"I don't want any good to come of it. Why should I? He's brought me to this pass with his own hand."
"But surely it was partly your fault. He loved you once."
"Nonsense. He wanted a dog to badger, that was all. Christopher
Blake said so."
"Christopher Blake! Oh, Will, Will, if you could only understand!"
She turned hopelessly away from him and looked with despairing eyes over the ploughed fields which blushed faintly in the sunshine.
"So your spring ploughing is all done," she said at last, desisting from her attempt to soften his sullen obduracy, "and you have been working harder than I knew."
"Oh, it's not I," returned Will promptly, his face clearing for the first time. "It's all Christopher's work; he ploughed that field just before he went away. Do you see that new cover over the well? He knocked that up the last morning he was here, and made those steps before the front door at the same time. Now, he's the kind of friend worth having, and no mistake. But for him I'd have landed in the poorhouse long ago."
Maria's gaze left the field and returned to Will's face, where it lingered wistfully.
"Have you ever heard what it was all about, Will?" she asked, "the old trouble between him and grandfather?"
"Some silly property right, I believe; I can't remember. Did you ever see anybody yet with whom grandpa was on decent terms?"