“Be the Frenchmen landed?” she inquired, sharply.

“Why, no; nor yet likely to.”

“Then why be I called out i’ the midst o’ my clanin’?  What came I out for to see?  Was it to pass the time o’ day wi’ an aged shaken-by-the-wind kind o’ loiterer they name Uncle Issy?”

Apparently it was not, for Uncle Issy by this time was twenty yards up the road, and still fleeing, with his head bent and shoulders extravagantly arched, as if under a smart shower.

“I thought I’d like to see you, mother,” said Young Zeb.

“Well, now you’ve done it.”

“Best be goin’, I reckon, my son,” whispered Old Zeb.

“I be much the same to look at,” announced the voice above, “as afore your legacy came.  ‘Tis only up to Sheba that faces ha’ grown kindlier.”

Young Zeb touched up his mare a trifle savagely.

“Well, so long, my son!  See ‘ee up to Sheba this evenin’, if all’s well.”

The old man turned back to his work, while Young Zeb rattled on in an ill humour.  He had the prettiest sweetheart and the richest in Lanihale parish, and nobody said a good word for her.  He tried to think of her as a wronged angel, and grew angry with himself on finding the effort hard to sustain.  Moreover, he felt uneasy about the stranger.  Fate must be intending mischief, he fancied, when it led him to rescue a man who so strangely happened to bear his own name.  The fellow, too, was still at Sheba, being nursed back to strength; and Zeb didn’t like it.  In spite of the day, and the merry breath of it that blew from the sea upon his right cheek, black care dogged him all the way up the long hill that led out of Porthlooe, and clung to the tail-board of his green cart as he jolted down again towards Ruan Cove.

After passing the Cove-head, Young Zeb pulled up the mare, and was taken with a fit of thoughtfulness, glancing up towards Sheba farm, and then along the high-road, as if uncertain.  The mare settled the question after a minute, by turning into the lane, and Zeb let her have her way.

“Where’s Miss Ruby?” he asked, driving into the town-place, and coming on Mary Jane, who was filling a pig’s-bucket by the back door.

“Gone up to Pare Dew ‘long wi’ maister an’ the very man I seed i’ my tay-cup, a week come Friday.”

“H’m.”

“Iss, fay; an’ a great long-legged stranger he was.  So I stuck en ’pon my fist an’ gave en a scat.  ‘To-day,’ says I, but he didn’ budge.  ‘To-morrow,’ I says, an’ gave en another; and then ‘Nex’ day;’ and t’ third time he flew.  ‘Shall have a sweet’eart, Sunday, praise the Lord,’ thinks I; ’wonder who ’tis?  Anyway, ’tis a comfort he’ll be high ’pon his pins, like Nanny Painter’s hens, for mine be all the purgy-bustious shape just now.’  Well, Sunday night he came to Raney Rock, an’ Monday mornin’ to Sheba farm; and no thanks to you that brought en, for not a single dare-to-deny-me glance has he cast this way.”