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

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