"'Tis Amicombe peat--the best in the world. Better than coal, you might almost say. We dry and we powder; then we build the cakes an' put 'em in thicky press till they are squeezed as hard as stone. There's your fuel! 'Twill smelt iron in the furnace! What other fashion o' peat but ours can do it? None as ever I heard tell about. Look at this here tar. What other peat will give you such stuff? None--none but Amicombe Hill. Millions of tons waiting--thousands of pounds of good money lying here under this heath--waiting." "And 'twill have to wait, seemingly." "That's the point. People think the Company's dead. But it ban't dead. I've seen the whole history. I was among the first they took on. I helped from the beginning. It ban't dead, only in low water. They may start again--they must. 'Tis madness to stop now." "You believe in it?" "I'd stake my last shilling in it. For that matter, I have done so. Company owes me fifty pounds less three, this very minute. But if the wise ones have their way, I'll get five hundred for my fifty yet." Mr. Friend's fire had sunk low; into the darkness from above shot one ray of daylight, blue by contrast with the gloom of the laboratory. "Come an' have a look at the engine," said the caretaker. "'Tis near twenty year since steam was up; and I've given such watchful heed to it that us might be running again in a week--but for a plate here and there that's eaten away." Brendon had wit to perceive that Mr. Friend's perspective was distorted in this matter. As one who lives intimately with a companion, and cleaves too close to mark the truth of Time's sure carving on a loved face, so this enthusiast quite failed to appreciate the real state of the peat works, or their absolute and utter ruination. The Company indeed lingered, but any likelihood of reconstruction was remote. From time to time engineers appeared upon the scene, made suggestions, and revived Gregory Friend; but nought came of these visits: everything remained stationary save the hand of Nature. Daniel praised a fifteen-horse-power engine, which the guardian of this desolation kept oiled and clean; he heard the peat expert's story, and discovered that, while Friend's belief in man had long since perished, his belief in Amicombe Hill and its hoarded possibilities was boundless and unshaken. This shaggy monster, heather-clad, with unctuous black fen rolling ten feet thick over its granite ribs, was his God. He worshipped it, ministered to it, played high priest to it. They walked together presently over the shining ridges where black pools lay and chocolate-coloured cuttings shone, fringed with the pink bog-heather. Mr. Friend thrust his fingers into the peat and reviewed a thousand great scads, where they stood upright, propped together to dry. In Gregory's eyes, as they wandered upon that scene forlorn, were the reverence of a worshipper and the pride of a parent.