“Eh, Mr. Clifford,” remarked this worthy, as he stuck his spade down in the heaped-up earth and leaned upon it,—­“it’s a black day, forbye the summer sun!  I never thort I’d a’ thrown the mouls on the last Jocelyn.  For last he is, an’ there’ll never be another like ’im!”

“You’re right there, Wixton,” said Robin, sadly—­“I know the place can never be the same without him.  I shall do my best—­but—­”

“Ay, ye’ll do your best,” agreed Wixton, with a foreboding shake of his grizzled head—­“but you’re not a Jocelyn, an’ your best’ll be but a bad crutch, though there’s Jocelyn blood in ye by ye’r mother’s side.  Howsomever it’s not the same as the male line, do what we will an’ say what we like!  It’s not your fault, no, lad!” —­this with a pitying look—­“an’ no one’s blamin’ ye for what can’t be ’elped—­but it’s not a thing to be gotten over.”

Robin’s grave nod of acquiescence was more eloquent than speech.

Wixton dug his spade a little deeper into the pile of earth.

“If Farmer Jocelyn ‘ad been a marryin’ man, why, that would a’ been the right thing,” he went on—­“He might a’ had a fine strappin’ son to come arter ’im, a real born-an’-bred Jocelyn—­”

Robin listened with acute interest.  Why did not Wixton mention Innocent?  Did he know she was not a Jocelyn?  He waited, and Wixton went on—­

“But, ye see, ‘e wouldn’t have none o’ that.  An’ he took the little gel as was left with ‘im the night o’ the great storm nigh eighteen years ago that blew down three of our biggest elms in the church-yard—­”

“Did you know?” exclaimed Clifford, eagerly—­“Did you see—?”

“I saw a man on ’orseback ride up to Briar Farm, ‘oldin’ a baby in front o’ him with one hand, and the reins in t’other—­an’ he came out from the farm without the baby.  Then one mornin’ when Farmer Jocelyn was a-walkin’ with the baby in the fields I said to ’im, secret-like—­’That ain’t your child!’ an’ he sez—­’Ow do you know it ain’t?’ An’ I sez—­’ Because I saw it come with a stranger’—­ an’ he laughed an’ said—­’It may be mine for all that!’ But I knew it worn’t!  A nice little girl she is too,—­Miss Innocent—­poor soul!  I’m downright sorry for ’er, for she ain’t got many friends in this village.”

“Why?” Robin asked, half mechanically.

“Why?  Well, she’s a bit too dainty—­like in ’er ways for one thing—­then there’s gels who are arter you, Mister Clifford!—­ay, ay, ye know they are!—­sharp ’ussies, all of ’em!—­an’ they can’t abide ‘er, for they thinks you’re a-goin’ to marry ’er!—­Lord forgive me that I should be chitterin’ ‘ere about marryin’ over a buryin’!—­but that’s the trouble—­an’ it’s the trouble all the world over, wimmin wantin’ a man, an’ mad for their lives when they thinks another woman’s arter ’im!  Eh, eh!  We should all get along better if there worn’t no wimmin jealousies, but bein’ men we’ve got to put up with ’em.  Are ye goin’ now, Mister?—­Well, the Lord love ye an’ comfort ye!—­ye’ll never meet a finer man this side the next world than the one I’m puttin’ a cold quilt on!”