“Horrible!’I should ha’ died.” “Then you may rejoice that Providence has ordained that she should go after the schoolmaster. Now you must look out and see what step you can take to recover the respect of the parish.” “How can I do that?” “Oh, there be more fishes in the sea than come out of it, I reckon.” Jan remained in meditation, speechless. Rose pressed close to his side. “Have you no room?” he asked. “Oh, ’tisn’t that altogether; my feelings overcame me. I do so, so pity you, you dear, poor Jan.” Presently, as he continued silent, she said, “If I were you, when shortly you meet Kitty, and when she will be in my place at your side, and I ride behind, I would not look like an apple that has gone under the rollers, nor hang my ears like a whipped dog, but laugh and joke and whistle and be jolly, you know.” “That don’t seem right, with her father burned to death.” “She knows nothing of that, and is to know nothing of it from us. The proper person to tell her is Mrs. Pepperill. So mind, Jan, not a word about Mr. Quarm. Understand, not a word. So look cheerful and whistle.” “What shall I whistle? Jackson’s ‘Tee-dum’?” “Of course not, something lively. The ‘Green Bushes.’” “Why the ‘Green Bushes’?” “Oh, silly Jan!” Then she began to sing’ “’The old lover arrived, the maiden was gone; He sighed very deeply, he stood all alone, “She is on with another, before off with me, So adieu ye green bushes for ever!” said he.‘ “Green bushes’that is the orchard, Jan, where grow the silver peninks.” “Drat that fly!” exclaimed Jan, flicking with his whip. “Her’s at it again.” CHAPTER XL A GREAT FEAR Kate was among the felled timber at Brimpts, skipping about the logs, stooping, then rising again, and withal singing merrily, when Jan and Rose, having put up the horse at Dart-meet, came up the valley to join her. The peeled trunks lay white as bones on the surface of the moor, and a fresh and stimulating odour was exhaled from them. The bark was piled up in stacks at intervals. The whortleberry was flowering in the spring sun. The heather was still dead. Horns of ferns, brown, and curled like pastoral staves, stood up between the trunks. After the first greetings had been exchanged, Rose asked Kitty, “What in the world are you doing here’bobbing about? In search of long cripples (vipers)?” “No; I do not want them. I have started some basking in the hot sun, but they slip away at once and do no harm. I am counting the rings on the trees.” “What for?” “To learn their age.” “Who cares how old the trees are?” “I do; and thus one can find out in what years the trees grew fast, and which summers were wet and cold.” “Really, Kitty, you are going silly.” “It is interesting,” pursued Kate; “and then, Rose, I do not altogether believe in the rings telling the age truly. I think the oaks are much older than they pretend to be.”