It was a fine evening, and on his way homeward he passed near Marty South's cottage.

As usual she had lighted her candle without closing her shutters; he saw her within as he had seen her many times before.
She was polishing tools, and though he had not wished to show himself, he could not resist speaking in to her through the half-open door.
"What are you doing that for, Marty ?" "Because I want to clean them.

They are not mine." He could see, indeed, that they were not hers, for one was a spade, large and heavy, and another was a bill-hook which she could only have used with both hands.

The spade, though not a new one, had been so completely burnished that it was bright as silver.
Fitzpiers somehow divined that they were Giles Winterborne's, and he put the question to her.
She replied in the affirmative.

"I am going to keep 'em," she said, "but I can't get his apple-mill and press.