ast month, I'm a man in law so well as larnin', and I'm
gwaine to speak to Miller Lyddon this very night."

Phoebe looked blank. There was a moment's silence while Will picked and
ate the wood-strawberries in his sweetheart's dress.

"Caan't 'e think o' nothin' wiser than to see faither?" she said at
last.

"Theer ban't nothin' wiser. He knaws we 'm tokened, and it's no manner
o' use him gwaine on pretendin' to himself 't isn't so. You 'm
wife-old, and you've made choice o' me; and I'm a ripe man, as have
thought a lot in my time, and be earnin' gude money and all. Besides, 't
is a dead-sure fact I'll have auld Morgan's place as head waterkeeper,
an' the cottage along with it, in fair time."

"Ban't for me to lift up no hindrances, but you knaw faither."

"Ess, I do--for a very stiff-necked man."

"Maybe 't is so; but a gude faither to me."

"An' a gude friend to me, for that matter. He aint got nothing 'gainst
me, anyway--no more 's any man living."

"Awnly the youth and fieriness of 'e."

"Me fiery! I lay you wouldn't find a cooler chap in Chagford."

"You 'm a dinky bit comical-tempered now and again, dear heart."

He flushed, and the corners of his jaw thickened.

"If a man was to say that, I'd knock his words down his throat."

"I knaw you would, my awn Will; an' that's bein' comical-tempered,
ban't it?"

"Then perhaps I'd best not to see your faither arter all, if you 'm that
way o' thinkin'," he answered shortly.

Then Phoebe purred to him and rubbed her cheek against his chin, whereon
the glint vanished from his eyes, and they were soft again.

"Mother's the awnly livin' sawl what understands me," he said slowly.

"And I--I too, Will!" cried Phoebe. "Ess fay. I'll call you a holy angel
if you please, an' God knaws theer 's not an angel in heaven I'd have
stead of 'e."

"I ban't no angel," said Will gravely, "and never set up for no such
thing; but I've thought a lot 'bout the world in general, and I'm purty
wise for a home-stayin' chap, come to think on it; and it's borne in
'pon me of late days that the married state 's a gude wan, and the
sooner the better."

"But a leap in the dark even for the wisest, Will?"

"So's every other step us takes for that matter. Look at them
grasshoppers. Off they goes to glory and doan't knaw no more 'n the dead
wheer they'll fetch up. I've seed 'em by the river jump slap in the
water, almost on to a trout's back. So us hops along and caan't say
what's c