"I'll shaw you dark hovers, wheer braave feesh be lying yet," promised
Will; and the angler thanked him, foretelling a great friendship. Yet
his eyes rarely roamed from Phoebe, and anon, as all three proceeded,
John Grimbal stopped at the gate of Monks Barton and held the girl in
conversation awhile. But first he despatched Will homewards with a
message for his mother. "Let Mrs. Blanchard know we'll feed at seven
o'clock off the best that she can get," he said; "and tell her not to
bother about the liquor. I'll see to that myself."




CHAPTER II

A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING


Monks Barton, or Barton Monachorum, as the farm was called in a Tudor
perambulation of Chagford, owed its name to traditions that holy men
aforetime dwelt there, performed saintly deeds, and blessed a spring in
the adjacent woods, whose waters from that date ever proved a magical
medicament for "striking" of sore eyes. That the lands of the valley had
once been in monastic possession was, however, probable enough; and some
portions of the old farm did in truth rise upon the ruins of a still
more ancient habitation long vanished. Monks Barton stood, a picturesque
agglomeration of buildings, beside the river. The mill-wheel, fed by a
stream taken from the Teign some distance up the valley and here
returned again to the parent water, thundered on its solemn round in an
eternal twinkling twilight of dripping ferns and green mosses; while