"I ask you," went on the stranger, without deigning to answer, "I ask you if it does not look like Providence? Here have you been for years, dwelling amid wealth of which you never dreamed. A ship is wrecked close to your doors, and of all her crew the one man saved is, perhaps, the one man who could enlighten you. You feed him, clothe him, nurse him. As soon as he can crawl about, he picks a walking-stick out of half-a-dozen or more in the hall, and goes out with you to take a look at the farm. On his way he notes many things. He sees (you'll excuse me, Farmer, but I can't help it) that you're all behind the world, and the land is yielding less than half of what it ought. Have you ever seen a book by Lord Dundonald on the connection between Agriculture and Chemistry? No? I thought not. Do you know of any manure better than the ore-weed you gather down at the Cove? Or the plan of malting grain to feed your cattle on through the winter? Or the respective merits of oxen and horses as beasts of draught? But these matters, though the life and soul of modern husbandry, are as nothing to this lump in my hand. What do you call the field we're now standing in?" "Parc Dew." "Exactly--the 'black field,' or the 'field of black soil': the very name should have told you. But you lay it down in grass, and but for the chance of this spud and a lucky thistle, I might have walked over it a score of times without guessing its secret. Man alive, it's red gold I have here--red, wicked, damnable, delicious gold--the root of all evil and of most joys." "If you lie, you lie enticingly, young man." "By gold, I mean stuff that shall make gold for you. There is ore here, but what ore exactly I can't tell till I've streamed it: lead, I fancy, with a trace of silver--wealth for you, certainly; and in what quantity you shall find out--" At this juncture a voice was heard calling over the hedge, at the bottom of the field. It came from Young Zeb, the upper part of whose person, as he stood up in his cart, was just visible between two tamarisk bushes. "Ru-b-y-y-y!" "Drat the chap!" exclaimed Ruby's father, wheeling round sharply. "What d'ye wa-a-a-nt?" he yelled back. "Come to know 'bout that chest o' dra-w-w-ers!" "Then come 'long round by th' ga-a-ate!" "Can't sta-a-ay! Want to know, as I'm drivin' to Liskeard, if Ruby thinks nine-an'-six too mu-u-ch, as the twiddles be so very cle-v-ver!" "How ridiculous!" muttered the stranger, just loud enough for Ruby to hear. "Who is this absurd person?" Jim Lewarne answered--"A low-lived chap, mister, as saved your skin awhile back." "Dear, dear--how unpardonable of me! I hadn't, the least idea at this distance. Excuse me, I must go and thank him at once." He moved towards the hedge with a brisk step that seemed to cost him some pain. The others followed, a pace or two behind.