’No cawding of sheep on peaty moor,’ said Nanspian triumphantly. ’No fattening of bullocks on heather,’ replied Taverner. ’It is wet in Devon, it is wetter in Cornwall.’ ’Wetter! That is not possible. Here we live on the rose of a watering-can, pillowed among bogs.’ ’There are worse things than water,’ sneered Langford, pointing to the jug. ’Ah!’ said Hillary in defence. ’Sour is the land that grows sour apples and sour folks.’ ’Heaven made the apples—they are good enough. Man makes the cyder—which is evil. Thus it is with other good gifts, we pervert them to our bad ends.’ This was the formula gone through, with slight variations, whenever the brothers-in-law met at the granite seat. A little ruffle of each other, but it went no further. Hillary Nanspian was a talker, not loud but continuous. He had a rich, low, murmuring voice, with which he spoke out of one side of his mouth, whilst he inhaled tobacco through the other. It was pleasant to listen to, like the thrum of a bumble-bee or the whirr of a winnowing fan. The eyes closed, the head nodded, and sleep ensued. But every now and then Hillary uttered an oath, for he was not a man to wear a padlock on his lips, and then the dozing listener woke with a start. When that listener was Taverner, he uttered his protest. ’The word is uncalled for, Hillary; change it for one that sounds like it, and is inoffensive and unmeaning.’ There was much difference in the way in which the two men behaved when angered. Hillary was hot and blazed up in a sudden outburst. He was easily angered, but soon pacified, unless his pride were hurt. Taverner, on the other hand, though equally to take umbrage, took it in another fashion. He turned sallow, said little, and brooded over his wrong. If an opportunity offered to resent it, it was not allowed to pass, however long after the event. One evening the brothers-in-law were at the Look-out Stone. Hillary was standing with his foot on the block on which Taverner sat. ’I’ll tell you what,’ said Nanspian, ’I wish I’d got a few thousands to spare. Swaddledown is for sale, and the farm joins mine, and would be handy for stock.’ ’And I wish I could buy Bannadon. That will be in the market shortly, but I cannot unless you repay me what you have borrowed.’ ’Can’t do that just now; not comfortably, you understand.’ ’Then what is the good of your scheming to buy Swaddledown? A man without teeth mustn’t pick nuts.’ ’And what is the good of your wanting Bannadon when you have as much as you can manage at Langford? A man with his mouth full mustn’t take a second bite till he’s swallowed the first.’ Then neither spoke for a few moments. Presently, however, Hillary drew a long whiff, and blew the smoke before him. Slowly he pulled the pipe from between his lips, and with the end of the stem pointed down the valley. ’It would be something to be able to call those fields my own.’