Chapter 17

THE MILLER'S OFFER

Will, followed his determination and proceeded to Monks Barton on the following Monday evening, at an hour when he knew that Mr. Lyddon would have finished supper and be occupied about a pipe or a game of cards with Mr. Blee. The old men occasionally passed an hour at "oaks" or "cribbage" before retiring, but on this occasion they were engaged in conversation, and both looked up with some surprise when Blanchard appeared.

"You--you here again!" said the miller, and his mouth remained slightly open after the words.

"You 'm allus setting sober hair on end--blessed if you ain't!" was Billy's comment.

Will, for his part, made no introductory speeches, but went straight to the point.

"Theer's my arm," he said, thrusting it out before him. "'T is mended so neat that Doctor Parsons says no Lunnon bone-setter could have done it better. So I've comed just to say theer's no call for longer waitin'. 'T was a sportsmanlike thing in you, Miller Lyddon, to bide same as you did; and now, if you'd set the law movin' an' get the job out o' hand, I'd thank you kindly. You see, if they put me in for two year, 't will leave mighty li'l time to get a home ready for Phoebe against the day she comes of age."

"You needn't be at any trouble about that."

"But I shall be. Do 'e think my wife's gwaine to be any differ'nt to lesser folks? A home she'll have, an' a braave, vitty home, tu, though I've got to sweat blood for it. So if you'd take your bite so soon as convenient, you'd sarve me."

"I doan't say you 'm axin' anything onreasonable," said Mr. Lyddon, thoughtfully. "An' what might you think o'doin, when you comes out o' prison?"

"First gude work that offers."

"Maybe you doan't kuaw that chaps whose last job was on the treadmill finds it uncommon hard to get another?"

"Depends what they was theer for, I should reckon, Miller"

"Not a bit of it. Gaol-birds is all feathered alike inside clink, an' honest men feathers 'em all alike when they come out," declared Will's father-in-law.

"A sheer Cain, as no man will touch by the hand--that's what you'll be," added Billy, without apparent regret.

"If that's so," said Will, very calmly, "you'd best to think twice 'fore you sends me. I've done a high-handed deed, bein' forced into the same by happenings here when I went off last summer; but 't is auld history now. I'd like to be a credit to 'e some time, not a misery for all time. Why not--?" He was going to suggest a course of action more favourable to himself than that promised; but it struck him suddenly that any attitude other than the one in which he had come savoured of snivelling for mercy. So he stopped, left a break of silence, and proceeded with less earnestness in his voice.

"You've had a matter of eight weeks to decide in, so I thought I might ax'e, man to man, what's gwaine to be done."

"I have decided," said the miller coldly; "I decided a week ago."

Billy started and his blue eyes blinked inquiringly. He sniffed his surprise and said "Well!" under his breath.

"Ess, 't is so, I didn't tell 'e, Blee, 'cause I reckoned you'd try an' turn me from my purpose, which wasn't to be done."

"Never--not me. I'm allus in flat agreement with 'e, same as any wise man finds hisself all times."

"Well, doan't 'e take it ill, me keepin' it to myself."

"No, no--awnly seem' how--"

"If it 's all the same," interrupted Will, "I'd like to knaw what you 'm gwaine for to do."

"I'm gwaine to do nort, Will Blanchard--nort at all. God He knaws you 've wronged me, an' more 'n me, an' her--Phoebe--worst of all; but I'll lift no hand ag'in' you. Bide free an' go forrard your awn way--"

"To the Dowl!" concluded Billy.

There was a silence, then Will spoke with some emotion.

"You 'm a big, just man, Miller Lyddon; an' if theer was anything could make me sorry for the past--which theer ban't--'t would be to knaw you've forgived me."

"He ain't done no such thing!" burst out Mr. Blee. "Tellin' 'e to go to the Dowl ban't forgivin' of 'e!"

"That was your word," answered Will hotly, "an' if you didn't open your ugly mouth so wide, an' shaw such a 'mazing poor crop o' teeth same time, me an' Miller might come to onderstanding. I be here to see him, not you."

"Gar! you 'm a beast of a bwoy, looked at anyhow, an' I wouldn't have no dealin's with 'e for money," snorted the old man.

"Theer we'll leave it then, Blanchard," said Mr. Lyddon, as Will turned his back upon the last speaker without answering him. "Go your way an' try to be a better man; but doan't ax me to forget what 's passed--no, nor forgive it, not yet. I'll come to a Christian sight of it some day, God willin'; but it 's all I can say that I bear you no ill-will."

"An' I'm beholden enough for that. You wait an' keep your eye on me. I'll shaw you what's in me yet. I'll surprise 'e, I promise. Nobody in these paarts 'cept mother, knaws what 's in me. But, wi'out boastful words, I'll prove it. Because, Miller, I may assure 'e I'm a man as have thought a lot in my time 'bout things in general."

"Ess, you'm a deep thinker, I doan't doubt. Now best to go; an', mind, no dealins wi' Phoebe, for that I won't stand."

"I've thought that out, tu. I'll give 'e my word of honour 'pon that."

"Best to seek work t'other side the Moor, if you ax me. Then you'll be out the way."

"As to that, I'd guessed maybe Martin Grimbal, as have proved a gert friend to me an' be quite o' my way o' thinking, might offer garden work while I looked round. Theer ban't a spark o' pride in me--tu much sense, I hope, for that."

The miller sighed.

"You've done a far-reachin' thing, as hits a man from all sorts o' plaaces, like the echo in Teign Valley. I caan't see no end to it yet."

"Martin Grimbal's took on Wat Widdicombe, so you needn't fule yourself he'll give 'e work," snapped Mr. Blee.

"Well, theer be others."

And then that sudden smile, half sly, half sweet, leapt to Will's eyes and brightened all his grave face, as the sun gladdens a grey sky after rain.

"Look now, Miller Lyddon, why for shouldn't you, the biggest man to Chagford, give me a bit of work? I ban't no caddlin'[5] chap, an' for you--by God, I'd dig a mountain flat if you axed me!"

[5] _Caddling_ = loafing, idling.

"Well, I be gormed!" gasped Billy. It was a condition, though whether physical or mental he only knew, to which Will reduced Mr. Blee upon every occasion of their meeting.

"You hold your jaw an' let me talk to Mr. Lyddon. 'Tis like this, come to look at it: who should work for 'e same as what I would? Who should think for my wife's faither wi' more of his heart than me? I'd glory to do a bit of work for 'e--aye, I would so, high or low; an' do it in a way to make you rub your eyes!"

Billy saw the first-formed negative die still-born on his master's lips. He began to cry out volubly that Monks Barton was over-manned, and that scandal would blast every opening bud on the farm if such a thing happened. Will glared at him, and in another moment Mr. Blee might have suffered physically had not the miller lifted his hand and bid both be silent.

For a full minute no man spoke, while in Mr. Lyddon's mind proceeded a strange battle of ideas. Will's audacity awakened less resentment than might have been foreseen. The man had bent before the shock of his daughter's secret marriage and was now returning to his customary mental condition. Any great altitude of love or extremity of hate was beyond Mr. Lyddon's calibre. Life slipped away and left his forehead smooth. Sorrow brought no great scars, joy no particular exaltation. This temperament he had transmitted to Phoebe; and now she came into his mind and largely influenced him. A dozen times he opened his mind to say "No," but did not say it. Personal amiability could hardly have overcome natural dislike of Blanchard at such a moment, but the unexpected usually happens when weak natures are called upon to make sudden decisions; and though such may change their resolve again and again at a later date and before new aspects of the problem, their first hasty determination will often be the last another had predicted from them.

A very curious result accrued from Mr. Lyddon's mental conflict, and it was reached by an accidental train of thought. He told himself that his conclusion was generous to the extreme of the Christian ideal; he assured himself that few men so placed had ever before acted with such notable magnanimity; but under this repeated mental asseveration there spoke another voice which he stifled to the best of his power. The utterance of this monitor may best be judged from what followed.

"If I gave you work you'd stand to it, Will Blanchard?" he asked at length.

"Try me!"

"Whatsoever it might be?"

"Try me. Ban't for me to choose."

"I will, then. Come to-morrow by five, an' Billy shall show 'e what's to do."

It would be difficult to say which, of those who heard the miller's resolve received it with most astonishment. Will's voice was almost tremulous.

"You'll never be sorry, never. I couldn't have hoped such a thing. Caan't think how I comed to ax it. An' yet--but I'll buckle to anything and everything, so help me. I'll think for 'e an' labour for 'e as no hireling that was ever born could, I will. An' you've done a big, grand-fashion thing, an' I'm yours, body an' bones, for it; an' you'll never regret it."

The young man was really moved by an issue so unexpected. He had uttered his suggestion on the spur of the moment, as he uttered most things, and such a reception argued a greatness of heart and generosity of spirit quite unparalleled in his experience. So he departed wishing all good on Mr. Lyddon and meaning all good with his whole soul and strength.

When he had gone the miller spoke; but contrary to custom, he did not look into Mr. Blee's face while so doing.

"You'm astonished, Billy," he said, "an' so be I, come to think of it. But I'm gettin' tu auld to fret my life away with vain strife. I be gwaine to prove un. He'd stand to anything, eh? 'Twas his word."

"An' well he might."

"Can 'e picture Blanchard cleaning out the pigs' house?"

"No fay!"

"Or worse?"

"Ah!"

They consulted, and it presently appeared that Mr. Lyddon deliberately designed to set Will about the most degrading task the farm could furnish.

"'Twill sting the very life of un!" said Billy gleefully, and he proceeded to arrange an extremely trying programme for Will Blanchard.

"Doan't think any small spite leads me to this way of dealing with un," explained Mr. Lyddon, who knew right well that it was so. "But 'tis to probe the stuff he's made of. Nothing should be tu hard for un arter what he've done, eh?"

"You'm right. 'Tis true wisdom to chastise the man this way if us can, an' shake his wicked pride."

Billy's genius lent itself most happily to this scheme. He applauded the miller's resolution until his master himself began to believe that the idea was not unjust; he ranged airily, like a blue-fly, from one agglomeration of ordure to another; and he finally suggested a task, not necessary to dwell on, but which reached the utmost height or depth of originality in connection with such a subject. Mr. Lyddon laboured under some shadow of doubt, but he quickly agreed when his man reminded him of the past course of events.

"'Tis nothin', when all's said. Who'd doubt if he'd got to choose between that or two year in gaol? He'm lucky, and I'll tell un so come the marnin'."

Thus matters were left, and the miller retired in some secret shame, for he had planned an act which, if great in the world's eye, had yet a dark side from his own inner view of it; but Mr. Blee suffered no pang from conscience upon the question. He heartily disliked Blanchard, and he contemplated the morrow with keen satisfaction. If his sharp tongue had power to deepen the wound awaiting Will's self-respect, that power would certainly be exercised.

Meantime the youth himself passed homeward in a glow of admiration for Mr. Lyddon.

"I'd lay down my life smilin' for un," he told Chris, who was astounded at his news. "I'll think for un, an' act for un, till he'll feel I'm his very right hand. An' if I doan't put a spoke in yellow Billy's wheel, call me a fule. Snarling auld swine! But Miller! Theer's gude workin' religion in that man; he'm a shining light for sartain."

They talked late upon this wondrous turn of fortune, then Will recollected his mother and nothing would serve but that he wrote instantly to tell her of the news.

"It'll cheer up uncle, tu, I lay," he said.

"A letter comed while you was out," answered Chris; "he'm holding his awn, but 'tis doubtful yet how things be gwaine to fare in the upshot."

"Be it as 'twill, mother can do more 'n any other living woman could for un," declared Will.