Yes, she was dyingand she hoped that she would die[Pg 119] before Reuben came back. She did not want to feel again that strange, half-bitter compassion for him. The tears ran quite fast down her cheeks, and her eyes were growing dim. This was the end, and she knew it. The evening was full of tender life, but for her it was the end. Ambition and folly had stolen her out of all this freshness before the spring of her life had run. She was like a young birch tree blighted with its April leafage half uncurled.
ONE:Oh, Boarzell, Boarzell!... his love, his dream, his promised land, lying there in the cold white hope of morning! No degenerate sons could rob him of his Moor, though they might leave him terribly alone on it. After all, better be alone with his ambition, than share it with their defiling thoughts, their sordid, humdrum, milk-and-water schemes. In future he would try no more to interest his children in Boarzell. He had tried to thrill Robert and Albert and Richard with his glorious enterprise, and they had all forsaken himone for love, one for fame, and one for some still unknown unworthiness. He would not trouble about the others;[Pg 191] they should serve him for no other reason but that he was a hard master. He had been hard with the three boys, but he had been exciting and confiding too. Now he would drop all that. He would cease to look for comradeship in his children, as years ago he had ceased to look for it in his wife. It would be enough if they were just slaves working under his whip. He had been a fool to expect sympathy.... Boarzell, looming blacker and blacker against the glowing pinks and purples of the sky, seemed to mock at sympathy and its cheap colours, seemed to bid him Be Hard, Be Strong, Be RemorselessBe Alone.
THREE:He would wake during the night after cruel dreams of Boarzell stripped of its tilth, relapsed into wildness; for a few agonised moments he would wonder if the dream were true, and if he had not indeed failed. Sometimes he had to get out of bed and steal to the window, to reassure himself with the sight of his diggings and fencings. Then a horrible thought would attack him, that though he had not yet actually failed, he was bound to fail soon, that his task was too much for him, and only one end possible. He would creep back into bed, and lie awake till dawn and the restarting of the wheel."Fear!" repeated the galleyman, as he gazed on the beautiful features of the abashed Lucy; "what can such an angel have to fear?and yet, by the saints! such a prize would tempt the honestest captain that ever commanded a vessel. Years have passed away since I last saw you;you were then but a child. You have forgotten mebut in storm or in sunshine, never have I forgotten you: the first sound of your voice, when I was aloft there, made my heart beatand I thought I would run all hazards and face you. Butyou don't know who is talking to youDo you?"
Dancing!... dancing!... Dying!... dying! Even the tune had faded now, and she could see nothingonly a grey patch where the window had been. She was not frightened, only very lonely. Her legs were like ice, and the inside of her mouth felt all rough and numb."A famous house-warming for John Byles," said he. "By Saint Nicholas! I wish his furniture had been in to have made the fire burn brisker. 'Tis almost over now; there it goes down, and then it comes up again, by fits and starts: 'tis a pity, too, to see the house which stood so snugly to-day, a black and smoky ruin to-morrow; but better a ruin, than a false heart to enjoy it. By Saint Nicholas! 'twill give the old gossips talk for the whole week. Aye, 'tis all over now; there will still be a spark and a puff now and then; but there's nothing to see worth keeping the karles any longer from their beds, and I think it is time that we be in oursso good night. But a word with you, Stephen;you did the business yourself this time without help; but mind you, if ever Wat Turner can lend you a hand, you have only to say soGood night.""He wants justabout all of uswe've got to push on the farm.""The commons of Essex."
