d home. Upon
Chagford Bridge appeared Miller Lyddon and Mr. Blee. The latter had been
whitewashing the apple-tree stems--a course to which his master attached
more importance than that pursued on Old Christmas Eve--and through the
gathering dusk the trunks now stood out livid and wan as a regiment of
ghosts.

"Heard from your brother since he left?" Mr. Lyddon inquired after
evening greetings.

"I cannot yet. I hope he may write, but you are more likely to hear than
I."

"Not me. I'm nothing to un now."

"Things will come right. Don't let it prey on your mind. No woman ever
made a good wife who didn't marry where her heart was," declared Martin,
exhibiting some ignorance of the subject he presumed to discuss.

"Ah! you was ag'in' us, I mind," said the miller, drawing in. "He said
as much that terrible night."

"He was wrong--utterly. I only spoke for his good. I saw that your
daughter couldn't stand the sight of him and shivered if he touched her.
It was my duty to speak. Strange you didn't see too."

"So easy to talk afterwards! I had her spoken word, hadn't I? She'd
never lied in all her life afore. Strange if I _had_ seen, I reckon."

"You frightened her into falsehood. Any girl might have been expected to
lie in that position," said Clement coolly; then Mr. Blee, who had been
fretting to join the conversation, burst into it unbidden.

"Be gormed if I ban't like a cat on hot bricks to hear 'e! wan might
think as Miller was the Devil hisself for cruelty instead o' bein', as
all knaws, the most muty-hearted[4] faither in Chagford."

[4] _Muty-hearted_ = soft-hearted.

"As to that, I doan't knaw, Billy," declared Mr. Lyddon stoutly; "I be a
man as metes out to the world same measure as I get from the world.
Right is right, an' law is law; an' if I doan't have the law of Will
Blanchard--"

"There's little enough you can do, I believe," said Hicks; "and what
satisfaction lies in it, I should like to know, if it's not a rude
question?"

The old man answered with some bitterness, and explained his power.

"William Blanchard's done abduction, according to Lawyer Bellamy of
Plymouth; an' abduction's felony, and that's a big thing, however you
look 'pon it."

"Long an' short is," cut in Billy, who much desired to air a little of
his new knowledge, "that he can get a sentence inside the limits of two
years, with or without hard labour; at mercy of judge and jury. That's
his dose or not his dose, 'cording