TWO:Chapter 20They could not help wondering at his strenuousness, his unlimited capacity for work, though they failed to understand or sympathise with the object that inspired them. Blackman, grumbling and perplexed, had gone off early in March to the milder energies of Raisins Farm; Becky, for want of a place, had married the drover at Kitchenhour��and it was no empty boast of[Pg 34] Reuben's that he would take the greater part of their work on his own shoulders. From half-past four in the morning till nine at night he laboured almost without rest. He drove the cows to pasture, milked them, and stalled them��he followed the plough over the spring-sown crops, he groomed and watered the horses, he fed the fowls, watched the clutches, fattened capons for market��he cleaned the pigsty, and even built a new one in a couple of strenuous days��he bent his back over his spade among the roots, over his barrow, wheeling loads of manure��he was like a man who has been starved and at last finds a square meal before him. He had all the true workman's rewards��the heart-easing ache of tired muscles, the good bath of sweat in the sun's heat, the delicious sprawl, every sinew limp and throbbing, in his bed at nights��and then sleep, dreamless, healing, making new. TWO:Richard began to take a new interest in his flock��hitherto they had merely struck him as grotesque. Their pale silly eyes, their rough, tic-ridden fleeces, their scared repulsiveness after the dipping, their bewildered nakedness after the shearing, had filled him either with amusement or disgust; but now, when he saw them weakly lick the backs of their new-born lambs, while the lambs' little tails quivered, and tiny, entreating sounds came from their mouths, he found in them a new beauty, which he had found nowhere else in his short, hard life��the beauty of an utterly loving, tender, and helpless thing. TWO:"And shall we go back to our homes to be bondmen again?" burst in a wild cry from thousands."I daresay��but I'm not your son or your daughter or your wife����" TWO:"I'm tired��let's sit down and rest a bit.""The dew of heaven is not for you," he began; "nor is the fat of the land your portion: but I am sent to pour a stream of light into the dark chambers��even to enlighten the soul of the weary bondman. I will sing to them of fearful heart, be strong and fear not; for the high ones of authority shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall lick the dust like serpents. The proud lords amongst us buy up the dastard hirelings with gold and silver, and they clothe them in their livery! They wear the badge of cruelty and oppression in their hats; but we shall tread them down like the mire in the streets. Our king, too, is in bondage, and heareth not the groans of them that are in fetters!��for he is encompassed by the cold and the cruel��but the cold and the cruel shall be swept away. As the gathering of locusts shall we run upon them. Tithes shall cease;��the bondman shall be enfranchised; and the lands apportioned at an easy rent. The proud and rich prelates shall give up their wealth to the sick and the poor, and we will have no clergy henceforth but the order of mendicant priests to administer the sacraments." Thus, and with much more of the doctrine of general enfranchisement and equalization of property harangued the monk; and we need scarcely add, that his words were listened to with breathless eagerness. In fact, so much was he regarded as a prophet, that more than one life had been sacrificed since the commencement of his wanderings, in resisting his capture by the civil authorities.