e all
mankind, and doan't feel no more malice than a bird in a tree."

"You're a silly old ass," burst out Grimbal roughly. "There's nothing
worth naming the matter with you, and you know it better than we do. The
Devil looks after his own, seemingly. Any other man would have been
killed ten times over."

Billy whined and even wept at this harsh reproof. "Ban't a very fair way
to speak to an auld gunpowder-blawn piece, like what I be now," he said;
"gormed if 't is."

"Very onhandsome of 'e, Mr. Grimbal," declared the stout Chappie; "an'
you so young an' in the prime of life, tu!"

Here Phoebe met them, and Mr. Blee, observing the signs of tears upon
her face, supposed that anxiety for him had wet her cheeks, and
comforted his master's child.

"Doan't 'e give way, missy. 'T is all wan, an' I ban't 'feared of the
tomb, as I've tawld 'em. Us must rot, every bone of us, in our season,
an' 't is awnly the thought of it, not the fear of it, turns the
stomach. But what's a wamblyness of the innards, so long as a body's
sawl be ripe for God?"

"A walkin' sermon!" said Mr. Chappie.

Doctor Parsons was waiting for Billy at Monks Barton, and if John
Grimbal had been brusque, the practitioner proved scarcely less so. He
pronounced Mr. Blee but little hurt, bandaged his arm, plastered his
head, and assured him that a pipe and a glass of spirits was all he
needed to fortify his sinking spirit. The party ate and drank, raised a
cheer for Miller Lyddon and then went homewards. Only Mr. Chappie and
Gaffer Lezzard entered the house and had a wineglass or two of some
special sloe gin. Mr. Lezzard thawed and grew amiable over this
beverage, and Mr. Chappie repeated Billy's lofty sentiments at the
approach of death for the benefit of Miller Lyddon.

"'T is awnly my fearless disposition," declared the wounded man with
great humility; "no partic'lar credit to me. I doan't care wan iotum for
the thought of churchyard mould--not wan iotum. I knaw the value of gude
rich soil tu well; an' a man as grudges the rames[3] of hisself to the
airth that's kept un threescore years an' ten's a carmudgeonly cuss,
surely."

[3] _Rames_ = skeleton; remains.

"An' so say I; theer's true wisdom in it," declared Mr. Chapple, while
the miller nodded.

"Theer be," concluded Gaffer Lezzard. "I allus sez, in my clenching way,
that I doan't care a farden damn what happens to my bones, if my
everlasting future be well thought on by passon. So long