Beneath a region where the “newtakes” straggle up Cosdon’s eastern flank and mark a struggle between man and the giant beacon, Chris Blanchard rested a while upon the grass by the highway. Tim, wrapped in a shawl, slept soundly beside his mother, and she sat with her elbows on her knees and one hand under her chin. It was already dusk; dark mist wreaths moved upon the Moor, and oncoming night winds sighed of rain. Then a moment before her intended departure from this most solitary spot she heard footsteps upon the road. Not interested to learn anything of the passer-by, Chris remained with her eyes upon the ground, but the footsteps stopped suddenly before her, whereupon she looked up and saw Martin Grimbal.

After a perambulation of twenty miles he had now set his face homewards, and thus the meeting was accomplished. Utmost constraint at first marked the expression of both man and woman, and it was left for Martin to break the silence, for Chris only started at seeing him, but said nothing. Her mind, however, ranged actively upon the reason of Grimbal’s sudden appearance, and she did not at first believe it accidental.

“Why, my dear, what is this? You have wandered far afield!”

He addressed her in unnatural tones, for surprise and emotion sent his voice up into his head, and it came thin and tremulous as a woman’s. Even as he spoke Martin feared. From the knowledge gleaned by him that morning he suspected the meaning of this action, and thought that Chris was running away.

And she, at the same moment, divined that he guessed the truth in so far as the present position was concerned. Still she did not speak, and he grew calmer and took her silence as an admission.

“You’re going away from Chagford? Is it wise?”

“Ess, Martin, ’tis best so. You see this poor child be breedin’ trouble, an’ bringing bad talk against Will. He ban’t wanted—little Timothy—an’ I ban’t wanted overmuch, so it comed to me I’d—I’d just slip away out of the turmoil an’ taake Tim. Then—”

She stopped, for her heart was beating so fast that she could speak no more. She remembered her own arguments in the recent past,—that this flight must tell all who cared to reflect that the child was her own. Now she looked up at Martin to see if he had guessed it. But he exhibited extreme self-control and she was reassured.

“Just like your thoughtful self to try and save others from sorrow. Where are you going to, Chris? Don’t tell me more than you please; but I may be useful to you on this, the first stage of the journey.”

“To Okehampton to-night. To-morrow—but I’d rather not say any more. I don’t care so long as you think I’m right.”

“I haven’t said that yet. But I’ll go as far as Zeal with you. Then we’ll get a covered cab or something. We may reach the village before rain.”

“No call for your coming. ’Tis awnly a short mile.”

“But I must. I’ll carry the laddie. Poor little man! Hard to be the cause of such a bother.”

He picked Timothy up so gently that the child did not wake.

“Now,” he said, “come along. You must be tired already.”

“How gude you be!” she said wearily. “I’m glad you doan’t scold or fall into a rage wi’ me, for I knaw I’m right. The bwoy’s better away, and I’m small use to any now. But I can be busy with this little wan. I might do worse than give up my life to un—eh, Martin?”

Then some power put words in his mouth. He trembled when he had spoken them, but he would not have recalled them.

“You couldn’t do better. It’s a duty staring you in the face.”

She started violently, and her dark skin flamed under the night.

“Why d’you say that?” she asked, with loud, harsh voice, and stopping still as she did so. “Why d’you say ‘duty’?”

He, too, stood and looked at her.

“My dear,” he answered, “love’s a quick, subtle thing. It can make even such a man as I am less stupid than Nature built him. It fires dull brains; it adds sight to dim eyes; it shows the bookworm how to find out secrets hidden from keener spirits; it lifts a veil from the loved one and lets the lover see more than anybody else can. Be patient with me. I spoke because I love you still with all my heart and soul, Chris; I spoke, because what I feel for you is lifelong, and cannot change. Had I not still worshipped the earth under your feet I would have died rather than tell you. But love makes me bold. I have watched you so long and prayed for you so often. I have seen little differences in you that nobody else saw. And to-day I know. I knew when you picked up Timothy and flew at Will. Since then I’ve wandered Heaven can tell where, just thinking and thinking and wondering and seeing no way. And all the time God meant me to come and find you and tell you.”

She understood; she gave one bitter cry that started an echo from ruined mine-workings hard at hand; then she turned from him, and, in a moment of sheer hopeless misery, flung herself and her wrecked ambitions upon the ground by the wayside.

For a moment the man stood scared by this desperate answer to his words. Then he put his burden down, approached Chris, knelt beside her, and tried to raise her. She sat up at last with panting breast and eyes in which some terror sat.

“You!” she said. “You to knaw! Wasn’t my cup full enough before but that my wan hope should be cut away, tu? My God, I ’mauld in sorrow now—very auld. But ’t is awver at last. You knaw, an’ I had to hear it from your awn lips! Theer ’s nought worse in the world for me now.”

Her hands were pressed against her bosom, and as he unconsciously moved a little towards her she shrank backwards, then rose to her feet. Timothy woke and cried, upon which she turned to him and picked him up.

“Go!” she cried suddenly. “If ever you loved me, get out of my sight now, or you’ll make me want to kill myself again.”

He saw the time was come for strong self-assertion, and spoke.

“Listen!” he said. “You don’t understand, but you must. I’m the only man in the world who knows—the only one, and I’ve told you because it was stamped into my brain to tell you, and because I love you perhaps better than one creature has any right to love another.”

“You knaw. Isn’t it enough? Who else did I care for? Who else mattered to me? Mother or brother or other folk? I pray you to go an’ leave me. God knaws how hard it was to hide it, but I hugged it an’ suffered more ’n any but a mother could fathom ’cause things weer as they weer. Then came this trouble, an’ still none seed. But ’t was meant you should, an’ the rest doan’t matter. I’d so soon go back now as not.”

“So you shall,” he answered calmly; “only hear this first. Last time I spoke about what was in my heart, Chris, you told me you could love me, but that you would not marry me, and I said I would never ask you again. I shall keep my word, sweetheart. I shall not ask; I shall take without asking. You love me; that is all I care for. The little boy came between last time; now nothing does.”

He took the woman in his arms and kissed her, but the next moment he was flying to where water lay in a ditch, for his unexpected attitude had overpowered Chris. She raised her hands to his shoulders, uttered a faint cry, then slipped heavily out of his arms in a faint. The man rushed this way and that, the child sat and howled noisily, the woman remained long unconscious, and heavy rain began to fall out of the darkness; yet, to his dying day that desolate spot of earth brought light to Martin’s eyes as often as he passed it.

Chris presently recovered her senses, and spoke words that made her lover’s heart leap. She uttered them in a sad, low voice, but her hand was in his, pressing it close the while.

“Awften an’ awften I’ve axed the A’mighty to give me wan little glint o’ knawledge as how ’twould all end. If I’d knawed! But I never guessed how big your sawl was, Martin. I never thought you was the manner of man to love a woman arter that.”

“God knows what’s in my heart, Chris.”

“I’ll tell ’e everything some day. Lookin’ back it doan’t ’pear no ways wicked, though it may seem so in cold daylight to cold hearts.”

“Come, come with me, for the rain grows harder. I know where I can hire a covered carriage at an inn. ’Tis only five minutes farther on, and poor Tim’s unhappy.”

“He’m hungry. You won’t be hard ’pon my li’l bwoy if I come to ’e, Martin?”

“You know as well as I can tell you. There’s one other thing. About Chagford, Chris? Are you afraid of it? I’ll turn my back on it if you like. I’ll take you to Okehampton now if you would rather go there.”

“Never! ’Tis for you to care, not me. So you knaw an’ forgive—what’s the rest? Shadows. But let me hold your hand an’ keep my tongue still. I’m sick an’ fainty wi’ this gert turn o’ the wheel. ’T is tu deep for any words.”

He felt not less uplifted, but his joy was a man’s. It rolled and tumbled over his being like the riotous west wind. Under such stress his mind could find no worthy thing to say, and yet he was intoxicated and had to speak. He was very unlike himself. He uttered platitudes; then the weight of Timothy upon his arm reminded him that the child existed.

“He shall go to a good school, Chris.”

She sighed.

“I wish I could die quick here by the roadside, dear Martin, for living along with you won’t be no happier than I am this moment. My thoughts do all run back, not forward. I’ve lived long enough, I reckon. If I’d told ’e! But I’d rather been skinned alive than do it. I’d have let the rest knaw years agone but for you.”

Driving homewards half an hour later, Chris Blanchard told Martin that part of her story which concerned her life after the birth of Timothy.

“The travellin’ people was pure gawld to me,” she said. “And theer’s much to say of theer gert gudeness. But I can tell ’e that another time. It chanced the very day Will’s li’l wan was buried we was to Chagford, an’ the sad falling-out quickened my awn mind as to a thought ’bout my cheel. It comed awver me to leave un at Newtake. I left the vans wheer they was camped that afternoon, an’ hid ’pon the hill wi’ the baaby. Then Will comed out hisself, an’ I chaanged my thought an’ followed un wheer he roamed, knawin’ the colour of his mind through them black hours as if ’twas my awn. ’Twas arter he’d left the roundy-poundy wheer he was born that I put my child in it, then called tu un loud an’ clear. He never knawed the voice, which was the awnly thing I feared. But a voice long silent be soon forgot. I bided at hand till I saw the bwoy in brother Will’s arms. An’ then I knawed ’twas well an’ that mother would come to see it. Arterwards I suffered very terrible wi’out un. But I fought wi’ myself an’ kept away up to the time I’d fixed in my mind. That was so as nobody should link me with the li’l wan in theer thoughts. Waitin’ was the hard deed, and seein’ my bwoy for the first time when I went to Newtake was hard tu. But ’tis all wan now.”

She remained silent until the lengthy ride was ended and her mother’s cottage reached. Then, as that home she had thought to enter no more appeared again, the nature of the woman awoke for one second, and she flung herself on Martin’s heart.

“May God make me half you think me, for I love you true, an’ you’m the best man He ever fashioned,” she said. “An’ to-morrow’s Sunday,” she added inconsequently, “an’ I’ll kneel in church an’ call down lifelong blessings on ’e.”

“Don’t go to-morrow, my darling. And yet—but no, we’ll not go, either of us. I couldn’t hear my own banns read out for the world, and I don’t think you could; yet read they’ll be as sure as the service is held.”

She said nothing, but he knew that she felt; then mother and child were gone, and Martin, dismissing his vehicle, proceeded to Monks Barton with the news that all was well.

Mrs. Blanchard heard her daughter’s story and its sequel. She exhibited some emotion, but no grief. The sorrow she may have suffered was never revealed to any eye by word or tear.

“I reckoned of late days theer was Blanchard blood to the child,” she said, “an’ I won’t hide from you I thought more’n wance you was so like to be the mother as Will the faither of un. Go to bed now, if you caan’t eat, an’ taake the bwoy, an’ thank God for lining your dark cloud with this silver. If He forgives ’e, an’ this here gude grey Martin forgives ’e, who be I to fret? Worse’n you’ve been forgived at fust hand by the Lard when He travelled on flesh-an’-blood feet ’mong men; an’ folks have short memories for dates, an’ them as sniggers now will be dust or dotards ’fore Tim’s grawed. When you’ve been a lawful wife ten year an’ more, who’s gwaine to mind this? Not little Tim’s fellow bwoys an’ gals, anyway. His awn generation won’t trouble him, an’ he’ll find a wise guardian in Martin, an’ a lovin’ gran’mother in me. Dry your eyes an’ be a Blanchard. God A’mighty sends sawls in the world His awn way, an’ chooses the faithers an’ mothers for ’em; an’ He’s never taught Nature to go second to parson yet, worse luck. ’Tis done, an’ to grumble at a dead man’s doin’s—specially if you caan’t mend ’em—be vain.”

“My share was half, an’ not less,” said Chris.

“Aye, you say so, but ’tis a deed wheer the blame ban’t awften divided equal,” answered Mrs. Blanchard. “Wheer’s the maiden as caan’t wait for her weddin’ bells?”

The use of the last two words magically swept Chris back into the past. The coincidence was curious, and she remembered when a man, destined never to listen to such melody, declared impatiently that he heard it in the hidden heart of a summer day long past. She did not reply to her mother, but arose and took her child and went to rest.

On the morning that saw the wedding of Chris and Martin, Phoebe Blanchard found heart and tongue to speak to her husband of the thing she still kept locked within her mind. Since the meeting with John Grimbal she had suffered much in secret, but still kept silence; and now, after a quiet service before breakfast on a morning in mid-December, most of those who had been present as spectators returned to the valley, and Phoebe spoke to Will as they walked apart from the rest. A sight of the enemy it was that loosed her lips, for, much to the surprise of all present, John Grimbal had attended his brother’s wedding. As the little gathering streamed away after the ceremony, he had galloped off again with a groom behind him, and the incident now led to greater things.

“Chill-fashion weddin’,” said Will, as he walked homewards, “but it ’pears to me all Blanchards be fated to wed coorious. Well, ’t is a gude matter out o’ hand. I knaw I raged somethin’ terrible come I fust heard it, but I think differ’nt now, specially when I mind what Chris must have felt those times she seed me welting her child an’ heard un yell, yet set her teeth an’ never shawed a sign.”

“Did ’e note Jan Grimbal theer?”

“I seed un, an’ I catched un wi’ his eye on you more ’n wance. He ’s grawed to look nowadays as if his mouth allus had a sour plum in it.”

“His brain’s got sour stuff hid in it if his mouth haven’t. Be you ever feared of un?”

“Not me. Why for should I be? He’ll be wan of the fam’ly like, now. He caan’t keep his passion alive for ever. We ’m likely to meet when Martin do come home again from honeymooning.”

“Will, I must tell you something—something gert an’ terrible. I should have told ’e ’fore now but I was frightened.”

“Not feared to speak to me?”

“Ess, seeing the thing I had to say. I’ve waited weeks in fear an’ tremblin’, expecting something to happen, an’ all weighed down with fright an’ dread. Now, what wi’ the cheel that’s comin’, I caan’t carry this any more.”

Being already lachrymose, after the manner of women at a wedding, Phoebe now shed a tear or two. Will thereupon spoke words of comfort, and blamed her for hiding any matter from him.

“More trouble?” he said. “Yet I doan’t think it,—not now,—just as I be right every way. I guess ’t is your state makes you queer an’ glumpy.”

“I hope ’t was vain talk an’ not true anyway.”

“More talk ’bout me? You’d think Chagford was most tired o’ my name, wouldn’t ’e? Who was it now?”

“Him—Jan Grimbal. I met him ’mong the mushrooms. He burst out an’ said wicked, awful things, but his talk touched the li’l bwoy. He thought Tim was yourn an’ he was gwaine to do mischief against you.”

“Damn his black mind! I wonder he haven’t rotted away wi’ his awn bile ’fore now.”

“But that weern’t all. He talked an’ talked, an’ threatened if you didn’t go an’ see him, as he’d tell ’bout you in the past, when you was away that autumn-time ’fore us was married.”

“Did he, by God! Doan’t he wish he knawed!”

“He does knaw, Will—least he said he did.”

“Never dream it, Phoebe. ’T is a lie. For why? ’Cause if he did knaw I shouldn’t—but theer, I’ve never tawld ’e, an’ I ban’t gwaine to now. Awnly I’ll say this,—if Grimbal really knawed he’d have—but he can’t knaw, and theer ’s an end of it.”

“To think I should have been frighted by such a story all these weeks! An’ not true. Oh! I wish I’d told ’e when he sent the message. ’T would have saved me so much.”

“Ess, never keep nothin’ from me, Phoebe. Theer ’s troubles that might crush wan heart as comes a light load divided between two. What message?”

“Some silly auld story ’bout a suit of grey clothes. He said I was to tell ’e the things was received by the awner.”

Will Blanchard stood still so suddenly that it seemed as though magic had turned him into stone. He stood, and his hands unclasped, and Phoebe’s church service which he carried fell with a thud into the road. His wife watched him change colour, and noted in his face an expression she had never before seen there.

“Christ A’mighty!” he whispered, with his eyes reflecting a world of sheer amazement and even terror; “he does knaw!”

“What? Knaw what, Will? For the Lard’s sake doan’t ’e look at me like that; you’ll frighten my heart into my mouth.”

“To think he knawed an’ watched an’ waited all these years! The spider patience o’ that man! I see how ’t was. He let the world have its way an’ thought to see me broken wi’out any trouble from him. Then, when I conquered, an’ got to Miller’s right hand, an’ beat the world at its awn game, he—an’ been nursing this against me! The heart of un!”

He spoke to himself aloud, gazing straight before him at nothing.

“Will, tell me what ’t is. Caan’t your awn true wife help ’e now or never?”

Recalled by her words he came to himself, picked up her book, and walked on. She spoke again and then he answered,—

“No, ’t is a coil wheer you caan’t do nought—nor nobody. The black power o’ waitin’—’t is that I never heard tell of. I thought I knawed what was in men to the core—me, thirty years of age, an’ a ripe man if ever theer was wan. But this malice! ’T is enough to make ’e believe in the devil.”

“What have you done?” she cried aloud. “Tell me the worst of it, an’ how gert a thing he’ve got against you.”

“Bide quiet,” he answered. “I’ll tell ’e, but not on the public road. Not but he’ll take gude care every ear has it presently. Shut your mouth now an’ come up to our chamber arter breakfast an’ I’ll tell ’e the rights of it. An’ that dog knawed an’ could keep it close all these years!”

“He’s dangerous, an’ terrible, an’ strong. I see it in your faace, Will.”

“So he is, then; ban’t no foxin’ you ’bout it now. ’T is an awful power of waitin’ he’ve got; an’ he haven’t bided his time these years an’ years for nothin’. A feast to him, I lay. He’ve licked his damned lips many a score o’ times to think of the food he’d fat his vengeance with bimebye.”

“Can he taake you from me? If not I’ll bear it.”

“Ess fay, I’m done for; credit, fortune, all gone. It might have been death if us had been to war at the time.”

She clung to him and her head swam.

“Death! God’s mercy! you’ve never killed nobody, Will?”

“Not as I knaws on, but p’r’aps ban’t tu late to mend it. It freezes me—it freezes my blood to think what his thoughts have been. No, no, ban’t death or anything like that. But ’t is prison for sure if—”

He broke off and his face was very dark.

“What, Will? If what? Oh, comfort me, comfort me, Will, for God’s sake! An’ another li’l wan comin’!”

“Doan’t take on,” he said. “Ban’t my way to squeal till I’m hurt. Let it bide, an’ be bright an’ cheery come eating, for mother ’s down in the mouth at losin’ Chris, though she doan’t shaw it.”

Mrs. Blanchard, with little Timothy, joined the breakfast party at Monks Barton, and a certain gloom hanging over the party, Mr. Blee commented upon it in his usual critical spirit.

“This here givin’ in marriage do allus make a looker-on down in the mouth if he ’s a sober-minded sort o’ man. ’T is the contrast between the courageousness of the two poor sawls jumpin’ into the state, an’ the solid fact of bein’ a man’s wife or a woman’s husband for all time. The vows they swear! An’ that Martin’s voice so strong an’ cheerful! A teeming cause o’ broken oaths the marriage sarvice; yet each new pair comes along like sheep to the slaughter.”

“You talk like a bachelor man,” said Damaris.

“Not so, Mrs. Blanchard, I assure ’e! Lookers-on see most of the game. Ban’t the mite as lives in a cheese what can tell e’ ’bout the flavour of un. Look at a married man at a weddin’—all broadcloth an’ cheerfulness, like the fox as have lost his tail an’ girns to see another chap in the same pickle.”

“Yet you tried blamed hard to lose your tail an’ get a wife, for all your talk,” said Will, who, although his mind was full enough, yet could generally find a sharp word for Mr. Blee.

“Bah to you!” answered the old man angrily. “That for you! ’T is allus your way to bring personal talk into high conversation. I was improvin’ the hour with general thoughts; but the vulgar tone you give to a discourse would muzzle the wisdom o’ Solomon.”

Miller Lyddon here made an effort to re-establish peace and soon afterwards the meal came to an end.

Half an hour later Phoebe heard from her husband the story of his brief military career: of how he had enlisted as a preliminary to going abroad and making his fortune, how he had become servant to one Captain Tremayne, how upon the news of Phoebe’s engagement he had deserted, and how his intention to return and make a clean breast of it had been twice changed by the circumstances that followed his marriage. Long he took in detailing every incident and circumstance.

“Coming to think,” he said, “of coourse ’t is clear as Grimbal must knaw my auld master. I seed his name raised to a Major in the Western Morning News a few year agone, an’ he was to Okehampton with a battalion when Hicks come by his death. So that’s how’t is; an’ I ban’t gwaine to bide Grimbal’s time to be ruined, you may be very sure of that. Now I knaw, I act.”

“He may be quite content you should knaw. That’s meat an’ drink enough for him, to think of you gwaine in fear day an’ night.”

“Ess, but that’s not my way. I ban’t wan to wait an enemy’s pleasure.”

“You won’t go to him, Will?”

“Go to un? Ess fay—’fore the day’s done, tu.”

“That’s awnly to hasten the end.”

“The sooner the better.”

He tramped up and down the bedroom with his eyes on the ground, his hands in his pockets.

“A tremendous thing to tumble up on the surface arter all these years; an’ a tremendous time for it to come. ’T was a crime ’gainst the Queen for my awn gude ends. I had to choose ’tween her an’ you; I’d do the same to-morrow. The fault weern’t theer. It lay in not gwaine back.”

“You couldn’t; your arm was broke.”

“I ought to have gone back arter ’t was well. Then time had passed, an’ uncle’s money corned, an’ they never found me. But theer it lies ahead now, sure enough.”

“Perhaps for sheer shame he’ll bide quiet ’bout it. A man caan’t hate another man for ever.”

“I thought not, same as you, but Grimbal shaws we ’m wrong.”

“Let us go, then; let us do what you thought to do ’fore faither comed forward so kind. Let us go away to furrin paarts, even now.”

“I doubt if he’d let me go. ’T is mouse an’ cat for the minute. Leastways so he’s thought since he talked to ’e. But he’ll knaw differ’nt ’fore he lies in his bed to-night. Must be cut an’ dried an’ settled.”

“Be slow to act, Will, an’—”

“Theer! theer!” he said, “doan’t ’e offer me no advice, theer’s a gude gal, ’cause I couldn’t stand it even from you, just this minute. God knaws I’m not above takin’ it in a general way, for the best tried man can larn from babes an’ sucklings sometimes; but this is a thing calling for nothin’ but shut lips. ’T is my job an’ I’ve got to see it through my own way.”

“You’ll be patient, Will? ’T isn’t like other times when you was right an’ him wrong. He’s got the whip-hand of ’e, so you mustn’t dictate.”

“Not me. I can be reasonable an’ just as any man. I never hid from myself I was doin’ wrong at the time. But, when all’s said, this auld history’s got two sides to it—’specially if you remember that ’t was through John Grimbal’s awn act I had to do wan wrong thing to save you doin’ a worse wan. He’ll have to be reasonable likewise. ’T is man to man.”

Will’s conversation lasted another hour, but Phoebe could not shake his determination, and after dinner Blanchard departed to the Red House, his destination being known to his wife only.

But while Will marched upon this errand, the man he desired to see had just left his own front door, struck through leafless coppices of larch and silver beech that approached the house, and then proceeded to where bigger timber stood about a little plateau of marshy land, surrounded by tall flags. The woodlands had paid their debt to Nature in good gold, and all the trees were naked. An east wind lent a hard, clean clearness to the country. In the foreground two little lakes spread their waters steel-grey in a cup of lead; the distance was clear and cold and compact of all sober colours save only where, through a grey and interlacing nakedness of many boughs, the roof of the Red House rose.

John Grimbal sat upon a felled tree beside the pools, and while he remained motionless, his pipe unlighted, his gun beside him, a spaniel worked below in the sere sedges at the water’s margin. Presently the dog barked, a moor-hen splashed, half flying, half swimming, across the larger lake, and a snipe got up and jerked crookedly away on the wind. The dog stood with one fore-paw lifted and the water dripping along his belly. He waited for a crack and puff of smoke and the thud of a bird falling into the water or the underwood. But his master did not fire; he did not even see the flushing of the snipe; so the dog came up and remonstrated with his eyes. Grimbal patted the beast’s head, then rose from his seat on the felled tree, stretched his arms, sat down again and lighted his pipe.

The event of the morning had turned his thoughts in the old direction, and now they were wholly occupied with Will Blanchard. Since his fit of futile spleen and fury after the meeting with Phoebe, John had slowly sunk back into the former nerveless attitude. From this an occasional wonder roused him—a wonder as to whether the woman had ever given her husband his message at all. His recent active hatred seemed a little softened, though why it should be so he could not have explained. Now he sometimes assured himself that he should not proceed to extremities, but hang his sword over Will’s head a while and possibly end by pardoning him altogether.

Thus he paltered with his better part and presented a spectacle of one mentally sick unto death by reason of shattered purpose. His unity of design was gone. He had believed the last conversation with Phoebe in itself sufficient to waken his pristine passion, but anger against himself had been a great factor of that storm, apart from which circumstance he made the mistake of supposing that his passion slept, whereas in reality it was dead. Now, if Grimbal was to be stung into activity, it must be along another line and upon a fresh count.

Then, as he reflected by the little tarns, there approached Will Blanchard himself; and Grimbal, looking up, saw him standing among white tussocks of dead grass by the water-side and rubbing the mud off his boots upon them. For a moment his breath quickened, but he was not surprised; and yet, before Will reached him, he had time to wonder at himself that he was not.

Blanchard, calling at the Red House ten minutes after the master’s departure, had been informed by old Lawrence Vallack, John’s factotum, that he had come too late. It transpired, however, that Grimbal had taken his gun and a dog, so Will, knowing the estate, made a guess at the sportsman’s destination, and was helped on his way when he came within earshot of the barking spaniel.

Now that animal resented his intrusion, and for a moment it appeared that the brute’s master did also. Will had already seen Grimbal where he sat, and came swiftly towards him.

“What are you doing here, William Blanchard? You’re trespassing and you know it,” said the landowner loudly. “You can have no business here.”

“Haven’t I? Then why for do’e send me messages?”

Will stood straight and stern in front of his foe. His face was more gloomy than the sombre afternoon; his jaw stood out very square; his grey eyes were hard as the glint of the east wind. He might have been accuser, and John Grimbal accused. The sportsman did not move from his seat upon the log. But he felt a flush of blood pulse through him at the other’s voice, as though his heart, long stagnant, was being sluiced.

“That? I’d forgotten all about it. You’ve taken your time in obeying me.”

“This marnin’, an’ not sooner, I heard what you telled her when you catched Phoebe alone.”

“Ah! now I understand the delay. Say what you’ve got to say, please, and then get out of my sight.”

“’T is for you to speak, not me. What be you gwaine to do, an’ when be you gwaine to do it? I allow you’ve bested me, God knaws how; but you’ve got me down. So the sooner you say what your next step is, the better.”

The older man laughed.

“’T isn’t the beaten party makes the terms as a rule.”

“I want no terms; I wouldn’t make terms with you for a sure plaace in heaven. Tell me what you be gwaine to do against me. I’ve a right to knaw.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You mean as you won’t tell me?”

“I mean I can’t—not yet. After speaking to your wife I forgot all about it. It doesn’t interest me.”

“Be you gwaine to give me up?”

“Probably I shall—as a matter of duty. I’m a bit of a soldier myself. It’s such a dirty coward’s trick to desert. Yes, I think I shall make an example of you.”

Will looked at him steadily.

“You want to wake the devil in me—I see that. But you won’t. I’m aulder an’ wiser now. So you ’m to give me up? I knawed it wi’out axin’.”

“And that doesn’t wake you?”

“No. Seein’ why I deserted an’ mindin’ your share in drivin’ me.”

Grimbal did not answer, and Will asked him to name a date.

“I tell you I shall suit myself, not you. When you will like it least, be sure of that. I needn’t pretend what I don’t feel. I hate the sight of you still, and the closer you come the more I hate you. It rolls years off me to see your damned brown face so near and hear your voice in my ear,—years and years; and I’m glad it does. You’ve ruined my life, and I’ll ruin yours yet.”

There was a pause; Blanchard stared cold and hard into Grimbal’s eyes; then John continued, and his flicker of passion cooled a little as he did so,—

“At least that’s what I said to myself when first I heard this little bit of news—that I’d ruin you; now I’m not sure.”

“At least I’ll thank you to make up your mind. ’T is turn an’ turn about. You be uppermost just this minute. As to ruining me, that’s as may be.”

“Well, I shall decide presently. I suppose you won’t run away. And it ’s no great matter if you do, for a fool can’t hide himself under his folly.”

“I sha’n’t run. I want to get through with this and have it behind me.”

“You ’re in a hurry now.”

“It ’s just an’ right. I knaw that. An’ ban’t no gert odds who ’s informer. But I want to have it behind me—an’ you in front. Do ’e see? This out o’ hand, then it ’s my turn again. Keepin’ me waitin’ ’pon such a point be tu small an’ womanish for a fight between men. ’T is your turn to hit, Jan Grimbal, an’ theer ’s no guard ’gainst the stroke, so if you ’re a man, hit an’ have done with it.”

“Ah! you don’t like the thought of waiting!”

“No, I do not. I haven’t got your snake’s patience. Let me have what I’ve got to have, an’ suffer it, an’ make an’ end of it.”

“You ’re in a hurry for a dish that won’t be pleasant eating, I assure you.”

“It’s just an’ right I tell ’e; an’ I knaw it is, though all these years cover it. Your paart ’s differ’nt. I lay you ’m in a worse hell than me, even now.”

“A moralist! How d’ you like the thought of a damned good flogging—fifty lashes laid on hot and strong?”

“Doan’t you wish you had the job? Thrashing of a man wi’ his legs an’ hands tied would just suit your sort of courage.”

“As to that, they won’t flog you really; and I fancy I could thrash you still without any help. Your memory ’s short. Never mind. Get you gone now; and never speak to me again as long as you live, or I shall probably hit you across the mouth with my riding-whip. As to giving you up, you ’re in my hands and must wait my time for that.”

“Must I, by God? Hark to a fule talkin’! Why should I wait your pleasure, an’ me wi’ a tongue in my head? You’ve jawed long enough. Now you can listen. I’ll give myself up, so theer! I’ll tell the truth, an’ what drove me to desert, an’ what you be anyway—as goes ridin’ out wi’ the yeomanry so braave in black an’ silver with your sword drawed! That’ll spoil your market for pluck an’ valour, anyways. An’ when I’ve done all court-martial gives me, I’ll come back!”

He swung away as he spoke; and the other sat on motionless for an hour after Will had departed.

John Grimbal’s pipe went out; his dog, weary of waiting, crept to his feet and fell asleep there; live fur and feathers peeped about and scanned his bent figure, immobile as a tree-trunk that supported it; and the gun, lying at hand, drew down a white light from a gathering gloaming.

One great desire was in the sportsman’s mind,—he already found himself hungry for another meeting with Blanchard.

That night Will sat and smoked in his bedroom and talked to Phoebe, who had already gone to rest. She looked over her knees at him with round, sad eyes; while beside her in a cot slept her small daughter. A candle burned on the mantelpiece and served to illuminate one or two faded pictures; a daguerreotype of Phoebe as a child sitting on a donkey, and an ancient silhouette of Miller Lyddon, cut for him on his visit to the Great Exhibition. In a frame beneath these appeared the photograph of little Will who had died at Newtake.

“He thinks he be gwaine to bide his time an’ let me stew an’ sweat for it,” said the man moodily.

“Awnly a born devil could tell such wickedness. Ban’t theer no ways o’ meetin’ him, now you knaw? If you’d speak to faither—”

“What ’s the use bringing sorrow on his grey hairs?”

“Well, it’s got to come; you knaw that. Grimbal isn’t the man to forgive.”

“Forgive! That would be worst of all. If he forgived me now I’d go mad. Wait till I’ve had soldier law, then us’ll talk ’bout forgiving arter.”

Phoebe shivered and began to cry helplessly, drying her eyes upon the sheet.

“Theer—theer,” he said; “doan’t be a cheel. We ’m made o’ stern stuff, you an’ me. ’T is awnly a matter of years, I s’pose, an’ the reason I went may lessen the sentence a bit. Mother won’t never turn against me, an’ so long as your faither can forgive, the rest of the world’s welcome to look so black as it pleases.”

“Faither’ll forgive ’e.”

“He might—just wance more. He’ve got to onderstand my points better late days.”

“Come an’ sleep then, an’ fret no more till marnin’ light anyway.”

“’Tis the thing hidden, hanging over my head, biding behind every corner. I caan’t stand it; I caan’t wait for it. I’ll grow sheer devil if I’ve got to wait; an’, so like as not, I’ll meet un faace to faace some day an’ send un wheer neither his bark nor bite will harm me. Ess fay—solemn truth. I won’t answer for it. I can put so tight a hand ’pon myself as any man since Job, but to sit down under this—”

“Theer’s nought else you can do,” said Phoebe. She yawned as she spoke, but Will’s reply strangled the yawn and effectually woke her up.

“So Jan Grimbal said, an’ I blamed soon shawed un he was out. Theer’s a thing I can do an’ shall do. ’T will sweep the ground from under un; ’t will blaw off his vengeance harmless as a gun fired in the air; ’t will turn his malice so sour as beer after thunder. I be gwaine to give myself up—then us’ll see who’s the fule!”

Phoebe was out of bed with her arms round her husband in a moment.

“No, no—never. You couldn’t, Will; you daren’t—’tis against nature. You ban’t free to do no such wild thing. You forget me, an’ the li’l maid, an’ t’ other comin’!”

“Doan’t ’e choke me,” he said; “an’ doan’t ’e look so terrified. Your small hands caan’t keep off what’s ahead o’ me; an’ I wouldn’t let ’em if they could. ’T is in this world that a chap’s got to pay for his sins most times, an’ damn short credit, tu, so far as I can see. So what they want to bleat ’bout hell-fire for I’ve never onderstood, seeing you get your change here. Anyway, so sure as I do a trick that ban’t ’zactly wise, the whip ’s allus behind it—the whip—”

He repeated the word in a changed voice, for it reminded him of what Grimbal had threatened. He did not know whether there might be truth in it. His pride winced and gasped. He thought of Phoebe seeing his bare back perhaps years afterwards. A tempest of rage blackened his face and he spoke in a voice hoarse and harsh.

“Get up an’ go to bed. Doan’t whine, for God’s sake, or you’ll drive me daft. I’ve paid afore, an’ I’ll pay again; an’ may the Lard help him who ever owes me ought. No mercy have I ever had from living man,—’cept Miller,—none will I ever shaw.”

“Not to-morrow, Will—not this week. Promise that, an’ I’ll get into bed an’ bide quiet. For your love o’ me, just leave it till arter Christmas time. Promise that, else you’ll kill me. No, no, no—you shaa’n’t shout me down ’pon this. I’ll cry to ’e while I’ve got life left. Promise not till Christmas be past.”

“I’ll promise nothing. I must think in the peace o’ night. Go to sleep an ’bide quiet, else you’ll wake the li’l gal.”

“I won’t—I won’t—I’ll never sleep again. Caan’ t’e think o’ me so well as yourself—you as be allus thinking o’ me? Ban’t I to count in an awful pass like this? I’m no fair-weather wife, as you knaws by now. If you gives yourself up, I’ll kill myself. You think I couldn’t, but I could. What’s my days away from you?”

“Hush, hush!” he said. “Be you mad? ’T is a matter tu small for such talk as that.”

“Promise, then, promise you’ll be dumb till arter Christmas.”

“So I will, if you ’m that set on it; but if you knawed what waitin’ meant to the likes o’ me, you wouldn’t ax. You’ve got my word, now keep quiet, theer ’s a dear love, an’ dry your eyes.”

He put her into bed, and soon stretched himself beside her. Then she clung to him as though powers were already dragging him away for ever. Will, bored and weary, was sorry for his wife with all his soul, and kept grunting words of good cheer and comfort as he sank to sleep. She still begged and prayed for delay, and by her importunity made him promise at last that he would take no step until after New Year’s Day. Then, finding she could win no more in that direction, Phoebe turned to another aspect of the problem, and began to argue with unexpected if sophistic skill. Her tears were now dry, her eyes very bright beneath the darkness; she talked and talked with feverish volubility, and her voice faded into a long-drawn murmur as Will’s hearing weakened on the verge of unconsciousness.

“Why for d’ you say you was wrong in what you done? Why d’ you harp an’ harp ’pon that, knawin’ right well you’d do the same again to-morrow? You wasn’t wrong, an’ the Queen’s self would say the same if she knawed. ’T was to save a helpless woman you runned; an’ her—Queen Victoria—wi’ her big heart as can sigh for the sorrow of even such small folks as us—she’d be the last to blame ’e.”

“She’ll never knaw nothin’ ’bout it, gude or bad. They doan’t vex her ears wi’ trifles. I deserted, an’ that’s a crime.”

“I say ’t weern’t no such thing. You had to choose between that an’ letting me die. You saved my life; an’ the facts would be judged the same by any as was wife an’ mother, high or low. God A’mighty ’s best an’ awnly judge how much you was wrong; an’ you knaw He doan’t blame ’e, else your heart would have been sore for it these years an’ years. You never blamed yourself till now.”

“Ess, awften an’ awften I did. It comed an’ went, an’ comed an’ went again, like winter frosts. True as I’m living it comed an’ went like that.”

Thus he spoke, half incoherently, his voice all blurred and vague with sleep.

“You awnly think ’t was so. You’d never have sat down under it else. It ban’t meant you should give yourself up now, anyways. God would have sent the sojers to find ’e when you runned away if He’d wanted ’em to find ’e. You didn’t hide. You looked the world in the faace bold as a lion, didn’t ’e? Coourse you did; an’ ’t is gwaine against God’s will an’ wish for you to give yourself up now. So you mustn’t speak an’ you must tell no one—not even faither. I was wrong to ax ’e to tell him. Nobody at all must knaw. Be dumb, an’ trust me to be dumb. ’T is buried an’ forgot. I’ll fight for ’e, my dearie, same as you’ve fought for me many a time; an’ ’t will all fall out right for ’e, for men ’s come through worse passes than this wi’ fewer friends than what you’ve got.”

She stopped to win breath and, in the silence, heard Will’s regular respiration and knew that he slept. How much he had heard of her speech Phoebe could not say, but she felt glad to think that some hours at least of rest and peace now awaited him. For herself she had never been more widely awake, and her brains were very busy through the hours of darkness. A hundred thoughts and schemes presented themselves. She gradually eliminated everybody from the main issue but Will, John Grimbal, and herself; and, pursuing the argument, began to suspect that she alone had power to right the wrong. In one direction only could such an opinion lead—a direction tremendous to her. Yet she did not shrink from the necessity ahead; she strung herself up to face it; she longed for an opportunity and resolved to make one at the earliest moment.

Now that night was the longest in the whole year; and yet to Phoebe it passed with magic celerity.

Will awakened about half-past five, rose immediately according to his custom, lighted a candle, and started to dress himself. He began the day in splendid spirits, begotten of good sleep and good health; but his wife saw the lightness of heart, the bustling activity of body, sink into apathy and inertia as remembrance overtook his wakening hour. It was like a brief and splendid dawn crushed by storm-clouds at the very rise of the sun.

Phoebe presently dressed her little daughter and, as soon as the child had gone down-stairs, Will resumed the problems of his position.

“I be in two minds this marnin’,” he said. “I’ve a thought to tell mother of this matter. She ’m that wise, I’ve knawed her put me on the right track ’fore now, an’ never guess she’d done it. Not but what I allus awn up to taking advice, if I follow it, an’ no man ’s readier to profit by the wisdom of his betters than me. That’s how I’ve done all I have done in my time. T’ other thought was to take your counsel an’ see Miller ’pon it.”

“I was wrong, Will—quite wrong. I’ve been thinking, tu. He mustn’t knaw, nor yet mother, nor nobody. Quite enough knaws as ’t is.”

“What’s the wisdom o’ talkin’ like that? Who ’s gwaine to hide the thing, even if they wanted to? God knaws I ban’t. I’d like, so well as not, to go up Chagford next market-day an’ shout out the business afore the world.”

“You can’t now. You must wait. You promised. I thought about it with every inch of my brain last night, an’ I got a sort of feeling—I caan’t explain, but wait. I’ve trusted you all my life long an’ allus shall; now ’t is your turn to trust me, just this wance. I’ve got great thoughts. I see the way; I may do much myself. You see, Jan Grimbal—”

Will stood still with his chin half shorn.

“You dare to do that,” he said, “an’ I’ll raise Cain in this plaace; I’ll—”

He broke off and laughed at himself.

“Here be I blusterin’ like a gert bully now! Doan’t be feared, Phoebe. Forgive my noise. You mean so well, but you caan’t hide your secrets, fortunately. Bless your purty eyes—tu gude for me, an’ allus was, braave li’l woman!

“But no more of that—no seekin’ him, an’ no speech with him, if that’s the way your poor, silly thought was. My bones smart to think of you bearin’ any of it. But doan’t you put no oar into this troubled water, else the bwoat’ll capsize, sure as death. I’ve promised ’e not to say a word till arter New Year; now you must promise me never, so help you, to speak to that man, or look at un, or listen to a word from un. Fly him like you would the devil; an’ a gude second to the devil he is—if ’t is awnly in the matter o’ patience. Promise now.”

“You ’m so hasty, Will. You doan’t onderstand a woman’s cleverness in such matters. ’T is just the fashion thing as shaws what we ’m made of.”

“Promise!” he thundered angrily. “Now, this instant moment, in wan word.”

She gave him a single defiant glance. Then the boldness of her eyes faded and her lips drooped at the corners.

“I promise, then.”

“I should think you did.”

A few minutes later Will was gone, and Phoebe dabbed her moist eyes and blamed herself for so clumsily revealing her great intention,—to see John Grimbal and plead with him. This secret ambition was now swept away, and she knew not where to turn or how to act for her husband.

From this point in his career Will Blanchard, who lacked all power of hiding his inner heart, soon made it superficially apparent that new troubles had overtaken him. No word concerning his intolerable anxieties escaped him, but a great cloud of tribulation encompassed every hour, and was revealed to others by increased petulance and shortness of temper. This mental friction quickly appeared on the young man’s face, and his habitual expression of sulkiness which formerly belied him, now increased and more nearly reflected the reigning temperament of Blanchard’s mind. His nerves were on the rack and he grew sullen and fretful. A dreary expression gained upon his features, an expression sad as a winter twilight brushed with rain. To Phoebe he seldom spoke of the matter, and she soon abandoned further attempts to intrude upon his heart though her own was breaking for him. Billy Blee and the farm hands were Will’s safety-valve. One moment he showered hard and bitter words; the next, at sight of some ploughboy’s tears or older man’s reasonable anger, Will instantly relented and expressed his sorrow. The dullest among them grew in time to discern matters were amiss with him, for his tormented mind began to affect his actions and disorder the progress of his life. At times he worked laboriously and did much with his own hands that might have been left to others; but his energy was displayed in a manner fitful and spasmodic; occasionally he would vanish altogether for four-and-twenty hours or more; and none knew when he might appear or disappear.

It happened on New Year’s Eve that a varied company assembled at the “Green Man” according to ancient custom. Here were Inspector Chown, Mr. Chapple, Mr. Blee, Charles Coomstock, with many others; and the assembly was further enriched by the presence of the bell-ringers. Their services would be demanded presently to toll out the old year, to welcome with joyful peal the new; and they assembled here until closing time that they might enjoy a pint of the extra strong liquor a prosperous publican provided for his customers at this season.

The talk was of Blanchard, and Mr. Blee, provided with a theme which always challenged his most forcible diction, discussed Will freely and without prejudice.

“I ’most goes in fear of my life, I tell ’e; but thank God ’t is the beginning of the end. He’ll spread his wings afore spring and be off again, or I doan’t knaw un. Ess fay, he’ll depart wi’ his fiery nature an’ horrible ideas ’pon manuring of land; an’ a gude riddance for Monks Barton, I say.”

“’Mazing ’t is,” declared Mr. Coomstock, “that he should look so black all times, seeing the gude fortune as turns up for un when most he wants it.”

“So ’t is,” admitted Billy. “The faace of un weer allus sulky, like to the faace of a auld ram cat, as may have a gude heart in un for all his glowerin’ eyes. But him! Theer ban’t no pleasin’ un. What do he want? Surely never no man ’s failed on his feet awftener.”

“’T is that what ’s spoilin’ un, I reckon,” said Mr. Chappie. “A li’l ill-fortune he wants now, same as a salad o’ green stuff wants some bite to it. He’d grumble in heaven, by the looks of un. An’ yet it do shaw the patience of God wi’ human sawls.”

“Ess, it do,” answered Mr. Blee; “but patience ban’t a virtue, pushed tu far. Justice is justice, as I’ve said more ’n wance to Miller an’ Blanchard, tu, an’ a man of my years can see wheer justice lies so clear as God can. For why? Because theer ban’t room for two opinions. I’ve give my Maker best scores an’ scores o’ times, as we all must; but truth caan’t alter, an’ having put thinking paarts into our heads, ’t is more ’n God A’mighty’s Self can do to keep us from usin’ of’em.”

“A tremenjous thought,” said Mr. Chapple.

“So ’t is. An’ what I want to knaw is, why should Blanchard have his fling, an’ treat me like dirt, an’ ride rough-shod awver his betters, an’ scowl at the sky all times, an’ nothin’ said?”

“Providence doan’t answer a question just ’cause we ’m pleased to ax wan,” said Abraham Chown. “What happens happens, because ’t is foreordained, an’ you caan’t judge the right an’ wrong of a man’s life from wan year or two or ten, more ’n you can judge a glass o’ ale by a tea-spoon of it. Many has a long rope awnly to hang themselves in the end, by the wonnerful foresight of God.”

“All the same, theer’d be hell an’ Tommy to pay mighty quick, if you an’ me did the things that bwoy does, an’ carried on that onreligious,” replied Mr. Blee, with gloomy conviction. “Ban’t fair to other people, an’ if ’t was Doomsday I’d up an’ say so. What gude deeds have he done to have life smoothed out, an’ the hills levelled an’ the valleys filled up? An’ nought but sour looks for it.”

“But be you sure he ’m happy?” inquired Mr. Chapple. “He ’m not the man to walk ’bout wi’ a fiddle-faace if ’t was fair weather wi’ un. He’ve got his troubles same as us, depend upon it.”

Blanchard himself entered at this moment. It wanted but half an hour to closing time when he did so, and he glanced round the bar, snorted at the thick atmosphere of alcohol and smoke, then pulled out his pipe and took a vacant chair.

“Gude evenin’, Will,” said Mr. Chapple.

“A happy New Year, Blanchard,” added the landlord.

“Evening, sawls all,” answered Will, nodding round him. “Auld year’s like to die o’ frost by the looks of it—a stinger, I tell ’e. Anybody seen Farmer Endicott? I’ve been looking for un since noon wi’ a message from my faither-in-law.”

“I gived thicky message this marnin’,” cried Billy.

“Ess, I knaw you did; that’s my trouble. You gived it wrong. I’ll just have a pint of the treble X then. ’T is the night for ’t.”

Will’s demeanour belied the recent conversation respecting him. He appeared to be in great spirits, joked with the men, exchanged shafts with Billy, and was the first to roar with laughter when Mr. Blee got the better of him in a brisk battle of repartee. Truth to tell, the young man’s heart felt somewhat lighter, and with reason. To-morrow his promise to Phoebe held him no longer, and his carking, maddening trial of patience was to end. The load would drop from his shoulders at daylight. His letter to Mr. Lyddon had been written; in the morning the miller must read it before breakfast, and learn that his son-in-law had started for Plymouth to give himself up for the crime of the past. John Grimbal had made no sign, and the act of surrender would now be voluntary—a thought which lightened Blanchard’s heart and induced a turn of temper almost jovial. He joined a chorus, laughed with the loudest, and contrived before closing time to drink a pint and a half of the famous special brew. Then the bell-ringers departed to their duties, and Mr. Chapple with Mr. Blee, Will, and one or two other favoured spirits spent a further half-hour in their host’s private parlour, and there consumed a little sloe gin, to steady the humming ale.

“You an’ me must see wan another home,” said Will when he and Mr. Blee departed into the frosty night.

“Fust time as ever you give me an arm,” murmured Billy.

“Won’t be the last, I’m sure,” declared Will.

“I’ve allus had a gude word for ’e ever since I knawed ’e,” answered Billy.

“An’ why for shouldn’t ’e?” asked Will.

“Beginning of New Year ’s a solemn sarcumstance,” proceeded Billy, as a solitary bell began to toll. “Theer ’s the death-rattle of eighteen hunderd an’ eighty-six! Well, well, we must all die—men an’ mice.”

“An’ the devil take the hindmost.”

Mr. Blee chuckled.

“Let ’s go round this way,” he said.

“Why? Ban’t your auld bones ready for bed yet? Theer ’s nought theer but starlight an’ frost.”

“Be gormed to the frost! I laugh at it. Ban’t that. ’T is the Union workhouse, wheer auld Lezzard lies. I likes to pass, an’ nod to un as he sits on the lew side o’ the wall in his white coat, chumping his thoughts between his gums.”

“He ’m happier ’n me or you, I lay.”

“Not him! You should see un glower ’pon me when I gives un ’gude day.’ I tawld un wance as the Poor Rates was up somethin’ cruel since he’d gone in the House, an’ he looked as though he’d ’a’ liked to do me violence. No, he ban’t happy, I warn ’e.”

“Well, you won’t see un sitting under the stars in his white coat, poor auld blid. He ’m asleep under the blankets, I lay.”

“Thin wans! Thin blankets an’ not many of ’em. An’ all his awn doin’. Patent justice, if ever I seed it.”

“Tramp along! You can travel faster ’n that. Ess fay! Justice is the battle-cry o’ God against men most times. Maybe they ’m strong on it in heaven, but theer ’s damned little filters down here. Theer go the bells! Another New Year come. Years o’ the Lard they call ’em! Years o’ the devil most times, if you ax me. What do ’e want the New Year to bring to you, Billy?”

“A contented ’eart,” said Mr. Blee, “an’ perhaps just half-a-crown more a week, if ’t was seemly. Brains be paid higher ’n sweat in this world, an’ I’m mostly brain now in my dealin’s wi’ Miller. A brain be like a nut, as ripens all the year through an’ awnly comes to be gude for gathering when the tree ’s in the sere. ’T is in the autumn of life a man’s brain be worth plucking like—eh?”

“Doan’t knaw. They ’m maggoty mostly at your age!”

“An’ they ’m milky mostly at yourn!”

“Listen to the bells an’ give awver chattering,” said Will.

“After gude store o’ drinks, a sad thing like holy bells ringing in the dark afar off do sting my nose an’ bring a drop to my eye,” confessed Mr. Blee. “An’ you—why, theer ’s a baaby hid away in the New Year for you—a human creature as may do gert wonders in the land an’ turn out into Antichrist, for all you can say positive. Theer ’s a braave thought for ’e!”

This remark sobered Blanchard and his mind travelled into the future, to Phoebe, to the child coming in June.

Billy babbled on, and presently they reached Mrs. Blanchard’s cottage. Damaris herself, with a shawl over her head, stood and listened to the bells, and Will, taking leave of Mr. Blee, hastened to wish his mother all happiness in the year now newly dawned. He walked once or twice up and down the little garden beside her, and with a tongue loosened by liquor came near to telling her of his approaching action, but did not do so. Meantime Mr. Blee steered himself with all caution over Rushford Bridge to Monks Barton.

Presently the veteran appeared before his master and Phoebe, who had waited for the advent of the New Year before retiring. Miller Lyddon was about to suggest a night-cap for Billy, but changed his mind.

“Enough ’s as gude as a feast,” he said. “Canst get up-stairs wi’out help?”

“Coourse I can! But the chap to the ‘Green Man’s’ that perfuse wi’ his liquor at seasons of rejoicing. More went down than was chalked up; I allow that. If you’ll light my chamber cannel, I’ll thank ’e, missis; an’ a Happy New Year to all.”

Phoebe obeyed, launched Mr. Blee in the direction of his chamber, then turned to receive Will’s caress as he came home and locked the door behind him.

The night air still carried the music of the bells. For an hour they pealed on; then the chime died slowly, a bell at a time, until two clanged each against the other. Presently one stopped and the last, weakening softly, beat a few strokes more, then ceased to fret the frosty birth-hour of another year.

The darkness slipped away, and Blanchard who had long learned to rise without awakening his wife, was up and dressed again soon after five o’clock. He descended silently, placed a letter on the mantelpiece in the kitchen, abstracted a leg of goose and a hunch of bread from the larder, then set out upon a chilly walk of five miles to Moreton Hampstead. From there he designed to take train and proceed to Plymouth as directly and speedily as possible.

Some two hours later Will’s letter found itself in Mr. Lyddon’s hand, and his father-in-law learnt the secret. Phoebe was almost as amazed as the miller himself when this knowledge came to her ear; for Will had not breathed his intention to her, and no suspicion had crossed his wife’s mind that he intended to act with such instant promptitude on the expiration of their contract.

“I doubted I knawed him through an’ through at last, but ’t is awnly to-day, an’ after this, that I can say as I do,” mused Mr. Lyddon over an untasted breakfast. “To think he runned them awful risks to make you fast to him! To think he corned all across England in the past to make you his wife against the danger on wan side, an’ the power o’ Jan Grimbal an’ me drawed up ’pon the other!”

Pursuing this strain to Phoebe’s heartfelt relief, the miller neither assumed an attitude of great indignation at Will’s action nor affected despair of his future. He was much bewildered, however.

“He’ll keep me ’mazed so long as I live, ’pears to me. But he ’m gone for the present, an’ I doan’t say I’m sorry, knawin’ what was behind. No call for you to sob yourself into a fever. Please God, he’ll be back long ’fore you want him. Us’ll make the least we can of it, an’ bide patient until we hear tell of him. He’ve gone to Plymouth—that’s all Chagford needs to knaw at present.”

“Theer ’s newspapers an’ Jan Grimbal,” sobbed Phoebe.

“A dark man wi’ fixed purposes, sure enough,” admitted her father, for Will’s long letter had placed all the facts before him. “What he’ll do us caan’t say, though, seein’ Will’s act, theer ’s nothin’ more left for un. Why has the man been silent so long if he meant to strike in the end? Now I must go an’ tell Mrs. Blanchard. Will begs an’ prays of me to do that so soon as he shall be gone; an’ he ’m right. She ought to knaw; but ’t is a job calling for careful choice of words an’ a light hand. Wonder is to me he didn’t tell her hisself. But he never does what you’d count ’pon his doing.”

“You won’t tell Billy, faither, will ’e? Ban’t no call for that.”

“I won’t tell him, certainly not; but Blee ’s a ferret when a thing ’s hid. A detective mind theer is to Billy. How would it do to tell un right away an’ put un ’pon his honour to say nothing?”

“He mustn’t knaw; he mustn’t knaw. He couldn’t keep a secret like that if you gived un fifty pounds to keep it. So soon tell a town-crier as him.”

“Then us won’t,” promised Mr. Lyddon, and ten minutes after he proceeded to Mrs. Blanchard’s cottage with the news. His first hasty survey of the position had not been wholly unfavourable to Will, but he was a man of unstable mind in his estimates of human character, and now he chiefly occupied his thoughts with the offence of desertion from the army. The disgrace of such an action magnified itself as he reflected upon Will’s unhappy deed.

Phoebe, meantime, succumbed and found herself a helpless prey of terrors vague and innumerable. Will’s fate she could not guess at; but she felt it must be severe; she doubted not that his sentence would extend over long years. In her dejection and misery she mourned for herself and wondered what manner of babe would this be that now took substance through a season of such gloom and accumulated sorrows. The thought begat pity for the coming little one,—utmost commiseration that set Phoebe’s tears flowing anew,—and when the miller returned he found his daughter stricken beyond measure and incoherent under her grief. But Mr. Lyddon came back with a companion, and it was her husband, not her father, who dried Phoebe’s eyes and cheered her lonely heart. Will, indeed, appeared and stood by her suddenly; and she heard his voice and cried a loud thanksgiving and clasped him close.

Yet no occasion for rejoicing had brought about this unexpected reappearance. Indeed, more ill-fortune was responsible for it. When Mr. Lyddon arrived at Mrs. Blanchard’s gate, he found both Will and Doctor Parsons standing there, then learnt the incident that had prevented his son-in-law’s proposed action.

Passing that way himself some hours earlier, Will had been suddenly surprised to see blue smoke rising from a chimney of the house. It was a very considerable time before such event might reasonably be expected and a second look alarmed Blanchard’s heart, for on the little chimney-stack he knew each pot, and it was not the kitchen chimney but that of his mother’s bedroom which now sent evidence of a newly lighted fire into the morning.

In a second Will’s plans and purposes were swept away before this spectacle. A fire in a bedroom represented a circumstance almost outside his experience. At least it indicated sickness unto death. He was in the house a moment later, for the latch lifted at his touch; and when he knocked at his mother’s door and cried his name, she bade him come in.

“What’s this? What’s amiss with ’e, mother? Doan’t say ’t is anything very bad. I seed the smoke an’ my heart stood still.”

She smiled and assured him her illness was of no account.

“Ban’t nothing. Just a shivering an’ stabbing in the chest. My awn fulishness to be out listening to they bells in the frost. But no call to fear. I awnly axed my li’l servant to get me a cup o’ tea, an’ she comed an’ would light the fire, an’ would go for doctor, though theer ban’t no ’casion at all.”

“Every occasion, an’ the gal was right, an’ it shawed gude sense in such a dinky maid as her. Nothin’ like taaking a cold in gude time. Do ’e catch heat from the fire?”

Mrs. Blanchard’s eyes were dull, and her breathing a little disordered. Will instantly began to bustle about. He added fuel to the flame, set on a kettle, dragged blankets out of cupboards and piled them upon his mother. Then he found a pillow-case, aired it until the thing scorched, inserted a pillow, and placed it beneath the patient’s head. His subsequent step was to rummage dried marshmallows out of a drawer, concoct a sort of dismal brew, and inflict a cup upon the sick woman. Doctor Parsons still tarrying, Will went out of doors, knocked a brick from the fowl-house wall, brought it in, made it nearly red hot, then wrapped it up in an old rug and applied it to his parent’s feet,—all of which things the sick woman patiently endured.

“You ’m doin’ me a power o’ gude, dearie,” she said, as her discomfort and suffering increased.

Presently Doctor Parsons arrived, checked Will in fantastic experiments with a poultice, and gave him occupation in a commission to the physician’s surgery. When he returned, he heard that his mother was suffering from a severe chill, but that any definite declaration upon the case was as yet impossible.

“No cause to be ’feared?” he asked.

“’T is idle to be too sanguine. You know my philosophy. I’ve seen a scratched finger kill a man; I’ve known puny babes wriggle out of Death’s hand when I could have sworn it had closed upon them for good and all. Where there ’s life there ’s hope.”

“Ess, I knaw you,” answered Will gloomily; “an’ I knaw when you say that you allus mean there ban’t no hope at all.”

“No, no. A strong, hale woman like your mother need not give us any fear at present. Sleep and rest, cheerful faces round her, and no amateur physic. I’ll see her to-night and send in a nurse from the Cottage Hospital at once.”

Then it was that Miller Lyddon arrived, and presently Will returned home. He wholly mistook Phoebe’s frantic reception, and assumed that her tears must be flowing for Mrs. Blanchard.

“She’ll weather it,” he said. “Keep a gude heart. The gal from the hospital ban’t coming ’cause theer ’s danger, but ’cause she ’m smart an’ vitty ’bout a sick room, an’ cheerful as a canary an’ knaws her business. Quick of hand an’ light of foot for sartin. Mother’ll be all right; I feel it deep in me she will.”