“Mother is vastly right at times, Reuben,” she said. “’Tis in our family to love a man o’er keenly, and to listen to his lies, and to go on caring all the more. There’s one thing puzzles me, all the same.” He waited, perplexed as he often was by women’s moods, though by this time he ought to have known their every turn. “Nay, only this, Reuben”--there was pathos in the quietness of the deep, strong voice--“I was young and unused to heartache when I found it first. I’m five years older, lad, and I’ve suffered and come through it. Seems it has taught me little. Seems I might as well be weaker than ye, instead of stronger. ’Tis a bit of a muddle, Reuben, this life o’ wind and sun and turmoil.” David the Smith, meanwhile, was walking up the lane to Good Intent. He did not need to watch Yeoman Hirst well out of Garth before he stole into the fold, for he was welcome there at all times. A desperate business David had on hand. He had thought much of Priscilla of the Good Intent during these last days; and this meant only that he had halted more often in his work of smithying or what not to wonder how the lass would best be made happy. It was while he was sharpening a bill-hook on the grindstone in his smithy-yard that David had got his adventure well in hand. “Never thought of that before,” he said, running his thumb along the blade. “I’m a rum chap enough, God knows; but, if it comes to a tussle ’twixt me and Reuben Gaunt--well, I’m stronger in the thews than he, and maybe I’m what ye call steadier-like.” So David, with plain faith in plain strength of stronger thews and steadier morals, laid down the bill-hook, and bade his faithful comrade, Billy, to sleep on guard; and he strode along the quiet street of Garth, and turned into the lane that led to Good Intent. He found Priscilla in the kitchen, her arms bared above her elbows. She was making a pigeon pie for Farmer Hirst, and David thought, as he saw her in the sunlight, that no man need ask for a bonnier sight than Garth could give him. “I’ve something to say to ye, Priscilla,” was his greeting. David could never do any business save in his own way. If he were driving a stake into the ground, he took up his mallet and hit it plumb; if he were asked to shoe a horse, he did not stay for talk, but brought the nag to reason soon as he could and clapped the shoe on it. So now he proposed, in great simplicity, to deal with this more desperate business. “Something to say?” laughed Cilla of the Good Intent. “’Tis not often you have that, David.” He did not heed. If he had spoken out like this at that gloaming tide when Priscilla had first waited for him to speak, when Gaunt had shadowed the mistal-door, it might have been better, or worse, for David; but now it was too late. “The time of day was behind him,” as they say in Garth, but he did not heed.