They hoed together shoulder to shoulder, then reached the end of their rows and turned again.
"There's a religious side no doubt," admitted Maynard. "And we never feel more religious, if we're religious-minded at all, than after a stroke of good fortune; and never less so than after a stroke of bad. And I'm telling you what I know there, because I've been called to go into such things pretty close. There's nothing harder than to break away from what you was taught as a child. 'Tis amazing how a thing gets rooted into a young mind, and how difficult it may be for the man's sense to sweep it away come he grows up."
Mr. Palk, however, was not concerned with such questions.
"I don't want to break away from nothing," he said. "I only want for Stockman to treat me and his daughter in a right spirit. And what I say is, if his religion and church-going, not to name his common sense, can't lead him right, it's a very poor advertisement for his boasted wisdom."
"So it would be; but he'll come round and do right, only give him time," answered Lawrence.
"And what's in your mind?" asked Thomas presently, as he stood up to rest his back. "Have you got another billet in sight?"
"No. I much want to get abroad. It's always been a wish with me to see a foreign country."
"A very fine idea. I'd so soon do the same as not; but I heard a chap say that you find the land pretty near all under machinery if you go foreign. And I shouldn't care to quit hosses at my time of life."
"There's your wife to think on. She'd never like to put the sea between her and her father."
"As to that," answered Palk, "it's going to be largely up to him. If he carries on like what he's doing now, he'll have to pay for it; because the woman's only a human woman and she haven't deserved this conduct. Why, God's light! if she'd stole his money-box and set the house on fire he couldn't take it no worse!"