“Matter?  Tchut—­Tchut—­Theer ban’t no God—­that’s what’s the matter!”

“Billy!  How can you?”

“She’m gwaine to marry t’other, arter all!  From her awn lips I’ve heard it!  That’s what I get for being a church member from the womb!  That’s my reward!  God, indeed!  Be them the ways o’ a plain-dealin’ God, who knaws what’s doin’ in human hearts?  No fay!  Bunkum an’ rot!  I’ll never lift my voice in hymn nor psalm no more, nor pray a line o’ prayer again.  Who be I to be treated like that?  Drunken auld cat!  I cussed her—­I cussed her!  Wouldn’t marry her now if she axed wi’ her mouth in the dirt.  Wheer’s justice to?  Tell me that.  Me in church, keepin’ order ’mong the damn boys generation arter generation, and him never inside the door since he buried his wife.  An’ parson siding wi’ un, I’ll wager.  Mother Coomstock ’ll give un hell’s delights, that’s wan gude thought.  A precious pair of ’em!  Tchut!  Gar!”

“I doan’t really think you could have loved Mrs. Coomstock overmuch, Billy, if you can talk so ugly an’ crooked ’bout her,” said Phoebe.

“I did, I tell ‘e—­for years an’ years.  I went down on my knees to the bitch—­I wish I hadn’t; I’ll be sorry for that to my dying day.  I kissed her, tu,—­s’ elp me, I did.  You mightn’t think it, but I did—­a faace like a frost-bitten beetroot, as ’t is!”

“Doan’t ’e, please, say such horrible things.  You must be wise about it.  You see, they say Mr. Lezzard has more money than you.  At least, so Mrs. Coomstock told her nephew, Clement Hicks.  Every one of her relations is savage about it.”

“Well they may be.  Why doan’t they lock her up?  If she ban’t mad, nobody ever was.  ‘Money’!  Lezzard!  Lying auld—­auld—­Tchut!  Not money enough to pay for a graave to hide his rotten bones, I lay.  Oh, ’t is enough to—­theer, what ‘s the use of talkin’?  Tchut—­Tchut!”

At this point Phoebe, fearing even greater extravagances in Mr. Blee’s language, left him to consider his misfortunes alone.  Long he continued in the profoundest indignation, and it was not until Miller Lyddon returned, heard the news, and heartily congratulated Billy on a merciful escape, that the old man grew a little calmer under his disappointment, and moderated the bitterness and profanity of his remarks.

CHAPTER IX

A DIFFERENCE WITH THE DUCHY

Newtake Farm, by reason of Will’s recent occupancy, could offer no very considerable return during his first year as tenant; but that he understood and accepted, and the tribulation which now fell upon him was of his own making.  To begin with, Sam Bonus vanished from the scene.  On learning, soon after the event, that Bonus had discussed Hicks and himself at Chagford, and detailed his private conversation with Martin Grimbal, Blanchard, in a fury, swept off to the loft where his man slept, roused him from rest, threw down the balance of his wages, and dismissed him on the