"I'm going to set to. My father's often at me about wasting my life. But, though he'd scorn the word, he's a bit of a dreamer too--in his way. You'd never guess it; but he spends many long hours all alone, brooding about things. And he's a very sharp-eyed, clever man. He marks the seasons by the things that happen out of doors. He'll come down off our tor that cheerful sometimes, you wouldn't believe 'twas him. 'Curlew's back on the Moor,' he'll say one day; then another day, 'Oaks are budding'; then again, 'First frost to-night,' or 'Thunder's coming.' His bark is worse than his bite, really." "'Tis his terrible eyes I fear. They look through you. He makes me feel small, and I always hate anybody that does that." "You mustn't hate him. Too many do already. But 'twould be better to feel sorry for him. He's often a very unhappy old man. I feel it, but I can't see the reason, and he says nothing." She pouted. "I wish I hadn't got to see him. Why, his own brother--your Uncle Nathan--even he can't hit it off with him. And I'm sure there must be something wrong with a man that can't get on with Mr. Nathan. Everybody is fond of him; but I've often heard him say----" "Leave it," interrupted Mark. "I know all that, Cora. 'Tis just one of those puzzles that happen. 'Tis no good fretting about anybody else: what you've got to do is to make my father love you. And you've only got to be yourself and he must love you." "Of course I'll do my best." "Give me just one more lovely kiss, before we get over the hill-top and come in sight of them. We're to meet at the 'old men's' camp." She kissed him and then silence fell between them. It lasted a long while until he broke it. "Don't fancy because I'm so still that I'm not bursting with joy," he said. "But when I think of what's happened to me this minute, I feel 'tis too big for words. The thoughts in me can't be spoken, Cora. They are too large to cram into little pitiful speeches." "I'm getting hungry; and there's Milly waving," she answered. "Milly's hungry too, belike." Eastward, under Pen Beacon, lay an ancient lodge of the neolithic people. The circles of scattered granite shone grey, set in foliage and fruit of the bilberry, with lichens on the stone and mosses woven into the grass about them. A semicircle of hills extended beyond and formed a mighty theatre where dawn and storm played their parts, where falling night was pictured largely and moonshine slept upon lonely heights and valleys. In the glen beneath spread Dendles Wood, with fringes of larch and pine hiding the River Yealm and spreading a verdant medley of deep summer green in the lap of the grey hills. Gold autumn furzes flashed along the waste, and the pink ling broke into her first tremble of colourless light that precedes the blush of fulness.