Part 27 (2/2)
”Perhaps it's your nature to do worse. What were you about last Christmas?”
Blanchard set down knife and fork and looked the other in the face. None had heard this, for Bonus, his meal ended, went off to the little tallet over a cattle-byre which was his private apartment.
”You'd rip that up again--you, who swore never to open' your mouth upon it?”
”You're frightened now.”
”Not of you, anyway. But you'd best not to come up here no more. I'm weary of you; I don't fear you worse than a blind worm; but such as you are, you've grawed against me since my luck comed. I wish Chris would drop you as easy as I can, for you'm teachin' her to waste her life, same as you waste yours.”
”Very well, I'll go. We're enemies henceforth, since you wish it so.”
”Blamed if you ban't enough to weary Job! 'Enemies'! It's like a child talkin'. 'Enemies'! D'you think I care a d.a.m.n wan way or t'other? You'm so bad as Jan Grimbal wi' his big play-actin' talk. He'm gwaine to cut my tether some day. P'r'aps you'll go an' help un to do it! The past is done, an' no man who weern't devil all through would go back on such a oath as you sweared to me. An' you won't. As to what's to come, you can't hurt a straight plain-dealer, same as me, though you'm free an'
welcome to try if you please to.”
”The future may take care of itself; and for your straight speaking I'll give you mine. Go your way and I'll go my way; but until you beg my forgiveness for this night's talk I'll never cross your threshold again, or speak to you, or think of you.”
Clement rose from his unfinished food, picked up his hat, and vanished, and Will, dismissing the matter with a toss of his head and a contemptuous expiration of breath, gave the poet's plate of cold potato and bacon to a sheep-dog and lighted his pipe.
Not ten hours later, while yet some irritation at the beekeeper's spleen troubled Blanchard's thoughts as he laboured upon his land, a voice saluted him from the highway and he saw a friend.
”An' gude-marnin' to you, Martin. Another braave day, sure 'nough. Climb awver the hedge. You'm movin' early. Ban't eight o'clock.”
”I'm off to the 'Grey Wethers,' those old ruined circles under Sittaford Tor, you know. But I meant a visit to you as well. Bonus was in the farmyard and brought me with him.”
”Ess fay, us works, I tell 'e. We'm fightin' the rabbits now. The li'l varmints have had it all theer way tu long; but this wire netting'll keep 'em out the corn next year an' the turnips come autumn. How be you fearin'? I aint seen 'e this longful time.”
”Well, thank you; and as busy as you in my way. I'm going to write a book about the Dartmoor stones.”
”'S truth! Be you? Who'll read it?”
”Don't know yet. And, after all, I have found out little that sharper eyes haven't discovered already. Still, it fills my time. And it is that I'm here about.”
”You can go down awver my land to the hut-circles an' welcome whenever you mind to.”
”Sure of it, and thank you; but it's another thing just now--your brother-in-law to be. I think perhaps, if he has leisure, he might be useful to me. A very clever fellow, Hicks.”
But Will was in no humour to hear Clement praised just then, or suggest schemes for his advancement.
”He'm a weak sapling of a man, if you ax me. Allus grumblin', an' soft wi' it--as I knaw--none better,” said Blanchard, watching Bonus struggle with the rabbit netting.
”He's out of his element, I think--a student--a bookish man, like myself.”
”As like you as chalk's like cheese--no more. His temper, tu! A bull in spring's a fule to him. I'm weary of him an' his cleverness.”
”You see, if I may venture to say so, Chris--”
”I knaw all 'bout that. 'Tis like your gudeness to try an' put a li'l money in his pocket wi'out stepping on his corns. They 'm tokened. Young people 's so muddle-headed. Bees indeed! Nice things to keep a wife an'
<script>