ight happen, he was determined to give himself up on the
following day. He had done all he could for those he loved, but he was
powerless to suffer more. He longed now to trample his foe into the
dust, and, that accomplished, he would depart, well satisfied, and
receive what punishment was due. His accumulated wrongs must be paid at
last, and he fully determined, an hour before John Grimbal came
homewards, that the payment should be such as he himself had received
long years before on Rushford Bridge. His muscles throbbed for action as
he sat and waited at the top of a sloping bank dotted with hawthorns
that extended upwards from the edge of the avenue and terminated on the
fringe of young coverts.

And now, by a chance not uncommon, two separate series of circumstances
were about to clash, while the shock engendered was destined to
precipitate the climax of Will Blanchard's fortunes, in so far as this
record is concerned. On the night that he thus raged and suffered the
gall bred of long inaction to overflow, John Grimbal likewise came to a
sudden conclusion with himself, and committed a deed of nature definite
so far as it went.

In connection with the approaching Jubilee rejoicings a spirit in some
sense martial filled the air, and Grimbal with his yeomanry was destined
to play a part. A transient comet-blaze of militarism often sparkles
over fighting nations at any season of universal joy, and that more
especially if the keystone of the land's constitution be a crown. This
fire found material inflammable enough in the hearts of many Devonshire
men, and before its warm impulse John Grimbal, inspired by a particular
occasion, compounded with his soul at last. Rumoured on long tongues
from the village ale-house, there had come to his ears the report of
certain ill-considered utterances made by his enemy upon the events of
the hour. They were only a hot-headed and very miserable man's foolish
comments upon things in general and the approaching festival in
particular, and they served but to illustrate the fact that no
ill-educated and passionate soul can tolerate universal rejoicings,
itself wretched; but Grimbal clutched at this proven disloyalty of an
old deserter, and told himself that personal questions must weigh with
him no more.

"The sort of discontented brute that drifts into Socialism and all
manner of wickedness," he thought. "The rascal must be muzzled once for
all, and as a friend to the community I shall