With searching of heart, Mary Chirgwin spent time during that afternoon. In one room Joan, happier than she had been for many days, set out her few possessions, boldly hung the picture of Joe Noy's ship upon the wall and gazed at it with affection, for it spoke of the painter, not the sailor, to her; while, in a chamber hard by, Mary solved the problem of the day, coming at her conclusion with great struggle of mind and clashing of arguments. She resolved at last to abide at Drift with her uncle and with Joan. The reason for those events now crowding upon her life was hidden from her; and why Providence saw fit to awaken or mightily intensify the sorrows which time was lulling to sleep, she could not divine. She accepted her position, none the less, doubted nothing but that the secret hidden in these matters would some day be explained, and, according to her custom before the approach of all mundane events and circumstances affecting herself, viewed the present trial as heaven-sent to purify and strengthen. So your religious egotists are ever wont to read into the great waves of chance, as here and there a ripple from them sets their own little vessels shaking, as here and there some splash of foam, a puff of wind, strikes the nutshell which floats their lives, a personal, deliberate intervention, an event designed by the Everlasting to test their powers, ripen their characters, equip their souls for an eternity of satisfaction.

At tea time the cousins met again, and Uncle Chirgwin, returning from his affairs, was rejoiced to learn Mary's decision. No outward sign marked her struggle. She was calm, even stately, with a natural distinction which physically appeared in her bearing and carriage. She chilled Joan a little, but not with intention. Yet Joan was bold for her love and spoke no less than the truth when she asserted that she viewed her position without shame and without remorse. She spoke of it openly, fearlessly, and kept Uncle Chirgwin on thorns between the cold silence of his elder niece and the garrulous chatter of the younger. The saint was so stern, the sinner so happy and so perfectly impressed with her own innocence, which latter fact Mary too saw clearly; and it instantly solved half the problem in her mind. Joan had obviously been sent to Drift that the truth might reach her heart. She came a heathen from the outer darkness of sin, with vain babbling on her lips and a mind empty. She called herself "Nature's child" and the theatric thunders of Luke Gospeldom had never taught her that she was God's. Here, then, was one to be brought into the fold with all possible dispatch, and Mary, who loved religious battle, braced herself to the task while silently listening to Joan, that she might the better learn what manner of spiritual attack would best meet this sorry case.

Uncle Chirgwin took charge of his niece's bank-notes, and, after some persuasion, consented to accept the weekly sum of three shillings and sixpence from Joan. He made many objections to any such arrangement, but the girl overruled them, declaring absolutely that she would not stop at Drift, even until her future husband's return, unless the payment of money was accepted from her. It bred a secret joy in Joan to feel that "Mister Jan's" wealth now enabled her to enjoy an independence which even Mary could not share. She much desired to give more money, but Uncle Chirgwin reduced the sum to three shillings and sixpence weekly and would take no more. This wealth was viewed with very considerable loathing by Mary Chirgwin, and she criticised her uncle's decision unfavorably; but he accepted the owner's view, arguing that it was only justice to all parties so to do, until facts proved whether Joan was mistaken. The notes did not cause him uneasiness—at any rate during this stage of affairs—and he took them to Penzance upon the occasion of his next visit. Mr. Chirgwin's lawyer saw to the safe bestowal of the money; and when she heard that her nine hundred pounds would produce about five-and-twenty every year and yet not decrease the while, Joan was much astonished.

Meantime John Barren neither came to fetch her, nor sent any writing to tell of the causes for his delay. The girl was fruitful of new reasons for his silence, and then grew a black fear which answered all doubts and, by its reasonableness, terrified her. Perhaps "Mister Jan" was ill—too ill even to write. He had but little strength—that she knew, and few friends—of that Joan was also aware, for he had told her so. Yet, surely, there were those, if only his servants, who might have written to bid her hasten. A line—a single word—and she would get into the train and stop in it until she saw "London" written on a board at a station. Then she would leap out and find him and get to his heart and warm it and kiss life back to his body, light to his loved gray eyes. So thinking, time dragged, and as the novelty of the new life abated, and wore thin, Joan's spirits wavered until long and longer intervals of gloomy sadness marked the duration of each day for her. But she was young, and hope yet held revels in her heart when the mood favored, when the wind was soft, the sun bright, and Mother Nature seemed close and kind, as often happened. Joan worked too, helping Mary and the maids, but after a wayward manner of her own. There was no counting upon her and she loved better to be with her uncle, abroad upon the land, or by herself, hidden in the orchard, in the fruit garden, or in the secret places of the coomb.

She had her favorite spots, for as yet that great, overwhelming regard for the old stone crosses, which came to her afterward, had not grown into a live passion. Her present pilgrimages were short, her shrines those of Nature's building. Much she loved the arm of an ancient apple-tree hid in the very heart of the orchard. A great gnarled limb bent abruptly out, grew long and low, and was propped at a distance of three yards from the parent tree. Midway between the stem and support, a crooked elbow of the bough made a pleasant seat for Joan; and here, when life at the farm looked more gray than common, she came and sometimes sat long hours. Her perch raised her above a velvet scented sea of wall-flowers which ran in regular waves beneath the apple-trees, under murmuring of many bees. The blossom above Joan's head was all a lacework of sunny rose and cream; and the sun painted glorious russet harmonies below, glinted magically in the green and white above, turned the gray lichens, which clustered on the weather side of the trunks and boughs, to silver. The glory of life here always heartened Joan. She felt the immortality of Nature, who, from naked earth and barren boughs, thus at the sun's smile splendidly awakened, and teemed and overflowed with bewildering, inexhaustible luxuriance. Nor seldom this aspect of her Mother's infinite wealth touched her blood, and a strange sensation as of very lust of life made her wild. At such times she would pick the green things and tear them and watch the colorless life ooze from their wounds; she would gather blossoms and scatter them against the wind, break buds open and pluck their hearts out, fill her mouth with sorrel and young grass-shoots, and feel the cool saps of them upon her palate. And sometimes her Mother frightened her, for the dim clouds hid beneath the horizon of maternity were moving now and their color was dark. Nature had as many moods as Joan and often looked distant and terrible. Poor little blue-eyed "sister of the sun and moon!" She likened herself so bravely to the other children of her Mother—to the stars, to the fair birch-trees, where emerald showers now twinkled down over the silver stems, to the uncurling fronds of the fern, to the little trout in the coomb-stream; and yet she was not content as they were.

"Her's good, so good, but oh! if her was a bit nigher—if I could sit in her lap an' feel her arms around me an' thread the daisies into chains like when I was a lil maid! But I be a grawed wummon now—an' yet caan't feel it so—not yet. Her'll hold my hand, maybe, an' lead me 'pon the road past pain an' sorrow. I can trust her, 'cause Mister Jan did say as Nature never lies—never."

So the child's thoughts wandered on a day when she sat upon the bough and brought a shower of pale petals down with every movement. But as yet only the shadows of shadows clouded her thoughts when she thought about herself. It was the loneliness brought real care—the loneliness and the waiting.

She spent time, too, in Uncle Chirgwin's old walled garden. This place and its products went for little in the traffic of the farm, though every year its owner was wont to count upon certain few baskets of choice fruit as an addition to his income, and every year his hopes were blighted. For the walls whereon his peaches and nectarines grew had stood through generations, their red brick work was much fretted by time, and the interstices between the bricks made snug homes for a variety of insects. Joan once listened to her uncle upon this subject, and henceforth chose to make his scanty fruit her special care.

"'Tis like this," he explained, "an' specially wi' the necter'ns. The moment they graws a shade, an' long afore they stone, them dratted lil auld sow-pigs [Footnote: Sow-pigs—Woodlice.] falls 'pon 'em cruel. Then they waits theer time till the ripenin', an', blame me, but the varmints do allus knaw just a day 'fore I does, when things be ready, an' they eats the peaches an' necter'ns by night, gouging 'em shameful, same as if you'd done it wi' your nails. 'Tis a terrible coorious wall for sow-pigs, likewise for snails; an' I be allus a gwaine to have en repaired an' pinted, but yet somehow 'tedn' done. But your sharp eyes'll be a sight o' use wi' creepin' things. 'Tis a reg'lar Noah's Ark o' a wall, to be sure; not but what I lay theer's five pound worth o' stone fruit 'pon it most years if 'twas let bide."

Joan enjoyed watching the peaches grow. First they peeped like pearls from the dried frills of their blossoms; then they expanded and cast off the encumbrance of dead petals and nestled against the red bricks that sucked up sunshine and held it for them when the sun had gone. She found the garden wall was a whole busy world, and, taught by her vanished master, she took interest in all that dwelt thereon. But the snails and woodlice she slew ruthlessly that her uncle might presently come by his five pounds' value of fruit.

Mary Chirgwin speedily discovered the task of reforming her cousin was like to be lengthy and arduous. There appeared no foundations upon which to work, and while the certainty of Barron's return still remained with Joan as a vital guide to conduct, no other gospel than that which he had taught found her a listener. She refused to go to church, to Mary's chagrin and Uncle Chirgwin's sorrow; but he explained the matter correctly and indeed found a clew to most of Joan's actions at this season. Mary saw the old man's growing love for the new arrival, and a smaller mind might have sunk to jealousy quickly enough under such circumstances, but she, deeply concerned with Joan's eternal welfare, rose above temporary details, At the same time her uncle's mild and tolerant attitude caused her pain.

"As to church-gwaine," he said, on a Sunday morning when he and his elder niece had driven off to Sancreed as usual, leaving Joan in the orchard; "she've larned to look 'pon it from a Luke Gosp'ler's pint o' view. Doan't you fret, Polly. Let her bide. 'Twill come o' itself bimebye wan o' these Sundays. Poor tiby lamb! Christ's a watchin' of her, Polly. An' if this here gen'leman, by the name o' Mister Jan, doan't come—"

"You make me daft!" she interrupted, with impatience. "D'you mean as you ever thot he would?"

"I hopes. Theer's sich a 'mazin' deal o' good in human nature. Mayhap he'm wraslin' wi' his sawl to this hour. An' the Lard do allus fight 'pon the side o' conscience. Iss fay! Some 'ow I do think as he'll come."

Mary said no more. She was quite positive that her cousin and her uncle were alike mistaken; but she saw that, until the hard truth forced itself upon Joan, the girl would go her present way. It was not that Joan lacked goodness and sweetness, but, in Mary's opinion, she took an obstinate and wrong-headed course upon the one vital subject of her own salvation. Mary fought with herself to love Joan, and the battle now was only hard when Joe Noy came within the scope of her thoughts. She banished him as much as she could, but it never grew easy, and the complex problems bred of reflections on this theme maddened her. For she had always loved him, and that affection, thrust away as deadly-sin, when he left her for another, could not be wholly strangled now.

Time hung heavily and more heavily with Joan at Drift. A fortnight passed; but the hope of the ignorant and trustful dies very hard and the faith which is bred of absolute love has a hundred lives. The girl walked into Penzance every second day, and hope blazed brightly on the road to the post-office, then sank a little deeper into the hidden places of her heart as she plodded empty-handed back to Drift.

Slowly, and so gradually that she herself knew it not, her thoughts grew something less occupied with John Barren, something more concerned about herself. For the world was full of happy mothers now. One "Brindle"—a knot-cow of repute—dropped a fine bull-calf in a croft hard by the orchard, and Joan looked into "Brindle's" solemn eyes after the event, and learned. She marveled to see the little brown calf stand on his shaking legs within an hour of his birth; then his mother licked him lovingly, while Uncle Chirgwin himself drew off her "buzzy milk." There was another mother in a disused pigsty. There Joan found a red and white tortoise-shell cat with four blind, squeaking atoms beside her, and as the cat rolled over and the atoms sucked life, Joan saw her shining eyes, afore-time so bright and hard, full of a new strange light, like the cloud that glimmers over the fires of an opal. The cat's green orbs were full of mystery: of pain past, of joy present. So again Joan learned. But a black tragedy blotted out that little happy family in the pigsty, and Death, in the shape of Amos Bartlett, Mr. Chirgwin's head man, fell upon them. Then the farmer learned that his niece could be angry. One morning Joan found the mother cat running wildly here and there, with a world of misery in its cry; while a moment afterward she came upon the kittens in a duck pond. Mr. Bartlett was present and explained.

"Them chets had to gaw, missy. 'Tis a auld word an' it ban't wise to take no count of sayings like that. 'May chets bad luck begets.' You've heard tell o' that? Never let live no kittens born in May. They theer dead chets comed May Day."

"You'm a cruel devil!" she said hotly; "how'd you like for your two lil children to be thrawed in the water, May or no May? Look at thicky cat, breakin' her heart, poor twoad!"

Mr. Bartlett was justly angry that Joan could dare to thus class his priceless red-headed twins with a litter of dead kittens, and he said more than was wise, ramming home a truth, and that coarsely.

"Theer's plenty more wheer them comed from, I lay. Nachur's so free, you see—tu free like sometimes. Ban't no dearth o' chets or childern as I've heard on. They comes unaxed, an' unwanted tu. You might a heard tell o' some sich p'raps?"

She blushed and shook with passion at this sudden new aspect of affairs. Here was a standpoint from which nobody had viewed her before. Worse—far worse than her father's rage or Uncle Chirgwin's tears was this. Amos Bartlett represented the world's attitude. The world would not be angry with her, or cry for her; it would merely laugh and pass on, like Mr. Bartlett. So Joan learned yet again; and the new knowledge cowed her for full eight-and-forty hours. But the eyes of the mothers had taught Joan something of the secret of pain, and a thread of gravity ran henceforth through all thoughts concerning the future. She much marveled that "Mister Jan" had never touched upon this leaf in the book. Beauty was what he invariably talked about, and he found beauty hidden in many a strange matter too; but not in pain. That was because he suffered himself sometimes, Joan suspected. And yet, to her, pain, though she had never felt it, seemed not wholly hideous. She surprised herself mightily by the depth of her own thoughts now. She seemed to stand upon the brink of deep matters guessing dimly at things hidden. Then her moods would break again from the clouds to brightness. Hot sunshine on her cheek always raised her young spirits, and her health, now excellent, threw joy into life despite the ever-present anxiety. Then came a meeting which roused interest and brought very genuine delight with it.

It happened upon a fine Sunday afternoon, when Joan was walking through the fields on the farm—those which extended southward—that she reached a stile where granite blocks lay lengthwise, like the rungs of a ladder, between two uprights. Here she stopped a while, and sat her down, and looked out over the promise of fine hay. The undulating green expanse was studded with the black knobs of ribwort plantain and gemmed with buttercups, which here were dotted like sparks of fire, here massed in broad bunches and splashes of color. The wind swept over the field, and its course was marked by sudden flecks and ripples of transient sheeny light, paler and brighter than the mass of the herbage. Then a figure appeared afar off, following the course of the footpath where it wound through the gold of the flowers and the silver of the bending grasses. It approached, resolved itself into a fisher-boy and presently proved to be Tom Tregenza. Joan ran forward to meet him as soon as the short figure, with its exaggerated nautical roll, became known to her. She kissed her half-brother warmly, and he hugged her and showed great delight at the meeting, for he loved Joan well.

"I've stealed away, 'cause I was just burstin' to get sight of 'e again, Joan. Faither's home an' I comed off for a walk, creepin' round here an' hopin' as we'd meet. 'Tis mighty wisht to home now you'm gone, I can tell 'e. I've got a sore head yet along o' you."

"G'wan, bwoy! Why should 'e?"

"Iss so. 'Twas like this. When us comed back from sea wan mornin' a week arter you'd gone I ups an' sez, ''Tis 'bout as lively as bad feesh ashore now Joan ban't here.' I dedn' knaw faither was in the doorway when I said it, 'cause he'd give out you was never to be named no more. But mother seed en an' sez to me, 'Shut your mouth.' An', not knawin' faither was be'ind me, I ups agin an' sez, 'Why caan't I, as be her awn brother, see Joan anyway an' hear tell what 'tis she've done? I lay as it ban't no mighty harm neither, 'cause Joan's true Tregenza!'"

"Good Lard! An' faither heard 'e?"

"Iss, an' next minute I knawed it. He blazed an' roared, an' comed over an' bummed my head 'pon the earhole—a buster as might 'a' killed some lads. My ivers! I seed stars 'nough to fill a new sky, Joan, an' I went down tail over nose. I doubt theer's nobody in Newlyn what can hit like faither. But I got up agin an' sot mighty still, an' faither sez, 'She as was here ban't no Tregenza, nor my darter, nor nothin' to none under my hellings [Footnote: Hellings—Roof.] no more—never more, mark that.' Then mother thrawed her apern over her faace an' hollered, 'cause I'd got such a welt, an' faither walked out in the garden. I was for axin' mother then, but reckoned not for fear as he might be listenin' agin. But I knawed you was up Drift, 'cause I heard mother say that much; an' now I've sot eyes on you agin; an' I knaw you'll tell me what's wrong wi' you; an' if I can do anything for 'e I will, sink or swim."

"Faither's a cruel beast, an' he'll come to a bad end, Tom, 'spite of they Gosp'lers. He'm all wrong an' doan't knaw nothin' 'tall 'bout God. I do knaw what I knaw. Theer's more o' God in that gert shine o' buttercups 'pon the grass than in all them whey-faced chapel folks put together."

"My stars, Joan!"
"'Tis truth, an' you'll find 'tis some day, same as what I have."

"I doan't see how any lad be gwaine to make heaven myself," said Tom gloomily. "Us had a mining cap'n from Camborne preach this marnin', an', by Gollies! 'tweer like sittin' tu near a gert red'ot fire. Her rubbed it in, I tell 'e, same as you rubs salt into a hake. Faither said 'twas braave talk. But you, Joan, what's wrong with 'e, what have you done?"

"I ain't done no wrong, Tom, an' you can take my word for't."

"Do 'e reckon you'm damned, like what faither sez?"

"Never! I doan't care a grain o' wheat what faither sez. What I done weern't no sin, 'cause him, as be wiser an' cleverer an' better every way than any man in Carnwall, said 'tweern't; an' he knawed. I've heard wise things said, an' I've minded some an' forgot others. None can damn folks but God, when all's done, an' He's the last as would; for God do love even the creeping, gashly worms under a turned stone tu well to damn 'em. Much more humans. I be a Nature's cheel an' doan't b'lieve in no devil an' no hell-fire 'tall."

"I wish I was a Nachur's cheel then."

Joan flung down a little bouquet of starry stitchworts she had gathered upon the way and turned very earnestly to Tom.

"You be, you be a Nature's cheel. Us all be, but awnly a few knaws it."

Tom laughed at this idea mightily.

"Well, I'll slip back long, Joan; an' if I be a Nachur's cheel, I be; but I guess I'll keep it a secret. If I tawld faither as I dedn' b'lieve in no auld devil, I guess he'd hurry me into next world so's I might see for myself theer was wan."

They walked a little way together. Then Tom grew frightened and stopped his companion. "Guess you'd best to be turnin'. Folks is 'bout everywheer in the fields, bein' Sunday, an' if it got back to faither as I'd seed you, he'd make me hop."

"D'you like the sea still, Tom?"

"Doan't I just! Better'n better; an' I be grawin' smart, 'cause I heard faither tell mother so when I was in the wash'ouse an' they thot I wasn't. Faither said as I'd got a hawk's eye for moorin's or what not. An' I licked the bwoy on Pratt's bwoat a fortnight agone. A lot o' men seed me do't. I hopes I'll hit so hard as faither hisself wan day, when I'm grawed. Good-by, sister Joan. I'll see 'e agin when I can, an' bring up a feesh maybe. Doan't say nothin' 'bout me to them at the farm, else it may get back."

So Tom marched off, speculating as to what particular lie would best meet the case if cross-questioning awaited him on his return, and Joan watched the thickset little figure very lovingly until it was out of sight.