"Not at the price you suggest," Ralph said, with a twinkle in his eye. The farmer grinned again. "I didn't main it that way," he said, digging another hole in the gravel. "I was thinkin' of myself. The farm ain't as good as I took it to be." "But it will mend every year." "Ef it don't I shall wish I never see'd it. The crops are lookin' only very middlin', I can assure 'ee." "Sorry to hear that. But what about the hay-field?" "I 'spose you've got a scythe?" "I can get one, in any case." "Well, 'spose we say done!" And Jenkins contemplated the evening sky again with considerable interest. Afterwards Ralph wished that he had found work for his spare time almost anywhere rather than on Hillside Farm. There was not a single thing that did not remind him in some way of the past. He would raise his head unconsciously, expecting to see his father working by his side. The flutter of Mrs. Jenkins' print dress in the garden would cause the word "mother" to leap to his lips unbidden, and when the daylight faded, and the moon began to peep over the hill, he would turn his face towards the house, fancying that Ruth was calling him to supper. He finished the task at length, and dropped his hard-earned silver into his pocket. "It'll be a dear crop of hay for me, I'm thinkin'," Jenkins said lugubriously. "It isn't so heavy as it might be," Ralph answered. "A damp spring suits Hillside best." "I sometimes wish your father had it instead of me." And Jenkins twisted his shoulders uncomfortably. "Father is better off," Ralph answered slowly, looking across the valley to a distant line of hills. "Ay, it's to be hoped so, for there ain't much better off here, I'm thinkin'. It's mostly worse off. And as we get owlder we feel it more 'n more." "So you regret taking the farm already?" Ralph questioned almost unconsciously. "I ded'n say so. We've got to make a livin' somehow, leastways we've got to try." And he turned suddenly round and walked into the house. Ralph walked across the fields to interview Peter Ladock, whose farm adjoined. He struck the boundary hedge at a point where a gnarled and twisted oak made a feature in the landscape. Half-way over the hedge he paused abruptly. This was the point his father had asked him to keep in his memory, and yet until this moment he had never once thought of it. Not that it mattered: the county was intersected with tin lodes, iron lodes, copper lodes, and lead lodes, and most of them would not pay for the working. And very likely this lode, if it existed--for, after all, his father had had very little opportunity of demonstrating its existence--would turn out to be no better than the rest. For a moment he paused to draw an imaginary line to the chimney-top, as his father had instructed him, then he sprang off the hedge into Ladock's field and made his way towards his house. Peter, who knew his man, agreed to pay Ralph by the hour, and he could work as many hours as he liked.