That spring the news flew round from inn to inn and farm to farm that Realf of Grandturzel had bought a shire stallion, and meant to start horse-breeding. This was a terrible shock to Reuben, for not only was horse-breeding extremely profitable to those who could afford it, but it conferred immeasurable honour. It seemed now as if Odiam were seriously threatened. If Realf[Pg 196] prospered at his business he could afford to fight Reuben for Boarzell.

As a man in love will sometimes see in every other man a plotter for his beloved, and would never believe it if he were told that he alone sees charm in her and that to others she is undesirable, so Reuben could not conceive ambition apart from the rugged, tough, unfruitful Boarzell, whom no man desired but he. He at once started negotiations for buying another twenty acres, though at present he could ill afford it, owing to the expenses involved by his family misfortunes and his new mania for prestige.

He watched Grandturzel\'s developments with a stern and anxious eye, and kept pace with them as well as he could. The farm consisted of about fifty-five acres of grass and tilth, apart from the forty acres of Boarzell, which neither Realf nor his father had ever attempted to cultivate, using them merely for fuel and timber, or as pasturage for the ewes when their lambs were taken from them. Old Realf had allowed the place to acquire a dilapidated rakish look, but his son at once began to smarten it up. He tarred the two oast-houses till they shone blue with the reflected sky, he painted his barn doors green, and re-roofed the Dutch Barn with scarlet tiles that could be seen all the way from Tiffenden Hill. He enriched his poultry-yard with a rare strain of Orpington, and was the only farmer in the district besides Reuben to do his reaping and hay-making by machinery.

Realf was about twenty-five, a tall, well-set-up young fellow, with certain elegancies about him. In business he was of a simple, open-temperament, genuinely proud of his farm, and na?ve enough to boast of its progress to Backfield himself.

Indeed he was so na?ve that it was not till Reuben had once or twice sneered at him in public that he realised there was any friction between Grandturzel[Pg 197] and Odiam, and even then he scarcely grasped its importance, for one night at the Cocks, Coalbran said rather maliciously to Reuben:

"Which of your gals is it that young Realf is sweet on?"

"My gals! Neither of \'em. Wot d\'you mean?"

"Only that he walks home wud them from church every Sunday, and f?alkses are beginning to wonder which he\'s going to m?ake Mrs. Realf, surelye!"

Reuben turned brick-red with indignation.

"Neither of my gals is going to be Mrs. Realf. I\'d see her dead fust! And the fellers as spread about such ugly lying tales, I\'ll——" and Reuben scowled thunderously at Coalbran, whom he had never forgiven since the scene in Rye Court-house.

"He slanders my sons and he slanders my daughters," he muttered to himself as he went home, "and I reckon as this time it ?un\'t true."

However, next Sunday he astonished his family by saying he would accompany them to church. Hitherto Reuben\'s churchmanship had been entirely political, he had hardly ever been inside Peasmarsh church since his marriage, except for the christenings of his children—though he considered himself............