TWO:His sons were now growing upAlbert was nearly eighteen, and Peter, though a year younger, looked a full-grown man, with his immense build and dark hairy skin. Pete was still the most satisfactory of Reuben's children, he had a huge and glad capacity for work, and took a real interest in Odiam's progress, though it was not his life, as it was his father's. It was strange, Reuben thought, that none of the other boys seemed to have a glimmer of enthusiasm. Though they had grown up under the shadow of Boarzell, and from their earliest childhood taken part in the struggle, they seemed still to think more about the ordinary things of young men's lives than the great victory before them. It was disappointing. Of course one expected it of girls, but Reuben's heart ached a little because the men children on whom he had set such hope and store cared[Pg 127] so little about what was life itself to him. It is true that Robert worked well, nearly as well as Pete, but that was only because he was of a docile, tractable nature. He did not share his father's dreamsBoarzell to him was only a piece of waste ground with some trees on it.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.
THREE:He turned on her almost fiercely, his lips curled back from his teeth in a sneer.
TWO:He flushed the colour of her apron. What a fool he was!and yet after all she would be bound to hear the truth sooner or later; he had only been beforehand. All the same he was surprised at himself. A sudden tide of anger went over him.
TWO:"And is this thy counsel, father John?" said Tyler, reproachfully: "but, by St. Nicholas! this robber of the high altar shall not depart scatheless. Kentish men!my horse, my horse!" and he stamped his armed heels upon the pavement.
荣誉榜
THREE:"It is a pity she should be the wife of such a carle"mused his lord.
THREE:"Do not look on me so wildly, Margaret," said he; "these bruises are nothing. Aye, even that," as she was examining, with the apprehensions of a tender wife, the black and almost shapeless appearance of his right hand and arm; "even that would be as well as ever in less than a monthbut it is their triumph and their treachery I feel: it is this that gnaws my very souland all because I thought myself too wise to take a woman's counsel,and in the very prison, too, where they thrust my poor mother! I have not tasted meat or drink since I entered. There stand the water and the breadthough the burning in my throat almost drives me mad: not a drop will I taste, though the leech told me to drink as much as I couldnor a morsel will I eat.""I call upon this assembly to witness, that I have, in the name of holy church, demanded the accusedthat I have demanded her in the name of the king, by virtue of his royal writ of prohibition, which has been basely purloinedand that, unmindful of that divine power, and despite the king's express command, Judge Skipwith, the servant of the one, and an unworthy son of the other, has contemptuously refused this demand. But," he added fiercely, as he again turned towards Skipwith, and shook his staff at the no less irritated judge, "the royal ermine is disgraced on the shoulders of such as theebeware that it is not speedily transferred to one more worthy to bear it. I say again, beware!"
