THREE:In time his struggle began to modify his relations with Rose. At first he had told himself that her uselessness was only apparent. Though she herself did no fighting, she gave such rest and refreshment to the soldier that he went forth strengthened to the war. He had almost begun to attribute to her his daily renewed courage, and had once or twice been moved to show his gratitude by acts of expensive indulgence.
THREE:
THREE:Sometimes, roaming through murky dusks, he realised in the dim occasional flashes which illuminate the non-thinking man, that he was up against the turning-point of his fight with Boarzell. If he married Alice it would be the token of what had always seemed more unimaginable than his defeathis voluntary surrender. Sometimes he told himself fiercely that he could fight Boarzell with Alice hanging, so to speak, over his arm; but in his heart he knew that he could not. He could not have both Alice and Boarzell.
TWO:He watched Grandturzel's developments with a stern and anxious eye, and kept pace with them as well as he could. The farm consisted of about fifty-five acres of grass and tilth, apart from the forty acres of Boarzell, which neither Realf nor his father had ever attempted to cultivate, using them merely for fuel and timber, or as pasturage for the ewes when their lambs were taken from them. Old Realf had allowed the place to acquire a dilapidated rakish look, but his son at once began to smarten it up. He tarred the two oast-houses till they shone blue with the reflected sky, he painted his barn doors green, and re-roofed the Dutch Barn with scarlet tiles that could be seen all the way from Tiffenden Hill. He enriched his poultry-yard with a rare strain of Orpington, and was the only farmer in the district besides Reuben to do his reaping and hay-making by machinery.Reuben watched her for a minute or two in silence.