Hirst was not given to intuition. He thanked his Maker every Sabbath for the past week’s mercies, and tended his flocks with cheery zeal throughout the next six days; but insight into the hidden workings of a man’s character was rare with him. He looked at David now--David, whose eyes were blue and honest as the sky that roved over the sloping fields, the rounded hills--and was compelled to understand his comrade. He knew now why Cilla had liked David well, but could not marry him. The “far” look in David’s eyes was that which nature’s priests wear--the look that Billy the Fool carried when he watched a pair of nesting throstles--the look of the folk who are content to watch life’s business, and to help it forward whenever a chance for kindliness meets them at the road corner. Again the friendly silence fell between them. David returned to mother earth again, and his voice had a wholesome snap in it. “What is Gaunt o’ Marshlands doing these days? Running still to waste like water?” “Well, no. He’s found running water has its uses in a thin-soil country, and is tilling his lands with it instead.” “Gaunt tilling his lands? Cuckoo’s eggs will be hatching throstles next.” “I thought you said folk were as God made ’em,” said Hirst, with a touch of sharpness. “Aye, but Gaunt’s as he made himself. I can’t abide the man, and never could.” So Hirst, to his own surprise, found himself defending Reuben. He spoke warmly of his fearlessness at Ghyll, of his plucky fight to win back a good name for his house. Not until met by this dogged opposition of David’s, had the yeoman guessed how well he had grown to like Gaunt. “Let bygones be bygones,” he finished. “’Tis not like ye, David, to keep up a grudge like this.” “No, ’tis not like me, and I never felt it for another man; and I won’t say I’m proud o’ the feeling. But there it is, and there it will have to bide a while longer, seeing I can’t get rid on’t.” Hirst, like a wise man, guessed that Cilla was the cause of the ill-feeling, and talked no more of Reuben. He chatted of Garth’s doings through the winter, led David on to talk of his adventures; but all the while he noted a growing restlessness in his companion. David kept glancing down toward the farm, then up at the pastures, as if in great fear or hope of some intrusion. “No, she’s not at home,” said Hirst, with a sly roar of laughter. “The lile lass is faring out at Keta’s Well.” David looked shyly at the yeoman, surprised that his secret had been guessed so easily. Then a great loneliness took hold of him, an instinct of trouble and foreboding. He had come straight to Good Intent, not pausing even for a visit to his forge; and there had been one picture in his mind. He would find Cilla, wearing the lilac gown, at the farm. He would see a new light in her eyes after the long absence and the unexpected return. He would find readier speech than of old.