FORE:The fences were being put up in the low grounds by Socknersh, a leasehold farm on the fringe of the Manor estate. The fence-builders were not local men, and had no idea of the ill-feeling in the neighbourhood. Their first glimpse of it was when they saw a noisy black crowd tilting down Boarzell towards them��nothing definite could be gathered from its yells, for cries and counter-cries clashed together, the result being a confused "Wah-wah-wah," accompanied by much clattering of sticks and stones, thudding of feet and thumping of ribs.His times were still anxious. Even if the milk-round turned out a success, it was bound to be a loss to him during the first year. A multiplication of servants also meant for a man like Reuben a multiplication of trials. He would have liked to do all the work himself, and could trust no one to do it properly for him. His underlings, with their detached attitude towards the farm, were a perpetual source of anxiety and contempt. His heart sickened for those stalwart sons he had dreamed of in the days of his first marriage��a dream which mocked him daily with its pitiful materialisation in the shred of family that still worked for Odiam. Reuben longed for Rose to have a child, but the months passed, and she had no favourable answer to his repeated questionings, which struck her at first as amusing, later as irritating, and at last��at the suggestion of one or two female friends��as indelicate.

FORE:"How could I? I didn't know how uncle was going to leave his money."

FORE:"I tell you, you're no wife of mine. I'm shut of you��you false, fair, lying, scarlet woman. You needn't cry and weep, nuther��none 'ull say as Ben Backfield wur a soft man fur woman's tears."

FORE:"Because I've thought of something much grander, surelye. I'm going to m?ake us all gurt people, and this a gurt farm. But you've got to help me, you and Harry."While the vassals were retiring from the hall, the Lord de Boteler turned to the gentleman near him��

FORE:"Then they must be compelled to surrender the bondman.��Calverley," continued the lady, turning to the steward; "can you rely on your information?"

FORE:"I tell you, steward," said the smith who had before spoken, and stepping so near Calverley that he involuntarily drew back, "if you prize your life, you will call no man here a bondman. I am free��that man is free��" pointing to Holgrave, "and we are all free��all sworn brothers; and no one shall dare," raising his voice, "to brand, with such a name, a mother's son among us! You have received fair warning, and leave to go: retire now��instantly, if you are wise! Clear a passage there for my Lord de Boteler's steward! There is now room for you to pass��your retainers are waiting without��and now take the man you call a bondman, and away with you all. What! you will not lay hold of him? Take him, I say!" elevating his voice��"seize the villein, and drag him back to his bondage! What! not a finger, after all the trouble you have taken?��then, away with you alone!��away!" And Calverley, from the mere instinct of obedience to a superior power, moved towards the door. "And if ever," continued the smith, "you are found hunting in this forest again for bondmen, as you call them, we may chance to give you a lodging where you will have little reason to complain that the sun shines too brightly!"