Part 66 (2/2)
”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 circ.u.mstances that followed his marriage. Long he took in detailing every incident and circ.u.mstance.
”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 pa.s.sed, 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, but 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. G.o.d 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.
<script>