"It is a poor farm," said Calverley hastily; "but there are many fine farms that have lately reverted to my lord in default of heirs, or as forfeitures, that must soon be given away or sold."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 perfumes, of ghostly yellows, massing faintly amidst the grey.
ONE:They reached Odiam, both feeling that the glory of those last three months had departed. The sight of Boarzell, lying black and hullish 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 meditativewhen his eyes rested on Naomi they were half regretful.
ONE: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.
TWO:He was still looking into her eyes, and she was visited by a terrible feeling that came to her sometimes and went as quicklythat he was not so mad as people thought.
TWO:"D?an't let me hear another word of that hemmed nonsense. If you think as Richard's bettered himself by running away from Odiam, you're unaccountable[Pg 395] 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 awayRichard'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 f?ather wot stayed at home."
THREE:"But I mean," impatiently resumed Wells, "did you ever see him before he was with those Essex men?""You'll never do it yourself," said Naomi, who was spending a few days at Odiam.
