glumpy, and of course I didn't know 'e from Adam. I'm Will Blanchard."

"Never mind, Will, we'll try again some day. I could wrestle a bit once,
and learned a new trick or two from a Yankee in Africa."

"You've come back 'mazin' rich they say, Jan Grimbal?"

"So, so. Not millionaires, but all right--both of us, though I'm the
snug man of the two. We got to Africa at the right moment, before 1867,
you know, the year that O'Reilly saw a nigger-child playing with the
first Kimberley diamond ever found. Up we went, the pair of us. Things
have hummed since then, and claims and half-claims and quarter-claims
are coming to be worth a Jew's eye. We're all right, anyway, and I've
got a stake out there yet."

"You 'm well pleased to come back to dear li'l Chagford after so many
years of foreign paarts, I should think, Mr. Grimbal?" said Phoebe.

"Ay, that I am. There's no place like Devon, in all the earth, and no
spot like Chagford in Devon. I'm too hard grit to wink an eyelid at
sight of the old scenes again myself; but Martin, when he caught first
sight of great rolling Cosdon crowning the land--why, his eyes were
wetted, if you'll believe it."

"And you comed right off to fish the river fust thing," said Will
admiringly.

"Ay, couldn't help it. When I heard the water calling, it was more than
my power to keep away. But you're cruel short of rain, seemingly, and
of course the season 's nearly over."