ou be!" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to cover
Christian's whole surface and a great deal more, Grandfer Cantle
meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.

"Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard," said Christian. "D'ye think
'twill hurt me? I shall always say I don't care, and swear to it, though
I do care all the while."

"Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever I know'd," said
Mr. Fairway. "I didn't mean you at all. There's another in the country,
then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune, Christian?"

"'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose. I can't help it, can I?" He turned
upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by concentric lines
like targets.

"No, that's true. But 'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran cold
when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had
thought only one. 'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How'st know the
women won't hae thee?"

"I've asked 'em."

"Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what did
the last one say to ye? Nothing that can't be got over, perhaps, after
all?"

"'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
fool,' was the woman's words to me."

"Not encouraging, I own," said Fairway. "'Get out of my sight, you
slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way of
saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as
to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head. How old be
you, Christian?"

"Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway."

"Not a boy--not a boy. Still there's hope yet."

"That's my age by baptism, because that's put down in the great book of
the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but Mother told me I was
born some time afore I was christened."

"Ah!"

"But she couldn't tell when, to save her life, except that there was no
moon."

"No moon--that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!"

"Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.

"Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another woman that had
an almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the
saying, 'No moon, no man,' which made her afeard every man-child she
had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no
moon?"

"Yes. 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings ever spit out.
The boy never comes to anything that's born at new moon. A bad job for
thee, Christian,