During Jack's visit to the farm a fire breaks out and several buildings on the place are destroyed. Much to the horror of the well-bred Jack, he learns that his father himself had lit the match in order to get "compensation." He sternly upbraids the old farmer.
Jack. Didn't you see yourself how dishonest it was?
Timothy. Maybe I did, but I saw something more, and that was that I was on the way to being put out of the farm.
Jack is outraged; he threatens to inform on his own people and offers to stay on the farm to help with the work. But two weeks' experience in the field beneath the burning sun is more than delicate Jack can stand. He suffers fainting spells, and is in the end prevailed upon by his wife to leave.
Mary, old Hurley's daughter, also returns to the farm for rest and quiet. But she finds no peace there, for the city is too much in her blood. There is, moreover, another lure she cannot escape.
Mary. I was too well educated to be a servant, and I was never happy as one, so to better myself I learned typing.... It's a hard life, Jack, and I soon found out how hard it was, and I was as dissatisfied as ever. Then there only seemed one way out of it ... and he ... my employer, I mean.... I went into it deliberately with my eyes open. You see, a woman I knew chucked typing and went in for this ... and I saw what a splendid time she had, and how happy she was—and I was so miserably unhappy—and how she had everything she wanted and I had nothing, and ... and.... But this life made me unhappy, too, and so in desperation I came home; but I've grown too far away from it all, and now I'm going back. Don't you see, Jack, I'm not happy here. I thought if I could get home to the farm and the old simple life it would be all right, but it isn't. Everything jars on me, the roughness and the hard living and the coarse food—oh, it seems ridiculous—but they make me physically ill. I always thought, if I could get away home to Knockmalgloss I could start fair again.... So I came home, and everything is the same, and everyone thinks that I'm as pure and innocent as when I went away, but ... but ... But, Jack, the dreadful thing is I want to go back.... I'm longing for that life, and its excitement and splendor and color.
In her misery and struggle a great faith sustains Mary and keeps her from ruin. It is the thought of her father, in whom she believes implicitly as her ideal of honesty, strength and incorruptibility. The shock is terrible when she learns that her father, even her father, has fallen a victim to the cruel struggle of life,—that her father himself set fire to the buildings.
Mary. And I thought he was so simple, so innocent, so unspoiled!... Father, the simple, honest peasant, the only decent one of us. I cried all last night at the contrast! His unselfishness, his simplicity.... Why, we're all equally bad now—he and I—we both sell ourselves, he for the price of those old houses and I for a few years of splendor and happiness....
The only one whom life seems to teach nothing is Schoolmaster Lordan. Oblivious of the stress and storm of reality, he continues to be enraptured with education, with culture, with the opportunities offered by the large cities. He is particularly proud of the Hurley children.
Lordan. The way you've all got on! I tell you what, if every boy and girl I ever taught had turned out a failure I'd feel content and satisfied when I looked at all of you and saw what I've made of you.
Mary. What you've made of us? I wonder do you really know what you've made of us?
Lordan. Isn't it easily seen? One with a motor car, no less.... It was good, sound seed I sowed long ago in the little schoolhouse and it's to-day you're all reaping the harvest.