The boys told him. Reuben listened in silence save for one ejaculation of "the dirty bitch!"
David nudged William.
"And she asked us particular to say as she'd never regretted the day she left Odiam, or wished herself back there, nuther."
"She wur purty säafe to say that—for who'd have her back, I'd lik to know? Larmentable creature she always wur, spanneling around lik a mangy cat. Always thin and always miserable—I'm glad to be shut of her. But she seemed cheery when you saw her?"
"Unaccountable cheery—and she drank three bottles of six ale."
"Um," said Reuben.
The boys had one or two secret talks about Caro. She also stimulated that habit of "thinking" which their father so thoroughly disapproved of. Somehow their encounter with her, combined with their encounter with Richard, seemed to have modified their enthusiasm for Odiam. They could not help comparing that supper at Newhaven with that dinner at Rye, and wondering if it was true what she had said about Richard having got away in time, whereas she had been too late.
"And yet she was glad she'd gone—she'd rather be free too late than not at all."
"Bill, do you think that if we stay here, Odiam 'ull' do for us wot it did for Caro?"
"I döan't think so. Fäather was much harder on Caro than he is on us."
"He's not hard on us—but he's unaccountable interfering; it maddens me sometimes."
"Seems as if he didn't trust us—seems sometimes as if he was afraid we'd go off like the others."
"Reckon he is—he saw how we envied Richard."
"Davy, it 'ud be cruel of us to go and leave him."
"I döan't say as I want to do that."
"Besides, it äun't likely as we'd do as well fur ourselves as Richard. We've no Miss Bardon to trouble about us—reckon we'd come to grief like Albert."
"Maybe we would."
Four years later Reuben bought the farmstead of Totease. Brazier died, and the Manor, anxious as usual for ready money, put up his farm for sale. It was a good place of about sixty acres, with some beautiful hop gardens and plenty of water. Reuben felt that it would be unwise to neglect such an opportunity for enlarging the boundaries of Odiam. He outbid one or two small farmers, put the place under repair, engaged more hands, and set to work to develop a large business in hops.
His enthusiasm was immense; he saw quicker returns from hops than from anything else, and the sheltered position of Totease made it possible to cover the whole of it with goldings and fuggles. He built a couple of new oasts with concrete roofs, and announced his intention of engaging London pickers that autumn. There was great perturbation at the Rectory—the Manor had long since abandoned social crusades—because Reuben housed these pickers indiscriminately in a barn. It was also said that he underpaid them. The rector was quite insensible to his argument that if a man were fool enough to work for two shillings a day, why should wise men lose money by preventing him? Also he compelled no one to come, so the indiscriminate sleepers were only, so to speak, volunteers—and when the rector persisted he became coarse on the subject.
His temper had grown a little difficult of late years—it had never been a particularly pleasant one, but it had been fierce rather than quick. His sons felt uneasily that they were partly responsible for this—they irritated him by asserting their independence. Also he suspected them of a lack of enthusiasm. He had tried to arrange a marriage for David with the daughter of the new farmer at Kitchenhour. She was ten years older than he, and not strikingly beautiful, but she satisfied Reuben's requirements by being as strong as a horse and having a hundred a year of her own. His indignation was immense when David refused this prize.
"I can't abear the sight of her."
"You'll git used to her, lad."
"Well, I want something better than that."
"She's got a hundred a year, and that 'ud mäake our fortunes at Odiam."
"Odiam's doing splendid—you don't want no more."
"I justabout do. I shan't be satisfied till I've bought up Grandturzel säum as I've bought Totease."
"Well, I'm not going to sacrifice myself for Odiam, and you've no right to ask me, dad."
"If I haven't got a right to ask you that, wot have I, I'd lik to know?"
In the spring of '99 old Jury died over at Cheat Land. His wife had died a year or two earlier—Reuben had meant to go over and see Alice, but the untimely calving of a new Alderney had put the idea entirely out of his head. On this occasion, however, he attended the funeral, with the other farmers of the district, and at the churchyard gate had a few words with Alice before she went home.
She was a middle-aged woman now, but her eyes were as bright as ever, which made her look strangely young. Her hair had turned very prettily grey, she was fatter in the face, and on the whole looked well and happy, in spite of her father's death. She told him she was going to live at Rye—she had a tiny income, derived from Jury's life insurance, and she meant to do art needlework for an ecclesiastical firm. Reuben experienced a vague sense of annoyance—not that he wanted her to be unhappy, but he felt that she had no right to happiness, going out into the world, poor and alone, her parents dead, her life's love missed....
That summer the country was shaken by rumours of war, Reuben; having more leisure on his hands, spent it in the study of his daily paper. He could now read simple sentences, and considered himself quite an educated man. When war at last broke out in South Africa he was delighted. It was the best of all possible wars, organised by the best of all possible Governments, under the best of all possible ministers. Chamberlain became his hero—not that he understood or sympathised with his Imperialism, but he admired him for his attitude towards the small nations. He hated all talk about preserving the weak—such was not nature's way, the way of farms; there the weakest always went to the wall, and he could not see why different methods should obtain in the world at large. If Reuben had been a politician he would have kept alive no sick man of Europe, protected no down-trodden Balkan States. One of the chief reasons why he wanted to see the Boers wiped out was because they had muddled their colonisation, failed to establish themselves, or to make of the arid veldt what he had made of Boarzell.
"They're no good, them Boers," he announced at the Cocks; "there they've bin fur years and years, and they say as how that Transvaal's lik a desert. They've got mizzling liddle farms such as I wudn't give sixpence for—and all that gurt veldt's lik the palm of my hand, naun growing. They döan't deserve to have a country."
He expressed himself so eloquently in this fashion that the member for the Rye division of Sussex—the borough had been disenfranchised in '85—asked him to speak at a recruiting meeting at the Court Hall. Unluckily Reuben's views on recruiting were peculiar.
"Now's your chance," he announced to the assembled yokels; "corn prices is going up, and every man who wants to do well by himself had better grub his pastures and sow grain. Suppose we wur ever to fight the French—who are looking justabout as ugly at us now as they did in Boney's time—think wot it 'ud be if we had grain-stocks in the country, and cud settle our own prices. My advice to the men of Rye is the same as wot I gave in this very hall thirty-five years ago—sow grain, and grain, and more grain."
The member, the colonel of the volunteers, and others present, pointed out to Reuben afterwards that the situation was military, not agricultural; but it was characteristic of him to see all situations from the agricultural point of view. His old ideas of an agricultural combine, which had fallen miserably to pieces in '65, now revived in all their strength. He saw East Sussex as a country of organised corn-growing, Odiam at the head. His rather eclectic newspaper reading had impressed him with the idea that England was on the verge of war with one or two European Powers, notably the French, whose ribald gloatings over British disasters stirred up all the fury of the man who had been born within range of the Napoleonic wars and bred on tales of Boney and his atrocities.
He was dismayed by the lack of local enthusiasm. He dug up one or two of his own pastures and planted wheat; he even sacrificed ten acres of his precious hops, but nobody seemed inclined to follow his example. The neighbourhood was ornately patriotic, flags flew from the oast-houses at Socknersh, Union Jacks washed to delicate pastel shades by the chastening rain—while the Standard misleadingly proclaimed that the Royal Family was in residence at Burntbarns. On Odiam the boys sang:
Some of them in fact did go. Others remained, and sang:
Quite early in the war David and William walked home in silence after seeing a troop-train off from Rye, then suddenly, when they came to Odiam, shook hands.
"It's our chance," said Bill.
"We've waited for it long enough."
"I couldn't have stood much more, and this will be a good excuse."
"The old man 'ull take on no end—wot with his corn-growing plans and that."
"Funny how he never seems to think of anything but Odiam."
"Strikes me as he's mad—got what you call a fixed idea, same as mad people have."
"He's sensible enough—but he's unaccountable hard to live with."
"Yes—he's fair made me hate Odiam. I liked the place well enough when I was a little lad, but he's made me sick of it. It's all very well living on a farm and working on it, but when you're supposed to give up your whole life to it and think of nothing else, well, it's too much."
"We won't tell him that, though, Davy—we'll make out as it's pure patriotic feeling on our part."
"Yes; I don't want him to think we're set on getting away—but, by gum, Bill! we are."
"If this war hadn't happened we'd have had to have thought of something else."
So they went and broke their news to Reuben. They were careful and considerate—but he was knocked out by the blow.
"Going!—both of you!" he cried.
"We feel we've got to. They want all the young men."
"But you could help your country just as well by staying at höame and growing corn."
"You can grow corn without us—we're wanted out there."
"But you're all I've got—one go, and t'other stay."
"No, we must stick together."
"Oh, I know, I know—you've always thought more of each other than of your father or of Odiam."
"Don't say that, dad—we care for you very much, and we're coming back."
"There's no one gone from here as has ever come back."
For the first time they noticed something of the cracked falsetto of old age in his voice, generally so firm and ringing. Their hearts smote them, but the instinct of self-preservation was stronger than pity. They knew now for certain that if they stayed Odiam would devour them, or at best they would escape maimed and only half alive. Either they must go at once—in time, like Richard, or go in a few years—too late, like Caro. Besides, the war called to their young blood; they thought of guns and bayonets, camp-fires and battlefields, glory and victory. Their youth called them, and even their father's game and militant old age could not silence its bugles and fifes.
The next day they left Odiam for the recruiting station at Rye. Reuben and the farm-hands watched them as they marched off whistling "Good-bye, Dolly, I must leave you," shaking their shoulders in all the delight of their new freedom. They had gone—as Albert had gone, as Robert, as Richard, as Tilly, as Benjamin, as Caro, as Pete had gone. Reuben stood erect and stiff, his eyes following them as they turned out of the drive and disappeared down the Peasmarsh road.
When they were out of sight he walked slowly to the new ground near the crest of Boarzell, which was being prepared for the winter wheat. He made a sign to the man who was guiding the plough, and taking the handles himself, shouted to the team. The plough went forward, the red earth turned, sprinkled, creamed into long furrows, and soothed Reuben's aching fatherhood with its moist fertile smell. It was the faithful earth, which was his enemy and yet his comforter—which was always there, though his children forsook him—the good earth to which he would go at last.
Reuben was now alone at Odiam—for the first time. Of course Harry was with him still, but Harry did not count. There was an extraordinary vitality in him, none the less; it was as if the energies unused by his brain were diverted to keep together his crumbled body. He grew more shrivelled, more ape-like every day, and yet he persisted in life. He still scraped at his fiddle, and would often sit for hours at a time mumbling—"Only a poor old man—a poor old man—old man—old man," over and over again, sometimes with a sudden shrill cry of "Salvation's got me!" or "Another wedding!—we're always having weddings in this house." His brother avoided him, and did his best to ignore him—he was the scar of an old wound.
His loneliness seemed to drive Reuben closer to the earth. He still had that divine sense of the earth being at once his enemy and his only friend. Just as the gorse which murders the soil with its woody fibres sweetens all the air with its fragrance, so Reuben when he fought the harsh strangling powers of the ground also drank up its sweetness like honey. He did not work so hard as formerly, though he could still dig his furrow with the best of them—he knew that the days had come when he must spare himself. But he maintained his intercourse with the earth by means of long walks in the surrounding country.
Hitherto he had not gone much afield. If affairs had called him to Battle, Robertsbridge, or Cranbrook, he had driven or ridden there as a matter of business—he had seldom walked in the more distant bye-lanes, or followed the field-paths beyond the marshes. Now he tramped over nearly the whole country within a radius of ten miles—he was a tireless walker, and when he came home knew only the healthy fatigue which is more delight than pain and had rewarded his dripping exertions as a young man.
He would walk southwards to Eggs Hole and Dinglesden, then across the Tillingham marshes to Coldblow and Pound House, then over the Brede River to Snailham, and turning up by Guestling Thorn, look down on Hastings from the mill by Batchelor's Bump. Or he would go northwards to strange ways in Kent, down to the Rother Marshes by Methersham and Moon's Green, then over to Lambstand, and by side-tracks and bostals to Benenden—back by Scullsgate and Nineveh, and the lonely Furnace road.
He learned to love the moving shadows of clouds travelling over a sunlit view—to love ridged distances fading from dark bice, through blue, to misty grey. He used to watch for the sparkle of light on far cottage windows, the white sheen of farmhouse walls and the capped turrets of oasts. But he loved best of all to feel the earth under his cheek when he cast himself down, the smell of her teeming sap, the sensation that he lay on a kind breast, generous and faithful. It was strange that the result of all his battles should be this sense of perfect union, this comfort in his loneliness. Reuben was not ashamed at eighty years old to lie full length in some sun-hazed field, and stretch his body over the grass, the better to feel that fertile quietness and moist freshness which is the comfort of those who make the ground their bed.
He never let anyone see him in these moments—somehow they were almost sacred to him, the religion of his godless old age. But soon the more distant cottagers came to know him by sight, and watch for the tall old man who so often tramped past their doors. He always walked quickly, his head erect, a stout ash stick in his hand. He was always alone—not even a dog accompanied him. He wore dark corduroys, and either a wide-brimmed felt hat, or no hat at all, proud of the luxuriance of his iron-grey hair. They soon came to know who he was.
"'Tis old Mus' Backfield from Odiam farm by Peasmarsh. They say as he's a hard man."
"They say as he's got the purtiest farm in Sussex—he's done wäonders fur Odiam, surelye."
"But his wife and children's run away."
"They say he's a hard man."
"And he's allus alöan."
"He döan't seem to care for nobody—never gives you the good marnun."
"It's larmentäable to see an old feller lik that all alöan, wudout friend nor kin."
"He's straight enough in spite of it all—game as a youngster he is."
Meanwhile the South African War dragged its muddled length from Stormberg to Magersfontein, through Colenso to Spion Kop. It meant more to Reuben than any earlier war—more than the Crimea, for then there were no newspaper correspondents, more than the Indian Mutiny, for that was with blacks, or the Franco-Prussian, for that was between furriners. Besides, there were two additional factors of tremendous importance—he could now spell out a good deal of his daily paper, and his sons were both fighting. They had gone out early in November, and were very good about writing to him.
They could afford to be generous now they were free, so they sent him long letters, carefully printed out, as he could not read running hand. They told him wonderful stories of camps and bivouacs, of skirmishes and snipings. They enlarged on the grilling fierceness of the December sun which had burnt their faces brick-red and peeled their noses—on the flies which swarmed thicker by far than over Odiam midden—on the awful dysentery that grabbed at half their pals—on the hypocritical Boers, who read the Bible and used dum-dum bullets.
They came safely through Magersfontein, the only big encounter in which they were both engaged. David was made a sergeant soon afterwards. Reuben sent them out tobacco and chocolate, and contributed to funds for supplying the troops with woollen comforts. He felt himself something of a patriot, and would talk eagerly about "My son the Sergeant," or "My boys out at the Front."
He was very busy over his new corn scheme, and as time went on came to resent the attitude of the European Powers in not attacking England and forcing her to subsist on her own grain supplies. All Europe hated Britain, so his newspapers said, so why did not all Europe attack Britain with its armies as well as with its Press? We would beat it, of course—what was all Europe but a set of furriners?—meantime our foreign wheat supplies would be cut off by the prowling navies of France, Germany, Russia and everywhere else, which Reuben imagined crowding the seas, while the true-born sons of Britain, sustaining themselves for the first time on British-grown corn, and getting drunk for the first time on beer innocent of foreign hop-substitutes, would drive upstart Europe to its grave, and start a millennium of high prices and heavy grain duties.
However, Europe was disobliging; corn prices hardly rose at all, and Reuben was driven to the unwelcome thought that the only hope of the British farmer was milk—at least, that was not likely ever to be imported from abroad.
The year wore on. Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved. Rye hung out its flags, and sang "Dolly Grey" louder than ever. Then Mafeking was saved, and a bonfire was lit up at Leasan House, in which a couple of barns and some stables were accidentally involved. Everyone wore penny medallion portraits of officers—Roberts and Baden-Powell were the favourites at Odiam, which nearly came to blows with Burntbarns over the rival merits of French. While Reuben himself bought a photograph of Kitchener in a red, white, and blue frame.
Then suddenly an honour fell on Odiam. The War Office itself sent it a telegram. But the honour was taken sadly, for the telegram announced that Sergeant David Backfield had been killed in action at Laing's Nek.
It was not the first time death had visited Reuben, but it was the first time death had touched him. His father's death, his mother's, George's, Albert's, had all somehow seemed much more distant than this very distant death in Africa. Even Naomi's had not impressed him so much with sorrow for her loss as sorrow for the inadequacy of her life.
But David's death struck home. David and William were the only two children whom he had really loved. They were his hope, his future. Once again he tasted the agonies of bereaved fatherhood, with the added tincture of hopelessness. He would never again see David's brown, strong, merry face, hear his voice, build plans for him. For some days the paternal feeling was so strong that he craved for his boy quite apart from Odiam, just for himself. It had taken eighty years and his son's death to make a father of him.
An added grief was the absence of a funeral. Reuben did not feel this as the relief it would have been to some. He had given handsome and expensive funerals to those not half so dear as this young man who had been hurried into his soldier's grave on the lonely veldt. In course of time William sent him a snapshot of the place, with its little wooden cross. Reuben dictated a tremendously long letter through Maude the dairy-woman, in which he said he wanted a marble head-stone put up, and "of Odiam, Sussex," added to the inscription.
The neighbourhood pitied him in his loss. There was indeed something rather pathetic about this old man of eighty, who had lost nearly all his kith and kin, yet now tasted bereavement for the first time. They noticed that he lost some of the erectness which had distinguished him, the corners of his mouth drooped, and his hair, though persistently thick, passed from iron grey to a dusty white.
One day when he was walking through the village he heard a woman say as he passed—"There he goes! I pity un, poor old man!" The insult went into him like a knife. He turned round and gave the woman his fiercest scowl. Old indeed! Had one ever heard of such a thing! old!—and he could guide the plough and dig furrows in the marl, and stack, and reap with any of 'em. Old!—why, he was only—
—He was eighty. He suddenly realised that, after all, he was old. He did not carry himself as erectly as he had used; there were pains and stiffness in his limbs and rheumatic swellings in his joints. His hair was white, and his once lusty arms were now all shrivelled skin and sinew, with the ossified veins standing out hard and grey. He was what Harry was always calling himself—"only a poor old man"—a poor old man who had lost his son, whom cottage women pitied from their doorsteps—and be hemmed to them, the sluts!
Meantime affairs at Grandturzel were going from bad to worse. Reuben did not speak much about Grandturzel, but he watched it all the same, and as time wore on a look of quiet satisfaction would overspread his face when it was mentioned at the Cocks. He watched the tiles drip gradually off its barn roofs, he watched the thatch of its haggards peel and moult, he watched the oasts lose their black coats of tar, while the wind battered off their caps, and the skeleton poles stuck up forlornly from their turrets. Holes wore in the neat house-front, windows were broken and not mended, torn curtains waved signals of distress. It was only a question of waiting.
Reuben often went to the Cocks, for he had heard it said that one's beer-drinking capacities diminished with old age, and he was afraid that if he stayed away, men would think it was on that account. So he went frequently, particularly if the weather was of a kind to keep old people at home. He did not talk much, preferring to listen to what was said, sitting quietly at his table in the corner, with the quart of Barclay and Perkins's mild which had been his evening drink from a boy.
It was at the Cocks that he learned most of Grandturzel's straits, though he occasionally made visits of inspection. Realf had messed his hops that autumn, and the popular verdict was that he could not possibly hold out much longer.
"Wot'll become of him, I wäonder?" asked Hilder, the new man at Socknersh.
"Someone 'ull buy him up, I reckon," and young Coalbran, who had succeeded his father at Doozes, winked at the rest of the bar, and the bar to a man turned round and stared at old Reuben, who drew himself up, but said nothing.
"Wot d'you think of Grandturzel, Mus' Backfield?" someone asked waggishly.
"Naun," said Reuben; "I'm waiting."
He did not have to wait long. A few days later he was told that somebody wanted to see him, and in the parlour found his daughter Tilly.
He had seen Tilly at intervals through the years, but as he had never allowed himself to give her more than a withering glance, he had not a very definite idea of her. She was now nearly fifty-five, and more than inclined to stoutness—indeed, her comfortable figure was almost ludicrous compared with her haggard, anxious face, scored with lines and patched with shadows. Her grey hair was thin, and straggled on her forehead, her eyes had lost their brightness; yet there was nothing wild or terrible about her face, it was just domesticity in desperation.
"Fäather," she said as Reuben came into the room.
"Well?"
"Henry döan't know I've come," she murmured helplessly.
"Wot have you come fur?"
"To ask you—to ask you—Oh, fäather!" she burst into tears, her broad bosom heaved under her faded gown, and she pressed her hands against it as if to keep it still.
"Döan't täake on lik that," said Reuben, "tell me wot you've come fur."
"I dursn't now—it's no use—you're a hard man."
"Then döan't come sobbing and howling in my parlour. You can go if you've naun more to say."
She pulled herself together with an effort.
"I thought you might—perhaps you might help us ..."
Reuben said nothing:
"We're in a larmentable way up at Grandturzel."
Her father still said nothing.
"I döan't know how we shall pull through another year."
"Nor do I."
"Oh, fäather, döan't be so hard!"
"You said I wur a hard man."
"But you'll—you'll help us jest this once. I know you're angry wud me, and maybe I've treated you badly. But after all, I'm your daughter, and my children are your grandchildren."
"How many have you got?"
"Five—the youngest's rising ten."
There was a pause. Reuben walked over to the window and looked out. Tilly stared at his back imploringly. If only he would help her with some word or sign of understanding! But he would not—he had not changed; she had forsaken him and married his rival, and he would never forget or forgive.
She had been a fool to come, and she moved a step or two towards the door. Then suddenly she remembered the anguish which had driven her to Odiam. She had been frantic with grief for her husband and children; only the thought of their need had made it possible for her to override her inbred fear and dislike of Reuben and beg him to help them. She had come, and since she had come it must not be in vain; the worst was over now that she was actually here, that she had actually pleaded. She would face it out.
"Fäather!" she called sharply.
He turned round.
"I thought maybe you'd lend us some money—just fur a time—till we're straight agäun."
"You'd better ask somebody else."
"There's no one round here as can lend us wot we need—it's—it's a good deal as we'll want to see us through."
"Can't you mortgage?"
"We are mortgaged—the last foot"—and she burst into tears again.
Reuben watched her for a minute or two in silence.
"You've bin a bad daughter," he said at last, "and you've got no right to call on me. But I've had my plans for Grandturzel this long while."
She shuddered.
"This mortgage business alters 'em a bit. I'll have to think it over. Maybe I'll let you hear to-morrow mornun."
"Oh, fäather, if only you'll do anything fur us, we'll bless you all our lives."
"I döan't want you to bless me—and maybe you wöan't täake my terms."
"I reckon we haven't much choice," she said sorrowfully.
"Well, you've only got wot you desarve," said Reuben, turning to the door.
Tilly opened her mouth to say something, but was wise, and held her tongue.
The next morning Reuben sent his ultimatum to Grandturzel. He would pay off Realf's mortgage and put the farm into thorough repair, on condition that Grandturzel was made over to him, root, stock, crop, and inclosure, as his own property—the Realfs to live in the dwelling-house rent free and work the place for a monthly wage.
These rather strange terms had been the result of much thought on his part. His original plan had been simply to buy the farm for as little money as Realf would take, but Tilly's visit had inspired him with the happy thought of getting it for nothing. As the land was mortgaged it would be very difficult for Realf to find buyers, who would also be discouraged by the farm's ruinous state of disrepair. Indeed, Reuben thought himself rather generous to offer what he did. He might have stipulated for Realf to pay him back in a given time part of the money disbursed on his account. After all, mortgage and repairs would amount to over a thousand pounds, so when he talked of getting the place for nothing it was merely because the mortgage and the repairs would have to be tackled anyhow. He had little fear of Realf's refusing his terms—not only was he very unlikely to find another purchaser, but no one else would let him stay on, still less pay him for doing so. Reuben had thought of keeping him on as tenant, but had come to the conclusion that such a position would make him too independent. He preferred rather to have him as a kind of bailiff—the monthly, instead of the weekly, wage making acceptance just possible for his pride.
Of course Reuben himself would rather have wandered roofless for the rest of his life than live as a hireling on the farm which had once been his own. But he hardly thought Realf would take such a stand—he would consider his wife and children, and accept for their sakes. "If he's got the sperrit to refuse I'll think better of him than I've ever thought in my life, and offer him a thousand fur the pläace—but I reckon I'm purty safe."
He was right. Realf accepted his offer, partly persuaded by Tilly. His mortgage foreclosed in a couple of months, and he had no hopes of renewing it. If he rejected Reuben's terms, he would probably soon find himself worse off than ever—his farm gone with nothing to show for it, and himself a penniless exile. On the other hand, his position as bailiff, though ignominious, would at least leave him Grandturzel as his home and a certain share in its management. He might be able to save some money, and perhaps at last buy a small place of his own, and start afresh.... He primed himself with such ideas to help drug his pride. After all, he could not sacrifice his wife and children to make a holiday for his self-respect. Tilly was past her prime, and not able for much hard work, and though his eldest boys had enlisted, like Reuben's, and were thus no longer on his mind, he had two marriageable girls at home besides his youngest boy of ten. One's wife and children were more to one than one's farm or one's position as a farmer—and if they were not, they ought to be.
So a polite if rather cold letter was written accepting Odiam's conditions, and Tilly thanked heaven that she had sacrificed herself and gone to plead with her father.
The whole of Boarzell now belonged to Odiam, except the Fair-place at the top. Reuben would stare covetously at the fir and gorse clump which still defied him; but he had reached that point in a successful man's development when he comes to believe in his own success; bit by bit he had wrested Boarzell from the forces that held it, and he could not think that one patch would withstand him to the end.
As luck would have it, the only piece that was not his was the Moor's most characteristic feature, the knob of firs that made it a landmark for miles round. While they still stood men could still talk of and point at Boarzell, but when he had cut them down, grubbed up the gorse at their roots, ploughed over their place—then Boarzell would be lost, swallowed up in Odiam; it would be at most only a name, perhaps not even that. Sometimes Reuben shook his fist at the fir clump and muttered, "I'll have you yet, you see if I döan't, surelye."
Meantime he devoted his attention to the land he had just acquired. The Grandturzel inclosure was put under cultivation like the rest of Boarzell, and a stiff, tough, stony ground it proved, reviving all Reuben's love of a fight. He was glad to have once more, as he put it, a piece of land he could get his teeth into. Realf could not help a half resentful admiration when he saw his father-in-law's ploughs tearing through the flints, tumbling into long chocolate furrows what he had always looked upon as an irreclaimable wilderness.
He accepted his position with a fairly good grace—to complain would have made things worse for Tilly and the children. He was inclined privately to scoff at some of Reuben's ideas on farming, but even as he did so he realised the irony of it. He might have done otherwise, yes, but he was kicked out of his farm, the servant of the man whose methods he thought ridiculous.
Reuben on his side thought Realf a fool. He despised him for failing to lift Grandturzel out of adversity, as he had lifted Odiam. He would not have kept him on as bailiff if he had thought there would have otherwise been any chance of his accepting Odiam's terms. He disliked seeing him about the place, and did not find—as the neighbourhood pictured he must—any satisfaction in watching his once triumphant rival humbly performing the duties of a servant on the farm that used to be his own. Reuben's hatreds were not personal, they were merely a question of roods and acres, and when that side of them was appeased, nothing remained. They were, like almost everything else of his, a question of agriculture, and having now settled Realf agriculturally he had no grudge against him personally.
About this time old Beatup died. He was Odiam's first hand, and had seen the farm rise from sixty acres and a patch on Boarzell to two hundred acres and nearly the whole Moor. Reuben was sorry to lose him, for he was an old-fashioned servant—which meant that he gave much in the way of work and asked little in the way of wages or rest. The young men impudently demanded twenty shillings a week, wanted afternoons in the town, and complained if he worked them overtime—there had never been such a thing as overtime till board schools were started.
However, of late Beatup had been of very little use. He was some years younger than Reuben, but he looked quite ten years older, and his figure was almost exactly like an S. The earth had used him hardly, steaming his bones into strange shapes and swellings, parching his skin to something dark and crackled like burnt paper, filling him with stiffness and pains. Reuben had straightened his shoulders, which had drooped a little after David's death, and once more carried his old age proudly, as the crown of a hale and strenuous life.
He looked forward to William coming back and settling down at Odiam. It would be good to have companionship again. The end of the war was in sight—only a guerilla campaign was being waged among the kopjes, Kruger had fled from Pretoria, and everyone talked of Peace.
At last Peace became an accomplished fact. Reuben could not help a few disloyal regrets that his corn-growing had been in vain, but he consoled himself with the thought that now he would have William back in a few weeks. He expected a letter from him, and grew irritable when none came. Billy had not been so good about writing since David's death, but his father thought that he at least might have written to announce his return. As things were, he did not know when to expect him. He supposed he was bound to get his discharge, and he would have heard if anything had happened to him. Why did not William hurry home to share Odiam's greatness with his old father?
At last the letter came. Reuben took it into the oast-barn to read it. His hands trembled as he tore the envelope, and there was a dimness in his eyes, so that he could scarcely make out the big printing hand. But it was not the dimness of his eyes which was responsible for the impossible thing he saw; at first he thought it must be, and rubbed them—yet the unthinkable was still there. William was not coming back at all.
"This place suits me, and I think I could do well for myself out here. I feel I should get on better if I was my own master.... She was good and sensible-like, and looked as if she could manage things. So I married her.... We're starting up on a little farm near Jo'burg ... I can't see it matters her being Dutch ... fifty acres of pasture ... ten head of cattle ... niggers to work ..."
... The words danced and swam before Reuben, with black heaving spaces between that grew wider and wider, till at last they swallowed him up.
For the first time in his life he had fainted.
Reuben's last hope was now gone—for his family, at least. He was forced regretfully to the conclusion that he was not a successful family man. Whatever methods he tried with his children, severity or indulgence, he seemed bound to fail. He had had great expectations of David and William, brought up, metaphorically, on cakes and ale, and they had turned out as badly as Albert, Richard—Reuben still looked upon Richard as a failure—Tilly, or Caro, who had been brought up, literally, on cuffs and kicks.
And the moral of it all was—not to trust anyone but yourself to carry on with you or after you the work of your life. Your ambition is another's afterthought, your afterthought his ambition. He would not give a halfpenny for that for which you would give your life. If you have many little loves, you have always a comrade; if you have one great love, you are always alone. This is the Law.
His pride would not let him give way to his grief. He was not going to have any more of "Pity the poor old man." He mentioned William's decision almost casually at the Cocks. However, he need not have been afraid. "No more'n he desarves," was the universal comment ... "shameful the way he treated Grandturzel" ... "no feeling fur his own kin" ... "the young feller was wise not to come back." Indeed, locally the matter was looked upon as a case of poetic justice, and the rector's sermon on Sunday, treating of the wonderful sagacity of Providence, was taken, rightly or wrongly, to have a personal application.
Meantime, in Reuben's heart was darkness. As was usual when any fear or despair laid hold of him, he became obsessed by a terror of his old age. Generally he felt so well and vigorous that he scarcely realised he was eighty-two; but now he felt an old man, alone and childless. Harry's reiterated "only a poor old man ... a poor old man," rang like a knell in his ears. It was likely that he would not live much longer—he would probably die with the crest of Boarzell yet unconquered. He made a new will, leaving his property to William on condition that he came home to take charge of it, and did not sell a single acre. If he refused these conditions, he left it to Robert under similar ones, and failing him to Richard. It was a sorry set of heirs, but there was no help for it, and he signed his last will and testament with a grimace.
Fair day was to be a special holiday that year because of the Coronation. Reuben at first thought that he would not go—it was always maddening to see the booths and shows crowding over his Canaan, and circumstances would make his feelings on this occasion ten times more bitter. But he had never missed the Fair except for some special reason, such as a funeral or an auction, and he felt that if he stayed away it might be put down to low spirits at his son's desertion, or, worse still, to his old age.
So he came, dressed in his best, as usual, with corduroy breeches, leggings, wide soft hat, and the flowered waistcoat and tail-coat he had refused to discard. He was no longer the centre of a group of farmers discussing crops and weather and the latest improvements in machinery—he stood and walked alone, inspecting the booths and side-shows with a contemptuous eye, while the crowd stared at him furtively and whispered when he passed ... "There he goes" ... "old Ben Backfield up at Odiam." Reuben wondered if this was fame.
The Fair had moved still further with the times. The merry—go-round organ played "Bluebell," "Dolly Grey," and "The Absent-Minded Beggar," the chief target in the shooting-gallery was Kruger, with Cronje and De Wet as subordinates, and the Panorama showed Queen Victoria's funeral. The fighting booth was hidden away still further, and dancing now only started at nightfall. There were some new shows, too. The old-fashioned thimble-rigging had given place to a modern swindle with tickets and a dial; instead of the bearded woman or the pig-faced boy, one put a penny in the slot and saw a lady undress—to a certain point. There was a nigger in a fur-lined coat lecturing on a patent medicine, while the stalls themselves were of a more utilitarian nature, selling whips and trousers and balls of string, instead of the ribbon and gingerbread fairings bought by lovers in days of old.
Reuben prowled up and down the streets of booths, grinned scornfully at the efforts in the shooting gallery, watched a very poor fight in the boxing tent, had a drink of beer and a meat pie, and came to the conclusion that the Fair had gone terribly to pieces since his young days.
He found his most congenial occupation in examining the soil on the outskirts, and trying to gauge its possibilities. The top of Boarzell was almost entirely lime—the region of the marl scarcely came beyond the outskirts of the Fair. Of course the whole place was tangled and matted with the roots of the gorse, and below them the spreading toughness of the firs; Reuben fairly ached to have his spade in it. He was kneeling down, crumbling some of the surface mould between his fingers, when he suddenly noticed a clamour in the Fair behind him. The vague continuous roar was punctuated by shrill screams, shouts, and an occasional crash. He rose to his feet, and at the same moment a bunch of women rushed out between the two nearest stalls, shrieking at the pitch of their lungs.
They ran down towards the thickset hedge which divided the Fair-place from Odiam's land, and to his horror began to try to force their way through it, screaming piercingly the while. Reuben shouted to them:
"Stop—you're spoiling my hëadge!"
"He's after us—he'll catch us—O-o-oh!"
"Who's after you?"
But before they had time to answer, something burst from between the stalls and ran down the darkling slope, brandishing a knife. It was Mexico Bill, running amok, as he had sometimes run before, but on less crowded occasions. The women sent up an ear-splitting yell, and made a fresh onslaught on the hedge. Someone grabbed the half-breed from behind, but his knife flashed, and the next moment he was free, dashing through the gorse towards his victims.
Reuben was paralysed with horror. In another minute they would break down his hedge—a good young hedge that had cost him a pretty penny—and be all over his roots. For a moment he stood as if fixed to the spot, then suddenly he pulled himself together. At all costs he must save his roots. He could not tackle the women single-handed, so he must go for the madman.
"Backfield's after him!"
The cry rose from the mass up at the stalls, as the big dark figure with flapping hat-brim suddenly sprang out of the dusk and ran to meet Mexico Bill. Reuben was an old man, and his arm had lost its cunning, but he carried a stout ash stick and the maniac saw no one but the women at the hedge. The next moment Reuben's stick had come against his forehead with a terrific crack, and he had tumbled head over heels into a gorse-bush.
In another minute half the young men of the Fair were sitting on him, and everyone else was crowding round Backfield, thanking him, praising him, and shaking him by the hand. The women could hardly speak for gratitude—he became a hero in their eyes, a knight at arms.... "To think as how when all them young tellers up at the Fair wur no use, he shud risk his life to save us—he's a präaper valiant man."
But Reuben hardly enjoyed his position as a hero. He succeeded in breaking free from the crowd, now beginning to busy itself once more with Mexico Bill, who was showing signs of returning consciousness, and plunged into the mists that spread their frost-smelling curds over the lower slopes of Boarzell.
"Thank heaven I saved them rootses!" he muttered as he walked.
Then suddenly his manner quickened; a kind of exaltation came into his look, and he proudly jerked up his head:
"I'm not so old, then, after all."
The next year, Richard and Anne Backfield took a house at Playden for week-ends. Anne wanted to be near her relations at the Manor, and Richard, softened by prosperity, had no objection to returning to the scene of his detested youth.
A week or two before they arrived Reuben went to Playden, and looked over the house. It was a new one, on the hill above Star Lock, and it was just what he would have expected of Richard and Anne—gimcrack. He scraped the mortar with his finger-nail, poked at the tiles with his stick, and pronounced the place jerry-built in the worst way. It had no land attached to it, either—only a silly garden with a tennis court and flowers. Richard's success struck him as extremely petty compared with his own.
He did not see much of his son and daughter-in-law on their visits. Richard was inclined to be friendly, but Anne hated Odiam and all belonging to it, while Reuben himself disliked calling at Starcliffe House, because he was always meeting the Manor people.
The family at Flightshot consisted now of the Squire, who had nothing against him except his obstinacy, his lady, and his son who was just of age and "the most tedious young rascal" Reuben had ever had to deal with. He drove a motor-car with hideous din up and down the Peasmarsh lanes, and once Odiam had had the pleasure of lending three horses to pull it home from the Forstal. But his worst crimes were in the hunting field; he had no respect for roots or winter grain or hedges or young spinneys. Twice Reuben had written to his father, through Maude the scribe, and he vowed openly that if ever he caught him at it he'd take a stick to him.
The result of all this was that George Fleet, being young and humorous, indulged in some glorious rags at old Backfield's expense. He had not been to Cambridge for nothing, and one morning Reuben found both his house doors boarded up so that he had to get out by the window, and on another occasion his pigs were discovered in a squalling mass with their tails tied together. There was no good demanding retribution, for the youth's scandalised innocence when confronted with his crimes utterly convinced his fools of parents, and gave them an opinion of his accuser that promised ill for his ultimate possession of the Fair-place.
Reuben still dreamed of that Fair-place, and occasionally schemed as well; but everything short of the death of the Squire—and his son—seemed useless. However, he now had the rest of Boarzell in such a state of cultivation that he sometimes found it possible to forget the land that was still unconquered. That year he bought a hay-elevator and a steam-reaper. The latter was the first in the neighbourhood—never very go-ahead in agricultural matters—and quite a crowd collected when it started work in the Glotten Hide, to watch it mow down the grain, gather it into bundles, and crown the miracle by tying these just as neatly as, and much more quickly than, a man.
Though Reuben's corn had not done much for him materially, it had far-reaching consequences of another kind. It immensely increased his status in the county. Odiam had more land under grain cultivation than any farm east of Lewes, and the local Tories saw in Backfield a likely advocate of Tariff Reform. He was approached by the Rye Conservative Club, and invited to speak at one or two of their meetings. He turned out to be, as they had expected, an ardent champion of the new idea. "It wur wot he had worked and hoped and prayed fur all his life—to git back them Corn Laws." He was requested not to put the subject quite so bluntly.
So in his latter days Reuben came back into the field of politics which he had abandoned in middle age. Once more his voice was heard in school-houses and mission-halls, pointing out their duty and profit to the men of Rye. He was offered, and accepted, a Vice-Presidentship of the Conservative Club. Politics had changed in many ways since he had last been mixed up in them. The old, old subjects that had come up at election after election—vote by ballot, the education of the poor, the extension of the franchise, Gladstone's free breakfast table—had all been settled, or deformed out of knowledge. The only old friend was the question of a tax on wheat, revived after years of quiescence—to rekindle in Reuben's old age dreams of an England where the corn should grow as the grass, a golden harvest from east to west, bringing wealth and independence to her sons.
The only part of the farm that was not doing well was Grandturzel. The new ground had been licked into shape under Reuben's personal supervision, but the land round the steading, which had been under cultivation for three hundred years, yielded only feeble crops and shoddy harvests—things went wrong, animals died, accidents happened.
Realf had never been a practical man—perhaps it was to that he owed his downfall. Good luck and ambition had made him soar for a while, but he lacked the dogged qualities which had enabled Reuben to play for years a losing game. Besides, he had to a certain extent lost interest in land which was no longer his own. He worked for a wage, for his daily bread, and the labour of his hands and head which had once been an adventure and a glory, was now nothing but the lost labour of those who rise up early and late take rest.
Also he was in bad health—his hardships and humiliations had wrought upon his body as well as his soul. He was not even the ghost of the man whose splendid swaggering youth had long ago in Peasmarsh church first made the middle-aged Reuben count his years. He stooped, suffered horribly from rheumatism, had lost most of his hair, and complained of his eyesight.
Reuben began to fidget about Grandturzel. He told his son-in-law that if things did not improve he would have to go. In vain Realf pleaded bad weather and bad luck—neither of them was ever admitted as an excuse at Odiam.
The hay-harvest of 1904 was a good one—of course Realf's hay had too much sorrel in it, there was always something wrong with Realf's crops—but generally speaking the yield was plentiful and of good quality. Reuben rejoiced to feel the soft June sun on his back, and went out into the fields with his men, himself driving for some hours the horse-rake over the swathes, and drinking at noon his pint of beer in the shade of the waggon. In the evening the big hay-elevator hummed at Odiam, and old Backfield stood and watched it piling the greeny-brown ricks till darkness fell, and he went in to supper and the sleep of his old age.
It took about a week to finish the work—on the last day the fields which for so long had shown the wind's path in tawny ripples, were shaven close and green, scattering a sweet steam into the air—a soft pungency that stole up to the house at night and lapped it round with fragrance. Old Reuben stretched himself contentedly as he went into his dim room and prepared to lie down. The darkness had hardly settled on the fields—a high white light was in the sky, among the stars.
He went to bed early with the birds and beasts. Before he climbed into the bed, lying broad and white and dim in the background of the candleless room, he opened the window, to drink in the scent of his land as it fell asleep. The breeze whiffled in the orchard, fluttering the boughs where the young green apples hid under the leaves, there was a dull sound of stamping in the barns ... he could see the long line of his new haycocks beyond the yard, soft dark shapes in the twilight.
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 June—also it seemed to flicker in the wind. Then suddenly it spread itself into a fan, and cast up a shower of sparks.
The next minute Reuben had pulled on his trousers and was out in the passage, shouting "Fire!"
The farm men came tumbling from the attics—"Whur, mäaster?"
"Over at Grandturzel—can't see wot's burning from here. Git buckets and come!"
Shouts and gunshots brought those men who slept out in the cottages, and a half-dressed gang, old Reuben at the head, pounded through the misty hay-sweet night to where the flames were spreading in the sky. From the shoulder of Boarzell they could see what was burning—Realf's new-made stacks, two already aflame, the others doomed by the sparks which scattered on the wind.
No one spoke, but from Realf's yard came sounds of shouting, the uneasy lowing and stamping of cattle, and the neigh of terrified horses. The whole place was lit up by the glare of the fire, and soon Reuben could see Realf and his two men, Dunk and Juglery, with Mrs. Realf, the girls, and young Sidney, passing buckets down from the pond and pouring them on the blazing stacks—with no effect at all.
"The fools! Wot do they think they're a-doing of? Döan't they know how to put out a fire?"
He quickened his pace till his men were afraid he would "bust himself," and dashing between the burning ricks, nearly received full in the chest the bucket his son-in-law had just swung.
"Stop!" he shouted—"are your cattle out?"
"No."
"Then git 'em out, you fool! You'll have the whole pläace a bonfire in a minnut. Wot's the use of throwing mugs of water lik this? You'll never put them ricks out. Säave your horses, säave your cows, säave your poultry. Anyone gone for the firemen?"
"Yes, I sent a boy over fust thing."
"Why didn't you send to me?"
"Cudn't spare a hand."
"Cudn't spare one hand to fetch over fifteen—that's a valiant idea. Now döan't go loitering; fetch out your cattle afore they're roast beef, git out the horses and all the stock—and souse them ricks wot äun't burning yit."
The men scurried in all directions obeying his orders. Soon terrified horses were being led blindfold into the home meadow; the cows and bullocks, less imaginative, followed more quietly. Meantime buckets were passed up from the pond to the stacks that were not alight; but before this work was begun Reuben went up to the furthest stack and thrust his hand into it—then he put in his head and sniffed. Then he called Realf.
"Cöame here."
Realf came.
"Wot's that?"
Realf felt the hay and sniffed like Reuben.
"Wot's that?" his father-in-law repeated.
Realf went white to the lips, and said nothing.
"I'll tell you wot it is, then!" cried Reuben—"it's bad stacking. This hay äun't bin präaperly dried—it's bin stacked damp, and them ricks have gone alight o' themselves, bust up from inside. It's your doing, this here is, and I'll mäake you answer fur it, surelye."
"I—I—the hay seemed right enough."
"Maybe it seems right enough to you now?"—and Reuben pointed to the blazing stacks.
Realf opened his lips, but the words died on them. His eyes looked wild and haggard in the jigging light; he groaned and turned away. At the same moment a pillar of fire shot up from the roof of the Dutch barn.
The flying sparks had soon done their work. Fires sprang up at a distance from the ricks, sometimes in two places at once. Everyone worked desperately, but the water supply was slow, and though occasionally these sporadic fires were put out, generally they burned fiercely. Wisps of blazing hay began to fly about the yard, lodging in roofs and crannies. By the time the fire engine arrived from Rye, the whole place was alight except the dwelling-house and the oasts.
The engine set to work, and soon everything that had not been destroyed by fire was destroyed by water. But the flames were beaten. They hissed and blackened into smoke. When dawn broke over the eastern shoulder of Boarzell, the fire was out. A rasping pungent smell rose from a wreckage of black walls and little smoking piles of what looked like black rags. Water poured off the gutters of the house, and soused still further the pile of furniture and bedding that had been pulled hastily out of it. The farm men gathered round the buckets, to drink, and to wash their smoke-grimed skins. Reuben talked over the disaster with the head of the fire brigade, who endorsed his opinion of spontaneous combustion; and Realf of Grandturzel sat on a heap of ashes—and sobbed.
That morning Reuben had a sleep after breakfast, and did not come down till dinner-time. He was told that Mrs. Realf wanted to see him and had been waiting in the parlour since ten. He smiled grimly, then settled his mouth into a straight line.
He found his daughter in a chair by the window. Her face was puffed and blotched with tears, and her legs would hardly support her when she stood up. She had brought her youngest son with her, a fine sturdy little fellow of fourteen. When Reuben came into the room she gave the boy a glance, and, as at a preconcerted signal, they both fell on their knees.
"Git up!" cried Backfield, colouring with annoyance.
"We've come," sobbed Tilly, "we've come to beg you to be merciful."
"I wöan't listen to you while you're lik that."
The son sprang to his feet, and helped his mother, whose stoutness and stiffness made it a difficult matter, to rise too.
"If you've come to ask me to kip you and your husband on at Grandturzel," said Reuben, "you might have säaved yourself the trouble, fur I'm shut of you both after last night."
"Fäather, it wur an accident."
"A purty accident—wud them stacks no more dry than a ditch. 'Twas a clear case of 'bustion—fireman said so to me; as wicked and tedious a bit o' wark as ever I met in my life."
"It'll never happen agäun."
"No—it wöan't."
"Oh, fäather—döan't be so hard on us. The Lord knows wot'll become of us if you turn us out now. It 'ud have been better if we'd gone five years ago—Realf wur a more valiant man then nor wot he is now. He'll never be able to start agäun—he äun't fit fur it."
"Then he äun't fit to work on my land. I äun't a charity house. I can't afford to kip a man wud no backbone and no wits. I've bin too kind as it is—I shud have got shut of him afore he burnt my pläace to cinders."
"But wot's to become of us?"
"That's no consarn of mine—äun't you säaved anything?"
"How cud we, fäather?"
"I could have säaved two pound a month on Realf's wage."
Tilly had a spurt of anger.
"Yes—you'd have gone short of everything and made other folks go short—but we äun't that kind."
"You äun't. That's why I'm turning you away."
Her tears welled up afresh.
"Oh, fäather, I'm sorry I spöake lik that. Döan't be angry wud me fur saying wot I did. I'll own as we might have managed better—only döan't send us away—fur this liddle chap's sake," and she pulled forward young Sidney, who was crying too.
"Where are your other sons?"
"Harry's got a wife and children to keep—he cudn't help us; and Johnnie's never mäade more'n fifteen shilling a week since the war."
Reuben stood silent for a moment, staring at the boy.
"Does Realf know you've come here?" he asked at length.
"Yes," said Tilly in a low voice.
There was another silence. Then suddenly Reuben went to the door and opened it.
"There's no use you waiting and vrothering me—my mind's mäade up."
"Fäather, fur pity's säake——"
"Döan't talk nonsense. How can I sit here and see my land messed about by a fool, jest because he happens to have married my darter?—and agäunst my wish, too. I'm sorry fur you, Tilly, but you're still young enough to work. I'm eighty-five, and I äun't stopped working yet, so döan't go saying you're too old. Your gals can go out to service ... and this liddle chap here ..."
He stopped speaking, and stared at the lad, chin in hand.
"He can work too, I suppose?" said Tilly bitterly.
"I wur going to say as how I've täaken a liking to him. He looks a valiant liddle feller, and if you'll hand him over to me and have no more part nor lot in him, I'll see as he doesn't want."
Tilly gasped.
"I've left this farm to William," continued Reuben, "because I've naun else to leave it to that I can see. All my children have forsook me; but maybe this boy 'ud be better than they."
"You mean that if we let you adopt Sidney, you'll mäake Odiam his when you're gone?"
"I döan't say for sartain—if he turns out a präaper lad and is a comfort to me and loves this pläace as none of my own children have ever loved it——"
But Tilly interrupted him. Putting her arm round the terrified boy's shoulders, she led him through the door.
"Thanks, fäather, but if you offered to give us to-day every penny you've got, I'd let you have no child of mine. Maybe we'll be poor and miserable and have to work hard, but he wöan't be one-half so wretched wud us as he'd be wud you. D'you think I disremember my own childhood and the way you mäade us suffer? You're an old man, but you're hearty—you might live to a hundred—and I'd justabout die of sorrow if I thought any child of mine wur living wud you and being mäade as miserable as you mäade us. I'd rather see my boy dead than at Odiam."