“Cruel luck!  I’d meant to let him be sold out for his gude—­but now.”

“Do what you meant to.  Doan’t go back on it.  ’Tis for his gude.  ’Twas his awn mistake.  He tawld me the blame was his.  Let un get on the bed rock.  Then he’ll be meek as a worm.”

“I doubt it.  A sale of his goods will break his heart.”

“Not it!  He haven’t got much as’ll be hard to paart from.  Stern measures—­stern measures for his everlastin’ welfare.  Think of the wild-fire sawl of un!  Never yet did a sawl want steadin’ worse’n his.  Keep you to the fust plan, and he’ll thank’e yet.”

Elsewhere two women—­his wife and sister—­failed utterly in well-meaning efforts to comfort the stricken farmer.  Presently, before nightfall, Mrs. Blanchard also arrived at Newtake, and Will listened dully with smouldering eyes as his mother talked.  The veterinary surgeon from Moreton had come, but his efforts were vain.  Only two beasts out of five-and-twenty still lived.

“Send for butcher,” he said.  “He’ll be more use than I can be.  The thing is done and can’t be undone.”

Chris entered most closely into her brother’s feelings and spared him the expressions of sorrow and sympathy which stung him, even from his mother’s lips, uttered at this crisis.  She set about preparing supper, which weeping Phoebe had forgotten.

“You’ll weather it yet, bwoy,” Mrs. Blanchard said.

“Theer’s a little bit as I’ve got stowed away for’e; an’ come the hay—­”

“Doan’t talk that way.  ’Tis done with now.  I’m quite cool’pon it.  We must go as we’m driven.  No more gropin’ an’ fightin’ on this blasted wilderness for me, that’s all.  I be gwaine to turn my back ’pon it—­fog an’ filthy weather an’ ice an’ snow.  You wants angels from heaven to help ‘e, if you’re to do any gude here; an’ heaven’s long tired o’ me an’ mine.  So I’ll make shift to do wi’out.  An’ never tell me no more lies ‘bout God helpin’ them as helps themselves, ’cause I’ve proved it ban’t so.  I be gwaine to furrin’ lands to dig for gawld or di’monds.  The right build o’ man for gawld-seekin’, me; ’cause I’ve larned patience an’ caan’t be choked off a job tu easy.”

“Think twice.  Bad luck doan’t dog a man for ever.  An’ Phoebe an’ the childer.”

“My mind’s made up.  I figured it out comin’ home from Moreton.  I’m away in six weeks or less.  A chap what’s got to dig for a livin’ may just as well handle his tools where theer’s summat worth findin’ hid in the land, as here, on this black, damned airth, wheer your pick strikes fire out o’ stone twenty times a day.  The Moor’s the Moor.  Everybody knaws the way of it.  Scratch its faace an’ it picks your pocket an’ breaks your heart—­not as I’ve got a heart can be broken.”

“If ’e could awnly put more trust in the God of your faithers, my son.  He done for them, why shouldn’t He do for you?”

“Better ax Him.  Tired of the fam’ly, I reckon.”