There came a morning in early April when their physician, visiting Newtake before noon, broke it to husband and wife that the child could scarcely survive another day.  He promised to return in the evening, and left them to their despair.  Mrs. Blanchard, however, refused to credit this assurance, and cried to them to be hopeful still.

In the afternoon Mr. Blee rode up from Monks Barton.  Daily a messenger visited Newtake for Mr. Lyddon’s satisfaction, but it was not often that Billy came.  Now he arrived, however, entered the kitchen, and set down a basket laden with good things.  The apartment lacked its old polish and cleanliness.  The whitewash was very dirty; the little eight-day clock on the mantelpiece had run down; the begonias in pots on the window-ledge were at death’s door for water.  Between two of them a lean cat stretched in the sun and licked its paws; beside the fire lay Ship with his nose on the ground; and Will sat close by, a fortnight’s beard upon his chin.  He looked listlessly up as Mr. Blee entered and nodded but did not speak.

“Well, what ’s the best news?  I’ve brought ’e fair-fashioned weather at any rate.  The air ‘s so soft as milk, even up here, an’ you can see the green things grawin’ to make up for lost time.  Sun was proper hot on my face as I travelled along.  How be the poor little lad?”

“Alive, that’s all.  Doctor’s thrawed un awver now.”

“Never!  Yet I’ve knawed even Parsons to make mistakes.  I’ve brought ’e a braave bunch o’ berries, got by the gracious gudeness of Miller from Newton Abbot; also a jelly; also a bottle o’ brandy—­the auld stuff from down cellar—­I brushed the Dartmoor dew, as ’t is called, off the bottle myself; also a fowl for the missis.”

“No call to have come.  ’T is all awver bar the end.”

“Never say it while the child’s livin’!  They ’m magical li’l twoads for givin’ a doctor the lie.  You ‘m wisht an’ weary along o’ night watchings.”

“Us must faace it.  Ban’t no oncommon thing.  Hope’s dead in me these many days; an’ dying now in Phoebe—­dying cruel by inches.  She caan’t bring herself to say ‘gude-by’ to the li’l darling bwoy.”

“What mother could?  What do Mrs. Blanchard the elder say?”

“She plucks up ’bout it.  She ’m awver hopeful.”

“Doan’t say so!  A very wise woman her.”

Phoebe entered at this moment, and Mr. Blee turned from where he was standing by his basket.

“I be cheerin’ your gude man up,” he said.

She sighed, and sat down wearily near Will.

“I’ve brought ‘e a chick for your awn eatin’ an’—­”

Here a scuffle and snarling and spitting interrupted Billy.  The hungry cat, finding a fowl almost under its nose, had leapt to the ground with it, and the dog observed the action.  Might is right in hungry communities; Ship asserted himself, and almost before the visitor realised what had happened, poor Phoebe’s chicken was gone.