"He's bewitched Woodrow, if you ax me," said Joe. "'Tis the evil eye over again. Farmer can't call his soul his own now. He don't seem to care a groat for the place. Thicky big monster be always right. Why, if he wanted to pull down the house and build it again to a new pattern, I believe it would be done. Prout's no more good than a bird on a tree; though he used to hold his own very well. Now he always says 'ditto' to Brendon." "Not that Brendon be what he exactly was, all the same," argued Agg. "He's much gentler and easier, despite his uplifting. He don't order anybody about, and he's always got a good word for a good job well done." "I know that and I grant it. But who be he to pat us on the back so masterful? I don't want his praise any more than his blame. Damn it all! I was getting my shilling a day afore the man was born!" "'Tis just pushfulness have raised him up." "Why don't I go and pat him on the back and say, 'Well done, Brendon!'? I've as much right to patronize him as what he have me," continued Joe. The other laughed. "Well, why don't you? 'Tis beyond words to explain these things. But there 'tis. He's above us--got there somehow--how, I don't know--had to do it by vartue of what's in him." "He may come down again, however." "I hope not. He's a good man, and grows larger-hearted and gentler as he grows older. His child have done a great deal to his character, as I dare say you've marked." "We've a right to be jealous of him, all the same. There's no justice in it. If I came along with great ideas, who'd listen to me?" asked Mr. Tapson. "That's it," answered Walter Agg very placidly. "That's just it. You and me don't get great ideas. Us never think of anything worth a lump of peat. All the same, Joe, I'll tell you this: me and Peter Lethbridge was feeling much like you do a bit back. And I had a tell with Prout on the subject, and he said a thing worth remembering in my judgment. He said, 'Don't envy the man, souls; never envy nobody. 'Tis only God in heaven knows if a human creature's to be envied or not. No fellow-man can tell. How should they, for which among us can say from hour to hour whether even our own lot be good or evil?' That's what he spoke to me, and there's sense in it. King or tinker may come a cropper, but the tinker's up soonest. Not much could happen to me or you--especially you, with your wife dead and no children. Your ill fortune's behind you; and, when all's said, us ought not to make another man's good luck our bad luck. 'Tis a mean-minded thing, though common." Elsewhere Daniel imparted a great ambition to Sarah Jane. "I do wish that he could hear Matherson." When either spoke indefinitely now, the other knew that Hilary Woodrow was meant. "I believe he'd come if you made a favour of it," she answered.