"No, yer won't. You'll sell out and clear from the game. I want to see some life. I'm tired of these dull holes, I am. You'll fool the thing up and get took down, as you've been a dozen times."
Something in this sentence put Gregory on a new turn of thought, for he put his pipe on the table, clawed his beard a moment, and got up. "D'yer know anything of wire strainers?" He began to hunt in a corner and brought out parts of a clumsy machine, together with a tangle of wire. The woman flew at him.
"If you'd give by that foolery and do a bit of shovelling we might be better off. Who wants a wire strainer where there isn't a fence for two hundred mile? You make me sick, yer do."
"Steady on, mother." Gregory fell into explanation, and in time brought out a potato digger of his invention, and illustrated that fortune was but a stay-away. Mrs. Gregory gave over talk, and drew an ancient illustrated paper from somewhere, and sat down to turn the leaves. The girl employed herself with one thing and another, going in and out of the doorway, and seeming intent on her business; but Power knew she watched him, and he himself missed nothing she did. Her beauty was beyond the telling. Whether she walked, whether she sat, whether she stood a moment by the doorway peering into the night, she was so wonderful that nothing else was worth the looking.
What was happening to him to-night!
At last Gregory was persuaded to put his inventions back in their corner and light lanterns. "You'd better come along, gel," he said. "We may want you to hold a light." He and Moll Gregory and Power set out, and Power came to remember the journey as many pictures of one girl who passed from light into shadow and from shadow into light. She strode beside him with the free walk of a goddess. They arrived at the shaft, and she stood over the black mouth, holding a lantern to guide the downward clamber. From his station at the bottom, Power saw her bending overhead, with one hand on the windlass for support, and the stars of the sky gathered together for background. He looked here and there at the broken earth as Gregory bade him, and the dull green of the copper appeared in abundance. It was dirty work and hot, with ever a trickle of dirt down the back of the neck, and he wished himself well up at the top again. They had climbed up presently, and very soon had made the road home. The close air of the hut gave them ill greeting. Gregory put down the lantern noisily on the table, blew a big breath out of his mouth, and ran a finger round the neck of his shirt.
"This weather's no good for climbing about in," he said.
The woman looked up from her paper with a keen face. "Wot did you think of the show, Mr. Power?"
"I don't know much about that sort of thing, Mrs. Gregory. It looks thundering good."
Gregory began to think. "There's specimens about the place," he said, "but durn me if I know where to come on them."