"I should think Mr. Woodrow wouldn't stand in your way. He rode up to see father last year, and was a very kindly man, though rather sorrowful-looking." "He is a kindly man," said Brendon, "and a good master, which we all allow. But he'm only half alive, so to say. At least, the other half of him be hidden from us. He'm not one of us, along of his education. A great reader of books and a great secret thinker." "I'm sure he'll come to know your vartues, if he's such a clever man as all that," said Sarah Jane frankly. The compliment took Daniel's breath away. He laughed foolishly. "'Tis terrible kind of you to say so, and I thank you very much for them words," he answered. The father eyed them, and saw Mr. Brendon's neck and cheeks grow red. The young men often revealed these phenomena before his daughter's good wishes. She was amiable and generous-hearted. Her exceedingly sequestered life might have made some women shy; but to her it lent a candour and unconventional singleness of mind, that rendered more sophisticated spirits uneasy. The doors of her nature were thrown open; she almost thought aloud. Numerous suitors courted her in consequence, and a clown or two had erred before Sarah Jane, because they imagined that her good-natured interest in their affairs must be significant and special. Brendon, however, was not the man to make any such mistake. He departed, impressed and flattered at her sympathy; yet his mind did not dwell upon that. He sought rather to think a picture of her young face, and strove to find a just simile for her hair. He decided that it was the colour of kerning corn, when first the green fades and the milky grain begins to feel the kiss of summer. A man cried to him before he had gone more than a hundred yards from Dunnagoat Cottage, and, rather gladly, he retraced his steps. But Sarah Jane had disappeared, and Mr. Friend was alone. Gregory advanced to meet him as he returned. "I like you," said the elder. "You'm serious-minded and might wish to hear more about the truth of peat. What do you do of a Sunday?" "I go to church mornings; then there's a few odd bits o' work; but I've nought between three o'clock and supper." "Next Sunday, if the day's fine, I'm going over to Wattern Oke." "I know the hill." "You can meet me an' my darter there an' have a tell, if you mind to." "I'm sure nothing would please me better, Mr. Friend--'tis a very great act of kindness to propose it." Gregory nodded and said no more, while Brendon, gratified by the invitation, went his way. He had no thought for the immensity of the earth vision now rolling under his feet. His eye turned inward to regard impressions recently registered by memory. Friend's strange, peat-smeared face, his shining beard, and wild eyes; Sarah Jane's neck and shoulders and straight back; her hands that held the cider-jug; her voice, so kindly--these things quite filled the man's slow brain.