“There’s devil enough in me nowadays, and thank ye--rather too much for my liking. Truth is, my temper’s breaking, Farmer, and breaking badly. Like an ill-forged bit of metal it is--breaks if ye hit it gently.” “Ay, I know--I know, David, lad!” put in the other, with the wise, tolerant smile of age. “Bless me, ’tis a few odd years since the first man went daft-wit over the first woman, and there’s been other-some in your place, David, in the in-between years.” “I’ll go, anyway,” said David by and by. “Can’t bide still in Garth as things are. Yet how I’m going to live without Garth street, and the forge, and the fields running up to the moor--I cannot guess. ’Twill be a wrench when it comes, for sure.” “Well, now, ’tis not for a lifetime, supposing Cilla lets ye go--which, mind ye, I don’t believe.” The door at the stairway foot was opened suddenly. Priscilla had left her watching of the moonlight and her thoughts of Reuben Gaunt to come down and spread the supper-board. Her tread was light at all times, and the two men were so intent on their talk that they heard nothing until the rattle of the door-sneck warned them. Yeoman Hirst prided himself on taking any situation by the horns at a moment’s notice. So now he laughed, setting the roof quivering again, and, “David,” said he, “you’re full of droll tales to-night. Pity that Cilla did not come before to hear yond last.” Cilla knew her father’s diplomacy, and guessed at once that they had been talking of her. Her self-command had in it some of David’s quality; perplexed as she was by her constant wish to ask David’s help, bewildered by the glamour-web that Gaunt had spun about her, she gave no sign of trouble. “David is merry to-night, father,” she answered quietly, and went into the outer kitchen to fetch the supper things. “Ay, my word, he’s merry!” muttered David ruefully. “Mustn’t let her guess that ye and me are as thick as thieves,” said Hirst, subduing his voice with hardship. “Love’s as good as lost, David, when a lass knows her father wants the lad as much as she. Must run contrary, these maids, or else there’s no frolic in’t. I’d have their fathers choose their lasses’ mates, for my part; but they’d rather seek counsel from the first beggar coming to the door to ask for scraps.” After supper--a quiet, unrestful meal to-night--David got up to say farewell. “Thou’lt open to him, Cilla?” cried the farmer, feigning to be stiffer in the joints than the day’s work warranted. “Old bones are old bones, choose how you try to prove them young.” Priscilla rose gravely, and opened the inner door; then went out into the porch, and stood looking at the crisp, clean night. “I wouldn’t have troubled you,” said David awkwardly. “’Tis no trouble, David; and yet, in other ways, you make great trouble for me.”