"The highest beauty be tidiness," Mrs. Bullstone never wearied of declaring, and her son was content to echo that opinion. His home and its surroundings proclaimed the distinction of use, but none other. There were no flower beds, no attempt to decorate house, garden, or river. Indeed Auna was chastened by stone-built banks, until she passed southerly away to the rocks and rapids and the deep mossy pools, where Red House ducks and geese spent their pleasantest hours. Nature strove with man, but man conquered for a little space. Mrs. Bullstone was at the door and repeated her son's directions, as she took the cream from him. "Get up to your chamber and doff them clothes, Margery. I well know your mother don't hold with 'em and I hope you won't wear 'em no more." "I'm kennel-maid a little longer, mother," replied the girl. Then she entered and Jacob conducted the puppies to their quarters. Behind the house was a large exercise yard, with open compartments wired off round about it, a boiler house for the preparation of food, and various buildings on two sides of the square. The red mothers of the puppies welcomed them back and the little things knew their parents. Separated dogs barked to Jacob from enclosures and pressed their noses through the bars; but all were of the same breed and to an untrained eye exactly resembled each other. Jacob accosted a few, then turned to a man who was mixing food. "The goats are gone up Shipley Tor," he said. For goats were a feature of the establishment. A little flock was kept, since goats' milk in Bullstone's opinion was the primest food for new born dogs. Barton Gill, though bald and wrinkled, was not so old as he looked. As a lad he had worked for Jacob's father and was now little more than fifty, though he appeared to be nearer seventy. He was slow of voice and gesture, but still was strong and hearty behind his wrinkles and somewhat pessimistic view of life. "They goats be the bane of my days," he said, "and a time's coming when I shan't be able to keep pace with the toads." Jacob laughed shortly. "Must be grizzling--and you only in your full manhood, as we all know." A mile away walked slowly Barlow Huxam and his wife, while Jeremy, their son, a lad of fifteen, loitered behind them, to play and fling stones; but he kept his parents in sight. Mr. Huxam, a solid fair man of five and forty, mopped his brow and declared that he must rest and grow cooler before proceeding. "We ought to have hired Mr. Catt's little chaise as I ordained to do," he said. "'Tis drouthy weather and a thunder-storm promising for certain." His wife, however, did not agree with him. "You don't take enough foot exercise, Barlow. If you was to walk more, it wouldn't pour out of you same as it does. There's no thunder in the air, else my head would know it. We'll rest by the bridge since we're a thought before time."