ders."

"Ban't you surprised I could turn it out?"

"That I be. I'd never have thought 'twas in 'e. So forehanded, tu!
A'most afore them poor things be cold."

"'Tis the forehandedness I prides myself 'pon. Some of us doan't know
all that's in me yet. But they'll live to see it."

"I knaw right well they will."

"This'll 'maze mother to-morrow."

"'Twill, sure 'nough."

"Would 'e like me to read it just wance more wi'out stoppin', Phoebe?"

"No, dear love, not now. Give it to us all arter breakfast in the
marnin'."

"So I will then; an' take it right away to the auctioneer the minute
after."

He put his papers away in the drawer of the kitchen table and retired.
Uneasy sleep presently overtook him and long he tossed and turned,
murmuring of his astonishment at his own powers with a pen.

His impetuosity carried the ruined man forward with sufficient speed
over the dark bitterness of failure confessed, failure advertised,
failure proclaimed in print throughout the confines of his little world.
He suffered much, and the wide-spread sympathy of friends and
acquaintance proved no anodyne but rather the reverse. He hated to see
eyes grow grave and mouths serious upon his entry; he yearned to turn
his back against Chagford and resume the process of living in a new
environment. Temporary troubles vexed him more than the supreme disaster
of his failure. Mr. Bambridge made considerable alterations in his
cherished lucubration; and when the advertisement appeared in print, it
looked mean and filled but a paltry space. People came up before the
sale to examine the goods, and Phoebe, after two days of whispered
colloquies upon her cherished property, could bear it no longer, and
left Newtake with her own little daughter and little Timothy. The Rev.
Shorto-Champernowne himself called, stung Will into sheer madness, which
he happily restrained, then purchased an old oak coffer for two pounds
and ten shillings.

Miller Lyddon made no sign, and hard things were muttered against him
and Billy Blee in the village. Virtuous indignation got hold upon the
Chagford quidnuncs and with one consent they declared Mr. Lyddon to
blame. Where was his Christian charity--that charity which should begin
at home and so seldom does? This interest in others' affairs took shape
on the night before the Newtake sale. Then certain of the baser sort
displayed their anger in a practical form, and Mr. Blee was hustled one
dark evening, had his h