“Five years ago, Priscilla,” he answered, with a laugh which David swore was false to the note of throstles and all wholesome things. “You ask me to remember some one I knew at fourteen,” said Priscilla quietly. “It seems long ago to me.” David went to smooth the flanks of the roan cow, who turned her head and licked his waistcoat tranquilly from the topmost to the lowest button. “I know him now,” growled the smith. “Garth has been well rid of him these five years, to my thinking. Pity’s he’s come back.” He glanced again at the other man, and was overtaken by an impulse to throw his adversary bodily out of the mistal-yard; so he pulled himself together, as one who was accustomed to follow kindly instincts only. “Well, I’ll be jogging, Priscilla,” he said, making for the door. “The cow is ailing naught so much, and ’tis time I got to smithy-work again.” “So you’ve forgotten me too, David?” said the stranger airily, as Blake was pushing past him. “Nay,” answered David, not seeing the proffered hand. “I remember you well, Gaunt of Marshlands--and I’ll bid you good day, as I was ever glad to do.” CHAPTER II “That’s a pleasant sort of welcome, eh?” said Reuben Gaunt, as he watched David’s broad back disappear round the corner of the stables. Priscilla’s interest was awakened already, and the smith had done an ill turn to his own cause by arousing her sympathy as well. “You’ll find pleasanter welcomes here in Garth,” the girl answered, with that candour of thought and expression which in itself was dignity. “It was stupid of me to forget you, Mr. Gaunt, but I was so little, when you used to play big brother to me and show me all the wonders of the Dene.” “I think it must not be Mr. Gaunt. The folk who like me call me Reuben, as you did once.” Priscilla was vaguely disturbed. Softness of speech and manner she understood, for she had ever been a favourite with the landed gentlefolk of Strathgarth; and, because she understood them, she detected the false note in Gaunt’s would-be correctness. Yet she pushed the distrust aside; for this man had been away from Garth for five long years, had seen the mysteries hidden in the beyond, and doubtless he could tell her of them. “We are older now,” she answered, a little smile belying her rebuke. “It must be Mr. Gaunt, or naught at all.” “Well, then, it must be Miss Priscilla, too?” “’Twould be fitting, I think. Five years are not bridged in a moment, and father tells me I’m a woman grown, though I feel a child when the spring comes in as it is coming now.” An older and more constant playmate than Gaunt of Marshlands sang to her--sang blithe and high--through the mistal-door; but she scarcely heard the throstle, for Gaunt brought news from the beyond. “Where have you been these years past?” she asked, moving restlessly from foot to foot. “Everywhere, I fancy,” laughed the other. “I’ve seen the world, as I always meant to do; and a queer world I’ve found it.”