Meantime, a group of four was standing in the middle of Parc Dew, the
twenty-acred field behind the farmstead. The stranger, dressed in a
blue jersey and outfit of Farmer Tresidder's, that made up in boots for
its shortcomings elsewhere, was addressing the farmer, Ruby, and Jim
Lewarne, who heard him with lively attention. In his right hand he held
a walking-stick armed with a spud, for uprooting thistles; and in his
left a cake of dark soil, half stone, half mud. His manner was earnest.

". . . . I see," he was saying, "that I don't convince you; and it's
only for your own sakes I insist on convincing you. You'll grant me
that, I suppose. To-morrow, or the next day, I go; and the chances are
that we never meet again in this world. But 'twould be a pleasant
thought to carry off to the ends of the earth that you, my benefactors,
were living in wealth, enriched (if I may say it without presumption) by
a chance word of mine. I tell you I know something of these matters--"

"I thought you'd passed your days privateerin'," put in Jim Lewarne, who
was the only hostile listener, perhaps because he saw no chance of
sharing in the promised wealth.

"Jim, hold your tongue!" snapped Ruby.

"I ask you," went on the stranger, without deigning to answer, "I ask
you if it does not look like Providence? Here have you been for years,
dwelling amid wealth of which you never dreamed. A ship is wrecked
close to your doors, and of all her crew the one man saved is, perhaps,
the one man who could enlighten you. You feed him, clothe him, nurse
him. As soon as he can crawl about, he picks a walking-stick out of
half-a-dozen or more in the hall, and goes out with you to take a look