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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 pl?ace—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 d?an'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 h?adge!
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 pr?aper 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, m?aster?"
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? D?an'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 pl?ace a bonfire in a minnut. Wot's the use of throwing mugs of water lik this? You'll never put them ricks out. S?ave your horses, s?ave your cows, s?ave 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 d?an'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 ?un'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.
C?ame 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 ?un't bin pr?aperly 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 m?ake 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.
§ 3.
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 w?an'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 s?aved yourself the trouble, fur I'm shut of you both after last night."
F?ather, 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 ag?un.
No—it w?an't.
Oh, f?ather—d?an'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 ag?un—he ?un't fit fur it.
Then he ?un't fit to work on my land. I ?un'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 pl?ace to cinders.
But wot's to become of us?
That's no consarn of mine—?un't you s?aved anything?
How cud we, f?ather?
I could have s?aved 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 ?un't that kind.
You ?un't. That's why I'm turning you away.
Her tears welled up afresh.
Oh, f?ather, I'm sorry I sp?ake lik that. D?an't be angry wud me fur saying wot I did. I'll own as we might have managed better—only d?an'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 m?ade 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 m?ade up.
F?ather, fur pity's s?ake——
D?an'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 ag?unst my wish, too. I'm sorry fur you, Tilly, but you're still young enough to work. I'm eighty-five, and I ?un't stopped working yet, so d?an'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 t?aken 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 m?ake Odiam his when you're gone?
I d?an't say for sartain—if he turns out a pr?aper lad and is a comfort to me and loves this pl?ace 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, f?ather, 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 w?an'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 m?ade 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 m?ade as miserable as you m?ade us. I'd rather see my boy dead than at Odiam.
There was a big outcry in Peasmarsh against Backfield's treatment of the Realfs. Not a farmer in the district would have kept on a hand who had burnt nearly the whole farm to ashes through bad stacking, but this fact did little to modify the general criticism. A dozen excuses were found for Realf's "accident," as it came to be called—"and old Ben cud have afforded to lose a stack or two, surelye."
Reuben was indifferent to the popular voice. The Realfs cleared out bag and baggage the following month. No one knew their destination, but it was believed they were to separate. Afterwards it transpired that Realf had been given work on a farm near Lurgashall, while Tilly became housekeeper to a clergyman, taking with her the boy she would rather have seen dead than at Odiam. Nothing was heard of the daughters, and local rumour had it that they went on the streets; but this pleasing idea was shattered a year or two later by young Alce, the publican's son, coming back from a visit to Chichester and saying he had found both the girls in service in a Canon's house, doing well, and one engaged to marry the butler.
Reuben did not trouble about the Realfs. Tilly had been no daughter of his from the day she married; it was a pity he had ever revoked his wrath and allowed himself to be on speaking terms with her and her family; if he had turned them out of Grandturzel straight away there would have been none of this absurd fuss—also he would not have lost a good crop of hay. But he comforted himself with the thought that his magnanimity had put about a thousand pounds into his pocket, so he could afford to ignore the cold shoulder which was turned to him wherever he went. And the hay was insured.
He gave up going to the Cocks. It had fallen off terribly those last five years, he told Maude the dairy-woman, his only confidant nowadays. The beer had deteriorated, and there was a girl behind the counter all painted and curled like a Jezebubble, and rolling her eyes at you like this.... If any woman thought a man of his experience was to be caught, she was unaccountable mistaken (this doubtless for Maude's benefit, that she might build no false hopes on the invitation to bring her sewing into the kitchen of an evening). Then the fellows in the bar never talked about stocks and crops and such like, but about race-horses and football and tomfooleries of that sort, wot had all come in through the poor being educated and put above themselves. Moreover, there was a gramophone playing trash like "I wouldn't leave my little wooden hut for you"—and the tale of Reuben's grievances ended in expectoration.
All the same he was lonely. Maude was a good woman, but she wasn't his equal. He wanted to speak to someone of his own class, who used to be his friend in days gone by. Then suddenly he thought of Alice Jury. He had promised to go and see her at Rye, but had never done so. He remembered how long ago she had used to comfort him when he felt low-spirited and neglected by his fellows. Perhaps she would do the same for him now. He did not know her address, but the new people at Cheat Land would doubtless be able to give it to him, and perhaps Alice would help him through these trying times as she had helped him through earlier ones.
A few days later he drove off in his trap to Rye. Though he had scarcely thought of her for ten years, he was now all aflame with the idea of meeting her. She would be pleased to see him, too. Perhaps their long-buried emotions would revive, and as old people they would enjoy a friendship which would be sweeter than the love they had promised themselves in more ardent days.
Alice lived in lodgings by the Ypres Tower. The little crinkled cottage looked out over the marshes towards Camber and the masts of ships. Reuben was shown into a room which reminded him of Cheat Land long ago, for there were books arranged on shelves, and curtains of dull red linen quaintly embroidered. There was a big embroidery frame on the table, and over it was stretched a gorgeous altar-cloth all woven with gold and violet tissue.
He was inspecting these things when Alice came in. Her hair was quite white now, and she stooped a little, but it seemed to Reuben as if her eyes were still as lively as ever. Something strange suddenly flooded up in his heart and he held out both hands.
Alice ... he said.
Good afternoon, she replied, putting one hand in his, and withdrawing it almost immediately.
I—I—?un't you pleased to see me?
I thought you'd forgotten all about me, certainly.
She offered him a chair, and he sat down. Her coldness seemed to drive back the tides that had suddenly flooded his lips, and slowly too they began to ebb from his heart. Whom had he come to see?—the only woman he had ever loved, whose love he had hoped to catch again in these his latter days, and hold transmuted into tender friendship, till he went back to his earth? Not so, it seemed—but an old woman who had once been a girl, with whom he had nothing in common, and from whom he had travelled so far that they could scarcely hear each other's voices across the country that divided them. Alice broke the silence by offering him some tea.
Thanks, but I d?an't t?ake tea—I've never held wud it.
How are you, Reuben? I've heard a lot about you, but nothing from you yourself. Is it true that you've sent away your daughter and her family from Grandturzel?
Yes—after they burnt the pl?ace down to the ground.
And where are they now?
I dunno.
Alice said nothing, and Reuben fired up a little:
I daresay you think badly of me, lik everyone else. But if a man m?ade a bonfire of your new stacks, I reckon you wouldn't say 'thank'ee,' and raise his wages.
Another pause—then Alice said:
How are you getting on with Boarzell? I hear that most of it's yours now.
All except the Fair-pl?ace—and I mean to have that in a year or two, surelye.
This time it was she that kindled:
You talk as if you'd all your life before you—and you must be nearly eighty-five.
I d?an't feel old—at least not often. I still feel young enough to have a whack at the Fair-pl?ace.
So you haven't changed your idea of happiness?
How d'you mean?
Your idea of happiness always was getting something you wanted. Well, lately I've discovered my idea of happiness, and that's—wanting nothing.
Then you have got wot you want, said Reuben cruelly.
I don't think you understand.
My old f?ather used to say—'I want nothing that I haven't got, and so I've got nothing that I d?an't want, surelye.'
It's all part of the same idea, only of course he had many more things than I have. I'm a poor woman, and lonely, and getting old. But—and a ring of exaltation came into her voice, and the light of it into her eyes—"I want nothing."
I wish you'd talk plain. If you never want anything, then you ?un't pr?aperly alive. So you ?un't happy—because you're dead.
You don't understand me. It's not because I'm dead and sluggish that I don't want anything, but because I've had fight enough in me to triumph over my desires. So now everything's mine.
Fust you say as how you're happy because you've got nothing, and now you say as everything's yourn. How am I to know wot you mean?
Well, compare my case with yours. You've got everything you want, and yet in reality you've got nothing.
That's nonsense, Alice. He spoke more gently, for he had come to the conclusion that sorrow and loneliness had affected her wits.
It isn't. You've got what you set out to get—Boarzell Moor, and success for Odiam; but in getting it you have lost everything that makes life worth while—wife, children, friends, and—and—love. You're like the man in the Bible who rebuilt Jericho, and laid the foundations in his firstborn, and set up the gates in his youngest son.
There you go, Alice! lik the rest of them—no more understanding than anyone else. Can't you see that it's bin worth while?
What do you mean?
Why, that it's worth losing all those things that I may get the one big thing I want. D?an't you see that Boarzell and Odiam are worth more to me than wife or family or than you, Alice. Come to that, you've got none o' them things either, and you haven't a farm to m?ake up fur it. So even if I wur sorry fur wot I'm not sorry fur, I'm still happier than you.
No you aren't—because you want a thing, and I want nothing.
I've got a thing, my girl, and you've got nothing.
They had both risen and faced each other, anger in their eyes. But their antagonism had lost that vital quality which had once made it the salt of their friendship.
You d?an't understand me, said Reuben—"I'd better go."
You don't understand me, said Alice—"you can't."
We've lost each other, said Reuben—"good-bye."
Alice smiled rather bitterly, and had a moment of vision.
The fact is that we can't forgive each other—for being happy in different ways.
I tell you I'm sorry for nothing.
Nor I.
So they parted.
Reuben drove back slowly through the October afternoon. A transparent brede of mist lay over the fields, occasionally torn by sunlight. Everything was very quiet—sounds of labour stole across the valley from distant farms, and the barking of a dog at Stonelink seemed close at hand. Now and then the old man muttered to himself: "We d?an't understand each other—we d?an't forgive each other—we've lost each other. We've lost each other."
He knew now that Alice was lost. The whole of Boarzell lay between them. He had thought that she would be always there, but now he saw that between him and her lay the dividing wilderness of his success. She was the offering and the reward of failure—and he had triumphed over failure as over everything else.
He drove through Peasmarsh and turned into the Totease lane. The fields on both sides of it were his now. He sniffed delightedly the savour of their sun-baked earth, of the crumpling leaves in their hedges, of the roots, round and portly, that they nourished in their soil—and the west wind brought him the scent of the gorse on Boarzell, very faintly, for now only the thickets of the top were left.
Almost the whole south was filled by the great lumpish mass of the Moor, no longer tawny and hummocky, but lined with hedges and scored with furrows, here and there a spread of pasture, with the dotted sheep. A mellow corn-coloured light rippled over it from the west, and the sheep bleated to each other across the meadows that had once been wastes....
My land, murmured old Reuben, drinking in the breeze of it. "My land—more to me than Alice." Then with a sudden fierceness:
I'm shut of her!
The next year came the great unionist collapse. The Government which had bumped perilously through the South African war, went on the rocks of an indignant peace—wrecked by Tariff Reform with the complication of Chinese Labour and the Education Bill. Once more Reuben took prominent part in a general election. The circumstances were altered—no one threw dead cats at him at meetings, though the common labouring men had a way of asking questions which they had not had in '65.
Old Backfield spoke at five meetings, each time on Tariff Reform and the effect it would have on local agriculture. The candidate and the unionist Club were very proud of him, and spoke of him as "a grand old man." On Election Day, one of the candidates' own cars was sent to fetch him to the Poll. It was the first time Reuben had ever been in a motor, but he did his best to dissemble his excitement.
It's lik them trains, he said to the chauffeur, "unaccountable strange and furrin-looking at first, but naun to spik of when you're used to 'em. Well I remember when the first railway train wur run from Rye to Hastings—and most people too frightened to go in it, though it never m?ade more'n ten mile an hour."
Though the country in general chose to go to the dogs, Reuben had the consolation of seeing a Conservative returned for Rye. He put this down largely to his own exertions, and came home in high good humour from the declaration of the Poll. Mr. Courthope, the successful candidate, had shaken him by the hand, and so had his agent and one or two prominent members of the Club. They had congratulated him on his wonderful energy, and wished him many more years of usefulness to the Conservative cause. He might live to see a wheat-tax yet.
He compared his present feelings with the miserable humiliation he had endured in '65. Queer!—that election seemed almost as real and vivid to him as this one, and—he did not know why—he found himself feeling as if it were more important. His mind recaptured the details with startling clearness—the crowd in the market-place, the fight with Coalbran, the sheep's entrails that were flung about ... and suddenly, sitting there in his arm-chair, he found himself muttering: "that hemmed g?ate!"
It must be old age. He pulled himself together, as a farm-hand came into the room. It was Boorman, one of the older lot, who had just come back from Rye.
Good about the poll, m?aster, wurn't it? he said—the older men were always more cordial towards Reuben than the youngsters. They had seen how he could work.
Unaccountable good.
I m?ade sure as how Mus' Courthope ud git in. 'T?un't so long since we sent up another unionist—seems strange when you and me remembers that a Tory never sat fur Rye till '85.
When did you come back?
I've only just come in, m?aster. Went r?ound to the London Trader after hearing the poll. By the way, I picked up a piece of news thur—old Jury's darter wot used to be at Cheat Land has just died. Bob Hilder t?ald me—seems as she lodges wud his sister.
Um.
Thought you'd be interested to hear. I remember as how you used to be unaccountable friendly wud them Jurys, considering the difference in your position.
Yes, yes—wot did she die of?
Bob dudn't seem to know. She allus wur a delicate-looking woman.
Yes—a liddle stick of a woman. That'll do, now.
Boorman went out, grumbling at "th' ?ald feller's cussedness," and Reuben sat on without moving.
Alice was dead—she had died in his hour of triumph. Just when he had succeeded in laying his hands on one thing more of goodness and glory for Odiam, she who had nothing and wanted nothing had gone out into the great nothingness. A leaden weight seemed to have fallen on him, for all that he was "shut of her."
The clock ticked on into the silence, the fire spluttered, and a cat licked itself before it. He sat hunched miserably, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. In his breast, where his heart had used to be, was a heavy dead thing that knew neither joy nor sorrow. Reuben was feeling old again.
Please, m?aster, there's trouble on the farm.
Reuben started out of the half-waking state into which he had fallen. It was late in the afternoon, the sunlight had gone, and a wintry twilight crept up the wall. Maude the dairy-woman was looking in at the door.
Wot is it? Wot's happened?
Boorman asked me to fetch you. They've had some vrother wud the young Squire, and he's shot a cow.
Shot one of my cows! and Reuben sprang to his feet. "Where woman? Where?"
Down at Totease. He wur the wuss for liquor, I reckon.
Reuben was out of the house bare-headed, and running across the yard to the Totease meadows. He soon met a little knot of farm-hands coming towards him, with three rather guilty-looking young men.
Wot's happened? he called to Boorman.
Only this, m?aster—Dunk and me found Mus' Fleet a-tearing about the Glotten meadow wud two of his friends, trying to fix Radical posters on the cows—seems as they'd r?aked up one or two o' them old Ben the Gorilla posters wot used to be about Peasmarsh, and they'd stuck one on Tawny and one on Cowslip, and wur fair racing the other beasts to death. Then when me and the lads c?ame up and interfere, they want to fight us—and when we t?ake h?ald of 'em, seeing as they 'pear to be a liddle the wuss for drink, why Mus' Fleet he pulls out a liddle pistol and shoots all around, and hits poor ?ald Dumpling twice over.
Look here, farmer, said one of the young men—"we're awfully sorry, and we'll settle with you about that cow. We were only having a rag. We're awfully sorry."
Ho, indeed! I'm glad to hear it. And you'll settle wud me about the cow! Wur it you who shot her, I'd lik to know?
I didn't actually fire the pistol—but we're all in the same boat. Had a luncheon over at Rye to cheer ourselves up after seeing the Tory get in. We're awfully sorry.
You've said that afore, said Reuben.
He pondered sternly over the three young men, who all looked sober enough now. As a matter of fact, Dumpling was no great loss; fifteen pounds would have paid for her. But he was not disposed to let off George Fleet so easily. Against the two other youths he bore no grudge—they were just ordinary ineffective young asses, of Radical tendencies, he noted grimly. George, however, stood on a different footing; he was the mocker of Odiam, the perpetrator of many gross and silly practical jokes at its expense. He should not escape with the mere payment of fifteen pounds, for he owed Reuben the punishment of his earlier misdeeds.
The man as shot my cow shall answer fur it before the magistrate, he said severely.
Look here—— cried George Fleet, and his two friends began to bid for mercy, starting with twenty pounds.
Be a sport, pleaded one of them, when they had come to forty, "you simply can't hand him over to the police—his father's Squire of the Manor, and it would be no end of a scandal."
I know who his f?ather is, thank'ee, said Reuben.
Then suddenly a great, a magnificent, a triumphant idea struck him. He nearly staggered under the force of it. He was like a general who sees what he had looked upon hitherto as a mere trivial skirmish develop into a battle which may win him the whole campaign. He spoke almost faintly.
Someone go fur the Squire.
Sir Eustace!
Yes—fetch him here, and I'll talk the matter over wud him.
But——
Either you fetch him here or I send fur the police.
The two young men stared at each other, then George Fleet nodded to them:
You'd better go. The dad'll be better than a policeman anyhow. Try and smooth him down a bit on the way.
Right you are—and they reluctantly moved off, leaving their comrade in the enemy's hands.
However, Reuben's whole manner had changed. His attitude towards George Fleet became positively cordial. He took him into the kitchen, and made Maude give him some tea. He himself paced nervously up and down, a queer look of exaltation sometimes passing over his face. One would never have taken him for the same man as the old fellow who an hour ago had huddled weak and almost senile in his chair, broken under his life's last tragedy. He felt young, strong, energetic, a soldier again.
The Squire soon arrived. Reuben had him shown into the parlour, and insisted on seeing him alone.
You finish your tea, he said to George, "and bring some more, Maudie, for these gentlemen," nodding kindly to the two young men, who stared at him as if they thought he had taken leave of his senses.
In the parlour, Sir Eustace greeted him with mingled nervousness and irritation.
Well, Backfield, I'm sorry about this young scapegrace of mine. But boys will be boys, you know, and we'll make it all right about that cow. I promise you it won't happen again.
I'm sorry to have given you the trouble of coming here, Squire. But I thought maybe you and I cud come to an arrangement wudout calling in the police.
Oh, certainly, certainly. You surely wouldn't think of doing that, Backfield. I promise you the full value of the cow.
Quite so, Squire. But it ?un't the cow as I'm vrothered about so much as these things always happening. This ?un't the first 'rag,' as he calls it, wot he's had on my farm. I've complained to you before.
I know you have, and I promise you nothing of this kind shall ever happen again.
How am I to know that, Squire? You can't kip the young man in a prammylator. Now if he wur had up before the magistrate and sent to prison, it 'ud be a lesson as he'd never disremember.
But think of me, Backfield! Think of his mother! Think of us all! It would be a ghastly thing for us. I promise to pay you the full value of the cow—and of your damaged self-respect into the bargain. Won't that content you?
Um, said Reuben—"it might."
The Squire thought he had detected Backfield's little game, and a relieved affability crept into his manner.
That'll be all right, he said urbanely. "Of course I understand your feelings are more important to you than your cow. We'll do our best to meet you. What do you value them at, eh?"
The Fair-pl?ace.
He had triumphed. He had beaten down the last resistance of the enemy, won the last stronghold of Boarzell. It was all his now, from the clayey pastures at its feet to the fir-clump of its crown. A trivial event which he had been able to seize and turn to his advantage had unexpectedly given him the victory.
The Squire had called it blackmail and made a terrible fuss about it, but from the first the issues had been in Reuben's hands. A public scandal, the appearance of Flightshot's heir before the county magistrates on the charge of shooting a cow in a drunken frolic, was simply not to be contemplated; the only son of the Manor must not be sacrificed to make a rustic holiday. After all, ever since the Inclosure the Fair had been merely a matter of toleration; and as Backfield pointed out, it could easily go elsewhere—to the big Tillingham meadow outside Rye, for instance, where the wild beast shows pitched when they came. All things considered, resistance was not worth while, and Flightshot made its last capitulation to Odiam.
Of course there was a tremendous outcry in Peasmarsh and the neighbourhood. Everyone knew that the Fair was doomed—Backfield would never allow it to be held on his land. His ploughs and his harrows were merely waiting for the negotiations to be finished before leaping, as it were, upon this their last prey. He would even cut down the sentinel firs that for hundreds of years had kept grim and lonely watch over the Sussex fields—had seen old Peasen Mersch when it was only a group of hovels linked with the outside world by lanes like ditches, and half the country a moor like the Boar's Hyll.
The actual means by which he acquired the Fair-place never quite transpired, for the farm-men were paid for their silence by Sir Eustace, and also had a kindly feeling for young George which persisted after the money was spent. However, one or two of the prevalent rumours were worse for Reuben than the facts, and if anyone, in farmhouse or cottage, had ever had a grudging kindness for the man who had wrested a victory out of the tyrant earth, he forgot it now.
But Reuben did not care. He had won his heart's desire, and public opinion could go where everything else he was supposed to value, and didn't, had gone. In a way he was sorry, for he would have liked to discuss his triumph at the Cocks, seasoning it with pints of decadent ale. As things were, he had no one to talk it over with but the farm-men, who grumbled because it meant more work—Maude, who said she'd be sorry when all that pretty gorse was cleared away—and old mad Harry, now something very like a grasshopper, whose conversation since the blaze at Grandturzel had been limited entirely to the statement that "the house was afire, and the children were burning."
But this isolation did not trouble Reuben much. He had lost mankind, but he had found the earth. The comfort that had sustained him after the loss of David and William, was his now in double measure. The earth, for which he had sacrificed all, was enough for him now that all else was gone. He was too old to work, except for a snip or a dig here and there, but he never failed to direct and supervise the work of the others. Every morning he made his rounds on horseback—it delighted him to think that they were too long to make on foot. He rode from outpost to outpost, through the lush meadows and the hop-gardens of Totease, across the lane to the wheatlands of Odiam, and then over Boarzell with its cornfields and wide pastures to Grandturzel, where the orchards were now bringing in a yearly profit of fifteen pounds an acre. All that vast domain, a morning's ride, was his—won by his own ambition, energy, endurance, and sacrifice.
In the afternoon he took life easy. If it was warm and fine he would sit out of doors, against the farmhouse wall, his old bones rejoicing in the sunshine, and his eager heart at the sight of Boarzell shimmering in the heat—while sounds of labour woke him pleasantly from occasional dozes.
When evening came and the cool of the day, he would go for a little stroll—round by Burntbarns or Socknersh or Moor's Cottage, just to see what sort of a mess they were making of things. He was no longer upright now, but stooped forward from the hips when he walked. His hair was astonishingly thick—indeed it seemed likely that he would die with a full head of hair—but he had lost nearly all his teeth—a very sore subject, wisely ignored by those who came in contact with him. The change that people noticed most was in his eyes. In spite of their thick brows, they were no longer fierce and stern;—they were full of that benign serenity which one so often sees in the eyes of old men—just as if he had not ridden roughshod over all the sweet and gentle things of life. One would think that he had never known what it was to trample down happiness and drive love out of doors—one would think that having always lived mercifully and blamelessly he had reaped the reward of a happy old age.
Reuben did not go to the Fair that autumn—there being no reason why he should and several why he shouldn't. He went instead to see Richard, who was down for a week's rest after a tiring case. Reuben thought a dignified aloofness the best attitude to maintain towards his son—there was no need for them to be on bad terms, but he did not want anyone to imagine that he approved of Richard or thought his success worth while. Richard, for his part, felt kindly disposed towards his father, and a little sorry for him in his isolation. He invited him to dinner once or twice, and, realising his picturesqueness, was not ashamed to show him to his friends.
There were several of his friends at Starcliffe that afternoon—men and women rising in the worlds of literature, law, and politics. It was possible that Richard would contend the Rye division—in the Liberal interest, be it said with shame—and he was anxious to surround himself with those who might be useful to him. Besides, he was one of those men who breathe more freely in an atmosphere of Culture. Apart from mere utilitarian questions, he liked to talk over the latest books, the latest cause célèbre or diplomatic coup d'état. Anne, very upright, very desiccated, poured out tea, and Reuben noted with satisfaction that Nature had beaten her at the battle of the dressing-table. Richard, on the other hand, in spite of an accentuation of the legal profile, looked young for his age and rather buckish, and rumour credited him with an intrigue with a lady novelist.
He received his father very kindly, giving him a seat close to the table so that he might have a refuge for his cup and saucer, and introducing him to a gentleman who, he said, was writing a book on Sussex commons and anxious for information about Boarzell.
But I owe you a grudge, Mr. Backfield, for you have entirely spoilt one of the finest commons in Sussex. The records of Boarzell go back to the twelfth century, and in the Visitations of Sussex it is referred to as a fine piece of moorland three hundred acres in extent and grown over with heather and gorse. I went to see it yesterday, and found only a tuft of gorse and firs at the top.
And they're coming out this week, said Reuben triumphantly.
Can't I induce you to spare them? There are only too few of those ancient landmarks left in Sussex.
And there'd be fewer still, if I had the settling of 'em. I'd lik to see the whole of England grown over wud wheat from one end to the other.
It would be a shame to spoil all the wild places, though, said a vague-looking girl in an embroidered frock, with her hair in a lump at her neck.
One wants a place where one can get back to Nature, said a young man with a pince-nez and open-work socks.
But my father's great idea, said Richard, "is that Nature is just a thing for man to tread down and subdue."
It can't be done, said the young man in the open-work socks—"it can't be done. And why should we want to do it?—is not Nature the Mother and Nurse of us all?—and is it not best for us simply to lie on her bosom and trust her for our welfare?"
If I'd a-done that, said Reuben, "I shouldn't have an acre to my n?um, surelye."
And what do you want with an acre? What is an acre but a man's toy—a child's silly name for a picture it can't understand. Have you ever heard Pan's pipes?
I have not, young man.
Then you know nothing of Nature—the real goddess, many-breasted Ceres. What can you know of the earth, who have never danced to the earth's music?
I once stayed on the Downs, said the girl in the embroidered frock, speaking dreamily, "and one twilight I seemed to hear elfin music on the hill. I tore off my shoes and let down my hair and I danced—I danced...."
Ah, said the youth in the open-work socks approvingly. "That's very like an episode in 'Meryon's House,' you know—that glorious scene in which Jennifer the Prostitute goes down to the New Forest with Meryon and suddenly begins dancing in a glade."
Of course, being a prostitute, she'd be closer to Nature than a respectable person.
I thought 'Meryon's House' the worst bilge this year has given us, said a man in a braided coat.
Or that Meryon has given us, which is saying more, put in someone else.
I hate these romantic realists—they're worse than the old-fashioned Zola sort.
The conversation had quite deserted Reuben, who sat silent and forgotten in his corner, thinking what fools all these people were. After he had wondered what they were talking about for a quarter of an hour, he rose to go, and gave a sigh of relief when the fresh air of Iden Hill came rustling to him on the doorstep.
He's a fine old fellow, your father, Backfield, said the man who was writing a book on Sussex commons. "I can almost forgive him for spoiling one of the best pieces of wild land in the county."
A magnificent old face, said a middle-aged woman with red hair—"the lining of it reminds me of those interesting Italian peasants one meets—they wrinkle more beautifully than a young girl keeps her bloom. I should like to paint him."
So should I, said the girl in the embroidered frock—"and I've been taking note of his clothes for our Earlscourt Morris Dancers."
Richard felt almost proud of his parent.
He's certainly picturesque—and really there's a good deal of truth in what he says about having got the better of Nature. Thirty years ago I'd have sworn he could never have done it. But it's my firm conviction that he has—and made a good job of it too. He's fought like the devil, he's been hard on every man and himself into the bargain, he's worked like a slave, and never given in. The result is that he's done what I'd have thought no man could possibly do. It's really rather splendid of him.
Ah—but he's never heard Pan's pipes, said the youth in the open-work socks.
Reuben drove slowly homewards through the brooding October dusk. The music of the Fair crept after him up the Foreign, and from the crest he could see the booths and stalls looking very small in the low fields by the Rother. "I wouldn't leave my little wooden hut for you," played the merry-go-round, and there was some mysterious quality in that distant tune which made Reuben whip the old horse over the hill, so as to be out of reach of it.
So much of his life had been bound up with the Fair that somehow a part of him seemed to be jigging at it still, down in the Rother field. It was at the Fair that he had first resolved to conquer Boarzell, and he saw himself rushing with the crowd to Totease, scuffling round the barns while the big flames shot out ... and later he saw himself dancing with Naomi to Harry's fiddle. What had Harry played?—a strange tune, "The Song of Seth's Home"—one never heard it now, but he could remember fragments of it....
These troubling thoughts were forgotten when he came to his own frontiers. He drove up to the farmhouse door, and handing over the trap to a boy, went out for his evening inspection of Boarzell.
The sunset guttered like spent candles in the wind—the rest of the sky was grey, like the fields under it. The distant bleating of sheep came through the dropping swale, as Reuben climbed the Moor. His men were still at work on the new ground, and he made a solemn tour of inspection. They were cutting down the firs and had entirely cleared away the gorse, piling it into a huge bonfire. All that remained of Boarzell's golden crown was a pillar of smoke, punctured by spurts and sparks of flame, rising up against the clouds. The wind carried the smell away to Socknersh and Burntbarns, and the farm-men there looked up from their work to watch the glare of Boarzell's funeral pyre.
Reuben moved away from the crest and stood looking round him at what had once been Boarzell Moor. A clear watery light had succeeded the sunset, and he was able to see the full extent of his possessions. From the utmost limits of Grandturzel in the south, to the Glotten brook in the north, from Socknersh in the east to Cheat Land in the west—all that he could see was his. Out of a small obscure farm of barely sixty acres he had raised up this splendid dominion, and he had tamed the roughest, toughest, fiercest, cruellest piece of ground in Sussex, the beast of Boarzell.
His victory was complete. He had done all that he had set out to do. He had done what everyone had told him he could never do. He had made the wilderness to blossom as the rose, he had set his foot upon Leviathan's neck, and made him his servant for ever.
He stood with his arms folded over his chest, and watched the first stars flicker above Castweasel. The scent of the ground steamed up to mingle with the mists, a soft rasp of frost was in the air and the earth which he had loved seemed to breathe out towards him, and tell him that by his faithful service he had won not only Boarzell but all gracious soil, all the secrets of seed-time and harvest, all the tender mysteries of sap, and growth.
He knew that not only the land within these boundaries was his—his possessions stretched beyond it, and reached up to the stars. The wind, the rain, dawns, dusks, and darkness were all given him as the crown of his faithfulness. He had bruised Nature's head—and she had bruised his heel, and given him the earth as his reward.
I've won, he said softly to himself, while behind him the blazing gorse spat and crackled and sent flames up almost to the clouds with triumphant roars—"I've won—and it's bin worth while. I've wanted a thing, and I've got it, surelye—and I ?un't too old to enjoy it, nuther. I may live to be a hunderd, a man of my might. But if I go next week, I shan't complain, fur I've lived to see my heart's desire. I've fought and I've suffered, and I've gone hard and gone rough and gone empty—but I haven't gone in vain. It's all bin worth it. Odiam's great and Boarzell's mine—and when I die ... well, I've lived so close to the earth all my days that I reckon I shan't be afraid to lie in it at last."
The End