David the Smith opened and went in; and he felt himself forlorn, seeing the look of things within doors. On one side the hearth, with its back to him, was the hooded chair in which the farmer took his ease at nights; and a rough-coated elbow showing round the corner of the oak, a haze of blue smoke curling up toward the rafters, witnessed to Hirst’s presence. On the other side, facing David, as he entered, sat Priscilla, her work on her lap, her eyes on the fire that threw quiet, homely patches of ruddy light and sombre shadow round about the room. The farm-dog, Fanny, stretched at full length beside the fender, was too full of dreams to do aught save wag her tail in a feeble way, though she knew that one of her oldest friends had come. It was home, thought David; no subtle detail was wanting to complete this picture of fair prosperity and honest ease and fellowship--no detail lacking to save David an added pang. He had been content, till lately, with his work, his freedom, his trim little house with its garden sloping down to the stream; to-night he saw only the warm look of Good Intent, and by contrast his life seemed barren and unprofitable. He longed for a lass of his own, and a dog stretched half the length of the ingle-nook, and maybe the cry of a bairn as it waked in its mother’s arms and fell asleep again. “Come forrard, lad!” cried the farmer, getting himself out of his chair with a cheerful groan--for he was stiff after the long day’s work. “None so welcome at Good Intent, come late or early. Fanny,” he broke off, stirring the dog with his foot, “wilt get thy great body under settle, thou jade, and let a better than thee draw up a chair?” The dog stretched herself, gave a low “yeow-ow” of protest, looked up at Yeoman Hirst to learn if he were in earnest. Seeing he was, she turned to David, and put her fore paws on his chest and licked his face. “Nay, nay!” said he. “What sort of guest would David be, lass, if he let thee wheedle him after the master had said _under_?” Fanny had liquid eyes, of a shade and lustre that any woman might have owned to the shaming of her sisters; she lifted them now to David’s, in between the patient licking of his face, with surprise that he should turn the cold shoulder to a friend in this way. So it ended--seeing the man’s heart was soft and foolish toward all dumb things--in David’s bringing a chair up to the hearth, in his taking the dog’s brown-black, wistful head into his hands and stroking her muzzle softly. “Shame on thee, David!” laughed Hirst. “She’ll be all spoiled by to-morn, when I want her to drive up the sheep into the moor.” “We’ll chance it, Farmer! Ay, we’ll chance it. Like to feel a dog’s head in my hands, I--seems to hearten a man.”