Children of the Mist | Page 5

rose again, shook the sand off his face, and licked his hands.
"Good Devon, sure enough, my son; now I'll teach you something you never heard tell of, and break your damned fool's neck for you into the bargain!"
But Phoebe, who had wandered slowly on, returned quickly at the sound of the scuffle and high words. Now she fluttered between the combatants and rendered any further encounter for the time impossible. They could not close again with the girl between them, and the stranger, his anger holding its breath, glanced at her with sudden interest, stayed his angry growl, suffered rage to wane out of his eyes and frank admiration to appear in them.
"Doan't be fighting!" cried Phoebe. "Whatever's the mischief, Will? Do bate your speed of hand! You've thrawed the gentleman down, seemin'ly."
"Wheer 's his ticket to then?"
"Why, it isn't Miller Lyddon's young maid, surely!" burst out the fisherman; "not Phoebe grown to woman!"
A Devon accent marked the speech, suddenly dragged from him by surprise.
"Ess, I be Phoebe Lyddon; but don't 'e fall 'pon each other again, for the Lard's sake," she said.
"The boy 's as tetchy in temper as a broody hen. I was only joking all the time, and see how he made me pay for my joke. But to think I should remember you! Grown from bud to pretty blossom, by God! And I danced you on my knee last time I saw you!"
"Then you 'm wan of they two Grimbal brothers as was to be home again in Chagford to-day!" exclaimed Will.
"That's so; Martin and I landed at Plymouth yesterday. We got to Chagford early this morning."
Will laughed.
"I never!" he said. "Why, you be lodging with my awn mother at the cottage above Rushford Bridge! You was expected this marnin', but I couldn't wait for 'e. You 'm Jan Grimbal--eh?"
"Right! And you're a nice host, to be sure!"
"'T is solemn truth, you 'm biding under our roof, the 'Three Crowns' bein' full just now. And I'm sorry I thrawed 'e; but you was that glumpy, and of course I didn't know 'e from Adam. I'm Will Blanchard."
"Never mind, Will, we'll try again some day. I could wrestle a bit once, and learned a new trick or two from a Yankee in Africa."
"You've come back 'mazin' rich they say, Jan Grimbal?"
"So, so. Not millionaires, but all right--both of us, though I'm the snug man of the two. We got to Africa at the right moment, before 1867, you know, the year that O'Reilly saw a nigger-child playing with the first Kimberley diamond ever found. Up we went, the pair of us. Things have hummed since then, and claims and half-claims and quarter-claims are coming to be worth a Jew's eye. We're all right, anyway, and I've got a stake out there yet."
"You 'm well pleased to come back to dear li'l Chagford after so many years of foreign paarts, I should think, Mr. Grimbal?" said Phoebe.
"Ay, that I am. There's no place like Devon, in all the earth, and no spot like Chagford in Devon. I'm too hard grit to wink an eyelid at sight of the old scenes again myself; but Martin, when he caught first sight of great rolling Cosdon crowning the land--why, his eyes were wetted, if you'll believe it."
"And you comed right off to fish the river fust thing," said Will admiringly.
"Ay, couldn't help it. When I heard the water calling, it was more than my power to keep away. But you're cruel short of rain, seemingly, and of course the season 's nearly over."
"I'll shaw you dark hovers, wheer braave feesh be lying yet," promised Will; and the angler thanked him, foretelling a great friendship. Yet his eyes rarely roamed from Phoebe, and anon, as all three proceeded, John Grimbal stopped at the gate of Monks Barton and held the girl in conversation awhile. But first he despatched Will homewards with a message for his mother. "Let Mrs. Blanchard know we'll feed at seven o'clock off the best that she can get," he said; "and tell her not to bother about the liquor. I'll see to that myself."

CHAPTER II
A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING
Monks Barton, or Barton Monachorum, as the farm was called in a Tudor perambulation of Chagford, owed its name to traditions that holy men aforetime dwelt there, performed saintly deeds, and blessed a spring in the adjacent woods, whose waters from that date ever proved a magical medicament for "striking" of sore eyes. That the lands of the valley had once been in monastic possession was, however, probable enough; and some portions of the old farm did in truth rise upon the ruins of a still more ancient habitation long vanished. Monks Barton stood, a picturesque agglomeration of buildings, beside the river. The mill-wheel, fed by a stream taken from the Teign