He sighed, however, to Margery as they entered Ugborough Plain above Owley and began to climb the fern-clad bosom of the Beacon.
"There's a man Fate can't tempt to be sane," he said. "And if I were Fate and had the handling of him, I'd give over treating him fair and knock him about a bit. He's one of the sort that don't know he's born. He's asking for trouble, and his nature so poisons his mind and blinds his eyes that he can't see his blessings, but looks through and beyond into fancied woe that isn't there."
"Don't you know why?" she asked. "Old Mrs. Elvin will tell you. His father lost his wits and was put away."
Jacob reflected.
"I'd forgot that," he replied. "I'll mind it next time I have a word with him."
They ascended by a vast but gentle slope to Ugborough's crown of cairns, and presently sat at the summit, with the sun and wind in their faces and their backs against the stones.
Beneath them extended the mighty prospect of the South Hams, a mosaic of hamlet, forest and field, that seemed to be basking in the sun and stretching itself like a living thing. The varied colours of red tilth and pasture were washed in air, brought together and made harmonious. Earth rolled hugely out to the dim skyline of the sea, and westerly the Channel bit into the land, while easterly, Devon rose and swept the great waters out of sight behind her cliffs and ridges. Knap and knoll ascended to break the coverlet of the fields; here woods darkened the land and cloud shadows, vaster than they, hid a parish in their passing and swept over the sun-soaked expanses, to quicken the landscape with play of light and shadow.
"How tiny Brent looks from up here," laughed Margery; "just a grey smudge and no more. And Brent Hill, shrunk to no bigger than a slice of cake on end!"
"It's good to get a bird's view sometimes," said Jacob. "Steadies the mind and makes you see things their proper size compared to other things."
"But I was angry the first time I came up here, as a little one with a school treat," continued the girl. "Properly vexed I was, because it seemed all wrong somehow in my young eyes that the houses should be so small and the church and chapels no more than spots. And Marley Wood, that had always seemed to me the most wonderful place of mysteries on earth, was just a dark dab no bigger than a coal-scuttle, and the railway a thread, and the great thundering trains no bigger nor faster than caterpillars! It didn't seem right to have things turned upside down like that."