She pulled herself together with an effort."We can go back by Corkwood across the marshes. It'll be quicker, and we shan't have no crowd spanneling round."Pete stood clear, as the two combatants closed. Neither knew much of the game. Realf had been born too late for boxing to have been considered a necessary part of his education, and Reuben had been taught in an old schoolthe school of Bendigo and Deaf Burkemighty bashers, who put their confidence in their strength, despised finesse, and counted their victories in pints of blood.
Once more her attitude towards him had changed. She no longer felt the timid passion of the first months after her marriage, but she also no longer felt that sinister dread and foreboding which had succeeded it. She looked upon him less as her husband, inspiring alternately love and terror, than as the father of her children. She saw him, so to speak, through them. She loved him because they were his as well as hers. She spoke less of "I" and "he," and more of "us," "we," and "ours."In a flash Naomi knew who had put them there. No sane mind could have conceived such a decoration or seeing eyes directed it. Harry, exiled from church and feast, had spent his time in a crazy effort to honour the happy pair. He knew she was to marry Reuben, but had not seemed to take much interest. Doubtless the general atmosphere of festivity and adornment had urged him to this.At last the crisis camethrough George, the youngest, least-considered son at Odiam. He had always been a weakling, as if Naomi had passed into his body her own[Pg 221] passionate distaste for life. Also, as is common with epileptic children, his intellect was not very bright. It had been the habit to spare him, even Reuben had done so within reason. But he should not really have worked at all, or only in strict moderationcertainly he should not have been sent out that October evening to dig up the bracken roots on the new land. Tilly expostulated"Anyhow he didn't ought to work alone "but Reuben was angry with the boy, whom he had caught loafing once or twice that day, and roughly packed him off."How many trees are there?"Margaret was exceedingly agitated, and was rising to call for assistance, but he caught her hand in his cold grasp. "Do not go yet," he said, in a low voice"I came far to see you!" His grasp relaxed, and Margaret, drawing away her hand, poured some wine in a cup, and held it to his lips; he swallowed a little, and, looking up in her face, she saw that his eyes were filled with tears. "You are going to leave me, Margaret?""Oh, mother, I cannot tell you," answered Holgrave, turning away his face from her searching glance; "Oh, no, I cannot tell you!"The year '71 was on the whole a bad one. The summer was parched, the autumn sodden, and the winter frozen. Reuben's oats after some excellent promises failed him abruptly, as was the way with crops on Boarzell. His wheat was better in quality but poor in quantity, his mangolds had the rot, and his hops, except for the old field by the lane, were brown and ragged with blight.
