"Thought you'd be interested to hear. I remember as how you used to be unaccountable friendly wud them Jurys, considering the difference in your position."
"Yes, yes—wot did she die of?"
"Bob dudn't seem to know. She allus wur a delicate-looking woman."
"Yes—a liddle stick of a woman. That'll do, now."
Boorman went out, grumbling at "th' öald feller's cussedness," and Reuben sat on without moving.
Alice was dead—she had died in his hour of triumph. Just when he had succeeded in laying his hands on one thing more of goodness and glory for Odiam, she who had nothing and wanted nothing had gone out into the great nothingness. A leaden weight seemed to have fallen on him, for all that he was "shut of her."
The clock ticked on into the silence, the fire spluttered, and a cat licked itself before it. He sat hunched miserably, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. In his breast, where his heart had used to be, was a heavy dead thing that knew neither joy nor sorrow. Reuben was feeling old again.
§ 6.
"Please, mäaster, there's trouble on the farm."
Reuben started out of the half-waking state into which he had fallen. It was late in the afternoon, the sunlight had gone, and a wintry twilight crept up the wall. Maude the dairy-woman was looking in at the door.