Rose had begun to question her attitude towards her husband. She had hitherto never doubted for a moment that she loved himof course she loved him! But now she asked herself"If I love him, how is it that our most tender moments have never meant so much to me as that second kiss of Handshut's?" None of Reuben's kisses stood out in her memory as that kiss,[Pg 287] he had never made the thrill of life go through her, he had never filled her heart to bursting with joy so infinite that it was sorrow, and sorrow so exquisite that it was joy. She would observe Reuben, and she would see himold. He was fifty-four, and his hair was grey; there were crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes, and straight lines between his brows, where he had furrowed them as the pitiless sun beat down upon his face. There were other lines too, seamed and scored by hard struggles. He was strong as an ox, but she told herself he was beginning to move a bit stiffly. He had exposed himself so ruthlessly to the wet and cold that his joints had become rheumatic. It was nothing very much, but he liked to have her rub them occasionally, and up till then she had liked it too. Now she suddenly saw something dreary and preposterous in ithere she was married to a man thirty years older than herself, his chattel, his slave. She did not really love himhow could she, with all those years between them? She was fond of him, that was alland he was getting older, and horribly cantankerous; and she was youngoh, God! she had never known till then how young.
"How did it go off? Have you settled with Apps?"She called a long-legged boy who was weeding among the turnips, and bade him go over to Puddingcake and fetch the master. Then she led the way to the kitchen, which smelled deliciously of baking bread.
THREE:David and William seemed much impressed, and Reuben congratulated himself. Two days later he went into the dairy to give an order, and saw one of the dairy girls bending over a pan of cream. Something in her attitude and in the soft curly down on the nape of her neck reminded him of Naomi and that early courting scene, now nearly fifty years ago; but before he had time to recall it, David came in by another door, not seeing his father, and running lightly up to the dairymaid suddenly kissed the back of her neck and ran away. She turned round with a scream, just in time to see him disappearing through one door, while in the other stood Reuben with grimly folded arms. He gave her a week's wages and sent her away."Oh, d?an't leave me, Robert."
"Yes, that's itinstead of spending twenty minnut at your breakfast, you spend forty. You idle away my time wud your hemmed tricks, and I w?an't have it, I tell you, I w?an't have it. Lord! when I wur your age, I wur running the whole of this farm aloneevery str?ak of work, I did it. I didn't go wasting time over my meals, and writing rubbidge fur low-down Gladstone p?apers. Now d?an't you go sassing me back, you young good-fur-nothing, or I'll flay you, surelye!""Yes, my lord."The smith was as great an enthusiast for the freedom of the bond as the monk himself; but his mode of obtaining it did not coincide with the peaceful bent of the father. Tyler's plan was bold and sanguinary,the monk's, intimidation without violence; and energetic and accustomed as was the smith to act on his own impulses, yet, even in his fiercest moods, he willingly yielded obedience to the monk's suggestions. Indeed, he had long been accustomed to pay that deference which father John's mildness had, as it were, extorted; and the circumstance of their first connection, from the liberation of Ball from the dungeon of Sudley to the present period, had so increased his affection and veneration, that now, deprived of this pillar of support, he felt a loneliness and dejection which nothing around could dispel.In this way he managed to do a few little things to brighten Bessie's grey lifeand his own too, though he did not know it was grey. Every week he put aside a shilling or two towards the lump sum which was at last to make their marriage possible. It was Reuben's fight for Boarzell on an insignificant scalethough Robert, who had not so much iron in him as his father, could not resist spending money from time to time on unnecessary trifles that would give Bessie happiness. For one thing he discovered that she had never been to the Fair. She had never known the delights of riding on the merry-go-round, throwing balls at Aunt Sally, watching the shooting or the panorama. Robert resolved to take her that autumn, and bought her a pair of white cotton gloves in preparation for the day.Suddenly he heard a knock at the door, and before he could answer, it flew open, and the icy blast, laden with snow, rushed in, and whirled round the hut, fluttering the pages of Lilly's grammar and the fleece of the lamb.
