So he went his way and told nobody—­not even Chris—­of these opportunities and his action concerning them.  Such reticence made two women sad.  Chris, after her conversation with Martin, doubted not but that he would make some effort, and, hearing nothing as time passed, assumed he had changed his mind; while Mrs. Hicks, who had greatly hoped that Clement’s visit to the Red House might result in regular employment, felt disappointed when no such thing occurred.

The union of Mr. Lezzard and Mrs. Coomstock was duly accomplished to a chorus of frantic expostulation on the part of those interested in the widow’s fortune.  Mr. Shorto-Champernowne, having convinced himself that the old woman was in earnest, could find no sufficient reason for doing otherwise than he was asked, and finally united the couple.  To Newton Abbot they went for their honeymoon, and tribulation haunted them from the first.  Mrs. Lezzard refused her husband permission to inquire any particulars of her affairs from her lawyer—­a young man who had succeeded Mr. Joel Ford—­while the Gaffer, on his side, parried all his lady’s endeavours to learn more of the small fortune concerning which he had spoken not seldom before marriage.  Presently they returned to Chagford, and life resolved itself into an unlovely thing for both of them.  Time brought no better understanding or mutual confidence; on the contrary, they never ceased from wrangling over money and Mrs. Lezzard’s increasing propensity towards drink.  The old man suffered most, and as his alleged three hundred pounds did not appear, being, indeed, a mere lover’s effort of imagination, his wife bitterly resented marriage under such false pretences, and was never weary of protesting.  Of her own affairs she refused to tell her husband anything, but as Mr. Lezzard was found to possess no money at all, it became necessary to provide him with a bare competence for the credit of the family.  He did his best to win a little more regard and consideration, in the hope that when his wife passed away the reward of devotion might be reaped; but she never forgave him, expressed the conviction that she would outlive him by many years, and exhausted her ingenuity to make the old man rue his bargain.  Only one experience, and that repeated as surely as Mr. Blee met Mr. Lezzard, was more trying to the latter than all the accumulated misfortune of his sorry state—­Gaffer’s own miseries appeared absolutely trivial by comparison with Mr. Blee’s comments upon them.

With another year Blanchard and Hicks became in some sort reconciled, though the former friendship was never renewed.  The winter proved a severe one, and Will experienced a steady drain on his capital, but he comforted himself in thoughts of the spring, watched his wheat dapple the dark ground with green, and also foretold exceptional crops of hay when summer should return.  The great event of his wife’s advent at Newtake occupied most of his reflections; while as for Phoebe herself the matter was never out of her mind.  She lived for the day in June that should see her by her husband’s side; but Miller Lyddon showed no knowledge of the significance of Phoebe’s twenty-first birthday; and when Will brought up the matter, upon an occasion of meeting with his father-in-law, the miller deprecated any haste.