Thereupon Blanchard became more reasonable, withdrew his objections and expressed a very heartfelt hope that Martin might succeed where he had failed. The lover entered methodically upon his quest and conducted the inquiry with a rigorous closeness and scrupulous patience quite beyond Will’s power despite his equally earnest intentions. For six months Martin pursued his hope, and few saw or heard anything of him during that period.
Once, during the early summer, Will chanced upon John Grimbal at the first meeting of the otter hounds in Teign Vale; but though the younger purposely edged near his enemy where he stood, and hoped that some word might fall to indicate their ancient enmity dead, John said nothing, and his blue eyes were hard and as devoid of all emotion as turquoise beads when they met the farmer’s face for one fraction of time.
Before this incident, however, there had arisen upon Will’s life the splendour of paternity. A time came when, through one endless night and silver April morning, he had tramped his kitchen floor as a tiger its cage, and left a scratched pathway on the stones. Then his mother hasted from aloft and reported the arrival of a rare baby boy.
“Phoebe ’s doin’ braave, an’ she prays of ’e to go downlong fust thing an’ tell Miller all ’s well. Doctor Parsons hisself says ’t is a ’mazing fine cheel, so it ban’t any mere word of mine as wouldn’t weigh, me bein’ the gran’mother.”
They talked a little while of the newcomer, then, thankful for an opportunity to be active after his long suspense, the father hurried away, mounted a horse, and soon rattled down the valleys into Chagford, at a pace which found his beast dead lame on the following day. Mighty was the exhilaration of that wild gallop as he sped past cot and farm under morning sunshine with his great news. Labouring men and chance wayfarers were overtaken from time to time. Some Will knew, some he had never seen, but to the ear of each and all without discrimination he shouted his intelligence. Not a few waved their hats and nodded and remembered the great day in their own lives; one laughed and cried “Bravo!” sundry, who knew him not, marvelled and took him for a lunatic.
Arrived at Chagford, familiar forms greeted Will in the market-place, and again he bawled his information without dismounting.
“A son ’tis, Chapple—comed an hour ago—a brave li’l bwoy, so they tell!”
“Gude luck to it, then! An’ now you’m a parent, you must—”
But Will was out of earshot, and Mr. Chapple wasted no more breath.
Into Monks Barton the farmer presently clattered, threw himself off his horse, tramped indoors, and shouted for his father-in-law in tones that made the oak beams ring. Then the miller, with Mr. Blee behind him, hastened to hear what Will had come to tell.