It was not till late, as Billy and he moved up the street toward his forge, that a strange fancy came to David Blake. He remembered, as a lad, the stir and gossip there had been in Garth nigh twenty years ago. A company of strolling players had come to Garth, had played there to wondering rustics in the barn at the end of the village, and had gone their way--all save one, who stayed behind and found her way, late on a mirk and windy night, as far as Marshlands. She was found dead at the gate of the homestead on the morrow, and a four-year-old child was crying at her side. None ever knew the rights of the tale; but old Gaunt of Marshlands was known as the wildest roysterer in the dale, and, though some disbelieved the story that the woman had come to him for help and that he had deliberately turned her back, to die in the rain and cold, yet all believed that Gaunt was father to the child. The child was Billy the Fool, adopted and well cared for by all Garth--a village bairn, the plaything and the property of all kindly folk. And Reuben Gaunt was the acknowledged son and heir to Marshlands. “’Tis odd,” muttered David often and often, as he worked at the anvil and glanced at Billy. For he remembered the consistent hatred shown by the natural toward Reuben Gaunt. CHAPTER V Ghyll Farm was in the parish of Garth, but it lay so high on the moor-edge, and so far away from the sheltered village, that it was reckoned out of bounds. Moreover, Widow Mathewson, who lived there with her daughter Peggy, was accounted something of a heathen even in the charitable judgment of Garth folk. These two, mother and daughter, lived alone at Ghyll, doing their own farm work--even to scything of the one small meadow when haytime came. They went never at all to church or chapel; they were distant in their greetings when they chanced at rare intervals to meet their neighbours; they were pagan, self-reliant and alone, and it was said that Peggy was wild as the widow, and never a stiver to choose between them. Widow Mathewson was at her door this morning, watching the lambs play antics with their mothers in the fields below. Big-boned she was, and tall, and her face wore that lined, hard look of weather which women rarely show. She ceased to watch the lambs by and by, and her eyes wandered to the track that led to Garth--the track that glistened like a living thing beneath the April sun. Far down the slope of the path a slight, dark speck appeared, growing each moment till it showed itself as a man’s figure. The man was walking fast, steep as the field-track was, and Widow Mathewson laughed quietly when he came near enough to show the eagerness of his every movement. She left the doorway, and went and rested her arms on the rail that guarded the potato-patch from the fields. And she waited, with a look on her face such as David Blake had worn, three days ago, when he swore outright in the presence of daft-witted Billy.