"A faithful man to her memory. No doubt if the widow-men could all look back on such partners, there’d be less marrying a second than we see around us." "In my case," declared the host, "I can’t forget her enough to think of a second. Her great largeness of character was the peculiar trick of her; and she took such delight in everyday things, owing to being town-bred, that when I look at a sow with young, or a pony and foal, or the reds in the sky at evening, or a fall of snow, they all put me in mind of her. For whether ’twas a budding tree, or a fish in a pool, or one of they bumbling bees in a bit of clover, everything made that woman happier. Never wanted to go back to London, took to the country like a duck to water. So I can’t forget her so long as the lambs bleat and the clouds gather for rain and the bud breaks on the bough. I say, ’Ah! how my wife would have liked to see that fox slip off that stone;’ or ’how my dear woman would have clapped her hands to look at this grey-bird’s nest with the eggs in it.’" The old man heaved a sigh; the rest nodded. "Mr. Fogo was different," declared Simon Snell, who had recently arrived. "He’d got terrible tired of Sheepstor afore he left it; for he told me so." Reuben admitted this, and his gloom increased. "He’ll never come no more, I’m afraid. ’Twas only the mill that kept him so long. He must have London booming round him. He’s been in hospital since he was here, for the doctors to cut a lump of flesh out of his neck. But he’s very well again now; and busy about a coming turn up between Tom King and an unknown." "How do it feel to be among the race of married men, Billy?" asked Simon Snell. "’Tis a very proper feeling, Simon," answered the other. "In fact, I’ll go so far as to say a man don’t know he’s born until he’s married. You chaps--Bartley here and suchlike--talk of freedom. But ’tis all stuff and nonsense. You ban’t free till you’m married; you be a poor, unfinished thing without your own woman, and I should advise dashing blades like you, Simon, and you, Timothy, to look around before the grey hairs begin to thrust in. Thirty to thirty-five is the accepted time. I’m thirty-three myself." "There’s outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace I see, too," said Mr. Moses. "I was by your house a bit ago, and I was terrible pleased to mark all the windows mended and a bit of paint on the woodwork of ’em, and a new swing gate where you used to have nought but a pole across and a piece of old sacking to keep the chickens in. The place is a changed place and so smart as any bride could wish for."