David Bowden had chosen this spot for his home, and his reason was the shattered miner's cottage of Tudor date that rose there. Four-square, crowned with heather and fretted with pennyworts and grasses, stone-crop, grey lichens and sky-blue jasione, the old house stood. Broken walls eight feet high surrounded it; an oven still gaped in one angle, and the wide chimney-shaft now made a green twilight of dewy ferns and mosses. Bowden crept into the ruin and looked about him, as he had already done many times before. At his feet lay old moulds hollowed out of the granite; and where molten tin once ran, now glittered water caught from the last shower.
Since first he found the place, David, with his scanty gift of imagination, had pictured a modern cottage rising on these venerable foundations. And soon the thing was actually to happen. He knew that the hearth whereon his feet now stood would presently glow again with fires lighted by Margaret's hands; he thought of white wheaten loaves baking in the oven; he almost smelt them; and he saw above this loneliness the thin blue ringlets of peat smoke that soon would rise and curl on the west wind's fingers and tell chance wanderers that a home lay hidden by water's brink in the glen beneath. The place was very sequestered, very remote from all other habitations; and he liked it the better for that. Here was such privacy as the man desired. Margaret would do her shopping at Princetown; and since she knew scarcely anybody there, the chances of gossip and vain conversation were small. His ambition was a life far from trivial social obligations and the talk of idle tongues. He desired opportunity to pursue success without distractions and waste of time. Whether this home might suit the sociable Margaret, he did not pause to consider. As for Rhoda, she would certainly be of his mind.
The facts that most impressed Bowden at the moment were certain loads of lime and sand, together with granite boulders, water-worn, from the stream bed close at hand. Materials for his house were already collected and the building of it was to begin during the following week. It would need five or six months to finish, and Bowden proposed to be married and settled in his future home before another Christmas came.
While he sat here now, slowly, stolidly planning the future and waiting for Margaret to meet him, certain black-faced, horned sheep approached, drew up at a safe distance and lifted their yellow eyes to him inquiringly. David returned their regard with interest, for they were his own.
Presently came Margaret and he kissed her, then pointed with satisfaction to the preparations.
"They've kept their word, you see. Next week our house is to be started. There's a good bit of pulling down to do first, however. And Sir Guy have given way about that ruined spot t'other side the stream. It's going to be built again for a lew place for stock; and I'm to pay two pound a year more rent."
"'Twill be good for the kennel," said Madge. "Rhoda tells me as you'll have five or six dogs at the least for her to watch over, not counting 'Silky' here."
'Silky' had grown from puppyhood into adolescence. He was now a beautiful but a spoiled spaniel, who never wandered far from his mistress.
Bowden looked down and shook his head at 'Silky,' where he sat with his nose between his fore-paws at Margaret's feet.
"A good dog ruined," he said. "If you was to do the proper thing, you'd let me shoot it. 'Twill never be any manner of use here."