“You ‘m doin’ me a power o’ gude, dearie,” she said, as her discomfort and suffering increased.

Presently Doctor Parsons arrived, checked Will in fantastic experiments with a poultice, and gave him occupation in a commission to the physician’s surgery.  When he returned, he heard that his mother was suffering from a severe chill, but that any definite declaration upon the case was as yet impossible.

“No cause to be ’feared?” he asked.

“’T is idle to be too sanguine.  You know my philosophy.  I’ve seen a scratched finger kill a man; I’ve known puny babes wriggle out of Death’s hand when I could have sworn it had closed upon them for good and all.  Where there ’s life there ’s hope.”

“Ess, I knaw you,” answered Will gloomily; “an’ I knaw when you say that you allus mean there ban’t no hope at all.”

“No, no.  A strong, hale woman like your mother need not give us any fear at present.  Sleep and rest, cheerful faces round her, and no amateur physic.  I’ll see her to-night and send in a nurse from the Cottage Hospital at once.”

Then it was that Miller Lyddon arrived, and presently Will returned home.  He wholly mistook Phoebe’s frantic reception, and assumed that her tears must be flowing for Mrs. Blanchard.

“She’ll weather it,” he said.  “Keep a gude heart.  The gal from the hospital ban’t coming ’cause theer ’s danger, but ’cause she ’m smart an’ vitty ‘bout a sick room, an’ cheerful as a canary an’ knaws her business.  Quick of hand an’ light of foot for sartin.  Mother’ll be all right; I feel it deep in me she will.”

Presently conversation passed to Will himself, and Phoebe expressed a hope this sad event would turn him from his determination for some time at least.

“What determination?” he asked.  “What be talkin’ about?”

“The letter you left for faither, and the thing you started to do,” she answered.

“‘S truth!  So I did; an’ if the sight o’ the smoke an’ then hearin’ o’ mother’s trouble didn’t blaw the whole business out of my brain!”

He stood amazed at his own complete forgetfulness.

“Queer, to be sure!  But coourse theer weern’t room in my mind for anything but mother arter I seed her stricken down.”

During the evening, after final reports from Mrs. Blanchard’s sick-room spoke of soothing sleep, Miller Lyddon sent Billy upon an errand, and discussed Will’s position.

“Jan Grimbal ’s waited so long,” he said, “that maybe he’ll wait longer still an’ end by doin’ nothin’ at all.”

“Not him!  You judge the man by yourself,” declared Will.  “But he ’s made of very different metal.  I lay he’s bidin’ till the edge of this be sharp and sure to cut deepest.  So like ’s not, when he hears tell mother ’s took bad he’ll choose that instant moment to have me marched away.”

There was a moment’s silence, then Blanchard burst out into a fury bred of sudden thought, and struck the table heavily with his fist.