“You hear that!” Maniwel dulled his perceptions to the want of warmth. “My bed’ll hold two, but tha’ll happen sleep better by thiself, and t’ sofa’ll hold me nicely....” “He’ll have my bed,” said Jagger, “so that’s settled.” Then he went over to his father and looked hard in his face. “Didn’t I tell you he was a devil?” he said; and Maniwel did not find the inquiry ambiguous. CHAPTER XXIII IN WHICH NANCY IS OVERWHELMED ALTHOUGH the excitements of a moorland village are ordinarily few in number and mild in quality they are of sturdy habit when they do occur, and too well cared for to die of inanition like the starved and overcrowded sensations of the towns. Rumour which flies on swift wing in the busy centres and is quickly chased away by denial, finds a comfortable breeding-ground in the lonely places, and is cherished by the natives, who regard it as a veritable bird of paradise with a voice of which only the echo is heard. Moreover a village is not as accommodating as a town; and the farther it is removed from industrial influences the less likely is it to view any sudden change with the philosophic calm which lowers its voice to whisper “The King is dead!” and forthwith raises it to shout “Long live the King!” Mawm furnished an illustration of both these facts. Baldwin Briggs had been a fixture in the village: a piece of grit hewn out of the side of their own bleak hills and therefore naturally rough and unyielding—even coarse. Nobody had cared for him very much, for there had been in his nature none of the kindliness that either begets or responds to kindliness; yet there had been no marked aversion on the part of his neighbours, who were aware that all sorts of natures like all sorts of rock enter into the composition of a world. If the truth may be told most of his acquaintances were secretly pleased when news came that Baldwin had lost a considerable portion of his money; and even when it was seen that the disaster was of greater magnitude than they had realised their attitude suffered little change. He had always made them uneasily conscious of his superiority as a man of means; the crash brought down the millstone grit from its proud position among the clouds to the level of the humbler and commoner limestone, and gave to every villager whom he had cursed or snubbed a comfortable sense of nearer equality. Providence was avenging these insults: it was not for them to find fault with Providence. When, however, the shock developed into an earthquake: when Providence took the unwelcome shape of this foreigner, Inman; Mawm scowled and muttered. To be driven from the devil he knew to the deep sea he distrusted was an experience no man had bargained for; and when the devil was such a broken-spirited boggart as Baldwin, the villagers’ sympathies warmed towards the man who was bone of their bone; for after all there is a vast difference between a devil and a poor devil.