While professing to care nothing about my neighbours, and to feel no interest in their movements, I did think I should like to see them without their seeing me. When Sunday approached, I wanted to ask if they went beetle and fern-hunting on the Sunday, but I was too great a coward to show even this much interest, and tried to persuade myself that it was a matter of no consequence to me. Still, I did wonder whether they and I would occupy opposite corners in that relic of barbarism, a high, square pew, for the church at Hailsby-le-Beck had not yet been restored, and was a marvel of internal ugliness. But Mrs. Jennings did not leave me to wonder long. "The gentlemen," she said, "have friends in this county, and either spend their Sundays with them, or go home. They leave on Saturday afternoons and return on Mondays." So my devotions were undisturbed by any occupants of the square pew, except the farmer and his wife. I spent a fortnight happily enough, for I had resolved to lay in as much strength as possible, the better to fit me for my duties at Hillstowe. I wanted to give my very best to those who were so good to me. So I borrowed a sun bonnet from Mrs. Jennings, and went with her to the hay-field, where she said I did not play at hay-making. I gathered the eggs, I fed the chickens, and after much effort and aching of wrists succeeded in learning to milk a cow. I turned my hand to whatever was going, and could soon bake, make up the butter, and do almost anything about the farm that its mistress was in the habit of putting her hand to. "I cannot know too much," I thought, "and if I should some day go out to Australia, such accomplishments would be useful." I had time besides for sketching expeditions and long rambles, sometimes with a cottager's child for company, at others alone, except for busy and not unhappy thoughts. I had known much sorrow, but God had been very good in answering my prayers, and giving me friends. I thanked Him and took courage. There was a pretty view near the stream, or "beck" as it was called, and I had made up my mind to sketch it, supported in this resolution by the knowledge that Messrs. Winn and Marsden never went fishing. The water was very low, and though the bottom was pebbly, there was some good stiff clay towards that portion of the steep banks left bare by the falling water. I was considering which side would be the best from which to take my sketch, and wanted to cross the beck, to find out. The only bridge was the trunk of a tree—not a very wide one, but substantial enough. Still, a firm foot and steady head were needed to cross it. I determined to attempt this, and got on very well until I was past the middle. Then the ungainly bridge gave an unexpected rock, for it was only thrown across, not fastened, and over I went into the water.