“‘So it be,’ she said, very soft, ‘an’ a wonnerful God made it, my dear. Go on, go on about the Dartymoors, will ’e?’ “‘Well,’ I said, ‘’tis a gert, lonesome land, all broke up wi’ rocky tors, as we call ’em, an’ clitters o’ granite where the foxes breed, an’ gashly bogs, in which you’m like to be stogged if you don’t know no better. An’ the cots be scattered over the face of it, an’ the little farms do lie here an’ there in the lew corners, wi’ their new-take fields around about. There’s a smell o’ peat in the air most times, an’ it do rise up very blue into the morning light. An’ the great marshes glimmer, an’ the plovers call in spring; an’ the ponies, wi’ their little ragged foals, go galloping unshod over the Moor. Then the rivers an’ rills twinkle every way, like silver an’ gold threads stretching miles an’ miles; an’ come summer the heather blows an’ the great hills shine out rosylike an’ butivul; an’—oh, my old dear—oh, ma’am—’ I says, breaking off, ‘doan’t ’e—doan’t ’e sob so—doan’t ’e take on like that, for I wouldn’t bring a wisht thought to ’e for money.’ “This I said ’cause the old ancient’s lips shook, an’ her bright eyes fell a-blinking, an’ great tears rolled down. Then she put her hands over her face an’ bowed over ’em. “‘My God!’ said the chap, half to hisself, ‘this is the first time my mother have wept to my sight; an’ I am sixty years old!’ “But of course a Devonshire woman wouldn’t cry afore a Frenchman, even if he was her son. “Come presently she cheered up. ‘Do ’e knaw a place by the name of Postbridge, my boy?’ she says. “‘I did ought to, ma’am,’ I sez; ‘’twas from Hartland Farm I runned.’ “She sighed a gert sigh. ‘Hartland!’ she says, as if the word was a whole hymn tune to her. “‘There’s a church, an’ a public, there now,’ I said. “‘An’ the gert men of renown? Parson Mason, an’ Mr. Slack, an’ Judge Buller, an’ Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt?’ she axed me. “‘Never heard tell of none of them,’ I said. “‘Course not,’ old lady answers. ‘Why—why, I forgot I be ninety-four. They heroes was all dead afore your faither an’ mother were born.’ “‘As to them,’ I tells her—‘as to my faither an’ mother, ma’am, there’s a manner of grave doubt, for I’m a workhouse boy, wi’out any havage that be known.’ “But her had fallen to dreaming. “‘Tell about the in-country,’ she said all of a sudden. ‘My mother comed from down Totnes way.’ “So I tells about the South Hams, an’ the farms, an’ the butivul apple-blooth, as creams out over the orchards in spring, an’ all the rest of it. “There, I talked myself dry an’ no mistake; an’ she nodded an’ nodded an’ laughed once; an’ it set her off coughing, an’ ’frighted her son terrible. “Then, after I’d been chittering for a month of Sundays, as it seemed to me, the day ended and it comed on dark, an’ she got up to go. “‘Keep un here,’ she says to the man. ‘For God’s love doan’t ’e let un go. Pay un anything he axes for to stop.’