Chapter 4

It was still early in the afternoon when Reuben set out homewards, but he had a long way to go, and felt tired and bruised. The constable had given him an apple, but as soon as he had munched up its sweetness, life became once more grey. The resolve which for a few minutes had been like a flame warming and lighting his heart, had now somehow become just an ordinary fact of life, as drearily a part of his being as his teeth or his stomach. One day he would own Boarzell Moor, subdue it, and make himself great—but meantime his legs dragged and his back was sore.

All the adventure and excitement he had been through, with no sleep, and eccentric feeding, combined to make him wretched and cast down. Once he cried a little, crouching low under the hedge, and thoroughly ashamed of himself.

However, things grew better after a time. The road broke away from the fields, and free winds blew over it. On either side swelled a soft common, not like Boarzell, but green and watery. It was grown with bracken, and Reuben laughed to see the big buck rabbits loppetting about, with a sudden scuttle and bob when he clapped his hands. Then a nice grinning dog ran with him a mile of the way, suddenly going off on a hunt near Starvecrow. Reuben came to Odiam aching with nothing worse than hunger.

Odiam Farm was on the northern slope of Boarzell—sixty acres, mostly grass, with a sprinkling of hops and grain. There was a fine plum orchard, full of old gnarled trees, their branches trailing with the weight of continued crops. The house itself was red and weather-stung as an August pippin, with strange curves in its gable-ends, which had once been kilns. It was one of those squat, thick, warm-tinted houses of Sussex which have stood so long as to acquire a kind of [Pg 18]naturalisation into the vegetable kingdom—it was difficult to imagine it had ever been built, it seemed so obviously a growth, one would think it had roots in the soil like an oak or an apple tree.

Reuben opened the door, and the welcome, longed-for smell stole out to him—smothering the rivalry of a clump of chrysanthemums, rotting in dew.

"Sossiges," he whispered, and ran down the passage to the kitchen.

Here the sound of voices reminded him that he might have difficulties with his family, but Reuben's attitude towards his family, unless it forced itself directly into his life, was always a little aloof.

"Well, lad," said his father, "so you're back at last."

"You knew where I wur?"

"Lucky we dud—or we'd have bin in tedious heart about you, away all night."

Reuben pulled up his chair to the table. His father sat at one end, and at the other sat Mrs. Backfield; Harry was opposite Reuben.

"If only you wud be a good boy lik Harry," said his mother.

Reuben looked at Harry with detachment. He was not in the least jealous of his position as favourite son, he had always accepted it as normal and inevitable. His parents did not openly flaunt their preference, and they were always very kind to Reuben—witness the gentleness with which he was received to-day after his escapade—but one could not help seeing that their attitude towards the elder boy was very different from what they felt for the younger.

The reasons were obvious; Harry was essentially of a loving and dependent nature, whereas Reuben seemed equally indifferent to caresses or commands. He was not a bad son, but he never appeared to want affection, and was always immersed in dark affairs of his own. Besides, Harry was a beautiful boy. Though only a year[Pg 19] younger than Reuben, in the midst of the awkward age, his growing limbs quite lacked the coltishness of his brother's. He was like Reuben, but with all the little variations that make the difference between good and ordinary looks. Just as he had Reuben's promising body without that transitory uncouthness so natural to his years, so he had Reuben's face, more softly chiselled, more expressive and full of fire. His brows were lighter, his eyes larger, his hair less shiny and tough, growing in a soft sweep from his forehead, with the faintest hint of a curl at his ears. Neighbours spoke of him as "beautiful Harry." Reuben pondered him occasionally—he would have liked to know his brother better, liked to love him, but somehow could never quite manage it. In spite of his clinging nature, there was something about Harry that was unhuman, almost elfin. The father and mother did not seem to notice this, but Reuben felt it, scarcely knowing how or why.

To-night Harry did not ask him any questions, he just sat dreamily listening while Reuben poured out his story, with all the enthusiasms and all the little reservations which were characteristic of him. Once Harry put out his hand and stroked his mother's, once he smiled at his father.

"Well, I shan't go scolding you, lad," said Joseph Backfield, "fur I reckon you've bin punished enough. Though it wur unaccountable lucky you dudn't git anything worse. I hear as how Pix and Hearsfield are to be transported, and there'll be prison for some thirty more. Wot dud yer want to go mixing up in them things fur?"

"I wur justabout mad."

"How, mad?"

"Mad that they shud shut up Boarzell and that Odiam shudn't have its rights."

"Wot's Odiam to you?—It ?un't yours, it's mine, and if I d?an't care about the land, why[Pg 20] shud you go disgracing yourself and us all because of it?"

"You ought to care, surelye!"

A dull brick-red had crept into the brown cheeks, and Reuben's brows had nearly met over his nose.

"Ought to! Listen to that, mother. Dud you ever hear the like? And if I cared, my lad, where wud you all be? Where wud be that plate o' sossiges you're eating? It's just because I ?un't a land-grabber lik so many I cud n?um that you and Harry sit scrunching here instead of working the flesh off your b?ans, that your mother wears a muslin apron 'stead of a sacking one, that you have good food to eat, and white bread, 'stead of oaten. Wot's the use of hundreds of acres if you ?un't comfortable at h?ame? I've no ambitions, so I'm a happy man. I d?an't want nothing I haven't got, and so I haven't got nothing I d?an't want. Surelye!"

Reuben was silent, his heart was full of disgust. Somehow those delicious sausages stuck in his throat, but he was too young to push away his plate and refuse to eat more of this token of his father's apathy and Odiam's shame. He ate silently on, and as soon as he had finished rose from table, leaving the room with a mumble about being tired.

When he was half-way upstairs he heard his mother call him, asking him if he would like her to bathe his shoulders. But he refused her almost roughly, and bounded up to the attic under the crinkled eaves, which was his own, his sanctuary—his land.

It was odd that his parents did not care. Now he came to think of it, they did not seem to care about anything very much, except Harry. It never struck him to think it was odd that he should care when they did not.

He sat down by the window, and leaning his elbow on the sill, looked out. It was still windy, and the sky was shredded over with cloud, lit by the paleness of a hidden[Pg 21] moon. In the kitchen, two flights below, a fiddle sounded. It was Harry playing to his parents as he always played in the evening, while they sat on either side of the fire, nodding, smiling, half-asleep. Clods! Cowards! A sudden rage kindled in his heart against those three, his father, his mother, and beautiful Harry, who cared nothing about that for which he had suffered all things.

The crest of Boarzell was just visible against the luminous sky. There was something sinister and challenging about those firs. The gorse round their trunks seemed in that strange half-stormy, half-peaceful night to throw off a faint glimmer of gold. The fiddle wept and sang into the darkness, and outside the window two cherry trees scraped their boughs together.

Reuben's head dropped on his arm, and he slept out of weariness. An hour later the cramp of his shoulders woke him; the fiddle was silent, the moon was gone, and the window framed a level blackness. With a little moan he flung himself dressed on the bed.