at 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 damn 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 au