‘Why should you think that?’ she said, without the least sign of emotion. ‘There’s no reason why you should go away . . . if you are comfortable.’ She didn’t say that they were glad to have him, though the fact remained that his money was useful to them. She didn’t say that they would be sorry to lose him. He simply felt that she had made him look foolish, and as this was the usual result of his dealings with her in spite of her politeness and her care for his comfort he gave up trying to find out what she was made of, and settled down to his life at Wolfpits as though she had nothing to do with it. He had always been fond of dogs and children, and Gladys, Morgan, and Spider soon became devoted to him. Morgan was evidently his mother’s favourite, and the little girl soon took a shy but definite fancy to Abner, wandering alone down the lane in the hope of meeting him on his way home from work and riding back to Wolfpits perched on his shoulder. She would watch him gravely while he stripped and swilled himself in the stableyard, standing by with a towel ready to catch the beads of water that sparkled on his eyebrows and his hair. Then hand in hand they would wander round the farmstead, visiting the pigsties and the barn in which the fowls were housed and searching for the nests of broody hens in the hedgerows. She loved above all things to sit upon his shoulder when she carried home the eggs in the small cup of her hands. She liked his hugeness and his strength, and rather despised Morgan for the fact that he was his mother’s boy. In those hills autumn came early, and soon sunset brought with it a hint of evening cold. The air of the mountains drooped upon the plain as soon as the western summits hid the sun, and in a little while their evenings were of lamplight. When Abner trudged home at night he could see the linnets gathering together for their autumn flights, hear the whir of their wings and their tender, reedy notes. Starlings, southward bound, swept the air in wheeling cohorts, and swifts darted wildly round the chimneys of Wolfpits. Wood fires were lighted in the kitchen grate at night, and when Abner had finished his tea he would settle down on the right hand of the fireplace with a pile of cut logs at his feet.