s father's smile
magically and laughably reproduced upon his little face, he trotted back
to his mother.

A moment later Will, still milking, heard himself loudly called from the
gate. The voice he knew well enough, but it was pitched unusually high,
and denoted a condition of excitement and impatience very seldom to be
met with in its possessor. Martin Grimbal, for it was he, did not
observe Blanchard, as the farmer emerged from the byre. His eye was bent
in startled and critical scrutiny of a granite post, to which the front
gate of Newtake latched, and he continued shouting aloud until Will
stood beside him. Then he appeared on his hands and knees beside the
gate-post. He had flung down his stick and satchel; his mouth was
slightly open; his cap rested on the side of his head; his face seemed
transfigured before some overwhelming discovery.

Relations were still strained between these men; and Will did not forget
the fact, though it had evidently escaped Martin in his present
excitement.

"What the deuce be doin' now?" asked Blanchard abruptly.

"Man alive! A marvel! Look here--to think I have passed this stone a
hundred times and never noticed!"

He rose, brushed his muddy knees, still gazing at the gate-post, then
took a trowel from his bag and began to cut away the turf about the base
of it.

"Let that bide!" called out the master sharply. "What be 'bout, delving
theer?"

"I forgot you didn't know. I was coming to see you on my way to the
Moor. I wanted a drink and a handshake. We mustn't be enemies, and I'm
heartily sorry for what I said--heartily. But here's a fitting object to
build new friendship on. I just caught sight of the incisions through a
fortunate gleam of early morning light. Come this side and see for
yourself. To think you had what a moorman would reckon good fortune at
your gate and never guessed it!"

"Fortune at my gate? Wheer to? I aint heard nothin' of it."

"Here, man, here! D' you see this post?"

"Not bein' blind, I do."

"Yet you were blind, and so was I. There 's excuse for you--none for me.
It's a cross! Yes, a priceless old Christian cross, buried here head
downward by some profane soul in the distant past, who found it of size
and shape to make a gate-post. They are common enough in Cornwall, but
very rare in Devon. It's a great--a remarkable discovery in fact, and
I'm right glad I found it on your threshold; for we may be friends again
beside this symbol fittingly enoug