He was often up at Ghyll these days, and Widow Mathewson’s smile, when she met him in the doorway, or saw him coming across the croft, was his reward. She was doing the farm work alone, stubborn in her pride of isolation. Reuben helped her so far as he could, but he had bigger lands to see to; and one quiet noontide he walked up, with a strapping farm-lad at his side. “Who’s this ye’ve brought, Reuben?” said the widow, standing stiff at her own porch. “Only a lazy hound I can’t lick into shape, mother. Teach him to help you about the farm, and send him back as soon as you’ve trained him. He can be spared from Marshlands, now there’s less to be done about the fields.” “Nay, now, Reuben--I’m not one to go borrowing--I war niver that sort--an’ I’m used to work.” “The lad has his orders--from me,” said Reuben. “See that he does his full share of the work, mother, and a little over.” Mrs. Mathewson, to her surprise, found herself yielding to this new air of Gaunt’s, half persuasive and half masterful. Indeed, she was beginning more and more to lean on him, and would tell herself, as she smoked by the hearth at nights, that she had earned a little luxury, maybe, in her old age. This morning she was slow to yield. The work was too much for one pair of hands, and she was “bone-weary;” but better work till she dropped than let it be said that they had needed outside help at Ghyll. At last she consented grudgingly. “’Tis only a loan o’ th’ lad, mind ye,” she hastened to assure him. “I suppose I mun hire one soon, like it or no; ’specially now they begin to ask for milk again down i’ Garth. They ask i’ a whisper, though,” she added, with her old, tart humour. “A shout would bring fever out of its kennel, so they fancy still.” So the farm-lad was left at Ghyll; and the look on his face was laughable to watch when Reuben left him to the mercies of Widow Mathewson. The master might be harder these days than of old; but the widow’s hardness, and the strength of her fist to back it if need be, were renowned throughout the dale. September passed, and still the clear, gold magic made Paradise of fields and copse. It was now that magic walked across the fells. The dales-folk had seen the mystery in other years, but never as they saw it now; for no man could remember such a spell of drought; and such a fall rain to follow it.