Timothy Blanchard continued a wandering existence for the space of five years after his marriage; then he sold his caravans, settled in Chagford, bought the cottage by the river, rented some market-garden land, and pursued his busy and industrious way. Thus he prospered through ten more years, saving money, developing a variety of schemes, letting out on hire a steam thresher, and in various other ways adding to his store. The man was on the high road to genuine prosperity when death 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; and his residence in Chagford had needed no special comment save for an important incident resulting therefrom.
Phoebe Lyddon it was who in all innocence and ignorance set rolling a pebble that finally fell in thundering avalanches; and her chance word was uttered at her father’s table on an occasion when John and Martin Grimbal were supping at Monks Barton.
The returned natives, and more especially the elder, had been much at the mill since their reappearance. John, indeed, upon one pretext or another, scarcely spent a day without calling. His rough kindness appealed to Phoebe, who at first suspected no danger from it, while Mr. Lyddon encouraged the man and made him and his brother welcome at all times.
John Grimbal, upon the morning that preceded the present supper party, had at last found a property to his taste. It might, indeed, have been designed for him. Near Whiddon it lay, in the valley of the Moreton Road, and consisted of a farm and the ruin of a Tudor mansion. The latter had been tenanted until the dawn of this century, but was since then fallen into decay. The farm lands stretched beneath the crown of Cranbrook, hard by the historic “Bloody Meadow,” a spot assigned to that skirmish between Royalist and Parliamentary forces during 1642 which cost brilliant young Sidney Godolphin his life. Here, or near at hand, the young man probably fell, with a musket-bullet in his leg, and subsequently expired at Chagford.1 leaving the “misfortune of his death upon a place which could never otherwise have had a mention to the world,” according to caustic Chancellor Clarendon.
Upon the aforesaid ruins, fashioned after the form of a great E, out of compliment to the sovereign who occupied the throne at the period of the decayed fabric’s erection, John Grimbal proposed to build his habitation of red brick and tile. The pertaining farm already had a tenant, and represented four hundred acres of arable land, with possibilities of development; snug woods wound along the boundaries of the estate and mingled their branches with others not more stately though sprung from the nobler domain of Whiddon; and Chagford was distant but a mile, or five minutes’ ride.
Tongues wagged that evening concerning the Red House, as the ruin was called, and a question arose as to whom John Grimbal must apply for information respecting the property.
“I noted on the board two names—one in London, one handy at Newton Abbot—a Mr. Joel Ford, of Wolborough Street.”
Phoebe blushed where she sat and very nearly said, “My Will’s uncle!” but thought better of it and kept silent. Meanwhile her father answered.
“Ford’s an attorney, Mrs. Blanchard’s brother, a maker of agreements between man and man, and a dusty, dry sort of chip, from all I’ve heard tell. His father and mine were friends forty years and more agone. Old Ford had Newtake Farm on the Moor, and wore his fingers to the bone that his son might have good schooling and a learned profession.”
“He’s in Chagford this very minute,” said Phoebe.
Then Mr. Blee spoke. On the occasion of any entertainment at Monks Barton he waited at table instead of eating with the family as usual. Now he addressed the company from his station behind Mr. Lyddon’s chair.
“Joel Ford’s biding with his sister. A wonderful deep man, to my certain knowledge, an’ wears a merchant-like coat an’ shiny hat working days an’ Sabbaths alike. A snug man, I’ll wager, if ’t is awnly by the token of broadcloth on week-days.”
“He looks for all the world like a yellow, shrivelled parchment himself. Regular gimlet eyes, too, and a very fitch for sharpness, though younger than his appearance might make you fancy,” said the miller.
“Then I’ll pay him a visit and see how things stand,” declared John. “Not that I’d employ any but my own London lawyer, of course,” he added, “but this old chap can give me the information I require; no doubt.”
“Ess fay! an’ draw you a dockyment in all the cautiousness of the law’s language,” promised Billy Blee. “ ’T is a fact makes me mazed every time I think of it,” he continued, “that mere fleeting ink on the skin tored off a calf can be so set out to last to the trump of doom. Theer be parchments that laugh at the Queen’s awn Privy Council and make the Court of Parliament look a mere fule afore ’em. But it doan’t do to be ’feared o’ far-reachin’ oaths when you ’m signing such a matter, for ’t is in the essence of ’em that the parties should swear deep.”
“I’ll mind what you say, Billy,” promised Grimbal; “I’ll pump old Ford as dry as I can, then be off to London and get such a good, binding deed of purchase as you suggest.”
And it was this determination that presently led to a violent breach between the young man and his elder.
John waited upon Mr. Ford, at Mrs. Blanchard’s cottage, where he had first lodged with his brother on their return from abroad, and found the lawyer exceedingly pleasant when he learned the object of Grimbal’s visit. Together they drove over to the Red House, and its intending tenant soon heard all there was to tell respecting price and the provisions under which the estate