“Big things both, though I ban’t afeared of myself afore ’em.  I’ve thought a lot in my time, an’ be allowed to have sense an’ spirit for that matter.”

“Spirit, ess fay, same as your faither afore you; but not so much sense as us can see wi’out lightin’ cannel.”

“Wonder if Uncle Joel be so warm a man as he’d have us think sometimes of an evenin’ arter his hot whiskey an’ water?” said Chris.

“Don’t ’e count on no come-by-chance from him.  He’s got money, that I knaw, but ban’t gwaine to pass our way, for he tawld me so in as many words.  Sarah Watson will reap what he’s sawed; an’ who shall grumble?  He ‘m a just man, though not of the accepted way o’ thinkin’.”

“Why for didn’t he marry her?” asked Will.

“Caan’t tell’e, more’n the dead.  Just a whim.  I asked her same question, when I was last to Newton, an’ she said ’t was to save the price of a licence she reckoned, though in his way of life he might have got matrimony cheap as any man.  But theer ’t is.  Her ’s bin gude as a wife to un—­an’ better ’n many—­this fifteen year.”

“A very kind woman to me while I was biding along with uncle,” said Will.  “All the same you should have some of the money.”

“I’m well as I be.  An’ this dead-man-shoe talk’s vain an’ giddy.  I lay he’m long ways from death, an’ the further the better.  Now I be gwaine to pack my box ’fore supper.”

Mrs. Blanchard withdrew, and Chris, suddenly recollecting it, mentioned Martin Grimbal’s visit.  Will laughed and read a page or two of the story-book, then went out of doors to see Clement Hicks; and his sister, with a spare hour before her while a rabbit roasted, sat near the spit and occupied her mind with thought.

Will’s business related to himself.  He was weary of waiting for Mr. Lyddon, and though he had taken care to let Phoebe know by Chris that his arm was well and strong enough for the worst that might be found for it to do, no notice was taken of his message, no sign escaped the miller.

All interested persons had their own theories upon this silence.  Mrs. Blanchard suspected that Mr. Lyddon would do nothing at all, and Will readily accepted this belief; but he found it impossible to wait with patience for its verification.  This indeed was the harder to him because Clement Hicks predicted a different issue and foretold an action of most malignant sort on the miller’s part.  What ground existed for attributing any such deed to Mr. Lyddon was not manifest, but the bee-keeper stuck to it that Will’s father-in-law would only wait until he was in good employment and then proceed to his confusion.

This conviction he now repeated.

“He’s going to make you smart before he’s done with you, if human nature’s a factor to rely upon.  It’s clear to me.”

“I doan’t think so ill of un.  An’ yet I ban’t wishful to leave it to chance.  You, an’ you awnly, knaw what lies hid in the past behind me.  The question is, should I take that into account now, or go ahead as if it never had failed out?”