“’Tis easy found, then: for it stands on the south coast yonder, and no house near it: five mile from anywhere, and sixteen from Temple, due south. Shall want thee afore thou startest, Jack. Dear, now! who’d ha’ thought I was so dirty?” The cottage door stood open as we rode into the yard, and from it a faint smoke came curling, with a smell of peat. Within I found the smould’ring turves scattered about as on the day of my first arrival, and among them Joan’s father stretch’d, flat on his face: only this time the cat was curl’d up quietly, and lying between the old man’s shoulder blades. “Drunk again,” said Joan shortly. But looking more narrowly, I marked a purplish stain on the ground by the old man’s mouth, and turned him softly over. “Joan,” said I, “he’s not drunk—he’s dead!” She stood above us and looked down, first at the corpse, then at me, without speaking for a time: at last— “Then I reckon he may so well be buried.” “Girl,” I call’d out, being shocked at this callousness, “’tis your father—and he is dead!” “Why that’s so, lad. An he were alive, shouldn’t trouble thee to bury ’n.” And so, before night, we carried him up to the bleak tor side, and dug his grave there; the black cat following us to look. Five feet deep we laid him, having dug down to solid rock; and having covered him over, went silently back to the hovel. Joan had not shed a single tear. CHAPTER XIV. I DO NO GOOD IN THE HOUSE OF GLEYS. Very early next morning I awoke, and hearing no sound in the loft above (whither, since my coming, Joan had carried her bed), concluded her to be still asleep. But in this I was mistaken: for going to the well at the back to wash, I found her there, studying her face in the mirror. “Luckily met, Jack,” she said, when I was cleansed and freshly glowing: “Now fill another bucket and sarve me the same.” “Cannot you wash yourself?” I ask’d, as I did so. “Lost the knack, I reckon. Stand thee so, an’ slush the water over me.” “But your clothes!” I cried out, “they’ll be soaking wet!” “Clothes won’t be worse for a wash, neither. So slush away.” Therefore, standing at three paces’ distance, I sent a bucketful over her, and then another and another. Six times I filled and emptied the bucket in all: and at the end she was satisfied, and went, dripping, back to the kitchen to get me my breakfast. “Art early abroad,” she said, as we sat together over the meal. “Yes, for I must ride to Gleys this morning.” “Shan’t be sorry to miss thee for a while. Makes me feel so shy—this cleanliness.” So, promising to be back by nightfall, I went presently to saddle Molly: and following Joan’s directions and her warnings against quags and pitfalls, was soon riding south across the moor and well on my road to the House of Gleys.