“That’s the spirit as’ll land ’e in the poorhouse, Will Blanchard,” said Mr. Vogwell calmly; “and that’s such a job as might send ’e to the County Asylum,” he added, pointing to the operations around him.  “As to damning Duchy,” he continued, “you might as well damn the sun or moon.  They’d care as little.  Theer ’m some varmints so small that, though they bite ‘e with all their might, you never knaw it; an’ so ‘t is wi’ you an’ Duchy.  Mind now, a fortnight.  Thank ’e—­so gude cider as ever I tasted; an’ doan’t ‘e tear an’ rage, my son.  What’s the use?”

“’Twould be use, though, if us all raged together.”

“But you won’t get none to follow.  ’Tis all talk.  Duchy haven’t got no bones to break or sawl to lose; an’ moormen haven’t got brains enough to do aught in the matter but jaw.”

“An’ all for a royal prince, as doan’t knaw difference between yether an’ fuzz, I lay,” growled Will.  “Small blame to moormen for being radical-minded these days.  Who wouldn’t, treated same as us?”

“Best not talk on such high subjects, Will Blanchard, or you might get in trouble.  A fortnight, mind.  Gude marnin’ to ’e.”

The Duchy’s man rode off and Will stood angry and irresolute.  Then, seeing Mr. Vogwell was still observing him, he ostentatiously turned to the cart and tipped up his load of earth.  But when the representative of power had disappeared—­his horse and himself apparently sinking into rather than behind a heather ridge—­Will’s energy died and his mood changed.  He had fooled himself about this enterprise until the present, but he could no longer do so.  Now he sat down on the earth he had brought, let his horse drag the cart after it, as it wandered in search of some green thing, and suffered a storm of futile indignation to darken his spirit.

Blanchard’s unseasoned mind had, in truth, scarcely reached the second milestone upon the road of man’s experience.  Some arrive early at the mental standpoint where the five senses meet and merge in that sixth or common sense, which may be defined as an integral of the others, and which is manifested by those who possess it in a just application of all the experience won from life.  But of common sense Will had none.  He could understand laziness and wickedness being made to suffer; he could read Nature’s more self-evident lessons blazoned across every meadow, displayed in every living organism—­that error is instantly punished, that poor food starves the best seed, that too much water is as bad as too little, that the race is to the strong, and so forth; but he could not understand why hard work should go unrewarded, why good intentions should breed bad results, why the effect of energy, self-denial, right ambitions, and other excellent qualities is governed by chance; why the prizes in the great lottery fall to the wise, not to the well-meaning.  He knew himself for a hard worker and a man who accomplished, in all honesty, the best within his power.  What his hand found