“Ban’t you surprised I could turn it out?”

“That I be.  I’d never have thought ’twas in ’e.  So forehanded, tu!  A’most afore them poor things be cold.”

“’Tis the forehandedness I prides myself ’pon.  Some of us doan’t know all that’s in me yet.  But they’ll live to see it.”

“I knaw right well they will.”

“This’ll ’maze mother to-morrow.”

“’Twill, sure ’nough.”

“Would ‘e like me to read it just wance more wi’out stoppin’, Phoebe?”

“No, dear love, not now.  Give it to us all arter breakfast in the marnin’.”

“So I will then; an’ take it right away to the auctioneer the minute after.”

He put his papers away in the drawer of the kitchen table and retired.  Uneasy sleep presently overtook him and long he tossed and turned, murmuring of his astonishment at his own powers with a pen.

His impetuosity carried the ruined man forward with sufficient speed over the dark bitterness of failure confessed, failure advertised, failure proclaimed in print throughout the confines of his little world.  He suffered much, and the wide-spread sympathy of friends and acquaintance proved no anodyne but rather the reverse.  He hated to see eyes grow grave and mouths serious upon his entry; he yearned to turn his back against Chagford and resume the process of living in a new environment.  Temporary troubles vexed him more than the supreme disaster of his failure.  Mr. Bambridge made considerable alterations in his cherished lucubration; and when the advertisement appeared in print, it looked mean and filled but a paltry space.  People came up before the sale to examine the goods, and Phoebe, after two days of whispered colloquies upon her cherished property, could bear it no longer, and left Newtake with her own little daughter and little Timothy.  The Rev. Shorto-Champernowne himself called, stung Will into sheer madness, which he happily restrained, then purchased an old oak coffer for two pounds and ten shillings.

Miller Lyddon made no sign, and hard things were muttered against him and Billy Blee in the village.  Virtuous indignation got hold upon the Chagford quidnuncs and with one consent they declared Mr. Lyddon to blame.  Where was his Christian charity—­that charity which should begin at home and so seldom does?  This interest in others’ affairs took shape on the night before the Newtake sale.  Then certain of the baser sort displayed their anger in a practical form, and Mr. Blee was hustled one dark evening, had his hat knocked off, and suffered from a dead cat thrown by unseen hands.  The reason for this outrage also reached him.  Then, chattering with indignation and alarm, he hurried home and acquainted Mr. Lyddon with the wild spirit abroad.

As for Blanchard, he roamed moodily about the scene of his lost battle.  In his pockets were journals setting forth the innumerable advantages of certain foreign regions that other men desired to people for their private ends.  But Will was undecided, because all the prospects presented appeared to lead directly to fortune.