Although not an extraordinarily taciturn man among friends slightly richer than himself, he never wasted words upon outsiders, and to his trapper Enoch his ideas were seldom conveyed by any other means than nods and shakes of the head.  Their long acquaintance with each other’s ways, and the nature of their labours, rendered words between them almost superfluous as vehicles of thought, whilst the coincidence of their horizons, and the astonishing equality of their social views, by startling the keeper from time to time as very damaging to the theory of master and man, strictly forbade any indulgence in words as courtesies.

Behind the keeper came Enoch (who had been assisting in the garden) at the well-considered chronological distance of three minutes—­an interval of non-appearance on the trapper’s part not arrived at without some reflection.  Four minutes had been found to express indifference to indoor arrangements, and simultaneousness had implied too great an anxiety about meals.

“A little earlier than usual, Fancy,” the keeper said, as he sat down and looked at the clocks.  “That Ezekiel Saunders o’ thine is tearing on afore Thomas Wood again.”

“I kept in the middle between them,” said Fancy, also looking at the two clocks.

“Better stick to Thomas,” said her father.  “There’s a healthy beat in Thomas that would lead a man to swear by en offhand.  He is as true as the town time.  How is it your stap-mother isn’t here?”

As Fancy was about to reply, the rattle of wheels was heard, and “Weh-hey, Smart!” in Mr. Richard Dewy’s voice rolled into the cottage from round the corner of the house.

“Hullo! there’s Dewy’s cart come for thee, Fancy—­Dick driving—­afore time, too.  Well, ask the lad to have pot-luck with us.”

Dick on entering made a point of implying by his general bearing that he took an interest in Fancy simply as in one of the same race and country as himself; and they all sat down.  Dick could have wished her manner had not been so entirely free from all apparent consciousness of those accidental meetings of theirs:  but he let the thought pass.  Enoch sat diagonally at a table afar off, under the corner cupboard, and drank his cider from a long perpendicular pint cup, having tall fir-trees done in brown on its sides.  He threw occasional remarks into the general tide of conversation, and with this advantage to himself, that he participated in the pleasures of a talk (slight as it was) at meal-times, without saddling himself with the responsibility of sustaining it.

“Why don’t your stap-mother come down, Fancy?” said Geoffrey.  “You’ll excuse her, Mister Dick, she’s a little queer sometimes.”

“O yes,—­quite,” said Richard, as if he were in the habit of excusing people every day.

“She d’belong to that class of womankind that become second wives:  a rum class rather.”

“Indeed,” said Dick, with sympathy for an indefinite something.