be your daughter?'

'Ay, and she was my daughter, my last and only child of five; and for
her I would give this mine, and all the gold will ever come from it.'

'You shall have her, without either mine or gold; if you only prove to
me that you did not abandon her.'

'Abandon her! I abandon Gwenny!' He cried with such a rage of scorn,
that I at once believed him. 'They told me she was dead, and crushed,
and buried in the drift here; and half my heart died with her. The
Almighty blast their mining-work, if the scoundrels lied to me!'

'The scoundrels must have lied to you,' I answered, with a spirit fired
by his heat of fury: 'the maid is living and with us. Come up; and you
shall see her.'

'Rig the bucket,' he shouted out along the echoing gallery; and then he
fell against the wall, and through the grimy sack I saw the heaving of
his breast, as I have seen my opponent's chest, in a long hard bout of
wrestling. For my part, I could do no more than hold my tongue and look
at him.

Without another word we rose to the level of the moors and mires;
neither would Master Carfax speak, as I led him across the barrows. In
this he was welcome to his own way, for I do love silence; so little
harm can come of it. And though Gwenny was no beauty, her father might
be fond of her.

So I put him in the cow-house (not to frighten the little maid), and
the folding shutters over him, such as we used at the beestings; and he
listened to my voice outside, and held on, and preserved himself. For
now he would have scooped the earth, as cattle do at yearning-time, and
as meekly and as patiently, to have his child restored to him. Not to
make long tale of it--for this thing is beyond me, through want of true
experience--I went and fetched his Gwenny forth from the back kitchen,
where she was fighting, as usual, with our Betty.

'Come along, you little Vick,' I said, for so we called her; 'I have a
message to you, Gwenny, from the Lord in heaven.'

'Don't 'ee talk about He,' she answered; 'Her have long forgatten me.'

'That He has never done, you stupid. Come, and see who is in the
cowhouse.'

Gwenny knew; she knew in a moment. Looking into my eyes, she knew; and
hanging back from me to sigh, she knew it even better.

She had not much elegance of emotion, being flat and square all over;
but none the less for that her heart came quick, and her words came
slowly.

'Oh, Jan, you are too good to cheat me. Is it joke you are putting