“God knaws, I doan’t. The man or bwoy, or whatever you call un, beats me. I ban’t built to tackle such a piece as him. He’s took a year off my life to-day. Go to your bed, Billy, an’ let un bide.”
“Gormed if I wouldn’t like to slip down an’ scat un ower the head for what he done to me this marnin’. Such an auld man as me, tu! weak in the hams this ten year.”
“But strong in the speech. Maybe you pricked him with a bitter word, an’—theer, theer, if I ban’t standin’ up for the chap now! Yet if I’ve wished un dead wance, I have fifty times since I first heard tell of un. Get to bed. I s’pose us’ll knaw his drift come to-morrow.”
Mr. Lyddon and Billy retired, and both slept ere Will Blanchard’s work was done. Upon its completion he sought the cold nocturnal waters of the river, and then did a thing he had planned an hour before. Entering the farmyard, he flung a small stone at Phoebe’s window in the thatch, then another. But the first had roused his wife, for she lay above in wakefulness and sorrow. She peeped out, saw Blanchard, knew him in the lantern light, and opened the window.
“Will, my awn Will!” she said, with a throbbing voice.
“Ess fay, lovey! I knawed you’d sleep sweeter for hearin’ tell I’ve done the work.”
“Done it?”
“Truth.”
“It was a cruel, wicked shame; an’ the blame’s Billy Blee’s, an’ I’ve cried my eyes out since I heard what they set you to do; an’ I’ve said what I thought; an’ I’m sorry to bitterness about this marnin’, dear Will.”
“’T is all wan now. I’ve comed into a mort of money, my Uncle Ford bein’ suddenly dead.”