“Marnin’, Mr. Vogwell!  Fine weather, to be sure, an’ gude for the peat next month; but bad for roots, an’ no mistake.  Will ’e have a drink?”

Mr. Vogwell gazed sternly about him, then fixed his little bright eyes on the culprit.

“What do this mean, Will Blanchard?”

“Well, why not?  Duchy steals all the gude land from Venwell men; why for shouldn’t us taake a little of the bad?  This here weern’t no gude to man or mouse.  Ban’t ’nough green stuff for a rabbit ’pon it.  So I just thought I’d give it a lick an’ a promise o’ more later on.”

“‘A lick an’ a promise’!  You’ve wasted a month’s work on it, to the least.”

“Well, p’raps I have—­though ban’t wasted.  Do ’e think, Mr. Vogwell, as the Duchy might be disposed to give me a hand?”

Will generally tackled difficulties in this audacious fashion, and a laugh already began to brighten his eye; but the other quenched it.

“You fool!  You knawed you was doin’ wrong better’n I can tell you—­an’ such a plaace!  A babe could see you ‘m workin’ awver living springs.  You caan’t fill un even now in the drouth, an’ come autumn an’ rain ’t will all be bog again.”

“Nothing of the sort,” flamed out Will, quite forgetting his recent assertion as to the poverty of the place.  “Do ’e think, you, as awnly rides awver the Moor, knaws more about soil than I as works on it?  ’Twill be gude proofy land bimebye—­so good as any Princetown way, wheer the prison men reclaim, an’ wheer theer’s grass this minute as carries a bullock to the acre.  First I’ll plant rye, then swedes, then maybe more swedes, then barley; an’, with the barley, I’ll sow the permanent grass to follow.  That’s gude rotation of crops for Dartymoor, as I knaw an’ you doan’t; an’ if the Duchy encloses the best to rob our things[11], why for shouldn’t we—­”

[11] Things = beasts; sheep and cattle.

“That’ll do.  I caan’t bide here listenin’ to your child’s-talk all the marnin’.  What Duchy does an’ doan’t do is for higher ’n you or me to decide.  If this was any man’s work but yours I’d tell Duchy this night; but bein’ you, I’ll keep mute.  Awnly mind, when I comes this way a fortnight hence, let me see these postes gone an’ your plough an’ cart t’ other side that wall.  An’ you’ll thank me, when you’ve come to more sense, for stoppin’ this wild-goose chase.  Now I’ll have a drop o’ cider, if it’s all the same to you.”

Will opened a stone jar which lay under his coat at hand, and answered as he poured cider into a horn mug for Mr. Vogwell—­

“Here’s your drink; but I won’t take your orders, so I tell ’e.  Damn the Duchy, as steals moor an’ common wheer it pleases an’ then grudges a man his toil.”