“Not so. He’d have blocked my road if he’d guessed.”
“Well, I’m honest when I say I don’t care a curse what he does or does not. Let him go his way. And as to proclaiming him, I shall do so when it pleases me. An odious crime that,—a traitor to his country.”
“Doan’t become you nor me to dwell ’pon that, seeing how things was.”
Grimbal rose.
“You think he ’s a noble fellow, and that your daughter had a merciful escape. It isn’t for me to suggest you are mistaken. Now I’ve no more time to spare, I’m afraid.”
The miller also rose, and as he prepared to depart he spoke a final word.
“You ’m terrible pushed for time, by the looks of it. I knaw ’t is hard in this life to find time to do right, though every man can make a ’mazing mort o’ leisure for t’ other thing. But hear me: you ’m ruinin’ yourself, body an’ sawl, along o’ this job—body an’ sawl, like apples in a barrel rots each other. You ’m in a bad way, Jan Grimbal, an’ I’m sorry for ’e—brick house an’ horses an’ dogs notwithstanding. Have a spring cleaning in that sulky brain o’ yourn, my son, an’ be a man wi’ yourself, same as you be a man wi’ the world.”
The other sneered.
“Don’t get hot. The air is cold. And as you’ve given so much good advice, take some, too. Mind your own business, and let your son-in-law mind his.”
Mr. Lyddon shook his head.