“So you’re at Good Intent, David--and welcome!” shouted Yeoman Hirst, tramping in from the fields across the threshold of the sunlit doorway. It was a jest in Garth that John Hirst, though no way deaf himself, fancied all other folk were so. Priscilla dropped her eyes and took up the rolling-pin again. “Thank ye,” said David, with a quietness that contrasted oddly with the other’s roar. “Ay, I’m here passing the time of day with Priscilla. I must be off by that token, for there’s work crying out for me at the forge yonder.” “Always was, so long as I remember. Outrageous man to be doing somewhat, is David--fair outrageous. Tuts! Ye’ll stay for a bite and sup with us? Cilla has a pigeon pie in the making, I see. Always said, I, that a pigeon pie served two good usages--keeps a lile lass out of mischief while she’s making it, and keeps her men-folk strong to work for her after they have eaten it.” David shook his head. “I’ve too much on hand, and thank ye, farmer. Will come another day, if ye’re so good as to think of naming it again. Good day, Priscilla.” With a nod to them both he was off, and John Hirst chuckled weightily. “Fair gluttonous for labour, eh, Cilla?” he said. “David would do better if he took more while-times o’ rest, say I.” Priscilla was busier with her task than the time of day demanded; and her father, getting no answer, came round to her side of the table, and pinched her cheek, and watched the dough of the pie-crust as she rolled it into shape--watched with the eye of faith, and trusted it would be brown and wholesome by half-past twelve o’clock, or thereby. “The lile lass is busy, too,” he laughed, in what was meant to be a gentle tone of raillery. “Busy with your hands, Cilla--and busy awhile since with your eyes, I reckon, when David came a-courting.” She glanced up sharply, and again the farmer laughed, as if a half-gale had got into his throat. “Nay, I overheard nothing, Cilla,” he said. “I only looked at David’s face, and I gathered ye’d said no. Second thoughts are best, lile lass, second thoughts are best. Never saw a properer man than David myself, and I’m reckoned a judge of cattle.” “Can you measure human-folk by the ways of the kine, father?” she said, fitting the dough to the edge of the pie-bowl. “Mostly--ay, mostly, Cilla. Chips of the old gnarled tree o’ life, are all us living folk, two legged or four. Choose a likely lad, Cilla--and, for the Lord’s sake, get that pie into the oven. Have been up the fields since seven of the clock, and hunger’s timepiece says ’tis dinner-hour, or ought to be.” John Hirst went out again, for he had a virile wisdom and a knowledge of the time to leave a woman when he had spoken truth to her.