He waxes bold. She is uneasy, indignant, eager
to rise. In her sleep she groans, and feels herself dependent, saying,
"No more do I belong to myself!"

* * * * *

"Here is a sensible countryman," says the lord; "he pays beforehand!
You charm me: do you know accounts?"--"A little."--"Well then, you
shall reckon with these folk. Every Saturday you shall sit under the
elm and receive their money. On Sunday, before mass, you shall bring
it up to the castle."

What a change in their condition! How the wife's heart beats when of a
Saturday she sees her poor workman, serf though he be, seated like a
lordling under the baronial shades. At first he feels giddy, but in
time accustoms himself to put on a grave air. It is no joking matter,
indeed; for the lord commands them to show him due respect. When he
has gone up to the castle, and the jealous ones look like laughing and
designing to pay him off, "You see that battlement," says the lord,
"the rope you don't see, but it is also ready. The first man who
touches him shall be set up there high and quick."

* * * * *

This speech is repeated from one to another; until it has spread
around these two as it were an atmosphere of terror. Everybody doffs
his hat to them, bowing very low indeed. But when they pass by, folk
stand aloof, and get out of the way. In order to shirk them they turn
up cross roads, with backs bended, with eyes turned carefully down.
Such a change makes them first savage, but afterwards sorrowful. They
walk alone through all the district. The wife's shrewdness marks the
hostile scorn of the castle, the trembling hate of those below. She
feels herself fearfully isolated between two perils. No one to defend
her but her lord, or rather the money they pay him: but then to find
that money, to spur on the peasant's slowness, and overcome his
sluggish antagonism, to snatch somewhat even from him who has nothing,
what hard pressure, what threats, what cruelty, must be employed! This
was never in the goodman's line of business. The wife brings him to
the mark by dint of much pushing: she says to him, "Be rough; at need
be cruel. Strike hard. Otherwise you will fall short of your
engagements; and then we are undone."

This suffering by day, however, is a trifle in comparison with the
tortures of the night. She seems to have lost the power of sleeping.
She gets up, walks to and fro, and roams about the ho