"A canker inside is a very good figure of speech--a very clever thought," admitted Mr. Elvin. "And I'll tell you another thing: it's not much use for them as haven't got cankers to preach to them as have. Us ban't born with cankers most times. They grow, and I'm not grumbling against my lot in particular. I know there's many things might be worse. Only I've got in a state when I don't much like my fellow-creatures, and I don't like myself no more than the rest." "A foolish thing to feel. We have our faults and our virtues also. You ought to see the faults in yourself and the virtues in other people. At your gait, you'll end by thinking life isn't worth while at all." "I've thought that a powerful long time." "Well, set about to make it worth while then--and if you can't make it worth while for yourself--then make it worth while for your wife and children. Do that, and you'll mighty soon find it worth while for yourself too." "Sounds all right," admitted Joe. "You wise blades always do sound all right; but against a canker wise words be vain. A canker was a very true word, Jacob." Bullstone preached a little longer, asked Joe to come and see him at Red House and shook his hand in friendly fashion when they parted. He sighed, however, to Margery as they entered Ugborough Plain above Owley and began to climb the fern-clad bosom of the Beacon. "There's a man Fate can't tempt to be sane," he said. "And if I were Fate and had the handling of him, I'd give over treating him fair and knock him about a bit. He's one of the sort that don't know he's born. He's asking for trouble, and his nature so poisons his mind and blinds his eyes that he can't see his blessings, but looks through and beyond into fancied woe that isn't there." "Don't you know why?" she asked. "Old Mrs. Elvin will tell you. His father lost his wits and was put away." Jacob reflected. "I'd forgot that," he replied. "I'll mind it next time I have a word with him." They ascended by a vast but gentle slope to Ugborough's crown of cairns, and presently sat at the summit, with the sun and wind in their faces and their backs against the stones. Beneath them extended the mighty prospect of the South Hams, a mosaic of hamlet, forest and field, that seemed to be basking in the sun and stretching itself like a living thing. The varied colours of red tilth and pasture were washed in air, brought together and made harmonious. Earth rolled hugely out to the dim skyline of the sea, and westerly the Channel bit into the land, while easterly, Devon rose and swept the great waters out of sight behind her cliffs and ridges. Knap and knoll ascended to break the coverlet of the fields; here woods darkened the land and cloud shadows, vaster than they, hid a parish in their passing and swept over the sun-soaked expanses, to quicken the landscape with play of light and shadow.