"Be that you, Nicholas Gaunter? So it is then. And here, on my way, I was filled with a great thought, Nicholas."
Mr. Gaunter—a hedge tacker of low repute—had drunk too much beer; but not too much not to know it. He concealed his error and Arthur failed to observe the truth.
"A oner for thoughts you be, Mr. Chaffe," he said.
"Yes—they come; and it just flashed over my mind, Nicholas, that goodness breeds life and a good deed can't perish out of the land; but the payment of evil is death—sure and certain."
"Only if you done a murder," said Mr. Gaunter.
"Pass on, Nicholas, pass on. The thought be too deep for your order of mind I'm afraid," replied the older man.
CHAPTER XIII
JOE ON ECONOMICS
On a June evening Lawrence Maynard fell in with Dinah at Buckland, near the cottage of the old huntsman. Accident was responsible for their meeting, and they had not seen each other since the girl's engagement was at an end. Now the cowman was on his way to spend an evening with Enoch Withycombe, while Dinah intended to visit Falcon Farm and beg Susan and Mr. Stockman to interest themselves on her account and find her work.
"I can't get anything to do that will pleasure foster-father," she said. "He's so hard to please where I'm concerned, and he don't quite see so plain as I do that it's bad for me and everybody else my biding there."