But the profound ignorance, the gross barbarism of her mind and manner of thought amazed him. He saw nothing of Old Grizzly, who, as Joyce expressed it, ’sloked away’ whenever he came in sight. ’Joyce,’ said Herring one day, as he knelt by her, having just bandaged her arms, ’do you know the difference between right and wrong?’ The question was called forth by some words of the girl showing a startling ignorance of the elements of morality. ’In coorse I do,’ she answered; then sitting up on her bed of heather, ’I’ll tell’y how I comed to know. I were once in a turnip-field fetching a turnip for our dinner. There were a wooddoo (dove) running up an oak hard by, and he sings out, "Tak’ two, Joyce, tak’ two;" and in an old holm tree sat a raven, and her shooked her head and said, "Very wrong, Joyce, very wrong." But I minded more what the wooddoo sed, and I took two. Then as I were climbing over the hedge, I dropped one turnip back in the field whence I’d took ’n; and the wooddoo called again "Tak’ two, Joyce, tak’ two." "So I will," sez I, and I pitches on my feet again in the field where the turnip had fallen to, and as I picked ’n up, in at the gate comed Farmer Freeze, and he seed me and set his dog Towzer on me, and my legs be scored now where Towzer set his teeth in me. After this I knowed never to believe wooddoos no more when they sez "Tak’ two." The raven were right. I shud ha’ tooked one or three or five. I knows now that it be wrong to take even numbers of aught, and right to take odd.[1] For you sees,’ she continued earnestly, ’if I had taken only one turnip, I’d ha’ been over the hedge and away avore Farmer Freeze comed in; but as I minded the wooddoo, and waited to take two, I were tore cruel bad by Towzer.’ [1] This story was told the author by a poor Devonshire labourer. He believed he had understood the language of the birds. Herring looked in her face with wonder. ’Joyce,’ he said, ’is this possible? Pray, have you ever heard of God?’ ’Who be he?’ ’He is above the sky.’ ’What, over the clouds, do’y mean?’ ’Yes.’ ’I’ve seed ’n scores and scores o’ times.’ (Here we must note that by this expression Joyce meant ’any number of times.’ She could not count above ten, the number of her fingers, and a score was her highest reckonable number, for that was the number of her fingers and toes.) ’You mean the sun as goes running everlasting after the moon; she be his wife, I reckon.’ ’Why so?’ asked Herring, with a smile. ’Becos her be always a trying to get out of his way.’ ’Did your father ill-treat your mother?’ he asked. ’In coorse he did, though I can’t remember much about it. Her was his wife, and he had a right to.’ ’Do you mean that he beat and kicked her, as he has beaten and kicked you?’ ’Kicked!’ echoed Joyce. ’Who ever sed as he kicked mother or I. It be gentlefolks and wrastlers as kick; us has nothing on our toes, and so us don’t kick for fear of hurting ’em.’