He learnt the newcomer's name, remarked on his size, and then returned to peat. But Daniel was weary of the subject and strove to change it.
"You'm lonely up here, I reckon, an' not another house for miles," he said.
"I keep up here and bide honest," answered Friend. "If you go down-along among the rogues, your honesty wears away, an' you never know it have gone, till somebody stands up to your face and tells you so. I've seen young men slide from it without ever meaning to. As to being lonely, I've got my darter and my work. I go to Lydford once a week for letters. But a town drives me mad—all the noise and business and silly talk."
They tramped over coarse fen, spattered with ling and the ragged white tufts of the cotton grass. Upon the waste shone cheerful light, where the blades of rough moor herbage began to perish from their tips and burn orange-red. Through the midst ran a pathway on which the gravel of granite glittered. Pools extended round about, and beneath them the infant Rattle-brook, newcome from her cradle under Hunter Tor, purred southward to Tavy.
TAVY CLEEVE.
The men followed this stream, and so approached a solitary grey cottage that stood nakedly in the very heart of the wilderness. Stark space surrounded it. At first sight it looked no more than a boulder, larger than common, that had been hurled hither from the neighbouring hill at some seismic convulsion of olden days. But, unlike the stones around it, this lump of lifted granite was hollow, had windows pierced in its lowly chambers, and a hearth upon its floor. It seemed a thing lifted by some sleight of power unknown, for it rose here utterly unexpected and, as it appeared, without purpose. No trace was left of the means by which it came. Not a wall, not a bank or alignment encircled it; no enclosure of any kind approached it; no outer rampart fenced it from the desolation. Heather-clad ridges of peat ran to the very threshold; rough natural clitters of rock tumbled to its walls; door and windows opened upon primal chaos, rolling and rising, sinking and falling in leagues on every side. Heavy morasses stretched to north and east; westward rose Dunnagoat Tor, that gave a name to the cot, and past the entrance Rattle-brook rippled noisily. Away, whence morning came, the great hogged back of Cut Hill swelled skyward, and the towers and battlements of Fur Tor arose; while southerly, brown, featureless, interminable undulations drifted along the horizon and faded upon air, or climbed to the far distant crags and precipices of Great Mis.
The door of Gregory Friend's home faced west; and now it framed a woman.