They were hungry ... their arms wound about each other and their faces pressed close, now cheek to cheek, now with lips fluttering together in those sweet kisses of youth which have so much of shyness in their passion. Suddenly a light kindled in the little house. Bessie slipped from him, and ran up the pathway into the dark gape of the door. § 10. In August Reuben bought ten more acres of Boarzell, and the yoke tightened on Odiam. All had now been pressed into service, even the epileptic George. From morning till night feet tramped, hoofs stamped, wheels rolled, backs bent, arms swung. Reuben himself worked hardest of all, for to his actual labour must be added long tramps from one part of the farm to the other to superintend his sons' work. Besides, he would allow nothing really important to be undertaken without him. He must be present when the first scythe swept into the hay, when his wonderful horse-reaper took its first step along the side of the cornfield, he must himself see to the spreading of the hops over the drying furnaces in the oasts, or rise in the cold twinkling hour after midnight to find out how Buttercup was doing with her calf. Pete made an able and keen lieutenant, but the other boys were still disappointing. It is true that Benjamin worked well and was often smart enough, but he had a roving disposition, which was more dangerous than Albert's, since it led him invariably down to the muddy Rother banks at Rye, where the great ships stood in the water, filling the air with good smells of fish and tar. Jemmy would loaf for hours round the capstans and building-stocks, and the piles of muddy rope that smelled of ooze, and he would talk to the sailormen and fishermen about voyages to the Azores and the Cape or to the wild seas south of the Horn, and would come home prating of sails and smoke-stacks, charts and logs, and other vain things that had nothing to do with Odiam. Reuben remembered that the boy's mother came of a family of ship-builders and sailormen, and he would tremble for Jemmy's allegiance, and punish his truancies twice as severely as Albert's. Another trial to him now was that Robert seemed half-hearted. Hitherto he had always worked conscientiously and well, even though he had never been smart or particularly keen; but now he seemed to loaf and slack--he dawdled, slipped clear of what he could, and once he actually asked Reuben for wages! This was unheard-of--not one of Reuben's sons had ever dreamed of such a thing before. "Wages!--wot are you wanting wages fur, young räascal? You're working to save money, not to earn it. You wait till all yon Moor is mine, and Odiam's the biggest farm in Sussex, before you ask fur wages."