Chapter 17

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;[Pg 424] 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[Pg 425] 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[Pg 426] 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.