They talked freely together, and presently rose and set out to rejoin Mr. Friend. Under their feet Daniel suddenly saw a piece of white ling, and stopped and picked it. "May I make bold to ax you to take it?" he said. "'Tis an old saying that it brings fortune." "Then I won't accept of it," she said. "Thank you all the same; but fortune's in the wind for me already; an' I don't want it very much. I'm happy enough where I be along with my father." "Tell me about the fortune," he said, flinging the heath away. Thereupon she reminded him that, despite her masculine aspirations and amazing frankness, she was a woman after all. Her eyes fell, then rose to his face again. A glorious, gentle, gentian blue they were. "You want to know such a lot, Mr. Brendon," she said. He was crushed instantly, and poured forth a string of apologies. "You all do it," she answered. "I don't know what there is about me; but you chaps get so friendly--I feel as if I'd got about fifty brothers among you. But there's things you can't tell even brothers, you know." "I'm terrible sorry. Just like my impudence to go pushing forward so. I deserve a clip on the side o' the head--same as my mother used to box my ears when I was a little one, an' hungry to ax too many questions." Mr. Friend was awake and ready to walk homeward. Daniel accepted an invitation to tea, and accompanied them. They ascended slowly by the steep channels of the Rattle-brook, and presently Gregory rested awhile. "I can't travel same as once I could," he explained. Then he moralized. "The world's an up an' down sort of place, like this here fen," he said. "Some holds the good and evil be balanced to a hair, so that every man have his proper share of each; but for my part I can't think it." "The balance be struck hereafter. That trust a man must cling to--or else he'll get no happiness out of living," answered Daniel; and the other nodded. "'Tis the only thought as can breed content in the mind; yet for the thousands that profess to believe it, you'll not find tens who really do so." "I'm sure I do," asserted Brendon. "At your time of life 'tis easy enough. But wait till you'm threescore and over. Then the spirit gets impatient, and it takes a very large pattern of faith to set such store on the next world that failure in this one don't sting. If I am took from yonder peat works afore their fame be established to the nation, I shall go reluctant, and I own it. There'll be nought so interesting in Heaven--from my point of view--as Amicombe Hill." "You'll have something better to think of and better to do, master." "Maybe I shall; but my mind will turn that way, and I shall think it terrible hard if all knowledge touching the future of the place be withholden from me." "We shall know so much of things down here as be good for our peace of mind, I reckon?" ventured Daniel.