nd
'tis for you to settle how to act."

A long pause followed. The clock across the harbour struck noon, and
this seemed to wake John Penaluna up. "Thank 'ee," he said. "I think
I'll be going in to dinner. I'll--I'll consider of it. You've took me
rather sudden."

"Well, so long! I mean it friendly, of course."

"Of course. Better take the lower path; 'tis shorter, an' not so many
stones in it."

John stared after him as he picked his way down the hill; then fell to
rearranging his heaps of dried rubbish in an aimless manner. He had
forgotten the dinner-hour. Something buzzed in his ears. There was no
wind on the slope, no sound in the air. The shipwrights had ceased
their hammering, and the harbour at his feet lay still as a lake. They
were memories, perhaps, that buzzed so swiftly past his ears--trivial
recollections by the hundred, all so little, and yet now immensely
significant.

"John, John!"

It was Hester, standing at the top of the slope and calling him. He
stuck his pitchfork in the ground, picked up his coat, and went slowly
in to dinner.

Next day, by all usage, he should have travelled in to market: but he
announced at breakfast that he was too busy, and would send Robert,
the hind in his stead. He watched his wife's face as he said it. She
certainly changed colour, and yet she did not seem disappointed. The
look that sprang into those grey eyes of her was more like one of
relief, or, if not of relief, of a sudden hope suddenly snatched at;
but this was absurd, of course. It would not fit in with the situation
at all.

At dinner he said: "You'll be up in the summer-house this afternoon? I
shouldn't wonder if Zeke comes to say good-bye. Tangye says he've got
the offer of a new berth, up to Runcorn."

"Yes, I know."

If she wished, or struggled, to say more he did not seem to observe
it, but rose from his chair, stooped and kissed her on the forehead,
and resolutely marched out to his garden. He worked that afternoon in
a small patch which commanded a view of the ferry and also of the road
leading up to Hall: and at half-past three, or a few minutes later,
dropped his spade and strolled down to the edge of his property, a low
cliff overhanging the ferry-slip.

"Hullo, Zeke!"

Zeke, as he stepped out of the ferry-boat, looked with some confusion
on his face. He wore his best suit, with a bunch of sweet-william in
his button-hole.

"Come to bid us good-bye, I s'pose? We've heard of your luck