the voice above, "as afore
your legacy came. 'Tis only up to Sheba that faces ha' grown kindlier."

Young Zeb touched up his mare a trifle savagely.

"Well, so long, my son! See 'ee up to Sheba this evenin', if all's
well."

The old man turned back to his work, while Young Zeb rattled on in an
ill humour. He had the prettiest sweetheart and the richest in
Lanihale parish, and nobody said a good word for her. He tried to think
of her as a wronged angel, and grew angry with himself on finding the
effort hard to sustain. Moreover, he felt uneasy about the stranger.
Fate must be intending mischief, he fancied, when it led him to rescue a
man who so strangely happened to bear his own name. The fellow, too,
was still at Sheba, being nursed back to strength; and Zeb didn't like
it. In spite of the day, and the merry breath of it that blew from the
sea upon his right cheek, black care dogged him all the way up the long
hill that led out of Porthlooe, and clung to the tail-board of his green
cart as he jolted down again towards Ruan Cove.

After passing the Cove-head, Young Zeb pulled up the mare, and was taken
with a fit of thoughtfulness, glancing up towards Sheba farm, and then
along the high-road, as if uncertain. The mare settled the question
after a minute, by turning into the lane, and Zeb let her have her way.

"Where's Miss Ruby?" he asked, driving into the town-place, and coming
on Mary Jane, who was filling a pig's-bucket by the back door.

"Gone up to Pare Dew 'long wi' maister an' the very man I seed i' my
tay-cup, a week come Friday."

"H'm."

"Iss, fay; an' a great long-legged stranger he was. So I stuck en 'pon
my fist an' gave en a scat. 'To-day,' says I, but he didn' budge.
'To-morrow,' I says, an' gave en another; and then 'Nex' day;' and t'
third time he flew. 'Shall have a sweet'eart, Sunday, praise the Lord,'
thinks I; 'wonder who 'tis? Anyway, 'tis a comfort he'll be high 'pon
his pins, like Nanny Painter's hens, for mine be all the purgy-bustious
shape just now.' Well, Sunday night he came to Raney Rock, an' Monday
mornin' to Sheba farm; and no thanks to you that brought en, for not a
single dare-to-deny-me glance has he cast _this_ way."

"Which way, then?"

"'Can't stay to causey, Master Zeb, wi' all the best horn-handled knives
to be took out o' blue-butter 'gainst this evenin's courant. Besides,
you called me a liar last week."

"So you be. But I'll believe 'ee this time."