t Grimbal shaws we 'm wrong."

"Let us go, then; let us do what you thought to do 'fore faither comed
forward so kind. Let us go away to furrin paarts, even now."

"I doubt if he'd let me go. 'T is mouse an' cat for the minute.
Leastways so he's thought since he talked to 'e. But he'll knaw
differ'nt 'fore he lies in his bed to-night. Must be cut an' dried an'
settled."

"Be slow to act, Will, an'--"

"Theer! theer!" he said, "doan't 'e offer me no advice, theer's a gude
gal, 'cause I couldn't stand it even from you, just this minute. God
knaws I'm not above takin' it in a general way, for the best tried man
can larn from babes an' sucklings sometimes; but this is a thing calling
for nothin' but shut lips. 'T is my job an' I've got to see it through
my own way."

"You'll be patient, Will? 'T isn't like other times when you was right
an' him wrong. He's got the whip-hand of 'e, so you mustn't dictate."

"Not me. I can be reasonable an' just as any man. I never hid from
myself I was doin' wrong at the time. But, when all's said, this auld
history's got two sides to it--'specially if you remember that 't was
through John Grimbal's awn act I had to do wan wrong thing to save you
doin' a worse wan. He'll have to be reasonable likewise. 'T is man to
man."

Will's conversation lasted another hour, but Phoebe could not shake his
determination, and after dinner Blanchard departed to the Red House, his
destination being known to his wife only.

But while Will marched upon this errand, the man he desired to see had
just left his own front door, struck through leafless coppices of larch
and silver beech that approached the house, and then proceeded to where
bigger timber stood about a little plateau of marshy land, surrounded by
tall flags. The woodlands had paid their debt to Nature in good gold,
and all the trees were naked. An east wind lent a hard, clean clearness
to the country. In the foreground two little lakes spread their waters
steel-grey in a cup of lead; the distance was clear and cold and compact
of all sober colours save only where, through a grey and interlacing
nakedness of many boughs, the roof of the Red House rose.

John Grimbal sat upon a felled tree beside the pools, and while he
remained motionless, his pipe unlighted, his gun beside him, a spaniel
worked below in the sere sedges at the water's margin. Presently the dog
barked, a moor-hen splashed, half flying, half swimming, across the
larger lake,