“Surely you’ve got your son’s good at heart? Think what ’tis for Dick to see that wicked girl coolin’, coolin’, by inches. Gall for him, poor dear.” But the man only laughed sleepily. “Strongest wins in this world. If Richard ban’t stout enough to keep his woman by his own arts, us can’t help him.” “You might send this young chap ’bout his business.” “An’ fling away two pound a week? No, fay! Girls is easier picked up than two pound a week. Let Dick do what’s in him. He ban’t ’feard of that slack-twisted, yellow-haired chap, be he? Let him show the maiden which is the better man, an’ not come bleating to his mother, like a hungry lamb to a ewe.” “He never comed hisself.” “Well, what’s to hinder him from using his fistes? Nought brings a man down in a girl’s eyes like a good hiding. Let ’em settle it same way as the tomcats do.” “I do b’lieve your heart be made o’ moor stone.” “Good job if ’twas. Ban’t no use being built o’ putty, nor yet o’ pity, ’pon Dartymoor. Now shut your clack, an’ let me go to sleep.” The woman sighed, and closed her eyes. “I’ll tell Dick what you say. Good night, master.” CHAPTER V Anthony Maybridge had in truth discovered that everything depends upon the point of view. What was a deed past understanding in one woman, appeared to him quite defensible for another. He had grown into a very steady admiration of Jane Stanberry, and he told himself that her attachment to the warrener was a serious error. This he firmly believed, apart from the other question of his personal regard for Jane. He discussed the matter with a grand impartiality, and felt confident that her future must be ruined if shared with such a surly and cross-grained churl as Richard Daccombe. Presently he expressed the same fear to Jane herself, and she was much astonished to find no great indignation flame up in her mind before such a proposition. She confessed the thought had occurred to her, and asked Anthony how it could have struck him also. Whereupon he declared that his suspicion was awakened solely from disinterested regard for her welfare and future happiness. In brief, a situation stale enough developed, with that brisk growth to be observed in all similar complications when they are exhibited by primitive natures. Such seeds grow in virgin and uncultured hearts with a rapidity not manifest where the subjects are sophisticated and bound about with the etiquette of their order. Jane Stanberry observed the radical differences between these men; she found Dick’s cloudy spirit and gloomy nature grow daily darker by contrast with the generous and sanguine temperament of Anthony. Indeed, Richard did grow more morose, as was to be expected, while he watched such a play develop and apparently stood powerless as any other spectator to change the plot of it.