But the extinction of his ambitions, the final failure of his enterprise happened somewhat sooner than Miller Lyddon had predicted.  There dawned a year when, just as the worst of the winter was past and hope began to revive for another season, a crushing catastrophe terminated the struggle.

Mr. Blee it was who brought the ill news to Monks Barton, having first dropped it at Mrs. Blanchard’s cottage and announced it promiscuously about the village.  Like a dog with a bone he licked the intelligence over and, by his delay in imparting the same, reduced his master to a very fever of irritation.

“Such a gashly thing!  Of all fules!  The last straw I do think.  He’s got something to grumble at now, poor twoad.  Your son-in-law; but now—­theer—­gormed if I knaw how to tell ’e!”

Alarmed at this prelude, with its dark hints of unutterable woe, Mr. Lyddon took off his spectacles in some agitation, and prayed to know the worst without any long-drawn introduction.

“I’ll come to it fast enough, I warn ‘e.  To think after years an’ years he didn’t knaw the duffer’nce ‘twixt a bullock an’ a sheep!  Well—­well!  Of coourse us knawed times was tight, but Jack-o’-Lantern be to the end of his dance now.  ’T is all awver.”

“What’s the matter?  Come to it, caan’t ’e?”

“No ill of the body—­not to him or the fam’ly.  An’ you must let me tell it out my awn way.  Well, things bein’ same as they are, the bwoy caan’t hide it.  Dammy!  Theer’s patches in the coat of un now—­neat sewed, I’ll grant ‘e, but a patch is a patch; an’ when half a horse’s harness is odds an’ ends o’ rope, then you knaw wi’out tellin’ wheer a man be driving to.  ’T is ‘cordin’ to the poetry!—­

  “’Out to elbows,
     Out to toes,
    Out o’ money,
     Out o’ clothes.’

But—­”

“Caan’t ‘e say what’s happened, you chitterin’ auld magpie?  I’ll go up village for the news in a minute.  I lay ’tis knawn theer.”

“Ban’t I tellin’ of ’e?  ‘Tis like this.  Will Blanchard’s been mixin’ a bit of chopped fuzz with the sheep’s meal these hard times, like his betters.  But now I’ve seed hisself today, lookin’ so auld as Cosdon ‘bout it.  He was gwaine to the horse doctor to Moreton.  An’ he tawld me to keep my mouth shut, which I’ve done for the most paart.”

“A little fuzz chopped fine doan’t hurt sheep.”

“Just so.  ’Cause why?  They aint got no ‘bibles’ in their innards; but he’ve gone an’ given it same way to the bullocks.”

“Gude God!”

“‘Tis death to beasts wi’ ‘bibles.’  An’ death it is.  The things caan’t eat such stuff’ cause it sticketh an’ brings inflammation.  I seed same fule’s trick done wance thirty year ago; an’ when the animals weer cut awpen, theer ‘bibles’ was hell-hot wi’ the awfulest inflammation ever you heard tell of.”

“How many’s down?  ’Twas all he had to count upon.”

“Awnly eight standin’ when he left.  I could have cried ’bout it when he tawld me.  He ’m clay in the Potter’s hand for sartain.  Theer’s nought squenches a chap like havin’ the bailiffs in.”