There was a hale old man of seventy or so seated on a low wall in front of one of the gardens, his face shaded from the sunlight by a broad hat, his lean gray hands employed in buckling up the leathern leggings that encased his spare calves. He got up when the horses stopped, and looked in rather a dazed fashion at the carriage.
"How do you do this morning, Mr. Cornish?" Wenna said.
"Why, now, to be sure!" the old man said, as if reproaching his own imperfect vision. "'Tis a fine marnin', Miss Wenna, and yü be agwoin' for a drive."
"And how is your daughter-in-law, Mr. Cornish? Has she sold the pig yet?"
"Naw, she hasn't sold the peg. If yü be agwoin' thrü Trevalga, Miss Wenna, just yü stop and have a look at that peg: yü'll be 'mazed to see en. 'Tis many a year agone sence there has been such a peg by me. And perhaps yü'd take the laste bit o' refrashment, Miss Wenna, as yü go by: Jane would get yü a coop o' tay to once."
"Thank you, Mr. Cornish, I'll look in and see the pig some other time: to-day we sha'n't be going as far as Trevalga."
"Oh, won't you?" said Master Harry in a low voice as he drove on. "You'll be in Trevalga before you know where you are."
Which was literally the case. Wenna was so much engaged in her talk with Mrs. Trelyon that she did not notice how far away they were getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion knew. They were now on the high uplands by the coast, driving between the beautiful banks, which were starred with primroses and stitchwort and red dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and tender-hued firstlings of the year. The sun was warm on the hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze blew about these lofty heights, and stirred Mabyn's splendid masses of hair as they drove rapidly along. Far over on their right, beyond the majestic wall of cliff, lay the great blue plain of the sea; and there stood the bold brown masses of the Sisters Rocks, with a circle of white foam round their base. As they looked down into the south the white light was so fierce that they could but faintly discern objects through it; but here and there they caught a glimpse of a square church-tower or of a few rude cottages clustered on the high plain, and these seemed to be of a transparent gray in the blinding glare of the sun.
Then suddenly in front of them they found a deep chasm, with the white road leading down through its cool shadows. There was the channel of a stream, with the rocks looking purple amid the gray bushes; and here were rich meadows, with cattle standing deep in the grass and the daisies; and over there, on the other side, a strip of forest, with the sunlight shining along one side of the tall and dark-green pines. As they drove down into this place, which is called the Rocky Valley, a magpie rose from one of the fields and flew up into the firs.
"That is sorrow," said Mabyn.