Pendoggat left the court after sentence upon Brightly had been pronounced, and began his homeward journey. The trial had pleased him, and satisfied his sense of justice. He was hurrying back because there was a service that evening and he was going to preach. Brightly would make a good subject for his sermon, the man who was alone because he was not fit to dwell with his kind, the man who had been caught in his sins and punished for them. He had always tried to impress his listeners with the fact that every man is sure to suffer for his sins some day; and he believed what he said, and could not understand why people were so dull as to think they would escape. Pendoggat had discovered long ago that every man regards his neighbours as sinners and himself as a saint. He behaved in exactly the same way himself. He would not be punished, because he always made a point of repenting of his sins. He saved himself by prayer and chapel attendances, and every day would insure his soul against fire by reading the Bible. And yet he thought himself different from other people, and was amazed when they had the effrontery to declare that they too were saved, although neighbour This and neighbour That ought to have known they were most assuredly and everlastingly damned. The region of the Tavy was cold and clear; a great change from the low-lying city on the Exe and Greedy where there had been mist and drizzle. As Pendoggat rode up from Lydford he noticed white pools and splashes upon the dark tower and roof of St. Michael's church upon its mount, and his heart warmed at the cold sight. It was to him what the note of the cuckoo is to many, a promise, not of spring, but of the wild days when solitude increases and the bogs become blue glaciers. Winter had come and there would soon be the usual November fall of snow. Pendoggat prepared his discourse as he rode up. The night was coming when no man could work, miners least of all. His was not a cold theology by any means. It contained, indeed, little that was not red-hot. The old-fashioned lake of fire, surrounded by attendants in a uniform of tails and hoofs, armed with pitchforks to keep sinners sizzling and turn them occasionally, was good enough for him. Every one would have to be burnt some time, like the gorse in swaling-time, except himself.