"Don't say so. You'm leaving out of your reckoning all the Good Samaritans that be about the world, and the beauty of human nature in general."
"Human nature's all rot. Anyway, it isn't the thirsty folks that human nature asks to drink."
"Yet I've had scores and scores gratis and for nothing in my time," declared Mr. Huggins. "Eighty year old am I, and if I could tell 'em up, I make no doubt that I should find I'd had barrels over one counter and another—all out of the goodness of my fellow-creatures, without a thought of any return. Not but what I haven't stood oceans of drink in my time too. But gratitude's the thing—an' rarer even than generosity. I'm exceedingly grateful for all the free beer I've had, and I won't hear you tell that human nature's rot, just because you are a bit under the weather. Your luck will come uppermost presently—then you'll think different."
"Good sense, Val. Cheer him up if you can," said Mrs. Weekes. "And now you men had best to get off, for Philip must have his dinner."
CHAPTER VII
A CHRISTIAN CONVERT
With another summer Hilary Woodrow again returned to his home, and time passed as during previous years. But the passage of the last winter had left its mark upon him, and the least observant noticed a change. Physically he had grown thinner. His cheek-bones thrust out, and there were hollows beneath them. He still rode, and he still read; but his books belonged now to a different plane of thought, and a man by glancing at them might have calculated with pretty close accuracy the nature of his bent, and the slow but sure victory of faith over reason.
In some respects he looked younger, for a colour that means health in infancy and death at adolescence, lighted his fallen cheek. His eyes were bright; his manner continued courteous and kind as of yore; his energies were not yet much decreased, save in certain directions. From predisposition he had gradually passed into actual disease; and as the bodily fires waned and cooled, his interest in the superhuman waxed and dominated every waking hour. He believed in a life beyond the grave; he had infected the domain of reason by deep reading of irrational authors; and these created an atmosphere through which he groped his way back to the faith of his fathers.
Sarah Jane held secret speech with him, at oncoming of another autumn, and the great matter arose upon his lips. This happened towards the end of his stay at home, when already it became necessary to think of leaving the Moor. First he treated of his health, and confessed, to her grief, that he was not so well; then he discussed the superstitions now supremely precious to him.
"What will you say when I tell you that I have followed in the path of many and many a greater man than myself, and changed my opinions?" he asked.