"So you think; but true memory comes from the heart, not the head."
He was unusually silent for many days, as she knew he would be. Then he grew cheerful again and spoke of Shipley and the Winters in his customary, indifferent fashion.
CHAPTER V
THE CHILDREN
On a winter's morning the Red House children were playing in a great ruin which stood near their home. Clay works had brought a busy company to Shipley vale in past times; but now only the walls of the drying houses and the stack of the furnace still stood, while above them, on the hill, large pits, whither had flowed the liquid clay from its bed on the high moor, were now filled with herbage, foxgloves, blackberries and sapling trees.
This famous playground found a small company of children and dogs assembled, and among them, as cheerful as any, was an ancient man. Old Billy Marydrew delighted in young people, and they found him more understanding than the middle-aged.
Children and red dogs romped over ground sparkling with frost, and Billy sat on a stone and enjoyed the entertainment. Auna fetched and carried; Avis issued orders, John Henry with some condescension, took his part. And then he quarrelled with his brother about a terrier that he was trying to teach a trick.
"He shall do it; I'll larn him," vowed John Henry hotly.
"He can't do it—no Irish terrier could do it," answered Peter.
They argued over the ability of the bewildered bitch, and Peter appealed to Billy; whereupon Mr. Marydrew agreed that John Henry was demanding impossibilities.