Before this incident, however, there had arisen upon Will’s life the splendour of paternity.  A time came when, through one endless night and silver April morning, he had tramped his kitchen floor as a tiger its cage, and left a scratched pathway on the stones.  Then his mother hasted from aloft and reported the arrival of a rare baby boy.

“Phoebe ‘s doin’ braave, an’ she prays of ’e to go downlong fust thing an’ tell Miller all ’s well.  Doctor Parsons hisself says ’t is a ’mazing fine cheel, so it ban’t any mere word of mine as wouldn’t weigh, me bein’ the gran’mother.”

They talked a little while of the newcomer, then, thankful for an opportunity to be active after his long suspense, the father hurried away, mounted a horse, and soon rattled down the valleys into Chagford, at a pace which found his beast dead lame on the following day.  Mighty was the exhilaration of that wild gallop as he sped past cot and farm under morning sunshine with his great news.  Labouring men and chance wayfarers were overtaken from time to time.  Some Will knew, some he had never seen, but to the ear of each and all without discrimination he shouted his intelligence.  Not a few waved their hats and nodded and remembered the great day in their own lives; one laughed and cried “Bravo!” sundry, who knew him not, marvelled and took him for a lunatic.

Arrived at Chagford, familiar forms greeted Will in the market-place, and again he bawled his information without dismounting.

“A son ’tis, Chapple—­comed an hour ago—­a brave li’l bwoy, so they tell!”

“Gude luck to it, then!  An’ now you’m a parent, you must—­”

But Will was out of earshot, and Mr. Chapple wasted no more breath.

Into Monks Barton the farmer presently clattered, threw himself off his horse, tramped indoors, and shouted for his father-in-law in tones that made the oak beams ring.  Then the miller, with Mr. Blee behind him, hastened to hear what Will had come to tell.

“All right, all right with Phoebe?” were Mr. Lyddon’s first words, and he was white and shaking as he put the question.

“Right as ninepence, faither—­gran’faither, I should say.  A butivul li’l man she’ve got—­out o’ the common fine, Parsons says, as ought to knaw—­fat as a slug wi’ ‘mazin’ dark curls on his wee head, though my mother says ‘tis awnly a sort o’ catch-crop, an’ not the lasting hair as’ll come arter.”

“A bwoy!  Glory be!” said Mr. Blee.  “If theer’s awnly a bit o’ the gracious gudeness of his gran’faither in un, ’twill prove a prosperous infant.”

“Thank God for a happy end to all my prayers,” said Mr. Lyddon.  “Billy, get Will something to eat an’ drink.  I guess he’s hungry an’ starved.”

“Caan’t eat, Miller; but I’ll have a drop of the best, if it’s all the same to you.  Us must drink their healths, both of ’em.  As for me ’tis a gert thing to be the faither of a cheel as’ll graw into a man some day, an’ may even be a historical character, awnly give un time.”