“Ess, dear Will, but coming to-day, ’pon top of my gert joy, faither’s sorrow seemed so terrible-like.”
“He’ll get awver it, an’ so will you, bless you. Drink up some of this braave stuff mother left. Sherry ’t is, real wine, as will comfort ’e, my li’l love. ’Tis I be gwaine to make your happiness henceforward, mind; an’ as for Miller, he belongs to an auld-fashioned generation of mankind, and it’s our place to make allowances. Auld folk doan’t knaw an’ won’t larn. But he’ll come to knaw wan solid thing, if no more; an’ that is as his darter’ll have so gude a husband as she’ve got faither, though I sez it.”
“’Tis just what he said I shouldn’t, Will.”
“Nevermind, forgive un, an’ drink up your wine; ’twill hearten ’e.”
A dog barked, a gate clinked, and there came the sound of a horse’s hoofs, then of a man dismounting.
Will told the rest of the story afterwards to Mrs. Blanchard.
“‘’Tis faither,’ cries Phoebe, an’ turns so pale as a whitewashed wall in moonlight. ‘Never!’ I sez. But she knawed the step of un, an’ twinkled up from off her chair, an’ ’fore ever the auld man reached the door, ’t was awpen. In he comed, like a lamb o’ gentleness, an’ said never a word for a bit, then fetched out a little purse wi’ twenty gawld sovereigns in it. An’ us all had some fine talk for more’n an hour, an’ he was proper faither to me, if you’ll credit it; an’ he drinked a glass o’ your wine, mother, an’ said he never tasted none better and not much so gude. Then us seed un off, an’ Phoebe cried again, poor twoad, but for sheer happiness this time. So now the future’s clear as sunlight, an’ we’m all friends—’cept here an’ theer.”
CHAPTER XII
THROUGH ONE GREAT DAY
Just within the woods of Teign Valley, at a point not far distant from that where Will Blanchard met John Grimbal for the first time, and wrestled with him beside the river, there rises a tall bank, covered with fern, shadowed by oak trees. A mossy bridle-path winds below, while beyond it, seen through a screen of wych-elms and hazel, extend the outlying meadows of Monks Barton.
Upon this bank, making “sunshine in a shady place,” reclined Chris, beneath a harmony of many greens, where the single, double, and triple shadows of the manifold leaves above her created a complex play of light and shade all splashed and gemmed with little sun discs. Drowsy noon-day peace marked the hour; Chris had some work in her hand, but was not engaged upon it; and Clement, who lolled beside her, likewise did nothing. His eyes were upon a mare and foal in the meadow below. The matron proceeded slowly, grazing as she went, while her lanky youngster nibbled at this or that inviting tuft, then raced joyously in wide circles and, returning, sought his mother’s milk with the selfish roughness of youth.