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.

And then--after a f