“Up the moor, and seemed to relish his liberty. He may be at Linsall by this time--though I doubt the marshes on that side o’ the heather would stop him--or happen he’s taken t’ other road, and got to Keta’s Well--or--” “Then where the devil am I to look for him?” snapped Reuben. “God knows--which, as I’ve seen life, means always that human-folk can’t guess. Where are Peggy’s wits, Mr. Gaunt? God knows again--for bless me if her mother does.” Reuben went off, the bridle dangling from his arm; and Widow Mathewson turned across the paddock. “Reckon he’ll have a longish walk before him, any way,” she said. “Beggars don’t ride most times--and neither does Reuben Gaunt to-day.” Gaunt himself abandoned all thought of seeking the cob. It would reach home, or he would hear of its whereabouts to-morrow. Meanwhile, he was glad of this further respite from his talk with Yeoman Hirst. “It would be too late, by the time I walked to Good Intent,” he thought. “I’ll ride up about supper-time, and catch John Hirst in his ripe, evening humour.” When he reached home, his cob was waiting for him on his own lawn. It had jumped the round, grey wall that guarded the highroad, and now, after a morning’s tribulation, was seeking for grass-stalks on the shaven lawn. Horses and dogs were no harsh judges of Reuben Gaunt; and now, as the cob came whinnying to him, he said to himself with a laugh that it was the first friendly welcome he had had since riding up to Ghyll. Priscilla had gone across the fields, carrying first disillusionment now in place of first love--the love that she had buried yonder in the wooded dingle. She felt no anger toward Reuben; it was as if she had seen him die suddenly and without warning, had seen him pass into a dim land of which she had no ken; and the stupor of her grief for him was on her. For herself, the silver thread was loosened that had bound her to the spring. Sunlight and shadow on the pastures, the rising skynote of the lark, the fretting of the curlews and the plover; she saw and heard them, but could no longer understand their beauty. Between herself and life there was a dead, grey wall; and cowslips nodded vainly to her as she passed, and, when the lambs came frisking toward her, she did not heed them. She was glad, on reaching Good Intent, to find that her father had finished his early dinner and was out in the fields. Mechanically she set about her duties, forgetting to take food herself; and, like David, she found a certain ease, a certain deadening of pain, in moving forward with her work. When Hirst came in about half after four, she was pale, and her eyes were listless, but she was mistress of herself and ready with a greeting. “Thou’st overtired thyself, lile lass,” said the farmer, patting her shoulder as he crossed to the big hearth-chair. “Eh, well! Maids will roam i’ the spring, and forget their victuals; and maybe, after all, it does them no great harm.”