Old Backfield spoke at five meetings, each time on Tariff Reform and the effect it would have on local agriculture. The candidate and the unionist Club were very proud of him, and spoke of him as "a grand old man." On Election Day, one of the candidates' own cars was sent to fetch him to the Poll. It was the first time Reuben had ever been in a motor, but he did his best to dissemble his excitement.
He pictured Odiam chiefly as a great grain farmthough there might be more money in fruit or milk, these would be mere temporary profit-making concerns, means to an end; for glory and real permanent fortune lay in wheat. He was terribly anxious lest the Corn Laws should be repealed, a catastrophe which had threatened farming for several years. For the first time he began to take an interest in politics and follow the trend of public opinion. He could not read, so was forced to depend on Naomi to read him the newspaper he occasionally had three days old from Rye.
TWO:"Kip calm, ladkip calm. There's naun there, naun, I tell you.""Bravely said and done, my stout yeoman!" said Sir Robert Knowles, who broke silence for the first time during the investigation: "and my Lord de Boteler," he continued, addressing the baron, "the arm that acquitted itself so well in your defence, you may be assured, could never have disgraced itself by midnight plunder."
TWO:When the actual feeding was over there were speeches[Pg 75] and toasts. Vennal of Burntbarns proposed the health of the bride, and Realf of Grandturzel that of the groom. Then Mrs. Backfield's health was drunk, then Mr. Gasson's. There were more toasts, and some songs"Oh, no, I never mention her," "The Sussex Whistling Song," and old farmhouse ballads, such as:All Reuben said was:
TWO:After dinner Reuben set out with his axe, and Harry and Naomi sat together on the floor beside the kitchen fire. He gave her kisses like the wind, swift and cool. She was the only woman he had kissed, and she had never been kissed by any other man. Their love had its wildnesses, but not the wildnesses of firerather of the dancing boughs of some spring-caught wood, rioting together in May. Now and then he would sing as he held her to him, his fresh young voice ringing up to the roof....
"Oh, Rose, I can't tell himI daren't. Why, he turned away Handshut because of you.""C?aming up by the brook, surelye."Robert was first of all part of a cluster which included young Coalbran from Doozes, Tom Sheane from Dinglesden, the two Morfees from Edzell, Emily Ditch, and Bessie Lamb from Eggs Hole. Then in time the company reduced itself to Robert, Emily, and Bessieand one wonderful night he found himself with Bessie alone. How they had chosen each other he could not say. All he knew was that for sometime she had become woven with the music into his thoughts. She[Pg 142] was a poor labourer's daughter, living in a crumbled, rickety cottage on Eggs Hole Farm, helping her mother look after eight young children. She was only seventeen herself, sturdy yet soft, with a mass of hay-coloured hair, and rather a broad face with wistful eyes. Robert thought she was beautifulbut Robert thought that old Spodgram's playing and the choir's singing were beautiful.
荣誉榜
THREE:It struck him that his relations with women had been singularly unfortunate. Caro, Tilly, Rose, Alice, had all been failuresindeed he had come to look back on Naomi as his only success. Women were all the same, without ambition, without self-respect, ready to lick the boots of the first person who stroked them and was silly enough not to see through their wiles.Where Ditch of Totease or Vennal of Burntbarns would have taken a couple of woodmen and a saw, Reuben took nothing but an axe and his bare arms. His muscles ached for this new carouse of exertion.
THREE:"Then you must have bin a valiant basher in your day. It's a pity you let yourself go slack."
