A very curious result accrued from Mr. Lyddon’s mental conflict, and it was reached by an accidental train of thought.  He told himself that his conclusion was generous to the extreme of the Christian ideal; he assured himself that few men so placed had ever before acted with such notable magnanimity; but under this repeated mental asseveration there spoke another voice which he stifled to the best of his power.  The utterance of this monitor may best be judged from what followed.

“If I gave you work you’d stand to it, Will Blanchard?” he asked at length.

“Try me!”

“Whatsoever it might be?”

“Try me.  Ban’t for me to choose.”

“I will, then.  Come to-morrow by five, an’ Billy shall show ’e what’s to do.”

It would be difficult to say which, of those who heard the miller’s resolve received it with most astonishment.  Will’s voice was almost tremulous.

“You’ll never be sorry, never.  I couldn’t have hoped such a thing.  Caan’t think how I comed to ax it.  An’ yet—­but I’ll buckle to anything and everything, so help me.  I’ll think for ‘e an’ labour for ’e as no hireling that was ever born could, I will.  An’ you’ve done a big, grand-fashion thing, an’ I’m yours, body an’ bones, for it; an’ you’ll never regret it.”

The young man was really moved by an issue so unexpected.  He had uttered his suggestion on the spur of the moment, as he uttered most things, and such a reception argued a greatness of heart and generosity of spirit quite unparalleled in his experience.  So he departed wishing all good on Mr. Lyddon and meaning all good with his whole soul and strength.

When he had gone the miller spoke; but contrary to custom, he did not look into Mr. Blee’s face while so doing.

“You’m astonished, Billy,” he said, “an’ so be I, come to think of it.  But I’m gettin’ tu auld to fret my life away with vain strife.  I be gwaine to prove un.  He’d stand to anything, eh?  ’Twas his word.”

“An’ well he might.”

“Can ‘e picture Blanchard cleaning out the pigs’ house?”

“No fay!”

“Or worse?”

“Ah!”

They consulted, and it presently appeared that Mr. Lyddon deliberately designed to set Will about the most degrading task the farm could furnish.

“’Twill sting the very life of un!” said Billy gleefully, and he proceeded to arrange an extremely trying programme for Will Blanchard.

“Doan’t think any small spite leads me to this way of dealing with un,” explained Mr. Lyddon, who knew right well that it was so.  “But ’tis to probe the stuff he’s made of.  Nothing should be tu hard for un arter what he’ve done, eh?”

“You’m right.  ’Tis true wisdom to chastise the man this way if us can, an’ shake his wicked pride.”

Billy’s genius lent itself most happily to this scheme.  He applauded the miller’s resolution until his master himself began to believe that the idea was not unjust; he ranged airily, like a blue-fly, from one agglomeration of ordure to another; and he finally suggested a task, not necessary to dwell on, but which reached the utmost height or depth of originality in connection with such a subject.  Mr. Lyddon laboured under some shadow of doubt, but he quickly agreed when his man reminded him of the past course of events.