“Tie it up in stout leather, my son,” said a farmer from Gidleigh.  “Ay, an’ fasten the bag wi’ a knot as’ll take ‘e half an hour to undo; an’ remember, the less you open it, the better for your peace of mind.”

All of which good counsel Blanchard received with expressions of gratitude, yet secretly held to be but the croaking of a past generation, stranded far behind that wave of progress on which he himself was advancing crest-high.

It happened one evening, when Clement Hicks visited Newtake to go for a walk under the full moon with Chris, that he learnt she was away for a few days.  This fact had been mentioned to Clement; but he forgot it, and now found himself here, with only Will and Sam Bonus for company.  He accepted the young farmer’s invitation to supper, and the result proved unlucky in more directions than one.  During this meal Clem railed in surly vein against the whole order of things as it affected himself, and made egotistical complaint as to the hardness of life; then, when his host began to offer advice, he grew savage and taunted Will with his own unearned good fortune.  Blanchard, weary after a day of tremendous physical exertion, made sharp answer.  He felt his old admiration for Clem Hicks much lessened of late, and it nettled him not a little that his friend should thus attribute his present position to the mere accident of a windfall.  He was heartily sick of the other’s endless complaints, and now spoke roughly and to the point.

“What the devil’s the gude of this eternal bleat?  You’m allus snarlin’ an’ gnashin’ your teeth ‘gainst God, like a rat bitin’ the stick that’s killin’ it.”

“And why should God kill me?  You’ve grown so wise of late, perhaps you know.”

“Why shouldn’t He?  Why shouldn’t He kill you, or any other man, if He wants the room of un for a better?  Not that I believe parson’s stuff more ‘n you; but grizzlin’ your guts to fiddlestrings won’t mend your fortune.  Best to put your time into work, ‘stead o’ talk—­same as me an’ Bonus.  And as for my money, you knaw right well if theer’d been two thousand ’stead of wan, I’d have shared it with Chris.”

“Easy to say!  If there had been two, you would have said, ’If it was only four’!  That’s human nature.”

“Ban’t my nature, anyway, to tell a lie!” burst out Will.

“Perhaps it’s your nature to do worse.  What were you about last Christmas?”

Blanchard set down knife and fork and looked the other in the face.  None had heard this, for Bonus, his meal ended, went off to the little tallet over a cattle-byre which was his private apartment.

“You’d rip that up again—­you, who swore never to open’ your mouth upon it?”

“You’re frightened now.”

“Not of you, anyway.  But you’d best not to come up here no more.  I’m weary of you; I don’t fear you worse than a blind worm; but such as you are, you’ve grawed against me since my luck comed.  I wish Chris would drop you as easy as I can, for you’m teachin’ her to waste her life, same as you waste yours.”