Having once left the miracle undenied, and feeling the situation now altogether beyond explanation to the bucolic intellect, Will again silently acquiesced in the Herculean imputation and took the other handle. “But why didn’t you bring a cart or a truck?” he asked as they began walking cumbrously towards the bridge. “Ain’t got nowt but a wheelbarrow,” Caleb explained. “Times is changed—-Oi ain’t looker no more, and there’s two housen now. Old Peartree got to have a separate door, but ’twas a good bargain Oi put my cross to with the son o’ the Cornish furriner what Oi warked for these thirty-nine year. Mother will have it she’d ha’ made a cuter deal, she bein’ a dapster in figgers and reckonin’ out to a day when the New Jerusalem will be droppin’ down, but Oi don’t howd with women doin’ men’s business, bein’ as your rib can’t be your head.” “I quite agree,” said Will, surprised to find such enlightened sentiments in his queer old parent. “But tell me about Ben and Isaac and the others.” “They don’t write neither. We was lookin’ to you to tell us about the others as went furrin. Ben should be a barber in America, and they say as Christopher’s got a woife, colour o’ coffee.” “Nonsense, dad!” “Well, maybe ’twas Isaac.” “No Flynt would marry a nigger woman,” said Will decisively. “Oi’m right glad to hear it,” said Caleb. “For Oi count the young ’uns ’ud come out streaky and spotty like pigeons or cattle, and though they likely turn white when they die, and their souls be white all the time, Oi could never be comfortable along o’ finch-backed gran’childer.” With such discourse they beguiled the heavy way, trudging behind their tall shadows, till at the gate of the drive of Frog Farm they saw Martha peering eagerly along the avenue of witch-elms. In another instant Will, letting go his box-handle, was choked in her hug and wetted by her tears. “I can smell those sausages right here, mother,” he said, with a smile and a half sob. “How do ye howd?” And he emphasized the homely old idiom by patting her wrinkled cheek. She caught his hand in hers, and he was touched by the thin worn wedding-ring on the gnarled and freckled hand. His eyes roved round. “But surely this ain’t the house I was born in. Why, that was a giant’s castle.” Caleb looked a bit uneasy: “You’re sure this _be_ Will?” he asked Martha in one of his thundrous whispers. “Why, I’d know him in a hundred.” “Well, there’s onny nine or ten.” And he laughed gleefully. “Do be easy, Caleb. You’re getting as unrestful as Bundock.” “I’m Will right enough,” Will intervened. “Only everything seems to have got so small. Come along, dad.” He took up his side of the box: “Gracious goodness!” cried Martha, perceiving it at last. “My poor Will! Lugging that from Chipstone! Why didn’t you call to Jinny to stop and take it?” “How was I to know that that was Jinny’s cart dashing by?” he said, moving forward quickly. “I suppose you didn’t ask her to stay for the sausages?” he added lightly.