THREE:"I don't know why you do it. Make Backfield get a girl to help you."He walked slowly, his 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 Boarzell, rolling slowly down to some red roofs and poplars. These roofs and poplars were Odiam, the farm which his grandfather had bought, which his father had tilled and fattened ... and now it was humbled, robbed of its rightsand his father still went whistling to the barn, because, though fifty acres had been withheld from him by a quibble, he still had a bright fire, with a pretty wife and healthy boys beside it.
"He died quiet, I hope?"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 wur to die of 'em"and he spat.Chapter 4"Harry!" cried Naomi, as if someone were strangling her.
