and
a few, caring not a straw either way, declared he had showed good pluck
and was to be commended; But the bulky Mr. Chapple--he who assisted
Billy Blee in wassailing Miller Lyddon's apple-trees--stoutly criticised
Will, and told him that his conduct was much to blame. The younger
argued against this decision and explained, with the most luminous
diction at his command, that 'twas in the offering of such a task to a
penniless man its sting and offence appeared.

"He knawed I was at low ebb an' not able to pick an' choose. So he gives
me a starvin' man's job. If I'd been in easy circumstances an' able to
say 'Yes' or 'No' at choice, I'd never have blamed un."

"Nonsense and stuff!" declared Mr. Chapple. "Theer's not a shadow of
shame in it."

"You'm Miller's friend, of coourse," said Will.

"'Tis so plain as a pike, I think!" squeaked a hare-lipped young man of
weak intellect who was also present. "Blanchard be right for sartain."

"Theer! If soft Gurney sees my drift it must be pretty plain," said
Will, in triumph.

"But as 'tis awnly him that does, lad," commented Mr. Chapple, drily,
"caan't say you've got any call to be better pleased. Go you back an' do
the job, like a wise man."

"I'd clear the peat out o' Cranmere Pool sooner!" said Will.

And he turned homewards again, wretched enough, yet fiercely prodding
his temper when it flagged, and telling himself repeatedly that he had
acted as became a man of spirit and of judgment. Then, upon a day
sufficiently leaden and dreary until that moment, burst forth sudden
splendours, and Will's life, from a standpoint of extreme sobriety in
time, instantly passed to rare brightness. Between the spot on the
highway where Chris met him and his arrival at home, the youth enjoyed
half a lifetime of glorious hopes and ambitions; but a cloud indeed
shadowed all this overwhelming joy in that the event responsible for his
change of fortune was itself sad.

While yet twenty yards from her brother Chris cried the news to him.

"He's dead--Uncle--he went quite sudden at the end; an' he'm to lie to
Chagford wi' gran'faither an' gran'mother."

"Dead! My God! An' I never seed un more! The best friend to me ever I
had--leastways I thought so till this marnin'."

"You may think so still."

"Ess, so I do. A kind man inside his skin. I knawed un better'n most
people--an' he meant well when he married me, out of pure love to us
both."

"He's left nobody no money but Mrs. Wats