tion into the vegetable kingdom-it was difficult to imagine it had ever been built, it seemed so obviously a growth, one would think it had roots in the soil like an oak or an apple tree.

Reuben opened the door, and the welcome, longed-for smell stole out to him-smothering the rivalry of a clump of chrysanthemums, rotting in dew.

Sossiges," he whispered, and ran down the passage to the kitchen.

Here the sound of voices reminded him that he might have difficulties with his family, but Reuben's attitude towards his family, unless it forced itself directly into his life, was always a little aloof.

"Well, lad," said his father," so you're back at last." "You knew where I wur?"

Lucky we dud-or we'd have bin in tedious heart about you, away all night."

Reuben pulled up his chair to the table. His father sat at one end, and at the other sat Mrs. Backfield; Harry was opposite Reuben.

If only you wud be a good boy lik Harry," said his mother.

Reuben looked at Harry with detachment. He was not in the least jealous of his position as favourite son, he had always accepted it as normal and inevitable. His parents did not openly flaunt their preference, and they were always very kind to Reuben-witness the gentleness with which he was received to-day after his escapade -but one could not help seeing that their attitude towards the elder boy was very different from what they felt for the younger.

The reasons were obvious; Harry was essentially of a loving and dependent nature, whereas Reuben seemed equally indifferent to caresses or commands. He was not a bad son, but he never appeared to want affection, and was always immersed in dark affairs of his own. Besides, Harry was a beautiful boy. Though only a year

younger than Reuben, in the midst of the awkward age, his growing limbs quite lacked the coltishness of his brother's. He was like Reuben, but with all the little variations that make the difference between good and ordinary looks. Just as he had Reuben's promising body without that transitory uncouthness so natural to his years, so he had Reuben's face, more softly chiselled, more expressive and full of fire. His brows were lighter, his eyes larger, his hair less shiny and tough, growing in a soft sweep from his forehead, with the faintest hint of a curl at his ears. Neighbours spoke of him as " beautiful Harry." Reuben pondered him occasionally-he would have liked to know his brother better, liked to love him, but somehow could never quite manage it. In spite of his clinging nature, there was something about Harry that was unhuman, almost elfin. The father and mother did not seem to notice this, but Reuben felt it, scarcely knowing how or why.

To-night Harry did not ask him any questions, he just sat dreamily listening while Reuben poured out his story, with all the enthusiasms and all the little reservations which were characteristic of him. Once Harry put out his hand and stroked his mother's, once he smiled at his father.

"Well, I shan't go scolding you, lad," said Joseph Backfield, "fur I reckon you've bin punished enough. Though it wur unaccountable lucky you dudn't git anything worse. I hear as how Pix and Hearsfield are to be transported, and there'll be prison for some thirty more. Wot dud yer want to go mixing up in them things fur?"

"I wur justabout mad."

"How, mad?”

"Mad that they shud shut up Boarzell and that Odiam shudn't have its rights."

"Wot's Odiam to you?-It äun't yours, it's mine, and if I dōan't care about the land, why

shud you go disgracing yourself and us all because of it?"

"You ought to care, surelye!"

A dull brick-red had crept into the brown cheeks, and Reuben's brows had nearly met over his nose. "Ought to! Listen to that, mother. Dud you ever hear the like? And if I cared, my lad, where wud you all be? Where wud be that plate o' sossiges you're eating? It's just because I äun't a land-grabber lik so many I cud näum that you and Harry sit scrunching here instead of working the flesh off your böans, that your mother wears a muslin apron 'stead of a sacking one, that you have good food to eat, and white bread, 'stead of oaten. Wot's the use of hundreds of acres if you äun't comfortable at höame? I've no ambitions, so I'm a happy man. I döan't want nothing I haven't got, and so I haven't got nothing I döan't want. Surelye!

Reuben was silent, his heart was full of disgust. Somehow those delicious sausages stuck in his throat, but he was too young to push away his plate and refuse to eat more of this token of his father's apathy and Odiam's shame. He ate silently on, and as soon as he had finished rose from table, leaving the room with a mumble about being tired.

When he was half-way upstairs he heard his mother call him, asking him if he would like her to bathe his shoulders. But he refused her almost roughly, and bounded up to the attic under the crinkled eaves, which was his own, his sanctuary-his land.

It was odd that his parents did not care. Now he came to think of it, they did not seem to care about anything very much, except Harry. It never struck him to think it was odd that he should care when they did not.

He sat down by the window, and leaning his elbow on the sill, looked out. It was still windy, and the sky was shredded over with cloud, lit by the paleness of a hidden

moon. In the kitchen, two flights below, a fiddle sounded. It was Harry playing to his parents as he always played in the evening, while they sat on either side of the fire, nodding, smiling, half-asleep. Clods! Cowards! A sudden rage kindled in his heart against those three, his father, his mother, and beautiful Harry, who cared nothing about that for which he had suffered all things.

The crest of Boarzell was just visible against the luminous sky. There was something sinister and challenging about those firs. The gorse round their trunks seemed in that strange half-stormy, half-peaceful night to throw off a faint glimmer of gold. The fiddle wept and sang into the darkness, and outside the window two cherry trees scraped their boughs together.

Reuben's head dropped on his arm, and he slept out of weariness. An hour later the cramp of his shoulders woke him; the fiddle was silent, the moon was gone, and the window framed a level blackness. With a little moan he flung himself dressed on the bed.

BOOK I

THE BEGINNING OF THE FIGHT

I'

SI.

T was five years later, in the February of 1840. A winter sunset sparkled like cowslip wine on the wet roofs of Odiam. It slipped between the curtains of the room where Reuben watched beside his dead father, and made a golden pool in the dusk.

Joseph Backfield had been dead twelve hours. His wife had gone, worn out with her grief, to rest on the narrow unaccustomed bed which had been put up in the next room when he grew too ill to have her at his side. Reuben knew that Harry was with her-Harry would be sitting at her head, his arm under the pillow, ready for that miserable first waking, when remembering and forgetting would be fused into one pain. Reuben knew that they did not need him, that they had all they wanted in each other-now, as during the nights and days of illness, when he had never felt as if he had any real link with those three, his father and mother and Harry.

This evening he sat very still beside the dead. Only once he drew down the sheet from his father's face and gazed at the calm features, already wearing that strange sculpt look which is the gift of death. The peaceful lips, the folded hands, seemed part of an embracing restfulness. Reuben's heart warmed with a love in which was little grief. He thought of his father's life-calm, kindly, comfortable, ambitionless. He had