Sam Bonus appeared the incarnation of red Devon earth, built up on solid beef and mutton.  His tanned face was framed in crisp black hair that no razor had ever touched; his eyes were deep-set and bright; his narrow brow was wrinkled, not with thought, but as the ape’s.  A remarkably tall and powerful frame supported Sam’s little head.  He laboured like a horse and gave as little trouble, triumphed in feats of brute strength, laughed at a day’s work, never knew ache or pain.  He had always greatly admired Blanchard, and, faced with the tempting bait of a florin a week more than his present wage, abandoned Monks Barton and readily followed Will to the Moor.  His defection was greatly deplored, and though Will told Mr. Blee what he intended beforehand, and made no secret of his design to secure Sam if possible, Billy discredited the information until too late.  Then the miller heard of his loss, and, not unnaturally, took the business ill.

“Gormed if it ban’t open robbery!” declared Mr. Blee, as he sat and discussed the matter with his master one evening, “an’ the thankless, ill-convenient twoad to go to Blanchard, of all men!”

“He’ll be out of work again soon enough.  And he needn’t come back to me when he is.  I won’t take him on no more.”

“’Twould be contrary to human nature if you did.”

“Human nature!” snapped the miller, with extreme irritation. “’Twould puzzle Solomon to say what’s come over human nature of late days.”

“‘Tis a nut wi’ a maggot in it,” mused Billy:  “three parts rotten, the rest sweet.  An’ all owing to fantastic inventions an’ new ways of believin’ in God wi’out church-gwaine, as parson said Sunday.  Such things do certainly Play hell with human nature, in a manner o’ speakin’.  I reckon the uprising men an’ women’s wickeder than us, as sucked our mothers in quieter times afore the railroads.”

“Bonus is such a fule!” said Mr. Lyddon, harking back to his loss.  “Yet I thought he belonged to the gude old-fashioned sort.”

“I told un he was out in his reckoning, that he’d be left in the cold bimebye, so sure as Blanchard was Blanchard and Newtake was Newtake; but he awnly girned his gert, ear-wide girn, an’ said he knawed better.”

“To think of more gude money bein’ buried up theer!  You’ve heard my view of all ground wi’ granite under it.  Such a deal ought to have been done wi’ that thousand pound.”

“Oughts are noughts, onless they’ve strokes to ’em,” declared Billy.  “’Tis a poor lookout, for he’m the sort as buys experience in the hardest market.  Then, when it’s got, he’ll be a pauper man, with what he knaws useless for want o’ what’s spent gettin’ it.  Theer’s the thought o’ Miss Phoebe, tu,—­Mrs. Blanchard, I should say.  Caan’t see her biding up to Newtake nohow, come the hard weather.”

“‘Wedlock an’ winter tames maids an’ beastes,’” said Mr. Lyddon bitterly.  “A true saw that.”

“Ess; an’ when ‘tis wedlock wi’ Blanchard, an’ winter on Dartymoor, ’twould tame the daughter of the Dowl, if he had wan.”