"I'd fear to face a day's work until I'd gone on my knees," declared Brendon, without self-consciousness.
"Ah! at my time of life, us bow the heart rather than the knee—specially if the rheumatics be harboured at that joint, as in my case. But a very fine text for a bed-head, 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.' And I'll tell you another thing. The love of the Lord is the end of it. That ban't in the Bible, yet a living word as my life have taught me. I go my even way and ban't particular about prayer, nor worship, nor none of that. And as for the bread and wine, I haven't touched 'em for a score of years; yet I love the Lord an' trust Him, for all the world like a babby trusts its mother's breast for breakfast. 'Tis an awful simple religion."
"Simple enough to lose your salvation, I should reckon. If you believe, you did ought to tremble. 'Tis for God A'mighty to love you, not for you to love Him so loud, and yet do nought to show it. No prayers, no sacrament, no worship—what's that but to be a heathen man—begging your pardon?"
"You'll see different if you stop along of us. 'Tis a good working faith that breeds my peace of mind and master's. My fault is that I'm too easy with you chaps. Even the dogs know what a soft old silly I be."
Brendon considered this confession, and it brought him to a subject now upon his mind.
"What's my job exactly? How do I stand? I'd hoped to have a bit of authority myself here, along of my good papers."
"Farmer will tell 'e all about that after his breakfast. The things[[1]] will be your job, I suppose. But he'll explain himself. He's made of kindness, yet no common sort of man. Them as know him would go through fire an' water for him. However, 'tis an art to know him, and only comes with patience."
[[1]] Things. Cattle. A moor-man always speaks of 'things' when he means flocks and herds.
"Not married?"
"No, nor like to be. He offered hisself to a cat-hearted minx down to Peter Tavy; and she took him; and 'twas all settled. Then there comed along, a cousin of hers, who has a linen-draper's shop near London, and be damned if she didn't change her mind! It set Hilary Woodrow against women, as well it might. There's only one female in this house, and you can hardly say she's a woman. Merely a voice and a pair of eyes and a pair of hands, and a few bones tied up in a petticoat. My sister, Tabitha—as good a soul as ever fretted a houseful of males. 'Bachelors' Hall' they call this place down to Lydford. And so 'tis, for only the ploughman, Joe Tapson, have ever been married; and he'll tell you plainly, without false feeling, that the day that made him a widow-man, was the first he ever thanked his God for."