"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' G.o.d against men most times. Maybe they 'm strong on it in heaven, but theer 's d.a.m.ned 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 prompt.i.tude 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 a.s.sumed an att.i.tude 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 G.o.d, 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, succ.u.mbed 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 acc.u.mulated 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.

Pa.s.sing 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 circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.sured 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 d.i.n.ky 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 a.s.sumed 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."

Presently conversation pa.s.sed to Will himself, and Phoebe expressed a hope this sad event would turn him from his determination for some time at least.

"What determination?" he asked. "What be talkin' about?"

"The letter you left for faither, and the thing you started to do," she answered.

"'S truth! So I did; an' if the sight o' the smoke an' then hearin' o'