"Why should I be up here then, Adam? What have I done this thing for? I've called on the hills to cover me, and they will do their part if I do mine. Good-bye, all; and if there's a God, may He deal gently with you, my son, and you my friends. Keep edging to the right till you make the big rock and the old quarry—then the way's plain."
"And mind you get out of them clothes the first minute you're back," shouted Adam.
"Fear not; I'm outside the power of weather to hurt," he cried. "I've given weather its chance, but the hand of the elements is held from me."
He was gone and the carts, each with a man at the horse's head, splashed onward.
Peter walked beside Adam Winter. A rare flash of emotion had touched the lad, and the events of the day had broken him.
"'Tis a pretty bloody thing to have a father like that and no mother," he said.
"So it is then; but don't be sorry for yourself; be sorry for him, and hopeful for him. He's got a good sensible family, and it's up to you and John Henry to go ahead and make him proud of you. And very like it will be your work to get him back again in time to come."
"Avis thinks that perhaps, when he knows he's got a grandchild, he'll get a bit more nature into him."
"Very like he will. Billy always swears he'll weather it, and he's looked deeper into your father than we can."
At Huntingdon, Auna was exceedingly glad when her father left her alone for a little while. She had been fighting her tears and would have conquered had he remained—at any rate until she had gone to bed and out of his sight; but when he left with the carts, she broke down and wept. She could not have told why, for she had long grown accustomed to her future and in some moods even welcomed it; but the dour day served to impress upon her youth a side of the time to come that made her weak for the moment. She quailed and abandoned herself to tears; yet not for long. Love dried her eyes, and hope that her father would presently win to peace soon made her brave again. She set about preparing a meal and first brought down a complete change of underclothes and socks and a pair of slippers for him. These she put by the fire, but noticed with some concern that the kitchen chimney smoked and flung puffs from the peat into the room. The wind increased and the night darkened in storm. She began to pull the furniture to its places and lifted an enlarged photograph of her mother on to the parlour mantelpiece. Jacob would like to see that when he came in. She heard him presently moving a crate in the yard and saw him dimly through the gloom carrying it to the cart-shed. Then she called him.