<000005>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 him, none the less; it was as if the energies unused by his brain were diverted to keep together his crumbled body. He grew more shrivelled, more ape-like every day, and yet he persisted in life. He still scraped at his fiddle, and would often sit for hours at a time mumbling！"Only a poor old man！a poor old man！old man！old man," over and over again, sometimes with a[Pg 413] sudden shrill cry of "Salvation's got me!" 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.
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.
TWO:"Are ye drawlatches or murderers?" asked Holgrave in a fierce voice, as he started up and sprung to the ladder, "that you break open a man's house at this hour?"
THREE:"But we've got a boy, Reuben. It would be nice to have a girl now."
TWO: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[Pg 198] 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 surplice 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 Realf. Occasionally the boy would turn his head on his shoulder and rashly contemplate the Backfield pew. Reuben invariably met him with a stare and a scowl.
TWO: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 plaintively, 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 roundabout, 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.
"As you like Tom！only mind they don't coop you up. To my mind, there is not a man in the parish safe;！but things will not always go on so. Now, good father, we must be gone."Reuben's teeth were chattering."I d?an't care if he's bin a hunderd. There ?un'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 f?ather wanted different, but I've bin thinking and dreaming of this fur years."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.
ｈ网
THREE:
THREE: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.
