“Don’t say that, Billy,” cried Martin, in real concern.  “The blood’s stopped flowing entirely now.”

“For why?  Theer’s no more to come.  My heart be pumping wind, lifeless wind; my lung-play’s gone, tu, an’ my sight’s come awver that coorious.  Be Gaffer Lezzard nigh?”

“Here, alongside ’e, Bill.”

“Gimme your hand then, an’ let auld scores be wiped off in this shattering calamity.  Us have differed wheer us could these twoscore years; but theer mustn’t be no more ill-will wi’ me tremblin’ on the lip o’ the graave.”

“None at all; if ’t wasn’t for Widow Coomstock,” said Gaffer Lezzard.  “You ‘m tu pushing theer, an’ I say it even now, for truth’s truth, though it be the last thing a man’s ear holds.”

“Break it to her gentle,” said Billy, ignoring the other’s criticism; “she’m on in years, and have cast a kindly eye awver me since the early sixties.  My propositions never was more than agreeable conversation to her, but it might have come.  Tell her theer’s a world beyond marriage customs, an’ us’ll meet theer.”

Old Lezzard showed a good deal of anger at this speech, but being in a minority fell back and held his peace.

“Would ’e like to see passon, dear sawl?” asked Mr. Chapple, who walked on Billy’s left with his gun reversed, as though at a funeral.

“Me an’ him be out, along o’ rheumatics keeping me from the House of God this month,” said the sufferer, “but at a solemn death-bed hour like this here, I’d soon see un as not.  Ban’t no gert odds, for I forgive all mankind, and doan’t feel no more malice than a bird in a tree.”

“You’re a silly old ass,” burst out Grimbal roughly.  “There’s nothing worth naming the matter with you, and you know it better than we do.  The Devil looks after his own, seemingly.  Any other man would have been killed ten times over.”

Billy whined and even wept at this harsh reproof.  “Ban’t a very fair way to speak to an auld gunpowder-blawn piece, like what I be now,” he said; “gormed if ’t is.”

“Very onhandsome of ‘e, Mr. Grimbal,” declared the stout Chappie; “an’ you so young an’ in the prime of life, tu!”

Here Phoebe met them, and Mr. Blee, observing the signs of tears upon her face, supposed that anxiety for him had wet her cheeks, and comforted his master’s child.

“Doan’t ’e give way, missy.  ‘T is all wan, an’ I ban’t ’feared of the tomb, as I’ve tawld ’em.  Us must rot, every bone of us, in our season, an’ ’t is awnly the thought of it, not the fear of it, turns the stomach.  But what’s a wamblyness of the innards, so long as a body’s sawl be ripe for God?”

“A walkin’ sermon!” said Mr. Chappie.

Doctor Parsons was waiting for Billy at Monks Barton, and if John Grimbal had been brusque, the practitioner proved scarcely less so.  He pronounced Mr. Blee but little hurt, bandaged his arm, plastered his head, and assured him that a pipe and a glass of spirits was all he needed to fortify his sinking spirit.  The party ate and drank, raised a cheer for Miller Lyddon and then went homewards.  Only Mr. Chappie and Gaffer Lezzard entered the house and had a wineglass or two of some special sloe gin.  Mr. Lezzard thawed and grew amiable over this beverage, and Mr. Chappie repeated Billy’s lofty sentiments at the approach of death for the benefit of Miller Lyddon.