"'Tis old Mus' Backfield from Odiam farm by Peasmarsh. They say as he's a hard man." "They say as he's got the purtiest farm in Sussex--he's done wäonders fur Odiam, surelye." "But his wife and children's run away." "They say he's a hard man." "And he's allus alöan." "He döan't seem to care for nobody--never gives you the good marnun." "It's larmentäable to see an old feller lik that all alöan, wudout friend nor kin." "He's straight enough in spite of it all--game as a youngster he is." § 13. Meanwhile the South African War dragged its muddled length from Stormberg to Magersfontein, through Colenso to Spion Kop. It meant more to Reuben than any earlier war--more than the Crimea, for then there were no newspaper correspondents, more than the Indian Mutiny, for that was with blacks, or the Franco-Prussian, for that was between furriners. Besides, there were two additional factors of tremendous importance--he could now spell out a good deal of his daily paper, and his sons were both fighting. They had gone out early in November, and were very good about writing to him. They could afford to be generous now they were free, so they sent him long letters, carefully printed out, as he could not read running hand. They told him wonderful stories of camps and bivouacs, of skirmishes and snipings. They enlarged on the grilling fierceness of the December sun which had burnt their faces brick-red and peeled their noses--on the flies which swarmed thicker by far than over Odiam midden--on the awful dysentery that grabbed at half their pals--on the hypocritical Boers, who read the Bible and used dum-dum bullets. They came safely through Magersfontein, the only big encounter in which they were both engaged. David was made a sergeant soon afterwards. Reuben sent them out tobacco and chocolate, and contributed to funds for supplying the troops with woollen comforts. He felt himself something of a patriot, and would talk eagerly about "My son the Sergeant," or "My boys out at the Front." He was very busy over his new corn scheme, and as time went on came to resent the attitude of the European Powers in not attacking England and forcing her to subsist on her own grain supplies. All Europe hated Britain, so his newspapers said, so why did not all Europe attack Britain with its armies as well as with its Press? We would beat it, of course--what was all Europe but a set of furriners?--meantime our foreign wheat supplies would be cut off by the prowling navies of France, Germany, Russia and everywhere else, which Reuben imagined crowding the seas, while the true-born sons of Britain, sustaining themselves for the first time on British-grown corn, and getting drunk for the first time on beer innocent of foreign hop-substitutes, would drive upstart Europe to its grave, and start a millennium of high prices and heavy grain duties.