practice, refused to be his accomplice
a second time, but Reuben, thinking his rebellion
crushed, kept a less strict watch over him, and took
himself off after supper to the. Cocks, where he had
weighty matters of politics and agriculture to discuss.
Robert seized his opportunity, and ran the whole way
to Eggs Hole- laid his plans before Bessie and ran
the whole way back again.
Bessie was as surprised as she was delighted to hear
that he should suddenly have found a friend to lend
him ten pounds tl a feller called Tim Harman, lives
THE ELDER CHILDREN 159
over at Rolvenden," said Robert in a perspiring effort
to be convincing. However, it never struck her to doubt
his word, and she put down to emotion and hard running
all that seemed strange in her sweetheart's manner.
Bessie was quicker and more practical than Robert,
and between them they evolved a fairly respectable
scheme. Next Thursday was Fair Day, and all the
Backfield family, including Robert, would be at the
Fair, She would meet him in Meridiana the gipsy's
tent at five it was right on the outskirts of the Fair,
and they could enter separately without attracting
attention, on the pretext of having their fortunes told.
Then they could easily steal off under cover of dusk.
They would go to Wadhurst, where there were many
farms get work together, and marry at once. Meantime
Robert was to divert suspicion by his blameless conduct,
and find out as well as he could exactly what one did to
get married.
On arriving home he was uncertain as to whether it
would be more diplomatic to go straight to bed or let
his father on his return from the Cocks find him industri-
ously working at the corn accounts. He decided on the
latter, and was soon with many groans and lickings of
his pencil crediting and debiting Odiam's wheat.
Backfield came in about nine, by which time Robert's
panting had completely subsided and his complexion
lost the beetroot shade which might have betrayed his
exertions. His father was in a good temper, and over-
flowed with the Cocks' gossip how Realf had got
twenty-five pounds for his heifer at Battle, how the
mustard had mixed in with Ticehurst's beans and spoilt
his crop, how Dunk of Old Turk said he would vote
Radical at the next election, and how young Squire
Bardon had been robbed of his pocket-book, with
certificates for three hundred pounds of Canadian stock
and a ten-pound bank-note in it.
Robert bit ofi the end of his pencil, which his father,
160 SUSSEX GORSE
who was looking the other way, luckily did not see.
The boy crouched over the fire, trying to hide his
trembling, and longing yet not daring to ask a hundred
questions. He was glad and at the same time sorry
when Reuben having explained to him the right and the
wrong way of sowing beans, and enlarged on the wicked-
ness of Radicals in general and Gladstone in particular,
returned to Bardon's loss.
" Of course he aun't sure as it wur stolen- he may
have dropped it. But policeman doan't think that's
likely/'
" Then policeman's bin toald about it ? " came
faintly from Robert.
" Surelye 1 I wur spikking to him over at the Cocks.
I said to him as I wur sartain as one of those lousy
Workman's Institute lads of his had done it. That's
wot comes of trying to help labourers and cowmen and
suchthere's naun lik helping the ^poor fur putting
them above themselves, and in these times when every-
one's fur giving 'em votes and eddicating them free,
w hy " and Reuben launched i'nto politics again.
That night was another Hell. Robert lay wakeful in
a rigor of despair. It was all over now. The constable
would be at Odiam the first thing next morning. Bardon
was bound to remember that his pocket-book was in the
coat he had lent Bessie. He might even think that
Bessie had taken it! This fresh horror nearly sent
Robert out of the window and over the fields to the
Manor to confess his crime. But he was kept back by
the glimmerings of hope which, like a summer lightning,
played fitfully over his mental landscape. He dared not
stake everything. Perhaps after all young Bardon
could not remember where he had put the pocket-book ;
he must have forgotten where it was when he offered
the coat to Bessie, and it was possible that he would not
remember till the lovers had escaped after which he
might remember as much as he liked, for Robert never
THE ELDER CHILDREN 161
thought for a moment that he could be traced once he
had left Peasmarsh.
As a matter of fact his simplicity had done much for
him in this matter. A man with a readier cunning would
have taken out the money and restored the pocket-book
exactly as he had found it. Robert had blunderingly
grabbed the whole thing and to that he owed his
safety. If Bardon had found the pocket-book in his
great-coat, he would at once have reconstructed the
whole incident. As things were, he scarcely remembered
lending the coat to Bessie, and it had certainly never
occurred to him that his pocket-book was in it. Being
rather a careless and absent-minded young man, he had
no recollection of putting it there after some discussion
with Sir Miles about his certificates. He generally kept
it in his drawer, and thought that it must have been
taken out of that.
So no constable called at Odiam the next morning, and
at breakfast the whole Backfield family discussed the
Squire's loss, with the general tag of " serve him
right ! "
The following day was market-day at Rye, and
Robert and Peter were to take over the cart. Robert
was glad of this, for he had made up his mind that he
must change the bank-note. If he tried to change it at
the Fair or after he had gone away with Bessie it might
arouse suspicion ; but no one would think anything of
his father having so large a sum, and he could offer it
when he went to pay the harness bill at the saddler's.
As for the pocket-book, he threw that into the horse-
pond when no one was looking ; it was best out of the
way, and the three hundred pounds' worth of certificates
it contained meant nothing to him.
Fate, having thus generously given him a start, con-
tinued to encourage him in the race he was running
against her. On the way to Rye he fell in with Bertie
Ditch. Bertie was going to marry a girl up at Bright-
162 SUSSEX GORSE
ling, and Robert found that there was nothing easier
than to discuss with him the ways and means of
marriage. From his ravings on his marriage in par-
ticular precious information with regard to marriage in
general could be extracted. Oh, yes, he had heard of
fellows who got married by licence, but banns Were
more genteel, and he didn't doubt but that a marriage
by banns was altogether a better and more religious
sort. He and Nellie, etc., etc. . . . Oh, he didn't
think a licence cost much two or three pounds, and an
ordinary wedding by banns would cost quite as much
as that, when one had paid for the choir and the ringers
and the breakfast. Now he and Nellie . , . oh, of
course, if you were in a hurry yes ; but anyhow he
thought one of the parties must live a week or so in the
parish where the marriage was to take place.
Robert, after some considering, decided to go with
Bessie to Wadhurst, and ask the clergyman there
exactly what they ought to do. He could easily find a
room for her where she could stay till the law had been
complied with. They would travel by the new railway.
It would be rather alarming, but Jenny Vennal had once
been to Brighton by train and said that the only thing
against it was the dirt.
So gradually the difficult future was being settled.
When they came to Rye Robert left Peter to unpack
the cart and went to pay the harness bill at the saddler's.
Reuben had given him five pounds, but he handed over
the terrible bank-note, which was accepted without
comment.
Fate still allowed him to run ahead.
14.
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
THE ELDEH CHILDREN 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.
Robert had not slept at all that night. Already
sleeplessness, excitement, and anxiety had put their
mark on him, giving a certain waxiness to his com-
plexion and dullness to his eyes ; but this morning he
had curled and oiled his hair and put on his best clothes,
which diverted the family attention, and in some way
accounted for his altered looks. Everyone at the
breakfast-table wore Sunday-best, except Beatup, who
was to mind the farm in the morning, Richard taking
his place in the afternoon.
Peter's strong frame and broad shoulders were shown
off in all their glory by his tight blue coat he was
spoiling for the fight, every now and then clenching his
fists under the table, and dreaming of smart cuts and
irresistible bashes. Albert thought of the pretty girls
he would dance with, and the one he would choose to
lead away into the rustling solitude of Boarzett when
his father was not looking ... to lie where the gorse
flowers would scatter on their faces, and her dress smell
of the dead heather as he clasped her to him, Richard
was inclined to sneer at these rustic flings, and to regret
the westward pastures where Greek syntax and Anne
164 SUSSEX GORSE
Bardon exalted life. Jemmy and George thought of
nothing but the swings and merry-go-rounds; Tilly
End Caro did not think at all, but wondered. Reuben
watched their big eyes, so different from the boys', Tilly's
very blue, Caro's very brown, and felt relieved when he
looked from them to their grandmother, sitting stiffly in
a patched survival of the widow's dress, her knotted
hands before her on the table, at once too indifferent
and too devoted to pity the questing youth of these two
girls.
Reuben himself, in his grey cloth suit, starched shirt,
and spotted tie, was perhaps the most striking of the
company. Albert, the only one who had more than a
vague appreciation of his father's looks, realised how
utterly he had beaten his sons in their young men's
game before cracked mirrors, showing up completely
the failure of their waistcoats, ties, and hair oils in
comparison with his. As was usual on festive occasions,
his hair was sleeked out of its accustomed roughness,
lying in blue-black masses of extraordinary shininess
and thickness on his temples ; his tight-fitting trousers
displayed his splendid legs, and when he spoke he
showed finer teeth than any of the youngsters. Albert
scowled as he admired, for he knew that no girl would
take him if she had a chance of his father.
Next to Reuben sat Harry the other man whom
Boarzell had made. He slouched forward over his plate,
in terror lest the food which dropped continually out of
his mouth should fall on the tablecloth, and he should
be scolded. He looked at least ten years older than
Reuben, for his face was covered with wrinkles, and
there were streaks of grey in his hair. As he sat and ate
he muttered to himself. No one took any notice of him,
for the children had been brought up to look upon Uncle
Harry as a sort of animal, to whom one must be kind,
but with whom it was impossible to hold any rational
wnversation. Tilly was the most attentive to him, and
THE ELDER CHILDREN 165
would cut up his food and sometimes even put it in
his mouth.
After breakfast the whole family set out for the Moor,
Odiam looked unnatural with its empty yard, where the
discouraged Beatup mouched, gazing longingly and
chewing a straw. But every farm round Boarzell looked
the same, for Boarzell Fair emptied the neighbourhood
as completely as a pilgrimage would empty a Breton
hamlet only the beasts and unwilling house-keepers
were left behind.
Though it was not yet ten o'clock the Fair was
crowded. A shout greeted Harry's appearance with
his fiddle, for it was never too early to dance. Blind
Harry climbed on his tub, flourished his bow with many
horrible smiles for he loved his treats of popularity
and attention and started the new tune " My Decided
Decision/' which Caro and Tilly had taught him the
day before. Albert immediately caught a pretty girl
by the waist, and spun round with her on the grass
while Pete vanished into the sparring-booth, his
shoulders already out of his coat. Mrs. Backfield led off
Caro and Tilly, looking sidelong at the dancers, to the
more staid entertainment of the stalls. Jemmy and
George ran straight to the merry-go-round, which now
worked by steam, and hooted shrilly as it swung.
Robert and Richard stood with their arms folded,
watching the dancing with very different expressions
on their faces.
At last Robert decided to lead out Emily Ditch,
thinking that it might lull his father's suspicions if he
had any. As a matter of fact the son Reuben watched
most closely was Albert. He looked upon Robert's
affair as settled, for the present at any rate, and credited
him perhaps rightly with so poor a cunning that an
occasional glance would serve ; whereas Albert's oiled
hair, stiff shirt-front, and clean white handkerchiei
roused all his lears and carefulness together.
166 SUSSEX GORSE
After the dance, which did not last long, as poor
Robert trod so heavily on his partner's feet that she
soon begged him to stop, they strolled off round the
Fair. Robert thought that if he made it a custom to
roam among the booths his father would not notice his
final disappearance so quickly. Lord ! he was getting
a hemmed crafty fellow. All the boys were allowed a
shilling or two to spend at the Fair, so Robert treated
Emily to a ride on the merry-go-round and five sea-sick
minutes in the swings. Then he took Mrs. Button
Realf's married daughter, who had come over from
Hove, to see the Panorama and a new attraction in the
shape of a fat lady, which struck him as disgusting, but
made her laugh tremendously.
He clung to Mrs. Button for most of the morning and
afternoon, for he felt that she drove away suspicion,
and at the same time had not the disadvantage of
Emily Ditch, who had once or twice alarmed him by
affectionately squeezing his hand. He did not take her
to the fighting booth, as public opinion had shut that
to ladies during the years that had passed since Reuben
had sat with Naomi in the heat and sawdust but She
stood behind him in the shooting gallery, whilst he
impartially scored bulls in the mouths of Disraeli,
Gladstone, and the Emperor of France.
" Let's go and dance now/' she said as he pocketed
his bag of nuts.
Robert wondered anxiously what time it was ;
already a faint blear of red was creeping into the cold,
twinkling afternoon. The moon rose at a quarter to
five when he saw it come up into the sky out of Iden
Wood he must go to Meridiana's tent. He led Mrs.
Button to where the dancers jigged to Harry's unending
tune. Reuben stood on the outskirts, among the
spectators, watching with a stern eye Albert snatch
kisses off a Winchelsea girl's brown neck as he swung
her round. Luckily for Robert his brother was behaving
THE ELDER CHILDREN 167
outrageously his misdeeds were as usual flagrant \
just at that moment he pulled down his partner's hair,
and they whirled about together, laughing in the coarse
mesh that blinded them both. Reuben's mouth was a
hard, straight line, and his eyes like steel. He scarcely
noticed Robert and Mrs. Button hopping about together,
and he did not see when half an hour later the boy stole
away alone.
Robert felt warm and glowing he had enjoyed that
dance, and wished he could have danced with Bessie.
Perhaps he would dance with her some day, . . ,
Behind him, the creak of Harry's fiddle sounded plain-
tively, with every now and then a hoot from the merry-
go-round. The dusk was falling quickly. Yellow flares
sprang up from the stalls, casting a strange web of
light and darkness over the Fair. Gideon Teazel looked
like some carved Colossus as he stood by the round-
about, his great beard glowing on his breast like flames
. , . behind, in the smeeth of twilight, with the
wriggling flare of the lamps, the lump of dancers did
not seem to dance, but to writhe like some monster on
the green, sending out tentacles, shooting up spines,
emitting strange grunts and squalls and at the back
of it all the jig, jig, jig of Harry's tune.
Further on, in the secrecy of the tents and caravans,
the dusk became full of cowering shapes, sometimes
slipping and sliding about apart, sometimes blotted
together . . . there were whispers, rustlings, stragglings,
low cries of " doan't " and " adone do 1 " the sound
of kisses . . . kisses , . . they followed Robert all the
way to Meridiana's tent, where, standing in the brazier
glow, and flushed besides with crimson of her own,
stood Bessie.
Their eyes met over the flames ; then Robert re-
membered the need for keeping up appearances, and
said he wanted his fortune told. He could scarcely wait
while Meridiana muttered about a fair young lady and
168 SUSSEX GORSE
a Jieap of money coining to him in a year or two. Bessie
slipped round the brazier and stood beside him, their
hands impudently locked, each finger of the boy's
clinging round a finger of the girl's.
Meridiana's low sing-song continued :
" It's a gorgeous time I see before you, dear ; riches
and a carriage and servants in livery, and a beautiful
wife decked over with jewels and gold as bright^ as her
hair- success and a fair name, honour and a ripe old
age _ an d remember the poor gipsy woman, won't you,
darling?"
But he had already forgotten her. He stood with his
arm round Bessie, stooping under the canvas roof, half
choking in the brazier reek, while his lips came closer
and closer to her face . . .
" Hir me duval ! " said Meridiana to herself, " but
they've forgotten the poor person's child."
She saw them go out of the tent, still linked and in
their dream, then watched their dark shapes stoop
against the sky.
They clung together panting and trembling, for she was
really his at last, and he was hers. Before them lay the
darkness, but they would go into it hand in hand. She
was his, and he was hers.
At last they dropped their arms and stood apart. The
dusk was full of rustlings, Sittings, scuttlings, kisses . . .
" God bless you, gorgeous lady and gentleman," cried
Meridiana shrilly from the tent " the dukkerin dukk
tells me that you shall always wear satin and velvet, and
have honour wherever you go."
Then suddenly a heavy nand fell on Rooert's shoulder,
and a voice said :
"Robert Backfield, I arrest you on the charge ox
stealing a pocket-book containing bonds and money
from Squire Ralph Bardon of Flightshot,"
THE ELDER CHILDREN 169
15-
With many tears, and the help of the kindly fanner's
daughter at Eggs Hole, who acted as penwoman, Bessie
wrote a letter to Robert in the Battery gaol :
" You must not think, my dearest lad, that any-
thing what you have done can separate you and me.
We belong to each other as it seems, and what you
have done I forgive as you would if I had done it. I
shall always be yours, Robby, no matter how long you
are in prison, I shall be waiting, and thinking of you
always. And I forgive you for not telling me you had
taken the money, but that a friend had lent it to you,
because you thought I would not have gone away with
you, but I would have, surely* Be brave and do not
fret. I wish it was all over, but we must not fret.
" From your loving
" BESSIE."
The proceedings before the Rye magistrates had been
brief, and ended in Robert's committal for trial at
Quarter Sessions. He had made no attempt to deny his
guilt it would have been useless. He was almost dumb
in the dock, for his soul was struck with wonder at the
cruel circumstances which had betrayed him.
He had been tracked by the number on the note it
was the first time he realised that notes had numbers.
This particular note had been given by Sir Mies Bardon
to his son as a part of his quarterly allowance, and
though Ralph was far too unpractical to notice the
number himself, his father had a habit of marking such
things, and had written it down.
The saddler at Rye had not heard of the theft when
young Backfield handed over the note in payment of the
harness bill. He had at the time remarked to his wife
170 SUSSEX GORSE
that old Ben seemed pretty flush with his money, but
had thought no more of it till the matter was cried by
the Town Crier that evening, after Robert and Pete had
gone home. Then out of mere curiosity he had looked
at the number on his note, and found it was the same as
the Crier had announced. Early the next day he went
to the Police Station, and as young Bardon now re-
membered lending his coat to Robert Backfield it was
fairly easy to guess how the theft had been committed.
The Squire regretted the matter profoundly, but it
was too late now not to proceed with it, so he made it
a hundred times worse by writing an apologetic letter
to Reuben, and asking the magistrate to deal gently with
the offender. Robert's pathetic story, and the tearful
evidence of his sweetheart, gave him at once all the
public sympathy ; the blame was divided pretty equally
between the Bardons and Backfield.
Richard bitterly abused his father to Anne, as they
met in the midst of the strife of their two families :
" It's always the same, he keeps us under, and makes
our lives a misery till we do something mad. He's only
got himself to thank for this. We're all the slaves of his
tedious fawn "
" I should rather say ' abominable,' " Anne inter-
rupted gently.
" His abominable farm he gets every bit of work out
of us he can, till we're justabout desperate "
" Till we're absolutely desperate/'
" And he expects us to care for nothing but his vulgar
ambitions. Oh Lord I I wish I was out of it 1 "
" Perhaps you will be out of it some day,"
He shrugged.
" How should I get free ? "
" Perhaps a friend might help you."
He looked into her face, then suddenly crimsoned
then paled, to flush again :
" Ob ma'am* ma'am if ever you cud help me get
THE ELDER CHILDREN 171
free if ever ... oh, I I'd sarve you all my life
1^
" Hush/ 1 she said gently " that's still in the future
and remember not to say ' sarve.' "
The Quarter Sessions were held early in December,
and Robert's case came wedged between the too hopeful
finances of a journeyman butcher and the woes of a
farmer from Guldeford who had tried to drown himself
and his little boy off the Midrips. Robert was sentenced
to three years' imprisonment.
There was nothing remarkable about the trial, and
nothing to be said against the sentence from the point
of either justice or humanity. Ten years ago the boy
would have been transported to Van Diemen's Land.
The Bardons took it upon themselves to be outrage-
ously sorry, and were rather mystified by Reuben's
contemptuous attitude towards them and their re-
grets.
The evidence had been merely a repetition of that
which had been given before the magistrate, though
Bessie did not cry this time in the witness-box, and
Robert in the dock was not dumb on the contrary, he
tried to explain to the Recorder what it felt like to have
absolutely no money of one's own.
Reuben was present at the trial, and sitting erect, in
his good town clothes, drew the public glance away both
from the prisoner and the Recorder. Feeling was
against him, and when in his summing-up Mr. Reeve
remarked on the strangeness of a young man of Back-
field's age having no money and being compelled to
work without wages, a low murmur went round the
court, which Reuben did not seem to hear. He sat very
stiffly while the sentence was pronounced, and after-
wards refused to see his son before he was taken away
to Lewes.
" Poor feller, this 'ull be the breaking of him," said
Yennal outside the Court-house,
172 SUSSEX GORSE
" No more'n he deserves. He's a hard man," said
Ditch.
" Thinks only of his farm and nothing of his flesh and
blood/' said old Realf.
" It sarves un right/' said Ginner,
So it was throughout the crowd. Some said " poor
man/' others muttered " his own fault." But all words,
either of pity or blame, were silenced when Backfield
came out of the Court-house and walked through the
people, his head high, his step firm, his back straight.
16.
The next few weeks were for Reuben full of bitter,
secret humiliation. He might show a proud face and a
straight back to the world, but his heart was full of
miserable madness. It was not so much his son's
disgrace that afflicted him as the attitude of people
towards it the Bardons with their regrets and apolo-
gies, the small fry with their wonder and cheap blame.
What filled him with rage and disgust beyond all else
was the thought that some people imagined that Robert
had disgraced Odiam as if a fool like Robert, with his
tinpot misdoings, had it in his power to disgrace a farm
like Odiam ! This idea maddened him at times, and he
went to absurd lengths to show men how little he cared.
Yet everywhere he seemed to see pity leering out of
eyes, he seemed to see lips inaudibly forming the words :
" poor fellow " " what a blow for his schemes ! "
" how about the farm ? now he'll lie low for a bit."
This was all the worse to bear, as now, for the first
time, he began seriously to dread a rival. The only
farm in the district which could compete with Odiam
was Grandturzel, but that had been held back by the
indifference of its owner, old Realf. Early in the March
of '65 old Realf died, and was succeeded by his son,
Henry Realf , whom rumour spoke of as a promising and
THE ELDER CHILDREN 178
ambitious young man* Skill and ambition could do even
more with Grandturzel than they could with Odiam, for
the former had the freehold of forty acres of Boarzell.
Reuben had always counted on being able to buy these
some day from old Realf, but now he expected his son
to cling to them. There would be two farms fighting for
Boarzell, and Grandturzel would have the start.
All the more reason, therefore, that Odiam should
stand high in men's respect. Now, of all times, Reuben
could not afford to be looked upon with contempt or
pity. He must show everyone how little he cared about
his family disgrace, and do everything he could to bring
himself more prominently into the social and agri-
cultural life of the district,
For the first time since his father's death he gave
suppers at Odiam; once more he spent money on
French wines which nobody wanted to drink, and worked
his mother and daughters to tears making puddings and
pies. He bought a new gig a smart turnout, with a
sleek, well-bred horse between the shafts and he
refused to let Harry fiddle any more at Fairs and
weddings ; it was prestige rather than profit that he
wanted now.
In May people began to talk of a general election ;
the death of Palmerston and the defeat of Gladstone's
Reform Bill made it inevitable. Early in June Parlia-
ment was dissolved, and Rye electors were confronted
with the postered virtues and vices of Captain
MacKinnon (Radical) and Colonel MacDonald (Con-
servative).
Reuben had not hitherto had much truck with
politics. He had played the part of a convinced and
conscientious Tory, both at home and in the public-
house ; and every evening his daughter Tilly had read
him the paper, as Naomi had used to do. But he had
never done more at an election than record his vote, he
had never openly identified himself with the political
174 SUSSEX GORSE
life of the district. Now it struck him that if he took
a prominent part in this election it would do much to
show his indifference to the recent catastrophe, besides
giving him a certain standing as a politician, and thus
bestowing glory and dignity on Odiam,
The local Tories would be glad enough of his support,
for he was important, if not popular, in the neighbour-
hood, and had always been known as a man who took an
intelligent interest in his country's affairs.
Not that Rye elections had ever been much con-
cerned with national events. Borough had always been
a bigger word than country on those occasions. It was
the question of the Harbour rather than the Ballot
which had sent up Captain Curteis in 1832, while later
contests had centred round the navigation of the Brede
River, the new Sluice at Scott's Float, or the Landgate
clock. Reuben, however, cared little for these petty
town affairs. His chief concern was the restoration of
the tax on wheat, and he also favoured the taxing of
imported malt and hops. He hated and dreaded
Gladstone's " free breakfast table/' which he felt would
mean the ruin of agriculture in England. He would like
to concentrate country Toryism into an organised
opposition of Free Trade, and his wounded pride found
balm in the thought of founding a local agricultural
party of whichfhe would be the inspirer and head.
17-
Reuben began to attend the Tory candidate's meet-
ings. Colonel MacDonald was not a local man, any
more than Captain MacKinnon, but he had some
property in the neighbourhood, down <fe the marsh by
Becket's House. Like the other candidate, he had spent
the last month or so in posting himself in local affairs, and
came to Rye prepared, as he said, " to fight the election
on herrings and sprats."
THE ELDER CHILDREN 175
However, at his first meeting, held at Guide! ord Barn,
he was surprised to find a strong agricultural element in
the audience. He was questioned on his attitude
towards the wheat tax and towards the enfranchisement
of six-pound householders. The fact was that for a
fortnight previously Reuben had been working up
public opinion in the Cocks, and also in the London
Trader, the Rye tavern he used on market-days. He
had managed to convince the two bars that their
salvation lay in taxing wheat, malt, and hops, and in
suppressing with a heavy hand those upstarts whom
Radical sentimentalists wanted at all costs to educate
and enfranchise.
Reuben could speak convincingly, and his extra-
ordinary agricultural success gave weight to his words.
If not liked, he was admired and envied. He was " a
fellow who knew what he was doing/' and could be
trusted in important matters of welfare. In a word, he
achieved his object and made himself head of an
Agricultural Party, large enough to be of importance
to either candidate.
It was not long before he had overtures from Captain
MacKinnon. The Captain had expected an easy triumph ;
never since it became a free borough had Rye sent a
Tory to Parliament. Now he was surprised and a little
alarmed to see signs of definite Tory enterprise, banded
under one of the most important and successful farmers
in the district. It is true that he had the Bardons on his
side, but the Bardons were too gentlemanly to be useful.
He would have given much to corrupt Reuben, but
Flightshot, which held the only bribe that could have
jnade him so much as turn his head, insisted on keeping
pure. He tried to hold his own by appealing to the
fishermen and sailors against the agriculturists but as
these in the past had made little fortunes by smuggling
grain, they joined the fanners in demanding a wheat-
tax.
176 SUSSEX GORSE
He then turned to the small householders and shop-
keepers, dazzling them with visions of Gladstone's free
breakfast table he even invited the more prominent
ones to an untaxed breakfast in the Town Hall ; whereat
the Colonel, at Reuben's instigation, retaliated with a
sumptuous dinner, which he said would be within the
reach of every fanner when a moderate wheat-tax no
longer forced him to undersell his harvests.
Rye platforms, instead of being confined to arguments
an herrings and sprats, rang unusually with matters of
national import. The free education of the poor was
then a vital question, which Reuben and his party
opposed with all their might. Educated labourers
meant higher wages and a loss of that submissive temper
which resulted in so many hours' ill-paid work. Here
the Bardons waxed eloquent, but Backfield, helped by
Ditch of Totease, who could speak quite well if put
through his paces beforehand, drew such a picture of
the ruin which would attend an educated democracy,
that the voice of Flightshot, always too carefully
modulated to be effective, was silenced.
As usual the local printing-presses worked hard over
pamphlets and posters, and as a Rye election was
nothing if not personal, Reuben was soon enlightened
as to the Radical opinion of him. Posters of a startlingly
intimate and insulting nature began to appear about
the town ; a few were displayed in Peasmarsh, and
some were actually found on the walls of his own barns.
" Bribed, stolen, or strayed, an Ugly Gorilla, answer-
ing to the name of Ben. The animal may be distin-
guished by his filthy habits, associates frequently with
swine and like hogs, delights in rolling in manure, and is
often to be found in Ditches. Is remarkable for his
unnatural cruelty towards his own young, whom he
treats with shocking unkindness. The animal has
likewise a propensity for boasting and lies. The Gorilla's
THE ELDER CHILDREN 177
temper is dreadfully bad, horribly vicious, and fearfully
vindictive. A reward of Five Pounds will be given by
Jothan True Blue, chairman of the Poor Man's Big
Loaf Association, to any Blue Lamb who may find this
Odious Creature, as his one object while at large is to
steal the Poor Man's Loaf. He would also take, if he
could, the Poor Man's Vote, and confine the Poor Man's
Children to the dirt and ignorance in which he himself
wallows, being unable to read or write, and was once
heard to ask the Cringing Colonel, his keeper, what was
the meaning of Tory Principle and Purity ' on his
election banners. We too would like to know."
Reuben tore the posters down whenever he found
them, but this kind of attack did not humiliate him as
the old pitying curiosity had done. He was not lowered
in his own esteem. On the contrary, he enjoyed the
fame which Radical hate conferred on him. There was
no doubt about Odiam's importance now.
The Tories were not to be beaten in invective, and
posted Rye with enquiries after the Rabid Hybrid or
Crazy Captain :
" The habits of this loathsome creature are so revolt-
ing that all who have beheld them turn from them in
horror and disgust. It is afflicted with a dirty disease
called Gladstone Fever, and in its delirium barks horribly
'Educate! Educate!'"
Much more was written in this strain on both sides,
and Colonel MacDonald hired a band of youths to parade
the streets singing :
" Conservatives, 'tis all serene
MacDonald for ever 1 Long live the Queen I "
or :
" The people of Rye now they all seem to say
That MacDonald's the mau who will carry the sway,
Triumphant he'll drive old MacKinnon away
For MacDonald's the man for the people I "
178 SUSSEX GOHSE
Reuben did not care much for these doings ; they
were, he thought, a mere appeal to scum, and he pre-
ferred to give his mind to weightier things. He organised
meetings in the furthest hamlets of the district, and
managed to stir up the interest of the farmers to such a
pitch that it soon looked as if the Tory candidate would
carry all before him. MacKinnon could not open his
mouth on the platform without shouts of : " Wheat at
seventy shillings a quarter ! " or " What's the use of a
big loaf if we've got no money to buy it with ? "
The Radicals began to quake for their victory.
Speakers were sent for from London, but could not
even get a hearing, owing to the enemy's supplies of
bad eggs. Meetings were everywhere broken up in
disorder, and the Captain was reported to have said
that the Liberal party ought to offer a knighthood to
anyone who would poison Backfield's beer.
18.
So time passed till within a week of polling day. The
feeling in the district grew mt>re and more tense no
prominent member of either party could appear in Rye
streets without being insulted by somebody on the
opposite side. Meetings were orgies of abuse and
violence, but whereas the Radical meetings were in-
variably broken up in disorder by their opponents,
interruptions at Tory meetings resulted only in the
interrupters themselves being kicked out. For the first
time it looked as if a Conservative would be returned
for Rye, and the Colonel knew he owed his success to
Backfield's agricultural party.
Then suddenly the unexpected happened. At the
end of one of Reuben's most successful meetings in Iden
Schoolhouse, a mild sandy-haired person, whom nobody
knew, rose up and asked meekly whether it was true
that the Scott's Float toll-gate was on Colonel Mac-
THE ELDER CHILDREN 179
Donald's estate, and if so, what use did he make of the
tolls ? He was answered by being flung into the street,
but afterwards the Conservative tenant of Loose Farm
on the Marsh remarked to Reuben that it was " a
hemmed ark'ard question/'
Reuben, however, absorbed by his enthusiasm for
Protection and a restricted franchise, scarcely thought
twice about the toll-gate, till the next day a huge poster
appeared all over the district :
'' MACDONALD'S GATE"
" Sing ye who will of Love, or War, or Wine,
Of mantling Cups, Bright Eyes, or deeds of Might
A theme unsung by other harps is mine >
I sing a Gate a novel subject quite.
Tolls ! ye do afflict us all a bore !
E'en when by Law imposed on evil slight I
Who has not loaded ye with curses sore
When in this Coat of Proof enveloped tight ?
Therefore to what is Law I say ' content '
But for a Private Man to raise a toll,
To stop the public, tax them, circumvent,
Moves' me to passion I can scarce control,
Makes boil the rushing blood and thrills my very soul. 1 '
Hitherto any verse that had been written in the con-
troversy had been meant for street singing, and turned
out in the less serious moments of politicians who
certainly were not poets. But " MacDonakTs Gate "
impressed the multitude as something altogether
different. The sounding periods and the number of
capitals proclaimed it poetry of the very highest order,
and its prominent position throughout the town soon
resulted in the collection of excited groups all discussing
the Scott's Float toll-gate, which nobody hitherto had
thought much about.
TEe Tories were a little disconcerted the toll-gate did
not fit into their campaign. Tolls had always been un-
popular HI the neighbourhood, even though Government-
180 SUSSEX GORSE
owned, and it was catastrophic that the enemy should
suddenly have swooped down on the Colonel's private
venture and rhymed it so effectively.
Of course a counter-attack was made, but it had the
drawback of being made in prose, none of the Tory
pamphleteers feeling equal to meeting the enemy on his
own ground. Also there was not very much to be said,
as it was impossible to deny the Scott's Float toll-gate.
So the writers confined themselves to sneering at the
Radical poet's versification, and hinting that Captain
MacKinnon had done many worse things than own a
toll-gate, and that all the money the Colonel had from
his went to the upkeep of his land, a statement which
deceived nobody.
The next day a fresh poster appeared, printed this
time in flaming red letters :
" If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over
The Sluice at Scott's Float and then drive on to Dover-
You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate
Where a Toll they will charge at no moderate rate.
Oh why is a Gate stuck across at this Spot ?
Is the Colonel so poor or so grasping or what ?
'Tis that he may gain some more hundreds this way in,
To swell out the purse where his Thousands are laying.
Awake, oh, for shame, ye electors of Rye !
Let the banner of freedom float gaily on high,
Throw your bonds to the winds, ye Electors for know
That he who'd be free must himself strike the Blow."
Thenceforward the whole character of the election
was changed. The Poor Man's Loaf was forgotten as
completely as the wheat-tax which should make the
farmer rich. Six-pound householders became as un-
interesting as anybody else who had not a vote. Nobody
cared a damn whether the poor were educated at the
nation's expense or not. The conflict raged blindly,
furiously, degradingly round the Scott's Float toll-gate,
No one thought or spoke or wrote of anything else.
THE ELDER CHILDREN 181
If at meetings Reuben tried to introduce Protection or
the Franchise, he was silenced even by his own party.
The Scott's Float toll-gate became as important as the
Sluice or the Brede River or the Landgate Clock had
been in other elections, and nothing, no matter of what
national importance, could stand against it.
Reuben cursed the base trucksters who had brought
it forward, and he cursed the scummy versifier who was
its laureate whose verses appeared daily on six-foot
hoardings, and were sung by drunken Radicals to drown
his speeches. No one knew who the Radical poet was,
for his party kept him a mystery, fearful, no doubt, lest
he should be bribed by the other side. Some said that
he was a London journalist, sent down in despair by
the Liberals at head-quarters. If so they must have
congratulated themselves on their forlorn hope, for the
tide of events changed completely.
The worst of that toll-gate was that the Conservatives
could never explain it away. They printed posters, they
printed handbills, they attempted verse, they made
speeches, they protested their disinterestedness, they
even tried to represent the abomination as a philan-
thropic concern, but all their efforts failed. They
quickly began to lose ground. It was the Conservative
instead of the Liberal meetings that were broken up in
disorder. Colonel MacDonald was howled down, and
Reuben came home every evening his clothes spattered
with rotten eggs.
19-
Polling day broke gloomily on Rye Tories. The
country voters were brought into town at the Candidates'
expense, having received according to custom printed
notices that the Colonel, or the Captain, " would en-
deavour to ensure to every elector access to the poll
free from every sort of insult."
In Rye bells were ringing and bands were playing,
182 SUSSEX GOESE
and the town looked quite strange with huge crowds
surging through its grass-grown streets, which were,
moreover, blocked with every kind of trap, gig, cart, and
wain. About three hundred special constables had been
enrolled for the occasion, and it was likely that they
would be needed, for all the public - houses had been
thrown open by the candidates.
In the market-place, where the hustings stood, a dense
throng was packing itself, jostling and shoving, and
Reuben saw to his dismay as he drove up to the London
Trader showing strong Radical tendencies. Several
Conservative banners waved from the windows of the
public-house "MacDonald the Farmer's Friend "
"MacDonald and Protection "" Wheat at seventy
shillings a quarter " " Ratepayers ! beware of Radical
pickpockets/ 1 These had all been prepared at the begin-
ning of the contest. The Radical banners bore but one
device " The Scott's Float Toll-gate." It waved
everywhere, and any other banner which appeared in
the streets was immediately seized and broken, the
bearer being made to suffer so horribly for his con-
victions, that soon nobody could be found to carry one.
Every now and then the crowd would break into the
latest rhymings of MacKinnon's poet :
" Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float,
And on their private Toll-gate doat,
While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat ?
The Tories."
Reuben felt his heart sink, and his beer nearly choked
him. Soon a vast struggle was raging round the hust-
ings, as the voters fought their way through fists and
sticks, often emerging especially the Conservatives
with their clothes half torn off their backs and quite
rained by garbage. The special constables were useless,
for their own feelings betrayed them, and unluckily
even in their ranks the Radicals predominated. The
THE ELDER CHILDREN 183
state of the poll at ten-thirty was twenty-seven for
Captain MacKinnon and only eleven for Colonel Mac-
Donald.
Speeches were made from time to time, but were lost
in the general hubbub. One of the local butchers had
delivered over his entire stock of entrails, skin and hoof
cuttings, and old blood-puddings to the Radical cause,
and Conservative speakers were soon a sight to behold.
When Reuben stood up his voice was drowned in shouts
of " Ben the Gorilla ! Stop the dirty animal ! " while
a bleeding sheep's head caught him full on the chest.
Too proud to take his dismissal from the mob, he spoke
unheard for five minutes, at the end of which he was
silenced by half a brick, which hit his temple and
stunned him sufficiently for Ditch and MacDonald to pull
him away.
At twelve the poll stood at a hundred and one for the
Captain and sixty-five for the Colonel. The Tories were
getting desperate they threw into the crowd hand-
bills wet from the printers, declaring that MacDonald's
toll-gate should not stand an hour after he was elected.
But the crowd only sang derisively :
" Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float,
And on their private Toll-gate doat,
While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat ?
The Tories."
At three o'clock the poll stood at two hundred and
twelve and eighty-three. Then came the close Captain
MacKinnon elected by a majority of sixty-nine.
Loud cheers rose up from the struggling, drunken
mass in the market-place.
"Hurray for MacKinnon! Down with the Toll-
keepers 1 "
In the Court-house the beaten Conservatives heard the
shouts and turned fiercely on one another,
"It's that hemmed geate of yourn lost every-
thing 1 " cried Reuben.
184 SUSSEX GORSE
" By God, it's not my gate it's your wheat."
My wheat ! wot d'you mean, sir ? "
" I mean that, thanks to you, we wasted about three
weeks talking to those damned fools about a matter
they don't care twopence about. You worked up a false
interest, and the result is, that when anything that really
touches them is brought forward, the whole campaign
drops to pieces."
" It's unaccountable easy to put the blame on me,
when it's your hemmed geate "
" I tell you, sir, it's your damned wheat "
" And your damned son ! " furiously cried Ditch of
Totease.
" My son ! " Reuben swung round on the men who
had once rallied under his leadership, but now stood
scowling at him and muttering to themselves. "My
son!"
"Yes/' said Coalbran of Doozes, "you know as
well as us as how it war your Albert wrote them verses
about the geate, wot have bust up everything."
" You're a liar 1 " cried Reuben.
" You dare miscall me," and the two men, mad with
private hate and public humiliation, flew at each other's
throats.
Ditch and the Colonel pulled them apart.
" Hang it aU, Coalbran, we don't know it's his son,
But we do know it's his wheat. Good God, sir if only
you'd kept your confounded self out of politics "
Reuben did not wait to hear more. He pushed his
way out of the room and downstairs to where his trap
was waiting. The crowd surged round him as he
climbed into it. An egg burst against his ear, and the
filthy yolk ran down his cheek to mingle with the
spatter of blood on his neck and shirt-front.
" Ben the Gorilla ! Ben te Gorilla ! Give him tar
and feathers ! "
Reuben struck his horse with the- whip, and the
THE ELDER CHILDREN 185
animal sprang forward. A man who had been trying to
climb into the gig, fell off, and was nearly trampled on
Reuben flogged his way through the pack, a shower of
missiles hurtling round him, while his ears burned with
the abuse which had once been his badge of pride, but
now in the hour of defeat smote him with a sick sense
of impotence and degradation. " Ben the Gorilla 1
Ben the Gorilla ! "
He was free of them at last, galloping down the Land*
gate hill towards Rye Foreign.
" I'm hemmed," he muttered, grindmg his teeth, " if
I ever touch their dirty politics again from this day
forward so help me God ! "
20.
On reaching Odiam, Reuben did not go into the
kitchen where his children were gathered, expectant and
curious. He went straight upstairs. Caro, who caught
a glimpse of him in the passage, ran away in terror he
looked so dreadful, his face all dabbled with blood and
yolk of egg.
He went up to Albert's room. He had furiously given
Ditch the lie in the Courthouse, but he had never
trusted his son, and the accusation had poured over him
a flood of shame which could be quelled only by its proof
or its refutation. If Albert's guilt were proved which
Reuben, now bathing in this luminous shame, saw was
quite probable then he knew what to do to clean the
smirch off Odiam ; if, on the other hand, his innocence
were established, then he would punish those swine who
threw mud at him and his farm.
Albert slept in one of the attics with Jemmy and Pete,
Reuben had no intention of meeting him till he had
something to confront him with, for he was pretty sure
that the boy would lie to him. He began turning the
room topsy-turvy, and had soon found in a drawer a
186 SUSSEX GORSB
heap of papers scrawled over with writing. It was
unlucky that he could not read, for he could not even
tell whether the handwriting were- Albert's these might
be some letters he had received. Suddenly, however,
a word caught his eye which he had seen a hundred times
on hoardings, letters, bills, and other documents
MacKinnon. He could trace it out quite clearly. What
had Albert to do with MacKinnon ? Reuben clenched
the papers together in his fist, and went downstairs, to
the kitchen.
Albert was not there. All the better ! Reuben strode
up to Tilly, unaware of how terrible he looked with the
traces of his battle not yet washed from his face, and
banged the papers down in front of her,
"Wot's all this?"
Tilly was frightened.
" It's it's only poetry, faather."
" Read me some of it."
" It's only Albert's,"
" That's why I want to hear wot it's about. You
read it."
Tilly began to read in a faltering voice :
" If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over
The Sluice at Scott's Float and then drive on to Dover
You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate . . ."
Reuben struck his fist on the table, and she dropped
the paper with a little cry.
" It's true, then ! Oh Lard 1 it's true 1 "
"Wot, faather?"
" Them's Albert's verses right enough ? "
" Yes, faather, but "
" Fetch him here."
' Tilly was more frightened than ever. She had never
keard anything about the great Gate controversy, and
could not understand why Reuben was so angry with
Albert. The verses seemed to her quite harmless, they
THE ELDER CHILDREN 187
were not even about love. However, she could not
disobey her father, so she ran and fetched Albert out of
the corn-chamber, begging him to be careful what he
said, " fur faather's unaccountable vrothered to-night
about something."
" How did the Election go ? "
" I never asked."
" Oh, you gals ! Well, I expect that's wot's the
matter. The Liberal's got in."
" But why should that maake faather angry wud
you ? "
Albert stuck out his chest and looked important, as he
invariably did before an encounter with Reuben, in spite
of the fact that these always ended most ingloriously as
far as he was concerned.
"He's bin reading some poetry of yours, Bertie,"
continued his sister, " and he's justabout dreadful, all
his cloathes tore about, and a nasty mess of blood and
yaller stuff on his face."
Albert suddenly began to look uneasy.
"Oh Lard! perhaps I'd better bolt fur it. No,
111 square him out. You'll stand by me, Tilly ? "
" Yes, but doan't maake him angry he might beat
you."
Bertie's pride was wounded by this suggestion, which
was, however, soundly based on precedent, and he
entered the kitchen with something very like a swagger,
Reuben was standing by the table, erect, and some-
how dignified in spite of the mess he was in.
" Well," he said slowly, " well MacKinnon's hound ! "
Albert saw the heap of scribbled paper on the table,
and blenched.
Reuben walked up to him, took Mm by the shoulders,
and shook him as a dog might shake a rabbit.
" You hemmed, scummy, lousy Radical 1 "
Albert could not speak, for he felt as if his brains and
teeth were rattling about inside his head. The rest of
188 SUSSEX GORSE
the family hunched together by the door, the boys
gaping idiotically, the girls in tears.
" Well, wotVe you got to say fur yourself before I
kick you round the table ? "
" I'll write wot I please, surelye," growled Albert,
trying rather unsuccessfully to resume his swagger.
" Oh, will you ! Well, there'll be naun to prevent you
when you're out of this house and out you go to-night ;
I'll have no Radical hogs on my farm. I'm shut of
you ! "
"Faather!" cried Tilly.
" Hold your tongue ! Does anyone here think I'm
going to have a Radical fur my son ? and a tedious
lying traitor, too, wot helps his faather's enemies, and
busts up the purtiest election that wur ever fought at
Rye. Do you say you didn't write those lousy verses
wot have lost us everything ? "
" No I doan't say it. I did write 'em. But it's all
your fault that I did so you've no right to miscall rne."
" My fault 1 " Reuben's jaw dropped as he faced the
upstart.
"Yes. You've allus treated me lik a dog, and
laughed at my writing and all I wanted to do. Then
chaps came along as didn't laugh, and promised me all
sorts o' things if I'd write fur them."
" Wot sort o' things ? "
" Mr. Hedges, the Liberal agent, promised that if I'd
write fur him, he'd git me work on a London paper, and
I could maake my fortune and be free of all this."
"AH wot?"
" Odiam ! " shrieked Albert.
Reuben faced him with straight lips and dilated
nostrils ; the boy was now quivering with passion,
hatred seemed to have purged him of terror.
" Yes Odiam ! " he continued, clenching Ms fistsr
" that blasted farm of yourn wot's the curse of us all.
Here we're made to work, and never given a penny fur
THE ELDER CHILDREN 189
our labour we're treated worse than the lowest farm-
hands, like dogs, we are. Robert stole money to git
away, and can you wonder that when I see my chance
I should taake it. I'm no Radical I doan't care one
way or t'other but when the Radicals offered me
money to write verses fur 'em, I wurn't going to say
1 no.' They promised to maake my fortun, and save me
from you and your old farm, which I wish was in hell."
" Stop your ranting and tell me how the hogs got you/'
" I met Mr. Hedges at the pub "
" Wur it you or him wot thought of the Scott's Float
Geate?"
" I heard of it from old Pitcher down at Loose, and I
toald Hedges. I justabout "
A terrific blow from Reuben cut him short.
21.
The rest of the family had gone to bed, though
scarcely to sleep. Reuben had washed the blood and
filth off his face, and had stripped to his shirt, but he felt
too sick and restless to lie down* He sat at his window,
staring out into the dark gulf of the night.
His skin burned, his pulses throbbed, in his head was a
buzzing and humming,
" Wished my farm wur in hell, dud he ? He cursed
my farm, dud he ? The young whelp 1 "
He peered out into the blackness. Was that some-
thing he saw moving against the sky on the shoulder of
Boarzell ? It was too dark for him to make sure. Where
had Albert gone ? To his Radical friends, of course.
They had offered to make his fortune well, let them
make it, and durn them !
Two sons were gone now. Life was hitting him hard.
But he would have no traitors in his camp. Albert was
his son no longer.
He bowed his head on the sill, and his throbbing brain
190 SUSSEX GORSE
revisualised the whole horrible day. He owed the
humiliation and defeat of it all to Albert, who for the
sake of money and a milk-and-water career, had betrayed
Odiam's glory, and foully smirched its name.
There was no denying it he had been basely dealt
with by Ms elder children, Robert was in prison,
Albert existed no longer except in the memory of a
bitter disgrace, Richard was contemptuous, and, his
father suspected, up to nothing good. . . , And he had
looked to them all to stand and fight by his side, to feel
his ambition, and share his conquest. Pete was a good
lad, but what was one where there should have been
four ? He could not deny it his elder children had
failed him.
Something almost like a sob shook Reuben.- Then,
ashamed of his weakness, he raised his head, and saw
that behind Boarzell the night had lifted, and a cowslip
paleness was creeping into the sky. The great dark hump
of the Moor showed clearly against it with its tuft of firs.
A faint thrill stole through Reuben's tired limbs. Boar-
zell was always there to be loved and fought for, even if
he had no heart or arm but his own. Gradually hope
stirred as the dawn crept among the clouds. The wind
came rustling and whiffling to him over the heather,
bringing him the rich damp smell of the earth he loved.
Oh, Boarzell, Boarzell I . , his love, his dream, his
promised land, lying there in the cold white hope of
morning! No degenerate sons could rob him of his
Moor, though they might leave him terribly alone on it.
After all, better be alone with his ambition, than share it
with their defiling thoughts, their sordid, humdrum,
milk-and-water schemes. In future he would try no
more to interest his children in Boarzell. He had tried
to thrill Robert and Albert and Richard with his
glorious enterprise, and they had aU forsaken him
one for love, one for fame, and one for some still unknown
^worthiness* He would not trouble about the others ;
THE ELDER CHILDREN 191
they should serve him for no other reason but that he
was a hard master. He had been hard with the three
boys, but he had been exciting and confiding too. Now
he would drop all that. He would cease to look for
comradeship in his children, as years ago he had ceased
to look for it in his wife. It would be enough if they
were just slaves working under his whip. He had been
a fool to expect sympathy, . . . Boarzell, looming
blacker and blacker against the glowing pinks and
purples of the sky, seemed to mock at sympathy and its
cheap colours, seemed to bid him Be Hard, Be Strong,
Be Remorseless Be Alone,
BOOK IV
TREACHERIES
REUBEN'S domestic catastrophes might be
summed up in the statement that he had lost
two farm hands. It is true that Albert had
never been much good if he had his father would
probably not have turned him away but he had been
better than nothing, and now Reuben would have to
hire a substitute. One would be enough, for Jemmy
and George were now able to do a man's full work each.
So another hand was engaged for Odiam Piper, a
melancholy, lean-jowled cowman from Moor's Cottage.
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.
Reuben had learnt his first lesson from experience.
Quietly but decidedly he altered his conduct. He no
longer made the slightest appeal to his family's enter-
prise or ambition, he no longer interrupted his chidings
with those pathetic calls to their enthusiasm which had
mystified or irritated them in times past. On the other
hand he was twice as hard, twice as fierce, twice as ruth*
less and masterful as he had ever been.
192
TREACHERIES
Old Mrs. Backfield was getting very decrepit. She
could not walk without a stick, and her knotted hands
were of little use either in the kitchen or the dairy.
Reuben was anxious to avoid engaging anyone to help
her, yet the developments of her sphere made such
help most necessary. Odiam now supplied most of the
neighbouring gentry with milk, butter, and eggs ; the
poultry-yard had grown enormously since it had been a
mere by-way of Mrs. Backfield's labours, and she and
the girls also had charge of the young calves and pigs,
which needed constant attention, and meant a great
deal of hard work. Besides this, there was all the
housework to do, sweeping, dusting, cooking, baking,
and mending and washing for the males.
It occurred to Reuben that Harry might be of some
use to the women. Since he had given up fiddling he
was entirely on the wrong side of Odiam's accounts ; it
would do much to justify his existence if he could help a
little in the house and thus save engaging extra labour.
Unfortunately Harry's ideas of work were fantastic,
and hd was, besides, hindered by his blindness. Any
use he could be put to was more than balanced by the
number of things he broke. His madness had of late
developed both a terrible and an irritating side. He
was sometimes consumed by the idea that the house
was burning, and had on one or two occasions scared
the family by jumping out of bed in the middle of the
night and running about the passages shouting" The
house is afire ! the house is afire ! Oh, God save us
all ! " After he had done this once or twice, young
Piper was made to sleep in his room, but even so he was
often visited by his terrors during the day, and would
interrupt work or meals with shrieks of" The house
is afire ! Oh, wot shall we do I The house is afire, and
the children are burning/'
Another habit of his, less alarming, but far more
annoying, was to repeat some chance word or sentence
194 SUSSEX GORSE
over and over again for hours. If his mother said
" Take these plates into the kitchen, Harry/' he would
spend the rest of the day murmuring, "Take these
plates into the kitchen, Harry/' till those about him
were driven nearly as mad as he.
It was soon found that he hindered rather than helped
the work, so Reuben had to cast about for fresh plans.
He felt utterly ruthless now, and was resolved to make
his daughters manage the house alone. He redis-
tributed the labour, and by handing over the poultry,
calves, and pigs to Beatup, and taking some of his work
upon his own shoulders, made it physically possible for
Caro and Tilly to run the house and dairy with the
feeble help of old Mrs. Backfield. He told them that he
could not afford to engage a woman, and that they must
do without her making no appeal to their interest or
ambition as he might have done six months ago.
Caro and Tilly did not rebel. Somehow or other
their young backs did not break under the load of
household toil, nor, "more strangely, did their young
hearts, in the loneliness of their hard, uncared-for lives.
Tilly was now nearly eighteen. She had always been
like her mother, but as she grew older the likeness
became more and more pronounced, till sometimes it
seemed to Reuben as if it were Naomi herself with her
milky skin and fleeting rose-bloom who sat at his table
and moved about his house. The only difference lay
in a certain prominence of the chin which gave her an
air of decision that Naomi had lacked. Not that Tilly
was ever anything but docile, but occasionally Reuben
felt that some time or other she might take her stand
a fear which had never troubled him with Naomi.
Caro was not like her sister ; she was of larger build,
yet thinner, and much darker, inheriting her father's
swarthy skin and thick black hair. She did not give
Reuben the same anxiety as Tillyshe was heavy and
coltish, and, he felt, would not appeal to men. But
TREACHERIES 195
Tilly, especially when the summer heats had melted
together the little freckles over her nose, struck his
masculine eye in a way that made him half proud, half
fearful.
No young men ever visited Odiam. The young
Ditches, the young Vennals, or Coalbrans, or Ginners,
who had business to transact with Backfield, did so only
at a safe distance. Reuben could not as yet afford to
lose his housemaids. Some day, he told himself, he
would see that the girls married to the honour of his
farm, but at present he could not do without them.
They did not murmur, for they had known no different
life. They had never, like other girls, wandered with
bevies of young people through the lanes at dusk, or
felt in the twilight a man's hand grope for theirs. They
had not had suitors to visit them on Sundays, to sit
very stiff and straight in the parlour, and pass decorous
remarks about the weather all the while their eyes were
eating up a little figure from toe to hair.
Nevertheless when they worked side by side in the
kitchen or dairy, skimming milk, churning butter,
watching puddings bubble and steam, or when they
made Reuben's great bed together, they had queer,
half-shy, half-intimate talks in which their heads
came very close and their voices sank very low, and an
eavesdropper might have often caught the word " lover/'
uttered mysteriously and sometimes with an odd little
sigh.
2.
That spring the news flew round from inn to inn and
farm to farm that Realf of Grandturzel had bought a
shire stallion, and meant to start horse-breeding. This
was a terrible shock to Reuben, for not only was horse-
breeding extremely profitable to those who could afford
it, but it conferred immeasurable honour. It seemed
now as if Odiam were seriously threatened. If Realf
196 SUSSEX GORSE
prospered at Ms business he could afford to fight Reuben
for Boarzell.
As a man in love will sometimes see in every other
man a plotter for his beloved, and would never believe
it if he were told that he alone sees charm in her and*
that to others she is undesirable, so Reuben could not
conceive ambition apart from the rugged, tough, un-
fruitful Boarzell, whom no man desired but he. He at
once started negotiations for buying another twenty
acres, though at present he could ill afford it, owing to
the expenses involved by his family misfortunes and his
new mania for prestige.
He watched Grandturzel's developments with a
stern and anxious eye, and kept pace with them as well
as he could. The farm consisted of about fifty-five
acres of grass and tilth, apart from the forty acres of
BoarzeU, which neither Realf nor his father had ever
attempted to cultivate, using them merely for fuel and
timber, or as pasturage for the ewes when their lambs
were taken from them. Old Realf had allowed the place
to acquire a dilapidated rakish look, but his son at once
began to smarten it up. He tarred the two oast-houses
till they shone blue with the reflected sky, he painted his
barn doors green, and re-roofed the Dutch Barn with
scarlet tiles that could be seen all the way from Tiffenden
Hill. He enriched his poultry-yard with a rare strain of
Orpington, and was the only farmer in the district
besides Reuben to do his reaping and hay-making by
machinery.
Realf was about twenty-five, a tall, well-set-up
young fellow, with certain elegancies about him. In
business he was of a simple, open temperament, genuinely
proud of his farm, and naive enough to boast of its
progress to Backfield himself. , t
Indeed he was so naive that it was not till Reuben
had once or twice sneered at him in public that he
realised there was any friction between Grandturzel
TREACHERIES 197
and Odiam, and even then he scarcely grasped its im-
portance, for one night at the Cocks, Coalbran said rather
maliciously to Reuben :
" Which of your gals is it that young Realf is sweet
on?"
*' My gals ! Neither of 'em. Wot d'you mean ? "
" Only that he walks home wud them from church
every Sunday, and foalkses are beginning to wonder
which he's going to maake Mrs. Realf, surelye ! "
Reuben turned brick-red with indignation.
" Neither of my gals is going to be Mrs. Realf. I'd
see her dead fust ! And the fellers as spread about such
ugly lying tales, I'll " and Reuben scowled thunder-
ously at Coalbran, whom he had never forgiven since
the scene in Rye Court-house.
" He slanders my sons and he slanders my daughters,"
he muttered to himself as he went home, " and I reckon
as this time it aun't true."
However, next Sunday he astonished his family by
saying he would accompany them to church. Hitherto
Reuben's churchmanship had been entirely political,
he had hardly ever been inside Peasmarsh church
since his marriage, except for the christenings of his
children though he considered himself one of the pillars
of the Establishment. His family were exceedingly
suspicious of this change of heart, and the girls whis-
pered guiltily together. " He's found out," said Caro,
and Tilly sighed.
There was much turning of heads when Ben Back-
field was seen to take his place with his children in their
pew. ..." Wot's he arter now ? " " Summat to do
wud his farm you may be sartain." " He's heard about
his gals and young Reall"-" Ho, the wicked old sinner I
I wish as Passon 'ud tip.it to umstraight."
Realf of Grandturzel sat a little way ahead on the
opposite side, and Reuben watched him all through the
service. Times had changed since Robert had hurled
198 SUSSEX GORSE
his big voice among the rafters with the village choir.
The choir now sat in the chancel and wore surplices ;
the Parson too wore a suiplice when he preached ; for
the Oxford Movement had spread to Peasmarsh, and
Mr. Barnaby, the new clergyman, lived at the Rectory,
instead of appointing a curate to do so, and unheard-of
things happened in the way of week-day services and
Holy Communion at eight o'clock in the morning.
Reuben, however, scarcely noticed the changes, so
absorbed was he in young Real! Occasionally the boy
would turn his head on his shoulder and rashly con-
template the Backfield pew. Reuben invariably met
him with a stare and a scowl.
AU through the sermon he sat with his eyes fixed on
Realf s profile. There was his rival, the man with whom
he would have to reckon most during the difficult
future, with whom he was fighting for Boarzell He
looked marvellously young and comely as he sat there
in the fretted light, and suddenly for the first time
Reuben realised that he was not as young as he had
been. He was forty-sixhe was getting old.
Something thick and icy seemed to creep into his
blood, and he gripped the edge of the pew, as he stared
at Realf, sitting there so unconsciously, his damped and
brushed hair gleaming ruddily in the light that poured
through some saint's aureole. He must not let this
youngster beat him Beat him ? the ice in his blood
froze thicker after all he had not done so very much
during the twenty-six years he had toiled and
struggled ; he had won only a hundred acres of Boar-
zeD little more than Realf had to start with ... and
Realf was only twenty-five.
Caro and Tilly, sitting carefully so as not to crush
their muslins, both their heads slewed round a little
towards Realf, noticed how their father's throat was
working, how hot flows of colour rushed up and ebbed
away under the tan on his cheeks. For the first time
TREACHERIES 199
Reuben was contemplating failure, looking that livid
horror full in the face, seeing himself beaten, after all
his toil and heartache, by a younger man.
But the next momejit he cast the coward feeling from
him. His experience had given him immeasurable
advantage over this babe, Realf who had never felt
the sweat pouring like water down his tired body, who
had never swooned asleep from sheer exhaustion, or
lain awake all night from sheer anxiety, who had not
sacrificed wife and children and friends and self to one
dear, loved, darling ambition . . . bah ! what could he do
against the man who had done all these things, and was
prepared to go on doing them to the end ?
When the congregation rose to sing Reuben held his
head proudly and his shoulders square. He felt himself a
match for any youngster*
3-
That summer old Mrs. Backfield became completely
bedridden. The gratefulness of sunshine to her old
bones was counteracted by the clammy fogs that
streamed up every night round the farm. It was an
exceptionally wet and misty summer a great deal of
Reuben's wheat rotted in the ground, and he scarcely
took any notice when Tilly announced one morning
that grandmother was too ill to come downstairs.
When the struggle on the lower slopes of Boarzell
between the damp earth and the determined man had
ended in the earth's sludgy victory and a pile of rotten
straw which should have been the glory of the tnan-^
then Reuben had time to think of what was going on in
the house. He sent for the doctor not Dr. Espinette,
but a Cockney successor who boiled his instruments and
washed his hands in carbolic and heard from him that
Mrs. Backfield's existence was no longer justified. She
could not expect to work again.
200 SUSSEX GORSE
Reuben was grieved, but not so much grieved as if she
had been cut down in her strength for a long time she
had been pretty useless on the farm. He handed her
over to the nursing of the girls, though they were too
busy to do more for her than the barest necessities. Now
and then he went up himself and sat by her bed, rest-
lessly cracking his fingers, and fretting to be out again
at his work.
Sometimes Harry would sit by her. He had wandered
in one day when she was feeling especially ill and lonely,
and in her desperation she had begged him to stay. At
all events he was someone a human being, or very
nearly so. He shuffled restlessly round and round the
room, fingering her little ornaments and pictures, and
muttering to himself, " Stay wud me, Harry/'
He liked her room, for she had a dozen things he could
finger and play withlittle vases with flowers modelled
over them, woolly mats, a velvet pincushion, and other
survivals of her married life, all very dusty and faded
now. Soon she began to find a strange comfort in
having him there ; the uneasiness and vague repulsion
with which he had filled her, died down, and she began
to see in him something of the old Harry whom she had
loved so much better than Reuben in days gone by.
As the summer wore on she grew steadily worse. She
lay stiff and helpless through the long August days,
watching the sunlight creep up the wall, slip along the
ceiling, and then vanish into the pale, heat-washed sky
that gleamed with it even after the stars had come.
She did not fret much, or think much she watched
things.* She watched the sunshine from its red kindling
to its red scattering, she watched the moon slide across
the window, and haunt the mirror after it had .passed
or the sign of the Scales dangling in the black sky.
Sometimes the things she looked at seemed to fade, and
she would see a room in which she and her husband were j
sitting or a lane along which they were walking . . %
TREACHERIES 201
but just as she had begun to wonder whether she were
not really still young and happy and married and this
vision the fact and the sickness and loneliness the dream,
then suddenly everything would pass away like smoke,
and she would be back in her bed, watching the travelling
sun, or the haunting moon, or the hanging stars.
In October a steam-thresher came to Odiam. The
wheat had been bad, but there was still plenty of grain
to thresh, and for a whole day the machine sobbed and
sang under the farmhouse walls " Urrr-um Urrr-um
Urrr-um."
Mrs, Backfield lay listening to it. She felt very ill,
but everyone was too busy to come to her Reuben was
out in the yard feeding his monster, while the boys
gathered up and sacked what it vomited out ; Caro and
Tilly were washing blankets. Harry had gone off on
some trackless errand of his own.
The afternoon was very still and soft. It was full of
the smell of apples of apples warm and sunny on the
trees, of apples fallen and rotting in the grass, of apples
dry and stored in the loft. There were little apples on
the walls of the house, and their skins were warm and
bursting in the heat.
The thresher purred and panted under the window
" Urrr-um Urrr-um." Now and then Reuben would
call out sharply, " Now then ! mind them genuines
they're mixing wud the seconds ! " or " Kip them sacks
closed, Beatup." But for most of the afternoon the
stillness was broken only by the hum of the machine
which sometimes almost seemed a part of it,
Mrs. Backfield according to her custom watched the
sun. It bathed the floor at first, but gradually she saw
the square of the window paint itself on the wall, and
then slide slowly up towards the ceiling. Her eyes
knechanically followed it; then suddenly it blazed,
filmed, flowed out into a wide spread of light, in the
midst of which she saw the kitcheii at Odiam as it
202 SUSSEX GORSE
to be, with painted fans on the chimney-piece and pots
of flowers on the window-sill. Her husband sat by the
fire, smoking his pipe, while Harry was helping her tidy
her workbasket.
" There now ! " she said to him, " I knew as it really
wur a dream."
" Wot ? " he asked her, and she, in her dream, felt a,
spasm of delight, for it was all happening so naturally-
it must be true.
" About faather being dead, and you being blind, and
Ben having the farm."
" Of course it's a dream faather aun't dead, and I
aun't blind, and Ben's picking nuts over at Pudding* 1
cake."
" You couldn't spik to me lik this if it wur a dream,
Harry could you, dear ? "
He didn't answer and then suddenly he turned on
her and shouted :
" Sack your chaff, now can't you sack your chaff ? "
" Harry ! Harry ! " she cried, and came to herself in
the little sun-smouldering room, while outside Reuben
stormed at his boys to ''sack their chaff," and the
machine purred and sang " Urrr-um Urrr-um."
A sudden terrible lucidity came to Mrs. Backfield.
"It's machines as he wants," she said to herself,
" it's machines as he wants. . . ."
Then a gentle darkness stole upon her eyes, as her
overworked machine of flesh and blood ran down and
throbbed slowly into stillness and peace.
Outside the great f atigueless machine of steel and iron
sang on " Urrr-um Urrr-um Urrr-um."
4-
The girls cried a great deal at their grandmother's
death she had never taken up enough room in tfie
bays' lives for them to miss her much. As for Reuben,
TREACHERIES 208
though he had been fond of her, he could not sincerely
regret her, since for the last few months she had, so to
speak, been carried on entirely at a loss.
He needed every penny and every minute more
desperately than ever, for Grandturzel ran Odiam
closer and closer in the race. Realf now plainly saw
how matters stood. As yet there was no open breach
between him and Reuben when one of them came
into the public-house the other always waited a decent
interval before clearing out but if there was no open
breach, there was open rivalry. All the neighbourhood
knew of it, and many a bet was made.
The odds were generally on Reuben. It was felt that
a certain unscrupulousness was necessary to the job,
and in that Backfield had the advantage. " Young
Realf wudn't hurt a fly/ 1 his champions had to acknow-
ledge. Though the money was with Reuben, the
sympathy was mostly with Realf, for the former's
dealings had scarcely made him popular. He was a
hard man to his customers, he never let them owe him
for grain or roots or fodder; his farm-hands, when
drunk, spoke of him as a monster, and a not very tender-
hearted peasantry worked itself sentimental over his
treatment of his children.
For some months the antagonism between Odiam and
Grandturzel remained in this polite state, most of the
fighting being done by their champions. The landlord
of the Cocks grew quite tired of chucking out Odiamites
and Grandturzelites who could not, Uke their leaders,
confine their war to words. But it only wanted some
cause, however trivial, to make the principals show their
fists. The time that Reuben would stay in the bar after
Realf had entered it grew shorter and shorter, and his
pretexts for leaving more and more flimsy. Realf him-
self, though a genial, good-tempered young man, could
not help resenting the scorn with which he was treated,
He once told Ginner that Backfield was an uncivilised
204 SUSSEX GORSE
brute, and Ginner took care to forward this remark to
the proper quarter.
At last the gods, who are more open-handed than
ungrateful people suppose, took pity on the rivals, and
gave them something to fight about. The pretext was
in itself trivial, but when the gunpowder is laid nothing
bigger than a match is needed. This particular pretext
was a barrow of roots which had been ordered from
Kitchenhour by Reuben and sent by mistake to Grand-
turzel. Realf s shepherd, not seeing any cause for doubt,
gave the roots as winter fodder to his ewes, and said
nothing about them. When Reuben tramped over to
Kitchenhour and asked furiously why his roots had
never been sent, the mistake was discovered. He came
home by Grandturzel, and found his precious roots, all
thrown out on the fields, being nibbled by Realf 's ewes.
Realf himself was away, but Reuben left such a
stinging message for him, that apology was impossible
except in a form that could only be regarded as a fresh
insult. An apology in this shape reached Odiam at
dinner-time, and Reuben at once sent off Beatup with
an acceptance of it that was very nearly obscene. The
result was that Realf himself arrived about three
o'clock, furiously demanding an explanation of his
neighbour's insulting conduct.
The two men met in the kitchen, Peter backing up his
father, and for a long time the scene was stormy, the
word " roots " whirling about the conversation, with the
prefix "my good" or "your hemmed" as the case
might be. Realf was genuinely angry Reuben's
attitude of mingled truculence and scorn had wounded
even his easy pride.
" You're justabout afeard of me, that's wot you are.
You think I'll bust up your old farm and show myself a
better man than you. You're afeard of me because I'm
a younger man than you."
" Ho, afeard of you, am I ? and because you're a
TEEACHERIES 205
youngster ? I'll justabout show you wot a youngster's
worth. A better man, are you ? Put up your fists, and
we'll see who's the better man."
Reuben began to take off his coat young Realf drew
back almost in disgust.
" I'm not going to fight a man old enough to be my
father," he said, flushing.
" Ho, aun't you ? Come on, you puppy-dog, and see
fur yourself if you need taake pity on my old age."
He had flung off his coat, and squared up to Realf, who,
seeing no alternative, began to strip.
Peter interposed :
"Let me taake him on, faather. I'll show him a
thing or two."
Reuben turned on him savagely.
" Stand clear I who wants your tricks ? I'm going
to show him wot a man's worth a man wot's had his
beard longer than this puppy's bin in the warld."
" But you're out of training."
" I'm in training enough to whip boys. Stand clear ! "
Pete stood clear, as the two combatants closed.
Neither knew much of the game. Realf had been born
too late for boxing to have been considered a necessary
part of his education, and Reuben had been taught in an
old school the school of Bendigo and Deaf Burke
mighty bashers, who put their confidence in their
strength, despised finesse, and counted their victories
in pints of blood.
He fairly beat down on Realf, who was lithe enough
generally to avoid him, but not experienced enough to
do so as often as he might. Every time Reuben struck
him, the floor seemed to rush up to his eyes, and the
walls to sag, and the house to fill with smoke, Pete
danced round them silently, for while his sympathies
were with his father his sporting instincts bade him keep
-outwardly impartial. He was disgusted with their foot-
work, indeed their whole style outraged his bruising
206 SUSSEX GORSE
ideals j but it pleased him to see how much Reuben was
the better man.
They hardly ever clinched on the other hand, there
was much plunging and rushing. Reuben brought
down Realf three times and Realf brought down
Reuben once. It was noticeable that if the younger
man fell more easily he also picked himself up more
quickly. Between the rounds they leaned exhausted
against the wall, Pete prowling about between them,
longing to take his father on his knee, but still resolved
to see fair play.
It was not likely that the fight would be a long one, for
both combatants were already winded. Realf, moreover,
was bleeding from the nose, and Reuben's left eye was
swollen. Once he caught a hit flush on the mouth which
cut his nether, lip in two, and, owing to his bad foot-
work, brought him down. But he was winning all the
same.
For once that Realf managed to land a blow, Reuben
landed a couple, and with twice as much weight behind
them. The younger man soon began to look green and
sick, he staggered about, and flipped, while the sweat
poured off his forehead into his eyes. Reuben breathed
stertorously and could scarcely see out of his left eye, but
was otherwise game. Pete felt prouder of him than
ever.
Suddenly Backfield's fist crashed into Realf s body,
full on the mark. The wind rushed out of him as out
of a bellows, and he doubled up like a screen. This time
he made no effort to rise ; he lay motionless, one arm
thrown out stiff and jointless as a bough, while a little
blood-flecked foam oozed from between his teeth.
" You've done it ! " cried Pete,
Reuben had flopped down in a heap on the settle, and
his son ran off for help. He flung open the door, and
nearly fell over Tilly who was cowering behind it.
TREACHERIES
5-
" Here bring some water 1 " cried Peter, too much
relieved to see her to be surprised at it.
Tilly flung one wide-eyed glance over her shoulder
into the room where young Realf lay, and dashed off
for water and towels, while Pete fetched a piece of raw
meat out of the larder.
It was a minute or two before Realf opened his
swollen, watering eyes, and gazed up bewildered into
the face of the woman he had said his prayers to for a
dozen Sundays. She held his head in the crook of her
arm, and wiped the froth and blood from his lips.
" Better now ? " asked Pete.
Realf suddenly seemed to shrink into himself. The
next minute he was swaying unsteadily on his legs,
refusing the hands held out to support him.
" I'm going home/' he mumbled through his bruised
lips.
" 111 taake you," said Pete cheerily.
But Realf of Grandturzel shook his head. His humilia-
tion was more than he could bear. Without another
look at Pete or Tilly, or at Reuben holding the raw chop
to his eye, he turned and walked out of the room with
bent head and dragging footsteps.
For a moment Pete looked as if he would follow him,
but Reuben impatiently called him back.
" Leave the cub alone, can't you ? Let him go and
eat grass."
Tilly stood motionless in the middle of the room, her
little nose wrinkled with horror at the bloodstains oQ
the floor and at Reuben whose face was all bruised and
swollen and shiny with the juice of the raw meat. Pete
saw her shudder, and resented it.
" It wur a praaper fight," he declared. " You want to
manage them feet of yourn a bit slicker, f aather but
you wur justabout smart wud your fists."
208 SUSSEX GORSE
Tilly's blood ran thick with disgust ; she turned from
them suddenly that coarse, bloodthirsty, revolting
pair and ran quickly out of the room.
She ran out of the house. Away on Boarzell a man
plodded and stumbled. She saw him stagger as the
wind battered him, reel and nearly fall among the
treacheries of the dead heather. He was like a drunken
man, and she knew that he was drunk with shame.
All flushed with pity she realised the bitterness of
his fate he who was so young and strong and clean
and gay, had been degraded, shamed by her father,
whom in that moment she looked upon entirely as a
brute. It must not be. He had been so good to her,
so friendly and courteous in their Sunday walks she
must not let him go away from her shamed and beaten.
She gathered up her skirts and ran across the garden,
out on to the Moor. She ran through the heather,
stumbling in the knotted thickness. The spines tore
her stockings, and in one clump she lost her shoe. But
she did not wait. Her little chin was thrust forward in
the obstinacy of her pursuit, and when she came closer
to him she called " Mr. Realf ! Mr. Realf ! "
He stopped and looked round, and the next minute
she was at his side. Her hair was all blown about her
face, her cheeks were flushed the colour of bell-heather,
and her breast heaved like a wave. She could not
speak, but her eyes were blessing Mm, and then suddenly
both her hands were in his.
6.
Early in the next year Sir Miles Bardon died, and his
son Ralph became Squire. Reuben had now, as he put
it, lived through three Bardons. He despised the en-
feebled and effete race with its short life-times, and his
own body became straighter when he thought of Sr
Miles's under the earth.
TREACHERIES 209
For every reason now, Odiam was being forced on.
JRealf had sought comfort for his personal humiliation
in making his farm more spick and span than ever.
Reuben became aware of a certain untidiness about
Odiam, and spent much on paint and tar just as the
frills of a younger rival might incite to extravagance a
woman who had hitherto despised the fashions. He
painted his waggons a beautiful blue, and his oasts
were even blacker and shinier than Grandturzel's. He
had wooden horses to dance on their pointers, where-
upon Realf put cocks on his.
The thought of Tilly did not check the young man
in this beggar-my-neighbour, for he knew that her
father's ambition meant her slavery. So when Reuben
added a prize Jersey heifer to his stock, Realf bought a
Newlands champion milker, and when Reuben launched
desperately on a hay-rope twister, Realf ran him up
with a wurzel-cutter. Finally Reuben bought twenty
acres of Boarzell, in which Realf did not attempt to
rival him, for he already had forty which he did not
know what to do with. Reuben's stragglings with
Boarzell struck him as pathetic rather than splendid,
an aberration of ambition which would finally spoil
the main scheme.
So Realf 's answer took the form of an extra cowman,
whereupon Reuben hired a couple of new hands, causing
his family to" leap secretly and silently for joy and to
bless the man who by his rivalry had lightened their
yoke. As a matter of fact, Reuben would have been
forced to engage one man, anyhow ; for the new piece
of land had at once to be prepared for cultivation, and
gave even more trouble than the pieces which had already
been cultivated but showed a distressing proneness to
relapse into savagery. The lower slope of Boarzell was
now covered with' fields, where corn grew, as the neigh-
bours said, " if one wur careful not to spik too loud/'
and the ewes could pasture safely if their shepherd were
210 SUSSEX GQRSE
watchful. But it somehow seemed as if all these things
were only on sufferance, and that directly Reuben
rested his tired arm Boarzell would snatch them back
to itself, to be its own for ever.
Reuben swaggered a little about his new farm-hands,
especially as Realf showed no signs of going any further
in hirelings. One man, Boorman, came from Shoyswell
near Ticehurst, and was said to be an authority on the
diseases of roots, while the other, Handshut, came from
Cheat Land on the western borders of Peasmarsh.
Reuben went over to get his " character " from Jury
the tenant and that was how he met Alice Jury,
7-
The door was opened to him by a tall young woman
in a grey dress covered by an apron, Reuben was
struck by that apron, for it was not the sacking kind to
which he was accustomed, or the plain white muslin
which his women-folk wore on Sundays, but a coarse
brick-coloured cotton, hanging from her shoulders like
a pinafore. The girl's face above it was not pretty, but
exceptionally vivid " vivid " was the word, not
prominent in Reuben's vocabulary, which flashed into
his mind when he saw her. Her colouring was pale,
and her features were small and irregular, her hair was
very frizzy and quite black, while her grey eyes were
at once the narrowest and the liveliest he had ever seen.
fl I'm sorry father's not at home," she said in answer
to his question.
" But I toald him as I wur coming over it's about
that Handshut."
She smiled.
" I'm afraid father forgets things. But come in, he's
bound to be home to his dinner soon."
Reuben grumbled and muttered to himself as he
crossed the threshold small fry like these Jurys must
TREACHERIES 211
not be allowed to think that he had any time to spare.
The young woman led him into the kitchen and offered
him a seat. Reuben took it and crossed his legs, looking
appraisingly round the room, which was poorly furnished,
but beautifully kept, with some attempts at decoration.
There was a print of Rossetti's " Annunciation " above
the meal-chest, and a shelf of books by the fireplace.
It all struck him as strange and rather contemptible.
He remembered what he had been told about the
Jurys, who had only just come to Cheat Land. Tom
Jury had, so rumour said, kept a bookshop in Hastings,
but trade had gone badly, and as his health demanded
an outdoor life and country air, charitable friends had
established him on a small holding. He had an invalid
wife, and one daughter, who was not very strong either
an ignoble family.
The daughter must be the girl who was talking to
him now. She sat on a little stool by the fire, and had
brought out some sewing.
" You come from Odiam, don't you ? " she asked.
"Yes, that's it."
" Is Odiam that farm near Totease ? "
Reuben looked as if he had swallowed the poker. He
stared at her to see if she were making fun of him, but
her bright eyes were quite innocent.
" Yes," he said huskily " it is."
" We've only been here a month, so I haven't got the
neighbourhood quite clear. You see I can't often go
out, as my mother's generally in bed, and I have all the
house-work to do. That's why my father has to have a
man to help him out of doors. It's a pity, for wages are
so high Handshut's leaving us because we could do
with someone cheaper and less experienced."
Reuben liked her voice, with its town modulation, the
only vestige of Sussex taint being a slight drawl. It
struck him that Alice Jury was a " lady," and that he
was not condescending very much in speaking to her*
212 SUSSEX GORSE
" It's unaccountable hard to know what to do about
labour. Now as these fellers are gitting eddicated they
think no end of theirselves and 'nil ask justabout any-
thing in wages as if a man hoed turnups any better for
being able to read and write."
" But don't you think he does ? "
" No I doan't. I'm all agaunst teaching poor people
anything and setting them above theirselves. It's
different fur their betters. Now I've got six boys, and
they can all read and write and cast accounts."
" Six boys, have you ? Are they grown up ? "
" Yes, the youngest's sixteen."
" And do they help you on the farm ? "
" Yes leastways four of 'em do. Two have have
left home,"
" I suppose they didn't care for farming ? "
" One's in prison, and t'other I turned away."
Reuben had no idea why he said this. It must have
been the way her eyes were fixed on him, glowing above
bistred shadows.
" Oh, indeed 1 how sad."
He flushed the colour of her apron. What a fool he
was ! and yet after all she would be bound to hear the
truth sooner or later ; he had only been beforehand.
All the same he was surprised at himself. A sudden
tide of anger went over him.
" Sad fur them, I reckon, but not fur me. I'm well
shut of them."
" Don't you miss them at all ? "
'* Naun particular. Robert he wur good and plodding-
like, but you couldn't trust his stacking, and he'd be all
nohow wud the horses and Albert he'd shirk everything
wotsumdever, he'd go off into dreams in the middle of
killing a pig surelye ! "
" But in themselves, I mean."
" Wot's that in themselves ? "
"Well, as boys, as sons, not. as farm-servants,"
TREACHERIES 213
" I doan't never think of them that way. One's no
good to me wudout t'other."
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.
" See here I must be going."
" But father won't be long now."
" I'm sorry I can't wait. I've a load of field-bean
coming in. I'll be round agaun to-morrow."
" What time ? and I'll promise father shall be here
to see you."
" About eleven, say. Good-bye, miss."
" Good-bye."
She went with him to the door. A great lump of
phlox grew on either side of it. She stood between
them, and suddenly pointed out over Jury's miserable
little root-patch towards Boarzell, heaving its great
hummocks against the east,
" What's that ? " she asked.
8.
Reuben came away from Cheat Land with odd
feelings of annoyance, perplexity, and exhilaration.
Alice Jury was queer, and she had insulted him, never-
theless those ten minutes spent with her had left him
tingling all over with a strange excitement.
He could not account for it. Women had excited him
before, but merely physically. He took it for granted
that they had minds and souls like men, but he had not
thought much about that aspect of them or allowed
it to enter his calculations. Of late he had scarcely
troubled about women at all, having something better
to think of.
Now he found himself thrown into a kind of dazzle by
Alice Jury. He could not explain it. Her personal
214 SUSSEX GORSE
beauty was negligible" a fiddle stick of a thing," he
called her | their conversation had been limited almost
entirely to her tactless questions and his forbearing
answers.
" She aun't my sort," he mumbled as he walked home,
" she aun't at all my sort, Dudn't know where Odiam
vmr never heard of Boarzell oh, yes, seems as she
remembered hearing something when I toald her"
and Reuben's lip curled ironically.
He had not told her of his ambitions with regard to
Boarzell, and now he found himself wishing that he had
done so. He had been affronted by her ignorance, but
as his indignation cooled he longed to confide in her.
Why, he could not say, for unmistakably she " wasn't
his sort " ; it was not likely that she would sympathise,
and yet he wanted to pour all the treasures of his hope
into her indifference. He had never felt like this
towards anyone before.
He spent the day restlessly, and the next morning
walked over to Cheat Land before half -past ten. Alice
Jury opened the door, and looked surprised to see him.
" You said you were coining at eleven, I'm afraid
father's out again."
" I wur passing this way, so thought I'd call in on the
chance," said Reuben guiltily" I doan't mind waiting."
She called a long-legged boy who was weeding among
the turnips, and bade him go over to Puddingcake and
fetch the master. Then she led the way to the kitchen,
which smelled deliciously of baking bread.
" You don't mind if I go on with my baking ? I've
twelve loaves in the oven."
" Oh, no," said Reuben, sitting in yesterday's chair,
and gazing up at the Rossetti.
"Do you like pictures?" asked Alice, thumping
dough.
"Some," said Reuben, "but I like 'em coloured
best."
TREACHERIES 215
"I paint a little myself/' said Alice "when I've
time."
" Wot sort o' things do you paint ? "
" Oh, landscapes mostly. That's mine " and she
pointed to a little water-colour sketch of a barn.
" Could you paint a picture of Odiam ? "
" I expect I could not really well, you know, just
something like this."
" Could you paint Boarzell ? "
He leaned towards her over the back of his chair.
" Yes, I dare say,"
" Could you do it wud all the colours on it and all
that ? all the pinks you git on it sometimes, and the
lovely yaller the gorse maakes ? "
She was surprised at his enthusiasm. His eyes were
kindling, and a blush was creeping under his sunburn.
" Oh, I could try! Do you want a picture of Boar-
zell ? "
" I'd like one if you could really do it to look natural."
She smiled. " Perhaps I could. But why do you
think so much of Boarzell ? "
" Because I'm going to maake it mine,"
" Yours ! "
" Yes I mean to have the whole of it."
" But can you grow anything on a waste like that ? *
" I can. I've got near a hundred acres sown already "
. . , and then all the floodgates that had been shut for
so long were burst, and the tides of his confidence rolled
out to her, moaning all the ache of his ambition which
nobody would share.
Her eyes were fixed on him with their strange spell,
and her sharp little face was grave. He knew that she
did not sympathise he had not expected it. But he
was glad he had told her.
Her first words startled him.
" Do you think it's worth while ? "
" Wot's worth while ? "
216 SUSSEX GORSE
" To give up so much for the sake of a piece of land/*
Reuben gaped at her.
" I've no right to preach to you < but I think I may
be allowed to ask you 'is it worth while ? ' "
He was too flabbergasted to be angry. The question
had simply never come into his experience. Many a
man had said, " Do you think you'll do it ? " but no one
had ever said, " Do you think it's worth while ? "
Alice saw her blunder. She saw that she had insulted
his ambition ; and yet, though she now understood the
ferocities of that ambition, it filled her with a definite
hostility which made her want to fight and fight and
fight it with all the strength she had. At the same
time, as his surprise collapsed, his own antagonism
rose up. He felt a sudden hatred, not for the girl,
but for the forces which somehow he knew she was
bringing to oppose him. They faced each other, their
eyes bright with challenge, their breasts heaving
with a stormier, earthlier emotion and the white
flame of antagonism which divided them seemed at
the same time to fuse them, melt them into each other,
9-
Reuben was going through a new experience. For the
first time in his life he had fallen under the dominion
of a personality. From his boyhood he had been
enslaved by an idea, but people, in anything except
their relation to that idea, had never influenced him.
Now for the first time he had a life outside Boarzell, an
interest, a set of thoughts, which were not only apart
from Boarzell but antagonistic to it.
Hitherto he had always considered the opposite of
his ambition to be the absence of it. Either one lived
to subdue the hostile earth, or one lived with no object
at all. It was a new experience to find someone whose
life was full of hopes, ideals, and ambitions, all utterly
TREACHERIES 217
unconnected with a farm, and it was even more strange
than new that he should care to talk about them. Not
that he ever found himself being tempted from his own
the most vital part of his relations with Alice Jury
lay in their warfare. He fought her as he fought Boar-
zell, though without that sense of a waiting treachery
which tinctured his battles with the Moor ; their inter-
course was full of .conflict, of fiery, sacred hostilities.
They travelled on different roads, and knew that they
could never walk together, yet each wanted to count
the other's milestones.
Sometimes Reuben would ask himself if he was in
love with her, but as the physical element which he had
always and alone called love was absent, he came to the
conclusion that he was not. If he had thought he loved
her he would have avoided her, but there was no danger
in this parliament of their minds. Her attitude towards
life, though it obsessed him, no more convinced him
than his convinced her. They would rail and wrangle
together by the hour.
"Life is worth while," said Alice, "in itself, not
because of what it gives you/'
" I agree with you there," said Reuben, " it's not wot
life gives that's good, it's wot you taake out of it."
" I don't see that. Suppose that because I liked that
girl's face in the picture I tore it out and kept it for
myself, I should only spoil the picture the piece I'd
torn out wouldn't be any good to me away from the
rest,"
" I can't foller you," said Reuben gruffly.
" Now don't pretend to be stupid don't pretend you
can't understand anything but turnips."
" And doan't pretend you can't understand naun but
picturs. A good solid turnup in real life is worth a
dozen- pretty gals in picturs."
" That's right have the courage of your earthiness.
But don't try to make me think that when you look out
218 SUSSEX GORSE
of the window at Boarzell, you don't see the sky
beyond it."
" And doan't you try and make out as when you're
looking at the sky you doan't see Boarzell standing in
between."
" I don't try and make it out. I see your point of
view, but it's only ' in between ' meand you and
something greater,"
" Rubbidge ! " said Reuben,
He always came away from these wrangles with a
feeling as if he had been standing on his head. He was
not used to mental scoutings and reconnoitrings. Also,
he felt sometimes that Alice was laughing at him, which
irritated him, not so much because she mocked as-
because he could never be really sure whether she
mocked or not. Her laughter seemed to come from the.
remotest, most exalted part of her. The gulfs between
their points of view never gaped so wide as when she
laughed,
10.
Reuben's constant visits to Cheat Land were soon
noticed at Odiam, and every advantage was taken of
them. A period of licence set in, Richard read Anne
Bardon's Homer quite openly by the kitchen fire, Caro
dropped tears over East Lynne in the dairy, and
Jemmy spent long tarry hours at Rye, coming home
with a rank chew in his mouth, and sailors' oaths to
salt his work on the farm.
Tilly had private affairs of her own which occasionally
led her out on Boarzell of an afternoon. She always
took her sewing, for she dared not be behindhand with
it. Strangely enough, in spite of Jemmy's and Tilly's
truancies, the work was somehow got through as usual,
for shortcomings would have been found out and
punished on the master's return or worse still, he might
have stayed at home. For the first time a certain free*
TREACHERIES 219
masonry was established between the brothers and
sisters. Hitherto their rebellion had been too secret
even for confederacy, but now some of the crushing
weight was lifted, and they could combine all except
Peter, who was too much Reuben's man for them to
trust him ; luckily he was rather stupid. So Peter did
not see and no one else took any notice if Caro read
and wept over sentimental novels, or Jemmy brought
home harbour mud on his shoes, or George, who was
delicate and epileptic, slept away an hour under a hay-
stack, or Richard pondered the Iliad, or Tilly ran
out on the Moor even though she went to meet Realf
of GrandturzeL
They met on the further side of the fir clump, on the
edge of Grandturzel's inclosure. Here Tilly would sit
under a gorse-bush with her sewing, while young Realf
lay along the grass at her feet. They did not talk much,
for Tilly was busy, and generally had her mouth full of
pins ; but Realf s manhood worshipped her as she sat
there, her delicious head bowed, and stains of sunshine,
with sprinkled gorse-petals, in her hair. He loved her
little determined chin, and the sweet smudge of
freckles on her nose. Love filled their simplest
actions, kindled their simplest words ; it dreamed
in their eyes and laughed on their lips ; its
silences linked them closer than the most passionate
embraces.
Both unconsciously dreaded the time when they
should demand more of each other when the occasional
enlacing of their hands would no longer be enough to open
Paradise, when from sweet looking and longing they
would have to pass into the bitterness of action. Tilly,
though essentially practical and determined, was enjoy-
ing her first visit to faery, and also inherited her mother's
gift of languor. She basked in those hours of sun and
bees. She, like her father, was passing for the first
time into a life outside the dominion of the farm but,
220 SUSSEX GORSE
whereas he fought it, and sought it only to fight it, she
submitted to it as to a caress.
She cared nothing for Odiam ; it was no thought of
disloyalty to it and her father, of breaking from her
service, which made her mark time in dreams. As the
weeks went by she felt more and more the hatefulness
of the yoke. She now had a standard of comparison by
which to judge Reuben and Odiam. She saw herself and
her brothers and her sister more and more as victims.
Other farmers' children were not slaves. Other farms
did not hang like sucking incubuses on boys' and girls'
backs, draining all the youth and joy and sport out of
them.
It made her blood boil to think of Robert and Albert
in their exile. Robert had now been released from gaol,
and had been sent by a charitable society to Australia.
Reuben had refused to move a hand to help him. As
for Albert, a few months ago a piteous letter had
arrived, begging for money. He had, through Mr.
Hedges, found work on a small Radical paper which
soon came to grief, and since then had been practically
starving, having had no success as a freelance. A friend
of his wanted to start a weeldy review Tory this time,
for Albert's politics were subservient to occasion and
only required funds. Did Reuben feel prepared to make
an investment ? Thus poor Albert cloaked and trimmed
his begging.
Of course Reuben had refused to help him, and Tilly
had been unable to get any money out of Pete. Her
heart bled for her brothers, apd at the same time she
could not help envying their freedom, though one
enjoyed it as a beggar and the other as a felon.
11.
At last the crisis came through George, the youngest,
least-considered son at Odiam. He had always been a
weakling, as if Naomi had passed into his body her own
TREACHERIES 221
passionate distaste for life. Also, as is common with
epileptic children, his intellect was not very bright. It
had been the habit to spare him, even Reuben had done
so within reason. But he should not really have worked
at all, or only in strict moderation certainly he should
not have been sent out that October evening to dig up
the bracken roots on the new land. Tilly expostulated
" Anyhow he didn't ought to work alone " but
Reuben was angry with the boy, whom he had caught
loafing once or twice that day, and roughly packed him off.
He himself went ver t M@tr's Ctttage about a load
of trifolium, and returning in the darkness by Cheat
Land was persuaded to stay to supper. That was one of
the nights when he did not like Alice Jury he some-
times went through the experience of disliking her,
which was an adventure in itself, so wild and surprising
was it, so bewildering to remember afterwards. She
seemed a little colourless she was generally so vivid
that he noticed and resented all the more those times
when her shoulders drooped against her chair, and her
little face looked strangely wistful instead of eager. It
seemed as if on these occasions Alice were actually
pleading with him. She lost that antagonism which was ,
the salt of their relations, instead of fighting she pleaded.
Pleaded for what ? He dared not ask that question, in
case the answer should show him some strange new
Canaan which was not his promised land. So he came
away muttering " only a liddle stick of a womaji. I
like gurt women I like 'em rosy, I like 'em full-breasted.
. . . She'd never do fur me."
He tramped home through the darkness. A storm
was rising, shaking the fir-plumes of Boarzell against a
scudding background of clouds and stars. The hedges
whispered, the dead leaves rustled, the woods sighed.
Every now and then a bellow would come from the
Moor, as the sou'wester roared up in a gust, then a low
sobbing followed it into silence.
222 SUSSEX GORSE
On the doorstep Reuben was greeted by Tilly where
was George ? He had not been in to supper.
" Have you looked in the new field ? "
" Yes Benjamin went round. But he aun't there."
" Well, I ddan't know where he is."
" Reckon he's fallen down in a fit somewhere and
died."
Tilly was not looking at all like Naomi to-night.
" Nonsense/' said Reuben, resenting her manner.
" It aun't nonsense. I always know when his fits are
coming on because he's tired and can't work praaperly.
He was like that to-day. And you you drove him out."
Reuben had never been spoken to like this by his
daughter. He turned on her angrily, then suddenly
changed his mind. For the first time he really saw
what a fine girl she was all that Alice was not.
" We'll go and look for him/' he said" send out the
boys."
All that night they hunted for George on Boarzell. It
was pitch dark. Soon great layers of cloud were sagging
over the stars, and Boarzell's firs were lost in the black-
ness behind them. Reuben, his sons, Beatup, Piper,
Handshut, Boorman, fought the dark with lanterns
as one might fight Behemoth with pin-pricks. They
scattered over the Moor, searching the thorn-clumps
and gorse-thickets. It was pretty certain that he was
not on the new ground by Flightshot. Richard said
openly that he did not believe in the fit and that George
had run away, and less openly that it was a good job
too. The other boys, however, did not think that he
had enough sense to run away, and agreed that his
condition all day had foretold an attack.
Reuben himself believed in the fit, and a real anxiety
tortured him as he thrust his lantern into the gaping
caverns of bushes. He had by his thoughtless and
excessive zeal allowed Boarzell to rob him of another
man. Of course, it did not follow that George was dead,
TREACHERIES 228
but unless they found him soon it was quite likely that
he would not survive exposure on such a night. If so,
Reuben had only himself to thank for it. He should
have listened to his daughter, and either let George off
his work or made him work near home. He did not
pretend to himself that he loved this weakling son, or
that his death would cause his fatherhood much grief,
but he found himself with increasing definiteness
brought up against the conviction that Boarzell was
beating him, wringing its own out of him by slow,
inexorable means, paying him back a hundredfold for
every acre he took or furrow he planted.
He had become separated from the other searchers,
and was alone on the west side of the Moor. The wind
barked and howled, hurling itself upon him as he stood,
beating his face with hail, which hissed into the dead
tangles of the heather, while the stripped thorns yapped
and rattled, and the bushes roared. So great was the
tumult that he seemed to fall into it like a stone into a
wave it passed over him, round him, seemed even to
pass under him, he was hardly conscious of the solid
ground. The blackness was impenetrable, save where
his lantern stained it with a yellow smudge. He shouted,
but his voice perished in the din it seemed as if his
whole man, sight, voice, hearing, and sensation, was
blurring into the storm, as if Boarzell had swamped him
at last, made him merely one of its hundred voices,
mocking the manhood which had tried so much against
its earth.
The wind seemed to be laughing at him, as it bellowed
tip in gusts, struck him, sprayed him, roughed his hair
out madly, smacked his cheeks, drove the rain into his
skin, and then rumbled away with a hundred chatterings
and sighings. It seemed to be telling him that as his
breath was to this wind so was he himself to Boarzell,
The wind was the voice of the Moor, and it told him
that in fighting Boarzdl, he did not fight the mere earth,
224 SUSSEX GORSE
an agglomeration of lime and clay which he could trample
and compel, but all the powers behind it. In arming
himself against Boarzell he armed himself against the
whole of nature's huge resources, the winds, the storms,
the droughts, the early and the latter rain, the poisons
in plants, and the death in stones, the lusts which
spilling over from the beasts into the heart of man
slay him from within himself. He had armed himself
against all these, and once again the old words sang in
his head" 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 had shrunk into the rattling shelter of some thorn-
bushes. They scraped their boughs 'like grotesque
violins, and every other moment they would sweep down
over him and shut him into a cavern of snapping twigs.
He was soaked to the skin and his teeth chattered. He
lay close to the earth, seeking shelter even from the
skeleton heather which writhed woody stems all round
him. He cursed. Must he spend the night here, lost
and grovelling, to listen while Boarzell screeched its
triumph over his cold, drenched body, . . .
" 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 ?
" His heart is as firm as a stone ; yea, as hard as a
piece of the nether millstone.
" The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold ;
the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.
"He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten
wood.
" Sharp stones are under him . . ."
A crash of thunder and a spit of lightning tore open
the sky, and for a moment Reuben saw the slope of the
Moor livid in the flash, and the crest of firs standing
TREACHERIES 225
against the split and tumbling clouds. The air rang,
screamed, hissed, rushed, and rumbled. Reuben, hardly
knowing what he did, had sprung to his feet.
" I'll have wheat growing here in a twelvemonth ! "
he shouted.
12.
The dawn broke over Boarzell like a reconciliation.
The clamouring voices of wind and trees were still, and
only a low sobbing came now and then from the woods.
In the sky pale streamers of rose barred and striped a
spreading violet. One or two clouds flew low, and
slowly pilled themselves, scattering into the fields. On
every blade of grass and twig of thorn, on every leaf and
spine, glimmered pearls of rain, washing the air with a
faint scent of stagnant water, perfuming it with the
steams of sodden grass.
Reuben crept out of his thorn cavern and looked down
the slope. At the bottom by Socknersh one or two
lanterns moved through the dusk. He stiffly threw up
his arm and tried to shout. His throat felt cramped and
swollen, and it was not till after one or two attempts
that a sound pitifully like a bleat came out of it. A
voice answered him from the hollow, and then he saw
that they were carrying something. He limped pain-
fully down to them. Richard, Boorman, and Handshut
carried a hurdle between them, and on the hurdle lay a
draggled boy, whose clenched hand clutched a tuft of
earth and grass as a victim might clutch a handful of
his murderer's hair.
" Is he dead ? " asked Reuben.
" Yes, maaster," said Boorman.
Richard's mouth twisted in contemptuous silence
Handshut being young and silly was crying.
" He wurn't on the new land," continued Boorman,
" he'd fallen into the ditch by Socknersh palings that's
why we cudn't find un. Reckon as he'd felt the
226 SUSSEX GORSE
fitses coming on un, and tried to git hoame, pore
souly."
" When did you find him ? "
"Half an hour agone. He'd bin dead for hours,
maaster. He must have choked in the ditch see, his
mouth is full of mud/ 1
Reuben drew back with a shiver. He limped behind
the little procession towards Odiam, slouching for the
first time in his life. In spite of his conquests he and
Boarzell still were quits, still had to prove which was
the better man. George, lying there muddy, white, and
crumpled, was a sign that the Moor had its victories, in
spite of the spreading corn.
He looked down at George the boy's face had an
unhuman chalky appearance under the mudstains ; on
the forehead a vein had swollen up in black knots,
others showed pale, almost aqueous, through the
stretched skin. After all, George was the weakest, the
best-spared of his children. This thought comforted;
and stiffened him a little, and he went into the house
with something of his old uprightness.
The other children were in the kitchen. They had
seen their dead brother from the window, and stood
ftiute and tearless as he was carried into the room.
Reuben gave orders for him to be taken upstairs and the
doctor to be sent for. No one else spoke. Tilly's breast
heaved stormily, and he did not like the dull blaze in
her eyes. Strange to say, of his whole family, excepting
Pete, she was the only one of whom he was not faintly
contemptuous. She had spirit, that girl he prophesied
that she would turn out a shrew.
For the very reason that he could not despise her, he
iook upon himself to bully her now.
" Get me some tea," he said roughly, " I'm cold."
TREACHERIES 227
13-
Though there had been no open rupture, from that
day forward Odiam was divided into two camps. On
one side were Reuben and Pete, on the other, Tilly and
Richard. Benjamin and Caro were neutrals ; they were
indifferent to vital issues, one engrossed in snatching
holidays, the other in hankering after she did not quite
know what. Pete had always been a good son, hard-
working and enthusiastic, not exactly a comrade, but
none the less an ally, always to be depended on and now
and then taken into confidence. He seemed to accept
his father's attitude towards George's death and to
resent Richard's and Tilly's. That spring he beat
Squinty Bream at Robertsbridge Fair, and gave half the
purse to Reuben to buy a chaff-cutter.
Of the enemy Tilly was the most effective Reuben
did not quite know how to deal with her. His inability
to despise her told heavily against him. Richard, on
the other hand, he despised from the depths of his heart.
The boy was insufferable, for he still had his old knack
of saving his skin. It was nearly always impossible to
pick any definite faults in his work it was wonderful
how he managed to combine unwillingness with efficiency.
He also had an irritating habit of speaking correct
English, and of alluding to facts and events of which
Reuben had never heard in such a manner as to make it
impossible for him not to show his ignorance.
Reuben never lost a chance of baiting him, he jibed
at his squeamishness and fine manners, at his polite way
of eating and the trouble he took to clean his nails ; he
despised him all the more for occasionally getting the
better of him, verbally at any rate, in these encounters.
One night at supper Reuben, having actually succeeded
in finding this sneering son at fault, abused him roundly
for the shocking condition of the ewes' fleeces. Richard
228 SUSSEX GORSE
had the bad sense to quote Shakespeare, whereat Reuben
told him that if he could not speak English he could
leave the room. Richard replied that he would be very
pleased to do so, as certain people's table-manners made
supper rather an ordeal, Reuben helped him out with
a kick most vulgarly placed.
The next day Backfield was due at an auction at
Northiam, but before leaving he ordered Richard to
clean out the pig-sties. It was not, properly speaking,
his work at all, but Reuben hoped it would make him
sick, or that he would refuse to obey and thus warrant
his father knocking him down.
" Certainly," said Richard without a tremor.
" Oh, thank you/' said Reuben, bowing in mock
politeness, and trying to copy his clipped English.
Ten minutes later he rode off, and the family separated
to their tasks, or to such evasions of thein as were
possible in the master's absence.
Tilly cleared the table and began to prepare the
dinner. She had promised the boys a bag pudding, and
must start it early. She had not been cooking more
than half an hour when the door opened, and Richard
came in, dressed in a neat black suit with a stiff Glad-
stone collar. His hair was nicely brushed, and he carried
a pair of gloves and a little valise.
19 Oh ! " cried Tilly.
" I'm off/' said Richard shortly, banging down his
valise on the table.
"Off! where? 1 '
"To London."
Tilly gaped at him.
" I'm sick of all this, I'm sick of the old man and his
beastliness. Miss Bardon is lending me money to go to
London University, and perhaps I shall read for the
Bar/'
" The Bar/' repeated Tilly vaguely.
" Yes, I've learned a heap of Latin and other things
TREACHERIES 229
during the last five years, and two or three years at the
University ought to be all I want. Miss Bardon's taught
me I owe everything to her."
" I must say as how you've kept it dark."
She knew of his friendship with Anne Bardon, but had
never expected it to bear such generous fruit.
" Well, it would never have done if the old man had
got to know of it. Good heavens, Tilly 1 How can you
live on with that old brute ? "
" Maybe I shan't much longer," said Tilly, looking
down at her rolling-pin.
Richard stared at her for a^oment " I'm glad to
hear it. But the othersoh, my dear girl, this is dam-
nable I "
Tilly sighed.
" The law ought to suppress such men it ought to be
a criminal offence to revert to type the primordial
gorilla."
" But faather's a clever man Albert always used to
say so."
" Yes, in a cunning, brutish sort of way like a
gorilla when he's set his heart on a particular cocoanut.
Boarzell's his cocoanut, and he's done some smart
things to get it and in one way at least he's above the
gorilla, for he can enslave other people of superior
intelligence to sweat under his orders for what they care
nothing about."
" We're all very unlucky," said Tilly, " to have been
born his children. But one by one we're gitting free.
There'll soon be only Pete and Jemmy and Caro
left"
" And I hope to God they'll have the wit to follow
the rest of us. I'd like to see that old slave-driver left
quite alone. Heavens ! I could have strangled him
yesterday I should have, if I hadn't had this to look
forward to."
" Where are you going to stay in London ? "
280 SUSSEX GORSE
" Miss Bardon's taken some rooms for me in Montagu
Street/'
" She's good to you, Richard."
" She's an angel " he lifted his eyes, and his mouth
became almost worshipful " she's an angel, who's
raised me out of hell. I shall never be able to repay her,
but she doesn't expect it. All she wants is my success."
" I wish Caro or Jemmy cud meet someone like her,
I doan't think as Pete minds."
" No, he's quite the young gorilla. Now I must be
off, Tilly. I'll write to you."
" Oh, woan't faather be in a taking ! "
" I reckon I expect he will But don't you mind
him, little sister. He isn't worth it."
He stooped and kissed her.
" Good-bye. Say it to the others for me."
" Good-byegood luck to you."
. . . And he was gone walking past the window in
a top-hat.
14-
It would be mere politeness to describe as a " taking "
Reuben's condition when he heard Richard had gone.
He was in a stamping, bellowing, bloodshot rage. He
sent for various members of his family, questioned them,
stormed at them, sent them away, then sent for them
again. He boxed Caro's ears because she cried hitherto
he had kept his hands off the girls. As for Tilly, he
would have liked to have whipped her he felt sure
that somehow it was all her doing but the more furious
he grew, the more he felt himself abashed by her manner,
at once so soft and so determined, and he dared do no
more than throw his boots at her.
After a night of cursings and trampings in his room,
he took the fermenting dregs of his wrath to Cheat
Land. It was queer that he should go for sympathy to
Alice Jury, who was chief in the enemy's camp. But
TREACHERIES 231
though he knew she would not take his part, she would
not be like the others, leering and cackling. She would
give him something vital, even if it was only a vital
opposition. That was all the difference between her and
everyone else she opposed him not because she was
flabby or uninterested or enterpriseless, but because she
really hated what he strove for. She was his one strong
candid enemy, so he went to her as his only friend.
She was shocked at his white twitching face and
bloodshot eyes ; for the first time since she had known
him, Reuben came to her bereft of that triumphant man-
hood which had made him so splendid to watch in his
struggles.
" The hound ! " he cried, striking his fists together,
" the miserable, cowardy hound ! gone and left me
gone to be a gentleman, the lousy pig. Oh, Lard, I
wish as I had him in these hands o' mine ! I'd maake a
gentleman of him ! "
Alice, as he expected, had caustic for him rather than
balm.
" Once again/' she said slowly, " I ask you is it
worth while ? "
"Wot's worth while?"
" You know. I asked you that question the first or
second time I saw you. No one had ever asked it you
before, and you would have liked to beat me."
" I shud like to beat you now talking of wot you
know naun about/'
" I daresay but I'm not your son or your daughter
or your wife "
" I never beat my wife."
" Chivalrous, humane man ! well, anyhow I'm not
anyone you can beat, so I dare ask is it worth while ? "
" And I ask wot d'yOn mean by * worth while ' ? "
" You know that it's Boarzell and your farm which
have lost you your boys."
" I know nothing of the sort."
232 SUSSEX GORSE
" Well, would Robert have stolen money, or Albert
disgraced your name, to get free, if you and your farm
hadn't made them slaves ? If you hadn't been a heart-
less slave-driver would George have died the other
night alone on the Moor? or would Richard have
taken advantage of a neighbour's charity to escape
from you? Don't you see that your ambition has
driven you to make slaves of your children ? "
" Well, they woan't wark fur me of their free will,
Lard knows I've tried to interest 'em. . . ."
" But how can you expect them to be interested ?
Your ambition means nothing to them."
" It ought to Odiam's their home jest as it's mine."
" But don't you see that you've forced them to give
up all the sweet things of life for it ? Robert his love,
and Albert his poetry, and Richard his education."
" Well, I gave up all the sweet things of life, as you
call 'em and why shudn't they ? "
" Because you gave those things up of your free will
they were made to give them up by force. You've
no right to starve and deny other people as you have
to starve and deny yourself."
" I doan't see that. Wot I can do, they can."
" But as experience has taught you they won't.
You can see now what your slave-driving's brought you
to you've lost your slaves."
" Well, and I reckon they wurn't much loss, nuther "
the caustic was healing after all " Robert wur a fool
wot didn't know how to steal a ten-pound note, Albert
wur always mooning and wasting his time, and George
wur a pore thing not worth his keep. As for Richard
that Richard who wants a stuck-up, dentical, high-
nosed, genteel swell about the plaace ? I reckon as I'm
well shut of the whole four of 'em. They wurn't worth
the food they ate, surelye ! "
" That's what strikes me as so pathetic."
" Wot ? "
TREACHERIES 283
"That you should be able to comfort yourself
with the thought that they weren't worth much tc
you as a farmer. What were they worth to you as a
father?*'
" Naun."
" Quite so and that's what makes me pity you/'
and suddenly her eyes kindled, blazed, as with her
spirit itself for fuel " I pity you, I pity you poor,
poor man ! "
" Adone do wud that though you sound more as if
you wur in a black temper wud me than as if you pitied
me."
" I am angry with you just because I pity you. It's
a shame that I should have to pity you you're such a
splendid man. It ought to be impossible to pity you,
but I do I pity you from my soul. Think what you're
missing. Think what your children might have been
to you. How you might have loved that dear stupid
Robert how proud you might have been of Albert,
and of Richard leaving you for a professional career . . .
and poor little George, just because he was weak and
unlike the rest, he might have been more to you than
them all. Then there's your brother Harry "
" Come, come stick to the truth. I aun't to blame
for Harry."
" But can't you see that he's the chief part of the
tragedy you're bringing on yourself and everyone?
He's the type, he's the chorus, the commentary on
every act. Reuben, can't you see oh, why won't you
see ? he's you, yourself, as you really are ! "
" Nonsense ! doan't be a fool, my gal."
"Yes you blind, crazy with your ambition, re-
pulsive and alone in it. Don't you see ? "
He smiled grimly" I doan't."
" No you don't see this hideous thing that's pur-
suing you, that's stripping you of all that ought to be
yours, that's making you miss a hundred beautiful
234 SUSSEX GORSE
things, that's driving you past all your joys this
Boarzell. . . ."
" aun't driving me, anyhow. I'm fighting it."
" No," said Alice. " It's I who am fighting Boarzell 1 '
15-
Early the next year, Tilly married Realf of Grand*
turzel.
Reuben received the blow in silence it stunned him.
He did not go over to Cheat Land something, he
scarcely knew what, kept him away. In the long yellow
twilights he wandered on Boarzell. The rain-smelling
March wind scudded over the grass, over the wet
furrows of his cornfields, over the humming tops of the
firs that, with the gorse splashed round their trunks,
marked the crest of the Moor and of his ambition.
Would they ever be his, those firs ? Would he ever tear
up that gorse and fling it on the bonfire, as he had torn
up the gorse on the lower slopes and burned it with roars
and cracklings and smoke that streamed over the Moor
to Totease ? Perhaps Realf would have the firs and the
gorse, and pile that gorgeous bonfire. Tilly would put
him up to her father's game Reuben's imagination
again failed to conceive the man who did not want
Boarzell she would betray Odiam's ambitions, and
babble its most vital secrets. Tilly, Reuben told
Boarzell, was a bitch.
It became now all the more necessary to smash Realf.
He could no longer be content with keeping just ahead
of him ; he must establish a sort of two-power standard,
and crush his rival to the earth. That was not a good
summer for expansion a drought baked up the greater
part of Sussex, and there was an insect plague in the
hops nevertheless, Reuben bought thirty-five acres of
Boarzell, on the east slope, by the road. He was
tormented by a fear that Realf would buy the land if he
TREACHERIES 235
did not, and, moreover, during May two boards had
appeared advertising it as " an eligible building site " ;
which was possibly bluff, possibly unusual cunning on
the part of Flightshot, made resourceful by its straits.
He no longer had any direct intercourse with the
Bardons. Their latest impropriety had put them beyond
oven the favour of a casual nod. If they chose to break
up his family they must take the consequences. He
only wished he could break up their estate, sell their
rat-holed old Manor over their heads, and leave them
unprotected by landed property to the sure workings of
their own incompetence.
He did not fail to show his neighbours how he despised
Flightshot, and the more humorously inclined among
them were never tired of asking how soon it would be
before Richard married Anne.
" Your family seems to be in a marrying way jest
now, Mus' Backfield there's your daughter made an
unaccountable fine match, and it's only nat'ral as young
Richard shud want to do as well fur himself."
Reuben treated these irreverences with scorn. Nothing
would make him abate a jot of his dignity. On the
contrary, his manner and his presence became more and
more commanding. He drove a splendid blood mare in
his gig, smoked cigars instead of pipes, and wore stand-
up collars about four inches high when he was not
working, for it had not struck him that it was undignified
to work, and he still worked harder on his farm than the
worst-paid pig-boy.
He was more stoutly resolved than ever that the mob
of small farmers and incompetents should not gape at
his misfortunes. So he hid under a highly repulsive
combination of callousness and swagger his grief for his
sons' defection, his rage and shame at Tilly's marriage,
and his growing anxiety about Odiam. That summer
had been terrible a long drought had been followed
too late by thundery rains. His harvest had been
236 SUSSEX GORSE
parched and scrappy, most of the roots shedding their
seed before reaping ; the green-fly had spoiled several
acres of hops, which otherwise would have been the one
bright patch in the season ; his apples and pears had
been eaten by wasps ; and then a few untimely showers
had beaten down two fields of barley yet unreaped and
his only decent crop of aftermath hay.
If Grandturzel had fared as badly he could have borne
it, but Grandturzel, though scarred, came out of the
summer less battered than he, Realf 's oats, being in a
more sheltered position, did no private threshing of
their own ; his hops for the most part escaped the
blight, and though he lost a good deal on his plums, his
apples were harvested at a record, and brought him in
nearly ten pounds an acre. On both farms the milk had
done badly, but as Realf s dairy business was not so
extensive as Backfield's, he was better able to stand its
partial collapse.
Reuben felt that Tilly was at the bottom of his
rival's success. She was practical and saving, the very
virtues which Realf lacked and the want of which might
have wrecked him. She doubtless was responsible for
the good condition of his orchards and the immunity of
his hops ; she had probably told her husband of that
insect-spray of her father's which had failed him that
summer, being too much diluted by the fool who mixed
it, but had proved a miracle of devastation in other
years.
He wanted to smash Tilly even more than he wanted
to smash Realf. He had seen her twice since her
marriage meeting her once in Rye, and once on Boar-
zell and each sight had worked him into a greater rage.
Her little figure had strengthened and filled out, her
demure self-confidence had increased, her prettiness was
even more adorable now that the rose had deepened on
her cheeks and her gowns strained over her breast ;
she was enough to fill any man with wrath at the joke of
TREACHERIES 237
things. Tilly ought to be receiving the wages of her
treachery in weariness and anxiety, fading colour and
withering flesh and here she was all fat and rosy and
happy, well-fed and well-beloved. He hated her and
called her a harlot because she had betrayed Odiam
for hire and trafficked in its shame.
16.
He had been forced to engage a woman to help Caro
in the house, and also a shepherd for Richard's work.
His family had been whittled down to almost nothing.
Only Caro, Pete, and Jemmy were left out of his eight
splendid boys and girls. Caro, Pete, Jemmy, and
hideous, mumbling Harry he surveyed the four of
them with contemptuous scowls. Pete was the only one
who was worth anything Caro and Jemmy would turn
against him if they had the slightest chance and forsake
him with the rest. As for Harry, he was a grotesque, an
image, a hideous fum " Reuben himself as he really
was." He! He!
The weeks wore on and it dawned on him that he must
pull himself together for a fresh campaign. He must
have more warriors he could not fight Boarzell with
only traitors and hirelings. He must rnarry again.
It was some time since the abstract idea of marriage
had begun to please him, but lately the abstract of
marriage had always led to the concrete of Alice Jury, so
he had driven it from his thoughts. Now, more and
more clearly, he saw that he must marry. He wanted a
woman and he wanted children, so he must marry. But
He must not marry Alice.
Of late he had resumed his visits to Cheat Land, dis-
continued for a while at Tilly's marriage. The attraction
ot Alice Jury was as strong, unfathomable, and un-
accountable as ever. Since the stormy interview after
Richard's desertion they had not discussed his ambitions
238 SUSSEX GORSE
for Odiam and Boarzell, but that meeting was none the
less stamped on Reuben's memory with a gloomy
significance. It was not that Alice's arguments had
affected him at all she had not penetrated to the
springs of his enterprise, she had not touched or con-
jured the hidden part of him in which his ambition's
roots were twined round all that was vital and sacred in
the man. But somehow she had expressed her own
attitude with an almost sinister clearness" It's I who
am fighting Boarzell." What should she fight it for ?
imagine that she fought it, rather, for a woman could
not really fight Boarzell. She was fighting it for him.
She wanted him.
He knew that Alice wanted him, and he knew that he
wanted Alice, He did not know why he wanted Alice
any more than he knew why Alice wanted him. " Wot
i s s h e ? a liddle stick of a creature. And I like big
women."
There was something in the depths of him that cried
for her, something which had never moved or cried in
him before. In spite of her lack of beauty and beguile-
ment, in spite of her hostility to all his darling schemes,
there was something in him to which Alice actually and
utterly belonged. He did not understand it, he could
not analyse it, he scarcely indeed realised it all he felt
was the huge upheaval, the conflict that it brought, all
the shouting and the struggling of the desperate and
motiveless craving that he felt for her a hunger in him
calling through days and nights, in spite of her insig-
nificance, her aloofness, her silences, her antagonism.
" I reckon as how I must be in love,"
That was the conclusion he came to after much heavy
pondering. He had never been truly in love before. He
had wanted women for various reasons, either for their
charm and beauty, or because, as in Naomi's case, of their
practical use to him. Alice had no beauty, and a charm
too subtle for him to realise, though as a matter of fact
TREACHERIES 289
the whole man was plastic to it as for practical useful-
ness, she was poor, delicate, unaccustomed to country
life, and hostile to all his most vital ambitions. She
would not bring him wealth or credit, she was not likely
to bear him healthy children and yet he loved her.
Sometimes, roaming through murky dusks, he
realised in the dim occasional flashes which illuminate
the non-thinking man, that he was up against the
turning-point of his fight with Boarzell. If he married
Alice it would be the token of what had always seemed
more unimaginable than his defeat his voluntary sur-
render. Sometimes he told himself fiercely that he
could fight Boarzell with Alice hanging, so to speak, over
his arm ; but in his heart he knew that he could not.
He could not have both Alice and Boarzell.
Yet, in spite of all this, one day at Cheat Land he
nearly fell at her feet and asked her to be his ruin.
It was a March twilight, cold and rustling, and tart
with the scents of newly turned furrows. Reuben sat
with Alice in the kitchen, and every now and then
Jury's wretched house-place would shake as the young
gale swept up rainless from the east and poured itself
into cracks and chimneys. Alice was sewing as usual
it struck Reuben that she was very quick and useful
with her fingers, whatever might be her drawbacks in
other ways. Sometimes she had offered to read poetry
to him, and had once bored him horribly with In
Memoriam, but as he had taken no trouble to hide his
feelings she had to his great relief announced her inten-
tion of casting no more pearls before swine.
She was silent, and the firelight playing in her soft,
lively eyes gave her a kind of mystery which for the
first time allowed Reuben a glimpse into the sources of
her attraction. She was utterly unlike anything there
was or had been in his life, the only thing he knew that
did not smell of earth. The pity of it was that he loved
that strong-smelling earth so much.
240 SUSSEX GORSE
"Alice," he said suddenly "Do you think as how
you could ever care about Boarzell ? "
" No, I'm quite sure I couldn't."
" Not ever?"
" Never."
"Why?"
" Because I hate it. It's spoiling your life. It's
making a beast and a maniac of you. You think of
nothing absolutely nothing but a miserable rubbish-
heap that most people would be throwing their old
kettles on."
" That's just the point, my gal. Where most foalkses
'ud be throwing old kettles, I shall be growing wheat."
" And what good will that do you ? "
"Good! when I've two hundred acres sown with
grain ! "
" Yes, grain that's fertilised with the rotting remains
of all that ought to have made your life good and
sweet."
" You woan't understand. There's naun in the world
means anything to me but my farm. Oh, Alice, if you
could only see things wud my eyes and stand beside me
instead of agaunst me."
" Then there would be no more friendship between us.
What unites us is the fact that we are fighting each
other."
" Doan't talk rubbidge, liddle gal It's because I see
all the fight there is in you that I'd sooner you fought
for me than agaunst me. Couldn't you try, Alice ? "
His voice had sunk very low, almost to sweetness. A
soft flurry of pink went over her face, and her eyelids
drooped. Then suddenly she braced herself, pulled her-
self taut, grew combative again, though her voice shook.
" No, Reuben, I could never do anything but fight
your schemes. I think you are wasting and spoiling
your life, and there's no use expecting me to stand by
you."
TREACHERIES 241
He now realised the full extent of his peril, because
for the first time he saw her position unmasked. She
would never beguile him with the thought that she
could help him in his life's desire ; she would not alter
the essential flavour of their relationship to suit his taste
rather she would force him to swallow it, she would
subdue by strength and not by stealth, and fight him to
the end.
He must escape, for if he surrendered now the battle
was over, and he would have betrayed Boarzell the
loved to something he loved less loved less, he knew it,
though he wavered.
He rose to his feet. The kitchen was dark, with
eddying sweeps of shadow in the corners which the fire-
light caressed while a single star put faint ghostly
romance into the window.
" I I must be gitting back home."
Alice rose too, and for a moment he was surprised that
she did not try to keep him ; instead, she said :
" It's late."
He moved a step or two towards the door, and
suddenly she added in a low broken voice :
" But not too late."
The floor seemed to rise towards him, and the star in
the window to dance down into Castweasel woods and
up again.
Alice stood in the middle of the room, her face bloomed
with dusk and firelight, her hands stretched out towards
him. , . .
There was silence, in which a coal fell. She still stood
with her arms outstretched; he knew that she was
calling him as no woman had ever called him with
all that of herself which was in his heart, part of his own
being.
" Reuben."
"Mce."
He came a few steps back into the room. . .
242 SUSSEX GORSE
It was those few steps which lost him to her, for they
brought him within sight of BoarzeH framed in the
window, where Castweasel woods had been. It lay in a
great hush, a great solitude, a quiet beast of power and
mystery. It seemed to call to him through the twilight
like a love forsaken. There it lay, Boarzell strong,
beautiful, desired, untamed, still his hope, still his
battle, And Alice ? . . . He gave her a look, and left
her,
" I once toald a boy of mine," he said to himself as
he crossed the Moor, " that the sooner he found he could
do wudout love the better. , . . Well, I reckon I'm not
going to be any weaker than my words/'
BOOK V
ALMOST UNDER
T") EUBEN did not go back to Cheat Land for
IX several weeks. Those five minutes had been
too much for him. He would never again risk
putting himself in the power of things he did not under-
stand. Besides, he felt vaguely that after what had
happened Alice would not want to see him. She had
humiliated herself, or rather he had humiliated her
for she had put out in one swift dark minute all the
powers of her nature to bind him, and she had failed.
He remembered her voice when she whispered, "But
not too late," and her eyes afterwards, smouldering in
shadow, and her little hands held out to him. . . .
There had been nothing definite, obvious, or masterful,
yet in those few words and actions her whole self had
pleaded on its knees and he had turned away.
But sometimes what kept him from her more than the
thought of her humiliation was the thought of his own,
For sometimes it seemed almost as if she had humbled
him more than he had humbled her. He could not tell
whether this sick feeling of shame which occasionally
swamped him was due to the fact that he had so nearly
surrendered to her or to the fact that he had not quite
done so. Sometimes he thought it was the latter. The
whole thing was ridiculous and perplexing, a lesson to
him not to adventure into subtleties but to keep in
communion with the broad plain things of earth.
243
244 SUSSEX GORSE
Early in May he found a visit to Cheat Land forced
upon him. Jury wanted to buy a cow of his, but one of
the sudden chills to which he was liable kept him indoors.
Reuben was anxious to sell the animal, and, there being
one or two weak points about her, would trust nobody
but himself with the negotiations. However, the visit
would be quite safe, for he was not likely to see Alice
alone, indeed it was probable that he might not see her
at all.
On reaching the farm he heard several voices in the
kitchen, and found the invalid in an arm-chair by the
fire, talking to an oldish man and a rather plump pretty
girl of about twenty. Jury was an intellectual, incom-
petent-looking fellow, who seemed elderly, but at the
same time gave one the impression that this was due to
his health. His grey hair straggled over temples where
the skin was stretched tight and yellow as parchment,
his cheeks were hollow, his eyes astonishingly like his
daughter's. He was one of the arguments against the
marriage.
Alice had let Reuben in. She looked a little tired,
but otherwise quite cheerful, and she welcomed him
simply and naturally.
" This is Miss Lardner/' she said, introducing him to
the girl, " and Mr. Lardner of Starvecrow."
" I heard as how Starvecrow had been bought at
last," said Reuben; "not a bad farm, Muster, if you're
fur green crops mostly/*
" Potatoes/' said Lardner, " potatoes if farmers 'ud
only grow potatoes and not think so much of grain and
rootses, we shudn't hear of so many of 'em going bust/'
The conversation became agricultural, but in spite of
the interest such a topic always had for him, Reuben
could not help watching the two girls. Miss Lardner,
whom Alice called Rose, was a fine creature, so different
from the other as to make the contrast almost laughable.
She wa# tall and strapping in later life she might
ALMOST UNDER 245
become over stout, but at present her figure was splendid,
superbly moulded and erect. She looked like a young
goddess as she sat there, one leg crossed over the other,
showing her white stocking almost to the knee. There
was something arrogant in her attitude, as if she was
aware of the splendour of her body, and gloried in it.
Her face too was beautiful though less classically so
rather broad, with high flat cheek-bones, and a wide
full-lipped mouth which would have given it almost a
Creole look, if it had not been for her short delicate
nose and her fair ruddiness. Her hair seemed to
hesitate between gold and brown her eyes between
boldness and languor.
Reuben found himself glancing at her continually,
and though she seldom met his eyes, he knew that she
was aware of his scrutiny. He sometimes felt that
Alice was aware of it too.
As the conversation wore on, and became more
general, Lardner said something about going over to
Snailham and taking Rose home on the way.
" Oh, no, Uncle I don't want to go. Alice has asked
me to stay to supper."
" But you can't go home alone, and I can't wait wud
you, surelye."
" 111 take Miss Lardner home," said Reuben.
Directly he had said the words, he looked over at
Rose to see how she would receive them. Her eye-
lashes lay black and curly against her cheek, then they
lifted slowly, and her eyes looked out from under the
half -raised lids with a kind of demure roguishness. At
the same time her lower lip seemed to quiver and plump
out, while the corners of her mouth rose and curled. He
suddenly felt a desire to plant a kiss fairly on that wet
red mouth, which from away across the room seemed
to pout towards him.
246 SUSSEX GORSE
2.
Supper was a quiet meal. Old Jury and his invalid
wife sat at each end of the table, while Alice did most
of the helping and waiting. They seemed a sorry three
to Reuben, pale, washed out, and weakly, their eyes
bright as birds' with the factitious light of their en-
thusiasms for things that did not matter. They ate
without much appetite, picking daintily at their food,
their knives never in their mouths. Reuben found
himself despising them as he despised the Bardons.
Rose did not talk much, but she ate heartily she
must be as healthy as she looked. Once or twice during
the meal Reuben caught himself staring at her lips
they were extraordinarily red, and at the end of the meal
the juice of her pudding had stained them purple.
She said that she must leave directly after supper.
Alice fetched her hat, which was not the kind that
Reuben had ever seen on country girls, being of the
fashionable pork-pie shape. All her clothes were
obviously town-made ; she wore a blue stuff dress, tight-
fitting round her bust and shoulders, full and flounced
in the skirt afterwards he heard that Rose had spent
some years with relations in London before coming to
live at Starvecrow.
He gave her his arm, said good-bye to Alice in the
doorway, and went through the little garden where
flowers crowded out vegetables in a very unbusiness-like
way, into the lane which wound past Cheat Land afcd
round the hanger of Boarzell, to the farms of the Brede
Valley.
Rose, a little to his surprise, began to chatter volubly.
She talked very much like a child, with naive comments,
about simple things. She asked trivial questions, and
screamed with delight when some dusk-blinded bird
flew against her breast and dashed down heavily into
ALMOST UNDER 24?
the ruts. She exclaimed at the crimson moon which
rose behind the hedge like a hot penny she laughed at
the slightest provocation ; and yet all the while he was
conscious of an underlayer of shrewdness, he had an
extraordinary conviction of experience.
Besides, while she laughed and babbled like a child,
her eyes continually rose towards his with a woman's
calculated boldness. They spoke something quite
different from her lips the combination was maddening;
and those lips, too, in their rare silences, were so unlike
the words they uttered that he scarcely knew whether
he wanted most to silence them completely or never let
them be silent.
" I don't like Alice Jury," she prattled, " she says
just the opposite of what you say. She never lets her-
self agree with anyone. She's a contradictious female."
Then suddenly she was silent and Reuben kissed
her.
He crooked his arm round her and held her close to
him, standing there in the lane. Her lips slowly parted
under his, then suddenly she threw her head back in a
kind of ecstasy, giving him the white expanse of her
neck, which he kissed, giddy with a soft fragrance that
rose from her clothes, reminding him a little of clover.
She was so obviously and naively delighted, that when
he drew himself up, his idea of her was again one of
extreme childishness. And yet it was evident that she
was used to kisses, and that he had kissed her at her own
unspoken invitation.
They walked on down the lane* Rose's chatter had
ceased, and a complete silence dropped between the
hedges. The moon had risen higher, and the western
hazels were bloomed with light. The moon was no longer
crimson in the dark sky, but had burnt down to copper,
casting a copper glow into the mists, staining all the
blues that melted into one another along the hills. Only
the middle of the lane was black like a well. Reuben
248 SUSSEX GORSE
and Rose could see each other's faces in a kind of rusty
glimmer, but their feet stumbled in the darkness, and
her hand lay clutching and heavy on his arm.
At last they came to Castweasel three old cottages
and a ruined one, leaning together in a hollow like mush-
rooms. Beside the ruined cottage a tree-trunk was
lying, and Rose suddenly stretched herself with a little
sigh.
" I'm tired let's sit down and rest a bit."
They sat down on the log, and she immediately crept
close to him like a child. He put his arm round her, and
once again she thrilled him with her own delight she
stole her arms round his neck, holding his head in the
crook of her elbows, and laughed with her mouth
against his. Then her hands crept into his hair, and
rumpled it, while she whispered like a child finding some
new virtue in its toy " How thick ! how thick ! " At
last she drew his head down to her breast, holding it
there with both hands while she dipped her kisses on
his eyes. . , .
Reuben was in ecstasy by this time. It was years
since he had caressed a woman, except casually, for he
considered that women interfered with his work. Rose's
eagerness could not cheapen her, for it was so childlike,
and she continued to give him that sense of deep
experience which robbed her attitude of insipidity. Her
delight in his kisses was somehow made sweeter to him
by the conviction that she could compare them with
other men's.
She began to laugh she became gay and mettlesomt*
Her whole nature seemed changed, and he found it hard
to think of her as the beautiful yet rather lumpish girl
who had sat in the silence of a good appetite at the
Cheat Land supper-table. Behind them the ruin of the
old cottage sent out bitter-sweet scents of decay its
crumbling plaster and rotting lath perfumed the night,
Fragrances strove in the air the scent of Rose's clothes,
ALMOST UNDER 249
and of her big curls tumbling on his shoulder, the scent
of still water, of dew-drenched leaves, and damp,
teeming soil sweet vagabond scents of bluebells,
puffed on sudden breezes. . . .
Reuben was growing drunken with it all he strained
Rose to him ; she was part of the night. Just as her
scents mingled with its scents, so he and she both
mingled with the hush of the lightless, sorrowless fields,
the blots of trees, the woods that whispered voicelessly.
* , . Above the hedges, stars winked and flashed,
dancing in the crystalline air. Right overhead the Sign
of Cancer jigged to its image in Castweasel Pool.
Reuben looked up, and through a gate he saw Boarzell
rearing like a shaggy beast towards him. He suddenly
became more aware of Boarzell than of anything in the
night, than of the flowers or the water or the stars, or
even Rose, drowsing against his shoulder with parted
lips. Boarzell filled the night. The breeze became
suddenly laden with scents of it the faint bitterness of
its dew-drenched turf where the bracken-crosiers were
beginning to uncurl, of its noon-smelling gorse, of its
heather - tangle, half budding, half dead, of its fir-
needles and its fir-cones, rotting and sprouting. All
seemed to blend together into a strong, heady, am-
moniacal smell ... the great beast of Boarzell domin-
ated the night, pawed Reuben, roared over him, made
him suddenly mad, clutching Rose till she cried out
with pain, kissing her till she broke free, and stood
before him pale and dishevelled, with anger in her eyes.
He sprang to his feet, the mood had passed the
beast of Boarzell had ceased to worry him.
" I'm sorry/' he said sheepishly,
" And well you may be," said Rose, " you've torn my
gown,"
They walked on down the lane ; she pouted and swung
her hat. Reuben, anxious to propitiate, picked prim-
roses under the hedge and gave them to her.
250 SUSSEX GORSE
She looked pleased at once, and began to eat them.
" Wot," said Reuben, " you eat flowers ? "
" Yes," she answered, " I love eating primroses
pick me some more."
So for the rest of the walk to Starvecrow, he picked
primroses, and she nibbled them with her white teeth,
which were small and even, except for the two canines,
which were pointed like a little animal's.
3-
During the next day or two Reuben thought a great
deal about Rose Lardner. He made covert enquiries
about her in the neighbourhood. He found out that she
was an orphan and old Lardner's only surviving relative.
He was an extremely prosperous man, and at his death
Rose would have all his money. Moreover, rumour gave
him a cancer which would carry him off before very long.
Reuben turned over these facts in his mind. He
realised what a fine thing it would be for Odiam if he
married Rose. Here was the very wife he wanted of
?ood standing in the neighbourhood, and something of
m heiress, young and healthy, and likely to give him
stout boys, and also exceedingly attractive in herself.
Under the circumstances he hardly knew what held
him back, what made the whole idea vaguely repugnant
to him. Surely it could not be his feeling for Alice Jury.
The terrible thought suggested itself that his love for
Alice would survive all the outward signs of its demo-
lition, that though beaten and killed and destroyed it
would haunt him disembodied. That was the secret of
its power its utter lack of corporiety, its independence
rf the material things a strong man could bend to Ms
will, so that, as it were, one could never lay hands on it,
but chased it for ever like a ghost.
Nevertheless, he called at Starvecrow and renewed
his impressions of Rose. They did not want much
ALMOST UNDER 251
adjustment ; he found her as he had found her that first
evening childlike in all things save love, indolent,
languorous, and yet with gay bursts of spirit which made
her charming. He noticed too how well dressed she was
he admired her stuff gown and neat buttoned boots,
so different from what he was accustomed to see on the
feet of his womenfolk ; he admired the crinkle and
gloss of her hair, so beautifully waved and brushed, and
scented with some lotion her hands, too, well kept and
white with shining pink nails, her trim muslin collar, the
clover scent of her garments ... it was all new, and
gave him somehow a vague feeling of self-respect.
When they were alone she was as eager as ever for his
love. He had a precious ten minutes with her in the
parlour at Starvecrow, at the end of which in came old
Lardner, with talk of crops and beasts. Reuben con-
sidered that he had some knowledge of farming which
was a long way for him to go and took him into
confidence about some of Odiam's affairs* The farm was
still causing him anxiety, and he felt in need of ready
money. He wanted to establish a milk round, with a
dairy shop in Rye, but he could not spare the capital.
That visit was the first of several others. Starvecrow
took the place of Cheat Land indeed, he seldom went
near Cheat Land now. Rose gave him all the refuge he
wanted from the vexings and thwartings of his daily life.
She was not, like Alice, a counter-irritant, but a sweet
drowse of tenderness and beauty in which he forgot his
disappointment, thinking of nothing but the lovely
woman he caressed.
She gave him sympathy, too, in a childlike way. She
did not like it if he interrupted his love-making to tell
her about his plans for Boarzell, but at other moments
she seemed to enjoy hearing him talk of his ambition,
and often, when the jar and failure of things depressed
him, she would take him in her arms, and soothe him
like a baby with " Of course you'll have Boarzell, my
252 SUSSEX GORSE
Reuben ; of course it will be yours you're so strong
and masterful, you're bound to get all you want."
Her delight in Hm never seemed to fail. Sometimes it
seemed to him strange that the difference in their ages
did not affect her more. She never gave him a hint that
she thought him too old for her. He once told her that
he was nearly fifty, but she had answered with a happy
laugh that she did not like boys.
As a matter of fact, Reuben at fifty was a lover of
whom any girl might still be proud. If a little grey had
come into his hair, it had merely been to give it the
gleam of polished iron, and contrast it more effectively
with the swarthiness of his skin. His teeth were as white
and even as when he was twenty, for he had never risked
spoiling them by too much tobacco his eyes, dark and
bright, were like a boy's ; his broad back was straight,
and his powerful arms could lift even the plump Rose to
his shoulder. He once carried her on his shoulder all the
way from Tide Barn to the beginning of Starvecrow lane.
4-
Towards the end of August, Reuben asked Rose to
marry him.
The request was not so much the outcome of passion
as might have been imagined from the form it took. It
was true that he was deeply enamoured of her, but it
was also true that for three months he had endured the
intoxication of her presence without definitely, or even
indefinitely, claiming her for his own. He had held
himself back till he had thoroughly weighed and
pondered her in relation to his schemes he was not
going to renounce Alice for a wife who would be herself
a drawback in another way.
However, though he had never deceived himself that
Rose's sympathetic tendernesses meant any real sharing
of his ambition, be was soon convinced that to marry her
ALMOST UNDER 253
would be materially to help himself in the battle which
was now dragging a little on his side. He wanted ready
money her settlements would provide that 5 and her
heirship of Lardner held out dazzling hopes for the
future. He wanted children where could he find a
healthier mother ? He wanted to raise the dignity of
Odiam, and could hardly have thought of a better means
than marriage with the niece of one of the wealthiest and
most important farmers in the parish* To crown all, he
gave himself an adorable woman, young, lovely, tender,
and gay. This consideration could not have dragged
him contrary to his ambition, but combined with it, it
could give to an otherwise very practical and material
plan all the heats of passion and the glories of romance.
The only disappointment was Rose's reception of his
offer. At first she was unaffectedly surprised. She had
looked upon the whole affair as a flirtation, of which she
had had several, and had never expected it to take such
a serious turn.
Even when she had recovered from her surprise, she
refused to give him an answer. He became suddenly
alarmed lest she thought him too old, and pressing her
for her reasons, found that the real matter was that she
did not want to sacrifice her freedom.
" Wot do you mean, sweetheart ? Doan't you love
me?"
" Of course I love you but it doesn't follow I want
to belong to you. Can't we go on as we are ? "
" You queer me, Rose. How can we go on as we are ?
it's like walking on a road that never leads nowhere.' 1
" Well, that's very nice I don't always want to go
somewhere every time I take a walk, I much prefer just
wandering."
" I doan't"
" Because you're so practical and business-like, and
I'm afraid you'd try and make me practical and business-
like too. That's why I said I wanted to be free,"
254 SUSSEX GORSE
" You sliall be free, Rose I promise you. You shall
do wotsumdever you please."
" Absolutely ' wotsumdever ' ? "
" Yes wudin reason, of course."
" Ah, that's it. Your reason mightn't be my reason. 11
" You wudn't find me unreasonable, dear."
" Well, I shall have to think it over/'
She thought it over for two months, during which
Reuben suffered all the torments of his lot. She soon
came to realise and appreciate her powers ; she dangled
hopes and fears with equal zest before his eyes, she
used his anxieties to stoke the furnaces of his passion,
till she had betrayed him into blazes and explosions
which he looked on afterwards with uneasy shame.
Once in sick amazement at himself he took refuge at
Cheat Land, and sat for an hour in Alice Jury's kitchen,
watching her sew. But the springs of his confidence were
dried, he could not tell Alice what he felt about Rose.
She knew, of course. All the neighbourhood knew he
was in love with Rose Lardner, and watched the
progress of his courtship with covert smiles.
Rose used often to come to Odiam, where she was at
first rather shy of Reuben's children, all of whom were
older than herself. In time, however, she outgrew her
shyness, and became of an exceedingly mad and romping
disposition. She ran about the house like a wild thing,
she dropped blackberries into Caro's cream, she tickled
Pete's neck with wisps of hay, she danced in the yard
with Jemmy. Reuben grew desperate he felt the
hopelessness of capturing this baby who played games
with his children ; and yet Rose was in some ways so
much older than they she loved to say risky things in
front of the innocent Caro, and howled with laughter
when she could not understand she loved to prod and
baffle the two boys, who in this respect were nearly as
inexperienced as their sister. Then, on the walk home
with Reuben, over Boarzell, she would retail these feats
ALMOST UNDER 255
of hers with gusto, she would invite his kisses, sting up
his passion she tormented him with her extraordinary
combinations of childishness and experience, shyness
and abandonment, innocence and corruption.
In time the state of his own mind reduced Reuben to
silence about his longings. He somehow lost the power
of picturing himself married to this turbulent, bewilder-
ing creature, half-woman, half-child. He clung to her
in silent kisses ; leading her home over Boarzell, he
would suddenly turn and smother her in his arms, while
his breast heaved with griefs and sighings he had not
known in the earlier weeks of his courtship.
Rose noticed this difference, and it piqued her. She
began to miss his continual protestations. Sometimes
she tried to stir them up again, but her bafflings had
reacted on herself ; she handled him clumsily, he was
too mazed to respond to her flicks* Then she became
sulky, irritable, slightly tyrannous even stinting her
kisses.
One night early in October he was taking her home.
They had crossed Boarzell, and were walking through
the lanes that tangle the valley north of Udimore. She
walked with her arm conventionally resting on his, her
profile demure in the starlight. He felt tired, not in his
body, but in his mind somehow life seemed very aim-
less and gloomy ; he despised himself because he craved
for her arms, for her light thoughtless sympathy.
" Why doan't you speak to me, Rose ? "
" I was thinking."
" Wot about ? "
" Oh, clothes and things."
He stopped suddenly in their walk, as he had often
done, and seized her in his arms, swinging her off her
feet, burying his face in her wraps to kiss her neck. She
kicked and fought him like a wild cat, and at last he
dropped her. r
" Why woan't you let me kiss you ? "
256 SUSSEX GORSE
" Because I won't."
She walked quickly, almost running, and he had to
stride to keep up with her.
" You're justabout cruel/' he said furiously,
" And so are you."
" Wot have I done ? "
"You've changed your mind about wanting to
marry me."
He stared at her with his mouth open.
" Rose "
" Well, don't gape at me. You know you have."
" I justabout haven't. It's you "
" It isn't me. I only asked for a little time to think
it over, and then you go and cool off."
"I cool off! My dear, I dudn't ever. I never
understood you're such a tedious liddle wild thing,"
" Well, do you want to marry me ? "
" Rose 1 "
" And you'U let me do as I like ? "
" Rose, marry me."
" Very well I will. But it's funny I should want
to."
Then suddenly her expression changed. Her eyes
half closed, her lips parted, and she held out her arms
to him with a laugh like a sob.
5-
Reuben and Rose were married in the January of
'70. It was the earliest date compatible with the
stocking of her wardrobe, a business which immediately
absorbed her to the exclusion of everything else.
Meantime Reuben, having repapered the parlour and
given a new coat of whitewash to the best bedroom
ceiling, discussed settlements with old Lardner. These
did not turn out as large as he had hoped the old man
was close, and attempts on his generosity only resulted
ALMOST UNDER 257
In embarrassing doubts as to the disinterestedness of
his son-in-law's affections. Reuben comforted himself
with the thought that Lardner most certainly had a
cancer.
At the wedding Rose fairly dazed the onlookers. She
wore a dress of heavy white satin, with a white lace
veil and a bustle. It was the first bustle that had
ever been seen in Peasmarsh, or even in Rye. In itself
it was devastating enough, but it soon acquired a pro-
phetic and metaphorical significance which made it
even more impressive. Spectators saw in it the forecast
of Odiam's downfall "He can't stand that," said
Brazier, the new man at Totease, " she's a Jezebubble."
" Only it aun't her head as she's tired this time/'
said Ticehurst. " She shud have worn it in front of
her, and then we shud have bin interested," said Cooper
of Kitchenhour.
Alice Jury and her father were in church. Reuben
saw them as he marched up the aisle with an enormous
flower in his buttonhole, accompanied by Ginner of
Socknersh.as his best man. It struck him that she
looked more pretty and animated than usual, in a
woolly red dress arid a little fur cap under which her
eyes were bright as a robin's. Even then he felt a little
offended and perplexed by her behaviour she should
have drooped it would have been more becoming if
she had drooped.
The remnants of his family were in a front pew Pete
with an elaborately curled forelock, Jemmy casting the
scent of cheap hair oil into the prevalent miasma of
camphor and moth-killer, and between the two boys,
Caro in an unbecoming hat which she wore at a wrong
angle, while her dark restless eyes devoured Rose's
creamy smartness, from her satin shoes to the wave of
curling-irons in her hair. Harry had been left at home
' he was in an impossible mood, tormented by some
dark current of memory* wandering from room to room
258 SUSSEX GORSE
as he muttered " Another wedding another wedding
we're always having weddings in this house/'
After the ceremony nearly a hundred guests were fed
at Starvecrow. All the most important farmers of the
neighbourhood were there, except of course Realf of
Grandturzel. Rose was like her name-flower, flushed
and scented. Very different from his earlier bride, she
sat beside Reuben with head erect and smiling lips
she drank with everyone, and the wine deepened the
colour of her cheeks and made her eyes like stars. She
talked, she laughed, she ate, she was so happy that her
glances, full of bold languor, swept round the table,
resting on all present as well as the chosen man she
was a gay wife.
Dancing at weddings was dying out as a local fashion,
so when the breakfast was over the guests melted away,
having eaten and drunk themselves into a desire for
sleep. Reuben's family went home. He and Rose
lingered a little with her uncle, then as the January
night came crisping into the sky and fields, he drove
her to Odiam in his gig, as long ago he had driven
Naomi. She leaned against his shoulder, for he wanted
both hands for his horse, and her hair tickled his neck.
She was silent for about the first time that day, and as
eager for the kisses he could give her while he drove as
Naomi had been shy of them. Above in the cold black
sky a hundred pricks of fire shuddered like sparks the
lump of Boarzell was blocked against a powder of
stars.
At Odiam Rose shook off her seriousness. Supper
was ready, and undaunted by the huge meal she had
already eaten, she sat down to it with a hearty appetite.
Her step-children stared at her curiously Rose had a
gust of affection for them. Poor things ! their lives
had been so crude and dull and innocent. She must
give them a little brightness now, soften the yoke of
Reuben's tyranny that girl Caro, for instance, she must
ALMOST UNDER 259
give her some pretty clothes and show her how to
arrange her hair becomingly.
Supper was a very gay meal the gayest there had
ever been at Odiam, Rose laughed and talked, as
at Starvecrow, and soon her husband and the boys were
laughing with her. Some of the things she said were
rather daring, and Caro had only a dim idea of what she
meant, but Rose's eyes rolling mischievously under the
long lashes, and the tip of her tongue showing between
her lips, gave her words a devilish bite even if only half
understood. Somehow the whole atmosphere of the
Odiam kitchen was changed it was like the lifting of
a curtain, the glimpsing of a life where all was gay,
where love and ambition and all solemn things were the
stuff of laughter.
The boys beat the handles of their knives on the table
and rolled in their chairs with wide-open mouths as if
they would burst ; Reuben leaned back with a great
pride and softening in his eyes, round which many hard
lines had traced themselves of late ; Caro's lips were
parted and she seemed half enchanted, half bewildered
by the other woman's careless merriment. Only Harry
took no interest and looked dissatisfied "Another
wedding," he mumbled as he dribbled his food un-
noticed over the cloth " we're always having weddings
in this house."
It was strange that during this gay meal the strongest
link was forged between Rose and Caro. Two natures
more utterly unlike it would be hard to find Caro's
starved ignorance of love and aged familiarity with
dustier matters made her the antithesis of Rose, a child
in all things save those of the affections ; but the two
women's hearts met in their laughter. It was Rose who
invited, Caro who responded, for Rose in spite of her
years and inexperience had the one advantage^which
made her the older of the two. She was drawn to Caro
partly from essential kindness, partly because she appro*
260 SUSSEX GORSE
dated the luxury of pitying her Caro responded with
all the shy devotion of a warped nature going out towards
one who enjoys that for which it unconsciously pines,
Rose's beauty, jollity, and happiness made her a goddess
to the less fortunate girl.
After supper Rose turned towards her.
" Will you come up and help me unpack ? "
Caro flushed with pleasure a light had kindled in
her grey life, and she found herself looking forward to
days of basking.
They went up together to the huge low-raftered bed-
room, which struck horribly cold.
" Ugh ! " said Rose " no fire 1 "
" But it's a bedroom."
"That's no reason for not having a fire, I shall
freeze. Let's have the servant up to light one."
" Oh, no, I'll light it ; Mary's busy clearing the
table. But I reckon as faather woan't be pleased."
" I'll make him pleased. You leave father to me for
the future."
Caro fetched some wood and turf and laid the fire, to
which Rose applied a match, feeling that by this she
had done her share of the work. Then they began to
unpack. There were two trunks full of clothes, and Rose
complicated matters by refusing to take things out as
they came but diving after various articles she particu-
larly wanted.
" I want my blue negleegy I must show you my blue
negleegy," she panted, up to her elbows in underlines
" Oh, here it is ! what do you think of it ? "
" It's silk ! " said Caro in a hoarse whisper.
"Of course it is and the very best silk too. I'll
put it on. Please undo my dress."
Caro helped her off with her wedding-dress, and after
having recovered her breath, which she lost completely
at the sight of the lace on her chemise, she helped her
arrange the " negleegy," and watched her open-mouthed
ALMOST UNDER 261
as she posed in it before the fragment of looking-
glass.
" Isn't it chick ? " said Rose, " I got; it in, Hastings
they say it is copied from a Paris model. Now let's go
on with the unpacking."
They went on that is to say Rose leaned back in
her chair and directed Caro as she took the things out
of the trunks. The girl was fairly bewildered by what
she saw the laced chemises, the flounced petticoats,
the dainty nightgowns with transparent necks. " But
you'll show through/ 1 she said in tones of horror as she
displayed one of these, and could not understand why
Rose rolled in her chair with laughter.
There were little pots of cream and bottles of hair<-
lotion, there were ebony-backed brushes, patent leather
shoes, kid gloves, all sorts of marvels which Caro had
seen nowhere but in shops. As she unpacked she felt a
kind of soreness in her heart. Why should Rose have
all these beautiful things, these laces, these perfumes,
these silks and ribbons, while Caro wore nothing but
stuff and calico or smelt of anything sweeter than milk ?
As she glanced at Rose, leaning back in the most com-
fortable chair to be found in that uncomfortable room
the firelight dancing on the silken ripples of her gown,
her neck and arms gleaming through clouds of lace the
soreness woke into a pain. Rose had something more
even than silks and laces. She had love. It was love
that made her hold her chin so proudly, it was love that
made her cheeks flush and her eyes glow. And no one
had ever loved Caro she had never heard a man's
voice in tenderness, or felt even so much as a man's
hand fondle hers. . . .
" Caro, would you mind brushing my hair ? "
Rose was taking out the pins, and curls and tendrils
of hair began to fall on her shoulders. Caro took the
brush, and swept it over the soft mass, gleaming like
spun glass. A subtle perfume rose from it, the rub of
262 SUSSEX GORSE
it on her hand was like silk, Rose's eyes closed as the
brush stroked her, and her lips parted slowly into a smile.
Then suddenly, without warning, all this love and
happiness and possession became too much^ for Caro
she dropped the brush and the scented hair, and burst
into passionate tears,
6,
Reuben at once laid out his wife's money to the best
advantage. He bought twenty cows, good milkers, and
started a dairy business in Rye. A shop was opened
near the Landgate, which sold milk, butter, cream, and
eggs from Odiam. He also tried to establish a milk-
round in Rye, sending circulars to inns and private
houses. He engaged a young woman to serve in the
shop, and boys to drive his milk-carts. This meant a
big expenditure, and almost all Rose's money was
swallowed up by it.
[x Reuben was surprised at Lardner's attitude. The old
man refused to look upon this spending of his niece's
dowry as an excellent investment, which would soon
bring in returns a hundredfold he would have pre-
ferred to see her money lying safe and useless in Lewes
Old Bank, and accused Backfield of greed and reckless-
ness. Reuben in his turn was disgusted with Lardner's
parsimony, and would have quarrelled with him had he
not been afraid of an estrangement. The farmer of
Starvecrow could not speak without all sorts of dreadful
roars and clearings in his throat, and Reuben hopefully
observed the progress of the cancer.
Rose herself did not much care how her money was
spent as long as she had the things she wanted. First of
these at present was Reuben's love, and that she had in
plenty. She was a perpetual source of delight to him ;
her beauty, her astounding mixture of fire and inno-
cence, her good humour, and her gaiety were even more
intoxicating than before marriage. He felt that he had
ALMOST UNDER 263
found the ideal wife. As a woman she was perfect, so
perfect that in her arms he could forget her short-
comings as a comrade. After all, what did it matter if
she failed to plumb the depths of his desire for things
outside herself, as long as she herself was an undying
source of enchantment ? smoothing away the wrinkles
of his day with her caresses, giving him love where she
could not give him understanding, her heart where she
could not give her brain* During the hours of work and
fret he would long for her, for the quiet warm evenings,
and the comfort which the wordless contact of her
brought. She made him forget his heaviness, and gather
strength to meet his difficulties, giving him draughts of
refreshment for to-morrow's journey in the desert.
His times were still anxious. Even if the milk-round
turned out a success, it was bound to be a loss to him
during the first year. A multiplication of servants also
meant for a man like Reuben a multiplication of trials.
He would have liked to do all the work himself, and
could trust no one to do it properly for him. His under-
lings, with their detached attitude towards the farm,
were a perpetual source of anxiety and contempt. His
heart sickened for those stalwart sons he had dreamed
of in the days of his first marriage a dream which
mocked him daily with its pitiful materialisation in the
shred of family that still worked for Odiam. Reuben
longed for Rose to have a child, but the months passed,
and she had no favourable answer to his repeated
questionings, which struck her at first as amusing, later
as irritating, and at last at the suggestion of one or
two female friends as indelicate.
She herself had no wish for motherhood, and ex-
pressed this so openly that in time Reuben began to
entertain dark doubts of her, and to feel that she would
avoid it if she could. Yet she in herself was so utterly
sweet that he could not find it in his heart to be angry, or
e anything but tepder repionstyance wjiep she ve?:e4
264 SUSSEX GORSE
him with her attitude towards life in general and
marriage in particular.
She gulped at pleasure, and she gave him so much
that he could not deny her what she craved for, though
the mere decorativeness of her tastes amazed and some-
times appalled him. She coaxed him to buy her new
curtains and chair-covers for the parlour, and to turn it
into a room which could be used, where she could lounge
in her pretty frocks, and entertain her women-friends
of whom she had a startling number to afternoon tea,
with cream, and little cakes that cost an amount of
money altogether disproportionate to the space that
they filled in one's inside. She demanded other enter-
tainments too visits to Rye, and even to Hastings, and
jaunts to fairs other than the sanctioned one on BoarzelL
Reuben was delighted with her fashionable clothes,
the dainty things with which she managed to surround
herself, her fastidious care for her person, her pomadings,
her soapings, her scentings but he sometimes had vague
doubts of this beautiful, extravagant, irresponsible
creature. He was like a man stirring in a happy dream,
realising in the midst of it that he dreams, and must
some day awake,
7-
The year J yi was on the whole a bad one. The
summer was parched, the autumn sodden, and the
winter frozen. Reuben's oats after some excellent
promises failed him abruptly, as was the way with crops
on BoarzelL His wheat was better in quality but poor
in quantity, his mangolds had the rot, and his hops,
except for the old field by the lane, were brown and
ragged with blight.
This would have been bad enough in any year, but in
times when he bore the burden of his yet profitless milk-
round it was only a little short of catastrophe. Making
every allowance for a first year, that milk-round had
ALMOST UNDER 265
disappointed him. He found private custom hard to
win, and even the ceasing of French dairy supplies,
owing to the Franco-Prussian war, did not bring him
the relief he had hoped. One or two small farms on the
borders of Rye catered in dairy stuff for its inhabitants,
and he found them hard to outbid or outwit. Also,
owing to the scarcity of grass feed, it was a bad milk
year, and poor supplies were put down by consumers to
the new milkman, and in more than one case custom
was withdrawn.
Reuben faced his adversity with set teeth and a
dogged countenance. He had not been farming thirty
odd years to be beaten casually by the weather. Scorch-
ing heat and blighting cold, the still blanker doom of the
trickling, pouring rain the wind that seeded his corn,
and beat down his hay, and flung his hop-bines together
in muddled heaps the pests that Nature breeds by the
ten million out of her own putrefyings and misbe-
gettings all things in life from the lowest maggot to
the fiercest storm he was out to fight them. In
challenging Boarzell he had challenged them all.
In time his struggle began to modify his relations with
Rose. At first he had told himself that her uselessness
was only apparent. Though she herself did no fighting,
she gave such rest and refreshment to the soldier that he
went forth strengthened to the war. He had almost
begun to attribute to her his daily renewed courage, and
had once or twice been moved to show his gratitude by
acts of expensive indulgence.
Now slowly he began to see that this gratitude was
misleading better receive no comfort from Rose than
pay for it too dear. He must make her understand that
he could not afford to keep a useless and extravagant
wife, however charming she might be. Rose must do
her share, as Naomi had done, as his mother had done,
as his children had done.
Sometimes he would expostulate with her, and when
266 SUSSEX GORSE
she met Hs expostulations with blandishments, he would
feel himself yielding, and grow so furious that he would
turn upon her in rage and indignation. Rose was not
like Naomi ; in her own words " she gave as good as she
got," and once or twice, for the first time in his life,
Reuben found himself in loud and vulgar altercation
with a female* He had never before had a woman stand
up to him, and the experience was humiliating.
He had used to turn from Boarzell to her for rest, and
now he found himself turning from her to Boarzell. It
was part of the baffling paradox that the thing he
fought should also be the thing he loved, and the battle-
field his refuge. Out on the Moor, with the south-west
wind rolling over him like the waves of some huge earth-
scented sea, he drank in the spirit of conflict, he was
swept back into the cleanness and singleness of his
warfare. It was then that Boarzell nerved him for its
own subduing, stripped his heart of softness, cleansed it
of domestic fret. Rose and her love and sweetness were
all very well, but he was out for something greater than
Rose he must keep in mind that she was only a part of
things. Why, he himself was only a part of things, and
in his cravings and softenings must be conquered and
brushed aside even as Rose. In challenging Boarzell he
had challenged the secret forces of his own body, all the
riot of hope and weakness and desire that go to make
a man. The battle was not to be won except over the
leaped bodies of the slain, and on the summit of the
heap would lie his own.
The last piece of land had been exceptionally tough
even for Boarzell. It was a high strip, rxuining right
across the Moor from the edge of the twenty-acre piece
acquired in '67, over the high-road, to the borders of
Doozes. The soil was amazingly various it started in
ALMOST UNDER 267
the low grounds almost as clay, with runnels of red
water in the irrigation ditches, then passing through a
stratum of marl it became liniish, grey and brittle,
powdering under the spade. Reuben's ploughs tore over
it, turning up earth of almost every consistency and
colour, till the new ground looked like a smeared palette.
Towards Doozes it became clay again, and here oats
would grow, sedge-leaved and tulip-rooted, with puffy
awns. On the crest was rubble, poor stuff where even the
heather seemed to fight for existence.
Reuben struggled untiringly he tried manure as in
his first enterprising days, and a horrible stink of guano
told traffic on the road it was passing through Odiam
territory. Spades and ploughshares and harrows scored
and pulped the earth. Sometimes with breaking back
and aching head, the sweat streaming over his skin, he
would lift himself stiffly from the plough-handles, and
shake his fist at the desert round him. He had never
had such a tussle before, and put it down to the fact
that he was now for the first time on the high ground,
on the hard and sterile scab of the marl, where it
seemed as if only gorse would grow. He felt as if now
for the first time he was fighting against odds, his
earlier struggles were tame compared with this.
Often in the evenings, when the exhausting work of
the day was done, he would wander out on the Moor,
seeking as usual rest on the field of his labours. The
tuft of firs would grow black and featureless against the
dimming sky, and stars would hang pale lamps above the
fog, which smoked round Boarzell, veiling the fields, till
it seemed as if he stood alone on some desert island, in
the midst of a shoreless sea. All sounds would be
muffled, lights and shadows would blur, and he would
be alone with the fir-clump and the stars and the strong
smells of his land.
He would wait there till the dew hung in pearls on his
clothes and hair, and the damp chills of the night were
268 SUSSEX GORSE
in his bones. Then he would creep down from the Moor,
and go back into the warmth and love of the house
yet with this difference now, that he never quite forgot.
He would wake during the night after cruel dreams of
Boarzell stripped of its tilth, relapsed into wttdness ;
for a few agonised moments he would wonder if the
dream were true, and if he had not indeed failed. Some-
times he had to get out of bed and steal to the window,
to reassure himself with the sight of his diggings and
fencings. Then a horrible thought would attack him,
that though he had not yet actually failed, he was
bound to fail soon, that his task was too much for him,
and only one end possible. He would creep back into
bed, and lie awake till dawn and the restarting of the
wheel.
One comfort was that these evil summers had blighted
Grandturzel too. Realf 's fruit and grain had both done
badly, and he had been unfortunate with his cows, two
of which had died of garget. It was now that the
characters of the two rivals were contrasted, Realf
submitted at once to adversity, cut down his expenses,
and practically withdrew from the fight. Ambitious and
enterprising when times were good, he was not the man
to be still ambitious and enterprising when they were
bad. The greatness of his farm was not so much to
him as the comfort of his family. He now had a little
son, and was anxious that neither he nor Tilly should
suffer from bad speculations. He despised Reuben for
putting Odiam before his wife and children, and defying
adversity at the expense of his household.
" He'll do fur himself/ 1 he said to Tilly, as he watched
her bath the baby before the fire, " and where'll Ms old
farm be then ? "
" He's more likely to do fur someone else/ 1 said Tilly,
who knew her father.
" Wot about this gal he's married ? "
" I'm sorry fur her/'
ALMOST UNDER 269
" But she ddan't look as if she wanted it, surelye. I
never see anything so smart and well-set-up as she wur in
church last Sunday."
" Still, I'm sorry fur her I'm sorry fur any woman
as he takes up with. Now, Henry, you can't kiss baby
while I'm bathing him."
It sometimes grieved Tilly that she could not do more
for her brothers and sister. Pete did not want her help,
being quite happy in his work on the farm. But Jemmy
and Caro hated their bondage, and she wished she could
set them free. Reuben had sternly forbidden his
children to have anything to do with the recreant sister,
but they occasionally met on the road, or on the foot-
path across Boarzell. Once Caro had stolen a visit to
Grandturzel, and held the baby in her arms, and
watched her sister put him to bed ; but she was far too
frightened of Reuben to come again.
On Reuben's marriage Tilly had hoped that Rose
might do something for Caro, and indeed the girl had
lately seemed to have a few more treats and pleasures
in her life ; but from what she had heard and from what
she saw, the younger sister was afraid that Rose's good
offices were not likely to make for Caro's ultimate
happiness. Then comfortable little Tilly would sigh in
the midst of her own, and wish that everyone could
have what she had been given.
Benjamin occasionally stole afternoons in Rye if he
was discovered there would be furious scenes with
Reuben, but he had learned cunning, and also, being of
a sporting nature, was willing to take risks. Some
friends of his were building a ship down at the Camber,
Week by week he watched her grow, watched the good
timber fill in her ribs, watched her decks spread them-
selves, watched her masts rise, and at last smelt the
good smell of her tarring. She was a three-masted
schooner, and her first voyage was to be to the Canaries.
Her builders drank many a toast with Backfidd's
270 SUSSEX GORSE
truant son, who gladly risked his father's blows to be
with them in their work and hearty boozing. He forgot
the farmyard smells he hated in the shipyard smells he
loved, and his slavery in oaths and rum with buckets of
tar and coils of rope, and rousing chanties and stories
of strange ships.
Next spring the news came to Odiam that Benjamin
had run away to sea.
9.
It was Rose who had to tell Reuben.
Benjamin had given no one the faintest hint of his
plans ; indeed for the last two or three weeks his behaviour
had been unusually good. Then one morning, when
Reuben was at Robertsbridge market, he disappeared
Handshut could not find him to take his place in the
lambing shed. Rose was angry, for she had wanted
young Handshut to hang some curtains for her one
cause of disagreement between her and Reuben was her
habit of coaxing the farm-hands to do odd jobs about
the house.
That same evening, before her husband was back, a
letter came for Rose. It was from Benjamin at Rye,
announcing that he was sailing that night in the Rother
Lady for Las Palmas. He was sick of the farm, and
could not stand it any longer. Would Rose tell his
father?
Rose was not sorry to see the last of Benjamin, whom
she had always despised as a coarse lumpkinish youth,
whose clothes smelt strongly either of pitch or manure.
But she dreaded breaking the news to Reuben. She
disliked her husband's rages, and now she would have
to let one loose. Then suddenly she thought of some-
thing, and a little smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.
Reuben came in tired after a day's prodding and
bargaining in Robertsbridge inarket-place. Rose, like
ALMOST UNDER 271
a wise woman, gave him his supper, and then, still wise*
came and sat on his knee.
" Ben . . ."
" Well,' fiddle Rose."
" I've some bad news for you/'
"Wot?"
" Jemmy's gone for a sailor."
He suddenly thrust her from him, and the lines which
had begun to soften on his face as he held her, re-
appeared in their old harshness and weariness.
" Gone ! "
" Yes. I had a letter from him this evening. He
couldn't stand Odiam any longer, so he ran away* He's
sailed for a place called Palxna."
Reuben did not speak. His hands were clenched on
the arms of his chair, and for the first time Rose noticed
that he looked old. A faint feeling of disgust came over
her. She shivered, and took a step backwards as if she
would leave him. Then her waim good nature and her
gratitude to the man who had made her so happy,
drove away the unnatural mood. She came close, and
slipped her soft arms round his neck, pressing her lips
to his.
He groaned.
" You mustn't fret, Reuben."
" How can I help it ? they're all gone now save one
. . . my boys. . . ."
" Perhaps there'll be others."
She had slid back to his knee, and the weight and
warmth of her comforted him a little. He lifted his
head quickly at her words.
" Others ? "
"Yes, why not?"
Her bold sweet eyes were looking into his and her
mouth was curved like a heart,
" Rose, Rose my dear, my liddle dear you doan't
mean "
272 SUSSEX GOKSE
" Of course I mean. You needn't look; so surprised*
Such a thing has been known to happen/ 1
" Doan't go laughing at me, but tell me when ? "
" In October."
"Oh, God! oh, God!"
His rapture and excitement alarmed her. His eyes
blazed he threw back his head and laughed in ecstasy.
Then he seized her, and crumpled her to him, covering
her face, her neck, her hair, her ears, with kisses, mur-
muring broken phrases of adoration and gratitude.
Rose was definitely frightened, and broke free with
some violence.
" Oh, stop it, Ben ! can't you see you're spoiling my
dress? Why should you get in such a taking ? You've
had children before, and they've all been failures I
expect this one will only be like the rest."
10.
Rose's child was born towards the end of October.
Once more Reuben had a son, and as he looked down on
the little red hairless thing all his hopes and dreams
were built anew. He had always lived too near the earth
to let experience thump him into cynicism. He raised
as glorious dreams over this baby as he had raised over
the others, and seen crumble into ashes. Indeed, the
fact that his earlier hopes had failed made him warm
himself more gratefully at this rekindling. He saw
himself at last raised out of the pit of difficulty he
would not lose this boy as he had lost the others, he
would perhaps be softer and more indulgent, he would
at all events be wiser, and the child should indeed be a
son to him and to Odiam. " Unto Us Reuben and
Odiam a child is born ; unto Us a son is given/ 1
He was soon confirmed in his idea that the birth had
brought him luck. Before little David was a week old,
the welcome news came that Lardner had died. For
ALMOST UNDER 273
some time he had been able to swallow only milk food,
and his speech had been reduced to a confused roaring,
but his death at this juncture seemed to Reuben a happy
coincidence, an omen of good fortune for himself and his
son.
He was so pleased that he forgot to veil his pleasure
before Rose, whose grief reminded him of the fact that
Lardner was a near and dear relation, whose death must
be looked upon as a chastisement from heaven. In a fit
of compunction for his behaviour, he ordered a complete
suit of mourning, in which he attended the funeral. He
was soft and benign to all men now, and soothed Rose's
ruffled spirit by showing himself to her in all the glory of
a top-hat with crape weepers before setting out for
Starvecrow.
He himself had helped plan the obsequies, which
were carried out with all possible pomp by a Rye under-
taker. After the ceremony there was a funeral meal at
Starvecrow, where sedate joints and solemn whiskies
were partaken of in the right spirit by the dozen or so
men and women who were privileged to hear old Lardner's
will. This was read by the deceased's lawyer, and one
or two pleased malicious glances were darted at Reuben
from under decorously lowered lids. He sat with his
fists doubled upon his knees, hearing as if in a night-
mare:
" I bequeath the farm of Starvecrow, with all lands,
stock, and tools pertaining thereto, also the house and
fixtures, together with seven thousand pounds to
Henry Robert Crick of Lone MiUs, Ontario, Canada,
my dear son by Marion Crick My household furniture
and fifty pounds free of legacy duty I bequeath to my
niece, Rose Backfield, wife of Reuben Backfield of
Odiamu"
Reuben felt da^ed and sick, the solemn faces of the
T
274 SUSSEX GORSE
mourners seemed to leer at him, he was seized by a
contemptuous hatred of his kind. There was some
confused buzzing talk, but he did not join in it. He
shook hands deliriously with the lawyer, muttered some-
thing about having to get back, and elbowed his way
out of the room. Pete had driven over to fetch him in
his gig, as befitted the dignity of a yeoman farmer and
nephew-by-marriage of the deceased, but Reuben
angrily bade him go home alone. He could not sit still,
he must walk, stride off his fury, the frenzy of rage and
disgust and disappointment that consumed him.
What business had old Lardner to have a natural
son ? Never had the laws of morality seemed to Reuben
so august and necessary as then, or their infringement
more contemptible. He was filled with a righteous
loathing of this crapulous libertine who, perpetuated
the vileness of some low intrigue by bequeathing his
worldly goods to his bastard. Meantime his virtuously
married niece was put off with fifty pounds and some
trashy furniture, Reuben fairly grovelled before the
seventh commandment that afternoon.
He staggered blindly along the road. His head swam
with rage, and also, it must be confessed, with something
else for he was "not used to drinking whisky, which
some obscure local tradition considered the only decent
beverage at funerals. His face was flushed, and every
now and then something would be whirled round by
the wind and whip his cheeks and blind him momentarily
in a black cloud. At first he was too confused to grapple
with it, but when two long black arms suddenly wound
themselves about his neck, nearly choking him, he
remembered his hat with the crape weepers, and his
rage from red-hot became white-hot and cinerating.
He tore off the hat with its long black tails, and flung; it
into the ditch with a volley of those emasculate rnths
which are all the swearing of a Sussex man.
Afterwards he felt better, but he was still fuming
ALMOST UNDER 275
when he came to Odiam, and dashed up straight to
Rose's bedroom, where she lay with the ten-days-old
David and a female friend from Rye, who had come in
to hear details about her confinement. Both, not to
say all three, were startled by Reuben's sudden entrance,
crimson and hatless, his collar flying, the dust all over
him.
" Here ! Wot d'you think ? " he shouted ; " if that
old man aun't left all his money to a bastard."
"Don't be so excited, Ben," said Rose; "you've no
business to come bursting in here like this."
" Remember your wife's delicate," said the lady friend.
" Well, wot I want to know is why you dudn't tell
me all this afore."
" How could I ? I didn't know how uncle was going
to leave his money."
" You might have found out, and not let me in fur all
this, Here I've bin and gone and spent all your settle-
ments on a milk-round, which I'd never have done if I
hadn't thought summat more 'ud be coming in later."
" 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."
" I like that and you the most expensive woman to
keep as ever was."
" Hold your tongue, Ben. I'm surprised at you."
" I justabout will speak. A purty mess you've got
me into. You ought to have told me before we married
as he had a son out in Canada."
" I didn't know. This is the first I've heard of it.
Anyhow, you surely don't mean to say you married me
for my money."
" Well, I wouldn't have married you if you hadn't
got none."
" For shame ! " said the lady friend.
Rose burst into tears, and young David, interrupted
276 SUSSEX GORSE
in the midst of an excellent meal, sent up a piercing,
wail.
" You'd better go downstairs till you know how toi
speak to your wife properly/' said the female from Rye.
" My wife's deceived me ! " shouted Reuben. " I made|
sure as she'd come in fur thousands of pounds when 1
old Lardner died, and all she's got out of him is fifty
pounds and his lousy furniture,"
"Furniture?" said Rose, brisking up; "why fromi
what you said I thought there was nothing. I could dol
with some furniture. I want a bedstead with brass
knobs."
" Well, you shan't have it. I'll justabout sell the
whole lot. You can't prevent me."
Rose's sobs burst forth afresh. Her friend ran up to
her and took her in her arms, badly squeezing poor
David, who became purple and entirely animal in his
remonstrances.
Then the two women fairly stormed at Reuben. They
told him he was a money-grubber, an unnatural father,
that he had been drinking, that he ought to be ashamed
of himself, that he had only got what he deserved.
Reuben tried to stand up to them, but Rose had an
amazing power of invective, and her friend, who was a
spinster, but sometimes forgot it, filled in the few
available pauses so effectively that in the end the
wretched husband was driven from the room, feeling
that the world held even worse things than wealthy
and perfidious libertines,
Of course there was a reconciliation. Such things had
begun to loom rather large in Reuben's married life. He
had never had reconciliations with Naomi the storms
had not been fierce enough to warrant a special celebra-
tion of the calms. But he and Rose were always being
ALMOST UNDER 277
reconciled. At first he had looked upon these episodes as
sweets of matrimony, more blessed than any amount of
honeymoon, but now he had gone a stage further and
saw them merely as part of the domestic ritual that
very evening when he held Rose and the baby together
in his big embrace he knew that in a day or two he would
be staling the ceremony by another repetition.
He now began to crave for her active interest in his
concerns. Hitherto he had not much missed it, it had
been enough for him if when he came in tired and
dispirited from his day's work, she had kissed him and
rumpled back the hair from his forehead and called him
her " poor old man." Her caresses and sympathy had
filled the gap left by her help and understanding. But
now he began to want something more. He saw the
hollowness of her endearments, for she did nothing to
make his burden lighter. She refused to realise the
seriousness of his position -left stranded with an under
taking which he would never have started if he had not
been certain of increased capital in the near future. She
was still extravagant and fond of pleasure, she either
could not or would not master the principles of economy ;
she saw the fat lands of Odiam round her, and laughed at
her husband when he told her that he was crippled with
expenses, and in spite of crops and beasts and barns
must live as if he were a poor man.
Of course, he had been rash he saw now that he had
been a fool to speculate with the future. But who could
have foretold that heir of Lardner's? no one had ever
heard of him in Peasmarsh, and most people were as
astonished as Reuben though not so disgusted. Some-
times he had an uneasy feeling that Lardner himself had
not thought much about his distant son till a year or
two ago. He remembered how the old man had dis-
approved of the way Rose's settlements were spent, and
horrible conjectures would assail him that some earlier
will had been revoked, and Rose disinherited because her
278 SUSSEX GORSE
uncle did not wish to put more money into her husband's
pocket.
After all, fifty pounds and some furniture was very
little to leave his only niece, who had lived with him,
and had been married from his house. It was nonsense
to plead the excuse that she was comfortably settled
and provided for the old man knew that Backfield had
made a desperate plunge and could not recoup himself
properly without ready money. He must have drawn
up his will in the spirit of malice Reuben could imagine
him grinning away in his grave. " Well, Ben Backfield,
IVe justabout sold you nicely, haven't I ? next to no
capital, tedious heavy expenses, and a wife who doan't
know the difference between a shilling and a soverun.
You thought you'd done yourself unaccountable well,
old feller, I reckon. Now you've found out your
mistake. And you ean't git even wud me where I am.
He! He!"
Reuben would imagine the corpse saying all sorts of
insulting things to him, and he had horrible nightmares
of its gibes and mockery. One night Rose woke in the
dubious comfort of the new brass bed which she had
wheedled Reuben into sparing from the auction to
find her husband kneeling on his pillow and pinning some
imaginary object against the wall while he shouted
" I've got you, you old grinning ghosty now we'll see
who's sold ! "
She thought this immensely funny, and retailed it
with glee to her female friends who continued to invade
the place. The multitude^of these increased as time went
by, for Rose had the knack of attaching women to her-
self by easy bonds. She was extremely confidential on
intimate subjects, and she was interested in clothes
indeed in that matter she was even practical, and a vast
amount of dressmaking was done on the kitchen table,
much to the disorganisation of Caro's cooking.
Sometimes there would be males too, and Reuben
ALMOST UNDER 279
found that he could be jealous on occasion* It annoyed
him to see a young counter-jumper from Rye sitting in
the parlour with an unmanly tea-cup, and he would
glare on such aristocracy as a bank-clerk or embryo
civil servant, whose visits Rose considered lent a
glamour to Odiam. Like a wise woman she used her
husband's jealousy to her own advantage. She soon
grew extremely skilful in manipulating it, and by its
means wrung a good deal out of him which would not
otherwise have been hers.
It was true that her young men were not always on
the spot when she wanted them most, but on these
occasions she used the drover Handshut, a comely, well-
set-up young fellow, of independent manners. Reuben
more than once had to drive him out of the kitchen.
' " I woan't have my lads fooling it in the house/' he
said to his wife, when he found her winding a skein of
wool off Handshut's huge brown paws" they've work
enough to do outside wudout spannelling after you
women."
Rose smiled to herself, and when she next had
occasion to punish Reuben, invited his drover to a cup
of tea.
Then there was an angry scene, stormings and tears,
regrets, taunts, and abuse and another reconciliation.
12.
In time, as these battles became more usual, the
family were forced to take sides. Peter supported
Rjeuben, Caro supported Rose. There had been an odd
kind of friendship between the downtrodden daughter
and the gay wife ever since they had unpacked the
latter's trunks together on her wedding night and Caro
had cried because Rose had what she might never have.
Rose approved of this attitude she liked to be envied j
also Caro was useful to her in many ways, helping her
280 SUSSEX GORSE
in the house, taking the burden of many irksome duties
off her shoulders, leaving her free to entertain her friends
or mix complexion washes. Moreover, there was some-
thing in Caro which appealed in itself, a certain heavy
innocence which tickled the humour of the younger,
more-experienced woman. Once her stepdaughter had
asked her what it felt like to be kissed, which had sent
Rose into rockings of laughter and a carnival of remin-
iscence. She liked to dazzle this elderly child with her
" affairs/' she liked to shock her a little too. She soon
discovered that Caro was deeply scandalised at the
thought of a married woman having men friends to visit
her, so she encouraged the counter-jumpers and the
clerks for Caro's benefit as well as Reuben's.
It never occurred to her to throw these young people
together, and give the girl a chance of fighting her
father and satisfying the vague longings for adventure
and romance which had begun to put torment into her
late twenties. She often told her it was a scandal that she
had never been allowed to know men, but her own were
too few and useful to be sacrificed to the forlorn. Besides,
Caro had an odd shy way with men which sometimes
made them laugh at her. She had little charm, and
though not bad-looking in a heavy black-browed style,
she had no feminine "arts, and always appeared to the
very worst advantage.
Those were not very good times for Caro, She envied
Rose, and at the same time she loved her, as women will
so often love those they envy. Rose's attitude was one
of occasional enthusiasm and occasional neglect. Some-
times she would give her unexpected treats, make her
presents of clothes, or take her to a fair or to see the
shops; at others she would seem to forget all about
her. She thought Caro a poor thing for not standing up
to Reuben, and despised her for her lack of feminine
wiles. At the same time she would often be extremely
confidential, she would pour out stories of love and
ALMOST UNDER 281
kisses by moonlight, of ardent words, of worship, of
ecstasy, and send Caro wandering over strange paths,
asking strange questions of herself and fate, and some-
times to the other's delight of Rose.
" Wot do you do to make a man kiss you ? "
" Oh, I dunno. I just look at him like this with my
eyes half shut. Then if that isn't enough I part my
lips so."
The two women had been bathing. It was one of
Rose's complaints that Odiam did not make enough
provision for personal cleanliness in the way of baths
and tubs. Reuben objected if she made the servant run
up and downstairs ten times or so with jugs of hot water
to fill a wash-tub in her bedroom they had once had a
battle royal about it, during which Rose had said some
humorous things about her man's washing so in
summer she relieved the tension by bathing in the
Glotten brook, where it ran temporarily limpid and
reclused at the foot of the old hop-garden. She had
persuaded Caro to join her in this adventure- according
to her ideas it was not becoming for a woman to bathe
alone; so Caro had conquered her objections to un-
dressing behind a bush, and tasted for the first time the
luxury of a daily, or all but daily, bath.
Now they were dry and dressed once more, all except
their stockings, for Rose loved to splash her bare feet in
the water- she adored the caress of water on her skin.
It was a hot day, the sun blinked through the heavy
green of the sallows, dabbling the stream with spots and
ripples of light. June had come, with a thick swarthi-
ness in the fields, and the scent of hayseed scorching
into ripeness.
Rose leaned back against a trunk, a froth of fine linen
round her knees. She splashed and kicked her feet in
the stream.
" Yes I've only to look at a man like this , , , and
he always does it,"
284 SUSSEX GORSE
" But not now I " cried Caro.
" What do you mean by * not now ' ? "
" Now you're married/'
" Oh, no I'm talking of before. AU the same . . 1"
" Wot ! "
" Nothing. You'd be shocked."
Caro looked gloomily at the water. She did not like
being told she would be shocked, though she knew she
would be.
At that moment there was a sound of " git back "
and "woa" beyond the hedge. The next minute
two horses stepped into the Glotten just by the
bend.
" That must be Handshut/' said Rose.
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.
"Take care he'll see us!" and Caro sharply
gathered up her legs under her blue and red striped
petticoat. Rose continued to dabble hers in the water,
even after Handshut had lifted his head and looked in
her direction.
" Rose I " cried Caro.
"Well, why shouldn't he see my legs? They're
unaccountable nice ones."
" All the more reason **
"Not at all, Miss Prude/'
Caro went crimson to the roots of her hair, and began
pulling on her stockings. Rose continued to splash her
feet in the water, glancing sidelong at Handshut.
" He's a nice lad, ain't he?"
Caro vouchsafed no reply.
" Reuben knows he's a nice lad, and he knows I know
he's a nice lad. Hasn't he got a lovely brown skin ? "
" Hush."
But Rose was in a devilish mood.
" Look here," she said suddenly, " I'm going to prove
ALMOST UNDER 283
the truth of what I told you just now. I'm going to
make that boy kiss me."
" Indeed you aun't"
<f Yes I am. I'll go down and talk to him at the bend,
and you can creep along and watch us through the
hedge ; and 111 shut my eyes and maybe part my lips,
and he'll kiss me, you see if he don't."
" I won't see anything of the kind. I'm ashamed
of you,"
" Nonsense it's only fun we'll make a bet on it. If
I fail, I'll give you my new white petticoat with the lace
edging. And I'll allow myself ten minutes to do it in ;
that's quite fair, for it usually takes me longer."
" And what am I to give you if you succeed ? "
" Nothing the kiss'll be enough for me. I've been
wanting to know what he was like to kiss for many a
long day."
" Well, I'm justabout ashamed of you, and I woan't
have anything to do with it."
" You can keep out then."
"Wot if Itellfaather?"
"You wouldn't teE him you wouldn't be such a
sneak. After all, what's a man for, if it isn't to have a
bit of fun with ? I don't mean anything serious it's
just a joke,"
" What'U Handshut think it ? "
" Just a joke too. You're so glum, Caro you take
everything so seriously. There's nothing really serious
in a kiss."
" Oh, aun't there ! "
" No it's just something one enjoys, same as cakes
' and bull's-eyes. I've kissed dozens of people in my time
and meant nothing by it, nor they either. It's because
you've no experience of these things that you think such
.a lot of 'em. They're quite unimportant really, and it's
silly to make a fuss."
For some obscure reason Caro did not like to see her-
284 SUSSEX GORSE
self credited with the harshness of inexperience. She did
her best to assume an air of worldly toleration.
" Well, of course if it's only fun. . . . But f aather
wudn't think it that."
" No, and I shouldn't like him to. You are funny,
Caro. Don't watch me if you're shocked you can
know nothing about it, and then you won't be to blame,
But I'm going to have my lark in spite of you/'
" Put on your stockings first," said Caro sternly.
Rose made a face at her, but pulled on a pair of
gauzy stockings, securing them with garters of pale
blue ribbon. ^ Then she scrambled to her feet and edged
her way through the reeds and bushes to where young
Handshut stood at the bend.
He was not visible from where Caro sat, for he had
come out of the water, and for a minute or two she
vowed that she would have nothing to do with Rose's
disgraceful spree. But after a time her curiosity got
the better of her. Would Rose be able to do as she said
persuade her husband's drover to kiss her, simply by
looking at him through half -closed eyes ? Of course
Handshut was very forward, Caro told herself, she had
often disliked his attitude towards his mistress he
would not want much encouragement. All the same
she wanted to see if Rose succeeded, and if she suc-
ceededhow. She craned her neck, but could see
nothing till she had crept a few yards through the
reeds. Then she saw Rose and Handshut sitting just
beyond the hedge, by the water's rim.
The horses were drowsing in the stream, flicking at the
flies with their tails. Rose's dress made a brave blue
splash against the green, and the gold-flecked chestnut
of her hair was very close to Handshut's brown curls*
Caro could dimly hear their voices, though she could not
distinguish what they said. Five minutes had passed,
and still, though close, there was a decent space between
them. Then there was a little lull in the flow of talk.
ALMOST UNDER 285
They were looking at each other, Caro crept nearer,
something like a hot cinder in her heart.
They were still looking at each other. Then Hand-
shut began to speak in a lower voice than usual ; he
stopped and -suddenly their heads stooped together,
the gold and the brown touched, mingled, lingered, then
drew slowly apart.
Caro sprang to her feet. The couple in the field had
risen too, but they did not see her through the hedge.
Her heart beat fiercely with an uncontrollable anger.
She could have shouted, screamed at them at her
rather, this gay, comfortable, plump, spoilt wife, who
had so many kisses that she could look upon one more
or less as fun.
Rose's merry, rather strident laugh rang out on the
hushed noon. Handshut stood facing her with his head
held down ; then she turned away from him and laughed
again. Her laugh rose, fluttered then suddenly broke*
It snapped like a broken knife. She turned back
towards Handshut, and they faced each other once
more. Then Caro saw a strange and rather terrible
thing. She saw those two who had kissed for fun
stumble together in an embrace which was not for fun
at all, and kiss with kisses that were closer to tears than
laughter.
13-
There was a convention of silence between Caro and
Rose. From that day forward neither made any allusion
to the escapade which had ended so unexpectedly. At
the same time it was from the other's silence that each
learned most ; for Caro knew that if her eyes had
deceived her and that last kiss been like the first, for
fun, Rose would have spoken of it while Rose knew
that Caro had seen the transmutation of her joke into
earnest, because if she had not she would have beeja full
of comments, questions, and scoldings.
286 SUSSEX GORSE
Sometimes Caro in her innocence would think that she
ought to speak to Rose 5 warn her, and plead with her to
go carefully. But a vague fright sealed her lips, and she
was held at a distance by the reserve in which the merry
communicative Rose had suddenly wrapped herself.
Those few minutes by the brookside had changed her,
though it would be hard to say exactly in what the
cKange lay. Caro was both repelled and baffled by it.
A more skilled observer would say that Rose had
become suddenly adult in her outlook as well as her
emotions. For the first time she had seen in its sorrow-
ful reality the force which she had played with for so
many years. The shock disorganised her, drove her
into a strange silence. Love and she had always been
hail-fellow-well-met, they had romped and rollicked
together through life ; she had never thought that her
good comrade could change, or rather more unimagin-
able still that she should suddenly discover that she had
never really known him.
She was sobered. Her attitude towards things in-
sensibly altered to her husband, her child, her servants
she was different, and yet in such a manner that none
could possibly lay hands on the difference. Reuben's
jealousies and suspicions were increased. She avoided
Handshut, and she flourished the shopmen and clerks
but feebly, yet he mistrusted her in a way he had never
done when her enthusiasms were flagrant. This was not
due to any psychological deduction, rather to a vague
kind of guess, an intuition, an uneasiness that com-
municated itself from her to him.
Rose had begun to question her attitude towards her
husband. She had hitherto never doubted for a moment
that she loved him of course she loved him I But now
she asked herself " If I love him, how is it that our
most tender moments have never meant so much to
me as that second Jds3 of Handshufs ? " None of
Reuben's kisses stood out in her memory as that kiss,
ALMOST UNDER 287
he had never made the thrill of life go through her, he
had never filled her heart to bursting with joy so infinite
that it f las sorrow, and sorrow so exquisite that it was
joy. She would observe Reuben, and she would see him
old. He was fifty-four, and his hair was grey ; there
were crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes, and straight
lines between- his brows, where he had furrowed them as
the pitiless sun beat down upon his face. There wefe
other lines too, seamed and scored by hard struggles.
He was strong as an ox, but she told herself he was begin-
ning to move a bit stiffly. He had exposed himself so
ruthlessly to the wet and cold that his joints had become
rheumatic. It was nothing very much, but he liked to
have her rub them occasionally, and up till then she had
liked it too. Now she suddenly saw something dreary
and preposterous in it here she was married to a man
thirty years* older than herself, his chattel, his slave.
She did not really love him how could she, with all
those years between them ? She was fond of him, that
was all and he was getting older, and horribly can-
tankerous ; and she was young oh, God 1 she had
never known tin then how young.
Then suddenly it all changed. One day she found
herself alone with Handshut and nothing happened.
His manner was' qttfte that of the respectful servant
towards his mistress, he made no allusion to the scene
by the brook, spoke entirely of indifferent things. And
she, she herself that was the biggest, best surprise of
all did not feel the slightest embarrassment, or the
slightest pang. On the contrary, all the passion which
had scorched and withered her heart since the day of
the kiss, seemed to die away, leaving her the old Rose,
gay, confident, and at peace with all men.
She had been a fool she had brooded over a little
trivial incident till it had assumed unwarranted pro-
portions and frightened her. Nothing whatever had
happened to her and Handshut they had shared a joke,
288 SUSSEX GORSE
that was all. She did not love him, she loved her
husband, and she was a fool to have thought anything
else. Love was not a drama or a tragedy, but a game and
a lark, or at times a comfortable emotion towards one's
lawful husband, who was the best aaad finest man in
the world.
The joy of this discovery quite restored Rose, and she
flirted with Handshut so outrageously in front of Reuben,
that afterwards they had one of the biggest quarrels of
their lives.
14-
"Seventy-four was another bad year for Odiam, and it
was more hopeless than its predecessors, for Reuben had
now no expectations to sustain him. His position was
really becoming serious. In '68 he had bought more
land than he could afford, for fear that Grandturzel
would buy it if he did not, and in '71 he had started his
accursed milk-round, which had proved nothing but an
expense and a failure. He still clung to it, for the shop
by the Landgate gave him prestige, and he had always
hoped that affairs would mend, but he was gradually
coming to realise that prestige can be bought too dear,
and that his affairs were too heavily clogged to improve
of their own accord.
He must take steps, he must make some sacrifice.
He resolved to sell the milk-round. It was either that
or a mortgage, and a mortgage was far the greater
ignominy. After all he had not had the round more than
two or three years, it had never flourished, and the
parting wrench would not be a bad one. Of course his
reputation would suffer, but hard cash was at the present
moment more valuable than reputation.
Unfortunately it was also more difficult to get. Those
years had been b&d for everybody, and none of the
surrounding farncrs seemed disposed to add to his
burdens by so umcertain a deal. If the thing had not
ALMOST TJNDtett 289
thriven with Backfield it was not likely to thrive with
anyone else. For the first time Reuben cursed his own
renown.
However, he hoped better things from the next
spring. If lambing was good and the season promising,
farmers would not be so cautious. Meantime he would
keep Odiam in chains, he would save every penny, skim,
pare, retrench, and learn the lesson of his lean years.
Unfortunately he had reckoned without Rose Rose
saw no need for such drastic measures. Because her
man had been venturesome and stupid, made rash
speculations, and counted on a quite unwarranted
legacy, that was no reason for her to go without her new
spring gown or new covers for her parlour chairs. She
was once more expecting motherhood, and considered
that as a reward for such self-sacrifice the most expen-
sive luxuries were inadequate.
At the same time, feeling quite at ease about herself
and Handshut, she led Reuben a freakish dance of
jealousy, going to extravagant lengths in the hope of
breaking down his resistance and goading him into
compliance. But she did not find jealousy such a good
weapon as it had used to be. Reuben would grow
furious, thundery and abusive, but she never caught
him, as formerly, in the softness of reaction, nor did the
fear of a rival stimulate any more profitable emotion
than rage.
The truth was that Reuben had now become desperate.
He could not give in to Rose. If he sacrificed his farm
to her in the smallest degree he ran the risk of ruin. He
was torn in two by the most powerful forces of his life.
On one side stood Odiam, trembling on the verge of
i catastrophe, needing every effort, every sacrifice of his,
every drop of his sweat, every drop of his blood. On
the other stood Rose, the dearest human thing, who
demanded that for her sake he should forget his farm
and the hopes bound up in it. He would not do so
290 SUSSEX CORSE
and at the same time he would not lose Rose. Though
her love no longer gave him the gift of peace, he still
clung to it ; her presence, her voice, her touch, still
fired and exalted him. He would not let her go and
he would not let Odiam go.
The struggle was terrible ; it wore him out. He fought
it desperately to neither side would he surrender an
inch. Sometimes with Rose's arms about him, her soft
cheek against his and her perfidy forgotten, he would be
on the brink of giving her the pretty costly thing, what-
ever it was, that she wanted at the expense of Odiam.
At others, out in his fields, or on the slope of Boarzell
half wild, half tamed with all those unconquered
regions swelling above him, he would feel that he could
almost gladly lose Rose altogether, if to keep her meant
the sacrifice of one jot of his ambition, one tittle of his
hope. Then he would go home, and find her ogling
Handshut through the window, or giving tea in her
most seductive manner to some young idiot with clean
hands and round would go the wheel again round
and round. . . .
As a matter of fact he had never been so secure of
Rose as then.; the very shamelessness of her flirtations
was a proof of it a whoop of joy, so to speak, at finding
herself free of what she had feared would be a devas-
tating passion. But who could expect Reuben to guess
that ? He saw only the freak of a treacherous nature,
turning from him to men younger and more compliant
than himself. Jealousy, from a fit, became a habit. He
grew restless aiid miserable he would run in suddenly
from his work to see what his wife was doing, he would
cross-examine Caro, he would even ask Pete to keep an
eye on her. Sometimes he thought of dismissing Hand-
shut, but the lad was an excellent drover, and Reuben
had bursts of sanity in which he saw the foolishness of
such a sacrifice. Rose flirted nowadays with every man
$h.e met she was, he told himself furiously, a thoroughly
ALMOST UNDER - 291
light and good-for-nothing girl she was not worth the
loss of a fellow like Handshut.
Thus the days dragged on wretchedly for everyone
except Rose, and in time they grew wretched for her
too. She began to ,tire of the cracklings of the flame she
had kindled, of Reuben's continued distrust and sus-
picion, of Caro's goggle-eyed disapproval, of Peter's
spying contempt, The time of her lying-in drew nearer,
she had to give^up her gay doings, and felt frightened
and alone. Everyone was against her, everyone dis-
approved of her. She began to wish that she had not
found her love for Handshut to be an illusion, to wish
that the kiss beside the Glotten brook had been in reality
what she had dreamed it After all, is it not better
to embrace the god and die than to go through the
unhappy days in darkness ?
15-
One evening When Reuben was out inspecting a sick
cow. Rose lay on the sofa languidly shelling peas. Once
more it was June, and a rusty heat was outside blurring
the orchard. Her fingers often lay idle in the "bowl of
peas, for though her task relieved the sweltering bore-
dom which had weighed on her all day, every now and
then a great lassitude would sweep over her, slacking
her muscles, slacking her thoughts, till she drooped into
a vague stagnation of sorrow.
She felt horribly, uselessly tired, her gay spirits had
trickled from her in sheer physical discomfort, and
in her heart an insistent question writhed like a little
flame.
Two tears formed slowly in the corners of her eyes,
welled at last over the silky, spidery lashes, and rolled
dowtt her cheeks. In themselves they were portents
for Rose hardly ever cried. More wonderful still, she did
not know that she was crying, she merely became
292 SUSSEX GORSE
stupidly conscious of a smudging of those motionless
trees beyond the garden, and a washing of the hard,
copper-coloured sky.
She feebly put up her hand and brushed the veil away
already something strange had loomed through it,
whipping her curiosity, A man was at the window, his
head and shoulders dark against the sunset*
"Handshut!"
"Yes, ma'am."
She frowned, for she seemed to catch a ring of mockery
in the respectful words. She wondered if it had always
been there.
"Where's master?"
" In the shed with Brindle."
"And how is she?"
" I dunno we've sent for the veterinary*"
There was silence. Outside the flowers rustled in the
slow hot breeze. The background of trees was growing
dim, a web of shadow at the foot of the garden.
Handshut still leaned on the sill, and she realised that
if his words were decorous, his attitude was not. Surely
he had something better to do than hang in at her
window. Half his face was in shadow, half was reddened
by the smouldering sky it was the face of a young
gipsy, brown, sullen, and mocking. She suddenly pulled
herself into a sitting posture.
" What are you staying for ? I reckon the master
wants you."
" No it's you that wants me, surelye."
The blood ebbed from her lips. She felt afraid, and
yet glad. Then suddenly she realised what was happen-
ing and dragged herself back into dignity and anger.
" I don't want you,"
"Yes you do."
" Kindly go at once, or I shall call someone."
"Rose!"
Once more she fell back into her state of terror and
ALMOST UNDER 293
delight. His coolness seemed to paralyse hershe
could not act* She could only lie and watch him,
trembling. Why had he changed so ? he, who had
never faltered in his attitude of stiff respect under her
most outrageous and flirtatious digs,
" Rose," he said again, and Ms voice quivered as he
said it, " you do want me a liddle bit now."
" What what makes you think so ? "
He shrugged his shoulders there must have been
some foreign streak in his yokel's blood.
" I doan't think it I know, A year agone you dudn't
want me, so I kipt back, I wurn't a-going to maake you
suffer. You wur frightened of that kiss. . . ."
He had spoken it her terror. " Don't ! " she cried.
" You wur frightened, so I saw you wurn't ready, and
I tried to maake you feel as naun had happened."
" Yes, I thought you were a gentleman," she said with
a sudden rap of anger.
" I aun't that. I'm just a poor labouring man, wot
loves you, and wot you love."
She tried to speak, but the words burnt up in her
mouth.
" And a labouring man you love's worth more than a
maaster you doan't love, I reckon."
She shrank back on the sofa, folding her arms over
her breast and gripping her shoulders.
" You needn't look so frightened. I'm only saying it.
It woan't maake no difference unless you want it to."
" How dare you speak to me like this ? "
" Because I see you're justabout miserable, and
I thought I'd say as how I'm beside you only
that."
" How how d'you know I'm miserable ? "
" Plain enough."
The sky had faded behind him and a crimson moon
looked over his shoulder,
" Plain enough," h,e repeated^ " but you needn't bg
294 SUSSEX GORSE
scared. Ill do naun you doan't want ; 111 come no
nearer you than I am now unless you call me."
She burst into tears.
He did not move. His head and shoulders were now
nothing but a dark block against the purple and blue of
the sky. The moon hung just above him like a copper
dish.
" Doan't cry," he said slowly " I'm only looking in
at the window."
She struggled to her feet, sobs shaking and tearing
her, and stumbled through the darkness to the door.
Still sobbing she dragged herself upstairs, clinging to the
rail, and every now and then stopping and bending
double. Her loud sobs rang through the house, and
soon the womenfolk were about her, questioning her,
soothing her, and in the end putting her, still weeping,
to bed. While outside in the barn Reuben watched in
agony beside a sick cow.
16,
When late the next morning a woman ran out of the
house into the cow-stable, and told Reuben that his wife
had given him a fine boy, he merely groaned and shook
his head.
He sat on a stool at the foot of Brindle's stall, and
watched her as she lay there, slobbering her straw. His
face was grim and furrowed, lines scored it from nose
to mouth and across the forehead j his hair was damp
and rough on his temples, his eyes were dull with
sleeplessness.
" Woan't yer have sunimat feat, maaster ? " asked
Beatup, looking in.
All Reuben said was :
" Has the Inspector come ? "
" No, maaster 111 bring him raound soon as he does*
Wqan't you have a, bite o' cfeeese if I fetch it ? "
ALMOST UNDER 295
Reuben shook his head.
" Maaster " continued the man after a pause,
"Well?"
" I hear as how it's a liddle son. . . ."
Reuben mumbled something inarticulate, and Beatup
took himself off. His master's head fell between his
clenched hands, and as the cow gave a sudden slavering
cough in the straw, a shudder passed over his skin, and
he hunched himself more despairingly.
Odiam had triumphed at last. Just when Reuben's
unsettled allegiance should have been given entirely to
the wife who had borne him a son, his farm had suddenly
snatched from him all his thought, all his care, his love,
and his anxiety, all that should have been hers. It
seemed almost as if some malignant spirit had con-
trolled events, and for Rose's stroke prepared a counter-
stroke that should effectually drive her off the field. The
same evening that Rose had gone weeping and shuddering
upstairs, Reuben had interviewed the vet. from Rye
and heard him say " excema epizootica." This had
not conveyed much, so the vet. had translated
brutally :
" Foot-and-mouth disease."
The most awful of a farmer's dooms had fallen on
Reuben. The new Contagious Diseases of Animals Act
made it more than probable that all his herd would have
to be slaughtered. Of course, there would be a certain
amount of compensation, but government compensation
was never adequate, and with the multitudinous
expenses of disinfecting and cleansing he was likely to
sustain some crippling losses, just when every penny
was vital to Odiam. He knew of a man who had been
ruined by an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia, of another
who had been forced by swine-fever to sell half his farm.
Besides, any hope of a deal over his milk-round was now
at an end. His dairy business, whether in town or
country, was destroyed, and his reputation would be
296 SUSSEX GORSE
probably as unjustly damaged, so that he would not be
able to adventure on that road for years perhaps never
again.
Small wonder, then, that the birth of a son brought
no joy. The child was born to an inheritance of shame,
the heir of disaster. Reuben's head bowed nearly to his
knees. He felt old and broken. He began to see that it
was indeed dreadfully possible that he had thriven all
these years, conquered waste lands, and enriched fat
lands, only to be overthrown at last by a mere arbitrary
piece of ill-luck. How the disease had broken out he
could not tell he had bought no foreign cattle, indeed
recently he had bought no cattle at all. He could not
blame himself in the smallest degree ; it was just a
malignant capricious thrust as if fate had wanted to
show him that what had taken him years of labour and
battle and sacrifice to build up, could be destroyed in
as many days.
A little hope sustained him till the Inspector's visit
the vet. might have been mistaken, the Inspector might
not order a wholesale destruction. But these faint
sparks were soon extinguished. The loathed epidemic
had undoubtedly lifted up its head at Odiam, and
Reuben's entire herd of Jersey, Welsh, and Sussex cattle
was doomed to slaughter.
The next few days were like a horrible jumbled night-
mare, something malignant, preposterous, outside
experience. Three men came over from the slaughter-
house at Rye, and plied their dreadful work till evening.
The grey and dun-coloured Jerseys with their mild,
protruding eyes, the sturdy Welsh with their little
lumpy horns, the Sussex all coloured like a home-
county landscape in reds and greys and browns bowed
their meek heads under the ox-killer, and became mere
masses of meat and horn and hide. Profitless masses,
too, for all the carcases were ordered to be burned.
The nightmare had its appropriate ending* Sixty
ALMOST UNDER 297
dead beasts were burned in lime. Boarzell became
Hinnom it was the most convenient open space, so
Reuben's herd was burned on it. From a dozen different
pyres streamers of white smoke flew along the wind, and
a strange terrible smell and tickling of the nostrils
troubled the labourer on the westward lands by Flight-
shot or Moor's Cottage.
The neighbourhood sat up in thrilled dismay, and
watched Odiam pass through its hour. The farm was
shut off from civilisation by a barrier of lime along
every road that flanked it, outside every gate that
opened on it, the stuff of fiery purification was spread.
The fields with their ripening oats and delicately browned
wheat, the orchards where apples trailed the boughs into
the grass, the snug red house, and red and brown barns,
the black turrets of the oasts, all cried " Unclean !
Unclean ! "
Odiam was a leper. None might leave it without
rubbing his boots in lime, no beasts could be driven
beyond its hedges. More, the curse afflicted the guiltless
the markets at Rye and Battle were forbidden, the
movements of cattle were restricted, and Coalbran once
indignantly showed Reuben a certificate which he
found he must have ready to produce every time he
moved his single cow across the lane from the hedge
pasture to the stream fallow.
Public opinion was against Backfield, and blamed him
surlily for the local inconvenience.
" Doan't tell me/' said Coalbran in the bar, " as it
wurn't his fault. Foot-and-mouth can't just drop from
heaven. He must have bought some furriners, and
they've carried it wud 'em, surelye."
" Serve un right," said Ticehurst.
" Still, I'm sorry for him/' said Realf of Grandturzel
"he's the only man hereabouts wot's really made a
serious business of farming* and it's a shame he should
get busted/'
298 SUSSEX GORSE
" He aun't busted yet," said Coalbran.
" But you mark my words, he will be," said Tice-
hurst ; " anyways I shud lik him to be, fur he's a high-
stomached man, and only deserves to be put down."
" He's down enough now, surelye ! I saw him only
yesterday by the Glotten meadows, and there was a
look in his eye as 111 never forget."
" And yit he's as proud as the Old Un himself. I met
him on Thursday, and I told him how unaccountable
sorry we all wur fur him, and he jest spat."
" I offered to help him wud his burning," said Realf,
" and he said as he'd see me arid my lousy farm burnt
first."
" He's a tedious contradictious old feller he desarves
all he's got, Let's git up a subscription fur him that
ud cut him to the heart, and he wudn't taake it, so it ud
cost us naun, nuther."
The rest of the bar seemed to think, however, that
Reuben might take the money out of spite, so Coal-
bran's charitable suggestion collapsed for lack of
support.
Meantime, so fast bound in the iron of his misery that
he scarcely felt the prick of tongues, Reuben lived
tlirough the final stages of his nightmare those final
stages of shock and upheaval when the fiery torment of
the dream dies down into the ashes of waking. He
wandered over his land in his lime-caked boots, scarcely
talking to those at work on it, directing with mere
mechanical activity the labour which now seemed to
him nothing but the writhings of a crushed beetle.
Everyone felt a little afraid of him, everyone avoided
him as much as possible he was alone.
His nostrils were always full of the smart of lime, and
the stench of those horrible furnaces belching away on
the slopes of the Moor. Would that burning never be
done ? For days the yellowy white pennons of destruc-
tion had flowji op, Boarzell, and that acrid reek polluted
ALMOST UNDER 299
the harvest wind. Boarzell was nothing but a huge
funeral pyre, a smoking hell. . " And the smoke of
her went up for ever and ever."
17-
An atmosphere of gloom lay over Odiam ; Reuben
brought it with him wherever he went, and fogged the
house with it as well as the barns. Even Rose felt an
aching pity for her strong man, something quite different
from the easy gushes of condolence which had used to be
all she^could muster in the way of sympathy.
But Reuben did not take much notice of Rose, nor
even of his little son. Now and then he would look at
them together, sigh impatiently, then go out of the room.
Sometimes he would be more interested, and, in a fit
of reaction from his proud loneliness, turn to her as of
old for comfort. But those were the bitterest hours of
all, for in them he would glimpse a difference, an aloof-
ness. She had been much quieter since the birth of the
second boy, she had not recovered her health so rapidly,
and her eyes were big in the midst of bistred rings. She
had given up flirting with Handshut, or with the young
'men from Rye, but she did not turn from them to her
husband. Though he could see she was sorry for him,
he felt vaguely, uncertainly, yet tormentingly that
she was not all his, as she had been in brighter months.
Sometimes he did not much care sometimes a dreadful
passion would consume him, and once he caught her to
his breast and bruised her in his arms, crying " I woan't
lose you- I woan't lose you too."
Rose could not read his mood ; one day she would feel
her husband had been alienated from her by his sorrow,
another that his need of her was greater than ever. She
herself carried a heavy heart, and in her mind a picture
of the man who was " only looking in at the window."
se^mqd to see him st&ndinj* there^ with the moot
300 SUSSEX GORSE
rising over his shoulder, while from behind him some-
thing in the garden, in the night, called . . . and
called.
She could still hear that call, muted, tender, wild
the voice of her youth and of her love, calling to her out
of the velvet night, bidding her leave the house where
the hearth was piled with ashes, and feel the rain and
the south wind on her lips. There was no escape in
sleep, for her dreams showed her that window framing
a sky soft and dark as a grape, with the blackness of her
lover's bulk against it, while the moon rose over his
shoulder, red, like a fiery pan. . . .
She felt afraid, and did not know where to turn. She
avoided Handshut, who stood remote; and though
her husband sometimes overwhelmed her with miserable
hungry love, he often scarcely seemed to notice her or
her children, and she knew that she counted far less than
his farm. He was terribly harsh with her now, frowning
by the hour over her account-books, forbidding this or
that, and in his gloom scarcely noticing her submission.
July passed. Odiam was no longer cut off from the
rest of the world by lime. Reuben with the courage of
despair began to organise his shattered strength. He
discharged Piper now that his cows were gone he could
easily do with a hand less. He sometimes wondered
why he had not discharged Handshut, but the answer
was always ready Handshut was far the better work-
man, and Odiam now came easily before Rose. Not
that Reuben's jealousies had left him they still per-
sisted, though in a different form. The difference lay in
the fact that now he would not sacrifice to them the
smallest scrap of Odiam's welfare.
He sometimes asked himself why he was still jealous.
Rose no longer gave him provocation, she was much
quieter than she had used to be, and seemed busy with
her children and straitened house-keeping. It was once
more a case of instinct* of a certain vague sensing of he^
ALMOST UNDER 801
aloofness. Often he did not trouble about it, but some-
times it seared through him like a hot bar.
One evening he came home particularly depressed.
He had just finished the most degrading transaction of
his life the raising of a mortgage on the Flightshot
side of his land. It was horrible, but it was unavoidable.
He could not now sell his milk-round, and yet he
absolutely must have ready money if he was to stand
up against circumstances. The mortgagee was a
wealthy Rye butcher, and Reuben had hopes that the
disgraceful affair might be kept secret, but also an
uneasy suspicion that it was at that moment being
discussed in every public-house.
He went straight to find Rose, for that mood was upon
him. The due of loneliness which his shame demanded
had been paid during the drive home from Rye, and now
he quite simply and childishly wanted his wife. She
was in the kitchen, stooping over some child's garment,
the little frills of which she was pleating in her fingers.
She lifted her head with a start as he came in, and he
saw that her face was patched with tearstains.
" Wot've you bin crying for ? " he asked as he slict
a chair close to hers. He wondered if the humiliation of
Odiam had at last come to mean to her a little of what
it meant to him.
" I haven't been crying/*
" But your face . . /'
" That's the heat/'
He drew back from her a little. Why should she lie to
him about her tears ?
" Oh, well, if you doan't choose to tell me ... But
I've eyes in my head."
She seemed anxious to propitiate him.
" How did it go off ? Have you settled with Apps ? "
He nodded.
" It's all over now I've touched bottom/ 1
" Nonsense, Ben. You mustn't say that. After all
802 SUSSEX GORSE
there's nothing extraordinary about a mortgage uncle
had one for years on a bit of Ms farm, at Rowfant.
Besides, think of all you've got left."
He laughed bitterly. " I aun't got much left."
Then suddenly he turned towards her as she sat there
by him, her head bowed over her work her delicate,
rather impertinent nose, outlined against the firelight,
her cheek and neck bewitched with running shadows.
" But I've got you."
A great tenderness transported him, a great melting,
He put his arm round her waist, and made as if to pull
her close.
She drew back from him with a shudder.
It was only for a moment the next she yielded. But
he had seen her reluctance, felt the shiver of repulsion
go through her limbs. He rose, and pushed back his
chair.
" I'm sorry," he said in a low thick voice" I'm
sorry I interrupted your crying."
Then he went out, and gave Handshut a week's notice.
18.
Rose was intensely relieved. She felt that at last and
for ever the tormenting mystery would have gone from
her life. Once Handshut was away, she told herself, she
would slip back into the old groove a little soberer and
softer perhaps, but definitely free of that Reality which
had been so terribly different from its toy-counterfeit.
Once Handshut was gone, her heart would not pursue
him* It was his continual presence that tormented.
True, he never sought her out, or persecuted her, or
even spoke to her without her speaking first he only
looked in at the window. . . . But a woman soon
learns what it means to have a man's face between her
and the simplicities of life in her garden, between her
and the divinities of the stars and moon.
ALMOST UNDER, 08
Rose did not find in her love a sweetness to justify the
bitterness of its circumstances. The fact that it had
been awakened by a man who was her inferior in the
social-agricultural scale, who could give her nothing of
the material prosperity she so greatly prized, instead of
inspiring her with its beauty, merely convinced her of
its folly. She saw herself a woman crazed, obsessed,
bewitched, and she looked eagerly forward to the day
when the spell should be removed and she should go
back chastened to the common, comfortable things of
life.
But meantime a strange restlessness consumed her,
tinctured by a horrible boldness. There were moments
when she no longer was afraid of Handsliut, when she
felt herself impelled to seek him out, and make the most
of the short time they had together. There could be no
danger, for he was going so soon ... so few more
words, so few more glances. . . . Thus her mind worked.
She was generally able to control these impulses, but
as the days slipped by they grew too strong for her
untrained resistance. She felt that she must make the
.most of her chances because they were so limited
before he went for ever she must have one more memory
:of his voice, his look his touch ... oh, no Cher
thoughts had carried her further than she had intended.
She found herself beginning to haunt the places where
she would be likely to meet him the edge of the horse-
,pond or the Glotten brook, the door of the huge,
desolate cow-stable, where six cheap Suffolks empha-
sised the empty stalls. Reuben did not seem to take
any notice of her, he had relieved his feelings by dis-
missing Handshut, and his farm had swallowed him up
again. Rose felt defiant and forlorn. Both her husband
and her lover seemed to avoid her. She would lean
against the great wooden posts of the door, in the
listless weary attitude of a woman's despair.
Then two days before th@ end he came. As she was
804 SUSSEX GOESE
standing by the barn door he appeared at the horse-
pond, and crossed over to her at once. He had seen
fiat she was waiting for him perhaps he had seen it
fbf half a dozen other occasions when she had not seen
him.
Rose could calm the silly jumps of her heart only by
telling herself that this was quite an accidental meeting.
She made an effort to be commonplace.
" How's Topsy's foal ? "
"Doing valiant. Will you come out wud me to-
morrow evenun to see the toll-burning ? "
She flushed at his audacity,
" No ! how can I ? "
"You can quite easy, surelye. Maaster's going to
Cranbrook Fair, and woan't be home till laate. It's the
last night, remember."
She made a gallant effort to be the old Rose.
" What's that to me ? you've got some cheek ! "
" I'm only not pretending as much as you are. Why
shud you pretend ? Pretending 'uH give you naun sweet
to remember when I'm gone."
" What tolls are they going to burn ? "
" The geates up at Leasan and Mockbeggar, and then
over the marsh to Thornsdale. It 'ud be a shame fur you
to miss it, and maaster can't taake you, since he's going
to Cranbrook."
" It would never do if people saw us/'
" Why ? Since your husband can't go, wot's more
likely than he shud send his man to taake you ? "
Rose shuddered. " I'm not coming."
Handshut turned on his heel.
19-
Already the turnpike gates had disappeared from the
greater part of Sussex, but they still lingered in the Rye
district, for various reasons, not always bearing close
ALMOST UNDER 805
inspection. There had been an anti-toll party both
before and after the famous Scott's Float gate had
catastrophically ended Reuben's political career and
at last this had carried the day. All the gates were to
come down except those on the Military Road, and the
neighbourhood was to celebrate their abolition by burn-
ing them in tar.
Reuben, still proud and sore, stood aloof from local
jollities besides, he had heard that there were to be
some cheap milkers for sale at Cranbrook Fair, and he
was anxious to add a little to his dairy stock. Though a
large milk-round was out of the question, the compensa-
tion money he had received from Government would
allow him to carry on a small dairy business, as in
humbler days. Of course, the fact that he had lost over
sixty cows from foot-and-mouth disease would materi-
ally damage his prospects even in a limited sphere, but
a farm which let its dairy rot was doomed to failure,
and Reuben was still untamed by experience, and hoped
much from small beginnings.
So early that morning he drove off in his gig, accom-
panied by Pete, who had a good eye for cattle, and had
moreover challenged the Canterbury Kid for a purse of
five guineas. Rose watched them go, and waved good-
bye unnoticed to her man, as he leaned forward over
the reius, thinking only of how much he could spare for
a yearling. She went back into the house, and stoned
plums. After dinner she mended the children's clothes,
with a little grimace for the faded ribbons and tattered
frills which Reuben would not allow her to renew. Then
she took the baby and little David for an airing in the
orchard Handshut, raking unromantically in the
midden, saw her sitting, a splash of faded violet under
an apple tree then she bathed them and put them
to bed.
All this was a propitiatory offering to the god of the
hearth, who, however, did not take the slightest notice,
806 SUSSEX GORSE
or stay as he so easily might (so the scripture saith)
that hunger for her beloved which was gnawing at the
young wife's heart. Instead, it seemed to grow in its
devouring pain her domesticity stimulated rather than
deadened it, and by the time her day's tasks were over
it had eaten up her poor heart like a dainty, and she was
its unresisting prey.
After the children were in bed she changed her dress,
putting on the best she had a washing silk with pansies
sewn over it, one of her wedding gowns. She frowned
at it as she had frowned at the babies' dresses it was
so old-fashioned, and worn in places. She suddenly
found herself wishing that she loved Reuben so much as
not to mind wearing old clothes for his sake. For the
first time she could visualise such a state of affairs, for
she had met the man for whom she would have worn
rags. If only that man had been Reuben, her lawful
husband, instead of another ! " But 111 be true to
him ! I'll be true to him ! " she murmured, and found
comfort in the words till she realised that it was the
first time that she had ever glimpsed the possibility of
not being true.
She went down into the kitchen, where Caro was
baking suet.
" Caro, I'm going out to see the gates burned. I
expect I'll be back before Ben is, but if I'm not, tell
him where I'm gone.' 1
" You can't go by yourself he wudn't like it."
" I'm not going by myself Handshut's taking me."
Caro's suety hands fell to her sides.
" Rose you knowhow can you ? that's worse
than alone, surelye ! "
" Nonsense ! What's more natural that one of my
servants should come with me, since my husband
can't?"
" Your servant. . . ."
" Yes, my servant."
ALMOST UNDER 807
Caro, regardless of the suet on her hands, hid her
face in them.
" Oh, Rose, I can't tell him I daren't. Why, he
turned away Handshut because of you. 1 '
" He did not, miss you're impudent ! "
" Well, why shud faather git shut of the best drover
he ever had on his farm, if it aun't "
" Be quiet ! I won't hear such stuff. I'm not going
to be a prisoner, and miss my fun just because you and
Ben are jealous fools."
" But I daren't tell him where you've agone."
" I dare say you won't have to I'm not staying out
all night."
She laughed one of her coarse screaming laughs, with
the additional drawback of mirthlessness ; then she
went out of the room, leaving Caro sobbing into suety
palms.
Outside in the yard, Handshut stood by the pump,
apparently absorbed in studying the first lights of
Triangulum as they kindled one by one in the darkening
sky.
Rose pattered up to him in the shabby white kid
shoes that had been so trim and smart five years
ago.
" I've changed my mind."
" Then you aun't coming."
" Yes, I am."
" Then you haven't changed it."
20.
The roads outside Rye were dark with people. A
procession was forming up at Rye Foreign, and another
at the foot of Cadborough Hill. Outside the railway
station a massed band played something rather like the
Marseillaise, while the grass-grown, brine-smelling
streets were spotted with stragglers, hurrying up ,from
308 SUSSEX GORSE
all quarters, some carrying torches that flung shifting
gleams on windows and gable-ends.
Immense barrels of tar had been loaded on four
waggons, to which four of the most prosperous farmers
of the district had harnessed teams. Odiain was of
course not represented, nor was Grandturzel, but three
bell-ringing sorrels had come all the way from Kitchen-
hour, while the marsh farms of Leasan, the Loose, and
Becket's House, accounted for the rest.
The crowd surged round the waggons, cheered, joked,
sang. The whole of Rye was there prosperous trades-
men from the High Street or Station Road, innkeepers,
farmers, shop-assistants, chains of fishermen in high
boots, jerseys, and gold ear-rings, coast-guards from the
Camber, and one or two scared-looking women clinging
to stalwart arms.
Rose shrank close to Handshut, though she did not
take his arm. Sometimes the crowd would fling them
together, so that they were close as in an embrace, at
others they would stand almost apart, linked only by
sidelong glances. The flare of a torch would suddenly
slide over Handshut's face, showing her its dark gipsy
profile, and she would turn away her eyes as from
something too bright to bear.
Every now and then the crowd would start singing
inanely :
" Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen 1 "
It was like a muddled dream people seemed to have
no reason for what they did or shouted; they just
ebbed and flowed, jostled and jambed, ran hither and
thither, sang and laughed and swore. Rose looked round
her to see if she could recognise anyone ; now and then
a face glowed on her in the torch-light, then died away,
once she thought she saw the back of a tradesman's
daughter whom she knew but her chief feeling was of
ALMOST UNDER 809
an utter isolation with her loved one, as if he and she
stood alone on some sea-pounded island against which
the tides of the world roared in vain.
At last the crowd began to move. The band had
crushed through to the front of it, and was braying Rule
Britannia up Playden Hill ; then came the waggons, then
the stout champions of freedom, singing at the pitch of
their lungs :
" Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen 1 "
The stars winked on the black zenith, while troubled
winds sped and throbbed over the fields that huddled in
mystery and silence on either side of the road where
noise and skirmish and darting lights, with the odours
of warm human bodies, and the thudding and scrabbling
of a thousand feet, proclaimed the People's holiday.
They flowed through Playden like a torrent through
an open, sluice, sweeping up and carrying on all sorts of
flotsam villagers from cottage doors, ploughboys from
the farms down by the Military Canal, gipsies from Iden
Wood ... a mixed multitude, which the central mass
absorbed, till all was one steaming and shouting
blackness.
The first gate was at Mockbeggar, where the road to
Iden joins that which crosses the Marsh by Corkwood
and Baron's Grange. In a minute it was off its hinges,
and swealing in tar, while lusty arms pulled twigs,
branches, even whole bushes out of the hedges to build
its pyre.
Rose shrank close to Handshut, so close that the
clover scents of her laces were drowned in the smell of
the cowhouse that came from his clothes. She found
herself liking it, drinking in that soft, mixed, milky odour
. , . till a cloud of stifling tar-smoke swept suddenly
over them, and she reeled against him suffocating, while
all round them people choked and gasped and
810 SUSSEX GORSE
The fire was lighted, a great crimson tongue screamed
up in front of two motionless poplars, leaped as high as
their tops, then spread fan-shaped, roaring. Men and
women joined hands and danced round the blaze in the
distance, above the surging pack of heads, Rose could
see them jumping and capering, with snatches of song
that became screams every minute.
The fire roared like a storm, and the wood crackled
with sudden yelping reports. The dancing girls' hats
flew off, their hair streamed wide, their skirts belled and
swirled . , . there was laughter and obscene remarks
from the onlookers. Many from the rear pressed
forward to join the dance, and those who were trampled
on screamed or cursed, while one or two women fainted.
Rose felt as if she would faint in the heat and reek of it
aH She leaned heavily against Handshut and closed
her eyes . . . then she realised that his arm was round
her, He held her against him, supporting her, while
either she heard or thought she heard him say " Doan't
be scared, liddle Rose I'm wud you. I woan't let
you fall."
She opened her eyes. The people were moving. The
Mockbeggar gate had been accounted for, and they
rolled on towards Thornsdale. The jamb was not so
alarming, for a good many revellers had been left
behind, dancing round the remains of the bonfire,
crowding into the public-house, or scattering in couples
over the fields.
But though the jostling was no longer dangerous,
Handshut still kept his arm about Rose, and held her
close to his side. Now and then she made a feeble effort
as if to free herself, but he held her fast, and she never
put out her full strength. They walked as if in a dream,
they two together, not speaking to anyone, not speaking
to each other. Rose saw as if in a dream the Sign of
Virgo hanging above Stone. The dipping of the lane
stowed the Kentish marshes down in the valley, with
ALMOST UNDER 811
the hills of Kent beyond them, twinkling with lights.
The band lifted the strains of Hearts of Oak and
Cheer, Boys, Cheer above the thud of marching feet, or
Occasionally drifted into sentiment with Love's
Pilgrimwhile every now and then, regardless of what
was being played, two hundred throats would bray ;
11 Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen ! '*
It was about nine o'clock when they came to Thorns-
dale, down on tie Rother levels ; the moon had risen
and the marsh was smeethed in white. The air was
thick with a strong-scented miasma, and beside the
dykes long lines of willows faded into the mist. Here
another orgy was started, in grotesque contrast with
the pallid sleep of water. The gate that barred the Kent
road was torn down, the bonfire prepared, the dance
begun.
The mists became patched with leaping shadows, and
a dull crimson wove itself into the prevailing whiteness.
Flaming twigs and sparks hissed into the dykes, rolls of
acrid tar-smoke spread like a pall over the river and the
Highnock Sewer, under which their waters were spotted
with fire. The ground was soon pulped and poached
with the jigging feet, and mud and water spurted into
the dancers' faces.
It was all rather ugly and ridiculous, and as before at
Mockbeggar, the crowd began to straggle. This time
there was no public-house to swallow up strays, but the
marsh spread far and wide, a Land of Promise for
lovers, who began to slink off two by two into the mists.
Some who were not lovers formed themselves into
noisy groups, and bumped about the lanes waking the
farmers 1 wives from Bosney to Marsh Quarter.
Rose felt Handshut's arm clinging more tenderly
about her, and she knew that he wanted to lead her
812 SUSSEX GOE.SE
away from the noise and glare, to the coolness and
loneliness of the waterside. She wanted to go her
head ached, her nostrils tingled, and her eyes were sore
with the fumes of tar, her ears wearied with the din.
"Let's go home/' she said faintly " it's getting
late."
" We can go back by Corkwood across the marshes.
It'll be quicker, and we shan't have no crowd spanneling
round."
They elbowed their way into the open, and soon the
noise had died into a subdued roar, not so loud as the
sigh of the reeds, while the bonfire showed only as a
crimson stain on the eastward piling fogs.
In time the contrast of silence grew quite painful. It
ached. Only the sough of the wind in the reeds troubled
it the feet of Rose and Handshut were noiseless on the
grass, they breathed inaudibly, only the breath of the
watching night was heard.
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.
Rose walked half leaning against Handshut. She felt
a very little feeble thing in the power of that great
amorous night. The warm breath of the wind in her
hair, the caress of moonlight on her eyes, the throbbing,
miasmic, night-sweet scents of water and grass, the
hush, the great sleep ... all tore at her heart, all
weakened her with their huge soft strength, all crushed
with their languors the poor resistance of her will.
The tears began to roll down her cheeks, they shone on
her face in the moonlight they fell quite fast as she
ALMOST UNDER 313
walked on gripped against her lover's heart. She was
leaning more and more heavily against him, for her
strength was ebbing fast oh, if he would only speak !
she could not walk much further, and yet she dared not
rest beside him on that haunted ground.
At last they came to where the high land rose out of
the levels like a shore out of the sea, with a lick of road
on it, winding up to Peasmarsh. It was here that Rose's
uncertain strength failed her, she lurched against
Handshut, and still encircled by his arms slid to the
grass.
They were in a huge meadow, sloping upwards to
mysterious, night-wrapped hedges. The moonlight still
trembled over the marsh, kindling sudden streaks of
water, steeping fogs, silvering pollards and reeds. One
could distinctly see the little houses on the Kent side of
the Rother, Ethnam, and Lossenham, and Lambstand,
some with lights blinking from them, others just black
patches on the moon-grey country. Rose looked out
towards them, and tried to picture in each a hearth
beside which a husband and wife sat united . . . then
suddenly they were blotted out, as Handshut's face
loomed dark between her and them, and his lips slowly
fastened on her own.
For a moment she yielded to the kiss, then suddenly
tore herself away.
" Rose . . ."
" Let me go I can't."
" Rose, why shud you pretend ? You doan't love the
maaster, and you do love me. Why shudn't we be
happy together ? "
" We I can't."
" Why ? I love you, and you love me. Come away
wud me you shan't have a hard life ''
"It's not that."
" Wot is it then?"
" It's-oh, I can't I'm his wife/ 1
314 SUSSEX GORSE
She pushed him from her as he tried to take her in his
arms again, and stumbled to her feet.
" It's late I I must go home."
" Rose, you queer me."
He had risen too, and stood before her in mingled pain
and surprise. He thought her resistance mere coyness,
and suddenly flung his arms round her as she stood.
She began to cry.
" No, no -don't be so cruel ! Let me go } I'm his
wife."
21.
The walk home was dreary, for Rose and Handshut
misunderstood each other, and yet loved each other
too. She was silent, almost shamefaced, and he was a
little disgusted with her he felt that she had misled
him, and in his soreness added " willingly."
They scarcely spoke, and the night spread round
them its web of pondering silence. Aldebaran guttered
above Kent, and the blurred patch of the Pleiades hung
over the curded fogs that hid the Rother. There was
no wind, but every now and then the grass rippled and
the leaves fluttered, while a low hissing sound went
through the trees. Sometimes from the distance came
the shouts of some revellers still at large, echoing
weirdly over the moon -steeped fields, and divinely
purged by space and night.
Sobs were still thick in Rose's throat, when they came
to Handshut's cottage, a little tumble-down place,
shaped like a rabbit's head. She stopped,
" Don't come any further."
"Why? 11
11 It would be better if I wasn't seen with you."
He looked at her white face.
" You're frighted."
"No."
" Yes and I'm coming wud you, surelye/'
ALMOST UNDER 315
" I should be frightened if you came."
She managed to persuade him to go his different
way though the actual moment of their parting was
always a blur in her memory. Afterwards she could
not remember if they had kissed, touched hands, or
parted without a word. Her throat was still full of
sobs when she came to Odiam ; she was panting, too,
for she had run all the way she did not know why.
The house was swimming in the light of the western
moon. Its strange curves and bulges, its kiln-shaped
ends, and great waving sprawl of roof all shone in a
white glassy brilliance, which was somehow akin to
peace. There was a soft flutter of wind in the orchard
and in the sentinel poplars, while now and then came
that distant night-purged scrap of song :
" Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen 1 "
Rose wondered uneasily what time it was. Surely
it could not be very late, and yet the house was shut
up and the windows dark.
She gently rattled the door-handle. There was no
denying it the house was locked up. It must be later
than she thought that walk on the Rother levels must
have been longer than it had seemed to her thirsty love.
A thrill of fear went through her. She hoped Reuben
would not be angry. She was his dutiful wife.
She stood hesitating on the doorstep. Should she
knock ? Then a terrible thought struck her. Reuben
must have meant to lock her out. Otherwise he would
have sat up for her, however late she had been. She
started trembling all over, and felt her skin grow
damp.
She began to knock, first softly, then more desper-
ately. She must get in. Nothing was to be heard except
her own despairing diji the house seemed plunged in
316 SUSSEX GORSE
sleep. Rose's fear grew, spread black bat's wings, and
darkened all her thoughts for she knew that someone
must have heard her, she could not make all this racket
quite unheard.
What could she do ? Caro slept at the back of the
house, and it struck her that she had better go round,
and throw up some earth at her window. Perhaps
Caro would let her in. She stepped back from the door,
and was just turning the corner of the house when a
window suddenly shot open above her, and Reuben's
tousled head looked out.
" There's no use your trying to git in."
Rose gave a faint scream. In the moonlight her
husband's face looked distorted, while his voice came
thick and unnatural.
" Ben ! "
" Go away. Go away to where you've come from. I
shan't let you in."
" You can't keep me out here. It isn't my fault I'm
late and I'm not so very late, either."
" It's one o'clock o* the marnun."
She felt her heart grow sick. If she had been happy
for four hours, why, in God's name, had they not passed
like four hours instead of like four minutes ?
" Ben, I swear I didn't know. I was up to no harm,
I promise you. Please, please oh please let me in ! "
Not I at one o'clock o' the marnun after you've
bin all night wud a "
" Ben, I swear I'm your true wife,"
She fell against the wall, and her hair, disordered by
embraces, suddenly streamed over her shoulders. The
sight of it made Reuben wild.
" Git off before I taake my gun and shoot you."
" Oh, Ben 1 . . ."
" Hoald your false tongue. You're no wife o' mine
from this day forrard. I woan't be cuckolded in my
own house."
ALMOST UNDER 817
His face was swollen, his eyes rolled he looked
almost as if he had been drinking.
" Ben, don't drive me away. I've been true to you,
indeed I have, and Handshut's going to-morrow. Let
me in please let me in. I swear I've been true. 11
" I want none o' your lying swears at one o'clock o*
the marnun. Go back to the man youVe come from
hell believe you easier nor I."
" Ben, I'm your wife."
" I tell you, you're no wife of mine. I'm shut of
you you false, fair, lying, scarlet woman. You needn't
cry and weep, nuther none 'ull say as Ben Backfield
wur a soft man fur woman's tears."
He shut the window with a slam. For some moments
Rose stood leaning against the wall, her sobs shaking
her. Then, still sobbing, she turned and walked away.
She walked slowly down the drive till she came to
the little path that led across the fields to Handshut's
cottage. A light gleamed from the window, and she
crept towards it through tall moon-smudged grass
while from the distance came for the last time :
" Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs,
God save the Queen 1 '*
22.
A glassy yellow broke into the sky like a curse. It
shone on Reuben's eyes, and he opened them. They
were pink and puffed round the rims, and the whites
were shot with little blood-vessels. His cheeks were
yellow, and round his mouth was an odd greyish tinge,
He had lain dressed on his bed, and was surprised to
find that he had slept. But the sleep had brought no
refreshment there was a bad taste in his mouth, and
his tongue felt rough and thick.
He sat up on the tumbled bed and looked round him.
318 SUSSEX GORSE
Rose's nightgown was folded on her pillow, and over
a chair lay a pair of the thin useless stockings he had
often scolded her for wearing, A drawer was open,
and from it came the soft perfume that adhered to
everything she put on. He suddenly sprang out of bed
and shut it with a kick.
" Durn her ! " he said, and then two sobs tore their
way painfully up his throat, shaking his whole body.
An hour later he went down. He had washed and
tidied himself, none the less he disconcerted the house-
hold. Caro had lain awake all night, partly from misery,
partly because of the baby, which she had been obliged
to take charge of in the mother's absence. She had
brought it down into the kitchen with her, and it had
lain kicking in its cradle while she prepared the break-
fast. She was worn out already after her sleepless night,
and could not prevent the tears from trickling down her
face as she cut bread for the meaL
" Stop that ! " said Reuben roughly.
Except for this, he did not speak nor after a few
attempts on the former's part did Pete and Caro. They
sat and gulped down their food in silence. Even Harry
seemed to realise the general unrest. He would not sit
at table, but wandered aimlessly up and down the room,
murmuring, as was now his habit in times of domestic
upheaval, " Another wedding deary me! We're
always having weddings in this house."
Then the baby began to howl because it was hungry.
Rose had nursed it herself, and its wants had not
occurred to the unhappy Caro or her father, There was
delay and confusion while a bottle was fetched and milk
prepared, and then to crown all cow's milk upset
it, and it was sick. But Reuben escaped this final
tragedy he had left the room after a few mouthfuls,
and gone to Handshut's cottage.
He could not restrain himself any longer. He must
see Rose, and vent on her all the miserable rage with
ALMOST UNDER 319
which his heart was seething. He longed to strike her
he longed to beat her, for the wanton that she was.
And he longed to clasp her in his arms and weep on her
breast and caress her, for the woman that she was.
But the cottage was shut. With its red-rotting roof
between two tall chimneys it looked exactly like a
rabbit's head between its ears; the windows were
blind, though it was past seven o'clock, and though
Reuben knocked at the door loudly, there was no one
to be seen. He prowled once or twice round the house,
fumbling handles and window-latches, but there was
no way of getting in. He listened, but he could not
hear a sound. He pictured Rose and Handshut in each
other's arms, laughing at him in his wretchedness and
their bliss and all the time he wanted the woman's
blood more than the man's.
At last he wandered desperately away, treading the
furrows of his new ground on Boarzell, reckless that he
trod the young seed harrowed into them. In that black
moment even his winter crops were nothing to him.
He saw, thought of, realised only one thing and that
was Rose, the false, the gay, the wanton, and the beauti-
ful oh the beautiful ! laughing at him from another
man's arms. He could see her laughing, see just how
her lips parted, just how her teeth shone those little
teeth, so regular except for the pointed canines just
how the dimples came at the corners of her mouth,
those dear little hollows which he had dug with his
kisses. . . .
He ground his heel into the soft harrowed earth, and
it cast up its smell into his nostrils unheeded. But the
day of Boarzell was coming its rival had been cleared
out of the field, and the great hump with its knob of
firs seemed to be lying in wait, till the man had pulled
himself out of the pit of a false woman's love and given
himself back to it, the strong, the faithful enemy.
About an hour later Reuben was down again at
820 SUSSEX GORSE
Handshut's cottage, but this time a change had worked
itself. The door hung wide open and the place was
empty. He went through the two miserable little rooms,
but there was no one, and nowhere for anybody to hide.
The remains of a meal of bread and tea were on the table,
and a fire of sticks was dying on the hearth. The lovers
had flown to laugh at him from a safe distance.
All the rest of the day he prowled aimlessly about his
land. His men were afraid, for it was the first time they
had seen him spend a day without work. He touched
neither spade nor pitchfork, he gave no orders, just
wandered restlessly about the fields and barns. He ate
no supper, but locked himself into his room, while the
baby's thin wail rose through the beams of the kitchen
ceiling, and little David cried fractiously for " mother."
The next day Caro, haggard after another night made
sleepless by her charges, knocked at his door. He had
not come down to breakfast, and at eight o'clock the
postman had brought a letter.
" It's from Rose," said Caro timidly,
"Tome?"
"No, to me,"
11 Read it."
Caro read it. Rose was in London, but left that day
for Liverpool. Handshut had saved a little money, and
they were going 'to Canada. " I don't ask Ben to forgive
me, for I know he never will."
" She's right there," said Reuben grimly.
Caro stood before him, creasing the letter nervously.
Her father's wrath broke upon her, for want of his
proper victim.
" Git out, can't yer wot are you dawdling here for ?
You women are all the same you'd be as bad as her if
you cud only git a man."
Caro shrank from the jibe as if from a blow, and
Reuben laughed brutally. He had made one woman
suffer anyway.
ALMOST frNDE& 821
23.
Of course the neighbourhood gloated ; and the rustic
convention was set aside in Rose's favour, and all the
shame of her elopement heaped on Reuben.
"No waonder as she cudn't stick to him hard,
queer chap as he be."
" And thirty year older nor she, besides/'
" Young Handshut wur a praaper lad, and valiant.
I aun't surprised as she'd rather have un wudout a
,penny than old Ben wud all his gold."
tc And he aun't got much o' that now, nuther. They
say as he'll be bust by next fall."
Heads were shaken in triumphant commiseration,
and the stones which according to all decent tradition
should have been flung at Rose, hurtled round her
husband instead.
Far away at Cheat Land, Alice Jury watched them
fall Alice Jury five years older than when she had
struggled with Boarzell for Reuben before he married
Rose. Her parents thought he had treated her badly,
even though they did not know of the evening when she
had humbled herself to plead for her happiness and his.
She remembered that moment uneasily it hurt her
pride. But she could not regret having used her most
desperate effort to win him, and she felt sure that he had
understood her motive and realised that it was for him
as well as for her that she had spoken.
Now, when she heard of his catastrophe, she wondered
if he would come back. Did men come back ? and if
they did, was she the type of woman they came back
to ? Perhaps she was too quick, too antagonistic. She
told herself miserably that a softer woman could have
saved Reuben, and yet, paradoxically, a softer woman
would not have wished to do so.
She had seen very little of him or of Rose since their
822 SUSSEX GORSE
marriage. Rose and she had never been friends, and
Reuben she knew was shy of her. He had been angry
with her too, because she had not carried her aching
heart on her sleeve. Outwardly she had worn no badge
of sorrow she was just as quick, just as combative,
just as vivaciously intellectual as she had always been.
Though she knew that she had lost him through these
very characteristics, with which she had also attracted
him, she made no effort to force herself into a different
mould. She refused to regret anything, to be ashamed
of anything, to change anything. If he came back he
should find the same woman as he had left.
She felt that he would corne he would return to her
in the reaction that swung him from Rose. But would
she be able to keep him ? She did not feel so sure of
that for that did not depend on her or on him, but on
that mysterious force outside themselves with which
they had both already struggled in vain.
24-
Reuben scarcely knew what brought him to Cheat
Land. It was about a week after the blow fell that he
found himself treading the once familiar lane, lifting the
latch of the garden gate, and knocking at the green
house-door. Nothing had changed, except to fade a
little and show some signs of wear and tear. Alice
herself had not changed, nor had she faded, though her
cheeks might have fallen in a trifle and a few lines
traced themselves round her mouth.
" Welcome/' she said, and laughed.
He took her hand, and forgot to be angry because she
had laughed.
" Come in, and we'll have a talk. Father's out, and
mother's upstairs."
She led the way into the queer little kitchen, which
was also unchanged except for the fading of the curtains,
ALMOST UNDER 828
and the introduction of one or two new books on the
shelves. Alice pulled forward his old chair, and sat
down opposite him on the settle. She wore one of
her long wrapper-pinafores, this time of a warm
clay-colour, which seemed to put a glow into her
cheeks
" Well, Alice," he said huskily.
" Well, Reuben, I'm glad to see you."
" You've heard ? "
She nodded. Then she said gently :
" Poor Rose."
Reuben flushed.
" One o' my victims, eh ? "
" Well, I knew you'd rather I said that than * poor
Reuben/ "
" Reckon I would. I remember as how you wur
always trying to maake out as my lazy good-fur-natm
sons wur my victims, and as how I'd sacrificed them all
to my farm ; now I reckon you're trying to-do the same
wud Rose."
"Where is she?"
" I dunno. Somewheres between here and Canada.
May she rot there lik a sheep on its back, and her man
,too. Now say ' poor Rose.' "
He turned on her almost fiercely, his lips curled back
from his teeth in a sneer.
" If you speak like that 111 say ' poor Reuben.' "
" Well, say it you wdan't be far wrong. Wot sort o'
chap'am I to have pride ? My farm's ruined, my wife's
run away, my children have left me wot right have I
to be proud ? "
" Because, though all those things have happened,
you're holding your head up still."
"But I aun't yesterday I wur fair crying and
sobbing in front of all the children. In the kitchen, it
wur after supper I put down my head on the table,
and- "
824 SUSSEX GORSE
" Hush, I don't want to hear any more. I can guess
what you must have suffered. I expect you miss Rose."
" I do justabout."
" So should I in your place."
" She wur a beautiful woman, Alice*"
Alice nodded.
" Oh, and her liddle dentical ways 1 "
Alice nodded again.
" You doan't mind me talking to you of her ? "
" No, of course not."
" She wur the beautifullest I've known, and gay, and
sweet, and a woman to love. But she deceived me. I
married her expecting money, and there wur none I
married her fur her body, and she's given it to another,"
" Well, you're not a hypocrite, anyway. You don't
pretend you married her for any but the lowest motives,"
" Wot should I have married her fur, then ? "
" Some people marry for love."
" Love ! no. I've loved but one woman."
" Me ! "
They had both said more than they intended, and
suddenly realised it. Though the self-betrayal meant
most to Alice, she was the first to recover a steady voice*
" But that does not matter now," she said calmly.
He leaned suddenly forward and took her hand.
" Alice."
Her hand lay in his, a very small thing, and her head
bent towards it. She did not want him to see her cheeks
flush and her" eyes fill at this his first caress,
" Alice how did you know ? "
" I'm not a fool."
" I guessed too."
"Of course you did. I I gave myself away. I
pleaded with you."
He raised her hand slowly to his lips.
" I forgot you all the time I wur wud Rose," he
remarked naively.
ALMOST UNDER 325
" You needn't tell me that/'
"But now I wdl, it's too late anyhow. I'm a
married man, no matter that my wife's in Canada. Of
course, I could git a divorce but I woan't."
" No it would cost money."
" More than I could spare."
Alice laughed.
" I never looked upon Rose as my rival I always
knew my real rival was your farm, and though now
Rose is out of the way, that still stands between us. 1 '
Reuben was silent. He sat leaning forward in his
chair, holding Alice's hand. Then he abruptly rose to
his feet.
" Well, I must be going. It's done me good, our talk.
Not that you've said anything particular comforting,
but then you never did. It's good anyway to sit wud
a woman wot's not lik a fat stroked cat not a thin
kicked one, nuther," he added viciously, remembering
Caro. " You're lik a liddle tit-bird, Alice. I love you.
But I'm not sorry I didn't marry you, for you'd
have busted me same as Rose, only in a different
way."
" Most likely."
She laughed again. He stooped forward and kissed
her forehead, and the laugh died on her lips.
25,
The rest of that day Reuben was a little happier. He
felt comforted and stimulated, life was not so leaden.
In the evening he worked a little in the hop-gardens.
They were almost cleared now, and the smoke of the
drying furnaces was streaming through the cowls of the
oasts, shedding into the dusk a drowsy, malt-sweetened
perfume. When the moon hung like a yellow splinter
above Iden Woods the pickers went home, and Reubeu
826 SUSSEX GORSE
turned in to his supper, which for the first time since
Rose's flight he ate with hearty pleasure.
He could not tell exactly what it was that had
invigorated him, and jerked him out of his despair. It
would seem as if Alice's presence alone had tonic
qualities. Perhaps the secret lay in her unchangeable-
ness. He had gone back to her after an absence of five
years, and found her just the same, still loving him,
still fighting him, the old Alice. Everything else had
changed- his farm which in the former days had
been the thriving envy of the countryside was now
little better than a ruin, his home life had been turned
inside out, but in the woman over at Cheat Land
nothing had altered, love and strength and faithfulness
still flourished in her. It was as if a man stumbling in
darkness should suddenly hear a loved, familiar voice
say " Here I am." The situation summed itself up in
three words She was there ; and his heart added
" for me to take if I choose."
In spite of his revived spirits he could not sleep, but
he went up early to his room, for he wanted to think.
During the evening the idea had gained on him that he
could still have Alice if he wanted her, and with the idea
had grown the sensation that he wanted her with all his
heart.
His return had been complete. All that she had ever
had and lost of empire had re-established itself during
that hour at Cheat Land. He wanted her as he had
wanted her before he met Rose, but with a renewed
intensity, for he wa? no longer mystified by his desire.
He no longer asked himself how he could possibly love
41 a liddle stick of a woman like her," for he saw how
utterly love-worthy she was and had always been. For
the first time he saw as Ms, if only he would take it, a
great woman's faithful love. This love of Alice Jury's
had nothing akin to Naomi's poor little fluttering
passion, or to Rose's fascijiatiou, half appetite, half
ALMOST UNDER 827
game. Someone loved him truly, strongly, purely,
deeply, with a fire that could be extinguished only by
death or he realised in a dim way her own will The
question was, should he pay the price this love de-
manded, take it to himself at the cost of the ambitions
that had fed his life for forty years ?
He sat down by the open window, leaning his elbow
on the sill. The night was as soft as honey, and dark
as a bowl of wine. The stars were scattered and dim,
the moon had dipped into a belt of fogs, the fields were
bloomed with darkness and sleep. The ridge of Boar-
zell was just visible under the Dog Star the lump of
firs stood motionless, for the wind had dropped, and
not even a whisper from the orchard proclaimed its
sleeping place.
Reuben's eyes swept the dim outlines of his farm
the yard, the barns, the oasts, the fields beyond, up to
where his boundaries scarred the waste. It was all
blurred and blanketed in the darkness, but his mind
could see it in every detail. He saw the cow-stable
empty except for the six cheap Suffolks which just
supplied his household and one or two gentry with
milk ; he saw doors split and unhinged that he could
not afford to mend, gaping roofs that he could not
afford to retile, while the martins stole his thatch for
their autumn broods ; he saw his oat-harvest mostly
straw, his hop-harvest gathered at a loss, his hay spoiled
with sorrel ; he saw himself short of labour, one man
turned off, another run away ; and he saw all the flints
and shards and lime of Boarzell breaking his plough,
choking his winter wheat, while on the lower ground
runnels of clay made his corn sedgy, and everywhere
the tough, wiry fibres of the gorse drank all the little
there was of goodness out of the ground and scattered
it from its blossoms in useless fragrance.
This was what his forty years of struggle had brought
Mm to. He saw himself in the midst of a huge am-
828 SUSSEX GORSE
bitious rain. He had failed, his hopes were blighted
what could he expect to pull out of this wreck. It would
be far better and wiser if he gave up the dreary un-
certain battle, and took the sure rest at hand. If he
sold some of the more fruitful part of his land he would
be able to divorce Rose, then he could marry Alice and
live with her a quiet, shorn, unambitious life. No one
would buy the new ground on Boarzell, but he could
easily sell the low fields by the Glotten brook ; that
would leave him with twenty or thirty acres of fairly
good land round the farm, and all his useless encroach-
ments on Boarzell which he would allow to relapse into
their former state. He would have enough to live upon,
to support his children and his delicate wife he would
be able to take no risks and make no ventures, but he
would be comfortable.
His old father's words came back to him" I've no
ambitions, so I'm a happy man. I doan't want nothing
I haven't got, so I haven't got nothing I doan't want."
Perhaps his father had been right. After all, what had
he, Reuben, got by being ambitious ? Comfort, peace,
home-life, wife, children, were all so many bitter words
to him, and his great plans themselves had crumbled
into failure he had lost everything to gain nothing.
Far better give up the struggle while there was the
chance of an honourable retreat. He realised that he
was at the turning point a step further along his old
course and he would lose Alice, a step along the road
she pointed, and he would lose Boarzell, After all he
had not won Boarzell, most likely never would win it
if he persisted on his old ways they would probably
only lead him to ruin, and later there might be no Alice
to turn to. If he renounced her now, he would be
definitely pledging himself to Boarzell and all his
soaring, tottering schemes he would not be able to
" come back " a second time.
If he lost Alice now he might be losing her for a dream,
ALMOST UNDER 829
a bubble, a will-o'-the-wisp. Surely he would be wise to
pull what he could out of the wreck, take her, and forget
all else. Only a fool would turn away from her now, and
press forward. In the old days it had been different, he
had been successful then now he was a failure, and saw
his chance to fail honourably. Better take it before it
was too late.
His mind painted him a picture it had never dared
paint before the comfortable red house basking in
sunshine, with a garden full of flowers, a cow or two at
pasture in the meadow, the little hop-field his only tilth
his dear frail wife sitting in the porch, his children
playing at her feet or reading at her knee perhaps they
were hers too, perhaps they were not. He saw himself
contented, growing stout, wanting nothing he hadn't
got, so having nothing he didn't want ... he was
leaning over her chair, and gazing away into the southern
distance where Boarzell lay against the sky, all patched
with heather and thorns, all golden with gorse, un-
irrigated, uncultivated, without furrow or fence. , . .
... A shudder passed through Reuben, a long shudder
of his flesh, for in at the open window had drifted the
scent of the gorse on Boarzell. It came on no wind, the
night was windless as before. It just seemed to creep
to him over the fields, to hang on the air like a reproach.
It was the scent of peaches and apricots, of sunshine
caught and distilled. He leaned forward out of the
window, and thought he could see the glimmer of the
gorse-clumps under the stars.
The edge of Boarzell was outlined black against the
faintly paler sky he traced it from the woods in which
it rose, up to its crest of firs, then down into the woods
again. Once more it lay between him and the soft
desires of his weakness ; as long ago at Cheat Land, it
called him back to his allegiance like a love forsaken.
In the black quiet it lay bullish like some beast but it
was more than a beast to-night. It was like the gorse
330 SUSSEX GORSE
on its heights, delicate perfume as well as murderous
fibre, sweetness as well as ferocity. The scent, im-
pregnating the motionless air, seemed to remind him
that Boarzell was his love as well as his enemy more,
far more to him than Alice.
His ambition flared up like a damped furnace, and he
suddenly saw himself a coward ever to have thought of
rest. Boarzell was more to him than any woman in
the world. For the sake of one weak woman he was
not going to sacrifice all his hopes and dreams and
enterprises, the great love of his life.
Boarzell, not Alice, should be his. He muttered the
words aloud as he strained his eyes into the darkness,
tracing the beloved outline. He despised himself for
having wavered even in thought. Through blood and
tears others' and his own he would wade to Boarzell,
and conquer it at last. From that night all would be
changed, the past should be thrust behind him, he
would pull himself together, make himself a man. Alice
must go where everything else had gone mother, wife,
children, friends, and love. Thank God ! Boarzell was
worth more to him than all these.
Leaning out of the window, he breathed in the scent
of his slumbering land. His lips parted, his eyes
brightened, the lines of care and age grew softer on his
face. With his darling ambition, he seemed to recover
his youth once more he felt the blood glowing in his
veins, while zeal and adventure throbbed together in
his heart. He had conquered the softer mood, and
banished the sweet unworthy dreams for ever. Alice
who had nearly vanquished him should go the way of
all enemies.
And the last enemy to be destroyed is Love.
BOOK VI
STRUGGLING UP
night was a purging. From thence-
forward Reuben was to press on straight to
his goal, with no more slackenings or diver-
sions.
He had learned one sound lesson, which was the
superfluousness of women in the scheme of life. From
henceforward he was " shut of " them. Long ago he
had denied himself women in their more casual aspect,
using them entirely for practical purposes, but now he
realised that women no longer had any practical purpose
as far as he was concerned. The usefulness of woman
was grossly overrated. It is true that she produced off-
spring, but he thought irritably that Providence might
have found some more satisfactory way of perpetuating
the human race. Everything a woman did was bound
to go wrong somehow. She was nothing but a parasite
and an incubus, a blood-sucking triviality, an expense
and a snare. So he tore woman out of his life as he tore
up the gorse on BoarzeU.
It was wonderful how soon he adapted himself to his
new conditions. At first he missed Rose, but by the
time he had got rid of her clothes and swept the perfume
of her out of his room, he had ceased to hunger. He
never heard of her again he never knew what life she
led in the new land, whether the reality of love brought
her as much happiness as the game, or whether her old
832 SUSSEX GORSE
taste for luxury and pleasure reasserted itself and
rained both love and lover.
As for Alice, he found to his surprise that she was not
so dangerous even as Rose, for an ideal is never so
enslaving as a habit. He avoided Cheat Land, and there
was nothing to bring her across his path as long as he
did not seek her. So the yoke of woman dropped from
Reuben's neck, leaving him a free man.
He formed a plan of campaign. The large un-
reclaimed tracts of Boarzell must be left for a time, while
he devoted his attention to the land already cultivated,
He must economise in labour, so he hired no one in
Handshut's place, but divided his work among the other
men. His rekindled zeal was hot enough to ignite
even the dry sticks of their enterprise, and Odiam toiled
as it had never toiled before. Even Harry was pressed
for service, and helped feed the pigs and calves, besides
proving himself a most efficient scarecrow.
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.
It seemed almost as if his luck had turned, for the
harvests that year were exceedingly good. In most of
his fields there were two hay-crops, while the oats and
wheat yielded generously, even on BoarzelL As for the
hops, he reaped a double triumph, for not only did his
hop-gardens bring in more than the average to the acre,
but almost everyone else in the neighbourhood did
badly, so prices rose in a gratifying way.
STRUGGLING UP 838
Under this encouragement, part of the old adven-
turous spirit revived, and Reuben bought a Highly
Commended bull at Lewes Fair, and advertised him
for service. In spite of catastrophe, he still believed
cattle-rearing to be the most profitable part of a farmer's
business, and resolved to build up his own concern on
its old lines. With regard to the dairy, Caro was an
excellent dairy woman, besides looking after the two
little children, and Odiam had a fair custom for its
dairy produce, also for fruit and vegetables. .
Thus, in a very small way, and with continual hard
work and anxiety, the farm was beginning to revive.
Reuben felt that he was recapturing his prestige in the
neighbourhood, and, when his labours allowed him,
assisted the good work by drinking slow glasses of
sherry in the bar of the Cocks, and making patronising
remarks about his neighbours' concerns.
He was glad from the bottom of his heart that he had
not been wooed from his ambition, in a moment of
weakness, by softer dreams which he now looked upon
as so much dust,
2.
In the course of the following year Reuben had news
of all his absent sons, except Benjamin, who was never
heard of again.
One day Caro came home from Rye, where she had
gone with the vegetables to market, and said that she
had met Bessie Lamb. Bessie was on her way to the
station, where she would take the train for Southampton,
Robert had written that he was now able to have her
with him in Australia, and she had at once packed up
her few belongings and set out to join him in the un-
known.
Bessie was now thirty, and looked older, for she had
lost a front tooth and her pretty hair had faded : but
she was as confident of Robert's love as ever. He had
804 SUSSEX GORSE
written to her by every mail, she told Caro, and they had
both saved and scraped and waited and counted the
days till they could consummate the love born in those
fields eternally fixed in twilight by their memory.
There had been no intercourse between Odiam and Eggs
Hole, so, as Robert had never written to his family,
Caro heard for the first time of the sheep-farm in Queens-
land and its success. He had done badly at first, Bessie
said, what with the drought and many other things
against him, but now he was well established, and she
would be far better off and more comfortable as the
felon's wife than she had ever been as the daughter of
honest parents.
She left Caro with a restless aching in her heart. In
spite of the lost front tooth and the faded hair, she had
impressed her in much the same way as Rose on her
wedding night. Here was another woman sure of love
looking confidently into a happyfuture, wooed and sought
after, a man's bride. . . . Jolting home in the empty
vegetable cart beside Peter, one or two tears found
their way down Caro's cheek. Oh, if only some man,
no matter whom, tyrant, criminal, no matter what,
would love her, give her for one moment those divine
sensations which she had seen other women enjoy !
Why must she alone, of all the women she knew, be
loveless ?
It was her father's fault, he had kept her to work for
him, he had starved her purposely of men's society
and now her youth was departing, she was twenty-
nine, and she had never heard a man speak words of
love, or felt his arms about her, or the sweetness of his
lips on hers.
When they came to Odiam, she told Reuben what
she had heard about Robert.
" Would you believe it, he has a hundred sheep
and a man working under him and money coining in
quite easy now. It wur hard at first, Bessie says, and
STRUGGLING UP 385
he war in tedious heart over it all, but he pulled through
his bad times, and now he's doing valiant."
" And who has he got to thank fur it, I'd lik to
know ? Who taught him how to run a farm, and work,
and never spare himself and pull things through?
There he wur, wud no sperrit in him, grudging every
stroake he did fur Odiam. If I hadn't kept him to it,
where 'ud he be now ? "
News of Richard came a few months later. He was
heard of as a barrister on the Southern Circuit, and
defended a gipsy on trial for turnip-stealing at Lewes.
Rumours of him began to spread in the neighbour-
hood he was doing well, Anne Bardon was working
for him, and he was likely to be a credit to her. At
the Cocks he was the subject of much respectful com-
ment, and for the first time Reuben found himself
bathed in glory reflected from one of his children. He
could not help feeling proud of him, but wished he did
not owe anything to the Bardons.
" Tedious argumentations liddle varmint he wur
I'm not surprised as he's turned a lawyer. And he had
good training fur it, too. There's naun to sharpen the
wits lik a farmer's life, and I kept him at it, tough and
rough, though he'd have got away if he cud. Many's
the time I've wopped him near a jelly fur being a lazy-
bones, and particular, which you can't be and a lawyer
too. But I reckon he thinks it's all that Bardon woman's
doing."
A few weeks later Richard wrote himself, breaking
the silence of years. Success had made him feel more
kindly towards his father. He forgave the frustrations
and humiliations of his youth, and enquired after his
brothers and sisters and the progress of the old farm,
Anne Bardon had kept him fairly well posted in Back-
field history, but though he knew of Reuben's unlucky
marriage and of the foot-and-mouth catastrophe, he
had evidently lost count of absconding sons, for he
886 SUSSEX GORSE
seemed to think Pete had run away too, which Reuben
considered an unjustifiable aspersion on his domestic
order. However, the general tone of his letter was con-
ciliatory, and his remarks on the cattle-plague " most
praaper."
As for himself, his life had been full of hard work
and the happiness of endeavour crowned at last by
success. Anne Bardon he referred to as an angel, which
made Reuben chuckle grimly. He had already had a
brief, though he was called to the bar only two years
ago which struck his father as very slow business.
He also gave news of Albert, but not good news. He
had kept more or less in touch with his brother, and
had done what he could to help him, yet Albert had
made a mess of his literary life, partly through incapacity,
partly through dissipation. He had wasted his money
and neglected his chances, and his friends could do little
for him, Richard had come more than once to the rescue,
but it was impossible to give real help to one of his
weak nature also Richard was still poor, and anxious
to pay off his debts to Anne Bardon.
" I reckon/' said Reuben, " as how they'd all have
been better off if they'd stayed at home."
3.
Soon afterwards a letter came from Albert, asking
for money, but again Reuben forbade any notice to
be taken of it. For one thing he could not afford to
help anyone, for another he would not even in years of
plenty have helped a renegade like Albert. His blood
still boiled when he remembered the boy's share in his
political humiliation. He had shamed his father and
his father's farm. Let him rot !
So Albert's letter remained unanswered Caro felt
that Reuben was unjust. She had grown very critical
of him lately, and a smarting dislike coloured her judg-
STRUGGLING UP 837
ments. After all, it was he who had driven everybody
to whatever it was that had disgraced him. He was
to blame for Robert's theft, for Albert's treachery, for
Richard's base dependence on the Bardons, for George's
death, for Benjamin's disappearance, for Tilly's marriage,
for Rose's elopement it was a heavy load, but Caro
put the whole of it on Reuben's shoulders, and added,
moreover, the tragedy of her own warped life. He was
a tyrant, who sucked his children's blood, and cursed
them when they succeeded in breaking free.
Caro had been much unhappier since Rose's flight.
She had loved her in an erratic envious way, and Rose's
gaiety and flutters of generosity had done much to
brighten her humdrum life. Now she was left to her
brooding. She felt lonely and friendless. Once or
twice she went over to Grandturzel, but the visits were
always difficult to manage, and somehow the sight of her
sister's happiness made her sore without enlivening her.
It was only lately that her longing for love and free-
dom had become a torment. Up till a year or two ago
her desires had been merely wistful. Now a restless
hunger gnawed at her heart, setting her continually
searching after change and brightness. She had come
to hate her household duties and the care of the little
boys. She wanted to dance dance dance to dance
at fairs and balls, to wear pretty clothes, and be admired
and courted. Why should she not have these things ?
She was not so ugly as many girls who had them. It
was cruel that she should never have been allowed to
know a man, never allowed to enjoy herself or have her
fling. Even the sons of the neighbouring farmers had
been kept away from her by her father, greedy for
her work. Tilly, by a lucky chance, had found a man,
but lucky chances never came to Caro. She saw herself
living out her life as a household drudge, dying an old
maid, all coarsened by uncongenial work, all starved of
love, all sick of, yet still hungry for, life.
g8 SUSSEX GORSE
Sometimes she would be overwhelmed by self-pity,
and would weep bitterly over whatever task she was
doing at the time, so that her tears were quite a usual
sauce to pies and puddings if only Reuben had known it.
The year passed, and the new year came, showing
the farm still on the upward struggle, with everyone
hard at work, and no one, except Reuben, enjoying it
particularly. Luck again favoured Odiam the lamb-
ing of that spring was the best for years, and as the days
grew longer the furrows bloomed with tender green
sproutings, and hopes of another good harvest ran
high. t
Caro watched the year bud and flower May came
and creamed the hedges with blossom and rusted the
grass with the first heats. Then June whitened the
fields with big moon-daisies and frothed the banks with
chervil and fennel. The evenings were tender, languor-
ous, steeped in the scent of hay. They hurt Caro with
their sweetness, so that she scarcely dared lift her eyes
to the purpling twilight sky, or breathe the wind that
swept up heavy with hay and roses from the fields.
July did nothing to heal her its yellow, heat-throbbing
dawns smote her with despair- its noons were a long-
drawn ache, and when in the evening hay and dust
and drooping chervil troubled the air with shreds and
ghosts of scent, something almost akin to madness
would twist her heart.
She felt as one whose memory calls and yet has
nothing to remember, whose thoughts run to and fro
and yet has nothing to think of, whose hopes pile them-
selves, and yet is hopeless, whose love cries out from
the depths, and yet is loveless.
One evening at the beginning of August she wandered
out of the kitchen for a breath of fresh air in the garden
before going up to bed. Her head ached, and her
cheeks burned from the fire. She did not know it, but
the flush and fever made her nearly beautiful. She was
STRUGGLING UP S39
not a bad-looking woman, though a trifle too dark and
heavy-featured, and now the glow on her cheeks and
the restless brilliancy of her eyes had kindled her almost
Into loveliness.
She picked one or two roses that drooped untended
against the fence, she held them to her breast, and the
tears came into her eyes. It was nearly dark, and the
lustreless cobalt sky held only one star Aldebaran,
red above BoarzelTs firs. A puff of wind came from the
west, and with it a snatch of song. Someone was singing
on the Moor, and the far-away voice wove itself into
the web of trouble and yearning that dimmed her
heart.
She moved down to the gate and leaned over it, while
her eyes roved the twilight unseeing. The voice on the
Moor swelled clearer. It was a man's voice, low-pitched
and musical :
" Farewell, farewell, you jolly young girls 1
We're off to Rio Bay 1 "
She remembered that there had been a wedding at
Gablehook. One of the farmer's girls had married a
Rye fisherman, and this was probably a guest on his
way home, a little the worse for drink.
" At Vera Cruz the days are fine
Farewell to Jane and Caroline 1 "
The song with its hearty callousness broke strangely
into the dusk and Carols palpitating dreams. Some-
thing about it enticed and troubled her ; the singer was
coming nearer.
" At Nombre de Dios the skies are blue
Farewell to Moll, farewell to Sue ! "
She stood at the gate and could see him as a blot on
the Moor, He was coming towards Odiam, and she
840 SUSSEX GORSE
watched him as he plunged through the heather, singing
at the pitch of his lungs :
" At Santiago love is kind,
And well forget those left behind
So kiss us long, and kiss us well,
Polly and Meg and Kate and Nell
Farewell, farewell, you jolly young girls 1
We're off to Rio Bay/'
He had struck the path that ran by the bottom of
the garden, and swaggered along it with the seaman's
peculiar rolling gait, accentuated by strong liquor.
Caro felt him coming nearer, and told herself uneasily
that she had better go back into the house. He was
drunk, and he might speak to her. Still she did not
move, she found herself clinging to the gate, leaning
her breast against it, while her tongue felt thick and
dry in her mouth.
He was quite close she could hear the thud of his
step on the soft earth. Her hands grasped the two
gate-posts, and she leaned forward over the gate, so
that her face caught the faint radiance that still lingered
in the zenith. He had stopped singing, but she could
see him now distinctly a tall, loosely-built figure, with
dark face, and woolly hair like a nigger's, while his
seaman's earrings caught the starlight.
He drew level with her, not seeing her. She did not
move, she scarcely breathed, and he had almost passed
her . . . then suddenly his eyes turned and met hers.
" Hello, Susan ! "
He stood swaying before her on his heels, his hands
in his trouser-pockets, his head a little on one side.
Caro did not speak she could not,
" What time is it, dear ? "
" I I dunno," she faltered, her voice sounding
squeaky and unlike her own : " it might be nine."
" It might be Wales or Madagasky,
It might be Rio de Janeiro/'
STRUGGLING UP 841
he trolled, and Caro was suddenly afraid lest someone
should hear in the house. She glanced back uneasily
over her shoulder.
" Papa on the look-out ? "
She coloured, and began to stutter something.
" I've been to a wedding/' he said conversationally ;
" a proper wedding with girls and kisses/'
He suddenly leaned over the gate and kissed Caro on
the lips.
She gave a little scream and started back from him.
For a moment earth, sky, and trees seemed to reel
together in one crazy dance. She was conscious of
nothing but the kiss, her first kiss ; it had smelt and
tasted strongly of brandy, if the truth were told, but
it had none the less been a kiss, and her sacrament of
initiation. She stood there in the darkness with parted
lips and shining eyes. The dusk was kind to her, and
she pleased the sailor.
" Come out for a walk," he said, and lifted the latch.
Caro trembled so that she could hardly move, and
once again came the feeling that she ought to turn and
run back into the house. But she was powerless in
the clutch of her long-thwarted emotions. The tipsy
sailor became God to her, and she followed him out on
to the Moor.
After all he was not really drunk, only a little fuddled,
He walked straight, and his roll was natural to him,
while though he was exceedingly cheerful, and often
burst into song, his words were not jumbled, and he
generally seemed to have a fair idea of what he was
saying.
She wondered if she were awake everything seemed
so strange, so new, and yet paradoxically so natural.
Was she the same Caro who had washed the babies
and cooked the supper and resigned herself to dying an
old maid ? She could not ponder things, ask herself
how it was that a man who had not known her tea
842 SUSSEX GORSE
minutes could love her all she realised was his armround
her waist, and in her heart a seethe of happy madness,
** When the stars are up above the Main
And winking in the sea,
"Tis then I dream of thee,
Eniilee I
And my dreams are Ml of pain "
sang the sailor sentimentally. His arm crept up from
her waist to her shoulder and lay heavy there. They
strolled on along the narrow path, and the darkness
stole down on them from the Moor, wrapping them
softly together. They told each other their names
his was Joe Dansay, and he was a sailorman of Rye,
who had been on many voyages to South America and
the Coral Seas. He looked about twenty-five, though
he was tanned and weather-beaten all over. His eyes
were dark and foreign-looking, so was his hair. His
mouth was a trifle too wide, his nose short and stubborn.
He was now leaning heavily on Caro as he walked, and
too shy, and perhaps reluctant, to ask him to lift his aim,
she naively suggested that they should sit down and,
rest. Dansay was delighted she was not the timid I
little bird he had thought, and directly they had sunk-
into the heather he seized her in his arms, and began'
kissing her violently on neck and lips.
Caro was frightened, horrified she broke free, and;
scrambled to her feet. She nearly wept, and^it was
clear even to his muddled brain that her invitation had
been merely the result of innocence more profound
than that which had stimulated her shyness. Rough
seaman though he was, he was touched, and managed
to soothe her, for she was too bashful and frightened to '
be really indignant. They walked a few yards further
along the path, then at her request turned back towards
Odiam.
They parted uneasily, without any arrangement to
meet again,
STRUGGLING UP 343
4-
For the first few hours of her sleepless night, Caro's
happiness outweighed her regret. Her mind sucked her
little experience like a sugar-plum and filled her thoughts
with sweetness. She lived over the adventure from its
birth in a song on Boarzell to its consummation in the
blessedness of a kiss. Afterwards it became a little
smudged, a little terrifying, and the end had not been in
keeping with the beginning. None the less, the fact
remained that she had been kissed, that she had tasted
at last of the glories of love, felt the touch of a man's
lips, of his arm about her . . . she was no longer with-
out knowledge; when other women spoke of these
tilings, an answering thrill would creep into her heart,
and words of experience to her tongue.
Then she asked herself would he come again ? Her
joy seemed almost too divine to be renewed, she could
hardly picture such a profanity as its repetition. Yet
as the night wore on, the question began to loom
larger than all her blessed certainties and with it came
a growing tendency to dwell on the latter part of her
experience, on the awkward aloofness of the walk home,
and the uneasy parting at the gate. It struck her that
she had been a fool to take fright at his violence. After
all, if he loved her so much ... it was wonderful how
quickly he had fallen in love, and quick things are more
apt to be violent than slow ones. Besides, men were
inclined to be rough and fierce by nature. Thus she
reassured and reproached herself. Perhaps she had
driven him away, perhaps her timidity had made him
doubt her love. Perhaps she had been too squeamish.
After all . . ,.
She rose the next morning with a bad headache and
her eyes staring rather plaintively out of black saucers.
None the less she was happy, even in spite of her
S44 SUSSEX GORSE
regrets. She loved and had been loved, so she told
herself over and over again as she dressed David and
Bill and prepared the breakfast. Why, even if, when he
got home, Joe Dansay discovered that he did not really
love her, she would still have had his love, and as for
herself, she would go on loving him for ever " for ever
and ever and ever/' she repeated in a low, trembling
voice as she cut her father's bacon.
During the rest of the day it was the same she moved
in a kind of exalted dream. The most common objects
thrilled her, and gave her unexpected tokens of divinity,
Her work was consuming, her leisure beatific. The
children loved her, for that day she could do what she
had never done properly to their mind, and that is
play ; while with Harry, dribbling and muttering, she
was tender, as no one but Naomi had been.
Towards evening uneasiness sprang up again, with the
old question would he return ? She told herself that
if he did, she would not hold back, she would not let her
inexperience and timidity rob her or him of their love.
She would let him kiss her as he pleased love was too
good a thing to risk for a few qualms. But would he
come ? would he give her the chance of reparation ?
The sun dipped behind Castweasel, the hot sky cooled
into a limpid green stars specked it in the north, and
the moon came up behind Iden Woods, huge and dim.
Caro ran out once or twice into the garden ; the
flowers hung pale and stirless on their stems, and from
the orchard, full of the babble of a hidden wind, came
a faint scent of plums. The old walls of Odiam seemed
to smell of the sunshine they had caught and held
during the day. The gable-ends broke into the stars,
and the windows gleamed in the yellowing light of the
moon. Up towards the south the mass of Boarzell rose
bullish and deserted far away at EUenwhorne a dog
was barking, but all else was still
STRUGGLING UP 845
5.
There was no doubt that Joe Dansay had got drank
at Willie Tailleur's wedding. The fact was cruelly
emphasised by the headache with which he woke up
the next morning. He thought it very hard luck, for
after all, he had not got nearly so drunk as he might
have, as he often had. However, he had been forced
into abstinence by a long voyage from Sierra Leone, and
put down his sufferings to nature's mutiny at such an
unwholesome state of affairs.
At present he lodged with some relations in Watchbell
Street, and round him were all the Dansays and Tailleurs
and Espinettes and Perrots, the Rye fisher tribe, of
French origin which was still traceable in their names,
in their brown eyes, and the sensitiveness of their
mouths. He nearly always went to his people between
voyages, for the Rye girls took his fancy. There was at
this moment a charmer in Wish Ward on whom a good
part of his pay had already been spent. Sometimes he
went out in his uncle Bob Dansay's fishing boat, for he
was not above handling a net between his ventures on
the high seas.
He mumbled curses as he dressed, and bathed his
head in cold water. He did not deserve this visitation
usually he regarded an after-debauch headache as one
of the marvellous acts of Providence, in which he, like
most sailormen, believed with a faith which though
conveniently removed from works was deeply tinged
with admiration. But yesterday he had not been really
drunk why, he could remember nearly everything that
had happened, the dancing, the songs, the girls, how he
had walked home singing " Rio Bay," and how he had
met that queer girl at the farmhouse gate, and thought
he was going to have some fun with her and
disappointed
346 SUSSEX GORSE
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 Ms 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.
His headache had passed off, and he felt a man again ;
so he sought the woman. She lived in a small old house
wedged tight between two new ones ; her window was
dark, and her threshold silent, though he knocked again
and again. He walked up and down once or twice in
front of the cottage whistling " Ropes and Rum "
perhaps she had gone to do some shopping ; he saw him-
self sitting down to a feast of pickled herrings in her
kitchen.
Then when he was about a hundred feet from the
house the door opened stealthily and a man slunk out.
The gleam of a street lamp passed over his face, and
Dansay rushed at him with his fists up.
The story of Joe Dansay has nothing to do with us
except so far as it affects Caro Backfield, so there will
be no digression to explain why he and Albert Cock
fought each other up and down Wish Ward till the
police came running up and hauled them off to gaol
The next morning he came before the magistrate, and
was fined ten shillings and costs or fourteen days. He
was able to find the money, but it was not the fine
which made him drag his footsteps and hang his head
as he walked home, it was the sight of his victim of
the night before leaving the court arm-in-arm with a
certain pretty witness.
Evening came, the dusk fdl, stars floated up out of
STRUGGLING UP 347
the mists that piled themselves along the shore, the bleat
of sheep came from the marsh, and the eye of Dungeness
Lighthouse flashed off the Point into the fogs. Inland
the country was wrapt in a tender haze, perfumed with
hops and harvest. The moon rose above the Fivewater-
ing, and bronzed the dark masses of wood huddling
northward. The scented wind seemed to sigh to him
of a woman's hair and lips, of the softness of a woman's
hand in his, of her silly little voice talking love and
nonsense. But the house in Wish Ward was shut to
him perfidious woman had added yet another perfidy
to her score. For about the twentieth time his love
dream had been shattered. Now she was eating pickled
herrings with another man.
1 A kind of defiance, a kind of swagger possessed him.
He would show her and himself how little he cared. He
would find another woman this very night. He re-
membered the dark-browed, demure little thing of the
farmhouse gate. He would go back to her, and she
would not be so timid this time they never were.
6.
" Oh, I thought you wur never coming back."
She murmured it over and over again as he kissed her,
and she dung to him like a child. There was something
about her words and about herself as she quivered in Ms
arms that touched him inexpressibly. He swore that he
loved her, and forgot all about the woman in Wish
Ward.
That evening Caro remembered her own counsels and
did not draw back from his love. She let him kiss her
as much as he chose, though he saw with amusement
that he frightened her sometimes. They wandered on
Boarzell through webs of star-fretted mist, they drank
the night together, and sacramental silences. It was
only when she realised that her father would be shutting
848 SUSSEX GORSE
up the house that Caro was able to tear herself away,
and this time they parted with many kisses and vows to
meet again.
He came nearly every night. If she was not at the
gate he would whistle a few bars of " Rio Bay/' and she
would steal out as soon as she could do so without
rousing suspicion. Boarzell became theirs, their
accomplice in some subtle, beautiful way. There was a
little hollow on the western slope where they would
crouch together and sniff the apricot scent of the gorse,
which was ever afterwards to be the remembrancer
of their love, and watch the farmhouse lights
at Castweasel gleam and gutter beside Ramstile
woods.
Sometimes he would talk to her of the strange voyages
he had made how he had lived on ships ever since he
was a boy of twelve, and had seen nearly the whole
world, from the fiery steaming forests of Equador to the
Northern Lights that make a mock day in Spitzbergen.
He told her strange tales of wooded atolls in the South
Seas, painting a fairyland she had scarcely dreamed, of
palms motionless in the aromatic air, of pink and white
shores, and lagoons full of fish all winged and frilled
and iridescent of the sudden swift sunrises and
sunsets between Cancer and Capricorn, of the great
ice-wall in the south, below Tasmania, which he had
longed to penetrate, for who knew what lay beyond it in
the Unknown ? " And there's another like it what I've
seen from Franz Josef Land maybe there's countries
beyond it, with gold." Then he told her of the terrible
storms south of the Horn, of the uncharted Nelson
Strait of northern Baffin Land, where he had once gone
on a whaler, of Rio Grande and the buried city of
Tenoctitlan " where there's gold." Gold seemed to be
hidden in large quantities all over the world according to
Dansay, and Caro once asked him why he had never
brought any back. " Because I love what's better than
STRUGGLING UP 849
gold," he answered, and drew her, happy and quivering,
into his arms.
She became inexpressibly dear to him during those
meetings. Her timidity and innocence charmed him so
completely that he preserved them longer than he had
at first felt inclined to do. His vanity was tickled to
think that though she was past thirty he was the first
man who had kissed her. She was not bad-looMng,
either, with her straight black brows and huge eyes in
spite of toil she did not look her years, and during the
weeks of his courtship she seemed to grow younger and
prettier, she grew daintier. Yet she largely retained the
qualities that had first attracted him, her admiration for
him * was unbounded and guilelessly expressed she
would listen in tender reverence to his yarns, and
received his caresses with a humble gratitude that went
straight to his heart.
As for Caro, life was a rainbow dream. The hardships
of the day were gladly lived through in expectation of
the joys of the evening. She felt very few qualms of
conscience, even when the barrier was past which she
had thought impassable. Somehow love seemed to alter
her whole point of view, or rather stripped her of one
altogether after all, her point of view had never been
more than the acceptance of other people's. Besides,
there were things in love that she had never guessed ;
nobody had ever done anything to make her realise that
there was beauty in it Rose's flirtations, her father's
jealous passion had never suggested such a thing. But
now her life was brimmed with beauty, unimaginable
beauty that welled up into the commonest things and
suffused them with light. Also, about it all was that
surprising sense of naturalness, which almost always
comes to women when they love for the first time, the
feeling of " For this I was born."
Sometimes she would have anxious moments, a
strange sense of fear. " I'm a bad woman," she would
350 SUSSEX
repeat to herself, and she would dread the thought of
her sister Tilly. But the terrors did not last, they were
driven away by the remembrance of what her life had
been before she met Joe its drabness, its aimless toil,
its lassitude, its humiliations. She would have been a
fool to spurn her golden chance when it came. It had
been her only chance ; after all it was not as if she ever
could have married. She had had to choose between the
life she had led up to that August evening and the life
she was leading now, and she could not regret her choice.
She never asked Dansay to marry her. He had given
her pretty clearly to understand that he was not a
marrying man, and she was terrified of doing or saying
anything that might turn him against her. One of the
things about her that charmed him most was the
absence of all demand upon him. She never asked for
presents, and the few things he bought her stimulated
both her humble gratitude and her alarm lest he should
have spent too much money. One day he suggested
that he should take her to BoarzeH Fair,
" Oh, Joe, would you really ! "
" Of course, if you can manage it without us being
spotted."
" I reckon I cud, for f aather aun't going this year,
he's got an auction at Appledore."
" Then you come along ; I'll take you, and we'll have
some fun."
" But I ddan't want you to waste your money/'
" It won't be wasting it. Why, Lord love ye, I'd
rather spend it on you than anything in the world/'
Her look of surprise and adoration was his reward.
7-
Boarzell Fair was in many ways a mark of the passage
of the years and a commentary on history, Not only
did the atmosphere and persons of it change very much
STRUGGLING UP 851
as the nineteenth century changed, but the side-shows
were so many lights cast on popular opinion, politics,
and progress.
For instance, in the year 1878, the Panorama which
had started with the Battle of Trafalgar and the Royal
Gardens of Vauxhall, now gave thrilling if belated
episodes of the Siege of Paris, and a gorgeous picture of
the Queen being declared Empress of India at Delhi.
The merry-go round not only went by steam, but was
accompanied by a steam organ playing " The Swell
Commercial " and " Married to a Mermaid " unfalter-
ingly from noon till night. In the shooting gallery men
potted Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Dillon, and Charles Peace,
instead of the Russian Czar or Nana Sahib of their
youth, or the hated Boney of their fathers. It all moved
with the times, and yet remained four or five years
behind them. One came in contact with movements
which had just ebbed from the country, waves that had
rolled back everywhere except in these lonely rural
districts where interests and hatreds came later and
lingered longer than in more accessible parts.
The population had altered too. Old Gideon Teazel
had died some years ago, and his son Jasper was boss in
his place. He was unlike his father both in character
and physique, an undersized little ruffian, seasoned by
a long career in horse-stealing, who beat his wife openly
on the caravan steps, and boasted that he had landed
more flats at thimble-rig than any thimble-engro in
England. He would have cheated the shirt off any man
at the Show, and established a sort of ascendancy through
sheer dread of his cunning. The only man who did not
fear him was Mexico Bill, a half-breed in charge of the
cocoanut shie. Mexico Bill feared only the man who
could knock him out, and that man had not yet been
found in Boarzell Fair. As a matter of fact he was
usually pretty genial and docile, but he had been
wounded in the head by Indians long ago, and some-
852 SUSSEX GORSE
times went mad and ran amok. On these occasions
the only thing to do was to trip him up, and enrol as
many volunteers as possible to sit on him till he came
to Ms senses.
There was no longer any fiddler at the Fair. Harry
Backfield's successor had been a hurdy-gurdy which
played dance music louder and more untiringly than
any human arm could do. Dancing was still a vital
part of the festivities, but it was more decorous than
in the days when Reuben and Naomi had danced
together to the tune of " Seth's House/' or Robert and
Bessie to " My Decided Decision/' Only in the evening
it became rowdy, when the sun had set and the mists
had walled in the Show with nacreous battlements.
Joe and Caro joined the dancers on their arrival. It
was the first time in her life that Caro had danced at
the Fair, and the experience thrilled her as wonderfully
as if it had not been just a link in the chain of a hundred
new experiences. The hurdy-gurdy was playing " See
me Dance the Polka/' and of they skipped, to steps of
their own, betraying in Dansay's case a hornpipe origin.
She saw people that she knew, but had no fear of
betrayal, unless from Pete, who was, however, safe in
the fighting-booth, now conveniently banished by
public opinion to the outskirts of the Fair. Pete would
" tell on " her, she knew, but no one else cared enough
for Reuben to betray his daughter to him. She looked
with kindly eyes on all the world as her accomplice
that all the world loves a lover is primarily the lover's
point of view.
Besides, she was lost in the crowd which jigged and
dumped around her, not even daunted by the un-
familiar waltz that the hurdy-gurdy struck up next.
Nobody, except fanatics, bothered about steps, so one
could dance to any tune.
In time Caro grew tired, and they wandered off to
the shooting-gallery and the merry-go-round. They
STRUGGLING UP
patronised the cocoanut shie, and won a gilt saucer at
the hoop4 stall. In the gipsy's tent Caro was told that
she would ride in a carriage with a lord, and have six
fine children, all boys, while Dansay was promised such
wealth that he would be able to throw gold to crossing-
sweepers. They sat in the Panorama till it stuck fast
at a gorgeous tableau of Britannia ruling the waves
from what looked like a bath chair. Joe bought Caro a
pie at the refreshment stall, and himself ate many beef
rolls. She was overwhelmed by the lavish way he
spent his money, and quite relieved for his sake when
they went back to the dancing green.
The day had slipped by, and twilight was settling
down on the Fair, The stalls flared up, a red glow
streamed into the sky, and patched the shagginess of
BoarzelTs firs with crimson shreds. The dancing had
become more disorderly, the decent folk had retired, and
left the madder element to its revels. The mass of the
dancers was blurred, confused in the grey smeeth. It
seemed to invite Joe and Caro, for now in the thick of it
one could give and take surreptitious kisses ; some of
the kisses were not even surreptitious the love-making
was becoming nearly as open as in the days when
Reuben and Naomi had danced together. Caro was no
longer shocked at the " goings-on/' which had used to
scandalise her in earlier years when she knew them
scarcely more than by hearsay. Her very innocence
had made her easier to corrupt, and she now joined in
the revel with a delight scarcely less abandoned, if more
naive, than that of the cottage wantons who bumped
round her. It was all so new, and yet so natural, this
kicking and capering to a jigging tune. Who would have
imagined that the lonely bitter Caro, enviously watching
the fun in earlier years, should now have both a partner
and a lover ? She laughed like a child at the thought.
Then suddenly her laughter died ; her expression
became fixed, and she swayed a little in Joe's arms, as
354 SUSSEX GORSE
she stared into the crowd of spectators. They were on
the outskirts of the dancers, and quite close to them
stood Pete. He had come out of the fighting-booth,
still in his bruiser's dressing-gown, evidently to watch
the fun. He was looking straight at Caro as she danced
dishevelled, and both he and Dansay knew that he had
recognised her. They saw his lips tighten, and an
angry look came on his face which his profession
had not made more benevolent than Nature in-
tended.
" Quick," muttered Joe, and he guided her cleverly
enough through the pack of dancers, leading her out on
the opposite side.
" Oh, Joe, he's seen us."
Dansay bit his lip he was afraid so.
Caro began to cry.
" My faather will kill me, surelye."
She knew for certain that Pete would tell him, and
then almost quite as certainly she would lose the adven-
ture which had become life itself to her. She would be
driven back into the old prison, the old loneliness, the
old despair. She clung to Dansay, weeping and frantic :
" Oh, Joe doan't let them find me. I can't lose you
I woan't lose you I love you so."
He was leading her away from the people, to the
back of the stalls. He was nearly as miserable and
aghast as she. For he had become extraordinarily fonci
of her during those few weeks, and the thought of losing
her turned him cold. He had been a fool to bring her
to the Fair.
" You 'must come away with me," he said abruptly.
"Oh, Joe!"
It was a bold step, but he saw that none other would
serve, and he realised that she was not the kind of
woman to take advantage of him and make herself a
permanent encumbrance.
"Yes there's nothing for it but that. We'll go
STRUGGLING UP 855
down and stay at the Camber. You'll be safe with me,
and I've got a little money put by."
Considering how much she had already given him, it
was perhaps strange that she shuddered a little at this
open venture.
" You'll be good to me, Joe 1 "
" Won't I, just ! "
Something in the wistfulness and humility of her
appeal had touched him to the heart ; he clasped her to
him with a passion for once free from roughness, and
for one moment at least had every intention of sticking
to her for ever.
8.
It was not from Pete that Reuben first heard of his
daughter's goings-on. Caro's benevolent trust in
humanity had been misplaced, and at the Seven Bells
where he called for a refresher on arriving at Rye
station, various stragglers from Boarzell eagerly be-
trayed her, " just to see how he wud taake it."
Reuben received the news with the indifference due
to outsiders. But he was not so calm when Pete told his
tale at Odiam.
" The bitch," he growled, (t I'll learn her. Dancing
wud a sailor, you say she wur, Pete ? "
" Yes," said Pete, " and wud her hair all tumbling."
" I'll learn her," repeated Reuben. But he never
had the chance. By the time the two males had sat up
till about three or four the next morning, they came to
the conclusion that Caro must have seen Pete watching
her and run away.
" Shell never come back," said Pete that evening
" you taake my word fur it."
" That's another of my daughters gone fur a whore."
" Who wur the fust ? "
" Why Tilly goes off wud that lousy pig-keeper up
at GrandturzeL She's no better than Caro."
356 SUSSEX GORSE
"And there wur Rose," added Pete, anxious to
supply instances.
Reuben swore at him,
He felt Caro's disappearance more acutely than he
would allow to show. First, she had left him badly in
the lurch in household matters he had to engage a
woman to take her place, and pay her wages. Also she
had caused a scandal in the neighbourhood, which meant
more derisive fingers pointed at Odiam. Pete was now
the only one left of his original family his children and
their runnings-away had become a byword in Peas-
marsh.
In the course of time he heard that Caro was living
with Joe Dansay down at the Camber, but he made no
effort to bring her back. " I'm shut of her," he told
everyone angrily. If Caro preferred a common sailor and
loose living to the dignity and usefulness of her position
at Odiam, he was not going to interfere. Besides, she
had disgraced his farm, and he would never forgive
that.
It struck him that his relations with women had been
singularly unfortunate. Caro, Tilly, Rose, Alice, had
all been failures indeed he had come to look back on
Naomi as his only success. Women were all the same,
without ambition, without self-respect, ready to lick
the boots of the first person who stroked them and was
silly enough not to see through their wiles.
During those days he spent most of his time digging
on Boarzell. It relieved him to thrust viciously into the
red dripping clay, turn in on his spade, and fling it back
over his shoulder. It was strange that so few men
realised that work was better than women stranger
still that they did not realise how much better than a
woman's beauty was the beauty of the earth. Toiling
there on the Moor, Reuben's heart gave itself more utterly
to its allegiance. The curves of Boarzell against the sky,
its tuft of firs, its hummocked slopes, its wet life-smelling
STRUGGLING UP 857
earth, even its savagery of heather, gorse, and thorn
brought healing to his heart, and strength. Caro and
other women could do what they chose, love, hate,
follow, cheat, and betray whom they chose, as long as
they left him the red earth and the labour of his hands,
9-
Early the next year Reuben heard that Caro and her
lover had left Camber, and gone no one knew where,
but by that time the elapse of months had dulled his
feelings on the matter, and Caro, never very important
in herself, was buried under the concerns of his farm.
Odiam, after superhuman efforts, was looking up
again. Years of steady work and strenuous economy had
restored it to something like its former greatness. Reuben
was no longer hampered by an extravagant wife, and
he also had the advantage of a clear field. For at last
Grandturzel had given up the battle. Realf and Tilly
were now the parents of four healthy, growing, hungry
children, and had come to the conclusion that domestic
happiness was better than agricultural triumph. They
were contented with their position on a farm of con-
siderable importance and fair prosperity. They took
no risks, but lived happily with each other and their
children, satisfied that they could comfortably rear and
educate their little family, and leave it an inheritance
which, if not dazzling, was not to be despised.
This was an infinite relief to Reuben. He was now
no longer under the continual necessity of going one
better than somebody else he could rebuild along his
own lines, and economise in the way he chose. However,
this very convenient behaviour of Grandturzel did
nothing to soften his resentment. Tilly and Realf
were, and were always to be, unforgiven. Sometimes
he could see that they seemed inclined to be friendly
Realf would touch his hat to him if they met, and
858 SUSSEX GORSE
perhaps Tilly would smile but Reuben was not to be
won by such tready tactics. It was largely owing to
the rivalry of Grandturzel that ruin had nearly swallowed
him up four years ago and he would never be weak
enough to forget it.
Meantime it was soothing to contemplate the result
of his efforts. After all, his own striving had done more
for him than any slackness or grass-fed contentment on
the part of Grandturzel. His greatest achievement was
the paying off of his mortgage, which he managed
in the spring of '79. Now he could once more begin
saving money to buy another piece of Boarzell. There
was something both novel and exhilarating about this
return to old ways. It was over ten years since he had
bought any land, but now were renewed all the ticklish
delights of calculation, all the plannings and layings-
out, all the contrivances and scrapings and wrestlings.
There were still about two hundred acres to acquire,
including the Grandturzel inclosure, on which, however,
he looked more hopefully than of old. He had so fax
subdued not more than about a hundred and forty
acres most of the northern slope of Boarzell adjoining
Odiam and Totease, and also a small tract on the
Flightshot side. This was not very encouraging, for
it represented the labours of two-thirds of a lifetime,
and at the same time left him with more than half his
task still unaccomplished. If it had not been for his
setback ten years ago he would now probably have
over two hundred and fifty acres to his credit. But
he told himself that he would progress more quickly
now. Also, though he had not enlarged his boundaries
during the last ten years, he had considerably improved
the quality of the land within them. The first acquired
parts of Boarzell were nearly as fruitful and richly
cultivated as the original lands of the farm, and even
the '68 ground was showing signs of coming into sub-
jection.
STRUGGLING" UP 859
Besides, Reuben had now a respectable herd of cattle
not quite so numerous or valuable as the earlier lot
which had been sacrificed, but none the less respectable,
and bringing him in good returns. He had made some
sound profit out of his service-bull, and his sheep were
paying better than they had paid for years. He no longer
" kept " other people's cattle, Odiam, whether in
stock or cash, was now inviolate.
Soon the rumour spread round Peasmarsh that Back-
field was going to buy some more land. Reuben himself
had started it.
" He's done better nor he desarved," said Coalbran
of Doozes.
" He's warked fur it all the same, surelye/' said
Cooper of Kitchenhour.
" He's worked like the Old Un fur the last five year/'
said Dunn, the new man at Socknersh.
" Well, let's hope as he's found it worth while now as
he's lost two wives and eight children," was the sage
comment of old Vennal of Burntbarns.
Then the conversation wandered from Reuben's suc-
cesses to the price he had paid for them, which proved
more interesting and more comforting to those assembled,
At Flightshot the Squire viewed Odiam's recovery
with some uneasiness. It would be a good thing for
him if he could sell more land to old Backfield, but at
the same time Ms conscience was restless about it. Back-
field was a rapacious old hound, who forced the last
ounce of work out of his labourers, and the last ounce
of money out of his tenants. He was a hard master and
a hard landlord, and ought not to be encouraged. All
the same, Bardon did not see how he was to avoid en-
couraging him. If Backfield applied for the land it
would be suicidal folly to refuse to sell it. He was in
desperate straits for money. He had appealed to Anne,
who had money of her own, but Anne's reply had been
frigid. She wrote ;
860 SUSSEX GORSE
" I do not see my way to helping Flightshot while
I have so many other calls upon me. Richard is still
unsettled, and unable entirely to support himself. I
should be a poor friend indeed if after having induced
my prot6g to abandon his home and rely on me, I
should forsake him before he was properly established.
Be a man, Ralph, and refuse to sell any more land to
that greedy, selfish, unscrupulous old Backfield."
But Ralph only sighed it was all very well for Anne
to talk !
10,
Except for a steady maintenance of prosperity by
dint of hard work, the year was uneventful Autumn
passed, and nothing broke the strenuous monotony of
the days, not even news of the absent children. Then
came an evening in winter when Reuben, Pete, and
Harry were sitting in front of the kitchen fire. Reuben
and his son were half asleep, Harry was mumbling to
himself and playing with a piece of string.
A great quiet was wrapped round the house, and a
great darkness, pricked by winking stars. The barns
were shut, the steamings of the midden were nipped
by brooding frosts now and then the dull movements
of some stalled animal could be heard, but only from
the yard ; in the house there was silence except for the
singing fire, and Harry's low muttering which seldom
rose into words. Then suddenly there was a knock at
the door.
Reuben started, and Pete awoke noisily. Harry was
frightened and dropped his string, crying because he
could not find it. The knock came again, and this time
Pete crossed the room yawning, and opened the door.
For a moment he stood in front of it, while the icy
wind swept into the room. Then he dashed back to
Reuben's chair.
" Fatherit's Albert I "
STRUGGLING UP 861
Reuben sprang to his feet. He was still only half
awake, and he rubbed his eyes as he stared at the figure
framed in the doorway. Then suddenly he pulled him-
self together.
" Come in, and shut the door behind you."
The figure did not move. Reuben took a step towards
it, and then it tottered forward, and to his horror fell
against him, almost bearing him to the floor.
Pete, who had recovered his faculties to some extent,
helped support his brother. But he had fainted clean
away, and the only thing to do was to let him down as
gently as possible.
" Lordy ! " said Pete, and stooped over Albert, his
hands on his knees.
" You're sure that's Albert ? " asked Reuben, though
he really did not doubt it for a moment.
" Course I am. That's his face sure enough, though
he's as thin as wire."
" It's nigh fifteen year since he went away. Wot
did he want to come back fur ? "
" I reckon he's half starved and he looks ill too."
" Well, he's swooneded away, anyhow. Can't you
do something to maake him sensible ? "
" Poor feller," said Pete, and scratched his head.
Reuben was irritated by this display of senti-
ment.
" You needn't go pitying him, nuther he's a lousy
Radical traitor. You do something to maake him sensible
and out he goes."
At this juncture Albert opened his eyes.
" Hullo," he said feebly.
"Hullo," said Pete. Something in his brother's
pitiable condition seemed to have touched him.
Albert sat up then asked for some water.
Pete fetched a jug, which he held awkwardly to Al-
bert's lips. Then he helped him to a chair, and began
to unlace his boots.
362 SUSSEX GORSE
" Stop that/' shouted Reuben " he aun't to stay
here."
"You'll let me stop the night/' pleaded Albert,
" Til explain things when I'm better. I can't now."
" You can go to the Cocks I woan't have you in
my house/'
" But I haven't got a penny cleaned myself out for
my railway ticket. I've walked all the way from the
station, and my lungs are bad."
" Wot did you come here fur ? "
" It struck me that you might have some natural
affection."
Me Ifur a hemmed Radical ! You'd better have
saved your money, young feller I'm shut of you."
" If you're still harping on my politics/' said Albert
fretfully, " you needn't worry. Either side can go to
the devil, for all I care. I suppose it's natural to brood
over things down here, but in London one forgets a
rumpus fifteen years old."
" I'll never disremember the way you shamed me in
'65."
" I don't ask you to disremember anything. Only let
me have supper and a bed, and to-morrow "
A fit of coughing interrupted him. He strained and
shook from head to foot. He had no handkerchief, and
spat blood on the floor.
" Faather ! " cried Pete, " you can't turn him out
lik this."
" He's shamming/' said Reuben.
" Quite so/' said Albert, who seemed to have learned
sarcasm in exile "haemorrhage is so deuced easy to
sham."
"He's come back to git money out of me," said
Reuben, " but he shan't have a penny I've none to
spare."
" I don't ask for that to-night all I ask is food and
shelter, same as you'd give to a dog."
STRUGGLING UP 863
" Well, I'll leave you to Pete/' said Reuben, and walked
out of the room. He considered this the more dignified
course, and went upstairs to bed.
The brothers were left alone, except for Harry,
who was busy imitating Albert's cough, much to his
own satisfaction.
Pete fetched some soup from the larder and heated
it up to a tepid condition ; he also produced bread and
cold bacon, which the prodigal could not touch. Albert
sat hunched up by the fire, coughing and shivering. He
had not altered much since he left Odiam ; he was thin
and hectic, and had an unshaved look about him, also
there were a few grey streaks in his hair otherwise he
was the same. His manner was the same too, though
his voice had changed completely, and he had lost his
Sussex accent.
Pete ministered to him with a strange devotion, which
he carried finally to the pitch of putting him into his
own bed. The absence of so many of the children did
not make much more room in the house, as Reuben's
ideas on sleeping had always been compact also there
were the little boys, the new dairy woman, and a big
store of potatoes. Pete's large untidy bed was the only
available accommodation, and Albert was glad of it, for
he had reached the last stage of exhaustion.
" I bet you anything," he said before he fell asleep,
" that now I'm here the old boy won't be able to turn
me out, however much he wants to."
n.
Whether Reuben would have succeeded or not is
uncertain, for he was never put to the proof. The next
day Albert was feverish and delirious, and the doctor
had to be sent for. He cheerfully gave the eldest Back-
field three months to live his lungs were in a dreadful
state, one completely gone, the other partly so. He
864 SUSSEX GORSE
had caught a chill, too, walking in the dark and cold,
There could be no thought of moving him.
So Albert stayed in Pete's room, almost entirely
ignored by his father. After some consideration, Reuben
had come to the conclusion that this was the most
dignified attitude to adopt. Now and then, when he was
better, he sent him up some accounts to do, as it hurt
him to think of his son lying idle week after week ;
but he never went near him, and Albert would never
have willingly crossed his path. Those were not the days
of open windows and fresh-air cures, so there was no
especial reason why he should ever leave the low-raftered
stuffy room, where he would lie by the hour in a frowsty
dream of sickness, broken only by fits of coughing
and hsemorrhage.
His return had created a mild stir in the neighbour-
hood, and in Reuben's breast, despite circumstances
and appearances, many thrills of gratification. Albert's
penniless and broken condition was but another instance
of the folly of those who deserted Odiam. None of the
renegades, Reuben told himself, had prospered. Here
was Albert come home to die ; Robert, after a prelude
in gaol, had exiled himself to Australia, where the
droughts lasted twenty years ; Richard, in spite of study-
ings and strivings and spendings, had only an occasional
brief, and was unable to support himself at thirty-five ;
Tilly was living on a second-rate farm instead of a first-
rate one ; Caro was living in sin ; Benjamin was prob-
ably not living at all. There was no denying it they
had all done badly away from Odiam.
However, he refused all temptations to discuss this
latest prodigal. If anyone asked him how his son was
doing, he would answer, " I dunno ; ask Pete he's
the nurse."
Pete's attitude was Reuben's chief perplexity. It is
true that in early years Albert seemed to have exercised
a kind af fascination over his younger brothers and
STRUGGLING UP 865
sisters ; still that was long ago, and Pete did not appear
to have given him a thought in the interval. But now
he suddenly developed an almost maternal devotion
for the sick and broken Albert. He would sit up whole
nights with him in spite of the toils of the day, he trod
lumberingly about on tiptoe in his presence, he read to
him by the sweat of his brow. Something in his brother's
weakness and misery seemed to have appealed to his
clumsy strength. The root of sentimentality which is
always more or less encouraged by a brutal career was
quickened in his heart, and sprouted to an extent that
would have mystified the many he had bashed. It per-
plexed and irritated his father. To see Pete hulking
about on tiptoe, carrying jugs of water and cups of
milk, shutting doors with grotesque precaution, and
perpetually telling someone upstairs in a voice hoarse
with sympathy that he " wurn't to vrother, as he'd be
better soon " was a foolish and maddening spectacle.
Also Reuben dreaded that Pete would scamp his farm
work, so he fussed round after everything he did, and
called him from Albert's bedside times without number
to hoe turnips or guide the plough.
However, someone had to look after the invalid, and
Pete might as well do it as anybody else as long as he
realised that his sick-nursing was a recreation, and not
a substitute for his duties on the farm.
Spring came on, and Albert grew worse. Pete began
to look haggard ; even his bullish strength was faltering
under sleepless nights, days of moil and sweat, and
constant attendance on the sick man. The dairy-
women helped a little, but what they did they did
unwillingly ; and as the dairy was short-handed, Reuben
did not like them to take up any extra work. Pete's
existence was a continual round of anxiety and con-
trivance, and he was not used to either.
There was also another depressing factor. As he felt
his end approaching Albert began to develop a conscience
366 SUSSEX GORSE
and remorse. He said he had wasted his life, and as
time wore on and he became weaker he passed from the
general to the particular. The memory of certain sins
tormented him, and he used Pete as his confessor.
Pete was a very innocent soul. He had spoilt many a
man's beauty for him, but he had never been the slave
of a woman's. He had broken arms and ribs, and noses
by the score and he had once nearly killed a man, and
only just escaped being arrested for manslaughter ; but
he had remained through it all an innocent soul. He
had always lived in the open air, always worked hard,
always fought hard his recreations had been whistling
and sleep. He had never thought about sin or evil of
any kind, he had never troubled about sex except as it
manifested itself in the brutes he had the care of, he had
never read or talked bawdry. All the energies of his
nature had been poured into hard work and hard blows.
Therefore the confessions of a man like Albert came
upon him as a revelation. Indeed, at first he scarcely
understood them. They disquieted him and sometimes
made him nervous and miserable, not because he had
any very definite moral recoil, but because they forced
him to think. Few can gauge the tragedy of thinking
when it visits an unthinking soul. For the first time in
his life Pete found himself confused, questioning, lying
awake of nights and asking " why ? " The world
suddenly showed itself to him as a place which he could
not understand. It frightened him to think about it.
Sometimes he was acutely miserable, but he would not
betray his misery to Albert, as the poor fellow seemed
to find relief in his confidences. And on and on the
stream flowed, swifter and muddier every day.
12.
At last matters reached a climax. It was late in
March ; Albert was much worse, and even the doctor
looked solemn. " He won't last till the summer," he
STRUGGLING UP 367
said in answer to one of Pete's questions, and unluckily
the sick man heard him.
When Pete went back into the room he found him
struggling under the bedclothes, the sweat trickling
down his face.
"Pete!" he cried chokingly " I won't die ! I
won't die ! "
" And you woan't, nuther," said Pete, soothing him.
" But I heard what the doctor said to you."
Pete was at a loss. He could lie if the lie were not too
constructive, but in a case like this he was done for.
" Well, doan't you fret, nohow," he murmured
tenderly.
But it was no good telling Albert not to fret. He
threw himself from side to side in the bed, moaned, and
almost raved. For months now he had known that he
must die soon, but somehow the idea had not really
come home to him tiU this moment. He would not let
Pete leave him, though there was a load of mangolds to
be brought in ; he clung to his brother's hand like a
child, and babbled of strange sins.
" I've been so wicked I daren't die. I've been the
lowest scum. I'm lost. Pete, I'm damned I shall go
to hell."
Albert had been known openly to scoff at hell,
whereas Pete had never thought much about it. Now
it confronted them both under a new aspect the
scoffer trembled and the thoughtless was preoccupied.
" Doan't fret," reiterated poor Pete, desperate under
the fresh complication of theology, " I reckon you're
not bad enough to go to hell, surelye."
" But I'm the worst the worst that ever was. I'm
scum, I'm dirt " and out poured more of the turbid
stream, till Pete sickened.
" If I could only see a parson," sobbed Albert at last.
" A parson ? "
" Yes maybe he could comfort me. Oh, I know
368 SUSSEX GORSE
Fve mockea "em and scoffed 'em all my life, but I
reckon they could do summat for me now/'
In his weakness he had gone back not only to the
religious terrors of his youth, but to the Sussex dialect he
had long forgotten.
Pete scarcely knew what to do. He had become used
to his brother's gradual disintegration, but this utter
collapse was terrifying. He offered his own ministrations.
" You've told me a dunnamany things, and you can
tell me as many more as you justabout like " touching
the climax of self-sacrifice.
But Albert's weak mind clung to its first idea with
scared tenacity. He was still raving about it when
Pete came in from his work that evening.
"I want a parson," he moaned, throwing himself
about the bed, and his terrors seemed to grow upon him
as the darkness grew.
Neither of them slept that night. Albert was half
delirious, and obsessed by the thought of hell. The
room looked out on Boarzell, and he became convinced
that the swart, tufted mass outlined against the sprinkled
stars was hell, the country of the lost. He pictured
himself wandering over and over it in torment. He said
he saw fire on it, scaring the superstitious Pete out of
his life.
" On the great Moor of the lost
Wander all the proud and dead
Those who brothers' blood have shed,
Those who brothers' love have crossed/'
He broke into his own verse, pouring it out deliri-
ously :
" There's the shuddering ghost of me
Lips all black with fire and brine,
Chained between the libertine
And the fasting Pharisee/'
Then he became obsessed by the idea that he was out
on the Moor, wandering on it, and bound to it. The
STRUGGLING UP 369
earth was red-hot under his feet, and he picked them up
off the bed like a cat on hot bricks, till Pete began to
laugh inanely. He saw round him all the places he had
known as a child, and called out for them, because he
longed to escape to them from the burning Moor
" Castweasel ! Castweasel 1 ... Ramstile ! . . . Ellen-
whorne . . ."
It was strange to hear a man calling out the names of
places in his fever as other men might call the names of
people.
It was all a return to Albert's childhood. In spite of
fifteen years in London, of a man's work and a man's
love and a man's faith, he had gone back completely to
the work and love and faith of his childhood. Odiam
had swallowed him up, it had swallowed him up com-
pletely, his very hell was bounded by it. He spoke with
a Sussex accent ; he forgot the names of the women he
had loved, and cried instead the names of places, and he
forgot that he did not believe in hell, but thought of it
as Boarzell Moor punctured by queer singing flames.
Pete lay and listened shuddering, waiting with sick
desire for the kindling of the dawn and the whiteness
that moved among the trees. At last they came, the
sky bloomed, and the orchard flickered against it,
stirred by a soundless wind. The poor fellow sat up in
bed, ail troubled and muddled by things that had never
touched him before. He stretched himself and yawned
from force of habit, for he was not in the least sleepy,
then he began to dress.
" What is it ? " mumbled Albert, Mmself again for a
moment.
" I'm going to fetch a parson," said Pete.
It was very gallant of him to do so, for it meant
venturing still further into new spheres of thought.
None of the Backfields had been to church for years,
though Reuben prided himself on being a good church-
man, and Pete was rather at a loss what to do in a
2 B
870 SUSSEX GORSE
ghostly crisis such as this. However, on one thing he
was resolved that he would not go through another
night like the last, and he credited a parson with
mysterious cabalistic powers which would miraculously
soothe the invalid and assure him of sleep in future.
So he tramped off towards the Rectory, wondering a
little what he should say when he got there, but leaving
it to the inspiration of the moment. He wanned his
honest heart with thoughts of Albert sleeping peace-
fully and dying beautifully, though it chilled him a
little to think of death. Why could not Albert live ?
Pete would have liked to think of him lying for years
and years in that big untidy bed, pathetic and feeble,
and always claiming by his weakness the whole strength
that a day of unresting toil had left his brother.
The morning flushed. A soft pink crept into ponds
and dawn-swung windows. The light perfumes of April
softened the cold, clear air the scent of sprouting leaves
in the woods, and of primroses in the grass, while the
anemones frothed scentless against the hedges. Pete
was about half a mile from the village when he heard the
sound of angry voices round a bend in the lane, pricked
by little screams from a woman. Expecting a fight he
hurried up eagerly, and was just in time to see one of
the grandest upper cuts in his life. A short, well-built
man in black had just knocked down a huge, hulking
tramp who had evidently been improving the hour with
a woman now blotted against the hedge. He lay flat in
the road, unconscious, while his adversary stood over
him, his fist still clenched and all the skin off his knuckles,
" Lordy ! but that wur justabout praaper ! " cried
Pete, bustling up, and sorry that the tramp showed no
signs of getting on to his feet.
" It's settled him anyhow," said the man in black.
They both stooped and eyed him critically.
" You've landed him in a good plaace," said Pete ; " a
little farther back and he'd have been gone/'
STRUGGLING UP 371
" Praise be to God that his life was spared."
Pete looked in some surprise at the bruiser, who
continued :
" I'm out of practice, or I shouldn't have skinned
myself like this ah, here's Coalbran's trap. Perhaps
he'll give you a lift, ma'am, into Peasmarsh."
The woman was helped into the trap, and after some
discussion it was decided not to give themselves the
trouble of taking the tramp to the police station, but to
pull him to the side of the road and leave him to the
consequences he had brought upon himself.
" He's had some punishment," said Pete when they
were alone. He inspected the tramp, now feebly moan-
ing, with the air of a connoisseur. " I'm hemmed if I
ever saw a purtier knock-out."
"I'm out of training, as I told you," said the
stranger.
" Then you must have bin a valiant basher in your
day. It's a pity you let yourself go slack."
" It was not becoming that I should use my fists,
except to defend the weak. I am a minister of the
Lord."
" A parson ! " cried Pete.
"A minister of the Lord," repeated with some
severity the man in black, " of the brotherhood named
Ebenezer."
Pete remembered hearing that a new parson was
coming to the local Methodists, but nothing had led him
to expect such thrilling developments.
" I used to be in the fancy," said the minister, " but
five years ago the Lord challenged me, and knocked me
out in the first round."
Pete was following a train of thought.
" Is a minister the same as a parson ? " he asked at
length. *
" Is a priest of Jehovah the same as a priest of Baal ?
For shame, young man 1 "
872 SUSSEX GORSE
" I mean can a minister do wot a Parson does ? tell
a poor feller wot's dying that he woan't go to hell."
" Not if he's washed in the blood of the Lamb."
" That's wot I mean, surelye. Could you come and
talk to a sick man about all that sort of thing ? **
A gleam came into the minister's eyes, very much the
same as when he had knocked out the tramp,
" Reckon I could ! " he cried fierily. " Reckon I can
snatch a brand from the burning, reckon I can find the
lost piece of silver ; reckon I can save the wandering
sheep, and wash it in the blood of the Lamb/'
" Same as a parson ? " enquired Pete anxiously.
"Better than any mitred priest of Ammon, for I
shall not vex the sinner's soul with dead works, but
wash it in the crimson fountain. You trust your sick
man to me, young feller I'll wash him in blood, 111
clothe him in righteousness, I'll feed him with salvation."
" I'll justabout taake you to him, then. He asked fur
a 'stablished parson, but I'd sooner far bring you, for,
Lordy, if you aun't the praaperest bruiser I've ever set
eyes on."
13.
That was how the Rev. Roger Ades started his
ministrations at Odiam. At first Reuben was disgusted.
He had never before had truck with Dissenters, whom he
considered low-class and unfit for anyone above a tenant
farmer. He was outraged by the thought of the pastor's
almost daily visits, accompanied by loud singing of
hymns in Albert's bedroom. However, he did not
actually forbid him the house, for Pete had brought him
there, and Reuben never treated Pete exactly as he
treated his other sons. Pete was the only member of
his family who had so far not disgraced Odiam
except the two little boys, who were too young and he
was always careful to do nothing that might unsettle
him and drive him into his brother's treacherous ways.
STRUGGLING UP 878
So the pastor of Ebenezer came unchecked, and doubt-
less his ministrations were appreciated, for as time went
by the intervals between them grew shorter and shorter,
till at last Mr. Ades was more often in the house than out
of it.
Though strengthened in soul, Albert grew weaker in
body, and Pete began to scamp his farm work. Even
when the minister was present, he would not leave his
brother. It grieved Reuben that, while outside matters
prospered, indoors they should remind him of a
Methodist conventicle. The house was full of hymns,
they burst through the close -shut windows of Albert's
bedroom and assaulted the ears of workers on Boarzell.
In the evenings, when Ades was gone, Pete whistled them
about the house. Reuben was ashamed ; it made him
blush to think that his stout churchmanship should
have to put up with this, " I scarcely dare show my
face in the pub, wud all this going on at hoame/' he
remarked sorrowfully.
Meanwhile, the farm was doing well ; indeed, it was
almost back at its former glory. Having laid the
foundations, Reuben could now think of expansion,
and he engaged two more farm-hands.
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
Ibis. He would have to work like a fiend if he was to do
it in his lifetime. There was the Grandturzel indosure,
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
874 SUSSEX GORSE
"wot a tedious hard maaster Mus' Backfield wur
surelye ! "
One day Albert sent his father a message through
Pete.
" He wanted me to tell you wot an unaccountable
difference he sees in Boarzell now he's come back. He'd
never have known it, 'tis so changed. All the new bit
towards Doozes is justabout praaper."
Reuben said nothing, in spite of the entreaty in Pete's
honest eyes, but his heart warmed towards his son.
Albert had shown at last proper spirit ; he had no
doubt realised his baseness, and acknowledged that he
had been a fool and villain to betray Odiam, Now he
saw how mightily the farm prospered in spite of adver-
sity, he praised its greatness, and no man could praise
Odiam without winning a little of Reuben's goodwill.
He softened towards the prodigal, and felt that he
would like to see the boy he still called him " the
boy," though he was thirty-seven and if he behaved
penitently and humbly, forgive him before he died.
That evening he went up to Pete's room. The sound
of voices came from it, one exceedingly loud, and it
siruck Reuben that " that hemmed Methody " was there,
He opened the door and looked in. Albert lay propped
up in the bed, his hands, wasted into claws, clasped in
the attitude of prayer, his eyes protruding strangely
above his sunken cheeks, where the skin was stretched
on the bones. Pete knelt beside him, his eyes closed,
his hands folded, like a child saying its prayers, and at
the foot of the bed stood the Rev. Roger Ades, his face
contorted with fervour, his arms waving in attitudes
that were reminiscent of the boxing ring in spite of his
efforts.
None of them saw or heard Reuben's entrance, and at
that moment they all burst into a hymn :
*' There's life in the crimson Fountain,
There's peace in the Blood of the Slain/'
STRUGGLING UP 375
A long shudder of disgust went over Reuben's flesh,
He was utterly shocked by what he saw. That such
things could go on in his house struck him with horror,
tinctured by shame. He went out, shutting the door
noisily behind him the softer feelings had gone ;
instead he felt bitterly and furiously humiliated.
The hymn faltered and stopped when the door banged,
but the next moment the minister caught it up again,
and hurled it after Reuben's indignant retreat :
" My soul is all washed to whiteness,
And 111 never be foul again.
Salvation 1 Salvation full and free I "
14.
Early in May, Pete came out to Reuben on Boarzell
and told him that Albert was dead. Reuben felt a little
awkward and a little relieved.
" He died quiet, I hope ? "
" Oh, yes," said Pete, " he laid hold on the merits of
Jesus."
Reuben started.
"It wur a praaper death," continued Pete; "his
soul wur washed as white as wool. He wur the prodigal
son come hoame ; he wur the Lord's lost sixpence, I
reckon."
" And that son of a harlot from Little Bethel wurn't
wud him, I trust ? "
" No, I'm going to fetch him now."
His father opened his mouth to forbid him angrily,
but changed his mind and said nothing. Pete walked
off whistling " When the cleansing Blood is poured."
Reuben could not help feeling relieved at Albert's
death, but he had noticed with some alarm Pete's
definitely religious phraseology. He hoped that Ades
had not corrupted him from his pure churchmanship,
the honourable churchmanship of the Backfields. Being
376 SUSSEX GORSE
a Dissenter was only one degree better than being a
Liberal, and Reuben swore to keep a firm hand over
Pete in future.
That evening he and his son had their first conflict.
Pete announced that he had made arrangements with
Ades for Albert's funeral, and Reuben announced with
equal conviction that he was hemmed if Ades had any
truck in it wotsumdever. Albert should be buried
according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of
England, he wasn't going to have any salvation sung
over his grave. Pete, on the other hand, stuck to his
point, and alarmed Reuben with more religious phrase-
ology.
" It wur Ades wot gave him to the Lord, wot found
him salvation in the Blood of the Lamb."
" I doan't care two straws about that. Albert wur
born and christened Church, and he's not going to die
chapel because a lousy Methody sings hymns over him
when he's sick and doan't know better. If I find that
feller on my plaace again, Til break every bone in his
body."
Pete angrily defended the minister, which caused
Reuben fresh alarm; for in the old days when his
father abused Ades he had tried to conciliate him by
laying stress on the latter's prowess as a bruiser, but
now he never once mentioned his fists, enlarging instead
on his qualities of soul and on the fact that he had found
Christ. The two theologians carried on their argument
till well past bedtime, and at last separated in a great
state of dogma and indignation.
In the end it was the Church that won. Reuben went
over early the next morning to the Rectory, and made
arrangements for Albert's funeral on the following
Monday. He enlarged on the conflict he had had with
Pete, and was a little dashed by the rector's want of
enthusiasm.
Albert was buried with all the decent rites of the
STRUGGLING UP 877
Establishment. He was laid to rest in the Christian
company of his mother and his brother George, at the
bottom of the churchyard where it touched the pond j
a little way from him was the old yeoman who had
" never wanted anything he hadn't got, and so hadn't
got anything he didn't want/' It relieved Pete a little
to think that from where he lay his brother could
not see Boarzell " not even if he sat up in his
grave."
The funeral was dignified and impressive, and every
now and then Reuben glanced across at his son with
eyes that said " Wot could Ebenezer have done com-
pared wud this ? " All the same, he was disappointed.
Somehow he had expected his churchmanship to strike
the rector and the curate very favourably ; he had
expected them metaphorically to fall on his neck ; he
saw himself as a champion of established Christendom,
of tithes and glebes and cosy rectories and " dearly
beloved brethren" on Sundays. It was humiliating
to find himself ignored, indeed treated as an outsider,
simply because he had not been to church for ten years.
He had had his children baptised into the Establish-
ment, and now he was burying his son according to its
rites, in spite of opposition, even persecution. These
parsons were ungrateful, bigoted, and blind.
Perhaps though, he thought, their behaviour was
partially accounted for by that of Pete, who stood
beside the grave with his eyes shut, saying "A-aaa-
men " at unliturgical intervals, as only Dissenters can
say it.
15.
Pete spent that evening with Ades, and Reuben's
fireside slumbers were unrestful because he missed
Pete's accustomed snore from the other end of the
settle. The next morning his son did not appear, though
there was plenty of work to be done in the hop-fields.
878 SUSSEX GORSE
The young hops were now well above ground, and
exposed to the perils of blight, so Reuben and Beatup
were spraying them with insect-killer, badly in need
of a third man to do the mixing.
" Where's Pete ? " asked Reuben.
" I dunno aun't seen un this monmn. Ah thur
he be ! "
" Where ? "
" Coaming up by the brook, surelye."
Reuben stared in amazement. The approaching
figure undoubtedly was Pete, but a Pete so changed by
circumstances and demeanour as to be almost un-
recognisable. He wore his Sunday black clothes, which
as, with the exception of the funeral, he had not put
them on for ten years were something of a misfit. On
his head was a black hat with a wide flapping brim, he
walked with a measured step and his hands folded in
front of him.
" Well/' cried Reuben, calling abuse to the rescue of
surprise " you hemmed lazy good-fur-nothing, you !
wud all the Glotten hay to be cut, and ten acres o'
hops to be sprayed, and you go laying in bed lik a lady,
and then come out all dressed as if you wur going to
church. Where's your corduroys ? "
" In my box you can cloathe the naked wud 'em
I'm never going to put 'em on no more/'
" I'm hemmed if I'll have you working on my farm in
that foolery. You'll maake us the laughing-stock of
Peasmarsh. You've got Ebenezer on the brain, you
have, and you can justabout git it off again."
" I'm never going to do another stroake of wark on
your farm as long as I live. Salvation's gqt me/*
Reuben dropped the insect-killer.
" I'm the Lord's lost lamb," announced Pete.
" The Lord's lost ! " cried his father angrily.
" You taake off them blacks, and git to work lik a
human being."
STRUGGLING UP 379
" I tell you I'm never going to work fur you agaun.
I'm going forth to spread the Word. Salvation's got
me/'
" You wait till I git you, that's all/' and Reuben ran
at Pete.
" Kip off, or I'll slosh you one on the boko," cried the
Lord's lost lamb swinging up a vigorous pair of fists.
Reuben breathed a sigh of relief.
" There I knew as there wur reason in you, Pete.
You woan't go and leave your faather lik the rest, all
fur a hemmed Hethody."
" Hemmed Methody ! That's how you spik of the
man wot's saaved my soul. I tell you as there I wur
lost in trespasses and sins, and now I'm washed white
as wool there wur my evil doings sticking to my soul
lik maggots to a dead rat, and now my soul's washed
in the Blood of the Lamb, and I'm going out to spread
the Word/'
" Where are you going ? "
" Unto the ends of the earth Hastings. There's a
friend of Ades there wot'll guide me into the Spirit's
ways."
" But you'll never leave me at the time of the
hay-harvest, and Emily due to calve in another
month ? "
" I tell you I'm shut of your farm it's wot's led me
astray from a lad. Instead of settin' and reading godly
books and singing wud the saints I've gone and ploughed
furrers and carted manure ; I've thought only of the
things of the flesh, I've walked lik accursed Adam
among the thistles. But now a Voice says, ' work no
more ! go and spread the Word ! ' And if you're
wise, faather, you'll coame too, and you, Beatup,
You'll flee from the wrath to coame, when He shall
shaake the earth and the elimunts shall dissolve in
fervient heat, and He . . ."
" Have adone do wud your preaching. I'm ashamed,
880 SUSSEX GORSE
of you, led astray by lunies as if you wur no better nor
poor Harry. You're a hemmed lousy traitor, you are,
the worst of 'em all."
" I'm only fleeing from the wrath to coame and if
you're wise you'll foller me. This farm is the city of
destruction, I tell you, it's a snare of the devil, it's
Naboth's vineyard, it's the lake that burneth wud fire
and brimstone. Coame out of her, coame out of her,
my peoples ! "
Reuben was paralysed. His jaw worked convulsively,
and he looked at Pete as if he were a specially new and
pestilential form of blight.
" Save yourself, faather," continued the evangelist,
" and give up all the vain desires of the flesh. Is this a
time to buy olive-yards and vineyards ? Beware lest
there coame upon you as it did to him wot purchaised
a field, the reward of inquiety, and falling headlong he
bust asunder in the midst and his bowels goshed
out "
But Reuben had found his voice.
" Git out of this ! " he shouted. " I woan't stand here
and listen to you miscalling the farm wot's bred you and
fed you over thirty year. Git out, and never think
you'll come back again. I'm shut of you. I doan't
want no more of you I'm out of the wood now, I've
got all the work out of you I've needed, so you can go,
and spread your hemmed Word, and be hemmed. I'm
shut of you."
Pete fixed upon his father a gaze meant to inspire the
utmost terrors of conscience, then turned on his heel
and slowly walked away.
The sight of his broad black back disappearing among
the hop-bines was too much for Reuben. He picked up
the can of insect-killer and hurled it after his son,
splashing his respectability from head to foot with the
stinking fluid. Pete flung round with his fists up, then
suddenly dropped them and raised his eyes instead.
STRUGGLING UP 881
" You wudn't daur do that if I hadn't been saved ! "
he shouted.
Then he walked off, beautiful of soul no doubt, but
highly unpleasant of body,
BOOK VII
THE END IN SIGHT
*
THE next five years were comparatively un
eventful. All that stood out of them was the
steady progress of the farm. It fattened, it
grew, it crept up Boarzell as the slow tides softly flood
a rock.
Reuben was now alone at Odiam with his two small
children and Harry. David and Bill, unlike their pre-
decessors, did not start their career as farm-hands till
well past babyhood. Reuben no longer economised in
labour he had nearly a dozen men in regular employ,
to say nothing of casuals. Sometimes he thought
regretfully of the stalwart sons who were to have worked
for him, to have run the farm without any outside help
. . . but that dream belonged to bygone days, and he
resolutely put it from him. After all, his posse of farm-
hands was the envy of the neighbourhood ; no one in
Peasmarsh employed so many.
Reuben himself was still able for a great deal of work.
Though over sixty, he still had much of the vigour, as he
had all the straightness, of his youth. Work had not
bent him and crippled him, as it had crippled Beatup,
his junior by several years. The furnace of his pride and
resolution seemed to have dried the damps steamed up
by the earth from her revengeful wounds, so that
rheumatism the plague of the labourer on the soil-
had done no worse for him than shooting pains in the
winter with a slight thickening of Ms joints.
382
THE END IN SIGHT 383
His hair had been grey for years, and as he grew older
it did not whiten, but stayed the colour of polished iron,
straight, shining, and thick as a boy's. He had lost two
back teeth, and made a tremendous fuss about them,
saying it was all the fault of the dentist in Rye, who
preferred a shilling extraction to a threepenny lotion
but the rest of his teeth were as good as ever, though at
last a trifle discoloured by smoking.
His face was a network of wrinkles. He was not the
sort of countryman whose skin old age stretches
smoothly over the bones and reddens benignly as a sun-
warmed apple. On the contrary, he had grown swarthier
with the years, the ruddy tints had been hardened into
the brown, and from everywhere, from the corners of
his eyes, of his mouth, of his nose, across his forehead,
along his cheeks, under his chin, spread a web of lines,
some mere hair-tracery on the surface, others wrinkled
deep, others ploughed in like the furrows of his own
fields.
Harry had not aged so successfully. He was terribly
bent, and some of his joints were swollen grotesquely,
though he had not had so much truck as Reuben with
the earth and her vapours. He was so thin that he
amounted to little more than shrivelled yellow skin over
some twisted bones, and yet he was wiry and dung
desperately to life. Reuben was sorry for this his
brother annoyed him. Harry grew more irritating with
old age. He still played his fiddle, though he had now
forgotten every semblance of a tune, and if it were taken
away from him by some desperate person he would raise
such an outcry that it would soon be restored as a lesser
evil. He hardly ever spoke to anyone, but muttered to
himself. " Salvation's got me ! " he would croak, for
his mind had been inexplicably stamped by Pete's
outrage, and he forgot all about that perpetual wedding
which had puzzled him for so many years, " Salvation's
got me ! " he would yell, suddenly waking in the middle
384 SUSSEX GORSE
of the night keeping the memory of the last traitor
always green.
But it was for other reasons that Reuben most wished
that Harry would die. Harry was a false note, a discord
in his now harmonious scheme. He was a continual
reminder of the power of Boarzell, and would occasion-
ally sweep Reuben's thoughts away from those fat
corn-fields licking at the crest to that earliest little patch
down by Totease, where the Moor had drunk up its first
blood. He called himself a fool, but he could not help
seeing something sinister and fateful in Harry, scraping
tunelessly at his fiddle, or repeating over and over again
some wandering echo from the outside world which had
managed to reach his dungeoned brain. Reuben wished
he would die, and so did the farm-boy who slept with
him, and the dairy-woman who fed him at meals.
The only people who would have been sorry if he had
died were the children. Harry was popular with them,
as he had been with baby Fanny long ago, because he
made funny faces and emitted strange, unexpected
sounds. He was unlike the accepted variety of grown-up
people, who were seldom amusing or surprising, and one
could take liberties with him, such as one could not take
with faather or Maude. Also, being blind, one could
play on Mm the most fascinating tricks.
These tricks were never unkind, for David and William
were the most benevolent little boys. They saw life
through a golden mist, it smelt of milk and apples, it
was full of soft lowings and Heatings and cheepings, of
gentle noses to stroke and little downy things to hold.
For the first time since it became Reuben's, Odiam
made children happy. The farm which had been a
galley and a prison to those before them, was an en-
chanted land of adventure to these two. Old Beatup,
who remembered earlier things, would sometimes smile
when he saw them trotting hand in hand about the yard,
playing long hours in the orchard, and now and then
THE END IN SIGHT 385
pleading as a special favour to be allowed to feed the
chickens, or help fetch the cows home. He seemed to
see the farm peopled by little ghosts who had never
dared trot about aimlessly, or had time to play, and
had fed the fowls and fetched the cows not as a treat
and an adventure, but as a dreary part of the day's
grind , . . he reflected that " the maaster had learned
summat by the others, surelye." *
Of course, one reason why David and Billy were so
free was because of the growing prosperity of the farm,
which no longer made it necessary to save and scrape.
Bat on the other hand, it was a fact that the maaster
had learned summat by the others.- He was resolved
that, come what might, he would keep these boys. They
should not leave him like their brothers; and since
harshness had failed to keep those at home, he would now
try a slacker rule. He was growing old, and he wanted
to think that at his death Odiam would pass into loyal
and loving hands, he wanted to think of its great
traditions being carried on in all their glory. Sometimes
he would have terrible dreams of Odiam being divided
at his death, split up into allotments and small-holdings,
scrapped into building plots. Such dreams made him
look with hungry tenderness at the two little figures
trotting hand in hand about the orchard and the barns.
2.
It was about that time that the great Lewin case came
on at the Old Bailey. The papers were full of it, and
Eeubon could not suppress a glow of pride when Maude
the dairy-woman read out the name of Richard Back-
field as junior counsel for the defence. But his pride
was to be still further exalted. The senior counsel
collapsed with some serious illness on the very eve of the
trial, and Richard stepped into his shoes. The papers
were now full of his name, it was on everyone's lips
886 SUSSEX GORSE
throughout the kingdom, and especially in the public-
houses between Rye and the Kent border. Men stopped
drinking at the Cocks when Reuben came in, and women
ran down to their garden gates when he passed by.
Reuben himself did not say much, but he now regularly
took in a daily paper, and being able to recognise the
name of Backfield in print, sat chasing the magic word
through dark labyrinths of type, counting the number of
its appearances and registering them on the back of Ms
corn accounts.
" How's the Lewin caase gitting on ? " someone would
ask at the Cocks, and Reuben would answer :
" Valiant my naum wur sixteen times in the paaper
this monmn."
He almost taught himself to read by this means, for it
was the first time he had ever studied a printed page,
and he had soon picked up several words besides Back-
field. Not that he took much interest in the case beyond
Richard's that is to say, Odiam's share in it, but soon
it became dear that Richard was leading it to marvellous
developments. Lewin was a bank-manager accused of
colossal frauds, and Richard amazed the country by
dragging a couple of hitherto respected banking knights
into the business. At one time it was thought he would
get an acquittal by this, but Richard was a barrister,
not a detective, and he brilliantly got his client acquitted
on a point of law, which though it may have baffled
a little the romantic enthusiasm of his newspaper
admirers, made his name one to conjure with in legal
circles, so that briefs were no longer matters of luck and
prayer.
His fortune was made by the Lewin case. He wrote
home and told his father that he had now " arrived,"
and was going to marry Anne Bardon.
The excitement created by his defence of Lewin was
nothing to that which now raged in Rye and Peasmarsh.
Reuben was besieged by the curious, who found relief
THE END IN SIGHT 887
for a slight alloy of envy by pointing out how un-
accountable well the young man had done for himself by
running away.
" Reckon you dudn't think as how it 'ud turn out lik
this, or you wudn't have been in such tedious heart
about it."
t I can't say as I'm pleased at his marrying Miss
Bardon," Reuben would say. " She's ten year older
than he if she's a day. 'Twas she who asked him, I
reckon. He could have done better fur himself if he'd
stayed at hoame."
3-
Reuben had bought thirty-five more acres of .Boarzell
in '81, and thirty in '84. The first piece was on the
Flightshot side of the Moor, by Cheat Land, the second
stretched from the new ground by Totease over to Burnt-
barns. Now only about fifty acres, including the Fair-
place and the crest, remained to be won outside the
Grandiurzel indosure. Bardon publicly announced his
intention never to sell the Fair-place to Backfield.
Flightshot and Odiam had not been drawn together by
Richard's marriage. At first Reuben had feared that
the Squire might take liberties on the strength of it, and
had been stiffer than ever in his unavoidable intercourse
with the Manor. But Bardon had been, if anything,
stiffer still. He thoroughly disapproved of Backfield
as an employer of labour some of his men were housed,
with their families, in two old barns converted into
cottages at the cheapest rate and as he was too hard
up to refuse to sell him Boarzell, he could express his
disgust only by his attitude. Fine shades of manner
were apt to be lost on Reuben, but about the refusa
to sell the Fair-place there could be no mistake.
Meantime he cast covetous and hopeful eyes on the
Grandturzel indosure. Realf was doing nothing with it,
and his affairs were not so prosperous as they used to be.
888 SUSSEX GORSE
His abandonment of the struggle had not changed his
luck, and a run of bad luck the usual farmer's tale of
poor harvests, dead cows, blighted orchards, and low
prices had plunged Grandturzel nearly as deep as
Odiam had once been. Realf had shown himself with-
out recuperative powers ; he economised, but ineffi-
ciently, and Reuben foresaw that the day would come
when he would be forced to part with some of his land.
He was in no immediate hurry for this, as he would be
all the readier to spend his money in a few years' time,
but occasionally he gave himself the treat of going up to
the Grandturzel indosure and inspecting it from the
fence, planning exactly what he would do with it when
it was his.
More than once Realf and Tilly saw him in the
distance, a tall, sinister figure, haunting their northern
boundaries.
" Faather's after our land/' said Tilly, and shuddered.
4.
The little boys grew big and went to school. This
time it was not to the dame's school in the village, for
that had collapsed before the new board-school which
had risen to madden Reuben's eyes with the spectacle of
an educated populace. They went to Rye Grammar
School and learned Latin and Greek like gentlemen.
There was something new in Reuben's attitude towards
these boys, for his indulgence had deeper roots than
expediency. Sometimes of an evening he would go to
the bottom of the Totease lane, where it joins the
Peasmarsh road, and wait there for his sons* return.
They would see him afar off, and run to meet him, and
they would all three walk home together, arm-in-arm
perhaps.
He would have been exceedingly indignant if in
bygone days anyone had ever hinted that he did not
THE END IN SIGHT
love the sons and daughters whom he had beaten,
kicked out of doors, frustrated, suppressed, or driven to
calamity. All the same, he acknowledged that there
was a difference between his feelings towards Rose's
children and Naomi's. Though Naomi was the wife
more pleasant to remember, Rose's were the children he
loved best. They had not grown up in the least like her,
and he was glad of that, for he would have hated to
confront again her careless, lovely face, or the provoking
little teeth of her smile ; they were Backfields, dark of
hair and swarthy of skin, David with grey eyes, William
with brown.
When he saw them running along the lane from
school, or tramping the fields together they were
always together or helping with the hops or the hay,
his heart would stir with a warm, unwonted sense of
fatherhood, not just the proud paternal impulse which
had visited him when he held his new-born babies in his
arms, but something belonging more to the future than
the present, to the days when they should carry on
Odiam after his death. For the first time he had sons
whom he looked upon not merely as labourers to help
him in his work, but as men created in his own image to
inherit that work and reap its fruits when he was gone.
He was pleased to see their evident love of the farm.
They begged him not to keep them too long at school,
for they wanted to come home and work on Odiam. So
he took David away when he was sixteen, and William
when he was fifteen the next year.
Meantime it seemed as if in spite of his absorption in
his new family he was not to be entirely cut off from
the old. In the summer of '87, just after the Jubilee,
he had a letter from Richard, announcing that he and
his wife were coming for a week or so to Rye. Reuben
had not heard of Richard for some years, and had not
seen him since he left Odiam he had been asked to the
wedding, but had refused to go. Now Richard expressed
890 SUSSEX GORSE
the hope that he would soon see his father. His was a
nature that mellows and softens in prosperity, and
though he had not forgotten the miseries of his youth,
he was too happy to let them stand between him and
Reuben now that they were only memories.
Anne was not so disposed to forgive she had her
brother's score as well as her husband's to settle, and
concealed from no one that she thought her father-in-
law a brutal and conscienceless old slave-driver whose
success was a slur on the methods of Providence. She
refused to accompany Richard on his first visit to
Odiam, but spent the afternoon at Flightshot, while he
tramped with Reuben over the land that had once
been so hateful to him.
Reuben, though he would not ^lave confessed it, was
much taken with his son's appearance, Richard looked
taller, which was probably because he held himself
better, more proudly erect ; his face seemed also subtly
changed ; he had almost a legal profile, due partly no
doubt to a gold-rimmed pince-nez. He looked astonish-
ingly clean-shaven, he wore good clothes, and his hands
were slim and white, not a trace of uncongenial work
remaining. He had quite lost his Sussex accent, and
Reuben vaguely felt that he was a credit to him.
Their attitude, at first constrained, soon became more
cordial than either would have thought possible in
earlier days, ' Richard made no tactless references to
his brothers and sisters, and admired and praised every-
thing, even the pigsties that had used to make him
sick. They went out into the fields and inspected the
late lambs, Richard showing that he had lost every
trace of shepherd-lore that had ever been his. His
remarks on shearing gave Reuben a very bad opinion
of the English Bar ; however, they parted in a riot of
mutual civility, and Richard asked his father to dine
with him at the Mermaid in a couple of days.
Awe was furious when she heajd of the invitation*
THE END IN SIGHT 891
" You know I don't want to meet your father and
Fm sure hell disgrace us."
" He's more likely to amuse us," said Richard ; " he's
a character, and I shall enjoy studying him for the first
time from an unbiassed view-point."
" It won't be unbiassed if he disgraces us."
However, Reuben did not disgrace them. On the
contrary, more than one admiring glance drifted to the
Backfields' table, and remarks were overheard about
" that picturesque old man." Reuben had dressed him-
self with care in a suit of dark grey cloth and the flowered
waistcoat he had bought when he married Rose, His
collar was so high and stiff that he could hardly get his
chin over it, his hair was brushed and oiled till its
grey thickness shone like the sides of a man-o'-
war, and his hands looked quite clean by artificial
light.
Richard had invited his young half-brothers too, ior
they had been at school when he visited Odiam. They
struck him as quite ordinary-looking boys, dressed in
modern reach-me-downs, and only partially inheriting
their father's good looks. As for them, they were
cowed and abashed past all words. It seemed incredible
that this resplendent being in the white shirt-front and
gold-rimmed eye-glasses was their brother, and the
lady with the hooked nose and the diamonds their
sister-in-law. They scarcely ventured to speak, and were
appalled by the knives and forks and glasses that lay
between them and their dinner.
Reuben too was appalled by them, but would not for
worlds have shown it. He attacked the knives and
forks with such vigour that he did not get really in-
volved in them till the joint, and as he refused no drink
the waiter offered he soon had all his glasses harmlessly
occupied. Nor was he at a loss for conversation. He
was resolved that neither Richard nor Anne should
ignore the greatness of his farm ; if only he could stir
892 SUSSEX GORSE
up a spark of home-sickness in his son's white-shirted
breast, his triumph would be complete.
" I reckon I'm through wud my bad luck now
Odiam's doing valiant. I'm shut of all the lazy-bones,
Grandturzel's beat, and I've naun to stand agaunst
me."
" What about Nature ? " asked Richard, readjusting
his pince-nez and thrusting forward his chin, whereby
it was always known in court that he meant to " draw
out " the witness.
"Nature!" snorted Reuben " wot's Nature, I'd
lik to know ? "
" The last word on most subjects," said Richard.
" Well, is it ? I reckon it aun't the last word on
your wife."
" I beg your pardon ! " Anne's chin came forward
so like Richard's that one might gather he had borrowed
the trick from her.
" Well, 'carding to Nature, ma'am, and saving your
presence, you're forty-five year if you're a day, I
remember the very 'casion you wur born. Well, if I
may be so bold, you doan't look past thirty. How's
that ? Just because you know some dodges worth two
of Nature's, you've a way of gitting even wud her. Now
if a lady can bust Nature at her dressing-taable, I reckon
I can bust her on my farm."
" This is most interesting," said Anne icily, raising
her lorgnette and looking at Reuben as if he were a bad
smell.
" He means to be complimentary," said Richard.
" Reckon I do ! " cried Reuben genially, warmed by
various liquors " naun shall say I doan't know a fine
woman when I see one. And I reckon as me and my
darter-in-law are out after the saum thing and that's
the beating of Nature, wot you seem to set such a store
by, Richard."
" Well, she'll have you both in the end, anyhow/'
THE END IN SIGHT 898
" She ! no she woan't git me."
" Shell get you when you die."
" Oh, I doan't count that that's going to good
earth."
" Perhaps shell get you before then."
Reuben banged the table with his fist.
" I'm hemmed if she does. She'd have got me long
ago if she'd ever been going to when I wur young and
my own hot blood wur lik to betray me. But I settled
her then, and 111 settle her to the end of time. Mark
my words, Richard my boy, there's always some way
of gitting even wud her. Wot's nature ? nature's a
thing ; and a man's a why he's a man, and he can
always go one better than a thing. Nature maakes
potato-blight, so man maakes Bordeaux spray ; nature
maakes calf-husk, so man maakes linseed oil; nature
maakes lice, so man maakes lice-killer. Man's the better
of nature all along, and I doan't mind proving it."
Having thus delivered himself under the combined
fire of the lorgnette and the pince-nez, Reuben poured
himself out half a tumblerful of crime de menthe and
drank the healths of them both with their children,
whereat Anne rose quickly from the table and sought
refuge in the drawing-room.
It was after ten o'clock when her father-in-law and
his two silent boys climbed into their trap and started
homewards over the clattering cobbles of Mermaid
Street. In the trap the two silent boys found their
tongues, and fell to discussing their brother Richard in
awestruck voices. They whispered about Ms dinner,
his wife, his hands, his eye-glasses, his voice, while old
Dorrington picked his way up Playden Hill in the white
starshine. Reuben heard them as if in a dream as he
leaned forward over the reins, his eyes fixed on Capella,
bright and cold above Bannister's Town. He had drunk
more liberally and more variously than he had ever
drunk in his life* but he carried his liquor well, and all
894 SUSSEX GORSE
he was conscious of was a slight exaltation, a feeling of
triumph, as if all these huddled woods, lightless farms,
and cold winking stars were in some strange way his
by conquest, the tokens of his honour. The wind lapped
round him, baffing at his neck it sighed in the woods,
and rocked them gently towards the east. In the south
Orion hung above Stonelink, with Sirius at the end of
his sword . . . the constellation of the Ram was high . . .
Then suddenly his sons' voices floated up to him in
his dream.
" I wish I could be like Richard, Bill"
t( So do I but I reckon we never shall."
" Not if we stick to the farm. Did you notice that
ring on his little finger ? "
" Yes, quite a plain one, but it looked justabout
fine."
" And he had a gold watch-chain across his waist-
coat."
" I reckon he's done well fur himself by running away."
" Yes, if he'd stayed he'd never have married Miss
Bardon and had his name in all the papers."
" We'll never do anything fur ourselves if we stay at
Odiam."
"No but we'll have to stay. Faather will make
us."
" He couldn't make Richard stay."
Reuben listened as if in a nightmare the blood in
his veins seemed to turn to ice. He could hardly believe
his ears.
"Richard's made his fortune by quitting Odiam.
Tis a good place, but he'd never have done half so
valiant for himself if he'd stayed/'
Reuben pulled himself together, and swinging round
cuffed both speakers unaccustomedly,
" Doan't let me hear another word of that hemmed
nonsense. If you think as Richard's bettered himself
bv running away from Odiam, you're unaccountable
THE END IN SIGHT 895
mistaken. Wot's a dirty lawyer compared wud a farmer
as farms three hundred acres, and owns 'em into the
bargain ? All my boys have busted and ruined them
selves by running away Richard's the only one that's
done anything wotsumdever . . . and if he's done well,
there's one as has done better, and that's his faather
wot stayed at home."
5-
About three years later Sir Ralph Bardon died. He
died of typhus caught on one of Reuben's insanitary
cottages, where he had been nursing a sick boy. The
village was inclined to look upon him as a martyr and
Reuben as his murderer, but Reuben himself preserved
a contemptuous attitude. " If I'd wanted anything as
much as he wanted them houses o' mine, I'm hemmed
if I wudn't have had 'em," he said, " and all he could
do war to die of 'em " and he spat.
Sir Ralph had never married and there was no direct
heir ; Anne was about as likely to produce offspring as
a Latin grammai, and the property went to a distant
cousin, Eustace Fleet. The very name of Bardon was
now extinct. For two hundred years it had been
coupled with Flightshot and Whig politics and the idea
of a gentleman, till the last had finally been the down-
fall of the other two. The race of Bardon had died of its
own virtues.
Reuben's hopes of the Fair-place now revived, and he
at once approached the new Squire with a view to
purchase ; but Sir Eustace turned out to be quite as
wrong-headed as Sir Ralph on the matter of popular
rights.
" Of course I know the Fair has no legal title to this
ground, but one must respect public feeling. I will sell
you the forty acres adjoining the crest with pleasure,
Mr. Backfield, they are no use to me, and you certainly
seem to do wonders with the land when you get It but
896 SUSSEX GORSE
the Place itself must be preserved for the people. I'm
sure yon understand."
Reuben didn't, nor pretended that he did.
He started licking his forty acres into shape, with
many inward vows that he would have the rest of them
soon, he was hemmed if he didn't. He was on the high
ground now, he could throw a stone into the clump of
firs which still mocked his endeavours. The soil was all
hard and flinty, matted with heather roots and the
fibres of gorse. Reuben's men grumbled and cursed as
the earth crumbled and rattled against their spades,
which sometimes broke on the big flints and bits of lime-
stone. They scoffed incredulously when old Beatup
told them that the lower pastures and the Totease
oatfields had once been like this.
Boarzell was almost unrecognisable now. When one
climbed the Forstal Hill behind Peasmarsh and looked
southward, one no longer saw a great roughness of Moor
couching like something wild and untrapped in the
midst of the tame fields and domestic cottages. The
fields had licked up its sides till all they had left was the
brown and golden crest with its central clump of firs.
Behind this to the north was the Grandturzel inclosure,
but Reuben's land was nibbling round the edge of it,
and everyone knew that Grandturzel would not be able
to hold out much longer.
Opinion in Peasmarsh was divided. There was a
general grudging admiration of the man who seemed
able, in defiance of the Scriptures, to make Leviathan
his servant. No one could deny that Backfield had
performed a job which the neighbourhood from the
first had declared to be impossible. He was disliked
not because anyone particularly envied him the land
he bought so eagerly and so strenuously shaped, but
because of his utter disregard of what other men prized
and his willingness to sacrifice it for the sake of what
they did not prize at aU, He was a living insult to t&eu:
THE END IN SIGHT 89T
hearths, their homes, their wives, their children, their
harmless recreations, the delights of their flesh, all those
things which he had so readily set aside to win his great
ambition. It was not for what he wanted that they
hated him so much as for the things he did not want.
However, 'everyone viewed with dislike and suspicion
his covetous eye cast on the Fair-place. He might have
the rest of Boarzell and welcome, for no other man had
any use for flints, but the Fair was sacred to them
through the generations, and they gauged his sacrilegious
desire to rob them of it for his own ends. He might have
the Grandturzel inclosure, though all the village sym-
pathised with the beaten Realf beaten, they said,
because he hadn't it in him to be as hard-hearted as the
old Gorilla, and sacrifice his wife and children to his
farm but they would far rather see Grandturzel
swallowed up than Boarzell Fair.
When his failure to buy the crest became known there
were great rejoicings throughout Peasmarsh. The Fair
that year was more than usually crowded, and the
merriment was increased by the sight of Reuben stalk-
ing among the booths, and glaring at them as if he
wished them all at blazes.
6.
The boys were now sixteen and eighteen, fine, manly
young fellows, working cheerfully on Odiam and rejoic-
ing their father's heart. Reuben watched over them
sometimes with an odd kind of anxiety they were so
satisfactory that he felt it could not last. He re-
membered that conversation he had overheard in the
trap on the way home from Rye, and though nothing
had happened since to remind him of it or cause him fresh
alarm, he could never quite shake off the cold thrills it
had given him.
Besides, David and William had come to a dangerous
age, they were beginning to form opinions and ideas of
398 SUSSEX GORSE
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 funda-
mental 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 persisted they still did everything
together, work or play. Reuben knew that they had
secrets from him, their union gave him a sense of isola-
tion. 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.
In his alarm he made plans to separate them. He
discovered that the big attic they slept in was not
healthy, and moved their beds to two rooms divided
by his own. He now felt that he had ptit an end to
those bedtime conferences which must have done so
much to unite the brothers and set him at a distance.
His vigilance increased when their first love affairs
began. At first they would gabble innocently to him
about pretty girls they had seen in Rye, but they soon
found out such conversation was most unwelcome.
Reuben looked upon love as the biggest curse and snare
of life ; if David and William fell in love they would
lose interest in Odiam, they would do something silly
like Robert, or mad like Caro, or bad like Rose. Love
was the enemy of Odiam, and Reuben having trodden
it down himself was not going to see it rise and stamp
on his boys. He gave them the benefit of his experience
in no measured terms :
" If you fall in love wud a gal you can't say no to her,
and shell find it out lamentable soon. When either of
you boys finds a nice strong, sensible gal, wud a bit o*
money, and not self-willed, such as 'nil be a good darter*
jn-law to me, I shan't have nothing to say agaunst it.
THE END IN SIGHT 898
But doan't you go running after petticoats and maake
fools of yourselves and disgrace Odiam, and call it being
:n love. Love maakes you soft, and if you're soft you
night just as well be buried fur all the good you're
Ikely to do yourself."
David and William seemed much impressed, and
Reuben congratulated himself. Two days later he went
into the dairy to give an order, and saw one of the dairy
jirls bending over a pan of cream. Something in her
altitude and in the soft curly down on the nape of her
aeck reminded him of Naomi and that early courting
scene, now nearly fifty years ago ; but before he had
time to recall it, David came in by another door, not
seeing his father, and running lightly up to the dairy-
maid suddenly kissed the back of her neck and ran away.
She turned round with a scream, just in time to see him
iisappearing through one door, while in the other stood
Reuben with grimly folded arms. He gave her a week's
wages and sent her away.
" Where's Agnes ? " asked David with laboured
:arelessness a day or two later,
" She wasted her time/' said Reuben, " so I got shut
Df her."
" She's gone ! "
" Yes back to her parents at Tonbridge " and
Reuben grinned.
David said no more, but for the rest of the day he
seemed glum and abstracted. In the evening Reuben
found him sitting at the corn accounts, staring through
the open window into the dusk.
" Wot's fretting you, boy ? " he asked.
" Naun I'm thinking."
Once or twice Reuben caught him in the same mood,
and questioned him. But David still answered ;
" I'm thinking."
400 SUSSEX GORSE
7-
That autumn David and William went to Newhaven
to see the Rye Football Club play the West Sussex
United. They had more than once gone on such jaunts
together, and on this occasion, trains being difficult,
they put up for the night at a small hotel near the port.
It was the first time they had spent a night away from
Odiam, and a certain thrill attached to it.
When the match was over they went for a stroll on the
parade. There was not much daylight left, but the
evening was warm, and the parade was crowded with
saunterers. The young men were glad to think that
there was no homeward train to be caught, or account
of the day's doings to be given to their father. He
always asked minutely how they spent their time, and it
annoyed them a little.
To-night they would walk and sit on the parade till
supper time, then go to some coffee-house, and wind up at
a music-hall. It was a gay programme and they dis-
cussed it happily, glanced at the passers-by, inspected
the empty bandstand, and finally sat down on one of
the seats to watch the fishing-boats trim their lamps in
the amethyst fog of the sea. For some time they talked
about the terrible licking the United had given Rye,
arguing about this or that player, and speculating as to
what would be the Club's fate at Hythe next week,
It was David who drew William's attention to the
woman sitting at the other end of their seat. David
piqued himself on his knowledge of the world.
" She's a you know," he said.
William peeped round his brother's shoulder.
" How can you tell ? "
" Why, you kid, it's as plain as the nose on your face
look at her paint/'
Bill looked, his eyes opening wider than ever. She
THE END IN SIGHT 401
certainly was a disreputable female, or there was no
judging by appearances. She wore a big frowsy hat
trimmed with roses and ears of corn, under which her
thick black hair was held up by several tawdry pins ;
her face was more lavishly than artistically adorned
with rouge and blanc de perle, and she pulled a cape of
lavender velvet closely round her shoulders as if she
were cold which might well have been, for, as far as
they could see, her bodice consisted almost entirely
of lace.
" It's early for her to be prowling," said the man of
the world. " I reckon she's having just a breath of fresh
air before she starts work."
" Wherell she go then ? " asked Billy.
" Oh, to the more crowded streets, round about the
pubs and that."
" I wonder how much she maakes at it."
" Not much, I reckon. She's a very low-class sort, and
not at all young."
" Taake care she might hear you."
" Oh, don't you worry," said the lady blandly ; " I
like listening to you, and I was only waiting till
you'd stopped before I introduced myself."
Bill gasped, and David forgot that he was a man of the
world, and sidled against his brother.
" Don't you know me ? " continued the siren, tilting
her hat back from her face.
" No-o-o."
" Ever heard of your sister Caro ? "
Both boys started, and stared at her in utter blank-
ness.
" Well, it wasn't to be expected as you'd recognise me.
You were only little boys, and I've changed a bit.
Maybe I shouldn't have spoken to you got no decent
feelings, some people would say; but I justabout
couldn't help it. I heard you call each other David and
Bill, and talk about Odiam and that, so I'd have known
^ D
402 SUSSEX GOHSE
you even if you hadn't been the dead spit of your
father/'
The boys still didn't seem to have much to say, so she
continued :
*" I heard of your brother Pete the other day never
knew he'd left home till I saw his name down to preach
at Piddinghoe Mission Hall last month. He's called
Salvation Pete now, as I daresay you know, and I half
thought of going to hear him, only times are so bad I
couldn't afford an evening off. When did he leave
Odiam ? I should like some news of home.' 1
" He quitted years ago, when we were little chaps.
Salvation got him."
" I reckon that must have come hard on faather he
always was unaccountable set on Pete. Heard anything
of Tilly lately ? "
" No, nothing particular. But faather's going to buy
the Grandturzel inclosure."
" And Rose ? "
" Who's Rose ? "
" Your mother, my precious innocents. But look
here, you shall ask me to supper it'll only be doing the
decent thing by me and you shall tell me about them
all at Odiam as used to be at Odiam, rather, for I
reckon there's nobody but yourselves there now."
David and William looked at each other uneasily ;
however, there was nothing else to be done, and also a
certain excitement and curiosity inspired them. So
they set out with Caro to an eating-house chosen by
herself in a small fish-smelling back street. They were
much too embarrassed to order supper, so Caro good-
naturedly did this for them fish and chips, and three
bottles of six ale.
" I don't often come here," she said" this is a bit
too classy for me. I go mostly to the coffee stalls down
by the harbour. You mustn't think as I'm coining
money at this, you know. I work mostly among the
THE END IN SIGHT 408
fishermen, and they're a seedy lot. I started up town,
but I'm not so young as I was, and sometimes even at
the harbour I find it unaccountable hard to git off."
With the gas-light flaring on her raddled face, showing
up mercilessly the tawdriness and shoddiness of her
clothes, which reeked of a cheap scent, the boys did not
find it hard to believe that she often had a struggle to
"git off" indeed, it was a mystery how any man,
however unfastidious, however fuddled, could kiss or
take kisses from this bundle of rags and bones and paint,
Caro seemed to notice the disparaging look.
" Oh, I'm a bit off colour to-night, but I can tell you
I was a fine girl when I went away with Joe and all the
time I lived with him, too, first at the Camber and then
at New Romney ; there was many as 'ud have been proud
to git me from him. But I stuck to him faithful, I did,
till one morning I woke up and found him gone, off on
a voyage to Australia wonder if he met Robert
having given me over to a pal of his for five pounds and
a set of oilskins. Oh, I can tell you I took on something
awful I wasn't used to men in those days. But Joe's
pal he was a decent chap there was nothing the matter
with him save that he wasn't Joe. He was unaccount-
able good to me, and I stayed with him three years
and then I hooked it, scarcely knew why. I got a post
as barmaid in Seaford, but the landlord took up with
me and his missus chucked me out. And now I'm
here."
"Have have. you been here long?" stammered
David, feeling he must say something.
" Three year or so. I started up town. But we've
spoken enough about me. Let's hear about you, and
the farm. How's Richard ? "
The boys told her ; they described their prosperous
brother with his white shirt-front, his pince-nez, his
ring, and his high-born wife. As they talked they grew
more at their eas#.
404 SUSSEX GORSE
" Well/' said Caro, " I reckon he got away in time."
" From what ? "
" From Odiam, of course. I stayed too long. I
stayed till I was half killed by the place. If I'd gone
off as a young girl I reckon I'd have done well by myself,
but I waited on till I was ready to take anything that
was going, and when you're like that it's too late."
" I shouldn't think Richard was sorry he left."
" No and mark you, nor am I. It 'ud have been
worse for me if I'd stayed. I'm miserable in a different
way from what I was there somehow the life's easier.
I'm not happy, but I'm jolly. I'm not good, but I'm
pleasant-like. It's all a change for the better. See ? "
" Then you don't wish as you wur back again ? "
" Back ! Back with faather ! Not me I Now let's
hear some more about him does he ever speak to you
of your mother ? "
For the rest of the meal they discussed the absent
ones Rose, Robert, Albert, Benjamin, Tilly, the boys
hearing a great deal that had never come to their ears
before. Caro ordered two more bottles of six, and in the
end the party became quite convivial, and David and
William, forgetting the strangeness of it all, were sorry
when their sister at last stood up and announced that
she must wobble off or she'd be late.
" You'll tell father you met me ? " she said as they
left the eating-house.
David and William looked at each other, and hesi-
tated.
" You've no call to be ashamed of me," said Caro
rather irritably.
" We we aun't ashamed of you."
" That's right for you've no call to be. I was driven
to this, couldn't help myself. Besides, I'm no worse
than a lot of women wot you call respectable at least,
I put some sort of a price on myself, if it's only five
shillings. Now good night, young men, and thank you
THE END IN SIGHT 405
for a very pleasant evening. I don't suppose as youll
ever see me again. And mind you tell father as, no
matter the life I lead and the knocks I get, I've never
once, not once, regretted the day I ran off from his old
farm. Now mind you tell him that."
8.
The boys told him. Reuben listened in silence save
for one ejaculation of " the dirty bitch ! "
David nudged William.
" And she asked us particular to say as she'd never
regretted the day she left Odiam, or wished herself
back there, nuther."
" She wur purty saafe to say that for who'd have
her back, I'd lik to know ? Larmentable creature she
always wur, spanneling around lik a mangy cat. Always
thin and always miserable I'm glad to be shut of her
But she seemed cheery when you saw her ? "
" Unaccountable cheery and she drank three bottles
of six ale/'
" Um," said Reuben.
The boys had one or two secret talks about Caro.
She also stimulated that habit of " thinking " which
their father so thoroughly disapproved of. Somehow
their encounter with her, combined with their encounter
with Richard, seemed to have modified their enthusiasm
for Odiam. They could not help comparing that supper
at Newhaven with that dinner at Rye, and wondering
if it was true what she had said about Richard having
got away in time, whereas she had been too late.
" And yet she was glad she'd gone she'd rather be
free too late than not at all."
" Bill, do you think that if we stay here, Odiam 'ull
do for us wot it did for Caro ? "
" I doan't think so. Faather was much hwter ojj
Caro than he is on us/'
406 SUSSEX GORSE
" He's not hard on us but he's unaccountable
interfering ; it maddens me sometimes."
" Seems as if he didn't trust us seems sometimes as
if he was afraid we'd go off like the others/*
" Reckon he is he saw how we envied Richard/'
" Davy, it 'ud be cruel of us to go and leave him."
" I doan't say as I want to do that."
" Besides, it aun't likely as we'd do as well fur our-
selves as Richard. We've no Miss Bardon to trouble
about us reckon we'd come to grief like Albert."
" Maybe we would."
9-
Four years later Reuben bought the farmstead of
Totease. Brazier died, and the Manor, anxious as usual
for ready money, put up his farm for sale. It was a
good place of about sixty acres, with some beautiful
hop gardens and plenty of water. Reuben felt that it
would be unwise to neglect such an opportunity for
enlarging the boundaries of Odiam, He outbid one or
two small fanners, put the place under repair, engaged
more hands, and set to work to develop a large business
iti hops.
His enthusiasm was immense; he saw quicker
returns from hops than from anything else, and the
sheltered position of Totease made it possible to cover
the whole of it with goldings and fuggles. He built a
couple of new oasts with concrete roofs, and announced
his intention of engaging London pickers that autumn.
There was great perturbation at the Rectory the
Manor had long since abandoned social crusades
because Reuben housed these pickers indiscriminately
in a barn. It was also said that he underpaid them.
The rector was quite insensible to his argument that
if a man were fool enough to work for two shillings a
day, why should wise men lose money by preventing
THE END IN SIGHT 407
him ? Also he compelled no one to come, so the indis-
criminate sleepers were only, so to speak, volunteers
and when the rector persisted he became coarse on
the subject.
His temper had grown a little difficult of late years
it had never been a particularly pleasant one, but it
had been fierce rather than quick. His sons felt un-
easily that they were partly responsible for this they
irritated him by asserting their independence. Also he
suspected them of a lack of enthusiasm. He had tried
to arrange a marriage for David with the daughter of
the new farmer at Kitchenhour. She was ten years
older than he, and not strikingly beautiful, but she satis-
fied Reuben's requirements by being as strong as a
horse and having a hundred a year of her own. His
indignation was immense when David refused this
prize.
" I can't abear the sight of her."
" You'll git used to her, lad."
" Well, I want something better than that."
" She's got a .hundred a year, and that 'ud maake our
fortunes at Odiam."
" Odiam's doing splendid you don't want no more."
" I justabout do. I shan't be satisfied till I've bought
up Grandturzel saum as I've bought Totease."
" Well, I'm not going to sacrifice myself for Odiam,
and you've no right to ask me, dad."
" If I haven't got a right to ask you that, wot have I,
I'd lik to know ? "
10.
In the spring of '99 old Jury died over at Cheat Land.
His wife had died a year or two earlier Reuben had
meant to go over and see Alice, but the untimely calving
of a new Alderney had put the idea entirely out of his
head. On this occasion, however, he attended the
funeral, with the other farmers of the district, and at
408 SUSSEX GORSE
the churchyard gate had a few words with Alice before
she went home.
She was a middle-aged woman now, but her eyes
were as bright as ever, which made her look strangely
young. Her hair had turned very prettily grey, she
was fatter in the face, and on the whole looked well and
happy, in spite of her father's death. She told him she
was going to live at Rye she had a tiny income, derived
from Jury's life insurance, and she meant to do art
needlework for an ecclesiastical firm. Reuben experi-
enced a vague sense of annoyance not that he wanted
her to be unhappy, but he felt that she had no right to
happiness, going out into the world, poor and alone,
her parents dead, her life's love missed, . . .
That summer the country was shaken by rumours
of war, Reuben; having more leisure on his hands,
spent it in the study of his daily paper. He could now
read simple sentences, and considered himself quite an
educated man. When war at last broke out in South
Africa he was delighted. It was the best of all possible
wars, organised by the best of all possible Governments,
under the best of all possible ministers. Chamberlain
became his hero not that he understood or sym-
pathised with his Imperialism, but he admired him for
his attitude towards the small nations. He hated all
talk about preserving the weak~-such was not nature's
way, the way of farms ; there the weakest always went
to the wall, and he could not see why different methods
should obtain in the world at large. If Reuben had been
a politician he would have kept alive no sick man of
Europe, protected no down-trodden Balkan States.
One of the chief reasons why he wanted to see the
Boers wiped out was because they had muddled their
colonisation, failed to establish themselves, or to make
of the arid veldt what he had made of Boaraell.
" They're no good, them Boers," he announced at
the Cocks ; " there they've bin fur years and years, and
THE END IN SIGHT 409
they say as how that Transvaal's lik a desert. They've
got mizzling liddle farms such as I wudn't give sixpence
for and all that gurt veldt's lik the palm of my hand,
naun growing. They doan't deserve to have a country."
He expressed himself so eloquently in this fashion
that the member for the Rye division of Sussex the
borough had been disenfranchised in '85 asked him to
speak at a recruiting meeting at the Court Hall. Un-
luckily Reuben's views on recruiting were peculiar.
" Now's your chance/' he announced to the assembled
yokels ; " corn prices is going up, and every man who
wants to do well by himself had better grub his pastures
and sow grain. Suppose we wur ever to fight the French
who are looking justabout as ugly at us now as they
did in Boney's time think wot it 'ud be if we had
grain-stocks in the country, and cud settle our own
prices. My advice to the men of Rye is the same as
wot I gave in this very hall thirty-five years ago sow
grain, and grain, and more grain."
The member, the colonel of the volunteers, and others
present, pointed out to Reuben afterwards that the
situation was military, not agricultural; but it was
characteristic of him to see all situations from the
agricultural point of view. His old ideas of an agri-
cultural combine, which had fallen miserably to pieces
in '65, now revived in all their strength. He saw East
Sussex as a country of organised corn-growing, Odiam
at the head. His rather eclectic newspaper reading had
impressed him with the idea that England was on the
verge of war with one or two European Powers, notably
the French, whose ribald gloatings over British disasters
stirred up all the fury of the man who had been born
within range of the Napoleonic wars and bred on tales
of Boney and his atrocities.
He was dismayed by the lack of local enthusiasm.
He dug up one or two of his own pastures and planted
wheat ; he even sacrificed ten acres of his precious hops,
410 SUSSEX GORSE
but nobody seemed inclined to follow his example. The
neighbourhood was ornately patriotic, flags flew from
the oast-houses at Socknersh, Union Jacks washed to
delicate pastel shades by the chastening rain while
the Standard inisleadingly proclaimed that the Royal
Family was in residence at Burntbarns. On Odiam the
boys sang :
" Goodbye, Dolly, I must leave you,
Though it breaks my heart to go
Something tells me I am wanted
At the Front to drive away the foe/'
Some of them in fact did go. Others remained, and
sang:
" Good-bye, my Bluebell, farewell to you,
One last long look into your eyes of blue
'Mid camp-fires gleaming, 'mid shot and shell,
I will be dreaming of my own Bluebell/ 1
n.
Quite early in the war David and William walked
home in silence after seeing a troop-train off from Rye,
then suddenly, when they came to Odiam, shook hands.
" It's our chance/' said Bill.
" We've waited for it long enough."
" I couldn't have stood much more, and this will be a
good excuse."
" The old man 'ull take on no end wot with Ms corn-
growing plans and that."
" Funny how he never seems to think of anything
but Odiam."
" Strikes me as he's madgot what you call a fixed
idea, same as mad people have/'
" He's sensible enough but he's unaccountable hard
to live with."
" Yes he's fair made me hate Odiam, I liked the
place well enough when I was a little lad, but he's made
THE END IN SIGHT 411
me sick of it. It's all very well living on a farm and
working on it, but when you're supposed to give up your
whole life to it and think of nothing else, well, it's too
much."
" We won't tell him that, though, Davy we'll make
out as it's pure patriotic feeling on our part."
" Yes ; I don't want him to think we're set on getting
away but, by gum, Bill ! we are."
" If this war hadn't happened we'd have had to have
thought of something else/'
So they went and broke their news to Reuben. They
were careful and considerate but he was knocked out
by the blow.
" Going ! both of you ! " he cried.
" We feel we've got to. They want all the young
men."
" But you could help your country just as well by
staying at hoame and growing corn."
" You can grow corn without us we're wanted out
there."
" But you're all I've got one go, and t'other stay."
" No, we must stick together."
" Oh, I know, I know you've always thought more
of each other than of your father or of Odiam."
" Don't say that, dad we care for you very much,
and we're coming back."
" There's no one gone from here as has ever come
back."
For the first time they noticed something of the
cracked falsetto of old age in his voice, generally so
firm and ringing. Their hearts smote them, but the
instinct of self-preservation was stronger than pity.
They knew now for certain that if they stayed Odiam
would devour them, or at best they would escape maimed
and only half alive. Either they must go at once in
time, like Richard, or go in a few years too late, like
Caro. Besides, the war called to their young blood ; they
412 SUSSEX GORSE
thought of guns and bayonets, camp-fires and battle*
fields, glory and victory. Their youth called them, and
even their father's game arid militant old age could not
silence its bugles and fifes.
The next day they left Odiam for the recruiting
station at Rye. Reuben and the farm-hands watched
them as they marched of whistling " Good-bye, Dolly,
I must leave you/' shaking their shoulders in all the
delight of their new freedom. They had gone as
Albert had gone, as Robert, as Richard, as Tilly, as
Benjamin, as Caro, as Pete had gone. Reuben stood
erect and stiff, his eyes following them as they turned
out of the drive and disappeared down the Peasmarsh
road.
When they were out of sight he walked slowly to the
new ground near the crest of Boarzell, which was being
prepared for the winter wheat. He made a sign to the
man who was guiding the plough, and taking the
handles himself, shouted to the team. The plough went
forward, the red earth turned, sprinkled, creamed into
long furrows, and soothed Reuben's aching fatherhood
with its moist fertile smell. It was the faithful earth,
which was his enemy and yet his comforter which was
always there, though his children forsook himthe good
earth to which he would go at last.
12.
Reuben was now alone at Odiam -for the first time.
Of course Harry was with him still, but Harry did not
count. There was an extraordinary vitality in Mm,
none the less ; it was as if the energies unused by Ms
brain were diverted to keep together Ms crumbled body.
He grew more shrivelled, more ape-like every day, and
yet he persisted in life. He still scraped at Ms fiddle,
and would often sit for hours at a time mumbling
" Only a poor old man a poor old man old man >
old man," c>ver and over again, sometimes with a
THE END IN SIGHT 418
sudden shrill cry of " Salvation's got me 1 " or " Another
wedding ! we're always having weddings in this house."
His brother avoided him, and did his best to ignore him
' he was the scar of an old wound.
His loneliness seemed to drive Reuben closer to the
earth. He still had that divine sense of the earth being
at once his enemy and his only friend. Just as the
gorse which murders the soil with its woody fibres
sweetens all the air with its fragrance, so Reuben when
he fought the harsh strangling powers of the ground
also drank up its sweetness like honey. He did not work
so hard as formerly, though he could still dig his furrow
with the best of them he knew that the days had come
when he must spare himself. But he maintained his
intercourse with the earth by means of long walks in
the surrounding country.
Hitherto he had not gone much afield. If affairs
had called him to Battle, Robertsbridge, or Cran-
brook, he had driven or ridden there as a matter
of business he had seldom walked in the more distant
bye-lanes, or followed the field-paths beyond the
marshes. Now he tramped over nearly the whole
country within a radius of ten miles he was a tireless
walker, and when he came home knew only the healthy
fatigue which is more delight than pain and had re-
warded his dripping exertions as a young man.
He would walk southwards to Eggs Hole and Dingles-
den,, then across the Tillingham marshes to Coldblow
and Pound House, then over the Brede River to Snail-
ham, and turning up by Guestling Thorn, look down on
Hastings from the mill by Batchelor's Bump. Or he
would go northwards to strange ways in Kent, down
to the Rother Marshes by Methersham and Moon's
Green, then over to Lanabstand, and by side-tracks and
bostals to Benenden back by Scullsgate and Nineveh,
and the lonely Furnace road. r
He learned to love the moving shadows of clouds
SUSSEX GORSE
travelling over a sunlit view to love ridged distances
fading from dark bice, through blue, to misty grey. He
used to watch for the sparkle of light on far cottage
windows, the white sheen of farmhouse walls and the
capped turrets of oasts. But he loved best of all to feel
the earth under his cheek when he cast himself down,
the smell of her teeming sap, the sensation that he lay
on a kind breast, generous and faithful. It was strange
that the result of all his battles should be this sense of
perfect union, this comfort in his loneliness. Reuben
was not ashamed at eighty years old to lie full length
in some sun-hazed field, and stretch his body over the
grass, the better to feel that fertile quietness and moist
freshness which is the comfort of those who make the
ground their bed.
He never let anyone see him in these moments
somehow they were almost sacred to him, the religion
of his godless old age. But soon the more distant
cottagers came to know him by sight, and watch for
the tall old man who so often tramped past their doors.
He always walked quickly, his head erect, a stout ash
stick in his hand. He was always alone not even a
dog accompanied him. He wore dark corduroys, and
either a wide-brimmed felt hat, or no hat at all, proud
of the luxuriance of his iron-grey hair. They soon
came to know who he was.
" Tis old Mus' Backfield from Odiam farm by Peas-
marsh. They say as he's a hard man/'
" They say as he's got the purtiest farm in Sussex
he's done waonders fur Odiam, surelye."
" But his wife and children's run away."
" They say he's a hard man,"
" And he's aflus aloan."
" He doaii't seem to care for nobody never gives
you the good maxnun."
" It's larmentaable to see an old feUer Uk that all
aloan, wudout friend nor kin."
THE END IN SIGHT 415
" He's straight enough in spite of it all game as a
youngster he is."
13-
Meanwhile the South African War dragged its muddled
length from Stormberg to Magersfontein, through
Colenso to Spion Kop. It meant more to Reuben than
any earlier war more than the Crimea, for then there
were no newspaper correspondents, more than the
Indian Mutiny, for that was with blacks, or the Franco-
Prussian, for that was between furriners. Besides, there
were two additional factors of tremendous importance
he could now spell out a good deal of his daily paper,
and his sons were both fighting. They had gone out
early in November, and were very good about writing
to him.
They could afford to be generous now they were free,
so they sent him long letters, carefully printed out, as he
could not read running hand. They told him wonderful
stories of camps and bivouacs, of skirmishes and snip-
ings. They enlarged on the grilling fierceness of the
December sun which had burnt their faces brick-red
and peeled their noses on the flies which swarmed
thicker by far than over Odiam midden on the awful
dysentery that grabbed at half their pals on the hypo-
critical Boers, who read the Bible and used dum-dum
bullets.
They came safely through Magersfontein, the only
big encounter in which they were both engaged. David
was made a sergeant soon afterwards. Reuben sent them
out tobacco and chocolate, and contributed to funds
for supplying the troops with woollen comforts. He felt
himself something of a patriot, and would talk eagerly
about " My son the Sergeant/' or " My boys out at the
Front."
He was very busy over his new corn scheme, and as
time went on came to resent the attitude of the European
416 SUSSEX GORSE
Powers in not attacking England and forcing her to
subsist on her own grain supplies. All Europe hated
Britain, so his newspapers said, so why did not all
Europe attack Britain with its armies as well as with
its Press ? We would beat it, of course what was all
Europe but a set of furriners ? meantime our foreign
wheat supplies would be cut off by the prowling navies
of France, Germany, Russia and everywhere else,
which Reuben imagined crowding the seas, while the
true-born sons of Britain, sustaining themselves for the
first time on British-grown corn, and getting drunk for
the first time on beer innocent of foreign hop-substitutes,
would drive upstart Europe to its grave, and start a
millennium of high prices and heavy grain duties.
jj owe ver, Europe was disobliging ; corn prices hardly
rose at all, and Reuben was driven to the unwelcome
thought that the only hope of the British farmer was
milk at least, that was not likely ever to be imported
from abroad.
The year wore on. Kimberley and Ladysmith were
relieved. Rye hung out its flags, and sang " Dolly Grey "
louder than ever. Then Mafeking was saved, and a
bonfire was lit up at Leasan House, in which a couple of
barns and some stables were accidentally involved.
Everyone wore penny medallion portraits of officers-
Roberts and Baden -Powell were the favourites at
Odiam, which nearly came to blows with Burntbarns
over the rival merits of French. While Reuben himself
bought a photograph of Kitchener in a red, white, and
blue frame.
Then suddenly an honour fell on Odiam, The War
Office itself sent it a telegram. But the honour was
taken sadly, for the telegram announced that Sergeant
David Backfield had been killed in action at Laing's
Nek.
THE END IN SIGHT 417
14-
It was not the first time death had visited Reuben,
but it was the first time death had touched him. His
father's death, his mother's, George's, Albert's, had all
somehow seemed much more distant than this very
distant death in Africa. Even Naomi's had not impressed
him so much with sorrow for her loss as sorrow for the
inadequacy of her life.
But David's death struck home. David and William
were the only two children whom he had really loved.
They were his hope, his future. Once again he tasted
the agonies of bereaved fatherhood, with the added
tincture of hopelessness. He would never again see
David's brown, strong, merry face, hear his voice, build
plans for him. For some days the paternal feeling was
so strong that he craved for his boy quite apart from
Odiam, just for himself. It had taken eighty years
and his son's death to make a father of him.
An added grief was the absence of a funeral. Reuben
did not feel this as the relief it would have been to
some. He had given handsome and expensive funerals
to those not half so dear as this young man who had
been hurried into his soldier's grave on the lonely
veldt. In course of time William sent him a snapshot
of the place, with its little wooden cross. Reuben
dictated a tremendously long letter through Maude the
dairy-woman, in which he said he wanted a marble head-
stone put up, and " of Odiam, Sussex," added to the
inscription.
The neighbourhood pitied him in his loss. There was
indeed something rather pathetic about this old man of
eighty, who had lost nearly all his kith and kin, yet now
tasted bereavement for the first time. They noticed
that he lost some of the erectness which had distin-
guished him, the corners of his mouth drooped, and his
2 B
418 SUSSEX GORSE
hair, though persistently thick, passed from iron grey
to a dusty white.
One day when he was walking through the village he
heard a woman say as he passed " There he goes ! I
pity un, poor old man ! " The insult went into him
like a knife. He turned round and gave the woman Ms
fiercest scowl. Old indeed ! Had one ever heard of
such a thing 1 old ! and he could guide the plough and
dig furrows in the marl, and stack, and reap with any
of 'em. Old ! wfcy, he was only
He was eighty. He suddenly realised that, after
all, he was old. He did not carry himself as erectly as
he had used ; there were pains and stiffness in his limbs
and rheumatic swellings in his joints. His hair was
white, and his once lusty arms were now all shrivelled
skin and sinew, with the ossified veins standing out
hard and grey. He was what Harry was always calling
himself " only a poor old man " a poor old man who
had lost his son, whom cottage women pitied from their
doorsteps and be hemmed to them, the sluts !
15.
Meantime affairs at Grandturzel were going from bad
to worse. Reuben did not speak much about Grand-
turzel, but he watched it all the same, and as time wore
on a look of quiet satisfaction would overspread his
face when it was mentioned at the Cocks. He watched
the tiles drip gradually off its barn roofs, he watched the
thatch of its haggards peel and moult, he watched the
oasts lose their black coats of tar, while the wind battered
off their caps, and the skeleton poles stuck up forlornly
from their turrets. Holes wore in the neat house-front,
windows were broken and not mended, torn curtains
waved signals of distress. It was only a question of
waiting.
Reuben often went to the Cocks, for he had heard it
THE END IN SIGHT 419
said that one's beer-drinking capacities diminished with
old age, and he was afraid that if he stayed away, men
would think it was on that account. So he went fre-
quently, particularly if the weather was of a kind to
keep old people at home. He did not talk much, pre-
ferring to listen to what was said, sitting quietly at his
table in the corner, with the quart of Barclay and Perkins's
mild which had been his evening drink from a boy.
It was at the Cocks that he learned most of Grand-
turzel's straits, though he occasionally made visits of
inspection. Realf had messed his hops that autumn, and
the popular verdict was that he could not possibly hold
out much longer.
" Wot'll become of him, I waonder ? " asked Hilder,
the new man at Socknersh.
" Someone 'ull buy him up, I reckon," and young
Coalbran, who had succeeded his father at Doozes,
winked at the rest of the bar, and the bar to a man
turned round and stared at old Reuben, wKo drew
himself up, but said nothing.
" Wot d'you think of Grandturzel, Mus' Backfield ? "
someone asked waggishly.
" Naun," said Reuben ; " I'm waiting."
He did not have to wait long. A few days later he was
told that somebody wanted to see him, and in the
parlour found his daughter Tilly.
He had seen Tilly at intervals through the years, but
as he had never allowed himself to give her more than a
withering glance, he had not a very definite idea of her.
She was now nearly fifty-five, and more than inclined to
stoutness indeed, her comfortable figure was almost
ludicrous compared with her haggard, anxious face,
scored with lines and patched with shadows. Her grey
hair was thin, and straggled on her forehead, her eyes
had lost their brightness ; yet there was nothing wild
or terrible about her face, it was just domesticity in
desperation.
420 SUSSEX GORSE
" Faather," she said as Reuben came into the room.
" Well ? "
" Henry doan't know I've come/' she murmured
helplessly.
" Wot have you come fur ? "
" To ask you to ask you Oh, faather ! " she burst
into tears, her broad bosom heaved under her faded
gown, and she pressed her hands against it as if to keep
it still.
" Doan't taake on lik that," said Reuben, " tell me
wot you've come fur."
" I dursn't now it's no use you're a hard man."
"Then doan't come sobbing and howling in my
parlour. You can go if you've naun more to say."
She pulled herself together with an effort,
" I thought you might perhaps you might help
us . . ."
Reuben said nothing.
" We're in a lamentable way up at Grandturzel"
Her father still said nothing.
" I doan't know how we shall pull through another
year/'
" Nor do I."
" Oh, faather, doan't be so hard ! "
" You said I wur a hard man."
" But you'll you'll help us jest this once. I know
you're angry wud me, and maybe I've treated you badly.
But after all, I'm your daughter, and my children are
your grandchildren."
" How many have you got ? "
" Five the youngest's rising ten."
There was a pause. Reuben walked over to the
window and looked out. Tilly stared at his back im-
ploringly. If only he would help her with some word
or sign of understanding ! But he would not he had
not changed; she had forsaken him and married his
rival, and he would never forget or forgive.
THE END IN SIGHT 421
She had been a fool to come, and she moved a step or
two towards the door. Then suddenly she remembered
the anguish which had driven her to Odiam. She had
been frantic with grief for her husband and children ;
only the thought of their need had made it possible for
her to override her inbred fear and dislike of Reuben
and beg him to help them. She had come, and since she
had come it must not be in vain ; the worst was over
now that she was actually here, that she had actually
pleaded. She would face it out.
" Faather ! " she called sharply.
He turned round.
" I thought maybe you'd lend us some money just
fur a time till we're straight agaun."
" You'd better ask somebody else."
" There's no one round here as can lend us wot we
need it's it's a good deal as well want to see us
through."
" Can't you mortgage ? "
" We are mortgaged the last foot " and she burst
into tears again.
Reuben watched her for a minute or two in silence.
" You've bin a bad daughter," he said at last, " and
you've got no right to call on me. But I've had my
plans for Grandturzel this long while."
She shuddered.
" This mortgage business alters 'em a bit. I'll have
to think it over. Maybe I'll let you hear to-morrow
mornun."
" Oh, faather, if only you'll do anything fur us, we'll
bless you all our lives."
" I doan't want you to bless me and maybe you
woan't taake my terms."
" I reckon we haven't much choice," she said sorrow-
fully.
" Well, you've only got wot you desarve/' said
Reuben, turning to the door.
422 SUSSEX GORSE
Tilly opened her mouth to say something, but was
wise, and held her tongue.
16.
The next morning Reuben sent his ultimatum to
GrandturzeL He would pay off Realf s mortgage and
put the farm into thorough repair, on condition that
Grandturzel was made over to him, root, stock, crop, and
inclosure, as his own property the Realfs to live in the
dwelling-house rent free and work the place for a
monthly wage.
These rather strange terms had been the result of
much thought on his part. His original plan had been
simply to buy the farm for as little money as Realf
would take, but Tilly's visit had inspired Mm with the
happy thought of getting it for nothing. As the land
was mortgaged it would be very difficult for Realf to
find buyers, who would also be discouraged by the farm's
ruinous state of disrepair. Indeed, Reuben thought
himself rather generous to offer what he did. He might
have stipulated for Realf to pay him back in a given
time part of the money disbursed on his account. After
all, mortgage and repairs would amount to over a
thousand pounds, so when he talked of getting the
place for nothing it was merely because the mortgage and
the repairs would have to be tackled anyhow. He had
little fear of Realfs refusing his terms not only was he
very unlikely to find another purchaser, but no one else
would let him stay on, still less pay him for doing so.
Reuben had thought of keeping him on as tenant, but
had come to the conclusion that such a position would
make him too independent. He preferred rather to
have him as a kind of bailiff the monthly, instead of
the weekly, wage making acceptance just possible for
his pride,
Of course Reuben himself would rather have wandered
THE END IN SIGHT 428
roofless for the rest of his life than live as a hireling on
the farm which had once been his own. But he hardly
thought Realf would take such a stand he would
consider his wife and children, and accept for their
sakes. " If he's got the sperrit to refuse 111 think better
of him than I've ever thought in my life, and offer him
a thousand fur the plaace but I reckon I'm purty safe."
He was right. Realf accepted his offer, partly per-
suaded by Tilly. His mortgage foreclosed in a couple
of months, and he had no hopes of renewing it. If he
rejected Reuben's terms, he would probably soon find
himself worse off than ever his farm gone with nothing
to show for it, and himself a penniless exile. On the
other hand, his position as bailiff, though ignominious,
would at least leave him Grandturzel as his home and
a certain share in its management. He might be able to
save some money, and perhaps at last buy a small place
of his own, and start afresh. ... He primed himself
with such ideas to help drug his pride. After all, he
could not sacrifice his wife and children to make a
holiday for his self-respect. Tilly was past her prime, and
not able for much hard work, and though his eldest
boys had enlisted, like Reuben's, and were thus no
longer on his mind, he had two marriageable girls at
home besides his youngest boy of ten. One's wife and
children were more to one than one's farm or one's
position as a farmer and if they were not, they ought
to be.
So a polite if rather cold letter was written accepting
Odiam's conditions, and Tilly thanked heaven that she
had sacrificed herself and gone to plead with her father.
17-
The whole of Boarzell now belonged to Odiam, except
the Fair-place at the top. Reuben would stare covet-
ously at the fir and gorse clump which still defied him ;
424 SUSSEX GORSE
but he had readied that point in a successful man's
development when he comes to believe in his own
success; bit by bit he had wrested Boarzell from the
forces that held it, and he could not think that one
patch would withstand him to the end.
As luck would have it, the only piece that was not
his was the Moor's most characteristic feature, the knob
of firs that made it a landmark for miles round. While
they still stood men could still talk of and point at
Boarzell, but when he had cut them down, grubbed up
the gorse at their roots, ploughed over their place
then Boarzell would be lost, swallowed up in Odiam ; it
would be at most only a name, perhaps not even that.
Sometimes Reuben shook his fist at the fir dump and
muttered, " 111 have you yet, you see if I doan't,
surelye/'
Meantime he devoted Ms attention to the land he had
just acquired. The Grandturzel indosure was put
under cultivation like the rest of Boarzell, and a stiff,
tough, stony ground it proved, reviving all Reuben's
love of a fight. He was glad to have once more, as he
put it, a piece of land he could get his teeth into* Realf
could not help a half resentful admiration when he saw
his father-in-law's ploughs tearing through the flints,
tumbling into long chocolate furrows what he had
always looked upon as an irreclaimable wilderness.
He accepted his position with a fairly good grace to
complain would have made things worse for Tilly and
the children. He was inclined privately to scoff at
some of Reuben's ideas on farming, but even as he did
so he realised the irony of it. He might have done
otherwise, yes, but he was kicked out of his farm, the
servant of the man whose methods he thought ridicu-
lous.
Reuben on Ms side thought Realf a fool He despised
him for failing to lift Grandturzel out of adversity, as
he had lifted Odiam. He would not have kept Mm on
THE END IN SIGHT 425
as bailiff if he had thought there would have otherwise
been any chance of his accepting Odiam's terms. He
disliked seeing him about the place, and did not find
as the neighbourhood pictured he must any satis-
faction in watching his once triumphant rival humbly
performing the duties of a servant on the farm that
used to be his owii. Reuben's hatreds were not personal,
they were merely a question of roods and acres, and
when that side of them was appeased, nothing re-
mained. They 1^ere, like almost everything else of his,
a question of agriculture, and having now settled Realf
agriculturally he had no grudge against him personally.
About this time old Beatup died. He was Odiam's
first hand, and had seen the farm rise from sixty acres
and a patch on Boarzell to two hundred acres and
nearly the whole Moor. Reuben was sorry to lose him,
for he was an old-fasMoned servant which meant that
he gave much in the way of work and asked little in the
way of wages or rest. The young men impudently
demanded twenty shillings a week, wanted afternoons
in the town, and complained if he worked them over-
timethere had never been such a thing as overtime
till board schools were started*
However, of late Beatup had been of very little use.
He was some years younger than Reuben, but he looked
quite ten years older, and his figure was almost exactly
like an S. The earth had used him hardly, steaming
his bones into strange shapes and swellings, parching
his skin to something dark and crackled like burnt
paper, filling him with stiffness and pains. Reuben
had straightened his shoulders, which had drooped a
little after David's death, and once more carried his old
age proudly, as the crown of a hale and strenuous life.
He looked forward to William coming back and
settling down at Odiam. It would be good to have
companionship again. The end of the war was in sight
only a guerilla campaign was being waged among
426 SUSSEX GORSE
the kopjes, Kruger had fled from Pretoria, and everyone
talked of Peace.
At last Peace became an accomplished fact. Reuben
could not help a few disloyal regrets that his corn-
growing had been in vain, but he consoled himself with
the thought that now he would have William back in a
few weeks. He expected a letter from him, and grew
irritable when none came. Billy had not been so good
about writing since David's death, but his father thought
that he at least might have written to announce his
return. As things were, he did not know when to
expect him. He supposed he was bound to get his dis-
charge, and he would have heard if anything had
happened to him. Why did not William hurry home
to share Qdiam's greatness with his old father ?
At last the letter came, Reuben took it into the oast-
barn to read it. His hands trembled as he tore the
envelope, and there was a dimness in his eyes, so that
he could scarcely make out the big printing hand. But
it was not the dimness of his eyes which was responsible
for the impossible thing he saw ; at first he thought it
must be, and rubbed them yet the unthinkable was
still there. William was not coming back at all.
" This place suits me, and I think I could do well for
myself out here. I feel I should get on better if I was
my own master She was good and sensible-like, and
looked as if she could manage things. So I married her,
, . We're starting up on a little farm near Jo'burg . . .
I can't see it matters her being Dutch . . . fifty acres
of pasture . . . ten head of cattle . . , niggers to work * . /*
, . . The words danced and swam before Reuben,
with black heaving spaces between that grew wider and
wider, till at last they swallowed him up.
For the first time in his life he had fainted*
THE END IN SIGHT 427
18.
Reuben's last hope was now gone for his family, at
least. He was forced regretfully to the conclusion that
he was not a successful family man. Whatever methods
he tried with his children, severity or indulgence, he
seemed bound to fail. He had had great expectations
of David and William, brought up, metaphorically, on
cakes and ale, and they had turned out as badly as
Albert, Richard Reuben still looked upon Richard as
a failure- -Tilly, or Caro, who had been brought up,
literally, on cuffs and kicks.
And the moral of it all was not to trust anyone but
yourself to carry on with you or after you the work of
your life. Your ambition is another's afterthought,
your afterthought his ambition. He would not give a
halfpenny for that for which you would give your life.
If you have many little loves, you have always a com-
rade ; if you have one great love, you are always alone.
This is the Law.
His pride would not let him give way to his grief. He
was not going to have any more of " Pity the poor old
man." He mentioned William's decision almost casually
at the Cocks. However, he need not have been afraid.
" No more'n he desarves," was the universal comment
..." shameful the way he treated Grandturzel "...
** no feeling fur his own kin " . . . " the young feller was
wise not to come back." Indeed, locally the matter
was looked upon as a case of poetic justice, and the
rector's sermon on Sunday, treating of the wonderful
sagacity of Providence, was taken, rightly or wrongly,
to have a personal application.
Meantime, in Reuben's heart was darkness. As was
usual when any fear or despair laid hold of him, he
became obsessed by a terror of his old age. Generally
he felt so well a,nd vigorous that he scarcely realised he
428 SUSSEX GORSE
was eighty-two ; but now he felt an old man, alone
and childless. Harry's reiterated "only a poor old
man ... a poor old man," rang like a knell in his ears.
It was likely that he would not live much longer he
would probably die with the crest of Boarzell yet un-
conquered. He made a new will, leaving his property
to William on condition that he came home to take
charge of it, and did not sell a single acre. If he refused
these conditions, he left it to Robert under similar ones,
and failing him to Richard. It was a sorry set of heirs,
but there was no help for it, and he signed his last will
and testament with a grimace.
Fair day was to be a special holiday that year because
of the Coronation. Reuben at first thought that he
would not go it was always maddening to see the
booths and shows crowding over his Canaan, and cir-
cumstances would make his feelings on this occasion
ten times more bitter. But he had never missed the
Fair except for some special reason, such as a funeral
or an auction, and he felt that if he stayed away it
might be put down to low spirits at his son's desertion,
or, worse still, to his old age.
So he came, dressed in his best, as usual, with corduroy
breeches, leggings, wide soft hat, and the flowered waist-
coat and tail-coat he had refused to discard. He was no
longer the centre of a group of farmers discussing crops
and weather and the latest improvements in machinery
he stood and walked alone, inspecting the booths and
side-shows with a contemptuous eye, while the crowd
stared at him furtively and whispered when he passed
. . , " There he goes " .. ." old Ben Backfield up at
Odiam." Reuben wondered if this was fame.
The Fair had moved still further with the times. The
merry-go-round organ played "Bluebell," "Dolly
Grey/' and "The Absent-Minded Beggar," the chief
target in the shooting-gallery was Kruger, with Cronje
and De Wet as subordinates, and the Panorama showed
THE END IN SIGHT 429
Queen Victoria's funeral. The fighting booth was hidden
away still further, and dancing now only started at
nightfall. There were some new shows, too. The old-
fashioned thimble-rigging had given place to a modern
swindle with tickets and a dial ; instead of the bearded
woman or the pig-faced boy, one put a penny in the slot
and saw a lady undress to a certain point. There was
a nigger in a fur-lined coat lecturing on a patent
medicine, while the stalls themselves were of a more
utilitarian nature, selling whips and trousers and balls
of string, instead of the ribbon and gingerbread fairings
bought by lovers in days of old.
Reuben prowled up and down the streets of booths,
grinned scornfully at the efforts in the shooting gallery,
watched a very poor fight in the boxing tent, had a
drink of beer and a meat pie, and came to the conclusion
that the Fair had gone terribly to pieces since his young
days.
He found his most congenial occupation in examining
the soil on the outskirts, and trying to gauge its possi-
bilities. The top of Boarzell was almost entirely lime
the region of the marl scarcely came beyond the out-
skirts of the Fair, Of course the whole place was tangled
and matted with the roots of the gorse, and below them
the spreading toughness of the firs. Reuben fairly
ached to have his spade in it. He was kneeling down,
crumbling some of the surface mould between his fingers,
when he suddenly noticed a clamour in the Fair behind
him. The vague continuous roar was punctuated by
shrill screams, shouts, and an occasional crash. He rose
to his feet, and at the same moment a bunch of women
rushed out between the two nearest stalls, shrieking at
the pitch of their lungs.
They ran down towards the thickset hedge which
divided the Fair-place from Odiam's land, and to his
horror began to try to force their way through it, scream-
ing piercingly the while, Reuben shouted to them ;
430 SUSSEX GORSE
" Stopyou're spoiling my headge ! "
" He's after us hell catch us Q-o-oh ! "
" Who's after you ? "
But before they had time to answer, something burst
from, between the stalls and ran down the darkling
slope, brandishing a knife. It was Mexico Bill, running
amok, as he had sometimes run before, but on less
crowded occasions. The women sent up an ear-splitting
yell, and made a fresh onslaught on the hedge. Someone
grabbed the half-breed from behind, but his knife
flashed, and the next moment he was free, dashing
through the gorse towards his victims.
Reuben was paralysed with horror* In another
minute they would break down his hedge a good
young hedge that had cost him a pretty penny and
be all over his roots. For a moment he stood as if fixed
to the spot, then suddenly he pulled himself together.
At all costs he must save his roots. He could not
tackle the women single-handed, so he must go for the
madman.
" Backfield's after him ! "
The cry rose from the mass up at the stalls, as the big
dark figure with flapping hat-brim suddenly sprang out
of the dusk and ran to meet Mexico Bill, Reuben was an
old man, and his arm had lost its cunning, but he
carried a stout ash stick and the maniac saw no one
but the women at the hedge. The next moment
Reuben's stick had come against his forehead with a
terrific crack, and he had tumbled head over heels into
a gorse-bush.
In another minute half the young men of the Fair
were sitting on him, and everyone else was crowding
round Backfield, thanking him, praising him, and
shaking him by the hand. The women could hardly
speak for gratitude he became a hero in their eyes, a
knight at arms. ..." To think as how when all
them young fellers up at the Fair wur no use, he
THE END IN SIGHT 431
shud risk his life to save us he's a praaper valiant
man/*
But Reuben hardly enjoyed his position as a hero.
He succeeded in breaking free from the crowd, now
beginning to busy itself once more with Mexico Bill,
who was showing signs of returning consciousness, and
plunged into the mists that spread their frost-smelling
curds over the lower slopes of BoarzelL
" Thank heaven I saved them rootses ! " he muttered
as he walked.
Then suddenly his manner quickened ; a kind of
exaltation came into his look, and he proudly jerked up
his head :
" I'm not so old, then, after all."
BOOK VIII
THE VICTORY
r TT*HE next year, Richard and Anne Backficld
I took a house at Playden for week-ends* Anne
wanted to be near her relations at the Manor,
and Richard, softened by prosperity, had no objection
to returning to the scene of his detested youth.
A week or two before they arrived Reuben went to
Playden, and looked over the house. It was a new one,
on the hill above Star Lock, and it was just what he
would have expected of Richard and Anne gimcrack.
He scraped the mortar with his finger-nail, poked at
the tiles with his stick, and pronounced the place jerry-
built in the worst way. It had no land attached to it,
either only a silly garden with a tennis court and
flowers. Richard's success struck him as extremely
petty compared with his own.
He did not see much of his son and daughter-in-law
on their visits. Richard was inclined to be friendly,
but Anne hated Odiam and all belonging to it, while
Reuben himself disliked calling at Starcliffe House*
because he was always meeting the Manor people,
The family at Flightshot consisted now of the Squire,
who had nothing against him except his obstinacy, his
lady, and his son who was just of age and " the most
tedious young rascal " Reuben had ever had to deal
with. He drove a motor-car with hideous din up and
down the Peasmarsh lanes, and once Odiam had had
432
THE VICTORY
the pleasure of lending three horses to pull it home
from the Forstal. But his worst crimes were in the hunt-
ing field ; he had no respect for roots or winter grain
or hedges or young spinneys. Twice Reuben had
written to his father, through Maude the scribe, and he
vowed openly that if ever he caught him at it he'd take
a stick to him.
The result of all this was that George Fleet, being
young and humorous, indulged in some glorious rags at
old Backfield's expense. He had not been to Cambridge
for nothing, and one morning Reuben found both his
house doors boarded up so that he had to get out by the
window, and on another occasion his pigs were discovered
in a squalling mass with their tails tied together. There
was no good demanding retribution, for the youth's
scandalised innocence when confronted with his crimes
utterly convinced his fools of parents, and gave them
an opinion of his accuser that promised ill for his ultimate
possession of the Fair-place.
Reuben still dreamed of that Fair-place, and occa-
sionally schemed as well ; but everything short of the
death of the Squire and his son seemed useless.
However, he now had the rest of Boarzell in such a
state of cultivation that he sometimes found it possible
to forget the land that was still unconquered. That year
he bought a hay-elevator and a steam-reaper. The
latter was the first in the neighbourhood never very
go-ahead in agricultural matters and quite a crowd
collected when it started work in the Glotten Hide, to
watch it mow down the grain, gather it into bundles,
and crown the miracle by tying these just as neatly as,
and much more quickly than, a man.
Though Reuben's corn had not done much for him
materially, it had far-reaching consequences of another
kind. It immensely increased his status in the county.
Odiam had more land under grain cultivation than any^
farm east of Lewes, and the local Tories saw in Back-
2 F
434 SUSSEX GORSE
field a likely advocate of Tariff Reform, He was ap-
proached by the Rye Conservative Club, and invited to
speak at one or two of their meetings. He turned out
to be, as they had expected, an ardent champion of the
new idea. " It wur wot he had worked and hoped and
prayed fur all his life to git back them Corn Laws."
He was requested not to put the subject quite so bluntly.
So in his latter days Reuben came back into the field
of politics which he had abandoned in middle age.
Once more his voice was heard in school-houses and
mission-halls, pointing out their duty and profit to the
men of Rye. He was offered, and accepted, a Vice-
Presidentship of the Conservative Club. Politics had
changed in many ways since he had last been mixed up
in them, The old, old subjects that had come up at
election after electionvote by ballot, the education of
the poor, the extension of the franchise, Gladstone's
free breakfast table had all been settled, or deformed
out of knowledge. The only old friend was the question
of a tax on wheat, revived after years of quiescence
to rekindle in Reuben's old age dreams of an England
where the corn should grow as the grass, a golden
harvest from east to west, bringing wealth and In-
dependence to her sons.
2.
The only part of the farm that was not doing well
was Grandturzel. The new ground had been licked
into shape under Reuben's personal supervision, but
the land round the steading, which had been under
cultivation for three hundred years, yielded only feeble
crops and shoddy harvests things went wrong, animals
died, accidents happened.
Realf had never been a practical manperhaps it
was to that he owed his downfall Good luck and
ambition had made him soar for a while, but he lacked
the dogged qualities which had enabled Reuben to play
THE VICTORY 435
for years a losing game. Besides, he had to a certain
extent lost interest in land which was no longer his own.
He worked for a wage, for his daily bread, and the labour
of his hands and head which had once been an adven-
ture and a glory, was now nothing but the lost labour
of those who rise up early and late take rest.
Also he was in bad health his hardships and humilia-
tions had wrought upon his body as well as his soul. He
was not even the ghost of the man whose splendid
swaggering youth had long ago in Peasmarsh church
first made the middle-aged Reuben count his years.
He stooped, suffered horribly from rheumatism, had lost
most of his hair, and complained of his eyesight.
Reuben began to fidget about Grandturzel. He told
his son-in-law that if things did not improve he would
have to go. In vain Realf pleaded bad weather and
bad luck neither of them was ever admitted as an
excuse at Odiam,
The hay-harvest of 1904 was a good one of course
Realf s hay had too much sorrel in it, there was always
something wrong with Realf s crops but 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.
It took about a week to finish the work on the last
day the fields which for so long had shown the wind's
path in tawny ripples, were shaven close and green,
scattering a sweet steam into the air a soft pungency
that stole up to the house at night and lapped it round
with fragrance. Old Reuben stretched himself con-
tentedly as he went into his dim room and prepared to
486 SUSSEX GORSE
lie down. The darkness had hardly settled on the fields
a high white light was in the sky, among the stars.
He went to bed early with the birds and beasts*
Before he climbed into the bed, lying broad and white
and dim in the background of the candleless room, he
opened the window, to drink in the scent of his land as
it fell asleep. The breeze whiffled in the orchard,
fluttering the boughs where the young green apples hid
under the leaves, there was a dull sound of stamping in
the barns ... he could see the long line of his new hay-
cocks beyond the yard, soft dark shapes in the twilight.
He was just going to turn back into the room, his
limbs aching pleasantly for the sheets, when he noticed
a faint glow in the sky to southward. At first he
thought it was a shred of sunset still burning, then
realised it was too far south for June also it seemed
to flicker in the wind. Then suddenly it spread itself
into a fan, and cast up a shower of sparks.
The next minute Reuben had pulled on his trousers
and was out in the passage, shouting " Fire 1 "
The farm men came tumbling from the attics
" Whur, maaster ? "
" Over at Grandturzel can't see wot's burning from
here. Git buckets and come ! "
Shouts and gunshots brought those men who slept
out in the cottages, and a half-dressed gang, old Reuben
at the head, pounded through the misty hay-sweet
night to where the flames were spreading in the sky.
From the shoulder of Boarzell they could see what was
burning Realf s new-made stacks, two already aflame,
the others doomed by the sparks which scattered on
the wind.
No one spoke, but from Realf 's yard came sounds ol
shouting, the uneasy lowing and stamping of cattle,
and the neigh of terrified horses. The whole place was
lit up by the glare of the fire, and soon Reuben could
lee Realf and his two men, Dunk and Juglery, with Mrs*
THE VICTORY 487
Reaif, the girls, and young Sidney, passing buckets
down from the pond and pouring them on the blazing
stacks with no effect at all.
" The fools ! Wot do they think they're a-doing of ?
Doan't they know how to put out a fire ? "
He quickened his pace till his men were afraid he
would " bust himself," and dashing between the burning
ricks, nearly received full in the chest the bucket his
son-in-law had just swung.
" Stop ! " he shouted" are your cattle out ? "
" No/'
" Then git 'em out, you fool ! You'll have the whole
plaace a bonfire in a minnut. Wot's the use of throw-
ing mugs of water lik this ? You'll never put them ricks
out. Saave your horses, saave your cows, saave your
poultry. Anyone gone for the firemen ? "
" Yes, I sent a boy over fust thing."
" Why didn't you send to me ? "
" Cudn't spare a hand."
" Cudn't spare one hand to fetch over fifteen that's
a valiant idea. Now doan't go loitering ; fetch out your
cattle afore they're roast beef, git out the horses and all
the stock and souse them ricks wot aun't burning yit."
The men scurried in all directions obeying his orders.
Soon terrified horses were being led blindfold into the
home meadow ; the cows and bullocks, less imagina-
tive, followed more quietly. Meantime buckets were
passed up from the pond to the stacks that were not
alight ; but before this work was begun Reuben went
tip to the furthest stack and thrust his hand into it
then he put in his head and sniffed, Then he called
Realf.
" Coame here."
Realf came.
" Wot's that ? "
Realf felt the hay and sniffed like Reuben,
" Wot's that ? " his father-in-law repeated.
SUSSEX GORSE
Kealf went white to the lips, and said nothing.
" 111 tell you wot it is, then ! " cried Reuben" it's
bad stacking* This hay aun't bin praaperly dried it's
bin stacked damp, and them ricks have gone alight o*
themselves, bust up from inside. It's your doing, this
here is, and Fll maake you answer fur it, surelye,"
I_I_the hay seemed right enough/ 1
" Maybe it seems right enough to you now ? "and
Reuben pointed to the blazing stacks.
Realf opened his lips, but the words died on them.
His eyes looked wild and haggard in the jigging light ;
he groaned and turned away. At the same moment a
pillar of fire shot up from the roof of the Dutch barn.
The flying sparks had soon done their work. Fires
sprang up at a distance from the ricks, sometimes in
two places at once. Everyone worked desperately, but
the water supply was slow, and though occasionally
these sporadic fires were put out, generally they burned
fiercely* Wisps of blazing hay began to fly about the
yard, lodging in roofs and crannies. By the time the
fire engine arrived from Rye, the whole place was
alight except the dwelling-house and the oasts.
The engine set to work, and soon everything that had
not been destroyed by fire was destroyed by water.
But the flames were beaten. They hissed and blackened
into smoke. When dawn broke over the eastern shoulder
of Boarzell, the fire was out. A rasping pungent smell
rose from a wreckage of black walls and little smoking
piles of what looked like black rags. Water poured off
the gutters of the house, and soused still further the
pile of furniture and bedding that had been pulled hastily
out of it. The farm men gathered round the buckets,
to drink, and to wash their smoke-grimed skins. Reuben
talked over the disaster with the head of the fire brigade,
who endorsed his opinion of spontaneous combustion ;
and Realf of Grandturzel sat on a heap of ashes and
sobbed.
THE VICTORY 439
3-
That morning Reuben had a sleep after breakfast,
and did not come down till dinner-time. He was told
that Mrs. Realf wanted to see him and had been waiting
in the parlour since ten. He smiled grimly, then settled
his mouth into a straight line.
He found his daughter in a chair by the window. Her
face was puffed and blotched with tears, and her legs
would hardly support her when she stood -up. She had
brought her youngest son with her, a fine sturdy little
fellow of fourteen. When Reuben came into the room
she gave the boy a glance, and, as at a preconcerted
signal, they both fell on their knees.
" Git up ! " cried Backfield, colouring with annoy-
ance.
" We've come/' sobbed Tilly, " we've come to beg
you to be merciful."
" I woan't listen to you while you're lik that."
The son sprang to his feet, and helped his mother,
whose stoutness and stiffness made it a difficult matter,
to rise too.
" If you've come to ask me to kip you and your
husband on at Grandturzel," said Reuben, " you might
have saaved yourself the trouble, fur I'm shut of you
both after last night."
" Faather, it wur an accident."
" A purty accident wud them stacks no more dry
than a ditch. 'Twas a clear case of 'bustion fire-
man said so to me ; as wicked and tedious a bit o' wark
as ever I met in my life/'
" It'll never happen agaun."
No it woan't/'
" Oh, faather doan't be so hard on us. The Lord
knows wotll become of us if you turn us out now. It
'lid have been better if we'd gone five years ago Reaif
440 SUSSEX GGRSE
wur a more valiant man then nor wot he is now. Hell
never be able to start agaun he aun't fit fur it."
" Then he aun't fit to work on my land, I atm't a
charity house. I can't afford to kip a man wud no
backbone and no wits. I've bin too kind as it is I
shud have got shut of him afore he burnt my plaace to
cinders."
" But wot's to become of us ? "
" That's no consarn of mine aun't you saaved any-
thing ? "
" How cud we, faather ? "
" I could have saaved two pound a month on Realf s
wage/*
Tilly had a spurt of anger,
" Yes you'd have gone short of everything and
made other folks go short but we aun't that kind/'
" You aun't. That's why Fm turning you away/'
Her tears welled up afresh.
" Oh, faather, I'm sorry I spoake Hk that. Doan't be
angry wud me fur saying wot I did. I'll own as we
might have managed better only doan't send us away
fur this liddle chap's sake/' and she pulled forward
young Sidney, who was crying too.
" Where are your other sons ? "
" Harry's got a wife and children to keep he cudn't
help us ; and Johnnie's never maade more'n fifteen
shilling a week since the war/ 1
Reuben stood silent for a moment, staring at the
boy.
" Does Realf know you've come here ? " he asked at
length.
" Yes/' said Tilly in a low voice.
There was another silence. Then suddenly Reuben
went to the door and opened it.
" There's no use you waiting and vrothering me-
my mind's maade up/*
11 Faather, fur pity's saak* "
THE VICTORY 441
*' Doan't talk nonsense. How can I sit here and see
my land messed about by a fool, jest because he happens
to have married my darter ? and agaunst my wish,
too. Fm sorry fur you, Tilly, but you're still young
enough to work. I'm eighty-five, and I aun't stopped
working yet, so doan't go saying you're too old. Your
gals can go out to service . . . and this liddle chap
here . . ."
He stopped speaking, and stared at the lad, chin in
hand.
" He can work too, I suppose ? " said Tilly bit-
terly.
" I wur going to say as how I've taaken a liking to
him. He looks a valiant liddle feller, and if you'll hand
him over to me and have no more part nor lot in him,
Fll see as he doesn't want."
Tilly gasped.
" I've left this farm to William/' continued Reuben,
" because I've naun else to leave it to that I can see.
All my children have forsook me ; but maybe this boy
'ud be better than they."
" You mean that if we let you adopt Sidney, you'll
maake Odiam his when you're gone ? "
" I doan't say for sartain if he turns out a praaper
lad and is a comfort to me and loves this plaace as none
of my own children have ever loved it "
But Tilly interrupted him. Putting her arm round
the terrified boy's shoulders, she led him through the
door.
" Thanks, faather, but if you offered to give us to-day
every penny you've got, I'd let you have no child of
mine. Maybe well be poor and miserable and have to
work hard, but he woan't be one-half so wretched wud
us as he'd be wud you. D'you think I disreniember my
own childhood and the way you maade us suffer?
You're an old man, but you're hearty you might live
to a hundred and I'd justabout die of sorrow if I
442 SUSSEX GORSE
thought any child of mine wur living wud yon and being
maade as miserable as you maade us* I'd! rather see my
toy dead than at Odiam.*'
4*
There was a big outcry in Peasmarsh against Back-
field's treatment of the Realfs. Not a farmer in the
district would have kept on a hand who had burnt
nearly the whole farm to ashes through bad stacking*
but this fact did little to modify the general criticism,
A dozen excuses were found for Realfs " accident/' as
it came to be called " and old Ben cud have afforded
to lose a stack or two, surelye/'
Reuben was indifferent to the popular voice. The
Realfs cleared out bag and baggage the following month.
No one knew their destination, but it was believed they
were to separate. Afterwards it transpired that Realf
had been given work on a farm near Lurgashall, while
Tilly became housekeeper to a clergyman, taking with
her the boy she would rather have seen dead than at
Odiam, Nothing was heard of the daughters, and local
rumour had it that they went on the streets ; but this
pleasing idea was shattered a year or two later by young
Alee, the publican's son, coming back from a visit to
Chichester and saying he had found both the girls in
service in a Canon's house, doing well, and one engaged
to marry the butler.
Reuben did not trouble about the Realfs. Tilly had
been no daughter of his from the day she married ; it
was a pity he had ever revoked his wrath and allowed
himself to be on speaking terms with her and her family ;
if he had turned them out of Grandturzel straight away
there would have been none of this absurd fuss also
he would not have lost a good crop of hay. But he
comforted himself with the thought that Ms magnani-
mity had put about a thousand pounds into his pocket
so be could afford to ignore the cold shoulder which
THE VICTORY 443
was turned to him wherever he went. And the hay
was insured.
He gave up going to the Cocks. It had fallen off
terribly those last five years, he told Maude the dairy-
woman, his only confidant nowadays. The beer had
deteriorated, and there was a girl behind the counter all
painted and curled like a Jezebubble, and rolling her
eyes at you like this. ... If any woman thought a man
of his experience was to be caught, she was unaccount-
able mistaken (this doubtless for Maude's benefit, that
she might build no false hopes on the invitation to bring
her sewing into the kitchen of an evening). Then the
fellows in the bar never talked about stocks and crops
and such like, but about race-horses and football and
tomfooleries of that sort, wot had all come in through
the poor being educated and put above themselves.
Moreover, there was a gramophone playing trash like
" I wouldn't leave my little wooden hut for you "
and the tale of Reuben's grievances ended in expectora-
tion.
All the same he was lonely. Maude was a good woman,
but she wasn't his equal. He wanted to speak to some-
one of his own class, who used to be his friend in days
gone by. Then suddenly he thought of Alice Jury. He
had promised to go and see her at Rye, but had never
done so. He remembered how long ago she had used
to comfort him when he felt low-spirited and neglected
by his fellows. Perhaps she would do the same for him
now. He did not know her address, but the new people
at Cheat Land would doubtless be able to give it to hirn,
and perhaps Alice would help him through these trying
times as she had helped him through earlier ones.
A few days later he drove off in his trap to Rye.
Though he had scarcely thought of her for ten years, he
was now all aflame with the idea of meeting her. She
would be pleased to see him, too. Perhaps their long-
buried emotions would revive, and as old people they
444 SUSSEX GORSE
would enjoy a friendship which would be sweeter than
the love they had promised themselves in more ardent
days. *
Alice lived in lodgings by the Ypres Tower. The little
crinkled cottage looked out over the marshes towards
Camber and the masts of ships. Reuben was shown
into a room which reminded him of Cheat Land long
ago, for there were books arranged on shelves, and
curtains of dull red linen quaintly embroidered. There
was a big embroidery frame on the table, and over it
was stretched a gorgeous altar-cloth all woven with gold
and violet tissue.
He was inspecting these things when Alice came in.
Her hair was quite white now, and she stooped a little,
but it seemed to Reuben as if her eyes were still as
lively as ever. Something strange suddenly flooded up
in his heart and he held out both hands.
" Alice . . ." he said.
" Good afternoon," she replied, putting one hand in
his, and withdrawing it almost immediately,
" I I aun't you pleased to see me ? J *
" I thought you'd forgotten all about me, certainly/*
She offered him a chair, and he sat down. Her cold-
ness seemed to drive back the tides that had suddenly
flooded his lips, and slowly too they began to ebb from
his heart. Whom had he come to see ? the only
woman he had ever loved, whose love he had hoped to
catch again in these his latter days, and hold trans-
muted into tender friendship, till he went back to Ms
earth ? Not so, it seemed but an old woman who had
once been a girl, with whom he had nothing in common,
and from whom he had travelled so far that they cotild
scarcely hear each other's voices across the country
that divided them. Alice broke the silence by offering
him some tea.
"Thanks, but I doan't taake tea I've never held
wud it/ 1
THE VICTORY 445
" How are you, Reuben ? I've heard a lot about you,
but nothing from you yourself. Is it true that you ve
sent away your daughter and her family from Grand-
turzel ? "
"Yes after they'd burnt the plaace down to the
ground."
" And where are they now ? "
" I dunno/'
Alice said nothing, and Reuben fired up a little :
" I daresay you think badly of me, lik everyone else.
But if a man maade a bonfire of your new stacks, I
reckon you wouldn't say 'thank'ee/ and raise his
wages/ 1
Another pause then Alice said :
" How are you getting on with Boarzell ? I hear that
most of it's yours now."
" All except the Fair-plaace and I mean to have
that in a year or two, surelye,"
This time it was she that kindled :
" You talk as if you'd all your life before you and
you must be nearly eighty-five."
"I doan't feel old at least not often. I still
feel young enough to have a whack at the Fair-
plaace/*
" So you haven't changed your idea of happiness ? "
" How d'you mean ? "
cc Your idea of happiness always was getting some-
thing you wanted. Well, lately I've discovered my
idea of happiness, and that's wanting nothing/'
" Then you have got wot you want," said Reuben
cruelly.
" I don't think you understand."
" My old faather used to say' I want nothing that
I haven't got, and so I've got nothing that I doan't
want, surelye/ "
" It's all part of the same idea, only of course he had
many more things than I have. I'm a poor woman, and
446 SUSSEX GORSE
lonely, and getting old. But " and a ring of exaltation
came into her voice, and the light of it into her eyes >
** I want nothing/'
" I wish you'd talk plain. If you never want any-
thing, then you aun't praaperly alive. So you aun't
happy because you're dead/*
" You don't understand me. It's not because I'm
dead and sluggish that I don't want anything, but
because I've had fight enough in me to triumph over
my desires. So now everything's mine/'
" Fust you say as how you're happy because you've
got nothing, and now you say as everything's yourn.
How am I to know wot you mean ? "
" Well, compare my case with yours. You've got
everything you want, and yet in reality you've got
nothing/'
''That's nonsense, Alice." He spoke more gently*
for he had come to the conclusion that sorrow and
loneliness had affected her wits.
" It isn't. You've got what you set out to get
Boarzell Moor, and success for Odiam ; but in getting it
you have lost everything that makes life worth while
wife, children, friends, and and love. You're like
the man in the Bible who rebuilt Jericho, and laid the
foundations in his firstborn, and set up the gates in his
youngest son."
" There you go, Alice ! lik the rest of them no more
understanding than anyone else. Can't you see that
it's bin worth while ? "
" What do you mean ? "
" Why, that it's worth losing all those things that I
may get the one big thing I want. Doan't you see that
Boarzell and Odiam are worth more to me than wife or
family or than you, Alice, Come to that, you've got
none o' them things either, and you haven't a farm to
maake up fur it. So even if I wur sorry fur wot Tm
not sorry fur, I'm still happier than you/*
THE VICTORY 447
" No you aren't because you want a thing, and I
want nothing."
" IVe got a thing, my girl, and you've got nothing."
They had both risen and faced each other, anger in
their eyes. But their antagonism had lost that vital
quality which had once made it the salt of their friend-
ship.
" You doan't understand me," said Reuben " I'd
better go/'
" You don't understand me," said Alice " you can't."
" We've lost each other," said Reuben" good-bye."
Alice smiled rather bitterly, and had a moment of
vision.
" The fact is that we can't forgive each other for
being happy in different ways."
" I tell you I'm sorry for nothing."
" Nor I."
So they parted.
Reuben drove back slowly through the October
afternoon. A transparent brede of mist lay over the
fields, occasionally torn by sunlight. Everything was
very quiet sounds of labour stole across the valley
from distant farms, and the barking of a dog at Stone-
link seemed close at hand. Now and then the old man
muttered to himself : " We doan't understand each
other we doan't forgive each other we've lost each
other. We've lost each other."
He knew now that Alice was lost. The whole of
Boarzell lay between them. He had thought that she
would be always there, but now he saw that between
him and her lay the dividing wilderness of his success.
She was the offering and the reward of failure and he
had triumphed over failure as over everything else.
He drove through Peasmarsh and turned into the
Totease lane. The fields on both sides of it were his
now. He sniffed delightedly the savour of their sun-
baked earth, of the crumpling leaves in their hedges,
448 SUSSEX GORSE
of the roots, round and portly, that they nourished in
their soil and the west wind brought him the scent of
the gorse on Boarzdl, very faintly, for now only the
thickets of the top were left.
Almost the whole south was filled by the great lumpish
mass of the Moor, no longer tawny and hummocky, but
lined with hedges and scored with furrows, here and
there a spread of pasture, with the dotted sheep. A
mellow corn-coloured light rippled over it from the
west, and the sheep bleated to each other across the
meadows that had once been wastes. . . .
" My land," murmured old Reuben, drinking in the
breeze of it. " My land more to me than Alice/'
Then with a sudden fierceness :
"I'm shut of her I"
5.
The next year came the great Unionist collapse. The
Government which had bumped perilously through the
South African war, went on the rocks of an indignant
peace wrecked by Tariff Reform with the complication
of Chinese Labour and the Education Bill Once more
Reuben took prominent part in a general election. The
circumstances were altered no one threw dead cats at
him at meetings, though the common labouring men had
a way of asking questions which they had not had in
'65.
Old Backfield spoke at five meetings, each time on
Tariff Reform and the effect it would have on local
agriculture. The candidate and the Unionist Club were
very proud of Mm, and spoke of him as " a grand old
man." On Election Day, one of the candidates* own
cars was sent to fetch him to the Poll* It was the first
time Reuben had ever been in a motor, but he did his
best to dissemble his excitement.
" It's lik them trains/' he said to the chauffeur,
" unaccountable strange and furrin4ooMng at first, but
THE VICTORY 449
naun to spik of when you're used to f em. Well I
remember when the first railway train wur run from
Rye to Hastings and most people too frightened to go
in it, though it never mlade more'n ten mile an hour."
Though the country in general chose to go to the dogs,
Reuben had the consolation of seeing a Conservative
returned for Rye. He put this down largely to his own
exertions, and came home in high good humour from
the declaration of the Poll. Mr. Courthope, the successful
candidate, had shaken him by the hand, and so had his
agent and one or two prominent members of the Club.
They had congratulated him on his wonderful energy,
and wished him many more years of usefulness to the
Conservative cause. He mig f ht live to see a wheat-tax
yet.
He compared his present feelings with the miserable
humiliation he had endured in '65. Queer ! that
election seemed almost as real and vivid to him as this
one, and he did not know why he found himself
feeling as if it were more important. His mind re-
captured the details with startling clearness the crowd
in the market-place, the fight with Coalbran, the sheep's
entrails that were flung about . . . and suddenly,
sitting there in his arm-chair, he found himself mutter-
ing ; " that hemmed geate 1 "
It must be old age. He pulled himself together, as a
farm-hand came into the room. It was Boorman, one
of the older lot, who had just come back from Rye.
" Good about the poll, maaster, wurn't it ? " he said
the older men were always more cordial towards
Reuben than the youngsters. They had seen how he
could work.
" Unaccountable good/'
" I maade sure as how Mus' Courthope ud git in.
Taun't so long since we sent up another Unionist
seems strange when you and me remembers that a Tory
never sat fur Rye till '85."
2G
450 SUSSEX GGRSE
" When did you come back ? "
" I've only just come in, maaster. Went raound ta
the London Trader after hearing the poll By the way, I
picked up a piece of news thur old Jury's darter wot
used to be at Cheat Land has just died. Bob Hilder
toald me seems as she lodges wud his sister/*
" Urn/ 1
" Thought you'd be interested to hear, I remember
as how you used to be unaccountable friendly wud them
Jurys, considering the difference in your position/"
" Yes, yes wot did she die of ? "
" Bob dudn't seem to know. She allus wur a delicate-
looking woman/*
" Yes a liddle stick of a woman. That'll do, now/'
Boorman went out, grumbling at " th* oald feller's
cussedness/' and Reuben sat on without moving,
Alice was dead she had died in his hour of triumph.
Just when he had succeeded in laying his hands on one
thing more of goodness and glory for Odiam, she who
had nothing and wanted nothing had gone out into the
great nothingness. A leaden weight seemed to have
fallen on him, for all that he was " shut of her/*
The clock ticked on into the silence, the fire spluttered,
and a cat licked itself before it. He sat hunched miser-
ably, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. In his breast,
where his heart had used to be, was a heavy dead thing
that knew neither joy nor sorrow, Reuben was feeling
old again.
6.
" Please, maaster, there's trouble on the farm/*
Reuben started out of the half-waking state into
which he had fallen. It was late in the afternoon, the
sunlight had gone, and a wintry twilight crept up the
wall. Maude the dairy-woman was looking in at the
door.
" Wot is it ? Wot* s happened ? **
THE VICTORY 451
" Boorman asked me to fetch you. They've had
some vrother wud the young Squire, and he's shot a
cow/ 1
" Shot one of my cows ! " and Reuben sprang to his
feet. " Where, woman ? Where ? "
" Down at Totease. He wur the wuss for liquor, I
reckon."
Reuben was out of the house bare-headed, and running
across the yard to the Totease meadows. He soon met
a little knot of farm-hands coming towards him, with
three rather guilty-looking young men.
" Wot's happened ? " he called to Boorman.
<( Only this, maaster Dunk and me found Mus'
Fleet a-tearing about the Glotten meadow wud two of
his friends, trying to fix Radical posters on the cows
seems as they'd raaked up one or two o' them old Ben
the Gorilla posters wot used to be about Peasmarsh,
and they'd stuck one on Tawny and one on Cowslip,
and wur fair racing the other beasts to death. Then
when me and the lads coame up and interfere, they
want to fight us and when we taake hoald of 'em,
seeing as they 'pear to be a liddle the wuss for drink,
why Mus' Fleet he pulls out a liddle pistol and shoots
all around, and hits poor oald Dumpling twice over."
" Look here, farmer," said one of the young men
" we're awfully sorry, and well settle with you about
that cow. We were only having a rag. We're awfully
sorry/'
"Ho, indeed! I'm glad to hear it. And you'll settle
wud me about the cow 1 Wur it you who shot her, I'd
lik to know ? "
" I didn't actually fire the pistol but we're all in
the same boat. Had a luncheon over at Rye to cheer
ourselves up after seeing the Tory get in. We're awfully
sorry/ 1
" You've said that afore," said Reuben.
He pondered sternly over the three young men, who
452 SUSSEX GORSE
all looked sober enough now. As a matter of fact,
Dumpling was no great loss ; fifteen pounds would have
paid for her. But he was not disposed to let off George
Fleet so easily. Against the two other youths he bore
no grudge they were just ordinary ineffective young
asses, of Radical tendencies, he noted grimly. George,
however, stood on a different footing; he was the
mocker of Odiam, the perpetrator of many gross and
silly practical jokes at its expense. He should not
escape with the mere payment of fifteen pounds,
for he owed Reuben the punishment of his earlier
misdeeds.
" The man as shot my cow shall answer fur it before
the magistrate/' he said severely.
" Look here " cried George Fleet, and his two
friends began to bid for mercy, starting with twenty
pounds.
" Be a sport/* pleaded one of them, when they had
come to forty, " you simply can't hand Mm over to the
police his father's Squire of the Manor, and it would
be no end of a scandal"
" I know who his faather is, thank'ee," said Reuben.
Then suddenly a great, a magnificent, a triumphant
idea struck Mm. He nearly staggered tinder the force
of it. He was like a general who sees what he had
looked upon hitherto as a mere trivial skirmish develop
into a battle which may win him the whole campaign.
He spoke almost faintly.
" Someone go fur the Squire/ 1
" Sir Eustace ! "
" Yes fetch Mm here, and 111 talk the matter over
wud him."
But "
" Either you fetch Mm here or I send fur the police/*
The two young men stared at each other, then George
Fleet nodded to them :
"You'd better go. The dadll be better than a
THE VICTORY 458
policeman anyhow. Try and smooth him down a bit
on the way/'
" Right you are M and they reluctantly moved off,
leaving their comrade in the enemy's hands,
However/ iReuben's whole manner had changed. His
attitude towards George Fleet became positively cordial,
He took him into the kitchen, and made Maude give him
some tea. He himself paced nervously up and down, a
queer look of exaltation sometimes passing over his face.
One would never have taken him for the same man as
the old fellow who an hour ago had huddled weak and
almost senile in his chair, broken under his life's last
tragedy. He felt young, strong, energetic, a soldier
again.
The Squire soon arrived. Reuben had Mm
shown into the parlour, and insisted on seeing him
alone,
rf< You finish your tea/ 1 he said to George, ** and bring
some more, Maudie, for these gentlemen/* nodding
kindly to the two young men, who stared at him as if
they thought he had taken leave of his senses.
In the parlour. Sir Eustace greeted him with mingled
nervousness and irritation,
" Well, Backfield, Fm sorry about this young scape-
grace of mine. But boys will be boys, you know, and
well make it all right about that cow. I promise you it
won't happen again/*
** Fm sorry to have given you the trouble of coming
here, Squire, But I thought maybe you and I cud come
to an arrangement wudout caffing in the police/ 1
11 Oh, certainly, certainly* You surely wouldn't think
of doing that, Backfield. I promise you the full value 6i
the cow/*
"Quite so, Squire, But it tun't the cow as Fm
vrothered about so much as these things always happen-
ing. This aun't the first ' rag/ as he calls it, wot he's
gn my farm, Fve complained to you before/'
454 SUSSEX GORSE
" I know you have, and I promise you nothing of
this kind shall ever happen again/ 1
" How am I to know that, Squire ? You can't kip
the young man in a prammylator, Now if he wur had
up before the magistrate and sent to prison, it 'ud be a
lesson as he'd never disremember."
" But think of me, Backfield 1 Think of his mother I
Think of us all 1 It would be a ghastly thing for us. I
promise to pay you the full value of the cow and of
your damaged self-respect into the bargain. Won't
that content you ? "
" Urn," said Reuben" it might."
The Squire thought he had detected Backfield's little
game, and a relieved affability crept into his manner.
" That'll be all right," he said urbanely, " Of course
I understand your feelings are more important to you
than your cow. We'll do our best to meet you. What
do you value them at, eh ? "
" The Fair-plaace."
7-
He had triumphed. He had beaten down the last
resistance of the enemy, won the last stronghold of
BoarzelL It was all his now, from the dayey pastures
at its feet to the fir-dump of its crown, A trivial event
which he had been able to seize and turn to his advan-
tage had unexpectedly given him the victory*
The Squire had called it blackmail and made a terrible
fuss about it, but from the first the issues had been in
Reuben's hands. A public scandal, the appearance of
Flightshot's heir before the county magistrates on the
charge of shooting a cow in a drunken frolic, was simply
not to be contemplated ; the only son of the Manor
must not be sacrificed to make a rustic holiday. After
all, ever since the Indosure the Fair had been merely a
matter of toleration ; and as Backfield pointed out, it
could easily go elsewhere to the big Tillmgham
THE VICTORY 455
meadow outside Rye, for Instance, where the wild
beast shows pitched when they came. All things con-
sidered, resistance was not worth while, and Flightshot
made its last capitulation to Odiain,
Of course there was a tremendous outcry in Peas-
marsh and the neighbourhood. Everyone knew that
the Fair was doomed Backfield would never allow it
to be held on his land. His ploughs and his harrows
were merely waiting for the negotiations to be finished
before leaping, as it were, upon this their last prey. He
would even cut down the sentinel firs that for hundreds
of years had kept grim and lonely watch over the Sussex
fields had seen old Peasen Mersch when it was only a
group of hovels linked with the outside world by lanes
like ditches, and half the country a moor like the Boar's
Hyll
The actual means by which he acquired the Fair-
place never quite transpired, for the farm-men were
paid for their silence by Sir Eustace, and also had a
kindly feeling for young George which persisted after
the money was spent. However, one or two of the
prevalent rumours were worse for Reuben than the
facts, and if anyone, in farmhouse or cottage, had
ever had a grudging kindness for the man who
had wrested a victory out of the tyrant earth, he forgot
it now.
But Reuben did not care. He had won his heart's
desire, and public opinion could go where everything
else he was supposed to value, and didn't, had gone.
In a way he was sorry, for he would have liked to discuss
Ms triumph at the Cocks, seasoning it with pints of
decadent ale* As things were, he had no one to talk it
over with but the farm-men, who grumbled because it
meant more work Maude, who said she'd be sorry
when all that pretty gorse was cleared away and old
mad Harry, now something very like a grasshopper,
whose conversation since the blaze at Grandturzel had
456 SUSSEX GORSE
been limited entirely to the statement that ** the house
was afire, and the children were burning."
But this isolation did not trouble Reuben much, He
had lost mankind, but he had found the earth. The
comfort that had sustained him after the loss of David
and William, was his now in double measure. The earth,
for which he had sacrificed all, was enough for him now
that all else was gone. He was too old to work, except
for a snip or a dig here and there, but he never failed to
direct and supervise the work of the others. Every
morning he made his rounds on horseback- it delighted
him to think that they were too long to make on foot.
He rode from outpost to outpost, through the lush
meadows and the hop-gardens of Totease, across the
lane to the wheatlands of Odiam, and then over Boar-
zell with its cornfields and wide pastures to Grand-
turzel, where the orchards were now bringing in a
yearly profit of fifteen pounds an acre. All that vast
domain, a morning's ride, was his won by his own
ambition, energy, endurance, and sacrifice,
In the afternoon he took life easy. If it was warm
and fine he would sit out of doors, against the farm-
house wall, his old bones rejoicing in the sunshine, and
his eager heart at the sight of Boarzell shimmering in
the heat while sounds of labour woke him pleasantly
from occasional dozes.
When evening came and the cool of the day, he would
go for a little stroll round by Burntbarns or Socknersh
or Moor's Cottage, just to see what sort of a mess they
were making of things. He was no longer upright now,
but stooped forward from the hips when he walked*
His hair was astonishingly thick indeed it seemed
likely that he would die with a full head of hair but he
had lost nearly all his teeth a very sore subject, wisely
ignored by those who came in contact with Mm, The
change that people noticed most was in his eyes, In
spite of their thick brows, they were no longer fierce and
THE VICTORY 457
stern ; they were full of that benign serenity which
one so often sees in the eyes of old men just as if he
had not ridden roughshod over all the sweet and gentle
things of life. One would think that he had never
known what it was to trample down happiness and
drive love out of doors one would think that having
always lived mercifully and blamelessly he had reaped
the reward of a happy old age.
8.
Reuben did not go to the Fair that autumn there
being no reason why he should and several why he
shouldn't. He went instead to see Richard, who was
down for a week's rest after a tiring case, Reuben
thought a dignified aloofness the best attitude to main-
tain towards his son- there was no need for them to be
on bad terms, but he did not want anyone to imagine
that he approved of Richard or thought his success
worth while. Richard, for his part, felt Mndly disposed
towards Ms father, and a little sorry for him in his
isolation. He invited him to dinner once or twice, and,
realising his picturesqueness, was not ashamed to show
Mm to his friends*
There were several of Ms friends at Stardiffe that
afternoon men and women rising in the worlds of
literature, law, and politics. It was possible that
Richard would contend the Rye divisionin the
Liberal interest, be it said with shame and he was
anxious to surround himself with those who might be
useful to him. Besides, he was one of those men who
breathe more freely in an atmosphere of Culture. Apart
from mere utilitarian questions, he liked to talk over
the latest books, the latest cause cS^bre or diplomatic
coup ffltttt. Anne, very upright, very desiccated,
poured out tea, and Reuben noted with satisfaction
that Mature bad beaten her at the battle of the dressing-
458 SUSSEX GORSE
table. Richard, on the other hand, in spite of an accen-
tuation of the legal profile, looked young for Ms age and
rather buckish, and rumour credited him with an intrigue
with a lady novelist.
He received his father very kindly, giving him a seat
dose to the table so that he might have a refuge for his
cup and saucer, and introducing him to a gentleman
who, he said, was writing a book on Sussex commons
and anxious for information about BoarzelL
" But I owe you a grudge, Mr. Backfield, for you
have entirely spoilt one of the finest commons in Sussex*
The records of BoarzeU go back to the twelfth century,
and in the Visitations of Sussex it is referred to as a
fine piece of moorland three hundred acres in extent
and grown over with heather and gorse, I went to see
it yesterday, and found only a tuft of gorse and firs
at the top."
" And they're coming out this week/' said Reuben
triumphantly.
"Can't I induce you to spare them? There
are only too few of those ancient landmarks left
in Sussex/'
" And there'd be fewer still, if I had the settling of
'em, I'd lik to see the whole of England grown over
wud wheat from one end to the other/*
" It would be a shame to spoil all the wild places,
though/* said a vague-looking girl in an embroidered
frock, with her hair in a lump at her neck.
" One wants a place where one can get back to
Nature," said a young man with a pince-nez and open-
work socks,
" But my father's great idea/* said Richard, " is that
Nature is just a thing for man to tread down and
subdue/*
" It can't be done/' said the young man in the open-
work socks " it can't be done. And why should we
want to do it ? is not Nature the Mother and Nurse of
THE VICTORY 459
us all ? id is it not best for us simply to lie on her
bosom and trust Iier for our welfare ? "
" If I'd a-done that/' said Reuben, " I shouldn't have
an acre to my naum, surelye/*
" And what do you want with an acre ? What is an
acre but a man's toy a child's silly name for a picture
it can't understand. Have you ever heard Pan's
pipes ? "
** I have not, young man."
'* Then you know nothing of Nature the real goddess,
many-breasted Ceres. What can you know of the earth,
who have never danced to the earth's music ? "
" I once stayed on the Downs/' said the girl in the
embroidered frock, speaking dreamily, " and one
twilight I seemed to hear elfin music on the MIL I tore
ofi my shoes and let down my hair and I danced I
danced . . /'
11 Ah/' said the youth in the open-work socks approv-
ingly. ** That's very like an episode in * Meryon's
House/ you know that glorious scene in which Jennifer
the Prostitute goes down to the New Forest with Meryon
and suddenly begins dancing in a glade/'
" Of course, being a prostitute, she'd be doser to
Nature than a respectable person/'
" I thought * Meryon's House ' the worst bilge this
year has given us/' said a man in a braided coat,
" Or that Meryon has given us, which is saying more/ 1
put In someone else,
*' I hate these romantic realists they're worse than
the old-fashioned Zola sort/'
The conversation had quite deserted Reuben, who
sat silent and forgotten in his corner, thinking what
fools all these people were* After he had wondered
what they were talking about for a quarter of an hour,
he rose to go* and gave a sigh of relief when the fresh
air of Iden Hill came rustling to Mm on th$ doorstep.
460 SUSSEX GORSE
" He's a fine old fellow, your father, Backfield," said
the man who was writing a book on Sussex commons,
" I can almost forgive Mm for spoiling one of the best
pieces of wild land in the county/*
" A magnificent old face/' said a middle-aged woman
with red hair lt the lining of it reminds me of those
interesting Italian peasants one meets they wrinkle
more beautifully than a young girl keeps her bloom. I
should like to paint him/'
" So should I/' said the girl in the embroidered frock
"and I've been taking note of his dothes for our
Earlscourt Moms Dancers."
Richard felt almost proud of his parent,
"He's certainly picturesque and really there's a
good deal of truth in what he says about having got the
better of Nature. Thirty years ago I'd have sworn he
could never have done it. But it's my firm conviction
that he has and made a good job of it too, He's
fought like the devil, he's been hard on every man and
himself into the bargain, he's worked like a slave* and
never given in. The result is that he's done what I'd
have thought no man could possibly do* It's really
rather splendid of him/'
"Ah but he's never heard Pan's pipes/ 1 said the
youth in the open-work socks.
9-
Reuben drove slowly homewards through the brooding
October dusk. The music of the Fair crept after him
up the Foreign, and from the crest he could see the
booths and stalls looking very small in the low fields by
the Rother. " I wouldn't leave my little wooden hut
for you/' played the merry-go-round, and there was
some mysterious quality in that distant tune which
made Reuben whip the old horse over the hill, so as to
be out of reach of it.
So much of Ms life had been bound up with the Fair
THE VICTORY 461
that somehow a part of him seemed to be jigging at it
still, down in the Rother field. It was at the Fair that
he had first resolved to conquer Boarzell, and he saw
himself rushing with the crowd to Totease, scuffling
round the barns while the big flames shot out . . . and
later he saw himself dancing with Naomi to Harry's
fiddle. What had Harry played? a strange tune,
" The Song of Seth's House "one never heard it now,
but he could remember fragments of it. ...
These troubling thoughts were forgotten when he
came to his own frontiers. He drove up to the farm-
house door, "and handing over the trap to a boy, went
out for his evening inspection of Boarzell.
The simset guttered like spent candles in the wind
the rest of the sky was grey, like the fields under It.
The distant bleating of sheep came through the dropping
twale, as Reuben climbed the Moor. His men were
still at work on the new ground, and he made a solemn
sour of inspection. They were cutting down the firs
and had entirely cleared away the gorse, piling it into
a huge bonfire. All that remained of BoarzelTs golden
crown was a pillar of smoke, punctured by spurts and
sparks of flame, rising up against the clouds. The wind
carried the smell away to Socknersh and Burntbarns,
and the farm-men there looked up from their work to
watch the glare of BoarzeU's funeral pyre.
Reuben moved away from the crest and stood looking
round him at what had once been Boarzell Moor. A
clear watery light had succeeded the sunset, and he was
able to see the full extent ol his possessions. From the
utmost limits of GrandturzeL IE the south, to the Glotten
brook in the north, from Socknersh in the east to Cheat
Land in the west all that he could see was Ms. Out
of a small obscure farm of barely sixty acres he had
raised up this splendid dominion, and he had tamed the
roughest toughest, fiercest, cruellest piece of ground
in Sussex, the beast of BoarzelL
2671
^
