A kind of defiance, a kind of swagger possessed him. He would show her and himself how little he cared. He would find another woman this very night. He remembered the dark-browed, demure little thing of the farmhouse gate. He would go back to her, and she would not be so timid this timethey never were.
For the next few months Odiam was in a transitional state. It was gradually being divested of its old comfortable ways, and clad in new garments of endeavour. Gradually the life grew harder, and gradually the tense thought, the knife-edged ambition at the back of all the changes, came forward and asserted themselves openly."Are you a leader, Oakley?"
ONE:Then came a day early in December, when they were walking home together through the mud of Totease Lane, their faces whipped into redness by the south-west wind. Naomi wore a russet cloak and hood, and her hair, on which a few rain-drops glistened, was teasing her eyes. She held Reuben's arm, for the ruts were treacherous, and he noticed the spring and freedom of her walk. A sudden turn of the lane brought them round due west, and between them and the sunset stood Boarzell, its club of firs knobbily outlined against the grape-red sky. It smote itself upon Reuben's eyes almost as a thing forgottenthere, half blotting out the sunset with its blackness. Unconsciously his arm with Naomi's hand on it contracted against his side, while the colour deepened on his cheek-bones.
THREE:"Quite soand that's what makes me pity you," and suddenly her eyes kindled, blazed, as with her spirit itself for fuel"I pity you, I pity youpoor, poor man!""O yes, she spoke very sweetly, but she is not so handsome as the baron's lady."
In Reuben's eyes Naomi was just as irritating and ridiculous as Harry. She made foolish clothes for Fanny, quite unfit for a child in her positionmuslins and ribbon bows, little knitted shoes, which she was forever pulling off to kiss the baby's feet. She would seat her on some high big chair in which she lolled with grotesque importance, and would kneel before her and call her "Miss Fanny."She smiled.He was just going to turn back into the room, his limbs aching pleasantly for the sheets, when he noticed a faint glow in the sky to southward. At first he thought it was a shred of sunset still burning, then realised it was too far south for Junealso it seemed to flicker in the wind. Then suddenly it spread itself into a fan, and cast up a shower of sparks.When all were assembled, Calverley stated that Stephen Holgrave, having refused to swear that he would not again take advantage of his liberty to flee from bondage, the baroness not wishing, from a feeling of clemency, to punish his obstinacy farther, had desired him to declare that she should hold each bondman responsible for the appearance of Holgrave, and should consider their moveables and crops forfeited in the event of his absconding.Holgrave had never much reason to boast of the gift of speech, more especially when his feelings were in any wise affected. Even the galleyman was not as eloquent now as upon former occasions, and the two issued forth, and walked on for about five minutes, without exchanging a word. Wells, at length, stopped at a house in the vicinity of St. Bartholomew's Priory, with a heavy, gothic, stone arch, inclosing an iron studded door, and the windows of the first, and still more the second, story projecting so as to cast a strong shadow over the casement of the ground-floor. Wells tapped twice with the hilt of his dagger at the oaken door, which was softly opened, and he and Holgrave entered.
