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Mary's Island; stubbles of Guinea-corn, loved by quails; a velvety expanse of green grass sloping inland, with here and there a goodly palmyra grander than the columns of Ba'albek; palms necklaced with wine-calabashes, and a grove of baobab and other forest trees cabled with the most picturesque llianas, where birds of gorgeous plume sit and sing.
It is a great surprise, for you have been doing a big business." "I know it," and Stubbles' eyes dropped. "I would not be in this position to-day but for my family. My daughters, I regret to say, have not been as careful as they might have been, but my son is really the one who has ruined me.
Lyddon chattered, but at the end of that time Martin escaped and proceeded homewards. His head throbbed and his mind was much excited by the intelligence of the day. The yellow stubbles, the green meadows, the ploughed lands similarly spun before him and whirled up to meet the sky. As he re-entered the village a butcher's cart nearly knocked him down.
The winter pasturage, however, as has been already observed, did not take place entirely on ground kept for the purpose, but was partly the grazing of the stubbles. Horses, oxen, asses, and mules were reared, chiefly to supply the animals required by the landowners, carriers, soldiers, and so forth; herds of swine and of goats also were not neglected.
At times, over the sloping stubbles, broke the sound of the sportsman's gun; and ever and anon, by stream and sedge, they startled the shy wild fowl, just come from the far lands, nor yet settled in the new haunts too soon to be invaded. But there was no longer in the travellers the same hearts that had made light of hardship and fatigue.
So it is pleasant to-day to wander over the fields; across the crisp stubbles, where the thistledown is crowding in the "stooks" of black oats; past stretches of uncut corn looking red and ripe under a burning sun. White oxeye daisies in masses and groups, lilac-tinted thistles, and bright scarlet poppies grow in profusion among the tall wheat stalks.
That's what he's always doin'; runnin' away when there's work to be done." "He was home yesterday, was he not?" "Y'bet yer life he was, especially in the evenin'. He's ginerally around about that time." "Why?" "Oh, he's struck on the old professor's daughter. Her father doesn't like the Stubbles crowd, an' so Ben sneaks around there after he's in bed."
For a while he remained silent at the close of the trial, and merely listened to what the men were saying. He heard all kinds of suggestions and wild talk. Some advocated burning out the Stubbles, mill and house, and driving them from the parish. Others were for horse-whipping Ben and Squire Hawkins, while one went so far as to suggest that they hang Ben to the limb of a tree.
And on and on they walked in that strange, miserable silence, past all those benches and couples, out on the river-path by the fields, where the scent of hay-stacks, and the freshness from the early stubbles and the grasses webbed with dew, overpowered the faint reek of the river mud. And still on and on in the moonlight that haunted through the willows.
"Is it hard to decide?" the lawyer asked, noting his hesitation and preoccupied air. "Yes, it is. I wish to do what is fair. The tempter's advice is to get even now for the injury that has been done. But a nobler voice bids me to rise above such a feeling and do nothing in the spirit of revenge, but merely for the welfare of Rixton." "But should not the Stubbles be taught a severe lesson?
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