, and hoped that some word
might fall to indicate their ancient enmity dead, John said nothing, and
his blue eyes were hard and as devoid of all emotion as turquoise beads
when they met the farmer's face for one fraction of time.

Before this incident, however, there had arisen upon Will's life the
splendour of paternity. A time came when, through one endless night and
silver April morning, he had tramped his kitchen floor as a tiger its
cage, and left a scratched pathway on the stones. Then his mother hasted
from aloft and reported the arrival of a rare baby boy.

"Phoebe 's doin' braave, an' she prays of 'e to go downlong fust thing
an' tell Miller all 's well. Doctor Parsons hisself says 't is a 'mazing
fine cheel, so it ban't any mere word of mine as wouldn't weigh, me
bein' the gran'mother."

They talked a little while of the newcomer, then, thankful for an
opportunity to be active after his long suspense, the father hurried
away, mounted a horse, and soon rattled down the valleys into Chagford,
at a pace which found his beast dead lame on the following day. Mighty
was the exhilaration of that wild gallop as he sped past cot and farm
under morning sunshine with his great news. Labouring men and chance
wayfarers were overtaken from time to time. Some Will knew, some he had
never seen, but to the ear of each and all without discrimination he
shouted his intelligence. Not a few waved their hats and nodded and
remembered the great day in their own lives; one laughed and cried
"Bravo!" sundry, who knew him not, marvelled and took him for a lunatic.

Arrived at Chagford, familiar forms greeted Will in the market-place,
and again he bawled his information without dismounting.

"A son 'tis, Chapple--comed an hour ago--a brave li'l bwoy, so they
tell!"

"Gude luck to it, then! An' now you'm a parent, you must--"

But Will was out of earshot, and Mr. Chapple wasted no more breath.

Into Monks Barton the farmer presently clattered, threw himself off his
horse, tramped indoors, and shouted for his father-in-law in tones that
made the oak beams ring. Then the miller, with Mr. Blee behind him,
hastened to hear what Will had come to tell.

"All right, all right with Phoebe?" were Mr. Lyddon's first words, and
he was white and shaking as he put the question.

"Right as ninepence, faither--gran'faither, I should say. A butivul li'l
man she've got--out o' the common fine, Parsons says, as ought to
knaw--fat as a slug wi'