“You hurt your mother, Will, tellin’ so wicked as that.”

“An’ faither so cruel,” sobbed Phoebe.  “I doan’t knaw what ever us have done to set him an’ God against us so.  I’ve tried that hard; an’ you’ve toiled till the muscles shawed through your skin; an’ the li’l bwoy took just as he beginned to string words that butivul; an’ no sign of another though’t is my endless prayer.”

“The ways of Providence—­” began Mrs. Blanchard drearily; but Will stopped her, as she knew he would.

“Doan’t mother—­I caan’t stand no more on that head today.  I’ll dare anybody to name Providence more in my house, so long as ’tis mine.  Theer’s the facts to shout out ’gainst that rot.  A honest, just, plain-dealin’ man—­an’ look at me.”

“Meantime we’re ruined an’ faither doan’t hold out a finger.”

“Take it stern an’ hard like me.  ‘Tis all chance drawin’ of prize or blank in gawld diggin’.  The ‘new chums,’ as they call ’em, often finds the best gawld, ‘cause they doan’t knaw wheer to look for it, an’ goes pokin’ about wheer a skilled man wouldn’t.  That’s the crooked way things happen in this poor world.”

“You wouldn’t go—­not while I lived, sure?  I couldn’t draw breath comfortable wi’out knawin’ you was breathin’ the same air, my son.”

“You’ll live to knaw I was in the right.  If fortune doan’t come to you, you must go to it, I reckon.  Anyways, I ban’t gwaine to bide here a laughing-stock to Chagford; an’ you’m the last to ax me to.”

“Miller would never let Phoebe go.”

“I shouldn’t say ‘by your leave’ to him, I promise’e.  He can look on an’ see the coat rottin’ off my back in this desert an’ watch his darter gwaine thin as a lath along o’ taking so much thought.  He can look on at us, hisself so comfortable as a maggot in a pear, an’ see.  Not that I’d take help—­not a penny from any man.  I’m not gwaine to fail.  I’ll be a snug chap yet.”

The stolid Chown entered at this moment.

“Butcher’ll be up bimebye.  An’ the last of em’s failed down,” he said.

“So be it.  Now us’ll taake our supper,” answered his master.

The meal was ready and presently Blanchard, whose present bitter humour prompted him to simulate a large indifference, made show of enjoying his food.  He brought out the brandy for his mother, who drank a little with her supper, and helped himself liberally twice or thrice until the bottle was half emptied.  The glamour of the spirit made him optimistic, and he spoke with the pseudo-philosophy that alcohol begets.

“Might have been worse, come to think of it.  If the things weren’t choked, I doubt they’d been near starved.  ‘Most all the hay’s done, an’ half what’s left—­a load or so—­I’d promised to a chap out Manaton way.  But theer’t is—­my hand be forced, that’s all.  So time’s saved, if you look at it from a right point.”

“You’m hard an’ braave, an’ you’ve got a way with you ’mong men.  Faace life, same as faither did, an’ us’ll look arter Phoebe an’ the childer,” said Chris.