ath overtook him and put a period to his ambitions. He was snatched
from mundane affairs leaving numerous schemes half developed and most of
his money embarked in various enterprises. Unhappily Will was too young
to continue his father's work, and though Mrs. Blanchard's brother, Joel
Ford, administered the little estate to the best of his power, much had
to be sacrificed. In the sequel Damaris found herself with a cottage, a
garden, and an annual income of about fifty pounds a year. Her son was
then twelve years of age, her daughter eighteen months younger. So she
lived quietly and not without happiness, after the first sorrow of her
husband's loss was in a measure softened by time.

Of Mr. Joel Ford it now becomes necessary to speak. Combining the duties
of attorney, house-agent, registrar of deaths, births, and marriages,
and receiver of taxes and debts, the man lived a dingy life at Newton
Abbot. Acid, cynical, and bald he was, very dry of mind and body, and
but ten years older than Mrs. Blanchard, though he looked nearer seventy
than sixty. To the Newton mind Mr. Ford was associated only with Quarter
Day--that black, recurrent cloud on the horizon of every poor man's
life. He dwelt with an elderly housekeeper--a widow of genial
disposition; and indeed the attorney himself was not lacking in some
urbanity of character, though few guessed it, for he kept all that was
best in himself hidden under an unlovely crust. His better instincts
took the shape of family affection. Damaris Blanchard and he were the
last branches of one of the innumerable families of Ford to be found in
Devon, and he had no small regard for his only living sister. His annual
holiday from business--a period of a fortnight, sometimes extended to
three weeks if the weather was more than commonly fair--he spent
habitually at Chagford; and Will on these occasions devoted his leisure
to his uncle, drove him on the Moor, and made him welcome. Will, indeed,
was a favourite with Mr. Ford, and the lad's high spirits, real
ignorance of the world, and eternal grave assumption of wisdom even
tickled the man of business into a sort of dry cricket laughter upon
occasions. When, therefore, a fortnight after young Blanchard's
mysterious disappearance, Joel Ford arrived at his sister's cottage for
the annual visit, he was as much concerned as his nature had power to
make him at the news.

For three weeks he stayed, missing the company of his nephew not a
little;