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you, Madge. And I'll do my share, and work early and late for you, and lay by for you, and lift you up, perhaps, in ten years or so to have a servant of your own, and a horse and trap of your own, and everything you can wish."

      "I wish for you to love me always, always, always--nothing but that."

      "And so I shall, and the best love be what swells the balance at the bank quickest. Now I know you can take me, I feel as if I should like to get up off this rock this instant moment and go away and begin working like a team of horses for 'e."

      "Don't go away yet. Think what this is to me--so much, much more than it can be to you."

      "'Tis everything in the world to me," he said solemnly. "You little know how you've been on my mind. My folk will tell you now, no doubt, how it has been with me. That glowering and glumping I've been--not a word to throw at man or woman. But they'll see a different chap to-night!"

      She put out her hand timidly. Would he never touch her? Was she never to put her face against his?

      Love reigned in his plans, and the little things that he had thought of surprised her; but there came no arm round her, no fierce caress, no hot storm of kisses. He talked hopefully--even joyfully, with his eyes upon her face; but there was no sex-light in their brightness; while hers were dreamy with love and dim with unshed tears.

      "I must get back-along with the great news now," he said. "And it will be well if we're moving. Coarse weather's driving up again. I'll see you home first."

      "You'll come in and tell mother?"

      "Must I?"

      "Yes," she answered. "You've got to obey me now, you dear David. I wish it."

      "Then off we go."

      He helped her down like a stranger and talked of crops as they returned to Coombeshead. Rhoda was better at figures than he was. He hoped that Margaret was good at figures. She said waywardly that she was not, and he regretted it but felt sure that she would soon learn.

      A rain-laden dusk descended over Eylesbarrow as they returned, and through, the gloaming the white lintel and door-posts of the farm stared like an eye.

      Silence fell between them, and during its progress some touch of nature woke in David. After they had crossed the stream and reached a rush-clad shed where a cart stood, he spoke in a voice grown muddy and gruff.

      "Come in here a minute," he said, "afore we go on, Madge. I want--I want--"

      She turned and they disappeared.

      "I want to kiss you," he said.

      A fearful clatter ascended from long-legged fowls roosting on the cart, for their repose was roughly broken. They clucked and cried until Mrs. Stanbury, supposing a fox had descended from the lulls, hastened out to frighten it away.

      Then she met Margaret and David--shame-faced, joyous.

      "We'm tokened, mother!" cried the man; "and please God, I'll be a dutiful second son to you."

      "Thank you for that," she said. "Give you joy, I'm sure. And I'll be proud to have you for a son; and may you never repent your bargain."

      She put up her face to his and kissed him; and since he still held Madge by the waist, all three were thus, for an instant, united in a triple caress.

      By chance some moments of happy magic in the sky smiled upon this incident, for the grey west broke at its heart above the horizon and little orange feathers of light flashed suddenly along the upper chambers of the air. The Hesperides--daughters of sunset--danced golden-footed on the threshold of evening, and their glimmering skirts swept earth also, set radiance upon Eylesbarrow and hung like a beacon of fire against the deep storm-purple of the east. Thrice this glory waxed and waned; then all light vanished; the colour song was sung; the day died.

      Not observing these gracious phenomena upon Night's fringes, the mother, the man and his maiden went in together.

      CHAPTER VIII

      IN PIXIES' HOUSE

      Various interests are served by the great bulk of Sheep's Tor. Not only the colt and the coney prosper here and the vixen finds a place for her cubs, but man also avails himself of the hill in a manner little to be guessed. Battleships, swinging far off to adjust their compasses in Plymouth Sound, use the remote, ragged crown of the tor as a fixed point for determining the accuracy of their instruments; while once, if oral tradition may be respected, the stony bosom of the giant offered hiding in time of stress to a scion of the old Elford clan, lords of the demesne in Stuart days. This king's man, flying for his life from the soldiers of Cromwell, hid himself in a familiar nook; and we may suppose the 'foreigners' tramped Sheep's Tor in vain, and perhaps stamped iron-shod over the rocks under which he lay safe hidden. To-day this cleft, called the Pixies' House, can still be entered. It is of a size sufficient to contain two adults in close juxtaposition; but an inner chamber has fallen, and certain drawings, with which it was alleged the concealed fugitive occupied his leisure, have, if ever they existed, vanished away.

      In the very bosom of the great south-facing rocky slope of Sheep's Tor where the lichen-coated slabs and boulders are flung together in magnificent confusion, there may be found one narrow cleft, above which a mass of granite has been split perpendicularly. Chaos of stone spilled here lies all about, and numberless small crannies and chambers abound; but the rift alone marks any possible place of concealment for creature larger than dog or fox; and beneath it, invisible and unguessed, lies the Pixies' House, one of the local sanctities and a haunt of the little people.

      Here, two days after Margaret had accepted David Bowden, Bartley Crocker was walking with a gun. His goal lay up the valley and he hoped to shoot some snipe; but circumstances quite altered his intentions.

      The day was one of elemental unrest and the clouds rolled tumultuous. They unrolled great planes of shifting gloom and splendour, of accidents of vapour that concealed and of light that illumined. But at mid-day a mighty shadow ascended against the wind and thunder rumbled along the edges of the Moor. The storm-centre spun about a mile off, then it drove in chariots of darkness over Sheep's Tor.

      At this moment Bartley remembered the Pixies' House, and, hastening sure-footed over the wild concourse of stones that extended around it, he approached the crevice where it lay.

      A woman suddenly caught his eye, and as the breaking storm now promised to be terrific, he called to her and, turning back, joined her.

      It proved to be Rhoda Bowden on her way home, and she accepted Bartley's offer of shelter.

      "Something pretty bad's coming," she said. "Be the Pixies' House large enough for the both of us? I've got a bit of news you'll be surprised to hear."

      "Full large enough--quick--quick--down through there--let me have your hand."

      But she accepted no help and soon crawled through the aperture into shelter. Then Bartley, taking two caps off the nipples of his gun, thrust it in after Rhoda and followed swiftly to avoid the onset of the storm.

      They had acted with utmost speed and Rhoda was now aghast to find the exceeding propinquity of Mr. Crocker. He could hardly have been closer. She moved uneasily. It occurred to her that he ought to have surrendered the Pixies' House to her and himself found shelter elsewhere. The idea, however, had not struck him.

      "Can't you make a little more room?" she asked, breathing rather hard.

      "I wish I could, but it's impossible. I forgot you were such a jolly big girl," he answered.

      She set her teeth and waited for the outer darkness to lighten. The thunder roared and exploded in a rattle overhead; they heard the hiss and hurtle of the ice and water; while at intervals the entrance of their shelter was splashed along its rough edges with glare of lightning.

      "Better here than outside," said Bartley; but Rhoda began to doubt it. It seemed to her that he came nearer and nearer. At last she asked him to get out and let her pass.

      "Can't stand this no more," she said, "I'm being choked. I'd sooner suffer the storm than this."

      "You

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