“I couldn’t leave un,” declared Will’s wife. “’T is my duty to keep along wi’un for better or worse.”

“Us’ll talk ‘bout all that later.  I be gwaine to act prompt an’ sell every stick, an’ then away, a free man.”

“All our furniture an’ property!” moaned Phoebe, looking round her in dismay.

“All—­to the leastest bit o’ cracked cloam.”

“A forced sale brings nought,” sighed Damaris.

“Theer’s hunderds o’ pounds o’ gude chattels here, an’ they doan’t go for a penny less than they ’m worth.  Because I’m down, ban’t no reason for others to try to rob me.  If I doan’t get fair money I’ll make a fire wi’ the stuff an’ burn every stick of it.”

“The valuer man, Mr. Bambridge, must be seen, an’ bills printed out an’ sticked ‘pon barn doors an’ such-like, same as when Mrs. Lezzard died,” said Phoebe.  “What’ll faither think then?”

Will laughed bitterly.

“I’ll see a few’s dabbed up on his awn damned outer walls, if I’ve got to put ’em theer myself.  An’ as to the lists, I’ll make ’em this very night.  Ban’t my way to let the dust fall upon a job marked for doin’.  To-night I’ll draw the items.”

“Us was gwaine to stay along with ’e, Will,” said his mother.

“Very gude—­as you please.  Make shake-downs in the parlour, an’ I’ll write in the kitchen when you’m gone to bed.  Set the ink an’ pen an’ paper out arter you’ve cleared away.  I’m allowed to be peart enough in matters o’ business anyway, though no farmer o’ course, arter this.”

“None will dare to say any such thing,” declared Phoebe.  “You can’t do miracles more than others.”

“I mind when Ellis, to Two Streams Farm, lost a mort o’ bullocks very same way,” said Mrs. Blanchard.

“‘Tis that as they’ll bring against me an’ say, wi’ such a tale in my knawledge, I ought to been wiser.  But I never heard tell of it before, though God knows I’ve heard the story often enough to-day.”

It was now dark, and Will, lighting a lantern, rose and went out into the yard.  From the kitchen window his women watched him moving here and there; while, as he passed, the light revealed great motionless, rufous shapes on every hand.  The corpses of the beasts hove up into the illumination and then vanished again as the narrow circle of lantern light bobbed on, jerking to the beat of Will’s footsteps.  From the window Damaris observed her son make a complete perambulation of his trouble without comment.  Then a little emotion trembled on her tongue.

“God’s hand be lifted ’gainst the bwoy, same as ’t was ’gainst the patriarch Job seemin’ly.  Awnly he bent to the rod and Will—­”

“He’m noble an’ grand under his sorrows.  Who should knaw but me?” cried Phoebe.  “A man in ten thousand, he is, an’ never yields to no rod.  He’ll win his way yet; an’ I be gwaine to cleave to un if he travels to the other end o’ the airth.”

“I doan’t judge un, gal.  God knaws he’s been the world to me since his faither died.  He’m my dear son.  But if he’d awnly bend afore the A’mighty breaks him.”