So Realf's answer took the form of an extra cowman, whereupon Reuben hired a couple of new hands, causing his family to leap secretly and silently for joy and to bless the man who by his rivalry had lightened their yoke. As a matter of fact, Reuben would have been forced to engage one man, anyhow; for the new piece of land had at once to be prepared for cultivation, and gave even more trouble than the pieces which had already been cultivated but showed a distressing proneness to relapse into savagery. The lower slope of Boarzell was now covered with fields, where corn grew, as the neighbours said, "if one wur careful not to spik too loud," and the ewes could pasture safely if their shepherd were watchful. But it somehow seemed as if all these things were only on sufferance, and that directly Reuben rested his tired arm Boarzell would snatch them back to itself, to be its own for ever. Reuben swaggered a little about his new farm-hands, especially as Realf showed no signs of going any further in hirelings. One man, Boorman, came from Shoyswell near Ticehurst, and was said to be an authority on the diseases of roots, while the other, Handshut, came from Cheat Land on the western borders of Peasmarsh. Reuben went over to get his "character" from Jury the tenant--and that was how he met Alice Jury. § 7. The door was opened to him by a tall young woman in a grey dress covered by an apron. Reuben was struck by that apron, for it was not the sacking kind to which he was accustomed, or the plain white muslin which his women-folk wore on Sundays, but a coarse brick-coloured cotton, hanging from her shoulders like a pinafore. The girl's face above it was not pretty, but exceptionally vivid--"vivid" was the word, not prominent in Reuben's vocabulary, which flashed into his mind when he saw her. Her colouring was pale, and her features were small and irregular, her hair was very frizzy and quite black, while her grey eyes were at once the narrowest and the liveliest he had ever seen. "I'm sorry--father's not at home," she said in answer to his question. "But I töald him as I wur coming over--it's about that Handshut." She smiled. "I'm afraid father forgets things. But come in, he's bound to be home to his dinner soon."