“Canst punish this man for tryin’ to taake her from me?”

“Permit yourself no mean desires in the direction of revenge.  For the present I decline to say more upon the subject.  If it were possible to punish, and I am not prepared to say it is not, it would be for brawling in the house of God.  After an experience extending over forty years, I may declare that I never saw any such disreputable and horrifying spectacle.”

So the Lezzard family withdrew and, on the following day, Mrs. Coomstock passed through most painful experiences.

To the clergyman, with many sighs and tears, she explained that Mr. Lezzard’s character had been maligned by Mr. Blee, that before the younger veteran she had almost feared for her life, and been driven to accept him out of sheer terror at his importunity.  But when facts came to her ears afterwards, she found that Mr. Lezzard was in reality all he had declared himself to be, and therefore returned to him, threw over Mr. Blee, and begged the other to forbid the banns, if as she secretly learnt, though not from Billy himself, they were to be called on that Sunday.  The poor woman’s ears tingled under Mr. Shorto-Champernowne’s sonorous reproof; but he departed at last, and by the time that Billy called, during the same day, she had imbibed Dutch courage sufficient to face him and tell him she had changed her mind.  She had erred—­she confessed it.  She had been far from well at the time and, upon reconsideration of the proposal, had felt she would never be able to make Mr. Blee happy, or enjoy happiness with him.

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Coomstock had accepted both suitors on one and the same afternoon.  First Gaffer, who had made repeated but rather vague allusion to a sum of three hundred pounds in ready money, was taken definitely; while upon his departure, the widow, only dimly conscious of what was settled with her former admirer, said, “Yes” to Billy in his turn.  Had a third suitor called on that event-ful afternoon, it is quite possible Mrs. Coomstock would have accepted him also.

The conversation with Mr. Blee was of short duration, and ended by Billy calling down a comprehensive curse on the faithless one and returning to Monks Barton.  He had attached little importance to Lezzard’s public protest, upon subsequent consideration and after the first shock of hearing it; but there was no possibility of doubting what he now learned from Mrs. Coomstock’s own lips.  That she had in reality changed her mind appeared only too certain.

So he went home again in the last extremity of fury, and Phoebe, who was alone at the time, found herself swept by the hurricane of his wrath.  He entered snorting and puffing, flung his hat on the settle, his stick into the corner; then, dropping into a seat by the fire, he began taking off his gaiters with much snuffling and mumbling and repeated inarticulate explosions of breath.  This cat-like splutter always indicated deep feeling in Mr. Blee, and Phoebe asked with concern what was the matter now.