e same pickle."

"Yet you tried blamed hard to lose your tail an' get a wife, for all
your talk," said Will, who, although his mind was full enough, yet could
generally find a sharp word for Mr. Blee.

"Bah to you!" answered the old man angrily. "_That_ for you! 'T is allus
your way to bring personal talk into high conversation. I was improvin'
the hour with general thoughts; but the vulgar tone you give to a
discourse would muzzle the wisdom o' Solomon."

Miller Lyddon here made an effort to re-establish peace and soon
afterwards the meal came to an end.

Half an hour later Phoebe heard from her husband the story of his brief
military career: of how he had enlisted as a preliminary to going abroad
and making his fortune, how he had become servant to one Captain
Tremayne, how upon the news of Phoebe's engagement he had deserted, and
how his intention to return and make a clean breast of it had been twice
changed by the circumstances that followed his marriage. Long he took in
detailing every incident and circumstance.

"Coming to think," he said, "of coourse 't is clear as Grimbal must knaw
my auld master. I seed his name raised to a Major in the _Western
Morning News_ a few year agone, an' he was to Okehampton with a
battalion when Hicks come by his death. So that's how't is; an' I ban't
gwaine to bide Grimbal's time to be ruined, you may be very sure of
that. Now I knaw, I act."

"He may be quite content you should knaw. That's meat an' drink enough
for him, to think of you gwaine in fear day an' night."

"Ess, but that's not my way. I ban't wan to wait an enemy's pleasure."

"You won't go to him, Will?"

"Go to un? Ess fay--'fore the day's done, tu."

"That's awnly to hasten the end."

"The sooner the better."

He tramped up and down the bedroom with his eyes on the ground, his
hands in his pockets.

"A tremendous thing to tumble up on the surface arter all these years;
an' a tremendous time for it to come. 'T was a crime 'gainst the Queen
for my awn gude ends. I had to choose 'tween her an' you; I'd do the
same to-morrow. The fault weern't theer. It lay in not gwaine back."

"You couldn't; your arm was broke."

"I ought to have gone back arter 't was well. Then time had passed, an'
uncle's money corned, an' they never found me. But theer it lies ahead
now, sure enough."

"Perhaps for sheer shame he'll bide quiet 'bout it. A man caan't hate
another man for ever."

"I thought not, same as you, bu