Fancies crowded round Reuben, as he worked in the pitiless heat. It was well that they came to his relief, for stauncher men than he might have yielded, without shame, to the misery of this task. He looked up at last, and dashed the sweat from his eyes. The grave was ready. The heat-waves, running from end to end of the open moor, danced giddily before him; he felt the body-sickness which had caught him at the end of the fell-race which had ended with an over-moor walk home, and a halt under the rowan here while Peggy and he talked of their coming marriage. When he recovered, and could see the moor again in proper outline, he saw Billy the Fool standing on the spur of rising ground behind. Billy’s face showed no trace of feeling; he stood motionless as some stone landmark reared to guide travellers across the heath. “Digging a grave, Mr. Gaunt?” he said quietly. Reuben was too deep in sorrow to be startled. He had not known that there was a looker-on while he worked, and Billy was the last of all Garth folk he would have wished to see just now; but it mattered little. “Yes, digging a grave, Billy.” His voice was tired. “I would not come overnear, if I were you, for there’s fever come to Ghyll.” “Te-he!” answered Billy gravely. “Fever doesn’t take lile fools such as me. ’Tis the sensible, wise folk, such as ye, Mr. Gaunt, that it takes a fancy to.” He was not afraid. So much was sure. But he turned, and went down the moor with his easy, loping strides; and Reuben wondered for a moment, in the midst of his weariness, what Billy was doing here. Billy could have given him no answer. He had heard of the trouble at Ghyll, and instinct had brought him up the moor to learn if it were Gaunt who was likely to die. Instinct took him, now that he had seen Reuben alive and well, down to the forge where much work awaited him. Gaunt forgot that he had come. He went heavily across the strip of moor to Ghyll, leaving his spade at the graveside. They were strong of body, Widow Mathewson and he, and it was only a little way from the farm to the rowan-tree. When all was done, and the kindly peat lay smooth above Gaunt’s first dream of wedlock, a curlew came flapping down the moor, and paused above the rowan-tree, and wheeled about it in wide circles. Sometimes it drew nearer, and sometimes it roamed wide; but it did not leave them, and its wail was piteous. The widow’s face was drawn and lined, as Gaunt’s was, but she held herself bravely, and her voice was quiet. “Happen the curlew’s her parson, Reuben. Would she be happier, think ye, down yonder i’ Garth kirkyard?” “’Tis strange, mother. I’ve heard few birds call since I came to Ghyll, and now--”