Within a month the banns were called and a little later the oddly assorted couple pushed off into matrimony. Whereas, however, Byron believed himself to be marrying Wastralls—the good farm and the waste lands by the sea—making it for ever flesh of his flesh, his in indissoluble union, Sabina did not intend to endow her lover with her worldly goods. She held the land by right of inheritance and by a worthier right, that of the farmer who deals understandingly with her fields. Although she cultivated the farm in the way that had brought prosperity to the family, her stock was pedigree and realized good prices, her seed was the best procurable and she was always ready to try new manures and dressings. She was not a woman of ideas, neither was she reactionary but a fold of Old Squire’s mantle hung from her shoulders and, as the neighbours said, "to give the maid her due, her’s a first-rate farmer." She loved her farm, but as a sportsman loves a good dog. She exacted from it the utmost it could give and was its considerate master, but she could have no conception of Leadville’s attitude. If it had been explained to her that he loved the land as a man loves a woman, she would have doubted her informant, and if convinced have thought her husband a fool for his pains. As it was, when he attempted to assert his new rights, as he did immediately after their marriage, she stared in surprise. "’Oo told you to give the orders to the ’inds when I’ve got a tongue of me own?" "I thought I was savin’ of ’ee a lot of trouble." "I don’t want yer to do my work for me. I can do it meself." "I should think you got enough to do indoors without goin’ outdoors workin’. I don’t see what a woman want to be out in all weathers for." Sabina laughed good-humouredly. "My dear feller, I always bin outdoor. Rain or fine don’t make any difference to me." "Well, my dear, you’ll lose all they good looks o’ yours. I don’t like to see women all burned up. You’ll be an old woman before you’m a young one." "I don’t care what I be, and I don’t believe a word you say is true. Ony’ow I shall chance it." "Well, ’tis the man’s place to teel the land." "A fine mess you’d make of it, too. Look at the Mill fields! If Con turned the ditches out they wouldn’t be so wet; even Tom don’t keep ’is fields so clean as mine." "I don’t care ’bout that, ’bain’t a woman’s work." "Aw, git away. ’Tidn’t all women that want to farm; but those that do, let’m ’av it. ’Tis just whether they can farm or can’t." "Well, I think it’s my business as I’m yer ’usband. You ought to let me ’av it." "What’s the good to let you ’av it, you dunno nothing about farmin’. You bin to sea most all yer life. ’Tis years an’ years since you ploughed a bit o’ ground." A dark colour came into the bridegroom’s cheek. "’Ow can you say that when I was brought up on the land. I knaw all about farm work. ’Aving married you, to ’av the farm’s my due."