“Come you in then.  Us’ll do what we may for ’e.  Auld heads be the best stepping-stones young folks can have, understood right; awnly the likes of you mostly chooses to splash through life on your awn damn silly roads.”

Mr. Blee, whose friendship and familiarity with his master was of the closest, led on, and Will soon stood before Mr. Lyddon.

The man who owned Monks Barton, and who there prosperously combined the callings of farmer and miller, had long enjoyed the esteem of the neighbourhood in which he dwelt, as had his ancestors before him, through many generations.  He had won reputation for a sort of silent wisdom.  He never advised any man ill, never hesitated to do a kindly action, and himself contrived to prosper year in, year out, no matter what period of depression might be passing over Chagford.  Vincent Lyddon was a widower of sixty-five—­a grey, thin, tall man, slow of speech and sleepy of eye.  A weak mouth, and a high, round forehead, far smoother than his age had promised, were distinguishing physical features of him.  His wife had been dead eighteen years, and of his two children one only survived.  The elder, a boy toddling in early childhood at the water’s edge, was unmissed until too late, and found drowned next day after a terrible night of agony for both parents.  Indeed, Mrs. Lyddon never recovered from the shock, and Phoebe was but a year old when her mother died.  Further, it need only be mentioned that the miller had heard of Will’s courting more than once, but absolutely refused to allow the matter serious consideration.  The romance was no more than philandering of children in his eyes.

“Will—­eh?  Well, my son, and how can I serve you?” asked the master of Monks Barton, kindly enough.  He recrossed his legs, settled in his leather chair, and continued the smoking of a long clay pipe.

“Just this, Mr. Lyddon,” began Will abruptly.  “You calls me your ‘son’ as a manner o’ speech, but I wants to be no less in fact.”

“You ban’t here on that fool’s errand, bwoy, surely?  I thought I’d made my mind clear enough to Phoebe six months ago.”

“Look you here now.  I be earnin’ eighteen shillings a week an’ a bit awver; an’ I be sure of Morgan’s berth as head-keeper presently; an’ I’m a man as thinks.”

“That’s brave talk, but what have ’e saved, lad?” inquired Mr. Blee.

The lover looked round at him sharply.

“I thought you was out the room,” he said.  “I be come to talk to Miller, not you.”

“Nay, nay, Billy can stay and see I’m not tu hard ’pon ’e,” declared Mr. Lyddon.  “He axed a proper question.  What’s put by to goody in the savings’ bank, Will?”

“Well—­five pounds; and ’t will be rose to ten by Christmas, I assure ’e.”

“Fi’ puns! an’ how far ’s that gwaine?”

“So far as us can make it, in coourse.”

“Doan’t you see, sonny, this ban’t a fair bargain?  I’m not a hard man—­”