“Ess, you’m a deep thinker, I doan’t doubt.  Now best to go; an’, mind, no dealins wi’ Phoebe, for that I won’t stand.”

“I’ve thought that out, tu.  I’ll give ’e my word of honour ’pon that.”

“Best to seek work t’other side the Moor, if you ax me.  Then you’ll be out the way.”

“As to that, I’d guessed maybe Martin Grimbal, as have proved a gert friend to me an’ be quite o’ my way o’ thinking, might offer garden work while I looked round.  Theer ban’t a spark o’ pride in me—­tu much sense, I hope, for that.”

The miller sighed.

“You’ve done a far-reachin’ thing, as hits a man from all sorts o’ plaaces, like the echo in Teign Valley.  I caan’t see no end to it yet.”

“Martin Grimbal’s took on Wat Widdicombe, so you needn’t fule yourself he’ll give ’e work,” snapped Mr. Blee.

“Well, theer be others.”

And then that sudden smile, half sly, half sweet, leapt to Will’s eyes and brightened all his grave face, as the sun gladdens a grey sky after rain.

“Look now, Miller Lyddon, why for shouldn’t you, the biggest man to Chagford, give me a bit of work?  I ban’t no caddlin’[5] chap, an’ for you—­by God, I’d dig a mountain flat if you axed me!”

[5] Caddling = loafing, idling.

“Well, I be gormed!” gasped Billy.  It was a condition, though whether physical or mental he only knew, to which Will reduced Mr. Blee upon every occasion of their meeting.

“You hold your jaw an’ let me talk to Mr. Lyddon.  ’Tis like this, come to look at it:  who should work for ’e same as what I would?  Who should think for my wife’s faither wi’ more of his heart than me?  I’d glory to do a bit of work for ‘e—­aye, I would so, high or low; an’ do it in a way to make you rub your eyes!”

Billy saw the first-formed negative die still-born on his master’s lips.  He began to cry out volubly that Monks Barton was over-manned, and that scandal would blast every opening bud on the farm if such a thing happened.  Will glared at him, and in another moment Mr. Blee might have suffered physically had not the miller lifted his hand and bid both be silent.

For a full minute no man spoke, while in Mr. Lyddon’s mind proceeded a strange battle of ideas.  Will’s audacity awakened less resentment than might have been foreseen.  The man had bent before the shock of his daughter’s secret marriage and was now returning to his customary mental condition.  Any great altitude of love or extremity of hate was beyond Mr. Lyddon’s calibre.  Life slipped away and left his forehead smooth.  Sorrow brought no great scars, joy no particular exaltation.  This temperament he had transmitted to Phoebe; and now she came into his mind and largely influenced him.  A dozen times he opened his mind to say “No,” but did not say it.  Personal amiability could hardly have overcome natural dislike of Blanchard at such a moment, but the unexpected usually happens when weak natures are called upon to make sudden decisions; and though such may change their resolve again and again at a later date and before new aspects of the problem, their first hasty determination will often be the last another had predicted from them.