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It was not from Pete that Reuben first heard of his daughter's goings-on. Caro's benevolent trust in humanity had been misplaced, and at the Seven Bells where he called for a refresher on arriving at Rye station, various stragglers from Boarzell eagerly betrayed her, "just to see how he wud t?ake it."
Reuben received the news with the indifference due to outsiders. But he was not so calm when Pete told his tale at Odiam.
The bitch, he growled, "I'll learn her. Dancing wud a sailor, you say she wur, Pete?"
Yes, said Pete, "and wud her hair all tumbling."
I'll learn her, repeated Reuben. But he never had the chance. By the time the two males had sat up till about three or four the next morning, they came to the conclusion that Caro must have seen Pete watching her and run away.
She'll never come back, said Pete that evening—"you t?ake my word fur it."
That's another of my daughters gone fur a whore.
Who wur the fust?
Why Tilly—goes off wud that lousy pig-keeper up at Grandturzel. She's no better than Caro.
And there wur Rose, added Pete, anxious to supply instances.
Reuben swore at him.
He felt Caro's disappearance more acutely than he would allow to show. First, she had left him badly in the lurch in household matters—he had to engage a woman to take her place, and pay her wages. Also she had caused a scandal in the neighbourhood, which meant more derisive fingers pointed at Odiam. Pete was now the only one left of his original family—his children and their runnings-away had become a byword in Peasmarsh.
In the course of time he heard that Caro was living with Joe Dansay down at the Camber, but he made no effort to bring her back. "I'm shut of her," he told everyone angrily. If Caro preferred a common sailor and loose living to the dignity and usefulness of her position at Odiam, he was not going to interfere. Besides, she had disgraced his farm, and he would never forgive that.
It struck him that his relations with women had been singularly unfortunate. Caro, Tilly, Rose, Alice, had all been failures—indeed he had come to look back on Naomi as his only success. Women were all the same, without ambition, without self-respect, ready to lick the boots of the first person who stroked them and was silly enough not to see through their wiles.
During those days he spent most of his time digging on Boarzell. It relieved him to thrust viciously into the red dripping clay, turn in on his spade, and fling it back over his shoulder. It was strange that so few men realised that work was better than women—stranger still that they did not realise how much better than a woman's beauty was the beauty of the earth. Toiling there on the Moor, Reuben's heart gave itself more utterly to its allegiance. The curves of Boarzell against the sky, its tuft of firs, its hummocked slopes, its wet life-smelling earth, even its savagery of heather, gorse, and thorn brought healing to his heart, and strength. Caro and other women could do what they chose, love, hate, follow, cheat, and betray whom they chose, as long as they left him the red earth and the labour of his hands.
Early the next year Reuben heard that Caro and her lover had left Camber, and gone no one knew where, but by that time the elapse of months had dulled his feelings on the matter, and Caro, never very important in herself, was buried under the concerns of his farm.
Odiam, after superhuman efforts, was looking up again. Years of steady work and strenuous economy had restored it to something like its former greatness. Reuben was no longer hampered by an extravagant wife, and he also had the advantage of a clear field. For at last Grandturzel had given up the battle. Realf and Tilly were now the parents of four healthy, growing, hungry children, and had come to the conclusion that domestic happiness was better than agricultural triumph. They were contented with their position on a farm of considerable importance and fair prosperity. They took no risks, but lived happily with each other and their children, satisfied that they could comfortably rear and educate their little family, and leave it an inheritance which, if not dazzling, was not to be despised.
This was an infinite relief to Reuben. He was now no longer under the continual necessity of going one better than somebody else—he could rebuild along his own lines, and economise in the way he chose. However, this very convenient behaviour of Grandturzel did nothing to soften his resentment. Tilly and Realf were, and were always to be, unforgiven. Sometimes he could see that they seemed inclined to be friendly—Realf would touch his hat to him if they met, and perhaps Tilly would smile—but Reuben was not to be won by such treacly tactics. It was largely owing to the rivalry of Grandturzel that ruin had nearly swallowed him up four years ago—and he would never be weak enough to forget it.
Meantime it was soothing to contemplate the result of his efforts. After all, his own striving had done more for him than any slackness or grass-fed contentment on the part of Grandturzel. His greatest achievement was the paying off of his mortgage, which he managed in the spring of '79. Now he could once more begin saving money to buy another piece of Boarzell. There was something both novel and exhilarating about this return to old ways. It was over ten years since he had bought any land, but now were renewed all the ticklish delights of calculation, all the plannings and layings-out, all the contrivances and scrapings and wrestlings.
There were still about two hundred acres to acquire, including the Grandturzel inclosure, on which, however, he looked more hopefully than of old. He had so far subdued not more than about a hundred and forty acres—most of the northern slope of Boarzell adjoining Odiam and Totease, and also a small tract on the Flightshot side. This was not very encouraging, for it represented the labours of two-thirds of a lifetime, and at the same time left him with more than half his task still unaccomplished. If it had not been for his setback ten years ago he would now probably have over two hundred and fifty acres to his credit. But he told himself that he would progress more quickly now. Also, though he had not enlarged his boundaries during the last ten years, he had considerably improved the quality of the land within them. The first acquired parts of Boarzell were nearly as fruitful and richly cultivated as the original lands of the farm, and even the '68 ground was showing signs of coming into subjection.
Besides, Reuben had now a respectable herd of cattle—not quite so numerous or valuable as the earlier lot which had been sacrificed, but none the less respectable, and bringing him in good returns. He had made some sound profit out of his service-bull, and his sheep were paying better than they had paid for years. He no longer "kept" other people's cattle. Odiam, whether in stock or cash, was now inviolate.
Soon the rumour spread round Peasmarsh that Backfield was going to buy some more land. Reuben himself had started it.
He's done better nor he desarved, said Coalbran of Doozes.
He's warked fur it all the same, surelye, said Cooper of Kitchenhour.
He's worked like the Old Un fur the last five year, said Dunn, the new man at Socknersh.
Well, let's hope as he's found it worth while now as he's lost two wives and eight children, was the sage comment of old Vennal of Burntbarns.
Then the conversation wandered from Reuben's successes to the price he had paid for them, which proved more interesting and more comforting to those assembled.
At Flightshot the Squire viewed Odiam's recovery with some uneasiness. It would be a good thing for him if he could sell more land to old Backfield, but at the same time his conscience was restless about it. Backfield was a rapacious old hound, who forced the last ounce of work out of his labourers, and the last ounce of money out of his tenants. He was a hard master and a hard landlord, and ought not to be encouraged. All the same, Bardon did not see how he was to avoid encouraging him. If Backfield applied for the land it would be suicidal folly to refuse to sell it. He was in desperate straits for money. He had appealed to Anne, who had money of her own, but Anne's reply had been frigid. She wrote:—
I do not see my way to helping Flightshot while I have so many other calls upon me. Richard is still unsettled, and unable entirely to support himself. I should be a poor friend indeed if after having induced my protégé to abandon his home and rely on me, I should forsake him before he was properly established. Be a man, Ralph, and refuse to sell any more land to that greedy, selfish, unscrupulous old Backfield.
But Ralph only sighed—it was all very well for Anne to talk!
Except for a steady maintenance of prosperity by dint of hard work, the year was uneventful. Autumn passed, and nothing broke the strenuous monotony of the days, not even news of the absent children. Then came an evening in winter when Reuben, Pete, and Harry were sitting in front of the kitchen fire. Reuben and his son were half asleep, Harry was mumbling to himself and playing with a piece of string.
A great quiet was wrapped round the house, and a great darkness, pricked by winking stars. The barns were shut, the steamings of the midden were nipped by brooding frosts—now and then the dull movements of some stalled animal could be heard, but only from the yard; in the house there was silence except for the singing fire, and Harry's low muttering which seldom rose into words. Then suddenly there was a knock at the door.
Reuben started, and Pete awoke noisily. Harry was frightened and dropped his string, crying because he could not find it. The knock came again, and this time Pete crossed the room yawning, and opened the door.
For a moment he stood in front of it, while the icy wind swept into the room. Then he dashed back to Reuben's chair.
Father—it's Albert!
Reuben sprang to his feet. He was still only half awake, and he rubbed his eyes as he stared at the figure framed in the doorway. Then suddenly he pulled himself together.
Come in, and shut the door behind you.
The figure did not move. Reuben took a step towards it, and then it tottered forward, and to his horror fell against him, almost bearing him to the floor.
Pete, who had recovered his faculties to some extent, helped support his brother. But he had fainted clean away, and the only thing to do was to let him down as gently as possible.
Lordy! said Pete, and stooped over Albert, his hands on his knees.
You're sure that's Albert? asked Reuben, though he really did not doubt it for a moment.
Course I am. That's his face sure enough, though he's as thin as wire.
It's nigh fifteen year since he went away. Wot did he want to come back fur?
I reckon he's half starved—and he looks ill too.
Well, he's swooneded away, anyhow. Can't you do something to m?ake him sensible?
Poor feller, said Pete, and scratched his head.
Reuben was irritated by this display of sentiment.
You needn't go pitying him, nuther—he's a lousy Radical traitor. You do something to m?ake him sensible and out he goes.
At this juncture Albert opened his eyes.
Hullo, he said feebly.
Hullo, said Pete. Something in his brother's pitiable condition seemed to have touched him.
Albert sat up—then asked for some water.
Pete fetched a jug, which he held awkwardly to Albert's lips. Then he helped him to a chair, and began to unlace his boots.
Stop that, shouted Reuben—"he ?un't to stay here."
You'll let me stop the night, pleaded Albert. "I'll explain things when I'm better. I can't now."
You can go to the Cocks—I w?an't have you in my house.
But I haven't got a penny—cleaned myself out for my railway ticket. I've walked all the way from the station, and my lungs are bad.
Wot did you come here fur?
It struck me that you might have some natural affection.
Me!—fur a hemmed Radical! You'd better have saved your money, young feller—I'm shut of you.
If you're still harping on my politics, said Albert fretfully, "you needn't worry. Either side can go to the devil, for all I care. I suppose it's natural to brood over things down here, but in London one forgets a rumpus fifteen years old."
I'll never disremember the way you shamed me in '65.
I don't ask you to disremember anything. Only let me have supper and a bed, and to-morrow——
A fit of coughing interrupted him. He strained and shook from head to foot. He had no handkerchief, and spat blood on the floor.
F?ather! cried Pete, "you can't turn him out lik this."
He's shamming, said Reuben.
Quite so, said Albert, who seemed to have learned sarcasm in exile—"h?morrhage is so deuced easy to sham."
He's come back to git money out of me, said Reuben, "but he shan't have a penny—I've none to spare."
I don't ask for that to-night—all I ask is food and shelter, same as you'd give to a dog.
Well, I'll leave you to Pete, said Reuben, and walked out of the room. He considered this the more dignified course, and went upstairs to bed.
The brothers were left alone, except for Harry, who was busy imitating Albert's cough, much to his own satisfaction.
Pete fetched some soup from the larder and heated it up to a tepid condition; he also produced bread and cold bacon, which the prodigal could not touch. Albert sat hunched up by the fire, coughing and shivering. He had not altered much since he left Odiam; he was thin and hectic, and had an unshaved look about him, also there were a few grey streaks in his hair—otherwise he was the same. His manner was the same too, though his voice had changed completely, and he had lost his Sussex accent.
Pete ministered to him with a strange devotion, which he carried finally to the pitch of putting him into his own bed. The absence of so many of the children did not make much more room in the house, as Reuben's ideas on sleeping had always been compact—also there were the little boys, the new dairy woman, and a big store of potatoes. Pete's large untidy bed was the only available accommodation, and Albert was glad of it, for he had reached the last stage of exhaustion.
I bet you anything, he said before he fell asleep, "that now I'm here the old boy won't be able to turn me out, however much he wants to."
Whether Reuben would have succeeded or not is uncertain, for he was never put to the proof. The next day Albert was feverish and delirious, and the doctor had to be sent for. He cheerfully gave the eldest Backfield three months to live—his lungs were in a dreadful state, one completely gone, the other partly so. He had caught a chill, too, walking in the dark and cold. There could be no thought of moving him.
So Albert stayed in Pete's room, almost entirely ignored by his father. After some consideration, Reuben had come to the conclusion that this was the most dignified attitude to adopt. Now and then, when he was better, he sent him up some accounts to do, as it hurt him to think of his son lying idle week after week; but he never went near him, and Albert would never have willingly crossed his path. Those were not the days of open windows and fresh-air cures, so there was no especial reason why he should ever leave the low-raftered stuffy room, where he would lie by the hour in a frowsty dream of sickness, broken only by fits of coughing and h?morrhage.
His return had created a mild stir in the neighbourhood, and in Reuben's breast, despite circumstances and appearances, many thrills of gratification. Albert's penniless and broken condition was but another instance of the folly of those who deserted Odiam. None of the renegades, Reuben told himself, had prospered. Here was Albert come home to die; Robert, after a prelude in gaol, had exiled himself to Australia, where the droughts lasted twenty years; Richard, in spite of studyings and strivings and spendings, had only an occasional brief, and was unable to support himself at thirty-five; Tilly was living on a second-rate farm instead of a first-rate one; Caro was living in sin; Benjamin was probably not living at all. There was no denying it—they had all done badly away from Odiam.
However, he refused all temptations to discuss this latest prodigal. If anyone asked him how his son was doing, he would answer, "I dunno; ask Pete—he's the nurse."
Pete's attitude was Reuben's chief perplexity. It is true that in early years Albert seemed to have exercised a kind of fascination over his younger brothers and sisters; still that was long ago, and Pete did not appear to have given him a thought in the interval. But now he suddenly developed an almost maternal devotion for the sick and broken Albert. He would sit up whole nights with him in spite of the toils of the day, he trod lumberingly about on tiptoe in his presence, he read to him by the sweat of his brow. Something in his brother's weakness and misery seemed to have appealed to his clumsy strength. The root of sentimentality which is always more or less encouraged by a brutal career was quickened in his heart, and sprouted to an extent that would have mystified the many he had bashed. It perplexed and irritated his father. To see Pete hulking about on tiptoe, carrying jugs of water and cups of milk, shutting doors with grotesque precaution, and perpetually telling someone upstairs in a voice hoarse with sympathy that he "wurn't to vrother, as he'd be better soon"—was a foolish and maddening spectacle. Also Reuben dreaded that Pete would scamp his farm work, so he fussed round after everything he did, and called him from Albert's bedside times without number to hoe turnips or guide the plough.
However, someone had to look after the invalid, and Pete might as well do it as anybody else—as long as he realised that his sick-nursing was a recreation, and not a substitute for his duties on the farm.
Spring came on, and Albert grew worse. Pete began to look haggard; even his bullish strength was faltering under sleepless nights, days of moil and sweat, and constant attendance on the sick man. The dairy-women helped a little, but what they did they did unwillingly; and as the dairy was short-handed, Reuben did not like them to take up any extra work. Pete's existence was a continual round of anxiety and contrivance, and he was not used to either.
There was also another depressing factor. As he felt his end approaching Albert began to develop a conscience and remorse. He said he had wasted his life, and as time wore on and he became weaker he passed from the general to the particular. The memory of certain sins tormented him, and he used Pete as his confessor.
Pete was a very innocent soul. He had spoilt many a man's beauty for him, but he had never been the slave of a woman's. He had broken arms and ribs, and noses by the score—and he had once nearly killed a man, and only just escaped being arrested for manslaughter; but he had remained through it all an innocent soul. He had always lived in the open air, always worked hard, always fought hard—his recreations had been whistling and sleep. He had never thought about sin or evil of any kind, he had never troubled about sex except as it manifested itself in the brutes he had the care of, he had never read or talked bawdry. All the energies of his nature had been poured into hard work and hard blows.
Therefore the confessions of a man like Albert came upon him as a revelation. Indeed, at first he scarcely understood them. They disquieted him and sometimes made him nervous and miserable, not because he had any very definite moral recoil, but because they forced him to think. Few can gauge the tragedy of thinking when it visits an unthinking soul. For the first time in his life Pete found himself confused, questioning, lying awake of nights and asking "why?" The world suddenly showed itself to him as a place which he could not understand. It frightened him to think about it. Sometimes he was acutely miserable, but he would not betray his misery to Albert, as the poor fellow seemed to find relief in his confidences. And on and on the stream flowed, swifter and muddier every day.
At last matters reached a climax. It was late in March; Albert was much worse, and even the doctor looked solemn. "He won't last till the summer," he said in answer to one of Pete's questions, and unluckily the sick man heard him.
When Pete went back into the room he found him struggling under the bedclothes, the sweat trickling down his face.
Pete! he cried chokingly—"I won't die!—I won't die!"
And you w?an't, nuther, said Pete, soothing him.
But I heard what the doctor said to you.
Pete was at a loss. He could lie if the lie were not too constructive, but in a case like this he was done for.
Well, d?an't you fret, nohow, he murmured tenderly.
But it was no good telling Albert not to fret. He threw himself from side to side in the bed, moaned, and almost raved. For months now he had known that he must die soon, but somehow the idea had not really come home to him till this moment. He would not let Pete leave him, though there was a load of mangolds to be brought in; he clung to his brother's hand like a child, and babbled of strange sins.
I've been so wicked—I daren't die. I've been the lowest scum. I'm lost. Pete, I'm damned—I shall go to hell.
Albert had been known openly to scoff at hell, whereas Pete had never thought much about it. Now it confronted them both under a new aspect—the scoffer trembled and the thoughtless was preoccupied.
D?an't fret, reiterated poor Pete, desperate under the fresh complication of theology, "I reckon you're not bad enough to go to hell, surelye."
But I'm the worst—the worst that ever was. I'm scum, I'm dirt—and out poured more of the turbid stream, till Pete sickened.
If I could only see a parson, sobbed Albert at last.
A parson?
Yes—maybe he could comfort me. Oh, I know I've mocked 'em and scoffed 'em all my life, but I reckon they could do summat for me now.
In his weakness he had gone back not only to the religious terrors of his youth, but to the Sussex dialect he had long forgotten.
Pete scarcely knew what to do. He had become used to his brother's gradual disintegration, but this utter collapse was terrifying. He offered his own ministrations.
You've told me a dunnamany things, and you can tell me as many more as you justabout like—touching the climax of self-sacrifice.
But Albert's weak mind clung to its first idea with scared tenacity. He was still raving about it when Pete came in from his work that evening.
I want a parson, he moaned, throwing himself about the bed, and his terrors seemed to grow upon him as the darkness grew.
Neither of them slept that night. Albert was half delirious, and obsessed by the thought of hell. The room looked out on Boarzell, and he became convinced that the swart, tufted mass outlined against the sprinkled stars was hell, the country of the lost. He pictured himself wandering over and over it in torment. He said he saw fire on it, scaring the superstitious Pete out of his life.
"On the great Moor of the lost Wander all the proud and dead— Those who brothers' blood have shed, Those who brothers' love have crossed.
"He broke into his own verse, pouring it out deliriously:
"There's the shuddering ghost of me Lips all black with fire and brine, Chained between the libertine And the fasting Pharisee.
"Then he became obsessed by the idea that he was out on the Moor, wandering on it, and bound to it. The earth was red-hot under his feet, and he picked them up off the bed like a cat on hot bricks, till Pete began to laugh inanely. He saw round him all the places he had known as a child, and called out for them, because he longed to escape to them from the burning Moor—"Castweasel! Castweasel!... Ramstile!... Ellenwhorne...."
It was strange to hear a man calling out the names of places in his fever as other men might call the names of people.
It was all a return to Albert's childhood. In spite of fifteen years in London, of a man's work and a man's love and a man's faith, he had gone back completely to the work and love and faith of his childhood. Odiam had swallowed him up, it had swallowed him up completely, his very hell was bounded by it. He spoke with a Sussex accent; he forgot the names of the women he had loved, and cried instead the names of places, and he forgot that he did not believe in hell, but thought of it as Boarzell Moor punctured by queer singing flames.
Pete lay and listened shuddering, waiting with sick desire for the kindling of the dawn and the whiteness that moved among the trees. At last they came, the sky bloomed, and the orchard flickered against it, stirred by a soundless wind. The poor fellow sat up in bed, all troubled and muddled by things that had never touched him before. He stretched himself and yawned from force of habit, for he was not in the least sleepy, then he began to dress.
What is it? mumbled Albert, himself again for a moment.
I'm going to fetch a parson, said Pete.
It was very gallant of him to do so, for it meant venturing still further into new spheres of thought. None of the Backfields had been to church for years, though Reuben prided himself on being a good churchman, and Pete was rather at a loss what to do in a ghostly crisis such as this. However, on one thing he was resolved—that he would not go through another night like the last, and he credited a parson with mysterious cabalistic powers which would miraculously soothe the invalid and assure him of sleep in future.
So he tramped off towards the Rectory, wondering a little what he should say when he got there, but leaving it to the inspiration of the moment. He warmed his honest heart with thoughts of Albert sleeping peacefully and dying beautifully, though it chilled him a little to think of death. Why could not Albert live?—Pete would have liked to think of him lying for years and years in that big untidy bed, pathetic and feeble, and always claiming by his weakness the whole strength that a day of unresting toil had left his brother.
The morning flushed. A soft pink crept into ponds and dawn-swung windows. The light perfumes of April softened the cold, clear air—the scent of sprouting leaves in the woods, and of primroses in the grass, while the anemones frothed scentless against the hedges. Pete was about half a mile from the village when he heard the sound of angry voices round a bend in the lane, pricked by little screams from a woman. Expecting a fight he hurried up eagerly, and was just in time to see one of the grandest upper cuts in his life. A short, well-built man in black had just knocked down a huge, hulking tramp who had evidently been improving the hour with a woman now blotted against the hedge. He lay flat in the road, unconscious, while his adversary stood over him, his fist still clenched and all the skin off his knuckles.
Lordy! but that wur justabout pr?aper! cried Pete, bustling up, and sorry that the tramp showed no signs of getting on to his feet.
It's settled him anyhow, said the man in black.
They both stooped and eyed him critically.
You've landed him in a good pl?ace, said Pete; "a little farther back and he'd have been gone."
Praise be to God that his life was spared.
Pete looked in some surprise at the bruiser, who continued:
I'm out of practice, or I shouldn't have skinned myself like this—ah, here's Coalbran's trap. Perhaps he'll give you a lift, ma'am, into Peasmarsh.
The woman was helped into the trap, and after some discussion it was decided not to give themselves the trouble of taking the tramp to the police station, but to pull him to the side of the road and leave him to the consequences he had brought upon himself.
He's had some punishment, said Pete when they were alone. He inspected the tramp, now feebly moaning, with the air of a connoisseur. "I'm hemmed if I ever saw a purtier knock-out."
I'm out of training, as I told you, said the stranger.
Then you must have bin a valiant basher in your day. It's a pity you let yourself go slack.
It was not becoming that I should use my fists, except to defend the weak. I am a minister of the Lord.
A parson! cried Pete.
A minister of the Lord, repeated with some severity the man in black, "of the brotherhood named Ebenezer."
Pete remembered hearing that a new parson was coming to the local Methodists, but nothing had led him to expect such thrilling developments.
I used to be in the fancy, said the minister, "but five years ago the Lord challenged me, and knocked me out in the first round."
Pete was following a train of thought.
Is a minister the same as a parson? he asked at length.
Is a priest of Jehovah the same as a priest of Baal? For shame, young man!
I mean can a minister do wot a Parson does?—tell a poor feller wot's dying that he w?an't go to hell.
Not if he's washed in the blood of the Lamb.
That's wot I mean, surelye. Could you come and talk to a sick man about all that sort of thing?
A gleam came into the minister's eyes, very much the same as when he had knocked out the tramp.
Reckon I could! he cried fierily. "Reckon I can snatch a brand from the burning, reckon I can find the lost piece of silver; reckon I can save the wandering sheep, and wash it in the blood of the Lamb."
Same as a parson? enquired Pete anxiously.
Better than any mitred priest of Ammon, for I shall not vex the sinner's soul with dead works, but wash it in the crimson fountain. You trust your sick man to me, young feller—I'll wash him in blood, I'll clothe him in righteousness, I'll feed him with salvation.
I'll justabout t?ake you to him, then. He asked fur a 'stablished parson, but I'd sooner far bring you, for, Lordy, if you ?un't the pr?aperest bruiser I've ever set eyes on.
That was how the Rev. Roger Ades started his ministrations at Odiam. At first Reuben was disgusted. He had never before had truck with Dissenters, whom he considered low-class and unfit for anyone above a tenant farmer. He was outraged by the thought of the pastor's almost daily visits, accompanied by loud singing of hymns in Albert's bedroom. However, he did not actually forbid him the house, for Pete had brought him there, and Reuben never treated Pete exactly as he treated his other sons. Pete was the only member of his family who had so far not disgraced Odiam—except the two little boys, who were too young—and he was always careful to do nothing that might unsettle him and drive him into his brother's treacherous ways. So the pastor of Ebenezer came unchecked, and doubtless his ministrations were appreciated, for as time went by the intervals between them grew shorter and shorter, till at last Mr. Ades was more often in the house than out of it.
Though strengthened in soul, Albert grew weaker in body, and Pete began to scamp his farm work. Even when the minister was present, he would not leave his brother. It grieved Reuben that, while outside matters prospered, indoors they should remind him of a Methodist conventicle. The house was full of hymns, they burst through the close-shut windows of Albert's bedroom and assaulted the ears of workers on Boarzell. In the evenings, when Ades was gone, Pete whistled them about the house. Reuben was ashamed; it made him blush to think that his stout churchmanship should have to put up with this. "I scarcely dare show my face in the pub, wud all this going on at h?ame," he remarked sorrowfully.
Meanwhile, the farm was doing well; indeed, it was almost back at its former glory. Having laid the foundations, Reuben could now think of expansion, and he engaged two more farm-hands.
He had quite changed the look of Boarzell. Instead of the swell and tumble of the heather, were now long stretches of chocolate furrows, where only the hedge mustard sometimes sprang mutinously, soon to be rooted up. Reuben, however, looked less on these than on the territories still unconquered. He would put his head on one side and contemplate the Moor from different angles, trying to size the rough patch at the top. He wondered how long it would be before it could all be his. He would have to work like a fiend if he was to do it in his lifetime. There was the Grandturzel inclosure, too.... Then he would go and whip up his men, and make them work nearly as hard as he worked himself, so that in the evening they would complain at the Cocks of "wot a tedious hard m?aster Mus' Backfield wur, surelye!"
One day Albert sent his father a message through Pete.
He wanted me to tell you wot an unaccountable difference he sees in Boarzell now he's come back. He'd never have known it, 'tis so changed. All the new bit towards Doozes is justabout pr?aper.
Reuben said nothing, in spite of the entreaty in Pete's honest eyes, but his heart warmed towards his son. Albert had shown at last proper spirit; he had no doubt realised his baseness, and acknowledged that he had been a fool and villain to betray Odiam. Now he saw how mightily the farm prospered in spite of adversity, he praised its greatness, and no man could praise Odiam without winning a little of Reuben's goodwill. He softened towards the prodigal, and felt that he would like to see the boy—he still called him "the boy," though he was thirty-seven—and if he behaved penitently and humbly, forgive him before he died.
That evening he went up to Pete's room. The sound of voices came from it, one exceedingly loud, and it struck Reuben that "that hemmed Methody" was there. He opened the door and looked in. Albert lay propped up in the bed, his hands, wasted into claws, clasped in the attitude of prayer, his eyes protruding strangely above his sunken cheeks, where the skin was stretched on the bones. Pete knelt beside him, his eyes closed, his hands folded, like a child saying its prayers, and at the foot of the bed stood the Rev. Roger Ades, his face contorted with fervour, his arms waving in attitudes that were reminiscent of the boxing ring in spite of his efforts.
None of them saw or heard Reuben's entrance, and at that moment they all burst into a hymn:
"There's life in the crimson Fountain, There's peace in the Blood of the Slain.
"
A long shudder of disgust went over Reuben's flesh. He was utterly shocked by what he saw. That such things could go on in his house struck him with horror, tinctured by shame. He went out, shutting the door noisily behind him—the softer feelings had gone; instead he felt bitterly and furiously humiliated.
The hymn faltered and stopped when the door banged, but the next moment the minister caught it up again, and hurled it after Reuben's indignant retreat:
"My soul is all washed to whiteness, And I'll never be foul again. Salvation! Salvation full and free!
"Early in May, Pete came out to Reuben on Boarzell and told him that Albert was dead. Reuben felt a little awkward and a little relieved.
He died quiet, I hope?
Oh, yes, said Pete, "he laid hold on the merits of Jesus."
Reuben started.
It wur a pr?aper death, continued Pete; "his soul wur washed as white as wool. He wur the prodigal son come h?ame; he wur the Lord's lost sixpence, I reckon."
And that son of a harlot from Little Bethel wurn't wud him, I trust?
No, I'm going to fetch him now.
His father opened his mouth to forbid him angrily, but changed his mind and said nothing. Pete walked off whistling—"When the cleansing Blood is poured."
Reuben could not help feeling relieved at Albert's death, but he had noticed with some alarm Pete's definitely religious phraseology. He hoped that Ades had not corrupted him from his pure churchmanship, the honourable churchmanship of the Backfields. Being a Dissenter was only one degree better than being a Liberal, and Reuben swore to keep a firm hand over Pete in future.
That evening he and his son had their first conflict. Pete announced that he had made arrangements with Ades for Albert's funeral, and Reuben announced with equal conviction that he was hemmed if Ades had any truck in it wotsumdever. Albert should be buried according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, he wasn't going to have any salvation sung over his grave. Pete, on the other hand, stuck to his point, and alarmed Reuben with more religious phraseology.
It wur Ades wot gave him to the Lord, wot found him salvation in the Blood of the Lamb.
I d?an't care two straws about that. Albert wur born and christened Church, and he's not going to die chapel because a lousy Methody sings hymns over him when he's sick and d?an't know better. If I find that feller on my pl?ace again, I'll break every bone in his body.
Pete angrily defended the minister, which caused Reuben fresh alarm; for in the old days when his father abused Ades he had tried to conciliate him by laying stress on the latter's prowess as a bruiser, but now he never once mentioned his fists, enlarging instead on his qualities of soul and on the fact that he had found Christ. The two theologians carried on their argument till well past bedtime, and at last separated in a great state of dogma and indignation.
In the end it was the Church that won. Reuben went over early the next morning to the Rectory, and made arrangements for Albert's funeral on the following Monday. He enlarged on the conflict he had had with Pete, and was a little dashed by the rector's want of enthusiasm.
Albert was buried with all the decent rites of the Establishment. He was laid to rest in the Christian company of his mother and his brother George, at the bottom of the churchyard where it touched the pond; a little way from him was the old yeoman who had "never wanted anything he hadn't got, and so hadn't got anything he didn't want." It relieved Pete a little to think that from where he lay his brother could not see Boarzell—"not even if he sat up in his grave."
The funeral was dignified and impressive, and every now and then Reuben glanced across at his son with eyes that said—"Wot could Ebenezer have done compared wud this?" All the same, he was disappointed. Somehow he had expected his churchmanship to strike the rector and the curate very favourably; he had expected them metaphorically to fall on his neck; he saw himself as a champion of established Christendom, of tithes and glebes and cosy rectories and "dearly beloved brethren" on Sundays. It was humiliating to find himself ignored, indeed treated as an outsider, simply because he had not been to church for ten years. He had had his children baptised into the Establishment, and now he was burying his son according to its rites, in spite of opposition, even persecution. These parsons were ungrateful, bigoted, and blind.
Perhaps though, he thought, their behaviour was partially accounted for by that of Pete, who stood beside the grave with his eyes shut, saying "A-aaa-men" at unliturgical intervals, as only Dissenters can say it.
Pete spent that evening with Ades, and Reuben's fireside slumbers were unrestful because he missed Pete's accustomed snore from the other end of the settle. The next morning his son did not appear, though there was plenty of work to be done in the hop-fields. The young hops were now well above ground, and exposed to the perils of blight, so Reuben and Beatup were spraying them with insect-killer, badly in need of a third man to do the mixing.
Where's Pete? asked Reuben.
I dunno—?un't seen un this mornun. Ah—thur he be!
Where?
C?aming up by the brook, surelye.
Reuben stared in amazement. The approaching figure undoubtedly was Pete, but a Pete so changed by circumstances and demeanour as to be almost unrecognisable. He wore his Sunday black clothes, which—as, with the exception of the funeral, he had not put them on for ten years—were something of a misfit. On his head was a black hat with a wide flapping brim, he walked with a measured step and his hands folded in front of him.
Well, cried Reuben, calling abuse to the rescue of surprise—"you hemmed lazy good-fur-nothing, you!—wud all the Glotten hay to be cut, and ten acres o' hops to be sprayed, and you go laying in bed lik a lady, and then come out all dressed as if you wur going to church. Where's your corduroys?"
In my box—you can cl?athe the naked wud 'em—I'm never going to put 'em on no more.
I'm hemmed if I'll have you working on my farm in that foolery. You'll m?ake us the laughing-stock of Peasmarsh. You've got Ebenezer on the brain, you have, and you can justabout git it off again.
I'm never going to do another str?ake of wark on your farm as long as I live. Salvation's got me.
Reuben dropped the insect-killer.
I'm the Lord's lost lamb, announced Pete.
The Lord's lost——! cried his father angrily. "You t?ake off them blacks, and git to work lik a human being."
I tell you I'm never going to work fur you ag?un. I'm going forth to spread the Word. Salvation's got me.
You wait till I git you, that's all, and Reuben ran at Pete.
Kip off, or I'll slosh you one on the boko, cried the Lord's lost lamb swinging up a vigorous pair of fists. Reuben breathed a sigh of relief.
There—I knew as there wur reason in you, Pete. You w?an't go and leave your f?ather lik the rest, all fur a hemmed Methody.
Hemmed Methody! That's how you spik of the man wot's s?aved my soul. I tell you as there I wur lost in trespasses and sins, and now I'm washed white as wool—there wur my evil doings sticking to my soul lik maggots to a dead rat, and now my soul's washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and I'm going out to spread the Word.
Where are you going?
Unto the ends of the earth—Hastings. There's a friend of Ades there wot'll guide me into the Spirit's ways.
But you'll never leave me at the time of the hay-harvest, and Emily due to calve in another month?
I tell you I'm shut of your farm—it's wot's led me astray from a lad. Instead of settin' and reading godly books and singing wud the saints I've gone and ploughed furrers and carted manure; I've thought only of the things of the flesh, I've walked lik accursed Adam among the thistles. But now a Voice says, 'work no more!—go and spread the Word!' And if you're wise, f?ather, you'll c?ame too, and you, Beatup. You'll flee from the wrath to c?ame, when He shall sh?ake the earth and the elimunts shall dissolve in fervient heat, and He ...
Have adone do wud your preaching. I'm ashamed of you, led astray by lunies as if you wur no better nor poor Harry. You're a hemmed lousy traitor, you are, the worst of 'em all.
I'm only fleeing from the wrath to c?ame—and if you're wise you'll foller me. This farm is the city of destruction, I tell you, it's a snare of the devil, it's Naboth's vineyard, it's the lake that burneth wud fire and brimstone. C?ame out of her, c?ame out of her, my peoples!
Reuben was paralysed. His jaw worked convulsively, and he looked at Pete as if he were a specially new and pestilential form of blight.
Save yourself, f?ather, continued the evangelist, "and give up all the vain desires of the flesh. Is this a time to buy olive-yards and vineyards? Beware lest there c?ame upon you as it did to him wot purchaised a field, the reward of inquiety, and falling headlong he bust asunder in the midst and his bowels goshed out——"
But Reuben had found his voice.
Git out of this! he shouted. "I w?an't stand here and listen to you miscalling the farm wot's bred you and fed you over thirty year. Git out, and never think you'll come back again. I'm shut of you. I d?an't want no more of you—I'm out of the wood now, I've got all the work out of you I've needed, so you can go, and spread your hemmed Word, and be hemmed. I'm shut of you."
Pete fixed upon his father a gaze meant to inspire the utmost terrors of conscience, then turned on his heel and slowly walked away.
The sight of his broad black back disappearing among the hop-bines was too much for Reuben. He picked up the can of insect-killer and hurled it after his son, splashing his respectability from head to foot with the stinking fluid. Pete flung round with his fists up, then suddenly dropped them and raised his eyes instead.
You wudn't daur do that if I hadn't been saved! he shouted.
Then he walked off, beautiful of soul no doubt, but highly unpleasant of body.
The next five years were comparatively uneventful. All that stood out of them was the steady progress of the farm. It fattened, it grew, it crept up Boarzell as the slow tides softly flood a rock.
Reuben was now alone at Odiam with his two small children and Harry. David and Bill, unlike their predecessors, did not start their career as farm-hands till well past babyhood. Reuben no longer economised in labour—he had nearly a dozen men in regular employ, to say nothing of casuals. Sometimes he thought regretfully of the stalwart sons who were to have worked for him, to have run the farm without any outside help ... but that dream belonged to bygone days, and he resolutely put it from him. After all, his posse of farm-hands was the envy of the neighbourhood; no one in Peasmarsh employed so many.
Reuben himself was still able for a great deal of work. Though over sixty, he still had much of the vigour, as he had all the straightness, of his youth. Work had not bent him and crippled him, as it had crippled Beatup, his junior by several years. The furnace of his pride and resolution seemed to have dried the damps steamed up by the earth from her revengeful wounds, so that rheumatism—the plague of the labourer on the soil—had done no worse for him than shooting pains in the winter with a slight thickening of his joints.
His hair had been grey for years, and as he grew older it did not whiten, but stayed the colour of polished iron, straight, shining, and thick as a boy's. He had lost two back teeth, and made a tremendous fuss about them, saying it was all the fault of the dentist in Rye, who preferred a shilling extraction to a threepenny lotion—but the rest of his teeth were as good as ever, though at last a trifle discoloured by smoking.
His face was a network of wrinkles. He was not the sort of countryman whose skin old age stretches smoothly over the bones and reddens benignly as a sun-warmed apple. On the contrary, he had grown swarthier with the years, the ruddy tints had been hardened into the brown, and from everywhere, from the corners of his eyes, of his mouth, of his nose, across his forehead, along his cheeks, under his chin, spread a web of lines, some mere hair-tracery on the surface, others wrinkled deep, others ploughed in like the furrows of his own fields.
Harry had not aged so successfully. He was terribly bent, and some of his joints were swollen grotesquely, though he had not had so much truck as Reuben with the earth and her vapours. He was so thin that he amounted to little more than shrivelled yellow skin over some twisted bones, and yet he was wiry and clung desperately to life. Reuben was sorry for this—his brother annoyed him. Harry grew more irritating with old age. He still played his fiddle, though he had now forgotten every semblance of a tune, and if it were taken away from him by some desperate person he would raise such an outcry that it would soon be restored as a lesser evil. He hardly ever spoke to anyone, but muttered to himself. "Salvation's got me!" he would croak, for his mind had been inexplicably stamped by Pete's outrage, and he forgot all about that perpetual wedding which had puzzled him for so many years. "Salvation's got me!" he would yell, suddenly waking in the middle of the night—keeping the memory of the last traitor always green.
But it was for other reasons that Reuben most wished that Harry would die. Harry was a false note, a discord in his now harmonious scheme. He was a continual reminder of the power of Boarzell, and would occasionally sweep Reuben's thoughts away from those fat corn-fields licking at the crest to that earliest little patch down by Totease, where the Moor had drunk up its first blood. He called himself a fool, but he could not help seeing something sinister and fateful in Harry, scraping tunelessly at his fiddle, or repeating over and over again some wandering echo from the outside world which had managed to reach his dungeoned brain. Reuben wished he would die, and so did the farm-boy who slept with him, and the dairy-woman who fed him at meals.
The only people who would have been sorry if he had died were the children. Harry was popular with them, as he had been with baby Fanny long ago, because he made funny faces and emitted strange, unexpected sounds. He was unlike the accepted variety of grown-up people, who were seldom amusing or surprising, and one could take liberties with him, such as one could not take with f?ather or Maude. Also, being blind, one could play on him the most fascinating tricks.
These tricks were never unkind, for David and William were the most benevolent little boys. They saw life through a golden mist, it smelt of milk and apples, it was full of soft lowings and bleatings and cheepings, of gentle noses to stroke and little downy things to hold. For the first time since it became Reuben's, Odiam made children happy. The farm which had been a galley and a prison to those before them, was an enchanted land of adventure to these two. Old Beatup, who remembered earlier things, would sometimes smile when he saw them trotting hand in hand about the yard, playing long hours in the orchard, and now and then pleading as a special favour to be allowed to feed the chickens, or help fetch the cows home. He seemed to see the farm peopled by little ghosts who had never dared trot about aimlessly, or had time to play, and had fed the fowls and fetched the cows not as a treat and an adventure, but as a dreary part of the day's grind ... he reflected that "the m?aster had learned summat by the others, surelye."
Of course, one reason why David and Billy were so free was because of the growing prosperity of the farm, which no longer made it necessary to save and scrape. But on the other hand, it was a fact that the m?aster had learned summat by the others. He was resolved that, come what might, he would keep these boys. They should not leave him like their brothers; and since harshness had failed to keep those at home, he would now try a slacker rule. He was growing old, and he wanted to think that at his death Odiam would pass into loyal and loving hands, he wanted to think of its great traditions being carried on in all their glory. Sometimes he would have terrible dreams of Odiam being divided at his death, split up into allotments and small-holdings, scrapped into building plots. Such dreams made him look with hungry tenderness at the two little figures trotting hand in hand about the orchard and the barns.
It was about that time that the great Lewin case came on at the Old Bailey. The papers were full of it, and Reuben could not suppress a glow of pride when Maude the dairy-woman read out the name of Richard Backfield as junior counsel for the defence. But his pride was to be still further exalted. The senior counsel collapsed with some serious illness on the very eve of the trial, and Richard stepped into his shoes. The papers were now full of his name, it was on everyone's lips throughout the kingdom, and especially in the public-houses between Rye and the Kent border. Men stopped drinking at the Cocks when Reuben came in, and women ran down to their garden gates when he passed by. Reuben himself did not say much, but he now regularly took in a daily paper, and being able to recognise the name of Backfield in print, sat chasing the magic word through dark labyrinths of type, counting the number of its appearances and registering them on the back of his corn accounts.
How's the Lewin c?ase gitting on? someone would ask at the Cocks, and Reuben would answer:
Valiant—my n?um wur sixteen times in the p?aper this mornun.
He almost taught himself to read by this means, for it was the first time he had ever studied a printed page, and he had soon picked up several words besides Backfield. Not that he took much interest in the case beyond Richard's—that is to say, Odiam's—share in it, but soon it became clear that Richard was leading it to marvellous developments. Lewin was a bank-manager accused of colossal frauds, and Richard amazed the country by dragging a couple of hitherto respected banking knights into the business. At one time it was thought he would get an acquittal by this, but Richard was a barrister, not a detective, and he brilliantly got his client acquitted on a point of law, which though it may have baffled a little the romantic enthusiasm of his newspaper admirers, made his name one to conjure with in legal circles, so that briefs were no longer matters of luck and prayer.
His fortune was made by the Lewin case. He wrote home and told his father that he had now "arrived," and was going to marry Anne Bardon.
The excitement created by his defence of Lewin was nothing to that which now raged in Rye and Peasmarsh. Reuben was besieged by the curious, who found relief for a slight alloy of envy by pointing out how unaccountable well the young man had done for himself by running away.
Reckon you dudn't think as how it 'ud turn out lik this, or you wudn't have been in such tedious heart about it.
I can't say as I'm pleased at his marrying Miss Bardon, Reuben would say. "She's ten year older than he if she's a day. 'Twas she who asked him, I reckon. He could have done better fur himself if he'd stayed at h?ame."