ooled down,
modified his first fiery indignation, and determined, yet without
changing his mind, to give Bonus an opportunity of explaining the thing
he had done. Chris had brought the news from Clement himself, and Will,
knowing that his personal relations with Clement were already strained,
felt that in justice to his servant he must be heard upon the question.
But, when he sought Sam Bonus, though still the dawn was only grey, he
found the world fuller for him by another enemy, for the man had taken
him at his word and departed. During that day and the next Will made
some effort to see Bonus, but nothing came of it, so, dismissing the
matter from his mind, he hired a new labourer--one Teddy Chown, son of
Abraham Chown, the Inspector of Police--and pursued his way.

Then his unbounded energy led him into difficulties of a graver sort.
Will had long cast covetous eyes on a tract of moorland immediately
adjoining Newtake, and there being little to do at the moment, he
conceived the adventurous design of reclaiming it. The patch was an acre
and a half in extent--a beggarly, barren region, where the heather
thinned away and the black earth shone with water and disintegrated
granite. Quartz particles glimmered over it; at the centre black pools
of stagnant water marked an abandoned peat cutting; any spot less
calculated to attract an agricultural eye would have been hard to
imagine; but Blanchard set to work, began to fill the greedy quag in the
midst with tons of soil, and soon caused the place to look
business-like--at least in his own estimation. As for the Duchy, he did
not trouble himself. The Duchy itself was always reclaiming land without
considering the rights and wrongs of the discontented Venville tenants,
and Will knew of many a "newtake" besides this he contemplated. Indeed,
had not the whole farm, of which he was now master, been rescued from
the Moor in time past? He worked hard, therefore, and his new assistant,
though not a Bonus, proved stout and active. Chris, who still dwelt with
her brother, was sworn to secrecy respecting Will's venture; and so
lonely a region did the farm occupy that not until he had put a good
month of work into the adjacent waste were any of those in authority
aware of the young farmer's performance.

A day came when the new land was cleaned, partly ploughed, and wholly
surrounded by a fence of split stumps, presently to be connected by
wires. At these Chown was working, while Will