"Nay, then, I just couldn’t!" he snapped at last, wondering whether he was on his head or his heels. "Losh save us!" he added angrily, "haven’t I tellt you I meant to gang ever since I come in? It’ll take me all my time to hang on till spring, as it is." "You’ve run it as close as that?" Dent enquired, and Simon gave a grunt. "Ay, and I’m not the first as has done it, neither!" "Couldn’t your Blindbeck brother see to give you a hand? He’s done well for himself, I should say, and his children are getting on." "He’s given us a hand more than once already, has Will, but there’s no sense in throwing good money after bad. We’ll have to quit next year, if we don’t this. Farm’s going back, as you say, and I’m over old to pull it round. I can’t keep going for ever, nay, nor my missis, neither." He remembered Sarah’s eyes as he spoke, and how they were enough to clinch the matter in themselves, but he was too offended even to mention them by now. There was no telling to-day how Mr. Dent would take the tragic news. He had smiled and looked cheerful over the notice to quit, but Simon felt he would not be able to bear it if he smiled at Sarah’s eyes. Indeed, it was all he could do to keep a hold on himself, as it was,--first of all hearing that he ought to have gone long since, and then being told to stop when he’d settled to clear out! The trend of his injured thought must have reached the other at last, for he roused himself to look at his sulky face. "You needn’t think I’m trying to shove the place down your throat!" he said, with a laugh. "But I certainly thought you’d rather be stopping on!" Simon felt a little appeased, though he took care not to show any sign. He growled miserably that they had never intended to quit except under a coffin-lid. "This is where you want a lad of your own to take hold,--a lad with a good wife who would be able to see to you both. You’ve no news, I suppose, of that son of yours that went overseas?" "A word or two, now and then,--nowt more. Nowt as’d set you running across t’countryside to hear." "No chance of getting him home again, is there?" Dent enquired, and Simon stared at the floor and shook his head. He must have felt a change in the atmosphere, however, for suddenly he began to repeat what Sarah had told May, how Geordie had written for money, and there had been none to send. The words came easily after he had made a start, and for the time being he forgot his resentment and injured-tenant’s pride.