Mr. Torp smiled complacently and pulled at his pipe. He talked of “out there” with the superiority of a man who lived, sleek and snug, in the company of aristocratic tombstones. But this slyness and aplomb soon changed, as he led his son-in-law into the interior of his shed; and the two men sat down together on a bench covered with stone-dust.

“Say, mister,” John Torp began, “ ’twere only yesterday that I thought deep about ’ee, dang me if I didn’t! I were out, passing the sweet of the evening, wi’ old man Round, to Farmer’s Rest, and who should drop in for a game of draughts or summat but that there Monk from up at Squire’s. They be a couple o’ devil’s own, when liquor’s aboard, them two; and ’twere good I be the man I be, with a headpiece what no small beer, brewed by the likes o’ they, can worrit, if ’ee knows my meaning?”

Wolf nodded sagaciously, resting his manuscript on his knees.