“The real things are the old things,” he said. “They’re all I know, but I reckon you’d find them enough if you’d only believe it. I’d bide if I thought I could learn you, but I doubt you’re a long way off, and I can’t stop on as things are. I’d sooner be shot than have to stand it out--the never knowing when I’d be seeing you, the hearing and feeling you all around me, and not mine. D’you think I’d not know, passing the house, whether it had you inside of it, or turn a bend and not go sick with longing for you and fear to meet you? One of us must shift, and it can’t be you. It’s not for you to leave your folks and fend for yourself--it’s for me. I wish the old man didn’t take it so hard, but this is _my_ job, and I’ve got to quit. As for you, I reckon you’ll see clear some day, when you’re older. You’re only a bit of a lass yet--I forget it, you’re that wise! I don’t rightly know what you mean about closed doors. A man and a woman each has thoughts the other can’t hold with--they’re made different; but when they’re man and wife there’s a lot they can share together as they’d likely have never known, wanting one another. It seems to me that it’s made up that way. I can’t talk to you like Brack. I reckon I’m not sorry, neither, but I’m not that sort, anyway. I’ve my mind a deal on my work, as you don’t need telling, but it’s my heart as really learns me the things that matter. They’re few enough--ay, but they’re big enough too! Just trust in the morning and quiet in the evening, our own folk, and work, and food and sleep--seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night--the things the folks behind us knew afore we were born. The real things are the old things.” They went back to the beckoning porch in silence. * * * * * And all night long, in his troubled sleep, Wolf was bidding at Rosedale Queen. CHAPTER XIII HAMER’S FIRST TRAM In the country there are houses far more truly the recipients of formal visits than their occupants, just as, at public functions, your carriage comes up to your place’s name instead of your own; for master and tenant pass away, but the House remaineth. You do not call “on” Bythams, Lyndesays and Wyllens; you call “at” Gilthrotin, Crump or The Laithes. It is the house that stands on your visiting-list,--that has become a habit; and your dropped pasteboard is for its door rather than for those beneath its roof. Watters was one of these “habits,” but the Legend of the Kitchen Tea, mysteriously promulgated and enlarged, held many aloof who had no particular axe to grind. Mrs. Shaw, divided between crochet and creameries, was indifferent to the quality and size of their social circle. Hamer, sweetly taking the grinders at their personal estimate, was unconscious of any difficulty. It was only Dandy on whom the situation, seen more clearly, pressed unkindly.