I pointed out to Spider, who was soon rampaging about him behind Chuff’s back, that he had nought to fear.  Because if the miner had been crooked, he’d have took care to give Jenny’s husband no call for alarm.

“’Tis granted,” I said, “that any wife can hoodwink any husband if she wants to do so.  No woman’s such a fool but she’s equal to that.  In your case, however, you’ve got a partner that would sooner die and drop into her coffin than do anything to bring a frown to her husband’s face, or a pang to his heart; while as for Solomon Chuff, he’s far ways off the sort of man you think him, a more decent and God-fearing chapel member you’ll not find.”

But wisdom couldn’t live with Spider.  He was made to flout it and go his own sheep-headed way.  He hadn’t the pluck to stand up to Chuff and explain his grievances and tell the man he’d kill him if ever he crossed his threshold again, or ought honest and open like that.  Instead he sulked and plotted awful things quite beyond his powers to perform; and then finally the crash came six months after he’d glumped and glowered over his silly fancies.

Spider went fishing one Saturday afternoon when the Dart was in spate and the weather fierce and wild.  He’d been wild and fierce himself for a week, as his wife told after; but she didn’t trouble about his vagaries and never loved him better than when he went off to catch some trout for her that dark afternoon in March.  But he didn’t return, and when she came down after dark to her aunt, Maria Pardoe, the washerwoman at Little Silver, and made a fearful stir about the missing man, the people felt sorry for her, and a dozen chaps went down the river to find Spider and fetch him along.  His rod they found, and his basket and his bottle of lob-worms on the bank above a deep pool, but they didn’t see a hair of the man himself; and when the next day came and a proper police search was started, nothing appeared, and it seemed terrible clear that Jenny’s husband was a goner.

Some thought he’d just fallen in by chance and been swept to his death in the flood; while others, knowing the fool he was, whispered that he’d took his silly life along of fears concerning Solomon Chuff.  But for my part I never thought so, because Spider hadn’t got the courage to shorten his own thread.  He was the sort that threaten to do it if they lose a halfpenny; but they don’t perform.  I reckoned he’d slipped in the bad light and gone under with none to save, and fallen in the river and been drowned like many another spider afore him.

Months passed and Jenny was counted a widow; but though she mourned like one and wore her black, she never could feel quite sure about her state; and when Bill Westaway, the miller’s son, began to push into her company, she gave him to understand ’twas far too soon for any thoughts in his direction.  In fact you might say she worshipped her husband’s memory as her most cherished possession, and now he was gone, she never wearied of his virtues, and wept at the mention of his name.  She’d had two years of him before he went, and there weren’t no family and nothing to remind her of him but her own faithful heart.  Never a worthless imp won a better woman.