FORE:"I forgot you all the time I wur wud Rose," he remarked naively.Caro sprang to her feet. The couple in the field had risen too, but they did not see her through the hedge. Her heart beat fiercely with an uncontrollable anger. She could have shouted, screamed at themat her rather, this gay, comfortable, plump, spoilt wife, who had so many kisses that she could look upon one more or less as fun.
ONE:
TWO:However, someone had to look after the invalid, and Pete might as well do it as anybody elseas long as he realised that his sick-nursing was a recreation, and not a substitute for his duties on the farm.
THREE:"Sharp stones are under him...."
FORE:Reuben could not understand how his sons could care so little about that which was all things to him. He had brought them up to his ambitionsthey were not like Naomi, thrust into them in later, less-impressionable years. He had not been weak with them, and not been cruelyet only Pete was at all satisfactory. However, he was not the man to sit down and despair before his obstacles. He made the best of things as they wereground[Pg 138] work out of his lads, since he could not grind enthusiasm, and trusted to the future to stir up a greater hope. He somehow could not believe that his boys could go through all their lives not caring for Odiam.
Up till then Robert had never troubled much about money. He did not want to buy books like Albert and Richard, neither did he care for drinking in Rye pubs with fishermen like Jemmy. But now everything was changed. He wanted money for Bessie. He wanted to marry her, and he must have money for that, no matter how meanly they started; and also he wanted to give her treats and presents, to cheer the dullness of her life. Reuben had indeed been wise in trying to keep the girls away from his sons!"O, I crave your pardon, good father," returned Calverley smiling; "I mistook you for one John Ball, the son of a bondman of this barony."Reuben drove back slowly through the October afternoon. A transparent brede of mist lay over the fields, occasionally torn by sunlight. Everything was very quietsounds of labour stole across the valley from distant farms, and the barking of a dog at Stonelink seemed close at hand. Now and then the old man muttered to himself: "We d?an't understand each otherwe d?an't forgive each otherwe've lost each other. We've lost each other."