Reuben\'s constant visits to Cheat Land were soon noticed at Odiam, and every advantage was taken of them. A period of licence set in. Richard read Anne Bardon\'s Homer quite openly by the kitchen fire, Caro dropped tears over East Lynne in the dairy, and Jemmy spent long tarry hours at Rye, coming home with a rank chew in his mouth, and sailors\' oaths to salt his work on the farm.

Tilly had private affairs of her own which occasionally led her out on Boarzell of an afternoon. She always took her sewing, for she dared not be behindhand with it. Strangely enough, in spite of Jemmy\'s and Tilly\'s truancies, the work was somehow got through as usual, for shortcomings would have been found out and punished on the master\'s return—or worse still, he might have stayed at home. For the first time a certain [Pg 219]freemasonry was established between the brothers and sisters. Hitherto their rebellion had been too secret even for confederacy, but now some of the crushing weight was lifted, and they could combine—all except Peter, who was too much Reuben\'s man for them to trust him; luckily he was rather stupid. So Peter did not see and no one else took any notice if Caro read and wept over sentimental novels, or Jemmy brought home harbour mud on his shoes, or George, who was delicate and epileptic, slept away an hour under a haystack, or Richard pondered the Iliad, or Tilly ran out on the Moor—even though she went to meet Realf of Grandturzel.

They met on the further side of the fir clump, on the edge of Grandturzel\'s inclosure. Here Tilly would sit under a gorse-bush with her sewing, while young Realf lay along the grass at her feet. They did not talk much, for Tilly was busy, and generally had her mouth full of pins; but Realf\'s manhood worshipped her as she sat there, her delicious head bowed, and stains of sunshine, with sprinkled gorse-petals, in her hair. He loved her little determined chin, and the sweet smudge of freckles on her nose. Love filled their simplest actions, kindled their simplest words; it dreamed in their eyes and laughed on their lips; its silences linked them closer than the most passionate embraces.

Both u............