"Joe treats time with contempt," he declared. "He did ought to have told me long ago; but I always reckon with the likes of him. I think for a lot of people and save them from their own slow wits. Not that Stockman's got slow wits. His wits serve him very well indeed, as no doubt you've found." "He's a good farmer and a kind-hearted sort of man." "So he is, so he is. You'll not hear me say a word against him." "Yet a few do." "They do. But mind you, when he says he worked as a young man, it's true. He did work and took a long view, so now you find him as he is. But he never loved work for itself, same as I do. Work never was meat and drink to him; and when it had got him what he wanted, he was very well content to play and let others work for him. And knowing well what work means, nobody he employs will ever deceive him on the subject." "He sees that we earn our money. But he's fair." "Ah! To be fair with your neighbour is a great gift. Few are, and who shall wonder? Now Joe's a man who takes a generous view of himself. But 'tis better to be hard on yourself and easy with other people--don't you think?" "A fine thing, to be hard on yourself, no doubt," admitted Lawrence. "Yes, and them who are hardest on themselves will often be easiest with their neighbours. But that's a high position to reach, and few can." "It's very easy in my opinion not to judge other people. But when life demands you to judge, then the trouble begins." "When our own interest comes in, we often make a mess of it and judge wrong," admitted Mr. Chaffe. "And what I always say to anybody in a fix is this: to get outside the question and think how it would be if it was all happening to somebody else. If you've got the sense to do that, you'll often be surprised to find the light will shine. And you'll often be surprised, also, to find how much smaller the thing bulks, if you can wriggle out of it yourself and take a bird's-eye view." "I expect that's true." "Oh yes, it's true. I've proved it. A thing happens and you're chin deep in it. Then you say to yourself, 'Suppose I was dead and looking down on this job from my heavenly mansion, how would it seem then?' And if you've got the intellects to do it, then you often get a gleam of sense that you never will while you're up against the facts and part of 'em. It's like the judge trying a case, without having any interest in it beyond the will that right shall be done." "Men haven't the gift for that." "They have not; yet even to try to do it stills passion and breeds patience and helps religion." "Very good advice, no doubt." "This coffin will go along early to-morrow morning, and I'll bring half the hurdles this week in two or three loads; and tell Joe the price be up a thought since last year. He knows that as well as I do."