“Ay, well, I can nobbut try,” Kit said, sitting up and speaking with sudden force. “As for the changes you’re making out, I reckon they waint bite. There’s nowt can change that much in a couple o’ years, not things as is fairly set. There’s no change on the marsh as I can see, for all the sea’s frettin’ at it still; and danged if Jim Bell grandmother bedstead baint mendin’ yon fence yet!” “Marsh don’t change overmuch, but it changes, all the same. What, they say, don’t they, as it all come out o’ the sea? Yon’s change enough, surely, when you come to think on? And folks change a deal faster than land and suchlike. I reckon you’ve changed yourself, these last two years.” They were only Marget’s words, like the rest, but just for the moment they struck a little chill. It was likely enough that he had altered, as they said, when you came to think what those two years had meant. He had thought himself at the end of change when he left the farm, except for the change that is the beginning of things. If there were any currents left in his life’s stream, they had seemed too weak to carry him off his feet; yet now they were stirring and lifting him again. But if it was true that there were changes in himself, they could only be superficial, after all. Marget’s branding-iron could not permanently have disfigured his soul. At least he was sure that folks going home turned again into their old selves. When they went in at the door they forgot at once everything that had pushed its way in between. The real things were there, as they found; the real selves, the real souls. The rest was incidental as garments flung away. The old feeling took them that they were looking forward instead of back, happy because of the future instead of the past. Yet really they were happier than they had been before, because of the extra gladness of coming home. They would hardly know themselves when they looked in the glass, because the faces and feelings did not match. The place was full of things that took them back—like the smell and feel of things, and the sun on the floor. No matter what life had managed to do to them, it faded now. These were the real things where their real selves had stayed. They were the same, in spite of the years, abidingly, patiently, blessedly the same. He was so certain about it all that he spoke even more forcibly than he had done before. “I’d not change to the marsh if I was dead and riz!” he said. “I’d not change to the farm if Squire offered me the Hall. And I’d be Kit Sill and for evermore Kit Sill, if I was coming from Heaven an’ nobbut from next door!”