They could not help wondering at his strenuousness, his unlimited capacity for work, though they failed to understand or sympathise with the object that inspired them. Blackman, grumbling and perplexed, had gone off early in March to the milder energies of Raisins Farm; Becky, for want of a place, had married the drover at Kitchenhourand it was no empty boast of[Pg 34] Reuben's that he would take the greater part of their work on his own shoulders. From half-past four in the morning till nine at night he laboured almost without rest. He drove the cows to pasture, milked them, and stalled themhe followed the plough over the spring-sown crops, he groomed and watered the horses, he fed the fowls, watched the clutches, fattened capons for markethe cleaned the pigsty, and even built a new one in a couple of strenuous dayshe bent his back over his spade among the roots, over his barrow, wheeling loads of manurehe was like a man who has been starved and at last finds a square meal before him. He had all the true workman's rewardsthe heart-easing ache of tired muscles, the good bath of sweat in the sun's heat, the delicious sprawl, every sinew limp and throbbing, in his bed at nightsand then sleep, dreamless, healing, making new.While Holgrave was speaking, he emptied the flask into a horn, and, handing it to the galleyman, the latter eagerly clutched it, and, with astonishing rapidity, swallowed the contents.
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He might have said the whole world, to judge by his mother's and Harry's faces.Sometimes he would expostulate with her, and when[Pg 266] she met his expostulations with blandishments, he would feel himself yielding, and grow so furious that he would turn upon her in rage and indignation. Rose was not like Naomi; in her own words "she gave as good as she got," and once or twice, for the first time in his life, Reuben found himself in loud and vulgar altercation with a female. He had never before had a woman stand up to him, and the experience was humiliating."Well, Alice," he said huskily."Thank God!" said Margaret faintly, as she took his hand and pressed it to her lips; "thank God, that you have returned to me without hurt or harm."The next year came the great unionist collapse. The Government which had bumped perilously through the South African war, went on the rocks of an indignant peacewrecked by Tariff Reform with the complication of Chinese Labour and the Education Bill. Once more Reuben took prominent part in a general election. The circumstances were alteredno one threw dead cats at him at meetings, though the common labouring men had a way of asking questions which they had not had in '65.
