For there was a _thriving_ town full of awful chimneys in the valley, and the clouds that rose from it ascended above the Colmans’ farm to the great moor which stretched miles and miles beyond it. In the autumn sun its low forest of heather burned purple; in the pale winter it lay white under snow and frost; but through all the year winds would blow across it the dull smell of the smoke from below. Had such a fume risen to the earthly paradise, Dante would have imagined his purgatory sinking into hell. On all this inferno the night had sunk like a foretaste of cleansing death. The fires lay smoldering like poor, hopeless devils, fain to sleep. The world was merged in a tidal wave from the ocean of hope, and seemed to heave a restful sigh under its cooling renovation. CHAPTER III. A PENNYWORTH OF THINKING. “A penny for your thought, Walter!” said the girl, after a long silence, in which the night seemed at length to clasp her too close. “Your penny, then! I was thinking how wild and sweet the dark wind would be blowing up there among the ringing bells of the heather.” “You shall have the penny. I will pay you with your own coin. I keep all the pennies I win of you. What do you do with those you win of me?” “Oh, I don’t know! I take them because you insist on paying your bets, but--” “Debts, you mean, Walter! You know I never bet, even in fun! I hate taking things for nothing! I wouldn’t do it!” “Then what are you making me do now?” “Take a penny for the thought I bought of you for a penny. That’s fair trade, not gambling. And your thought to-night is well worth a penny. I felt the very wind on the moor for a moment!” “I’m afraid I sha’n’t get a penny a thought in London!” “Then you are going to London, Walter?” “Yes, indeed! What else! What is a man to do here?” “What is a man to do there?” “Make his way in the world.” “But, Walter, please let me understand! indeed I don’t want to be disagreeable! What do you wish to make your way to?” “To such a position as--” Here he stopped unsure. “You mean to fame, and honor, and riches, don’t you, Walter?” ventured Molly. “No--not riches. Did you ever hear of a poet and riches in the same breath?” “Oh, yes, I have!--though somehow they don’t seem to go together comfortably. If a poet is rich, he ought to show he couldn’t help it.” “Suppose he was made a lord, where would he then be without money?” “If to be a lord one must be rich, he ought never to wish to be a lord. But you do not want to be either lord or millionaire, Walter, do you?” “I hope I know better!” “Where does the way you speak of lead then, Walter? To fame?” “If it did, what would you have to say against it? Even Milton calls it ‘That last infirmity of noble mind!’” “But he calls it an infirmity, and such a bad infirmity, apparently, that it is the hardest of all to get rid of!”