Youth is susceptible to that which it awakes, and Ishmael sallied out early next morning in a mood to match the month as it then shone to greet him. The sun had not long cleared the east, and the globes of dew glimmered on leaf and twig and darkened his boots as he crossed the ill-kept lawn in front of the house. He promised himself it should be rolled and mown and have flower-beds around it, and that a wind-break of firs should be planted along the low granite wall which was all that divided it from the bare moor. He went to the little gate and, leaning his back against it, looked long at the house as though for the first time. He noted the solid simple lines of its long front and the beauty of its heavy mullions and the stone corbels beneath the roof. The portico over the door had pillars of square rough-hewn granite, a whole room was built out over it, with a wide-silled window, beneath which the Ruan arms were carved on a granite shield. That door should have a drive leading up and widening before it; at present what cart-track there was went meekly along the side of the low wall into the farmyard. Those two big velvet-dark yews that stood sentinel either side of the porch would look splendid when clipped taut and square. So he planned, and then, hearing the voice of John-James calling to the cows, he remembered that the utilitarian side of the place must come first; and he went up the path, through the panelled corridor that led through the house, into the court, passed under the arch at the opposite side, and so into the farmyard. There the cows were gathering for the milking, swinging slowly into the yard while John-James held open the gate from the field. They were good cows, but Ishmael glanced at them critically. Cows were to be his chief concern, for the home farm was not large enough to yield much in the way of crops for sale--nearly all would be needed for the winter consumption of his own beasts. Most of the corn sown was the dredge-corn, a mingling of barley and oats sown together and ground together, which was used for cattle, and the roots and hay were all needed also. Even then there would have to be special foods bought, Ishmael decided, for he believed in farmyard manure, and to obtain that at its best the cattle had to be well and carefully fed. These cows he now saw were good enough of their kind, but he wished to start Guernseys or Jerseys, or more probably a cross-breed of the two, as being fitter for the bare country than pure-bred animals. John-James tramped in behind the last cow and closed the gate. He had made no remark at sight of Ishmael, and all he now said was: "Them are good cows. Good as any you'll get up-country I reckon." "They look all right for their kind," admitted Ishmael.