"We love each other wi' all our hearts and have done more 'n half a year. Ban't that nothing?"

"I married when I was forty-two," remarked the miller, reflectively, looking down at his fox-head slippers, the work of Phoebe's fingers.

"An' a purty marryin' time tu!" declared Mr. Blee. "Look at me," he continued, "parlous near seventy, and a bacherlor-man yet."

"Not but Widow Comstock will have 'e if you ax her a bit oftener. Us all knows that," said the young lover, with great stratagem.

Billy chuckled, and rubbed his wrinkles.

"Time enough, time enough," he answered, "but you--scarce out o'

clouts--why, 't is playin' at a holy thing, that's what 't is--same as Miss Phoebe, when she was a li'l wee cheel, played at bein' parson in her night-gownd, and got welted for it, tu, by her gude faither."

"We 'm both in earnest anyway--me and Phoebe."

"So am I," replied the miller, sitting up and putting down his pipe; "so am I in earnest, and wan word 's gude as a hunderd in a pa.s.s like this.

You must hear the truth, an' that never broke no bones. You 'm no more fitted to have a wife than that tobacco-jar--a hot-headed, wild-fire of a bwoy--"

"A right Jack-o'-Lantern, as everybody knaws," suggested Mr. Blee.

"Ess fay, 'tis truth. Shifting and oncertain as the marsh gallopers on the moor bogs of a summer night. Awnly a youth's faults, you mind; but still faults. No, no, my lad, you've got to fight your life's battle and win it, 'fore you'm a mate for any gal; an' you've got to begin by fightin' yourself, an' breaking an' taming yourself, an' getting yourself well in hand. That's a matter of more than months for the best of us."

"And then?" said Will, "after 'tis done? though I'm not allowin' I'm anything but a ripe man as I stand here afore you now."

"Then I'd say, 'I'm glad to see you grawed into a credit to us all, Will Blanchard, and worth your place in the order o' things; but you doan't marry Phoebe Lyddon--never, never, never, not while I'm above ground.'"

His slow eyes looked calmly and kindly at Will, and he smiled into the hot, young, furious face.

"That's your last word then?"

"It is, my lad."

"And you won't give a reason?"

"The reason is, 'what's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.' I knawed your faither. You'm as volatile as him wi'out his better paarts."

"Leave him wheer he lies--underground. If he'd lived 'stead of bein' cut off from life, you'd 'a' bin proud to knaw him."

"A gypsy-man and no better, Will," said Mr. Blee. "Not but what he made a gude end, I allow."

"Then I'll be up and away. I've spoke 'e fair, Miller--fair an'

straight--an' so you to me. You won't allow this match. Then we'll wed wi'out your blessin', an' sorry I shall be."

"If that's your tune, my young rascal, I'll speak again! Phoebe's under age, remember that, and so sure as you dare take her a yard from her awn door you'll suffer for it. 'Tis a clink job, you mind--a prison business; and what's more, you 'm pleased to speak so plain that I will tu, and tell 'e this. If you dare to lift up your eyes to my child again, or stop her in the way, or have speech with her, I'll set p'liceman 'pon 'e! For a year and more she 'm not her awn mistress; and, at the end of that time, if she doan't get better sense than to tinker arter a harum-scarum young jackanapes like you, she ban't a true Lyddon.

Now be off with 'e an' doan't dare to look same way Phoebe 's walkin', no more, else theer'll be trouble for 'e."

"Wonnerful language, an' in a nutsh.e.l.l," commented Billy, as, blowing rather hard, the miller made an end of his warning.

"Us'll leave it theer, then, Mr. Lyddon; and you'll live to be sorry ever you said them words to me. Ess fay, you'll live to sing different; for when two 's set 'pon a matter o' marryin', ban't fathers nor mothers, nor yet angels, be gwaine to part 'em. Phoebe an' me will be man an' wife some day, sure 's the sun 's brighter 'n the mune. So now you knaw. Gude night to 'e."

He took up his hat and departed; Billy held up his hands in mute amazement; but the miller showed no emotion and relighted his pipe.

"The rising generation do take my breath away twenty times a day," said Mr. Blee. "To think o' that bwoy, in li'l frocks awnly yesterday, standin' theer frontin' two aged men wi' such bouldacious language!"

"What would you do, Billy, if the gal was yourn?"

"Same as you, to a hair. Bid her drop the chap for gude 'n all. But theer 's devil's pepper in that Blanchard. He ain't done with yet."

"Well, well, he won't shorten my sleep, I promise you. Near two years is a long time to the young. Lord knaws wheer a light thing like him will be blawed to, come two years. Time 's on my side for certain. And Phoebe 's like to change also."

"Why, a woman's mind 's no more 'n a feather in a gale of wind at her time o' life; though to tell her so 's the sure way to make her steadfast."

A moment later Phoebe herself entered. She had heard Will depart and now, in a fever of impatience, crept with bright, questioning eyes to her father's chair. Whereupon Mr. Blee withdrew in a violent hurry. No one audibly desired him to do so, but a side-look from the girl was enough.

CHAPTER III

EXIT WILL

Phoebe's conversation with her father occupied a s.p.a.ce of time extending over just two minutes. He met her eager eyes with a smile, patted her head, pinched her ear, and by his manner awakened a delicious flutter of hope in the girl before he spoke. When, therefore, Phoebe learned that Will was sent about his business for ever, and must henceforth be wholly dismissed from her mind, the shock and disappointment of such intelligence came as a cruel blow. She stood silent and thunderstruck before Miller Lyddon, a world of reproaches in her frightened eyes; then mutely the corners of her little mouth sank as she turned away and departed with her first great sorrow.

Phoebe's earliest frantic thought had been to fly to Will, but she knew such a thing was impossible. There would surely be a letter from him on the following morning hidden within their secret pillar-box between two bricks of the mill wall. For that she must wait, and even in her misery she was glad that with Will, not herself, lay decision as to future action. She had expected some delay; she had believed that her father would impose stern restrictions of time and make a variety of conditions with her sweetheart; she had even hoped that Miller Lyddon might command lengthened patience for the sake of her headstrong, erratic Will's temper and character; but that he was to be banished in this crushing and summary fashion overwhelmed Phoebe, and that utterly. Her nature, however, was not one nourished from any very deep wells of character.

She belonged to a cla.s.s who suffer bitterly enough under sorrow, but the storm of it while tearing like a tropical tornado over heart and soul, leaves no traces that lapse of time cannot wholly and speedily obliterate. On them it may be said that fortune's sharpest strokes inflict no lasting scars; their dispositions are happily powerless to harbour the sustained agony that burrows and gnaws, poisons man's estimate of all human affairs, wrecks the stores of his experience, and stamps the cicatrix of a live, burning grief on brow and brain for ever.

They find their own misery sufficiently exalted; but their temperament is unable to sustain a lifelong tribulation or elevate sorrow into tragedy. And their state is the more blessed. So Phoebe watered her couch with tears, prayed to G.o.d to hear her solemn promises of eternal fidelity, then slept and pa.s.sed into a brief dreamland beyond sorrow's reach.

Meantime young Blanchard took his stormy heart into a night of stars.

The moon had risen; the sky was clear; the silvery silence remained unbroken save for the sound of the river, where it flowed under the shadows of great trees and beneath aerial bridges and banners of the meadow mists. Will strode through this scene, past his mother's cottage, and up a hill behind it, into the village. His mind presented in turn a dozen courses of action, and each was built upon the abiding foundation of Phoebe's sure faithfulness. That she would cling to him for ever the young man knew right well; no thought of a rival, therefore, entered into his calculations. The sole problem was how quickest to make Mr.

Lyddon change his mind; how best to order his future that the miller should regard him as a responsible person, and one of weight in affairs.

Not that Will held himself a slight man by any means; but he felt that he must straightway a.s.sert his individuality and convince the world in general and Miller Lyddon in particular of faulty judgment. He was very angry still as he retraced the recent conversation. Then, among those various fancies and projects in his mind, the wildest and most foolish stood out before him as both expedient and to be desired. His purpose in Chagford was to get advice from another man; but before he reached the village his own mind was established.

Slated and thatched roofs glimmered under moonlight, and already the hamlet slept. A few cats crept like shadows through the deserted streets, from darkness into light, from light back to darkness; and one cottage window, before which Will Blanchard stood, still showed a candle behind a white blind. Most quaint and ancient was this habitation--of picturesque build, with tiny granite porch, small entrance, and venerable thatches that hung low above the upper windows. A few tall balsams quite served to fill the garden; indeed so small was it that from the roadway young Blanchard, by bending over the wooden fence, could easily reach the cottage window. This he did, tapped lightly, and then waited for the door to be opened.

A man presently appeared and showed some surprise at the sight of his late visitor.

"Let me in, Clem," said Will. "I knawed you'd be up, sitting readin'

and dreamin'. 'T is no dreamin' time for me though, by G.o.d! I be corned straight from seeing Miller 'bout Phoebe."

"Then I can very well guess what was last in your ears."

Clement Hicks spoke in an educated voice. He was smaller than Will but evidently older. Somewhat narrow of build and thin, he looked delicate, though in reality wiry and sound. He was dark of complexion, wore his hair long for a cottager, and kept both moustache and beard, though the latter was very scant and showed the outline of his small chin through it. A forehead remarkably lofty but not broad, mounted almost perpendicularly above the man's eyes; and these were large and dark and full of fire, though marred by a discontented expression. His mouth was full-lipped, his other features huddled rather meanly together under the high brow: but his face, while admittedly plain even to ugliness, was not commonplace; for its eyes were remarkable, and the cast of thought enn.o.bled it as a whole.

Will entered the cottage kitchen and began instantly to unfold his experiences.

"You knaw me--a man with a level head, as leaps after looking, not afore. I put nothing but plain reason to him and he flouted me like you might a cheel. An' I be gwaine to make him eat his words--such hard words as they was tu! Think of it! Me an' Phoebe never to meet no more!

The folly of sayin' such a thing! Wouldn't 'e reckon that grey hairs knawed better than to fancy words can keep lovers apart?"

"Grey hairs cover old brains; and old brains forget what it feels like to have a body full o' young blood. The best memory can't keep the feeling of youth fresh in a man."