“Wonderful March weather,” said the farmer, draining a last draught. “Near to April, and not a lamb-storm yet. ’Twill be twelve year since I remember such a spring.” “Found a primrose fair in bloom this morn,” said one of the farm-men. “Wonderful weather, I’ll own, farmer--but what’s to come with April? Mistrust these easiful, quiet March-times myself.” “Ah, get ye along!” cried Hirst. “Believe the best o’ the weather, I, and always did. They laugh at me in Shepston market--say I’m no true farmer, because I’ll not speak o’ the weather as if she were a jade for any man to mock at.” There was a silence, while the men lay tranquilly against the bank and watched the blue sky trail her draperies of cool, white fleece across the west wind’s track. “Reuben Gaunt is back, I’ve heard,” said one of the farm-hands presently. “Came last night, all unbeknownst-like, same fashion as he left, five years since.” “There’ll be brisk times for the lasses, then,” put in his fellow drily. Again the farmer’s face darkened for a moment. “’Tis work-time, lads, not gossip-time, and many a yard of hedge to fettle up before we get our suppers.” “I’ll be getting to my own work, too,” said David, nodding his farewells and moving down the field. At another time he would have put his own work off, would have taken a hand till nightfall with the hedge-trimmers, would have given them jest for jest and laugh for laugh, while he trimmed, and cut, and bent the hawthorn boughs into their place. But to-day he could not. “There’ll be a brisk time for the lasses, then,” he muttered, echoing the farm-hand’s idle speech. “Ay, there’s always trouble o’ that sort when Reuben Gaunt’s at hand.” Through the quiet fields he went, but they brought little benediction to him. He remembered Gaunt and all his ways, remembered how, when he left Garth, there had been no sadness in the men’s faces, but grief and bitterness in many women’s. “What the dangment do they see in him, these lasses?” growled David, as he climbed the wall and dropped into the highroad. “Littlish in the build--face as good to look at as a mangold-wurzel’s--must be those devil’s eyes of his, that never lie still for a moment, but go hunting like a dog that sniffs a fresh scent every yard.” David had summed up his man with unerring judgment in that last thought--so far, that is, as we can judge of any man. Had Gaunt been downright evil, it would have been easier for the men of Garth to have thrashed him long ago into a likelier and more wholesome habit. But even to-day, when he was in a mood that, for him, was bitter, the blacksmith knew that his enemy was neither good nor bad, but purposeless. He had watched him grow from childhood; and year by year his name of Reuben seemed more and more a prophecy of days to come. “Unstable as water--ay, just that,” thought David, as he reached the smithy.