hour. ’T is awver. I feel the life swelling out of me.”
“Don’t say that, Billy,” cried Martin, in real concern. “The blood’s stopped flowing entirely now.”
“For why? Theer’s no more to come. My heart be pumping wind, lifeless wind; my lung-play’s gone, tu, an’ my sight’s come awver that coorious. Be Gaffer Lezzard nigh?”
“Here, alongside ’e, Bill.”
“Gimme your hand then, an’ let auld scores be wiped off in this shattering calamity. Us have differed wheer us could these twoscore years; but theer mustn’t be no more ill-will wi’ me tremblin’ on the lip o’ the graave.”
“None at all; if ’t wasn’t for Widow Coomstock,” said Gaffer Lezzard. “You ’m tu pushing theer, an’ I say it even now, for truth’s truth, though it be the last thing a man’s ear holds.”
“Break it to her gentle,” said Billy, ignoring the other’s criticism; “she’m on in years, and have cast a kindly eye awver me since the early sixties. My propositions never was more than agreeable conversation to her, but it might have come. Tell her theer’s a world beyond marriage customs, an’ us’ll meet theer.”
Old Lezzard showed a good deal of anger at this speech, but being in a minority fell back and held his peace.
“Would ’e like to see passon, dear sawl?” asked Mr. Chapple, who walked on Billy’s left with his gun reversed, as though at a funeral.
“Me an’ him be out, along o’ rheumatics keeping me from the House of God this month,” said the sufferer, “but at a solemn death-bed hour like this here, I’d soon see un as not. Ban’t no gert odds, for I forgive all mankind, and doan’t feel no more malice than a bird in a tree.”
“You’re a silly old ass,” burst out Grimbal roughly. “There’s nothing worth naming the matter with you, and you know it better than we do. The Devil looks after his own, seemingly. Any other man would have been killed ten times over.”
Billy whined and even wept at this harsh reproof. “Ban’t a very fair way to speak to an auld gunpowder-blawn piece, like what I be now,” he said; “gormed if ’t is.”
“Very onhandsome of ’e, Mr. Grimbal,” declared the stout Chappie; “an’ you so young an’ in the prime of life, tu!”
Here Phoebe met them, and Mr. Blee, observing the signs of tears upon her face, supposed that anxiety for him had wet her cheeks, and comforted his master’s child.
“Doan’t ’e give way, missy. ’T is all wan, an’ I ban’t ’feared of the tomb, as I’ve tawld ’em. Us must rot, every bone of us, in our season, an’ ’t is awnly the thought of it, not the fear of it, turns the stomach. But what’s a wamblyness of the innards, so long as a body’s sawl be ripe for God?”
“A walkin’ sermon!” said Mr. Chappie.
Doctor Parsons was waiting for Billy at Monks Barton, and if John Grimbal had been brusque, the practitioner proved scarcely less so. He pronounced Mr. Blee but little hurt, bandaged his arm, plastered his head, and assured him that a pipe and a glass of spirits was all he needed to fortify his sinking spirit. The party ate and drank, raised a cheer for Miller Lyddon and then went homewards. Only Mr. Chappie and Gaffer Lezzard entered the house and had a wineglass or two of some special sloe gin. Mr. Lezzard thawed and grew amiable over this beverage, and Mr. Chappie repeated Billy’s lofty sentiments at the approach of death for the benefit of Miller Lyddon.
“ ’T is awnly my fearless disposition,” declared the wounded man with great humility; “no partic’lar credit to me. I doan’t care wan iotum for the thought of churchyard mould—not wan iotum. I knaw the value of gude rich soil tu well; an’ a man as grudges the rames3 of hisself to the airth that’s kept un threescore years an’ ten’s a carmudgeonly cuss, surely.”
“An’ so say I; theer’s true wisdom in it,” declared Mr. Chapple, while the miller nodded.
“Theer be,” concluded Gaffer Lezzard. “I allus sez, in my clenching way, that I doan’t care a farden damn what happens to my bones, if my everlasting future be well thought on by passon. So long as I catch the eye of un an’ see um beam ’pon me to church now an’ again, I’m content with things as they are.”
“As a saved sawl you ’m in so braave a way as the best; but, to say it without rudeness, as food for the land a man of your build be nought, Gaffer,” argued Mr. Chapple, who viewed the veteran’s withered anatomy from his own happy vantage ground of fifteen stone.
But Gaffer Lezzard would by no means allow this.
“Ban’t quantity awnly tells, my son. ’T is the aluminium in a man’s bones that fats land—roots or grass or corn. Anybody of larnin’, ’ll tell ’e that. Strip the belly off ’e, an’, bone for bone, a lean man like me shaws as fair as you. No offence offered or taken, but a gross habit’s mere clay and does more harm than gude underground.”
Mr. Chapple in his turn resented this contemptuous dismissal of tissue as matter of no agricultural significance. The old men went wrangling home; Miller Lyddon and Billy retired to their beds; the moon departed behind the distant moors; and all the darkened valley slept in snow and starlight.
CHAPTER VIII
A BROTHERS’ QUARREL
Though Phoebe was surprised at Will Blanchard’s mild attitude toward her weakness, she had been less so with more knowledge. Chris Blanchard and her lover were in some degree responsible for Will’s lenity, and Clement’s politic letter to the wanderer, when Phoebe’s engagement was announced, had been framed in words best calculated to shield the Miller’s sore-driven daughter. Hicks had thrown the blame on John Grimbal, on Mr. Lyddon, on everybody but Phoebe herself. Foremost indeed he had censured Will, and pointed out that his own sustained silence, however high-minded the reason of it, was a main factor in his sweetheart’s sufferings and ultimate submission.
In answer to this communication Blanchard magically reappeared, announced his determination to marry Phoebe by subterfuge, and, the deed accomplished, take his punishment, whatever it might be, with light heart. Given time to achieve a legal marriage, and Phoebe would at least be safe from the clutches of millionaires in general.
Much had already been done by Will before he crept after the apple-christeners and accomplished his meeting with Phoebe. A week was passed since Clement wrote the final crushing news, and during that interval Will had been stopping with his uncle, Joel Ford, at Newton Abbot. Fate, hard till now, played him passing fair at last. The old Superintendent Registrar still had a soft corner in his heart for Will, and when he learnt the boy’s trouble, though of cynic mind in all matters pertaining to matrimony, he chose to play the virtuous and enraged philosopher, much to his nephew’s joy. Mr. Ford promised Will he should most certainly have the law’s aid to checkmate his dishonourable adversary; he took a most serious view of the case and declared that all thinking men must sympathise with young Blanchard under such circumstances. But in private the old gentleman rubbed his hands, for here was the very opportunity he desired as much as a man well might—the chance to strike at one who had shamefully wronged him. His only trouble was how best to let John Grimbal know whom he had to thank for this tremendous reverse; for that deed he held necessary to complete his revenge.
As to where Will had come from, or whither he was returning, after his marriage Joel Ford cared not. The youngster once wedded would be satisfied; and his uncle would be satisfied too. The procedure of marriage by license requires that one of the parties shall have resided within the Superintendent’s district for a space of fifteen days preceding the giving of notice; then application in prescribed form is made to the Registrar; and his certificate and license are usually received one clear day later. Thus a resident in a district can