“Aye, there’s Nancy’s uncle,” prompted Jagger when the old woman hesitated. He had been listening with a tolerance that was tinged with contempt yet not free from curiosity, and he now repeated the inquiry as grannie remained silent. “What ails Uncle John? He’s done well enough, hasn’t he?” “I don’t trust him, lad!” She shook her head solemnly and turned her dim eyes not to him but to the fire where she seemed to see portents that were slow to clothe themselves in words. “It’s same wi’ t’ Cleggs as wi’ t’ Drakes; there’s naught but mischief happens to them what leave t’ moors. John was always under-hand; fair-looking as t’ bog, and fair-spoken as a lass ’at wants a new gown; but shifty, lad, shifty. You may beware of a Clegg ’at leaves t’ moor. There was his grandad——” “Uncle John’s got on all right, anyway,” said Jagger, who knew that if the old lady once set out on the stream of reminiscence she would carry him along with her to wearisome lengths. “He’s made money, and he’s done us a good turn as well as Nancy and Baldwin; gives us double what we should get from t’ bank.” “Maybe,” she replied. “I know naught about it; but it’s written in his fam’ly’s fate ’at he’ll come to mischief i’ t’ long run if he leaves t’ moor.” “Well, if he does it won’t bother us,” said Jagger with a yawn. “Nancy settled that when she threw me overboard, and t’ bit we have with him’ll be wanted now. All t’ same, grannie, I should like to swop places with Uncle John.” CHAPTER VI IN WHICH BALDWIN’S SCAFFOLDING GIVES WAY AND ALSO HIS RESERVE “BREATHES there a man with soul so dead—?” You would have said that even Baldwin’s dank soul must have fired as he left the Tarn road and struck across the moor to Walker’s farm. Inman, who walked uncomfortably beside him, accommodating his long strides to the other’s nervous steps, felt the thrill of the morning in his veins if not in his soul and would have liked to quicken the pace and enliven the solitude with a whistled melody. As it was, the keen November wind was left to do the whistling, with the long bent grass for its pipe, and it did it so tunefully that Inman remarked upon it. “The bag-pipes are busy this morning,” he said. The pepper-coloured tufts on Mr. Briggs’ eyebrows almost touched, as he turned uncomprehending eyes on his companion’s face, and the look was easy of interpretation. Inman knew that his master thought him a fool and was therefore prepared for the reply: “I suppose you know what you’re talking about; I don’t.”