"No, George. You mustn't say things like that in my hearing, please. All that happens is part of the pattern, and who can judge of the pattern from the little piece under his own eye? Not the wittiest man among us."
"Cant!" answered George. "But if that woman's drove mad—her, who have driven so many others the same way—then that's one to the good for your precious Maker, Adam: a bit of plain justice that us common men can understand."
They spoke of Jacob Bullstone.
"He'll be excited to-day I shouldn't wonder," said George, "because his daughter is going back to him this evening. Peter drives in for her presently."
"Auna wrote me a letter full of woe," William told them. "She's one of they young hearts from which even us frozen old blids can catch heat. What d'you think? Her Great-Uncle Pulleyblank's minded to make her his heir, and she's prayed him to leave his money to her Uncle Jeremy, because he wants it and she don't! But Pulleyblank knows his Jeremy too well I hope."
"And Jacob seems as if he was more in tune too," declared William.
"He's doing kind things to lonely people—such as don't run up against much kindness as a rule," explained Adam. "The lonely have a way to smell out the other lonely ones. He sits very quiet now for hours at a time, perched on a moor-stone so still as a heron."
The master of Shipley got upon his horse, which stood tethered under an oak beside the hedge. Then he rode off to climb the waste lands, while the others went on their way.
Winter had come to dinner with Jacob, and he found him cheerful and exalted before the thought of his child's return.
He explained his hopes and purposes, but with diffidence.