Luke Cleverdon, Curate of Mary Tavy, walked slowly up the hill from the bridge over the brawling River Tavy towards Willsworthy. He was a tall, spare young man, with large soft brown eyes, and a pale face. His life had not been particularly happy. His parents had died when he was young, and old Cleverdon, of Hall, had taken charge of the boy in a grumblingly, ungracious fashion, resenting the conduct of his brother in dying, and encumbering him with the care of a delicate child. Luke was older than young Anthony, and possibly for a while old Anthony may have thought that, in the event of his wife giving him no son, Hall and his accumulations would devolve on this frail, white-faced, and timid lad. The boy proved to be fond of books, and wholly unsuited for farm life. Consequently he was sent to school, and then to College, and had been ordained by the Bishop of Exeter to the Curacy of Tavy St. Peter, or Petery-Tavy, as it was usually called. His uncle had never shown him affection, his young cousin, Anthony, had been in everything and every way preferred before him, and had been suffered to put him aside and tyrannise over him at his will. Only in Bessie had he found a friend, though hardly an associate, for Bessie's interests were other than those of the studious, thoughtful boy. She was a true Martha, caring for all that pertained to the good conduct of the house, and Luke had the dreamy idealism of Mary. The boy had suffered from contraction of the chest, but had grown out of his extreme delicacy in the fresh air of the country, and living on the abundant and wholesome food provided in a farm. His great passion was for the past. He had so little to charm him in the present, and no pursuit unfolding before him in the future, that he had been thrown as a lad to live in the past, to make the episodes of history his hunting fields. Fortunately for him, Dartmoor was strewn with prehistoric antiquities; upright stones ranged in avenues, in some instances extending for miles, with mysterious circles of unhewn blocks, and with cairns and kistvaens, or stone coffins, constructed of rude slabs of granite. Among these he wandered, imagining strange things, peopling the solitude, and dreaming of the Druids who, he supposed, had solemnised their ritual in these rude temples. Old Cleverdon was angered with the pursuits of his nephew. He utterly despised any pursuit which did not lead to money, and archæology was one which might, and often did, prove expensive, but was not remunerative from a pecuniary point of view. As soon as ever Luke was ordained and established in a curacy, the old man considered that his obligation towards him had ceased, and he left the poor young man to sustain himself on the miserable salary that was paid him by his non-resident Rector. But Luke's requirements were small, and his only grief at the smallness of his stipend was that it obliged him to forego the purchase of books.