“What in thunder do it mean?”

“God knaws, I doan’t.  The man or bwoy, or whatever you call un, beats me.  I ban’t built to tackle such a piece as him.  He’s took a year off my life to-day.  Go to your bed, Billy, an’ let un bide.”

“Gormed if I wouldn’t like to slip down an’ scat un ower the head for what he done to me this marnin’.  Such an auld man as me, tu! weak in the hams this ten year.”

“But strong in the speech.  Maybe you pricked him with a bitter word, an’—­theer, theer, if I ban’t standin’ up for the chap now!  Yet if I’ve wished un dead wance, I have fifty times since I first heard tell of un.  Get to bed.  I s’pose us’ll knaw his drift come to-morrow.”

Mr. Lyddon and Billy retired, and both slept ere Will Blanchard’s work was done.  Upon its completion he sought the cold nocturnal waters of the river, and then did a thing he had planned an hour before.  Entering the farmyard, he flung a small stone at Phoebe’s window in the thatch, then another.  But the first had roused his wife, for she lay above in wakefulness and sorrow.  She peeped out, saw Blanchard, knew him in the lantern light, and opened the window.

“Will, my awn Will!” she said, with a throbbing voice.

“Ess fay, lovey!  I knawed you’d sleep sweeter for hearin’ tell I’ve done the work.”

“Done it?”

“Truth.”

“It was a cruel, wicked shame; an’ the blame’s Billy Blee’s, an’ I’ve cried my eyes out since I heard what they set you to do; an’ I’ve said what I thought; an’ I’m sorry to bitterness about this marnin’, dear Will.”

“‘T is all wan now.  I’ve comed into a mort of money, my Uncle Ford bein’ suddenly dead.”

“Oh, Will, I could a’most jump out the window!”

“’T would be easier for me to come up-long.”

“No, no; not for the world, Will!”

“Why for not?  An’ you that lovely, twinklin’ in your white gownd, an’ me your lawful husband, an’ a man o’ money!  Damned if I ain’t got a mind to climb up by the pear-tree!”

“You mustn’t, you mustn’t!  Go away, dear, sweet Will.  An’ I’m so thankful you’ve forgiven me for being so wicked, dear heart.”

“Everybody’ll ax to be forgiven now, I reckon; but you—­theer ban’t nothin’ to forgive you for.  You can tell your faither I’ve forgived un to-morrow, an’ tell un I’m rich, tu.  ‘T will ease his mind.  Theer, an’ theer, an theer!”

Will kissed his hand thrice, then vanished, and his wife shut her window and, kneeling, prayed out thankful prayers.

As her husband crossed Rushford Bridge, his thought sped backward through the storm and sunshine of past events.  But chiefly he remembered the struggle with John Grimbal and its sequel.  For a moment he glanced below into the dark water.

“‘T is awver an’ past, awver an’ past,” he said to himself.  “I be at the tail of all my troubles now, for theer’s nought gude money an’ gude sense caan’t do between ’em.”