“Hal, my friend,” said the miller, when they stood together at the entrance to the lane, having seen Mr. Wesley drive off with Jake. “Hal, for the first time these sixteen years I have seen thee rise from thy supper without searching about for thy pipe!” “My pipe? List, old friend, while I tell thee that to pass another such evening I would break my pipe into a hundred pieces and never draw a whiff of 'bacca between my teeth,” said Hal. “Moreover, a word in thy ear: I would not have it made public; I'll smoke no more 'bacca that comes to me by a back way. I believe that why I didn't smoke this evening was by reason of the feeling that was in me that 'twould be a solemn sin for me to let him have even a sniff of 'bacca that had been run.” The miller laughed. “Why, Hal, he did not preach to us to give the Preventive men their due,” he said. “No, no. If he had I might ha' been the less disposed to do the right thing. But now--well, no more smuggled 'bacca for me.” “Good:--good--but wherefore this honest resolve, Hal Holmes?” “I know not. Only I seem somehow to look at some things in a new light.” “And that light will not let your tinder be fired over a pipe o' 'bacca that has paid no duty? That's right enough, but what I need to learn from you is the reason of all this.” “Ah, there you have me, friend. I can give you no reason for it; only the notion came over me quite sudden like, that for ten year I had been doing what I should ha' turned from, and I made the resolve now to turn now before it was too late. That's all, and so, good-night to you, Mat, and God bless you. I be to get that shoe on before he starts from Jake's house i' the morn, and he said he would start betimes.” The miller laughed again, but very gently, and held out his hand to the other without a word. It was not until the blacksmith had disappeared down the lane that his friend said in a low voice: “It beats me clean. There must be a sort of magic in the man's tongue that it works those wonders. All the time that he was telling us his story o' the woods I was making up my mind to be a better man--to have more charity at heart for my fellows--to be easier on such as cannot pay all that they have promised to pay. And now here's Hal that confesses to the same, albeit he has never gone further out of the straight track than to puff a pipe that has paid nothing to King George's purse. And the man gave no preacher's admonition to us, but only talked o' the forest and such-like wild things.... Now, how did he manage to bring Faith into such a simple discourse?... Oh, 'tis his tongue that has the magic in it! Magic, I say; for how did it come that when he spoke I found myself gazing like a child at a picture--a solid, bright picture o' woods and things?... Oh, 'tis true magic, this--true!” CHAPTER V