"But a big arm be nought nowadays, along o' steam power," he explained. "I haven't a word against Tapson, or Agg, or yet Lethbridge: they'm very good fellows all. But, if I may say so without being thought ill of, they'm simple men, and want a better man to watch 'em. Now such as they would bide here, for instance, and talk the minute-hand round the clock—from no badness in them, but just empty minds."
He rose and prepared to go.
"Your parts will come to be knowed, if you're skilled in 'em and bide your time," said Mr. Friend; "though if you balance patience against the shortness of life, 'tis often a question whether some among us don't push patience too far. I've been patient too long for one; but that's because I can't be nothing else. I've told 'em the great truth—God knows. But ban't my part to lead. I must obey. Yet, knowing what I know about Amicombe Hill, 'tis hard to wait. Sometimes I think the Promised Land ban't for me at all."
"I should hope the Promised Land was for all of us," ventured Daniel.
"That Land—yes. I mean yonder hill, bursting with fatness."
He waved up the valley in the direction of the peat works.
They came to the door and Sarah spoke again.
"I should think Mr. Woodrow wouldn't stand in your way. He rode up to see father last year, and was a very kindly man, though rather sorrowful-looking."
"He is a kindly man," said Brendon, "and a good master, which we all allow. But he'm only half alive, so to say. At least, the other half of him be hidden from us. He'm not one of us, along of his education. A great reader of books and a great secret thinker."
"I'm sure he'll come to know your vartues, if he's such a clever man as all that," said Sarah Jane frankly.