Clement Hicks spoke in an educated voice. He was smaller than Will but evidently older. Somewhat narrow of build and thin, he looked delicate, though in reality wiry and sound. He was dark of complexion, wore his hair long for a cottager, and kept both moustache and beard, though the latter was very scant and showed the outline of his small chin through it. A forehead remarkably lofty but not broad, mounted almost perpendicularly above the man's eyes; and these were large and dark and full of fire, though marred by a discontented expression. His mouth was full-lipped, his other features huddled rather meanly together under the high brow: but his face, while admittedly plain even to ugliness, was not commonplace; for its eyes were remarkable, and the cast of thought ennobled it as a whole. Will entered the cottage kitchen and began instantly to unfold his experiences. "You knaw me--a man with a level head, as leaps after looking, not afore. I put nothing but plain reason to him and he flouted me like you might a cheel. An' I be gwaine to make him eat his words--such hard words as they was tu! Think of it! Me an' Phoebe never to meet no more! The folly of sayin' such a thing! Wouldn't 'e reckon that grey hairs knawed better than to fancy words can keep lovers apart?" "Grey hairs cover old brains; and old brains forget what it feels like to have a body full o' young blood. The best memory can't keep the feeling of youth fresh in a man." "Well, I ban't the hot-headed twoad Miller Lyddon thinks, or pretends he thinks, anyway. I'll shaw un! I can wait, an' Phoebe can wait, an' now she'll have to. I'm gwaine away." "Going away. Why?" "To shaw what 's in me. I ban't sorry for this for some things. Now no man shall say that I'm a home-stayin' gaby, tramping up an' down Teign Vale for a living. I'll step out into the wide world, same as them Grimbals done. They 'm back again made of money, the pair of 'em." "It took them fifteen years and more, and they were marvellously lucky." "What then? I'm as like to fare well as they. I've worked out a far-reaching plan, but the first step I've thought on 's terrible coorious, an' I reckon nobody but you'd see how it led to better things. But you 'm book-larned and wise in your way, though I wish your wisdom had done more for yourself than it has. Anyway, you 'm tokened to Chris and will be one of the family some day perhaps when Mother Coomstock dies, so I'll leave my secret with you. But not a soul else--not mother even. So you must swear you'll never tell to man or woman or cheel what I've done and wheer I be gone." "I'll swear if you like." "By the livin' God." "By any God you believe is alive." "Say it, then." "By the living God, I, Clement Hicks, bee-master of Chagford, Devon, swear to keep the secret of my friend and neighbour, William Blanchard, whatever it is." "And may He tear the life out of you if you so much as think to tell." Hicks laughed and shook his hair from his forehead.