"Why not?"
"No reason at all. David Bowden's rather a grim sort of man; but he's got all the virtues except a gentle tongue. I speak better of him than he would of me, however."
"I'm sure not. He's never said a word against you that I ever heard."
"You've heard him pretty often then? Well, he despises me, Madge. Because I don't stick to work like he does. Don't you get too fond of that man. He's a kill-joy."
She gasped and changed colour, but he did not notice it. All that Bartley had needed to turn his attention seriously to this girl was some spice of rivalry; and now it promised to appear. They walked along to Nosworthy Bridge, and from that spot Margaret's distant home was visible.
Like a picture set between two great masses of fruiting white-horn, Dennycoombe spread eastward into Dartmoor and climbed upward through glory of sinking light upon autumnal colour. To the west Sheep's Tor's larch-clad shoulder sloped in pale gold mottled with green, while northerly Down Tor broke the withered fern. Between them lay a valley of lemon light washed with blue hazes and stained by great darkness where the shadows fell. Many a little dingle opened on either hand of the glen; and here twinkled water, where a brook leapt downward; and here shone dwindling raiment of beech and oak.
Coombeshead Farm, the home of the Stanburys, stood at the apex of this gorge and lay under Coombeshead Tor. Still higher against the sky rolled Eylesbarrow, its enormous and simple outline broken only by the fangs of an old ruin; while flying clouds, that shone in opposition to the sunset, crowned all with welter of mingled light and gloom. The modest farmhouse clung like a grey nest into the tawny harmonies of the hill, and above it rose blue smoke.
"You'll come to tea?" said Madge; but Bartley shook his head.
"Two's company, three's none," he said.
"But we're all at home."