She nodded with evident approval.
Suddenly his slow mind worked backwards.
"All the same," he said, "I didn't ought to have mentioned your name in the same breath with a pig. 'Twas a hole in my manners, and I hope you'll overlook it."
Sarah Jane laughed.
"What a man! Where was you brought up to? Ban't many so civil in these parts."
"I was teached to be civil by my mother. But I know nought beyond my business—not like Mister Woodrow. He has grammer-school larning, an' London larning, and reads books that I can't understand a word about."
She told him of her own childhood, of her mother, of her few friends.
"Girls don't seem to like me," she said. "I hardly know above half-a-dozen of 'em. There's Minnie Taverner to Lydford, and Mary Churchward—nobody much else. Mary's brother's nearly as big as you be. But t'others I used to know, when I went to school, are all married or gone to service now."
"Very interesting," said Daniel. "I never had but one sister. She's down to Plymouth—a greengrocer's wife there."
They talked freely together, and presently rose and set out to rejoin Mr. Friend. Under their feet Daniel suddenly saw a piece of white ling, and stopped and picked it.