“To be sure; but I’ve given Steve my name.  Any one not called Latrigg at Up-Hill would seem like a stranger.”

“I know how you feel about that.  A squire in Seat-Sandal out of the old name would have a very middling kind of time, I think.  He’d have a sight of ill-will at his back.”

“Thou means with them!”

The squire nodded gravely; and after a minute’s silence said, “It stands to reason they take an interest.  I do in them.  When I think of this or that Sandal, or when I look up at their faces as I sit smoking beside them, I’m sure I feel like their son; and I wouldn’t grieve them any more than if they were to be seen and talked to.  It’s none likely, then, that they forget.  I know they don’t.”

“I’m quite of thy way of thinking, Sandal; but Steve will be called Latrigg.  He has never known any other name, thou sees.”

“To be sure.  Is Ducie willing?”

“Poor lass!  She never names Steve’s father.  He’d no business in her life, and he very soon went out of it.  Stray souls will get into families they have no business in, sometimes.  They make a deal of unhappiness when they do.”

Sandal sat listening with a sympathetic face.  He hoped Latrigg was going to tell him something definite about his daughter’s trouble; but the old man puffed, puffed, in silence a few minutes, and then turned the conversation.  However, Sandal had been touched on a point where he was exceedingly sensitive; and he rose with a sigh, and said, “Well, well, Latrigg, good-by.  I’ll go down the fell now.  Come, Charlotte.”

Unconsciously he spoke with an authority not usual to him, and the parting was a little silent and hurried; for Ducie was in the throng of her festival, and rather impatient for Stephen’s help.  Only Latrigg walked to the gate with them.  He looked after Sandal and his daughter with a grave, but not unhappy wistfulness; and when a belt of larches hid them from his view, he turned towards the house, saying softly,—­

“It is like to be my last shearing.  Very soon this life will have been, but through Christ’s mercy I have the over-hand of the future.”

It was almost as hard to go down the fell as to come up it, for the road was very steep and stony.  The squire took it leisurely, carrying his straw hat in his hand, and often standing still to look around him.  The day had been very warm; and limpid vapors hung over the mountains, like something far finer than mist,—­like air made visible,—­giving them an appearance of inconceivable remoteness, full of grandeur; for there is a sublimity of distance, as well as a sublimity of height.  He made Charlotte notice them.  “Maybe, many a year after this, you’ll see the hills look just that way, dearie; then think on this evening and on me.”