ago comed to me just a month since. A month 't
was, or might be three weeks. Like a bolt from the blue it falled 'pon
me an' that's a fact. An' I heard how you knawed the thing--you as had
such gude cause to hate un wance."

"'Once?'"

"Well, no man's hate can outlive his reason, surely? I was with 'e, tu,
then; but a man what lets himself suffer lifelong trouble from a fule be
a fule himself. Not that Blanchard 's all fule--far from it. He've
ripened a little of late years--though slowly as fruit in a wet summer.
Granted he bested you in the past an' your natural hope an' prayer was
to be upsides wi' un some day. Well, that's all dead an' buried, ban't
it? I hated the shadow of un in them days so bad as ever you did; but
you gets to see more of the world, an' the men that walks in it when you
'm moved away from things by the distance of a few years. Then you find
how wan deed bears upon t' other. Will done no more than you'd 'a' done
if the cases was altered. In fact, you 'm alike at some points, come to
think of it."

"Is that what you've walked over here to tell me?"

"No; I'm here to ax 'e frank an' plain, as a sportsman an' a straight
man wi' a gude heart most times, to tell me what you 'm gwaine to do
'bout this job. I'm auld, an' I assure 'e you'll hate yourself if you
give un up. 'T would be outside your carater to do it."

"You say that! Would you harbour a convict from Princetown if you found
him hiding on your farm?"

"Ban't a like case. Theer 's the personal point of view, if you
onderstand me. A man deserts from the army ten years ago, an' you, a
sort o' amateur soldier, feels 't is your duty to give un to justice."

"Well, isn't that what has happened?"

"No fay! Nothing of the sort. If 't was your duty, why didn't you do it
fust minute you found it out? If you'd writ to the authorities an' gived
the man up fust moment, I might have said 't was a hard deed, but I'd
never have dared to say 't weern't just. Awnly you done no such thing.
You nursed the power an' sucked the thought, same as furriners suck at
poppy poison. You played with the picture of revenge against a man you
hated, an' let the idea of what you'd do fill your brain; an' then, when
you wanted bigger doses, you told Phoebe what you knawed--reckoning as
she'd tell Will bimebye. That's bad, Jan Grimbal--worse than poisoning
foxes, by God! An' you knaw it."

"Who are you, to judge me and my motives?"

"An auld man, an' wan as be deep