“Peggy, I’d thought to find a welcome here at Garth. There’s a damned conspiracy against me, and yet I came home again with soft and quiet thoughts enough, God knows. You’ve failed me, too.” “You did not seek me out, Reuben, till you were tired of better folk.” “More fool I, then, Peggy.” “It takes you a fortnight to tire, I remember, and two weeks chasing other game, and then you’re back again.” The girl laughed suddenly. To know a man to the core of him and find him wanting, and yet to be weak in his hands when he returns--it is a plight which brings women to the borderland where tears meet laughter. And tears are apt to conquer in such a case, though laughter is the safe, abiding road. Across the ages came the call to the girl’s heart--“As a hen gathers her chickens under her wing.” She heard the voice. She was stronger than Reuben Gaunt, and knew it, and her pity lay about him like a mother-wing. “Come close and hither, Reuben. There’s naught else will do for ye, ’twould seem,” she said. “’Tis five years since I kissed ye, Peggy,” he said by and by. “Ay,” she answered, with a weariness that shamed her big, straight body. “Ay, Reuben. We’re as we are made, I reckon, and ye and me are equal fools, each in our own way.” She picked up her basket, and they went along the quiet fields together. The grass was growing under their feet, and a lark was singing to the sun. There was no hint, from lark or greening pastures, that this narrow sheep-track which they followed was leading two folk into idleness. CHAPTER IV Though spring blew warm and soft from the west and Garth village saw its trim, quiet gardens blossom out to welcome the young summer, there was unrest about, as if an east wind blew. Neighbours passed the time of day together, and farmers from the hills came down and stayed to ask if this God’s weather-time would last. “Likely not,” was the answer always. “Ay, likely not,” the farmers would agree, though their wholesome, wind-blown faces suggested a more friendly outlook even on the weather. “Ye’re looking glum-like, misters,” said Billy, stepping up one morning to a group of them who stood chatting in Garth. It was a week after Reuben Gaunt had walked across the fields with Peggy Mathewson. They were not aware of any special gloom, but began to think it must be true if Billy said so. “And I’ll tell ye why,” went on the Fool imperturbably. “Te-he! I’ll tell ye why, ye wise farm-folk. Simple and fain to play am I; but I think a lot, just whiles and whiles, and Billy can answer riddles when more sensible-like folk seem bothered.”