Timothy Blanchard continued a wandering existence for the space of five years after his marriage; then he sold his caravans, settled in Chagford, bought the cottage by the river, rented some market-garden land, and pursued his busy and industrious way.  Thus he prospered through ten more years, saving money, developing a variety of schemes, letting out on hire a steam thresher, and in various other ways adding to his store.  The man was on the high road to genuine prosperity when death overtook him and put a period to his ambitions.  He was snatched from mundane affairs leaving numerous schemes half developed and most of his money embarked in various enterprises.  Unhappily Will was too young to continue his father’s work, and though Mrs. Blanchard’s brother, Joel Ford, administered the little estate to the best of his power, much had to be sacrificed.  In the sequel Damaris found herself with a cottage, a garden, and an annual income of about fifty pounds a year.  Her son was then twelve years of age, her daughter eighteen months younger.  So she lived quietly and not without happiness, after the first sorrow of her husband’s loss was in a measure softened by time.

Of Mr. Joel Ford it now becomes necessary to speak.  Combining the duties of attorney, house-agent, registrar of deaths, births, and marriages, and receiver of taxes and debts, the man lived a dingy life at Newton Abbot.  Acid, cynical, and bald he was, very dry of mind and body, and but ten years older than Mrs. Blanchard, though he looked nearer seventy than sixty.  To the Newton mind Mr. Ford was associated only with Quarter Day—­that black, recurrent cloud on the horizon of every poor man’s life.  He dwelt with an elderly housekeeper—­a widow of genial disposition; and indeed the attorney himself was not lacking in some urbanity of character, though few guessed it, for he kept all that was best in himself hidden under an unlovely crust.  His better instincts took the shape of family affection.  Damaris Blanchard and he were the last branches of one of the innumerable families of Ford to be found in Devon, and he had no small regard for his only living sister.  His annual holiday from business—­a period of a fortnight, sometimes extended to three weeks if the weather was more than commonly fair—­he spent habitually at Chagford; and Will on these occasions devoted his leisure to his uncle, drove him on the Moor, and made him welcome.  Will, indeed, was a favourite with Mr. Ford, and the lad’s high spirits, real ignorance of the world, and eternal grave assumption of wisdom even tickled the man of business into a sort of dry cricket laughter upon occasions.  When, therefore, a fortnight after young Blanchard’s mysterious disappearance, Joel Ford arrived at his sister’s cottage for the annual visit, he was as much concerned as his nature had power to make him at the news.

For three weeks he stayed, missing the company of his nephew not a little; and his residence in Chagford had needed no special comment save for an important incident resulting therefrom.