of scholarship, was a god-like man; with his air, too, of apostolical authority—­for Johnny, whom all Epworth set down as good for nothing, reflected the Wesley notions of the Church’s majesty.  In his dreams—­but only in his dreams—­he saw himself such a man, an Oxford scholar, treading that beatific city of which the Rector disclosed a glimpse at times; his brows bathed by her ineffable aura, and he—­he, Johnny Whitelamb—­baptized into her mysteries, a participant with the Rector’s second son John, now at Christ Church—­ of whom (he noted) the family spoke but seldom and with a constraint which hinted at hopes too dear to be other than fearful.  Meanwhile he did his poor tasks, stayed his stomach when he could, and rewarded his employers with love.

He loved them all:  but Hetty he worshipped.

He knew his place.  For an hour past he had been sitting, as became a servant, beyond earshot of the sisters’ talk, yet within call, should they summon him.  Now the goddess had descended from her mountain with a command, and he ran toward the woodstack as he would have run and plunged into the water-dyke, had she bidden him.

He returned to find her waiting with her sleeves tucked above her elbows.

“Oh, Johnny—­I forgot the tinder-box!” she cried.

He dropped his burdens and produced it triumphantly from his tail pocket.

“I thought of that!”

“But you must not!”—­as he dropped on his knees and began to unbind and break up the sticks.  “This is my business.  I am going into service, in ten days—­at Kelstein:  and you must watch and tell me what I do amiss.”

She pulled the faggot towards her, broke up the sticks, and built the fragments daintily into a heap, with a handful of dry leaves as basis.  The twilight deepened around them as she built.  Next she struck flint on steel, caught the spark on tinder, and blew.  Johnny watched the glow on her cheeks wakening and fading, and, watching, fell into a brown study.

“There!” she exclaimed, straightening herself upon her knees as the blaze caught.  “Is that a good omen for Kelstein?”

Her eyes were on the sticks, and in their crackling she did not listen for his answer, but commanded him to take a pitcher of water and pour, while she mixed and kneaded the meal.  To the making of bread, cakes, pastry, Hetty brought a born gift; a hand so light, quick, and cool, that Johnny could have groaned for his own fumbling fingers.  A dozen cakes were finished and banked in the wood-ashes as the fire died down to a steadily glowing mass.  By this time the landscape about them lay flat to the eye and gray, touched with the faint gold of moonrise, and just then Emilia called down from the mound that the travellers were in sight on the Bawtry road.

The others ran to meet them:  but Hetty remained by her task, silent, and Johnny silent beside her.  Together they spread the two meals, one beside the fire for the family, the other some fifty yards off for the harvesters, now moving towards the rick-yard with the last load.