“Strange? There’s naught stranger than life, Reuben--than life, and what we’ve put to bed under th’ rowan-tree. Folk get mazed wi’ chatter, seems to me, down i’ the valleys; they fancy life’s made up o’ gossip, an’ borrowing tin kettles one fro’ t’ other, an’ quarrelling when one here an’ there has burned th’ bottom through.” The curlew drew nearer to them, wheeled above their heads. Its cry was Ishmael’s, and the undernote of it was loneliness. “Yond’s Peggy’s mate,” said the widow. “She was allus a wild bird, she, and she never would have settled down at Marshlands. Reuben, lad, cannot ye comfort yourself wi’ that thought?” He smiled gravely. “Had I no wildness, then?” he asked. “That used to be your trouble, surely, in the old days.” “Ay, but ’twas a different sort o’ wildness. See yond curlew. ’Twill go down to th’ lowlands to feed, Reuben, an’ to have a frolic, like; but tell it that it’s got to bide there for life, and ’twould die o’ homesickness. Oh, it’s hard to say it, an’ harder to believe it, but maybe all’s for the best.” She turned for a last look at the grave; then, with a firmer tread than Gaunt’s, she moved down the moor. As they reached the croft, they saw a burly horseman unfastening the gate with his crop. “Nay, doctor, if ye please!” cried the widow, lifting a warning hand. “Oh, I know you’ve fever in the house,” he said impatiently. “That’s why I came. I only heard of it an hour since, as I passed through Garth. How’s the patient?” “Past your caring for--but thank ye all th’ same, doctor.” “Oh, bless me--Peggy dead? I can’t believe it. Mrs. Mathewson, I wish to God I’d heard the news sooner. I might have saved her.” “I fancy not. She niver had th’ look o’ one as war going to mend, an’ I’ve seen many a case i’ my time. Now, doctor, turn about. There’s the rest o’ the dale to think of, an’ ye’ll not better aught by seeking risks.” She told him of the burial, of Reuben’s help, of their resolve to save Garth, so far as their own endurance went, from the scourge that lay so close about it. She spoke of these matters as of such usual tasks as cattle-milking or taking corn to the poultry-yard; there was no sense of heroism behind her quiet statement of the facts. The doctor ceased fumbling with the rusty gate-catch. “I always thought you had sense enough for three, and now I know it. Of course, I should be a fool--a bit of a knave, too--to go in when there’s nothing to be done.” Widow Mathewson could not restrain the pride--grim enough, but clean and honest--which had given her strength to meet the years of trouble. There was no malice in her tone, no unfriendliness. “They allus said i’ Garth that we kept ourselves to ourselves up here. Well, we did while we were i’ health, doctor; tell them we’ll do no less, now we’re i’ trouble.” The doctor nodded, gave a quick inquiring glance at Reuben from under his shaggy eyebrows, and rode forward along the ridge of the moor.