Chapter 6

The neighbourhood sniggered when it heard of Odiam's new land. When it heard of Reuben's plans for it and the oats that were to be it grew openly derisive. The idea of anyone thinking he could grow oats on Boarzell was an excellent joke. Young Backfield, however, ignored public opinion, and bought rape-dust for manure.

He was as jealous of this strip of earth as of a wife—he would allow nobody to work there but himself. Alone and unhelped he grubbed up the bracken, turned the soil, and scattered rape-dust and midden till they had to shut their windows at Burntbarns. He believed that if the ground was properly manured it would be ready for sowing in the autumn. The only difficulty now was[Pg 41] the trees; they were casting malevolent shadows, and dredging up the goodness out of the earth.

Where Ditch of Totease or Vennal of Burntbarns would have taken a couple of woodmen and a saw, Reuben took nothing but an axe and his bare arms. His muscles ached for this new carouse of exertion.

"Let me give you a hand," said Harry that day at dinner.

"No—why should I?"

"You'll never do it yourself," said Naomi, who was spending a few days at Odiam.

"Oh, w?an't I!" and Reuben showed his strong white teeth.

"How many trees are there?"

"Half a dozen—willers. The real trouble will be gitting their roots out."

"And will you do that alone?"

"I'll see about it."

Naomi looked across at Reuben without speaking. Her lips, a pale coral-pink, were parted, showing two tiny teeth. She was not the type he favoured—she was too soft and bloodless—but he could not help feeling flattered by the frank admiration he saw in her eyes. He knew that this last year of wind and sun and healthy work had narrowed the gulf between him and Beautiful Harry. He was as hard as iron and as brown as a nut, and there was a warm red glowing through the swarthiness of his cheeks like the bloom on a russet pear.

Harry looked up from his plate, and the gaze became three-cornered. Reuben, defiant of his brother, grew bold, and ogled, whereupon Naomi grew timid, and dropped her eyes; Harry found himself speaking with a rasp:

"I'm coming to help you, Reuben. You'll never tackle them rootses—it ?un't everything you can do surelye!"

"I can do that much. You stay here and play the fiddle to Naomi."

Harry somehow felt he had been insulted, and opened his mouth to retort. But his brother suddenly began talking about an accident to a labourer at Grandturzel, and the occasion dropped.

After dinner Reuben set out with his axe, and Harry and Naomi sat together on the floor beside the kitchen fire. He gave her kisses like the wind, swift and cool. She was the only woman he had kissed, and she had never been kissed by any other man. Their love had its wildnesses, but not the wildnesses of fire—rather of the dancing boughs of some spring-caught wood, rioting together in May. Now and then he would sing as he held her to him, his fresh young voice ringing up to the roof....

Later in the afternoon they went out together. It seemed a pity to stay indoors in the soft swale, and Harry had to look at some poultry at Doozes. Naomi walked with her arm through his, her grey cloak over her shoulders.

"I wonder if Reuben's still at it?" said Harry, as the footpath began to skirt the new land.

"Yes—I see him yonder. He doesn't see us, I reckon."

They stood on the hillside and looked down at Reuben. He had felled five trees, and was now getting his axe into the sixth. They watched him in silence, and Naomi found herself remembering the way he had looked at her at dinner.

"He's a valiant man," said Harry.

Naomi saw him sweep the axe above his shoulder, and the ease and strength of his swing gave her a strange tingling sensation in her breast. The axe crashed into the wood, then Reuben pulled it up, and the muscles of his back made two long, ovoid lumps under his blue shirt. Again the axe swung and fell, again[Pg 43] Naomi's body tingled as with a physical exhilaration.

The January twilight deepened, and soon Reuben's blue shirt was all that was clear in the hollow. The bites of the axe cracked out on the still air—and suddenly with a soft swish of boughs the tree fell.