ONE:"Well, he's swooneded away, anyhow. Can't you do something to m?ake him sensible?"Reuben on his side thought Realf a fool. He despised him for failing to lift Grandturzel out of adversity, as he had lifted Odiam. He would not have kept him on[Pg 425] as bailiff if he had thought there would have otherwise been any chance of his accepting Odiam's terms. He disliked seeing him about the place, and did not findas the neighbourhood pictured he mustany satisfaction in watching his once triumphant rival humbly performing the duties of a servant on the farm that used to be his own. Reuben's hatreds were not personal, they were merely a question of roods and acres, and when that side of them was appeased, nothing remained. They were, like almost everything else of his, a question of agriculture, and having now settled Realf agriculturally he had no grudge against him personally.
TWO:Not that Rye elections had ever been much concerned with national events. Borough had always been a bigger word than country on those occasions. It was the question of the Harbour rather than the Ballot which had sent up Captain Curteis in 1832, while later contests had centred round the navigation of the Brede River, the new Sluice at Scott's Float, or the Landgate clock. Reuben, however, cared little for these petty town affairs. His chief concern was the restoration of the tax on wheat, and he also favoured the taxing of imported malt and hops. He hated and dreaded Gladstone's "free breakfast table," which he felt would mean the ruin of agriculture in England. He would like to concentrate country Toryism into an organised opposition of Free Trade, and his wounded pride found balm in the thought of founding a local agricultural party of which he would be the inspirer and head.
THREE:
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