“Out on the blamed thieves!” cried Billy, astounded at such manners.  He was going to strike the dog, but Will stopped him.

“Let un bide,” he said.  “He didn’t take it, an’ since it weern’t for Phoebe, better him had it than the cat.  He works for his livin’, she doan’t.”

“Such gwaines-on ‘mongst dumb beasts o’ the field I never seen!” protested Billy; “an’ chickens worth what they be this spring!”

Presently conversation drifted into a channel that enabled the desperate, powerless man to use his brains and employ his muscles; while for the mother it furnished a fresh gleam of hope built upon faith.  Billy it was who brought about this consummation.  Led by Phoebe he ascended to the sick-room and bid Mrs. Blanchard “good-day.”  She sat with the insensible child on her lap by the fire, where a long-spouted kettle sent forth jets of steam.

“This here jelly what I’ve brought would put life in a corpse I do b’lieve; an’ them butivul grapes, tu,—­they’ll cool his fever to rights, I should judge.”

“He ’m past all that,” said Phoebe.

“Never!” cried the other woman.  “He’m a bit easier to my thinkin’.”

“Let me take un then,” said the mother.  “You’m most blind for sleep.”

“Not a bit of it.  I’ll have forty winks later, after Doctor’s been again.”

Will here entered, sat down by his mother, and stroked the child’s little limp hand.

“He ban’t fightin’ so hard, by the looks of it,” he said.

“No more he is.  Come he sleep like this till dark, I lay he’ll do braave.”

Nobody spoke for some minutes, then Billy, having pondered the point in silence, suddenly relieved his mind and attacked Will, to the astonishment of all present.

“’Tis a black thought for you to knaw this trouble’s of your awn wicked hatching, Farmer,” he said abruptly; “though it ban’t a very likely time to say so, perhaps.  Yet theer’s life still, so I speak.”

Will glared speechless; but Billy knew himself too puny and too venerable to fear rough handling.  He regarded the angry man before him without fear, and explained his allusion.

“You may glaze ‘pon me, an’ stick your savage eyes out your head; but that doan’t alter truth.  ’T ’as awnly a bit ago in the fall as I told un what would awvertake un,” he continued, turning to the women.  “He left the cross what Mr. Grimbal found upsy-down in the airth; he stood up afore the company an’ damned the glory of all Christian men.  Ess fay, he done that fearful thing, an’ if ’t weern’t enough to turn the Lard’s hand from un, what was?  Snug an’ vitty he weer afore that, so far as anybody knawed; an’ since—­why, troubles have tumbled ’pon each other’s tails like apple-dranes out of a nest.”

The face of Phoebe was lighted with some eagerness, some deep anxiety, and not a little passion as she listened to this harangue.

“You mean that gate-stone brought this upon us?” she asked.