Then Billy fired his blunderbuss, and a flame leapt from its bell mouth into the branches of the apple-tree, while surrounding high lands echoed its report with a reverberating bellow that rose and fell, and was flung from hill to hill, until it gradually faded upon the ear. The boys cheered again, everybody drank a drop of the cider, and from under a cloud of blue smoke, that hung flat as a pancake above them in the still air, all moved onward. Presently the party separated into three groups, each having a gunner to lead it, half a dozen boys to sing, and a dwindling jar of cider for the purposes of the ceremony. The divided choirs clashed their music, heard from a distance; the guns fired at intervals, each sending forth its own particular detonation and winning back a distinctive echo; then the companies separated widely and decreased to mere twinkling, torchlit points in the distance.

Acc.u.mulated smoke from the scattered discharges hung in a sluggish haze between earth and moon, and a sharp smell of burnt powder tainted the sweetness of the frosty night.

Upon this scene arrived John Grirnbal and his sweetheart. They stood for a while at the open orchard gate, gazed at the remote illumination, and heard the distant song. Then they returned to discussion of their own affairs; while at hand, unseen, the grey watcher moved impatiently and anxiously. The thing he desired did not come about, and he blew on his cold hands and swore under his breath. Only an orchard hedge now separated them, and he might have listened to Phoebe's soft speech had he crept ten yards nearer, while John Grimbal's voice he could not help hearing from time to time. The big man was just asking a question not easy to answer, when an unexpected interruption saved Phoebe from the difficulty of any reply.

"Sometimes I half reckon a memory of that blessed boy still makes you glum, my dear. Is it so? Haven't you forgot him yet?"

As he spoke an explosion, differing much in sound from those which continued to startle the night, rang suddenly out of the distance. It arose from a spot on the confines of the orchard, and was sharp in tone--sharp almost as the human cries which followed it. Then the distant lights hastened towards the theatre of the catastrophe. "What has happened?" cried Phoebe, thankful enough to s.n.a.t.c.h conversation away from herself and her affairs.

"Easy to guess. That broken report means a burst gun. One of those old fools has got excited, put too much powder into his blunderbuss and blown his head off, likely as not. No loss either!"

"Please, please go and see! Oh, if 'tis Billy Blee come to grief, faither will be lost. Do 'e run, Mr. Grimbal--Jan, I mean. If any grave matter's failed out, send them bwoys off red-hot for doctor."

"Stop here, then. If any ugly thing has happened, there need be no occasion for you to see it."

He departed hastily to where a distant galaxy of fiery eyes twinkled and tangled and moved this way and that, like the dying sparks on a piece of burnt paper.

Then the patient grey shadow, rewarded by chance at last, found his opportunity, slipped into the hedge just above Grimbal's sweetheart, and spoke to her.

"Phoebe, Phoebe Lyddon!"

The voice, dropping out of empty air as it seemed, made Phoebe jump, and almost fall; but there was an arm gripped round her, and a pair of hot lips on hers before she had time to open her mouth or cry a word.

"Will!"

"Ess, so I be, alive an' kicking. No time for anything but business now.

I've followed 'e for this chance. Awnly heard four day ago 'bout the fix you'd been drove to. An' Clem's made it clear 't was all my d.a.m.n silly silence to blame. I had a gert thought in me and wasn't gwaine to write till--but that's awver an' done, an' a purty kettle of feesh, tu. We must faace this coil first."

"Thank G.o.d, you can forgive me. I'd never have had courage to ax 'e."

"You was drove into it. I knaw there's awnly wan man in the world for 'e. Ban't nothin' to forgive. I never ought to have left 'e--a far-seein' man, same as me. Blast him! I'd like to tear thicky d.a.m.ned fur off you, for I lay it comed from him."

"They were killing me, Will; and never a word from you."

"I knaw, I knaw. What's wan girl against a parish full, an' a bl.u.s.tering chap made o' diamonds?"

"The things doan't warm me; they make me shiver. But now--you can forgive me--that's all I care for. What shall I do? How can I escape it?

Oh, Will, say I can!"

"In coourse you can. Awnly wan way, though; an' that's why I'm here. Us must be married right on end. Then he's got no more power over 'e than a drowned worm, nor Miller, nor any."

"To think you can forgive me enough to marry me after all my wickedness!

I never dreamed theer was such a big heart in the world as yourn."

"Why, we promised, didn't us? We'm built for each other. I knawed I'd only got to come. An' I have, at cost, tu, I promise 'e. Now we'll be upsides wi' this tramp from furrin paarts, if awnly you do ezacally what I be gwaine to tell you. I'd meant to write it, but I can speak it better as the chance has come."

Phoebe's heart glowed at this tremendous change in the position. She forgot everything before sight and sound of Will. The nature of her promises weakened to gossamer. Her first love was the only love for her, and his voice fortified her spirit and braced her nerves. A chance for happiness yet remained and she, who had endured enough, was strong in determination to win it yet at any cost if a woman could.

"If you awnly knawed the half I've suffered before they forced me, you'd forgive," she said. His frank pardon she could hardly realise. It seemed altogether beyond the desert of her weakness.

"Let that bide. It's the future now. Clem's told me everything. Awnly you and him an' Chris knaw I'm here. Chris will serve 'e. Us must play a hidden game, an' fight this Grimbal chap as he fought me--behind back.

Listen; to-day fortnight you an' me 'm gwaine to be married afore the registrar to Newton Abbot. He 'm my awn Uncle Ford, as luck has it, an'

quite o' my way o' thinkin' when I told him how 't was, an' that Jan Grimbal was gwaine to marry you against your will. He advised me, and I'm biding in Newton for next two weeks, so as the thing comes out right by law. But you've got to keep it still as death."

"If I could awnly fly this instant moment with 'e!"

"You caan't. 'T would spoil all. You must stop home, an' hear your banns put up with Grimbal, an' all the rest of it. Wish I could! Meat an'

drink 't would be, by G.o.d! But he'll get his pay all right. An' afore the day comes, you nip off to Newton, an' I'll meet 'e, an' us'll be married in a wink, an' you'll be back home again to Monks Barton 'fore you knaw it."

"Is that the awnly way? Oh, Will, how terrible!"

"G.o.d knaws I've done worse 'n that. But no man's gwaine to steal the maid of my choosin' from me while I've got brains and body to prevent it."

"Let me look at you, lovey--just the same, just the same! 'Tis glorious to hear your voice again. But this thin coat, so butivul in shaape, tu!

You 'm a gentleman by the look of it; but 't is summer wear, not winter."

"Ess, 'tis cold enough; an' I've got to get back to Newton to-night. An'

never breathe that man's name no more. I'll shaw 'e wat 's a man an'

what ban't. Steal my true love, would 'e?--G.o.d forgive un, I shaan't--not till we 'm man an' wife, anyway. Then I might. Give 'e up!

Be I a chap as chaanges? Never--never yet."

Phoebe wept at these words and pressed Will to her heart.

"'Tis strength, an' fire, an' racing blood in me to hear 'e, dear, braave heart. I was that weak without 'e. Now the world 's a new plaace, an' I doan't doubt fust thought was right, for all they said. I'll meet 'e as you bid me, an' nothin' shall ever keep me from 'e now--nothing!"

"'T is well said, Phoebe; an' doan't let that anointed scamp kiss 'e more 'n he must. Be braave an' cunnin', an' keep Miller from smelling a rat. I'd like to smash that man myself now wheer he stands,--Grimbal I mean,--but us must be wise for the present. Wipe your shiny eyes an'

keep a happy faace to 'em, an' never let wan of the lot dream what's hid in 'e. c.o.c.k your li'l nose high, an' be peart an' gay. An' let un buy you what he will,--'t is no odds; we can send his rubbish back again arter, when he knaws you'm another man's wife. Gude-bye, Phoebe dearie; I've done what 'peared to me a gert deed for love of 'e; but the sight of 'e brings it down into no mighty matter."

"You've saved my life, Will--saved all my days; an' while I've got a heart beating 't will be yourn, an' I'll work for 'e, an' slave for 'e, an' think for 'e, an' love 'e so long as I live--an' pray for 'e, tu, Will, my awn!"

He parted from her as she spoke, and she, by an inspiration, hurried towards the approaching crowd that the trampled marks of the snow where she had been standing might not be noted under the gleam of torches and lanterns.

John Grimbal's prophecy was happily not fulfilled in its gloomy completeness: n.o.body had blown his head off; but Billy Blee's prodigality of ammunition proved at last too much for the blunderbuss of the bygone coach-guard, and in its sudden annihilation a fragment had cut the gunner across the face, and a second inflicted a pretty deep flesh-wound on his arm. Neither injury was very serious, and the general escape, as John Grimbal pointed out, might be considered marvellous, for not a soul save Billy himself had been so much as scratched.

With Martin Grimbal on one side and Mr. Chapple upon the other, the wounded veteran walked slowly and solemnly along. The dramatic moments of the hour were dear to him, and while tolerably confident at the bottom of his mind that no vital hurt had been done, he openly declared himself stricken to death, and revelled in a display of Christian fort.i.tude and resignation that deceived everybody but John Grimbal.

Billy gasped and gurgled, bid them see to the bandages, and reviewed his past life with ingenuous satisfaction.

"Ah, sawls all! dead as a hammer in an 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.