e fluttered between the combatants and
rendered any further encounter for the time impossible. They could not
close again with the girl between them, and the stranger, his anger
holding its breath, glanced at her with sudden interest, stayed his
angry growl, suffered rage to wane out of his eyes and frank admiration
to appear in them.

"Doan't be fighting!" cried Phoebe. "Whatever's the mischief, Will? Do
bate your speed of hand! You've thrawed the gentleman down, seemin'ly."

"Wheer 's his ticket to then?"

"Why, it isn't Miller Lyddon's young maid, surely!" burst out the
fisherman; "not Phoebe grown to woman!"

A Devon accent marked the speech, suddenly dragged from him by surprise.

"Ess, I be Phoebe Lyddon; but don't 'e fall 'pon each other again, for
the Lard's sake," she said.

"The boy 's as tetchy in temper as a broody hen. I was only joking all
the time, and see how he made me pay for my joke. But to think I should
remember you! Grown from bud to pretty blossom, by God! And I danced you
on my knee last time I saw you!"

"Then you 'm wan of they two Grimbal brothers as was to be home again in
Chagford to-day!" exclaimed Will.

"That's so; Martin and I landed at Plymouth yesterday. We got to
Chagford early this morning."

Will laughed.

"I never!" he said. "Why, you be lodging with my awn mother at the
cottage above Rushford Bridge! You was expected this marnin', but I
couldn't wait for 'e. You 'm Jan Grimbal--eh?"

"Right! And you're a nice host, to be sure!"

"'T is solemn truth, you 'm biding under our roof, the 'Three Crowns'
bein' full just now. And I'm sorry I thrawed 'e; but you was that
glumpy, and of course I didn't know 'e from Adam. I'm Will Blanchard."

"Never mind, Will, we'll try again some day. I could wrestle a bit once,
and learned a new trick or two from a Yankee in Africa."

"You've come back 'mazin' rich they say, Jan Grimbal?"

"So, so. Not millionaires, but all right--both of us, though I'm the
snug man of the two. We got to Africa at the right moment, before 1867,
you know, the year that O'Reilly saw a nigger-child playing with the
first Kimberley diamond ever found. Up we went, the pair of us. Things
have hummed since then, and claims and half-claims and quarter-claims
are coming to be worth a Jew's eye. We're all right, anyway, and I've
got a stake out there yet."

"You 'm well pleased to come back to dear li'l Chagford after so many
years of foreign paarts, I should t