“Let it alone, as it has let you alone.  Never rake it up again, and forget it if you can.  That’s my advice to you.  Forget you ever—­”

“Hush!” said Will.  “I’d rather not hear the word, even ’pon your lips.”

They then discussed the main matter from the opposite vantage-grounds of minds remote in every particular; but no promising procedure suggested itself to either man, and it was not until upon his homeward way that Will, unaided, arrived at an obvious and very simple conclusion.  With some glee he welcomed this idea.

“I’ll just wait till Monday night,” he said to himself, “an’ then I’ll step right down to Miller, an’ ax un what’s in the wind, an’ if I can help his hand.  Then he must speak if he’s a man.”

CHAPTER XIII

THE MILLER’S OFFER

Will, followed his determination and proceeded to Monks Barton on the following Monday evening, at an hour when he knew that Mr. Lyddon would have finished supper and be occupied about a pipe or a game of cards with Mr. Blee.  The old men occasionally passed an hour at “oaks” or “cribbage” before retiring, but on this occasion they were engaged in conversation, and both looked up with some surprise when Blanchard appeared.

“You—­you here again!” said the miller, and his mouth remained slightly open after the words.

“You ’m allus setting sober hair on end—­blessed if you ain’t!” was Billy’s comment.

Will, for his part, made no introductory speeches, but went straight to the point.

“Theer’s my arm,” he said, thrusting it out before him. “’T is mended so neat that Doctor Parsons says no Lunnon bone-setter could have done it better.  So I’ve comed just to say theer’s no call for longer waitin’.  ’T was a sportsmanlike thing in you, Miller Lyddon, to bide same as you did; and now, if you’d set the law movin’ an’ get the job out o’ hand, I’d thank you kindly.  You see, if they put me in for two year, ’t will leave mighty li’l time to get a home ready for Phoebe against the day she comes of age.”

“You needn’t be at any trouble about that.”

“But I shall be.  Do ’e think my wife’s gwaine to be any differ’nt to lesser folks?  A home she’ll have, an’ a braave, vitty home, tu, though I’ve got to sweat blood for it.  So if you’d take your bite so soon as convenient, you’d sarve me.”

“I doan’t say you ‘m axin’ anything onreasonable,” said Mr. Lyddon, thoughtfully.  “An’ what might you think o’doin, when you comes out o’ prison?”

“First gude work that offers.”

“Maybe you doan’t kuaw that chaps whose last job was on the treadmill finds it uncommon hard to get another?”

“Depends what they was theer for, I should reckon, Miller”

“Not a bit of it.  Gaol-birds is all feathered alike inside clink, an’ honest men feathers ’em all alike when they come out,” declared Will’s father-in-law.