“Glad Will weern’t theer, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Blanchard. “He’d ’a’ laughed out loud an’ made bad worse. Chris did as ’t was, awnly parson’s roarin’ luckily drowned it. And Mr. Martin Grimbal, whose eye I catched, was put to it to help smilin’.”
“Ban’t often he laughs, anyway,” said Phoebe, who walked homewards with her father and the Blanchards; whereon Chris, from being in a boisterous vein of merriment, grew grave. Together all returned to the valley. Will was due in half an hour from Newtake, and Phoebe, as a special favour, had been permitted to dine at Mrs. Blanchard’s cottage with her husband and his family. Clement Hicks had also promised to be of the party; but that was before the trouble of the previous week, and Chris knew he would not come.
Meantime, Gaffer Lezzard, supported by two generations of his family, explained his reasons for objecting to Mr. Blee’s proposed marriage.
“Mrs. Coomstock be engaged, right and reg’lar, to me,” he declared. “She’d gived me her word ’fore ever Blee axed her. I seed her essterday, to hear final ’pon the subjec’, an’ she tawld me straight, bein’ sober as you at the time, as ’t was me she wanted an’ meant for to have. She was excited t’ other day an’ not mistress of herself ezacally; an’ the crafty twoad took advantage of it, an’ jawed, an’ made her drink an’ drink till her didn’t knaw what her was sayin’ or doin’. But she’m mine, an’ she’ll tell ’e same as what I do; so theer’s an end on ’t.”
“I’ll see Mrs. Coomstock,” said the Vicar. “I, myself will visit her to-morrow.”
“Canst punish this man for tryin’ to taake her from me?”
“Permit yourself no mean desires in the direction of revenge. For the present I decline to say more upon the subject. If it were possible to punish, and I am not prepared to say it is not, it would be for brawling in the house of God. After an experience extending over forty years, I may declare that I never saw any such disreputable and horrifying spectacle.”
So the Lezzard family withdrew and, on the following day, Mrs. Coomstock passed through most painful experiences.
To the clergyman, with many sighs and tears, she explained that Mr. Lezzard’s character had been maligned by Mr. Blee, that before the younger veteran she had almost feared for her life, and been driven to accept him out of sheer terror at his importunity. But when facts came to her ears afterwards, she found that Mr. Lezzard was in reality all he had declared himself to be, and therefore returned to him, threw over Mr. Blee, and begged the other to forbid the banns, if as she secretly learnt, though not from Billy himself, they were to be called on that Sunday. The poor woman’s ears tingled under Mr. Shorto-Champernowne’s sonorous reproof; but he departed at last, and by the time that Billy called, during the same day, she had imbibed Dutch courage sufficient to face him and tell him she had changed her mind. She had erred—she confessed it. She had been far from well at the time and, upon reconsideration of the proposal, had felt she would never be able to make Mr. Blee happy, or enjoy happiness with him.
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Coomstock had accepted both suitors on one and the same afternoon. First Gaffer, who had made repeated but rather vague allusion to a sum of three hundred pounds in ready money, was taken definitely; while upon his departure, the widow, only dimly conscious of what was settled with her former admirer, said, “Yes” to Billy in his turn. Had a third suitor called on that event-ful afternoon, it is quite possible Mrs. Coomstock would have accepted him also.