“Queer, to be sure! But coourse theer weern’t room in my mind for anything but mother arter I seed her stricken down.”
During the evening, after final reports from Mrs. Blanchard’s sick-room spoke of soothing sleep, Miller Lyddon sent Billy upon an errand, and discussed Will’s position.
“Jan Grimbal ’s waited so long,” he said, “that maybe he’ll wait longer still an’ end by doin’ nothin’ at all.”
“Not him! You judge the man by yourself,” declared Will. “But he ’s made of very different metal. I lay he’s bidin’ till the edge of this be sharp and sure to cut deepest. So like ’s not, when he hears tell mother ’s took bad he’ll choose that instant moment to have me marched away.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Blanchard burst out into a fury bred of sudden thought, and struck the table heavily with his fist.
“God blast it! I be allus waitin’ now for some wan’s vengeance! I caan’t stand this life no more. I caan’t an’ I won’t—’t is enough to soften any man’s wits.”
“Quiet! quiet, caan’t ’e?” said the miller, as though he told a dog to lie down. “Theer now! You’ve been an’ gived me palpitations with your noise. Banging tables won’t mend it, nor bad words neither. This thing hasn’t come by chance. You ’m ripening in mind an’ larnin’ every day. You mark my word; theer ’s a mort o’ matters to pick out of this new trouble. An’ fust, patience.”
“Patience! If a patient, long-suffering man walks this airth, I be him, I should reckon. I caan’t wait the gude pleasure of that dog, not even for you, Miller.”
“’T is discipline, an’ sent for the strengthening of your fibre. Providence barred the road to-day, else you’d be in prison now. Ban’t meant you should give yourself up—that’s how I read it.”
“’T is cowardly, waitin’ an’ playin’ into his hands; an’ if you awnly knawed how this has fouled my mind wi’ evil, an’ soured the very taste of what I eat, an’ dulled the faace of life, an’ blunted the right feeling in me even for them I love best, you’d never bid me bide on under it. ’T is rotting me—body an’ sawl—that’s what ’t is doin’. An’ now I be come to such a pass that if I met un to-morrow an’ he swore on his dying oath he’d never tell, I shouldn’t be contented even wi’ that.”