“Might have been worse, come to think of it. If the things weren’t choked, I doubt they’d been near starved. ’Most all the hay’s done, an’ half what’s left—a load or so—I’d promised to a chap out Manaton way. But theer’t is—my hand be forced, that’s all. So time’s saved, if you look at it from a right point.”
“You’m hard an’ braave, an’ you’ve got a way with you ’mong men. Faace life, same as faither did, an’ us’ll look arter Phoebe an’ the childer,” said Chris.
“I couldn’t leave un,” declared Will’s wife. “’T is my duty to keep along wi’un for better or worse.”
“Us’ll talk ’bout all that later. I be gwaine to act prompt an’ sell every stick, an’ then away, a free man.”
“All our furniture an’ property!” moaned Phoebe, looking round her in dismay.
“All—to the leastest bit o’ cracked cloam.”
“A forced sale brings nought,” sighed Damaris.
“Theer’s hunderds o’ pounds o’ gude chattels here, an’ they doan’t go for a penny less than they ’m worth. Because I’m down, ban’t no reason for others to try to rob me. If I doan’t get fair money I’ll make a fire wi’ the stuff an’ burn every stick of it.”
“The valuer man, Mr. Bambridge, must be seen, an’ bills printed out an’ sticked ’pon barn doors an’ such-like, same as when Mrs. Lezzard died,” said Phoebe. “What’ll faither think then?”
Will laughed bitterly.