He was in one way better off than his neighbours from a worldly point of view, in that he had not a large family as most of them were blessed with; for children are a blessing, a gift and heritage that cometh of the Lord, even when they cluster round a cold hearth and a scanty board. But Gray had only two sons, the elder of whom, Tom, we have seen at Zoe's christening, and who had been at work four years, having managed at twelve to scramble into the fifth standard, and at once left school triumphantly, and now can neither read nor write, having clean forgotten everything drummed into his head, but earns three shillings and sixpence a week going along with Farmer Benson's horses, from five o'clock in the morning till six in the evening, the long wet furrows and heavy ploughed land having made havoc of his legs, as such work does with most plough-boys. The younger boy, Bill, is six years younger and still at school, and having been a delicate child, or as his mother puts it, 'enjoying bad health,' is not promising for farm-work, and, being fond of his book and a favourite at school, his mother cherishes hopes of his becoming a school-teacher in days to come. But such is the perversity of human nature, that though many a Downside mother with a family of little steps envied Mrs Gray her compact family and the small amount of washing attached to it, that ungrateful woman yearned after an occupant for the old wooden cradle, and treasured up the bits of baby things that had belonged to Tom and Bill, and nursed up any young thing that came to hand and wanted care, bringing up a motherless blind kitten with assiduous care and patience, as if the supply of that commodity was not always largely in excess of the demand, and lavishing more care on a sick lamb or a superfluous young pig than most of the neighbours' babies received. So when one evening in May, Gray came in holding a bundle in his arms and poked it into her lap as she sat darning the holes in Tom's stockings (she was not good at needlework, but she managed, as she said, to 'goblify' the holes), he knew pretty well that it was into no unwilling arms that he gave the baby. 'And a mercy it was as the darning-needle didn't run right into the little angel,' Mrs Gray always said in recounting the story. He had been down to the village to fetch some tobacco, for the Grays' cottage was right away from the village, up a lane leading on to the hillside, and there were no other cottages near. Tom was in bed, though it was not eight yet--but he was generally ready for bed when he had had his tea; and Bill was up on the hill, a favourite resort of his, and especially when it was growing dark and the great indigo sky spread over him, with the glory of the stars coming out. 'He never were like other lads,' his mother used to say with a mixture of pride and irritation; 'always mooning about by himself on them old hills.'