“Ah!  We all want the world to be a pretty fairy tale for our friends.  You scent your own luck ahead, and wish me to be lucky too.  I ought to thank you for that; but, instead, I’ll give you some advice.  Don’t bother yourself with the welfare of others; to do that is to ruin your own peace of mind and court more trouble than your share.  Every big-hearted man is infernally miserable—­he can’t help it.  The only philosopher’s stone is a stone heart; that is what the world ’s taught me.”

“Never!  You’re echoing somebody else, not yourself, I’ll swear.  I know you better.  We must see much of each other in the future.  I shall buy a little trap that I may drive often to the Red House.  And I should like to dedicate my book to you, if you would take it as a compliment.”

“No, no; give it to somebody who may be able to serve you.  I’m a fool in such things and know no more about the old stones than the foxes and rabbits that burrow among them.  Come, I must get home.  I’m glad you have returned, though I hated you when you supported them against me; but then love of family ’s a mere ghost against love of women.  Besides, how seldom it is that a man’s best friend is one of his own blood.”

They rose and departed.  John trotted away through Sandypark, having first made Martin promise to sup with him that night, and the pedestrian proceeded by the nearest road to Rushford Bridge.

Chris he did not see, but it happened that Mr. Lyddon met him just outside Monks Barton, and though Martin desired no such thing at the time, nothing would please the miller but that his friend should return to the farm for some conversation.

“Home again, an’ come to glasses, tu!  Well, they clear the sight, an’ we must all wear ’em sooner or late.  ’T is a longful time since I seed ’e, to be sure.”

“All well, I hope?”

“Nothing to grumble at.  Billy an’ me go down the hill as gradual an’ easy as any man ‘s a right to expect.  But he’s gettin’ so bald as a coot; an’ now the shape of his head comes to be knawed, theer ’s wonnerful bumps ‘pon it.  Then your brother’s all for sport an’ war.  A Justice of the Peace they’ve made un, tu.  He’s got his volunteer chaps to a smart pitch, theer’s no gainsaying.  A gert man for wild diversions he is.  Gwaine coursin’ wi’ long-dogs come winter, they tell me.”

“And how are Phoebe and her husband?”

“A little under the weather just now; but I’m watchin’ ’em unbeknawnst.  Theer’s a glimmer of hope in the dark if you’ll believe it, for Will ackshally comed to me esster-night to ax my advice—­my advice—­on a matter of stock!  What do ’e think of that?”

“He was fighting a losing battle in a manly sort of way it seemed to me when last I saw him.”

“So he was, and is.  I give him eighteen month or thereabout—­then’ll come the end of it.”

“The ‘end’!  What end?  You won’t let them starve?  Your daughter and the little children?”