The survey ended, her son helped Damaris into a little market-cart, which he had bought for her upon coming into his fortune.  A staid pony, also his purchase, completed the equipage, and presently Mrs. Blanchard drove comfortably away; while Will, who yet proposed to tramp, for the twentieth time, each acre of Newtake land, watched her depart, then turned to continue his researches.  A world of thought rested on his brown face.  Arrived at each little field, he licked his pencil, and made notes in a massive new pocketbook.  He strode along like a conqueror of kingdoms, frowned and scratched his curly head as problem after problem rose, smiled when he solved them, and entered the solution in his book.  For the wide world was full of young green, and this sanguine youth soared lark-high in soul under his happy circumstances.  Will breathed out kindness to all mankind just at present, and now before that approaching welfare he saw writ largely in beggarly Newtake, before the rosy dawn which Hope spread over this cemetery of other men’s dead aspirations, he felt his heart swell to the world.  Two clouds only darkened his horizon then.  One was the necessity of beginning the new life without his life’s partner; while the other, formerly tremendous enough, had long since shrunk to a shadow on the horizon of the past.  His secret still remained, but that circumstance was too remote to shadow the new enterprise.  It existed, however, and its recurrence wove occasional gloomy patterns into the web of Will Blanchard’s thought.

CHAPTER III

OVER A RIDING-WHIP

Will completed his survey and already saw, in his mind’s eye, a brave masque of autumn gold spreading above the lean lands of Newtake.  From this spectacle to that of garnered harvests and great gleaming stacks bursting with fatness the transition was natural and easy.  He pictured kine in the farmyard, many sheep upon the hills, and Phoebe with such geese, ducks, and turkeys as should make her quite forget the poultry of Monks Barton.  Then, having built castles in the air until his imagination was exhausted, Will shut the outer gate with the touch of possession, turned a moment to see how Newtake looked from the roadway, found only the shadow of it looming through the mist, and so departed, whistling and slapping his gaiters with an ash sapling.

It happened that beside a gate which closed the moorland precincts to prevent cattle from wandering, a horseman stood, and as the pedestrian passed him in the gathering gloaming, he dropped his hunting-stock while making an effort to open the gate without dismounting.

“Bide wheer you be!” said Will; “I’ll pick un up an’ ope the gate for ’e.”

He did so and handed the whip back to its owner.  Then each recognised the other, and there was a moment of silence.

“’Tis you, Jan Grimbal, is it?” asked the younger.  “I didn’t knaw ’e in the dimpsy light.”