His little eyes, that saw so vastly better than my eyes, deepened in his walnut-coloured face. Fixed on those grey-green Downs, that reigned serene above the country spread below in all its little fields, and woods, and villages, they answered for him. It was long before he spoke.
“Healthiest spot in England!... Talkin’ you was of progress; but look at bacon—four times the price now that ever it was when I were young. And families—thirteen we had, my missus and meself; nowadays if they have three or four it’s as much as ever they’ll put up with. The country’s changed.”
“Does that surprise you? When you came up here this morning the sun was just behind that clump of beech—it’s travelled on since then.”
He looked at it.
“There’s no puttin’ of it back, I guess, if that’s your meaning? It were risin’ then, an’ now it’s gone past noon.”
“Joshua made the sun stand still; it was a great achievement!”
“May well say that; won’t never be done again, I’m thinkin’. And as to knowin’ o’ the time o’ day, them ewes they know it better than ever humans do; at tew o’clock exact you’ll see them comin’ out again to feed.”
“Ah! well—I must be getting on. Good-bye!”
His little eyes began to twinkle with a sort of friendly mockery.
“Ye’re like the country, all for movin’ on your way! Well, keep on, along the tops—ye can’t make no mistake!”