Christian turned to him quickly. "Ah! that was why you felt the play, so
much."

"It's my country up there. I was born amongst the mountains. I looked
after the cows, and slept in hay-cocks, and cut the trees in winter.
They used to call me a 'black sheep,' a 'loafer' in my village."

"Why?"

"Ah! why? I worked as hard as any of them. But I wanted to get away. Do
you think I could have stayed there all my life?"

Christian's eyes grew eager.

"If people don't understand what it is you want to do, they always call
you a loafer!" muttered Harz.

"But you did what you meant to do in spite of them," Christian said.

For herself it was so hard to finish or decide. When in the old days
she told Greta stories, the latter, whose instinct was always for the
definite, would say: "And what came at the end, Chris? Do finish it
this morning!" but Christian never could. Her thoughts were deep, vague,
dreamy, invaded by both sides of every question. Whatever she did, her
needlework, her verse-making, her painting, all had its charm; but
it was not always what it was intended for at the beginning. Nicholas
Treffry had once said of her: "When Chris starts out to make a hat, it
may turn out an altar-cloth, but you may bet it won't be a hat." It was
her instinct to look for what things meant; and this took more than all