Whatever might happen, he was determined to give himself up on the following day.  He had done all he could for those he loved, but he was powerless to suffer more.  He longed now to trample his foe into the dust, and, that accomplished, he would depart, well satisfied, and receive what punishment was due.  His accumulated wrongs must be paid at last, and he fully determined, an hour before John Grimbal came homewards, that the payment should be such as he himself had received long years before on Rushford Bridge.  His muscles throbbed for action as he sat and waited at the top of a sloping bank dotted with hawthorns that extended upwards from the edge of the avenue and terminated on the fringe of young coverts.

And now, by a chance not uncommon, two separate series of circumstances were about to clash, while the shock engendered was destined to precipitate the climax of Will Blanchard’s fortunes, in so far as this record is concerned.  On the night that he thus raged and suffered the gall bred of long inaction to overflow, John Grimbal likewise came to a sudden conclusion with himself, and committed a deed of nature definite so far as it went.

In connection with the approaching Jubilee rejoicings a spirit in some sense martial filled the air, and Grimbal with his yeomanry was destined to play a part.  A transient comet-blaze of militarism often sparkles over fighting nations at any season of universal joy, and that more especially if the keystone of the land’s constitution be a crown.  This fire found material inflammable enough in the hearts of many Devonshire men, and before its warm impulse John Grimbal, inspired by a particular occasion, compounded with his soul at last.  Rumoured on long tongues from the village ale-house, there had come to his ears the report of certain ill-considered utterances made by his enemy upon the events of the hour.  They were only a hot-headed and very miserable man’s foolish comments upon things in general and the approaching festival in particular, and they served but to illustrate the fact that no ill-educated and passionate soul can tolerate universal rejoicings, itself wretched; but Grimbal clutched at this proven disloyalty of an old deserter, and told himself that personal questions must weigh with him no more.

“The sort of discontented brute that drifts into Socialism and all manner of wickedness,” he thought.  “The rascal must be muzzled once for all, and as a friend to the community I shall act, not as an enemy to him.”

This conclusion he came to on the evening of the day which saw Blanchard’s final eruption, and he was amazed to find how straightforward and simple his course appeared when viewed from the impersonal standpoint of duty.  His brother was due to dine with John Grimbal in half an hour, for both men were serving on a committee to meet that night upon the question of the local celebrations at Chagford, and they were going together.  Time, however, remained for John to put his decision into action.  He turned to his desk, therefore, and wrote.  The words to be employed he knew by heart, for he had composed his letter many months before, and it was with him always; yet now, seen thus set out upon paper for the first time, it looked strange.