"Some warm day," he continued, "we'll sit on the fellside and wake again echoes of great deeds, and old battles. Thundergay shall be Olympus, and you shall be Athene, the azure-eyed maid. Listen to this----" He bent down by the fire and held the book so that he could read by its light. "'Now heaven's dread arms her mighty limbs invest, Jove's cuirass blazes on her ample breast....' "I can see you in them, Barbara." 'The massy golden helm she next assumes, That dreadful nods with four o'er shading plumes; So vast, the broad circumference contains A hundred battles on a hundred plains. The goddess thus the imperial car ascends; Shook by her arm the mighty javelin bends, Ponderous and huge; that when her fury burns, Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o'erturns.'" He closed the book and put it into the girl's hands. "I've never seen you roused up to do battle," he laughed, "but you'll look like that when the spirit moves you. Good-night, Barbara." Something stirred her like the call of a trumpet heard by her spiritual ears alone. Was her placid life upon the mountains going to end? Would she have to fight with her desires, because Duty still pointed a stern finger towards the sheep-paths, while another road opened before her--a broad and pleasant road. Peter always roused this restlessness in her heart. She was glad, yet sorry, when he went singing home, leaving her to the night-loneliness with her book of old battles. The next morning Peter Fleming was walking up and down the cobbled path of the mill-garden between flowering currant bushes, and sheaves of lent-lilies, whose buds were still encased in their pale-green sheaths. Everything sparkled in a sudden burst of sunshine. From the mill-wheel the water fell like a glittering fringe, and the beck raced merrily by, clutching at the weeds and grasses on its rim, and drawing them down to make them gorgeously green under its clear surface. On the other side of the stream stood Cringel Forest. The mill-house was a tall building with the date, 1600, carved over the door under a coat of arms of a wheat-sheaf and a sickle. The Flemings, or De Flemings, as they were then called--had been millers in the dale since the reign of Elizabeth, a fact which Dusty John prided himself upon, although he was as simple an old man as ever spoke the vernacular. The kitchen door was open at the end of the cobbled path, and in its hot and sunny atmosphere, Peter's mother stood ironing. Her muslin kerchief--as fine as ever came from the looms of the East India Company--her gown of russet, and white apron were the essence of cleanliness and order.