But Grace shook her head.
"'Tis no more common sense to look always on the dark side of things than, like dear father, to be over-hopeful."
"The golden mean——" murmured her mother.
"Rainbow gold," answered the girl. "Human nature cannot find it. What——? But here comes Kek himself. He looks spry and peart for once. That bodes trouble for somebody."
A gate opened upon the path, and in the red-gold light of evening a man approached them. The ruddy earth had dyed his garments to its rich hue, had soaked into his clothes and body. He seemed incarnate clay. His frame had crooked, his hair was grizzled. His mouth was like the stamp of a gouge upon putty, and at first glance a grin appeared to sit upon his face; but, better seen, one noted that the distortion was accidental, and that in reality his features were stamped with the eternal sadness of suffering.
"Three barrow pigs be just drownded," he said. "I seed 'em fighting in the water; then they went down an' comed up again, an' squeaked proper till the river chucked 'em. 'Tis always what I said would happen."
"Where was Bob?" asked Grace, with much concern. "The blame will fall upon him."
"So it will, but that won't bring the pigs alive again; though they'll do very well for common people to eat if we can get 'em ashore inside twenty-four hours."
The sound of a horse's hoofs broke upon the silence that followed this bad news. Then Maurice Malherb appeared, dismounted, kissed his wife and daughter, and nodded to the servant.
"All goes forward most prosperously," he said. "Since I promised the foreman ten pounds if the chimney-pots were on by Christmas, the place grows like honeycomb in June."