Palk started with a full cart presently, while Maynard began to collect fresh masses of the dry fern and bind it. He found himself well content at Falcon Farm. He was settling down and liked the place and the people. He did not observe, or attempt to observe, anything beneath the surface of his new neighbours; but they proved agreeable, easy, friendly; they satisfied him well. He liked John Bamsey; he liked Melinda Honeysett, and had visited her father and found a spirit who promised to throw light on some of his own problems. Now he was to meet yet another from his new circle. He worked two hundred yards above the road that ran slantwise across the hillside to Buckland; and from below him now, whence the sound of a trotting horse's footfall ascended, he heard a sudden, harsh noise which spoke of an accident. Silence followed. The horse had ceased to trot and had evidently come down. Maynard dropped his hay fork, tightened his leather belt and descended swiftly to the hedge. Looking over into the deep lane below he saw a pony on the ground, the shaft of a light market-cart broken, and a girl with her hat crushed, her hair fallen and a bloody face, loosening the harness. She was a brown, young woman with a pair of dark grey eyes and a countenance that preserved a cheerful expression despite her troubles. She wore a tweed skirt and a white flannel bodice upon which the blood from her face had already dropped. She was kneeling and in some danger of the struggling pony's hoofs. "Stand clear!" shouted Lawrence. Then he jumped the sheer eight feet of the wall, falling for his own comfort on the mass of beech leaves that filled the water-table below. The girl rose. She was filled with concern for the pony. "Poor chap; he's been down before. How's his knees? All my fault. I got thinking and forgot the road was slippery." "You're badly cut I'm thinking." "It's nothing much. I fell on top of him when he came down. 'Twas a buckle done it I expect." The man freed the pony and pulled back the trap. The animal had not hurt itself, but was frightened and in a mood to run away. The cart had a shaft broken short off, but was not otherwise injured. Its driver directed Lawrence. "Thank you I'm sure. That comes of wool-gathering when you ought to be minding your business. Serve me right. I'll take the pony--he knows me. D'you think you could pull the trap so far as Buckland, or shall I send for it? I can put it up there in a shed and send to Lower Town for a new shaft." "I'll fetch it along. Is your face done bleeding?" "Very near. You'll be Mr. Lawrence Maynard I suppose?" "So I am then. How d'you know it?" "Guessed it. I'm Dinah Waycott. I expect my young man has told you about me. 'Orphan Dinah' they call me. I'm tokened to John Bamsey, the water-keeper, my foster-father's son." He nodded. "I've heard tell about you. John Bamsey often drops in at Falcon Farm."