It was significant of the different attitudes of Sarah Jane and her husband that she found a measure of interest in the pagan hut-circle or grave; he only cared to see the chance symbol of his faith. These Christian evidences were rare round about Ruddyford, but marks of the old stone men did not lack, and Sarah Jane, to whom Hilary Woodrow had once explained their meaning, always professed active interest in these fragments, and told the things that she had heard concerning them to her husband.
There came a Sunday in March when the Brendons went up to see Gregory Friend, that they might convey a great piece of news to him. The young heather was rusty-red in the shoot, and here and there swaling fires had scorched the bosom of the hills to blackness. The day was wintry, yet clear, but many snug spots offered among the boulders, where one might sit facing the sun and sheltered from the east wind.
Such a place Brendon presently found and bade his wife rest awhile.
"'Tis another of them hut-circles master tells about," said Sarah Jane. "That was where the door opened without a doubt. To think as folk lived here, Dan—thousands and thousands of years ago."
"Poor dust! I like the crosses better: they be nearer to our own time, I suppose, and mean a comfortabler thing. 'Tis wisht to hear farmer tell how savage, skin-clad folk dwelt here afore the coming of Christ."
"They couldn't help coming afore He did. He ought to have come sooner, if He wanted for them to know about Him," she answered.
Brendon frowned.
"You'm always so defiant," he said. "I still catch the master's way of speech in your tongue now and again. An' very ugly it sounds."
"I'm bound to stop and listen to him sometimes, when he begins to talk. But since he comed of a morning for his glass of milk and you stopped it—or I told him I'd rather he didn't—us have had no words about holy things. He's got a side all the same."
"I'm sorry to hear you say so. If you say so, you think so, no doubt."