So they parted, Blanchard having unconsciously sown the seed of an ugly crop that would take long in reaping.  His remarks concerning Clement Hicks were safe enough with Martin, but another had heard them as he worked within earshot of his master.  Bonus, though his judgment was scanty, entertained a profound admiration for Will; and thus it came about, that a few days later, when in Chagford, he called at the “Green Man” and made some grave mischief while he sang his master’s praises.  He extolled the glorious promise of Newtake, and the great improvements already visible thereon; he reflected not a little of Will’s own flamboyant manner to the secret entertainment of those gathered in the bar, and presently he drew down upon himself some censure.

Abraham Chown, the police inspector, first shook his head and prophesied speedy destruction of all these hopes; and then Gaffer Lezzard criticised still more forcibly.

“All this big-mouthed talk’s cracklin’ of thorns under a potsherd,” hesaid.  “You an’ him be just two childern playin’ at shop in the gutter, an’ the gutter’s wheer you’ll find yourselves ’fore you think to.  What do the man knaw? Nothin’.”

“Blanchard’s a far-seein’ chap,” answered Sam Bonus stoutly.  “An’ a gude master; an’ us’ll stick together, fair or foul.”

“You may think it, but wait,” said a small man in the corner.  Charles Coomstock, nephew of the widow of that name already mentioned, was a wheelwright by trade and went lame, owing to an accident with hot iron in youth.

“Ax Clem,” continued Mr. Coomstock.  “For all his cranky ways he knaws Blanchard better’n most of us, an’ I heard un size up the chap t’other day in a word.  He said he hadn’t wit enough to keep his brains sweet.”

“He’m a braave wan to talk,” fired back Bonus.  “Him!  A poor luny as caan’t scrape brass to keep a wife on.  Blanchard, or me either, could crack un in half like a dead stick.”

“Not that that’s anything for or against,” declared Gaffer Lezzard.  “Power of hand’s nought against brain.”

“It gaws a tidy long way ‘pon Dartymoor, however,” declared Bonus.  “An’ Blanchard doan’t set no ‘mazin’ store on Hicks neither, if it comes to words.  I heard un say awnly t’other forenoon that the man was a weak saplin’, allus grumblin’, an’ might be better for a gude hiding.”

Now Charles Coomstock did not love his cousin Clement.  Indeed, none of those who had, or imagined they had, any shadow of right to a place in Mary Coomstock’s will cared much for others similarly situated; but the little wheelwright was by nature a spreader of rumours and reports—­an intelligencer, malignant from choice.  He treasured this assertion, therefore, together with one or two others.  Sam, now at his third glass, felt his heart warm to Will.  He would have fought with tongue or fist on his behalf, and presently added to the mischief he had already done.