me through church window. But the next
moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I called to mind
that if thy father and mother had had high words once, they'd been at
it twenty times since they'd been man and wife, and I zid myself as the
next poor stunpoll to get into the same mess....Ah--well, what a day
'twas!"

"Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few summers. A pretty
maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to tear her
smock for a man like that."

The speaker, a peat- or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group,
carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large
dimensions used in that species of labour, and its well-whetted edge
gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.

"A hundred maidens would have had him if he'd asked 'em," said the wide
woman.

"Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would marry?"
inquired Humphrey.

"I never did," said the turf-cutter.

"Nor I," said another.

"Nor I," said Grandfer Cantle.

"Well, now, I did once," said Timothy Fairway, adding more firmness to
one of his legs. "I did know of such a man. But only once, mind." He
gave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it were the duty of every
person not to be mistaken through thickness of voice. "Yes, I knew of
such a man," he said.

"And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been like, Master
Fairway?" asked the turf-cutter.

"Well, 'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man. What
'a was I don't say."

"Is he known in these parts?" said Olly Dowden.

"Hardly," said Timothy; "but I name no name....Come, keep the fire up
there, youngsters."

"Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?" said a boy from
amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze. "Be ye a-cold,
Christian?"

A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, "No, not at all."

"Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn't know you were
here," said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that quarter.

Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a
great quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes, advanced a step or
two by his own will, and was pushed by the will of others half a dozen
steps more. He was Grandfer Cantle's youngest son.

"What be ye quaking for, Christian?" said the turf-cutter kindly.

"I'm the man."

"What man?"

"The man no woman will marry."

"The deuce y