ONE:His mind painted him a picture it had never dared paint beforethe comfortable red house basking in sunshine, with a garden full of flowers, a cow or two at pasture in the meadow, the little hop-field his only tilthhis dear frail wife sitting in the porch, his children playing at her feet or reading at her kneeperhaps they were hers too, perhaps they were not. He saw himself contented, growing stout, wanting nothing he hadn't got, so having nothing he didn't want ... he was leaning over her chair, and gazing away into the southern distance where Boarzell lay against the sky, all patched with heather and thorns, all golden with gorse, unirrigated, uncultivated, without furrow or fence...."Yes, I was a freeman, and I was a yeoman; but I am now avillein! Ay, starestare! I live through it all. It was but the space of a momentthe drawing of a breath, that changed me from a man who dared look the heavens in the face, and close his door, if he listed, on even the baron himself, to a poor worm, that must crawl upon the earth, and has not even this (taking up a log of wood) that he can call his own. True, it was not my birthright, but I earned it, in sweat, in hunger, and cold, and I fought for it amidst swords and lancesand I sold it, like a traitor, forher!" And he pointed, with a look of bitter reproach, to his wife.
TWO:"But all ladies are proud, mother! I warrant she is not prouder than another."
ONE:"Drat 'em! durn 'em!"
TWO:Ten minutes later he rode off, and the family separated to their tasks, or to such evasions of them as were possible in the master's absence.No one spoke, but from Realf's yard came sounds of shouting, the uneasy lowing and stamping of cattle, and the neigh of terrified horses. The whole place was lit up by the glare of the fire, and soon Reuben could see Realf and his two men, Dunk and Juglery, with Mrs.[Pg 437] Realf, the girls, and young Sidney, passing buckets down from the pond and pouring them on the blazing stackswith no effect at all.
ONE:Reuben thought that he had efficiently broken his son's rebellion. All the next day Robert seemed utterly cowed. He was worn out by the misery of the last few hours, and by the blows which in the end had dulled all the sore activities of mind and soul into one huge physical ache. Reuben left him alone most of the day, smiling grimly to himself when he saw him. Robert spent several hours lying on the hay in the Oast barn, his mind as inert and bruised as his body. He had ceased to contrive or conjecture, even to dread.
TWO:Chapter 14We before observed that Stephen Holgrave's dwelling was situated at a short distance from the little Eastbourne; and, on the night of All-hallows fair, a quick knocking was heard at the door just after Holgrave had retired to rest. Holgrave, concluding it was some mandate from the castle, arose, and, in a surly voice, demanded who was there?
