ONE:During this brief colloquy, Holgrave had again bent over the grave, and had taken up the box in which were deposited the articles that had been on the young De Boteler. Sir Robert, mistaking his motive, observed, "You must not think of removing the babe, Holgrave. This hut is but of little worthyou can throw it down, and bring a priest to say a prayer over the spot; and then the grave will be as good as if it were in a church-yard."There, at the post, quivering with a pain he scarcely felt, Reuben swore that he would tame and conquer Boarzell. The rage, the fight, the degradation, the hatred of the last twelve hours should not be in vain. In some way, as yet unplanned, Boarzell should one day be hisnot only the fifty acres the commissioners had tweaked from his father, but the whole of it, even that mocking, nodding crest of firs. He would subdue it; it should bear grain as meekly as the most fruitful field; it should feed fat cattle; it should make the name of Odiam great, the greatest in Sussex. It should be his, and the world should wonder.
TWO:He disdained the villeins, and he felt that the free men would disdain him. He would not associate with those now, whom, in his day of prosperity, he had sought to befriend, and whose degraded state he had wished to ameliorate; nor would he associate with those who had so lately been his compeers, lest they should seek to befriend him or ameliorate his lot."Oh, Ben!..."
