TWO:But the cottage was shut. With its red-rotting roof between two tall chimneys it looked exactly like a rabbit's head between its ears; the windows were blind, though it was past seven o'clock, and though Reuben knocked at the door loudly, there was no one to be seen. He prowled once or twice round the house, fumbling handles and window-latches, but there was no way of getting in. He listened, but he could not hear a sound. He pictured Rose and Handshut in each other's arms, laughing at him in his wretchedness and their bliss��and all the time he wanted the woman's blood more than the man's.These tricks were never unkind, for David and William were the most benevolent little boys. They saw life through a golden mist, it smelt of milk and apples, it was full of soft lowings and bleatings and cheepings, of gentle noses to stroke and little downy things to hold. For the first time since it became Reuben's, Odiam made children happy. The farm which had been a galley and a prison to those before them, was an enchanted land of adventure to these two. Old Beatup, who remembered earlier things, would sometimes smile when he saw them trotting hand in hand about the yard, playing long hours in the orchard, and now and then[Pg 385] pleading as a special favour to be allowed to feed the chickens, or help fetch the cows home. He seemed to see the farm peopled by little ghosts who had never dared trot about aimlessly, or had time to play, and had fed the fowls and fetched the cows not as a treat and an adventure, but as a dreary part of the day's grind ... he reflected that "the m?aster had learned summat by the others, surelye."

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