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:The weeks wore on and it dawned on him that he must pull himself together for a fresh campaign. He must have more warriorshe could not fight Boarzell with only traitors and hirelings. He must marry again."My f?ather will kill me, surelye."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.