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Abel stared at him reflectively. “I’d got used to bein’ without one,” he said, dropping his voice. “I was goin’ on thirty, then. Ay, it was too late. I’d given up the thought o’ womankind, an’ ’twouldn’t have seemed nait’ral like. But I could wish now that I did ha’ married an’ had childern to keep me.”

“Ye mid ha’ been without ’em,” replied Joyce, once more placid and thoughtful. “Ay, shepherd, ’tis very like you would. There’s nothin’ in my opinion more disappointin’ an’ onsartin than wedlock. There was my mother, a poor ailing thing, an’ Lard, what a family she did have to be sure! The babbies used to be like rabbits—’pon me word they was. But they died most of ’em, an’ only a matter o’ half a-dozen o’ us grew up. Well now, look at my missus—she be a fine, strong, healthy woman, bain’t she? Never had chick nor child, as the sayin’ goes. An’ my first wife, ye mind her, Abel? She was a straight woman an’ a stout un, an’ the only child she had was a poor nesh little thing, that withered away, ye may say, as soon as it was born. Ye mightn’t ha’ had no children, shepherd, an’ if so be ye had wed ye’d have had the wife to keep.”