Chapter 11

That year Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell, and limed them for oats. He felt that now he had strength to return to his first battle, and wring a grain crop out of that grudging soil. The new piece of ground abutted the Odiam lands on the Flightshot side, and he could see it from his window. Before going to bed at night, he would lean out and feast his eyes on it as it lay there softly covered in the dark, or glimmering in the faint star-dazzle of spring. Sometimes it seemed almost as if a breath came from it, a fragrance of sleep, and he would sit there inhaling it till Naomi peevishly begged him to shut the window and come to bed. Then in the mornings, when he woke according to healthy habit at five, he would sit up, and even from the bed he could see his land, waiting for him in the cold whiteness of dawn, silently calling him out to the freshness of its many dews.

He still kept the farm modestly, for he was anxious to[Pg 106] be able to do without help except from Beatup. His young family were also an expense. For a few years more he must expect to have them rather heavily on his hands ... then Albert and the twins would be able to do a little work, and gradually both the capacity and number of his labourers would increase, till at last perhaps he would be able to discharge Beatup, and Backfield alone fight Backfield's battle.

Meantime he was worried about Naomi. It says much for the ineffectiveness of her emotions that he had not till just then realised her hostility towards him. Now that he saw it, he put it down to her ill-health, and re-established the tyrannous watch over her which he had kept up in the old days. He was sorry for her, and knew now that he had made a mistake in marrying her. He should have chosen a sturdier, more ambitious mate. However, there was no help for it, he could not give up the battle because his fellow-fighter had no stomach for it. He was grieved for the loss of her beauty, and would make things as easy for her as possible, but he could not let her off altogether. She must do her share in the struggle which was so much greater than either of them. She had rested from child-bearing a year, but he still longed desperately for children, and she became a mother again at the end of '49.

The baby was a girl, and Reuben was bitterly disappointed. One girl was quite enough, and he badly wanted more boys. Besides, Naomi was very ill, and the doctor told him in private that she ought not to have any more children, at least for some time.

"She never was a strong woman, and these repeated confinements have quite worn her out. You have seven children, Mr. Backfield, and I think that ought to be enough for any man."

"But two of them are girls—it's boys I want, surelye!"

"Aren't five boys enough for you?"

"No—they ?un't."

"Well, of course, if she has a thorough rest from all work and worry, and recovers her health in the meantime, I don't say that in three or four years.... But she's not a strong subject, Mr. Backfield, and you'd do well to remember it."