t the first had roused his wife, for she lay above in
wakefulness and sorrow. She peeped out, saw Blanchard, knew him in the
lantern light, and opened the window.

"Will, my awn Will!" she said, with a throbbing voice.

"Ess fay, lovey! I knawed you'd sleep sweeter for hearin' tell I've done
the work."

"Done it?"

"Truth."

"It was a cruel, wicked shame; an' the blame's Billy Blee's, an' I've
cried my eyes out since I heard what they set you to do; an' I've said
what I thought; an' I'm sorry to bitterness about this marnin', dear
Will."

"'T is all wan now. I've comed into a mort of money, my Uncle Ford bein'
suddenly dead."

"Oh, Will, I could a'most jump out the window!"

"'T would be easier for me to come up-long."

"No, no; not for the world, Will!"

"Why for not? An' you that lovely, twinklin' in your white gownd, an' me
your lawful husband, an' a man o' money! Damned if I ain't got a mind to
climb up by the pear-tree!"

"You mustn't, you mustn't! Go away, dear, sweet Will. An' I'm so
thankful you've forgiven me for being so wicked, dear heart."

"Everybody'll ax to be forgiven now, I reckon; but you--theer ban't
nothin' to forgive you for. You can tell your faither I've forgived un
to-morrow, an' tell un I'm rich, tu. 'T will ease his mind. Theer, an'
theer, an theer!"

Will kissed his hand thrice, then vanished, and his wife shut her window
and, kneeling, prayed out thankful prayers.

As her husband crossed Rushford Bridge, his thought sped backward
through the storm and sunshine of past events. But chiefly he remembered
the struggle with John Grimbal and its sequel. For a moment he glanced
below into the dark water.

"'T is awver an' past, awver an' past," he said to himself. "I be at the
tail of all my troubles now, for theer's nought gude money an' gude
sense caan't do between 'em."

BOOK II

HIS ENTERPRISE

CHAPTER I

SPRINGTIME

Nature, waking at the song of woodland birds to find herself naked,
fashioned with flying fingers such a robe of young green and amber,
hyacinth and pearl as only she can weave or wear. A scent of the season
rose from multitudinous "buds, and bells, and stars without a name";
while the little world of Devon, vale and forest, upland and heathery
waste, rejoiced in the new life, as it rang and rippled with music and
colour even to the granite thrones of the Moor. Down by the margin of
Teign, where she murmured through a vale of wakening leaves an