The Repeal of the Corn Laws did not have such a bad effect on Odiam as Reuben had feared. The harvests in \'46 and \'47 were unusually good, and a general revival of prosperity throughout the country atoned for the low price of grain. It was not to be expected, however, that he would forgive at once the party which had betrayed agricultural interests. He transferred his political allegiance to Disraeli, whose feudalistic attitude won his entire respect. It was a great trial to him that he could not read the newspapers, for nowadays he did not care to have Naomi read to him. She used to sometimes, but her utter lack of interest and understanding was no longer atoned for by a voice love-modulated or a soft hand stroking his. He resolved that none of his children should share his disabilities, and already the infant Albert toddled daily to a little house in the village where two vague-looking sisters taught the rising generation mysteries hidden from their parents. Reuben could spell out one or two words, and could write "Reuben Backfield" in big printing letters at the bottom of any document he had to sign, but he had no time to educate himself further.

He was now twenty-seven, looking in some ways strangely older, in others far younger, than his age. The boy in him had not had much chance of surviving adolescence. Life had come down too hard on him. A grim struggle does not nourish youth, and mentally Reuben was ten or twelve years ahead of twenty-seven. His splendid health and strength, however, had maintained a physical boyishness, expressing itself in zeal and high spirits, a keen appetite, a boundless capacity for work, an undaunted enterprise. He was always hungry, he fell asleep directly his head touched the pillow, and slept like a child beside the tossing and wakeful Naomi.

His work had made him splendid. His skin was the colour of the soil he tilled, a warm ruddy brown, his hair was black, growing low on the forehead, and curling slightly behind the ears. The moulding of his neck and jaw, his eyes, dark, bright, and not without laughter in them, his teeth, big, white, and pointed, like an animal\'s—all spoke of clean and vigorous manhood. He was now unmistakably a finer specimen than Harry. Harry had lost to a great measure his good looks. Not only had the vacancy of his face robbed it of much of its attraction—for more beautiful than shape or colouring or feature had been the free spirit that looked out of his eyes—but his constant habit of making hideous grimaces had worked it into lines, while the scar of his burning sometimes showed across his cheek. Add to this a stoop and a shambling gait, and it is no longer "............