Surely few things be sillier than the way we let human nature surprise us. For my part ’tis only the expected that ever astonishes me, for men and women have grown so terrible tricky and jumpy and irregular nowadays, along of better education and one thing and another, that you didn’t ought to expect anything but the unexpected from ’em. And I never do.

So when Jenny Pardoe took Nicky White I dare say I was the only party in Little Silver that didn’t raise an upstore and cackle about it, because to the common mind it was a proper shock, while to me, in my far-seeing way, I knew that, just because it was the last thing on earth you might have thought Jenny would do, it might be looked for pretty confident. She could have had the pick of the basket, for there was a good few snug men took by her nice figure and blue eyes and fine plucky nature; but no: she turned ’em all down and fell in love with Nicky White, or ‘Spider,’ as the man was called by all that knew him, that being the only possible name for the creature.

Under-sized, excitable and small-minded was ‘Spider.’ He had breadth and strength of body, but no more intellects than please God he wanted. He was so black as if he’d been soaked in a peat bog black hair, black eyes, black moustache and black beard. A short, noisy man with long arms and hair so thick as soot on ’em. He owned Beech Cot on Merripit Hill when his mother died, and there he took Jenny after they was wed; and the people called ’em Beauty and the Beast.

Not that there was anything right-down beastly about Nicky but his spidery appearance. He would be kind to childer and never picked a quarrel with nobody too cowardly for that; but he was ugly as they make ’em and a sulky fashion of man. He had a silly, sensitive nature and a suspicious bent of mind. Such a man, with a wife as pretty as a June morning, was like to put a bit of a strain upon her; and he did, no doubt; for Nicky found himself cruel jealous of mankind in general where Jenny was concerned, and though there weren’t no shadow of reason for it, he kept her mighty close and didn’t like to think of her gossiping with the neighbours when he was away to work. At first she was rather pleased with this side of her husband, thinking jealousy a good advertisement, because it showed how properly he loved her; and there’s no doubt no ugly little man ever had a more faithful and adoring wife. She thought the world of him and always said he was wonderful clever and much undervalued and good for far more important work and bigger money than ever he’d reached to. But that was her love blinding the woman, because in truth Spider had terrible poor thinking parts, and to cut peat, or cut fern, or lend a hand with a dry-built wall, or such-like heavy work was pretty much all as he could be trusted to do. And none the worse for that, of course. There’s lots of work for good fools in the world; and there’s lots of good fools to do it, if only the knaves would let ’em alone.

Well, all went proper enough with the Whites till Solomon Chuff came to Vitifer Mine as foreman, and he got to know ’em, and Jenny liked the man because he put her in mind of her dead father. He was ten years older than Spider a big, handsome, clever chap with no vices in him; but there’s no doubt he did like Jenny and found her suit him amazing well; and such was his innocence of all evil that once or twice he offered Spider a chance to growl. Once, for example, he over-got Jenny in the road by night and gave her a lift home in his trap. An innocent deed in all conscience, but Nicky didn’t think so; for jealousy working in a silly man soon unseats his wits.

I pointed out to Spider, who was soon rampaging about him behind Chuff’s back, that he had nought to fear. Because if the miner had been crooked, he’d have took care to give Jenny’s husband no call for alarm.

“’Tis granted,” I said, “that any wife can hoodwink any husband if she wants to do so. No woman’s such a fool but she’s equal to that. In your case, however, you’ve got a partner that would sooner die and drop into her coffin than do anything to bring a frown to her husband’s face, or a pang to his heart; while as for Solomon Chuff, he’s far ways off the sort of man you think him, a more decent and God-fearing chapel member you’ll not find.”

But wisdom couldn’t live with Spider. He was made to flout it and go his own sheep-headed way. He hadn’t the pluck to stand up to Chuff and explain his grievances and tell the man he’d kill him if ever he crossed his threshold again, or ought honest and open like that. Instead he sulked and plotted awful things quite beyond his powers to perform; and then finally the crash came six months after he’d glumped and glowered over his silly fancies.

Spider went fishing one Saturday afternoon when the Dart was in spate and the weather fierce and wild. He’d been wild and fierce himself for a week, as his wife told after; but she didn’t trouble about his vagaries and never loved him better than when he went off to catch some trout for her that dark afternoon in March. But he didn’t return, and when she came down after dark to her aunt, Maria Pardoe, the washerwoman at Little Silver, and made a fearful stir about the missing man, the people felt sorry for her, and a dozen chaps went down the river to find Spider and fetch him along. His rod they found, and his basket and his bottle of lob-worms on the bank above a deep pool, but they didn’t see a hair of the man himself; and when the next day came and a proper police search was started, nothing appeared, and it seemed terrible clear that Jenny’s husband was a goner.

Some thought he’d just fallen in by chance and been swept to his death in the flood; while others, knowing the fool he was, whispered that he’d took his silly life along of fears concerning Solomon Chuff. But for my part I never thought so, because Spider hadn’t got the courage to shorten his own thread. He was the sort that threaten to do it if they lose a halfpenny; but they don’t perform. I reckoned he’d slipped in the bad light and gone under with none to save, and fallen in the river and been drowned like many another spider afore him.

Months passed and Jenny was counted a widow; but though she mourned like one and wore her black, she never could feel quite sure about her state; and when Bill Westaway, the miller’s son, began to push into her company, she gave him to understand ’twas far too soon for any thoughts in his direction. In fact you might say she worshipped her husband’s memory as her most cherished possession, and now he was gone, she never wearied of his virtues, and wept at the mention of his name. She’d had two years of him before he went, and there weren’t no family and nothing to remind her of him but her own faithful heart. Never a worthless imp won a better woman.

And then after a full year was told happened the next thing. I well mind the morning Jenny come over to me, where I was digging a bit of manure into my garden against seed planting. A March day it was, with a soft mist on the moor and the plovers crying behind it, like kittens that want their mother.

“Might I have a tell, Mr. Bates?” she said.

“You might,” I answered, “and I’ll rest my back and light my pipe while you do so.”

She was on the way to her aunt’s wash-house, where she worked Mondays.

“’Tis like this,” she said. “I’ve had a very strange, secret sort of a letter, Mr. Bates. It’s signed ‘Well Wisher,’ and I believe it’s true. Thank God I’m sure if it is.”

She handed me the letter and I read it. There weren’t much to it so far as the length, but it meant a powerful lot for Jenny. It ran like this:

Dear Mrs. White, your husband’s working to Meldon Quarry, so don’t you marry nobody else. Well Wisher.

“Say you believe it,” begged the woman, when I handed her letter back to her.

“Whether ’tis true or not can quickly be proved,” I answered. “And if it’s true, then Spider’s foolisher and wickeder than I thought him.”

“I don’t care how wicked he is so long as he’s alive,” she said.

“His one excuse for leaving you was to be drownded in the Dart, and if he ain’t drownded, he’s done a damn shameful thing to desert you,” I told her. “However, you can put it to the proof. The world is full of little, black, ugly, hairy men like your husband, so you needn’t be too hopeful; but I do believe it’s true. Of course somebody may have seen his ghost; and to go and wander about at Meldon is just a silly thing his ghost might do; but I believe he’s there the fool.”

“Where’s Meldon Quarry?” she asked, and I told her.

“Beside Meldon Viaduct, on the railroad over Okehampton way. And what the mischief will you say to the wretch if you do find him?”

“Be very, very angry,” answered Jenny in a voice like a sucking dove.

“I’m sorry for Bill Westaway,” I said, “He’d have made a much finer husband for you.”

But she shook her head impatiently.

“I hate him!” she vowed. “I couldn’t say for why, exactly; but there’s something about him ”

“All’s fair in love,” I told her.

“I only love Nicky and I shall go to Meldon Quarry and not leave it again till he be found,” she promised. “And don’t tell Mr. Westaway, please. He’d be properly furious if he thought my dear husband wasn’t drownded after all.”

And at that moment if the miller’s son didn’t come along himself. A very tidy-looking chap, and a good worker, and a likely sort of man by all accounts. They left me and walked up the street together; and I heard afterwards what they talked about.

“How much longer are you going to hold off?” he asked. “You know I won’t let you marry anybody on God’s earth but me.”

Jenny hid the great hopes in her mind, for she doubted if she could trust Will with the news.

“How can I marry anybody until I know Nicky is dead?” she inquired of the man, as she often had before.

“If he’s alive, then that makes him a low-down villain, and you ought never to think of the creature again. If he’s alive, he’s happy without you. Happy without you think of that! But of course he’s not alive.”

“Until we know the solemn, certain truth about him I’m for no other man,” she told him; and her words seemed to give Will a notion.

“‘The truth about him’: that’s an idea,” he said.

“It is now a year since he went to fish and vanished off the earth,” went on Jenny. “I’ve sometimes thought that the people didn’t search half so carefully for the dear chap as what they might.”

“I did, I’ll swear. I hunted like an otter for the man.”

“You never loved my husband,” she said, shaking her head, and he granted it.

“Certainly I never did. Weren’t likely I could love the man who was your husband. But I tried to find Spider, and I’ll try again yes, faith! I’ll try again harder than ever. He’s in the river somewheres what be left of him. The rames of the man must be in the water round about where he was fishing.”

“What’s the use of talking cruel things like that?”

“Every use. Why, if I was to find enough to swear by, you could give him Christian burial,” said Will, who knew how to touch her the cunning blade. “Think of that a proper funeral for him and a proper gravestone in the churchyard. What would you give me if I was to fetch him ashore after all?”

Jenny White felt exceedingly safe with her promises now. She’d got a woman’s conviction, which be stronger than a man’s reason every time, that Spider was alive and kicking, and had run away for some fantastic jealousy or other foolishness. For the little man was always in extremes. She felt that once she faced him, she’d soon conquer and have him home in triumph very likely; and so she didn’t much care what she said to Will that morning. Besides, the thought of giving the man a job that would keep him out of her way, for a week perhaps, rather pleased her.

“I’ll give you anything I’ve got to give if you bring my poor Nicky’s bones to light,” she said. “But it’s impossible after all this time.”

Will Westaway’s mind was in full working order by now.

“Nought’s impossible to a man that loves a woman like what I love you,” he said. “How was the poor blade dressed the day he went to his death? Can you call home what he’d got on?”

“Every stitch down to his socks,” she answered. “He’d got his old billycock hat and his moleskin trousers and a flannel shirt dark blue and a red-wool muffler what I knitted him myself and made him wear because it was a cruel cold afternoon. And his socks was ginger-coloured. They was boughten socks from Mrs. Carslake’s shop of all sorts. He was cranky all that day and using awful crooked words to me. I believe he knew he weren’t coming back.”

“By God, he shall come back what’s left of him,” swore Will. “If it takes me ten year, I’ll go on till I find the skelington of your late husband or enough to prove he’s a dead ’un. He shall be found, if only to show you what my love’s worth, Jenny.”

“Looking for the little man’s bones in Dart would be like seeking a dead mouse in a haystack,” she said.

“Difficult, I grant, but nothing to the reward you’ve promised.”

“Well,” she told him, “you can have me, such as I am, if you find Nicky.”

Then she left William, and he turned over what she’d said. He was cunning and simple both, was Bill Westaway. He believed by now that Jenny really did begin to care a lot for him, and was giving him a chance in her own way to make good.

“An old billycock hat and a bit of red-wool muffler, the tail of a blue shirt, a pair of ginger-coloured socks,” he thought. “It don’t sound beyond the power of a witty man like me. But she’ll want more than that. Us must find a bone or two as a doctor could swear by.”

Full of dark, devilish ideas, the young man went his way; and Jenny got down the hill and walked in her aunt Maria Pardoe’s wash-house as usual.

But she weren’t herself by no means, and the first thing she done was to tear some frill-de-dills belonging to the parson’s wife. Then she had another accident and so she went to Maria the kindest woman on earth and told her aunt she weren’t feeling very clever this morning and thought she’d better go home. “’Tis just a year since Nicky was took, as we all know,” said Maria, “and no doubt you’m feeling wisht about it, my dear. But you must cut a loss like what your betters be often called to do. You must take another, Jenny, and be large-minded, and remember that there’s better fish in the river than ever came out.”

“Is Nicky in the river?” asked Mrs. White. “I’m powerful certain he ban’t, Aunt Maria.”

“He’s there,” said the old woman, cheerfully. “Don’t you worry about your first. He’ll rise at the Trump along of all of us. His Maker won’t forget even Nicky. And meantime he’s just so peaceful under water as he would be in the Yard. And when you think of the fiery nature of the man, what is there better than peace you could wish him?”

So Jenny went home and her great idea grew upon her, till by noon she’d built up her resolves and made ready for journeying.

And the very next day she was off and her house locked up, and a bit of paper with writing on it fixed up on the door.

Jenny White gone away for a bit. Please be kind to her yellow cat.

II

A good deal under the weather and terrible sorry for herself, Jenny set out to fetch over to Okehampton and see if her husband was alive or not. And if he was, it looked harder than ever to understand why for he’d left her. There weren’t but one explanation as she could see, and that didn’t make her feel no brighter. He’d done a thing only a madman would have done, which being so, he must be mad. She shed a good many tears on her way to find the man when she reached that conclusion; but Nicky mad was better than no Nicky at all in her opinion, and such was her faithful love for the ugly little monkey that she held on and prayed to God in the train all the way from Tavistock to Okehampton that Nicky might yet be saved alive and be brought back to his right mind. Because Jenny knew folk went mad and then recovered. So she was pretty cheerful again afore she alighted off the train at Okehampton; and then she hired a trap down to the ‘White Hart’ hotel, and drove out to Meldon Quarry with a fine trust in her Maker. She left the trap in the vale and climbed over a fence and began to look about her.

’Twas a great big place with scores of men to work nigh a mighty railway bridge of steel that be thrown over the river valley and looks no more than a thread seen up in the sky from below. And then, just when she began to feel it was a pretty big task to find her husband among that dollop of navvies and quarrymen, if she didn’t run right on top of him! He was the first man of the lot she saw, and the shock took her in the breathing parts and very near dropped her. But she soon found that she’d have to keep all her wits if she wanted to get Nicky back, and the line she took from the first showed her a fierce battle of wills lay afore ’em.

It was going round a corner into the mouth of the quarries that she ran upon Spider wheeling a barrow; and she saw he was but little changed, save that he looked a good bit dirtier and wilder than of old. His hair was longer than ever and his eyes shone so black as sloes; and to Jenny’s mind there was a touch of stark madness in ’em without doubt. He was strong and agile seemingly, and he began to gibber and cuss and chatter like an ape the moment he catched sight of her. He dropped the barrow and stared, and his jaw dropped and then closed up again. He drew up to his full height, which weren’t above five foot, five inches, and he screamed with rage and began his talk with several words I ban’t going to write down for anybody. Then he axed her how in the devil’s name she dared to find him out and stand afore him.

“What do you mean, you vile woman?” he screamed. “Who told you I was here? I’ll tear his heart out when I know who ’twas and yours also you hateful hell-cat!”

“Alive! Alive, thank God! They told me true,” she cried. “Oh, Nicky!”

“Not alive to you,” he answered. “I’m dead to you for evermore, so you can be gone again, so soon as you mind to. I know all about you and your goings on, and I ordain to strike at my appointed time and no sooner. And them as told you I was here shall suffer in their bones for it! So you clear out, or I’ll pitch you over the quarry with these hands.”

He picked up his barrow handles to push past her; but she was three inches taller than him and so strong as a pony; and she knew when you be along with a madman you’ve got to stand firm.

“Put that down and listen to me, Nicky,” she said. “I ain’t come all this way and spent eight shillings on a railway ticket and a horse and trap to be turned down without hearing my voice. Listen you shall it’s life and death for me, if not for you. I got a ’nonymous letter from a well wisher saying you was here and that’s why I be come.”

He heaped curses on her head and made horrible faces at her. He threatened to murder her on the spot if she went an inch nearer, and he picked up a great stone to do it with. In fact you’d have said he weren’t at all the sort of man for a woman to fret at losing. But woman’s taste in man be like other mysteries, and ’tis no good trying to explain why a nice, comely she such as his wife had any more use for this black zany.

“Devil beast!” he yelped at her. “For two pins I’d strangle you! How have you got the front to dare to breathe the same air with the man you’ve outraged and ruined?”

“Do as you please and strangle me and welcome, Nicky; but listen first. Us’ll have everything in order if you please. First read that. Somebody here I don’t know from Adam who ’twas wrote to tell me you were working to Meldon; and that’s how I’ve found you.”

He read the letter and grew calmer.

“As to that,” he said, “I’ve told a good few stonemen of my fearful misfortunes and what I meant to do; and one of ’em has gone back on me and given my hiding-place away to you; and if I knew which it was, I’d skin the man alive. But I’ll find out.”

“So much for that then,” answered his wife, “and the next thing be to know why you are in a hiding-place and what you’re hiding from. And if I was you, I’d come home this instant moment and explain after you get back.”

“Home!” he screamed. “You say ‘home!’ A nice home! D’you think I don’t know all every tricky wicked item of your plots and your wickedness? D’you think I don’t know you be going to marry Solomon Chuff? You stare, you foul slut; but I know, and that’s what I’m waiting for. So soon as the man have took you, then I was coming back to turn you out of my house my house, you understand! I was only waiting for that, and when Chuff thinks he’s settled in my shoes, I’ll be on to him like a flame of fire, and he’ll call on the hills to cover him. And I won’t take you back don’t think it. I’m done with you for evermore and all other beasts of women.”

“Aw Jimmery!” cried his wife. “I’m hearing things! And where did you larn these fine lies if I ban’t axing too much?”

“From a friend,” he said. “I’ve got one good and faithful friend left at Postbridge, and thanks to him, I’ve had the bitter truth these many days.”

“Would it surprise you to hear, Nicky, that Solomon Chuff’s tokened to Miller Ley’s oldest daughter? They be going to wed at Easter, and ’twas Alice Ley herself that told me about it a month ago and I wished her joy.”

“Liar I know better, and Bill Westaway knows better. Yes, you may gape your hateful eyes out of your head; but Bill Westaway’s my friend; and he’s straight; and he’s took good care to keep me in touch with the facts ever since I came here so now then! You was after Chuff from the minute he went to Vitifer Tin Mine, and I knew it. I weren’t blind to the man and I soon saw my revenge fearful though it was.”

“A funny sort of revenge,” said Jenny, smiling at him. “I’m afraid, my poor little man, your revenge have come back on your own silly head. You’ve seen Bill Westaway, have you?”

“Yes, I have. And you needn’t think to bluff it off. Every three months since I went away he’s been over here to tell me how my vengeance was working.”

“He knew all about your plot then, and that you weren’t in the river?”

“He did so. A likely thing a man like me would drown hisself for a woman like you. And terrible sorry he felt to bring me the fatal news of what you was up to, though well I knew you would be. Nought astonished me. I knew you’d wait a year, to save your shameful face, and then take Chuff.”

“What a world!” said Jenny. “What dark, hookemsnivey creatures be in it men most times. Do you know who’s been pestering me to marry him ever since the people all thought you’d falled in the river and was drownded, Nicky? Not Mr. Chuff, but Billy Westaway himself. He’s your rival, my dear, and none other. Fifty times has that man called on me to take him.”

“You cunning liar! He hates women worse than I do.”

“D’you know where he is this minute? Down on Dart pretending to hunt for your bones. God’s my judge, Nicholas White, if I ain’t telling you the truth.”

The little wretch stared at her, and saw truth in her eyes, and felt all his idiotic vengeance slipping away from him. He didn’t want to believe in her and made another struggle.

“What rummage be you talking, woman? Do you think you can sloke me off with this stuff? Westaway’s my friend through thick and thin. Be you mad, or me?”

“Neither one nor t’other,” she answered. “I thought to find you mad naturally; but I’m not the sort to shirk my duty, whatever you are. For better, for worse I took you, and I’d meant, if I found you cracked, to put you away nice and comfortable in a proper asylum, where they’d look after you, as became an unfortunate man with good friends. But you’re not mad, only deceived by a damned rascal. Drop that rock and come here and listen to me.”

He obeyed her and crept a foot or two nearer.

“What’s happened be this,” she said. “The Almighty have punished us for loving each other too well. I’ve worshipped you and, till Solomon Chuff came along, you worshipped me. And God wouldn’t stand for such wickedness on our part, so He threw dust in your eyes and led you out into the wilderness to home with a lot of navvies and be deceived by a rare rascal. And you’ve had your dose by the look of you; and I’ve had mine; and what I’ve suffered you’ll never know, I assure you.”

He went whiter than a dog’s tooth behind his black hair, and his eyes bulged on her. He crept a bit nearer and she held out her hand. But the little loony had got his pride yet.

“I ban’t so sure,” he said. “No doubt you’ve come with a tale; but you’ll have to hear me first. Your tongue be running a thought too smooth I reckon. How do I know this is truth? Why should I believe you afore Bill? He’s sworn on his oath that Chuff spends half his time along with you and the banns be called. He’s come, as I tell you, off and on, to let me know everything, and never a good word for you.”

“You ought to break his neck,” said Jenny. “However, you ain’t heard all yet. It may interest you to know that at last I’ve promised to marry not Chuff he’s old enough to be my father but Bill himself.”

“And you’ve come here to tell me that?”

Nicky looked round for his stone again.

“No, I have not. I’ve come firstly to forgive you, which be a lot more than you deserve, and secondly to take you home.”

“’Tis for me to forgive you I reckon; and why for should I?”

“I’ve worn black for a year and prayed for your soul and eaten the bread of tears and lived like the widow-woman I thought I was just lived in the memory of our beautiful life together,” she says. “That’s all you’ve got to forgive, Nicky. And it didn’t ought to be partickler hard I should think. Poison poison that’s what you’ve been taking poison sucking it down from Bill Westaway, like a little child sucks cream.”

“And you tell me you’re going to marry the man or think you are? What’s that mean?”

Spider had come right alongside of her now.

“On one condition I shall certainly marry him, so you needn’t pull no more faces. I told him I’d take him if he found all that was left of you in the river! And so I will.” “But I ban’t in the Dart! I ban’t in the Dart! I’m alive!” cried Nicky as if she didn’t know it.

“Working along with these quarry men have made you dull seemingly,” she answered. “It is true no doubt that you ban’t in the Dart; but that’s no reason why Billy Westaway shouldn’t find you there. He’s quite clever enough for that. He’s a cunning, deep rogue, and I’ll lay my life he’ll find you there. He’s separated us for a whole bitter year, to gain his own wicked ends, and if you can’t see what he’s done you must be mad after all.”

“And what if I refuse to come back?” he asked, his monkey face still working.

“Then I’ll marry Bill rascal though he is. When I look into the past and think how he used to tell me you were running after the girls behind my back! But did I believe him? No! I boxed his ears and told him where the liars go. I didn’t run away and hide from my lawful husband.”

Nicky took it all in very slow.

“I’ll have such a fearful vengeance on that dog as never was heard about!” he swore. “Strike me blind if I don’t! I’ll strangle him with these hands afore the nation.”

“You can tell about that later,” she said. “Meantime you’d best forget your kit and come home this minute. You’ve grown cruel rough and wild seemingly. You want me after you.”

“I shall calm in fullness of time,” he told her, “and no doubt be the same as ever I was before this fearful affair happened. I never thought to take off my clothes, nor yet wash again. I’ve been like a savage animal with such troubles as I’ve suffered; but now, thank the watching God, my woes be very near passed seemingly, and I’ve got my honour and my pride and a wife and a home also.”

“Come back to ’em then!” begged Jenny, and the little creature put his spider arms around her and pressed her to his shirt.

“You must certainly wash again, and the sooner the better,” she said; then she kissed his hairy muzzle and patted his head and thanked the Lord for all His blessings. As for Spider, he pawed her and called upon heaven and wept out of his dirty eyes.

“It is almost too much,” he said; “but mark me, I’ll never rest no more till I’ve took my revenge on that anointed devil from hell and torn his throat out!” Knowing the nature of the man, however, Jenny didn’t fret too much about that. They went afore the master of the works presently, and being a human sort of chap, he took a sporting view of the situation and let Spider go along with his wife; which he did do. He had certainly suffered a good bit one way and another, owing to his own weak-minded foolishness, and found himself meek as a worm afore Jenny and terrible thankful to be in sight of better times.

“I wanted to die, too,” his silly wife assured him; “but Providence knew better and saw the end from the beginning.”

“Providence shan’t be forgot,” promised Nicky. “I’ll turn over a new leaf and even go to chapel I shouldn’t wonder after I’ve done in William Westaway.”

III

They spent that night at Plymouth, and she made Nicky scrap his clothes and get a new fit out; and the next day she took him home. No doubt her yellow cat was terrible pleased to see the pair of ’em; but the home-coming had its funny side too, for none marked them arrive ’twas after dark when they did so and they’d only just finished their meal, when come heavy footsteps up the path, and Jenny well knew the sound of ’em.

“’Tis Bill Westaway!” she said. “He don’t know as I’ve been away and no doubt he’s found what he’s pretending to search for. Slip in here, afore I let him come in, then you’ll hear all about yourself.”

There was a cupboard one side of the kitchen fireplace, and being quite big enough to take in Spider, he crept there, and his wife put home the door after him, but left a little space so as he could hear. And then she went to the cottage door and let in the visitor. ’Twas William sure enough, and his face was long and melancholy.

“A cruel time I’ve had more in the river than out of it,” he said. “I’m bruised and battered and be bad in my breathing parts also along of exposure and the wet. I dare say I’ve shortened my life a good bit; but all that was nothing when I thought of you, Jenny. And now I’m terrible afraid you must face the worst. I’ve made a beginning, I’m sorry to say.” He drew a parcel from under his arm and laid out afore her the wreck of a water-sodden billycock hat, a rag of a dark-blue flannel shirt and one ginger-coloured sock in a pretty ruinous state.

“What d’you make of these here mournful relics?” he asked. “Without doubt they once belonged to your Spider, and where I found’em I’m afraid his poor little bones ain’t far off.”

“They be even nearer than you think, William Westaway,” she said. “In fact, I’ve found’em myself.”

“Found’em!” he gasped out, glazing with his shifty eyes at her and a miz-maze of wonder on his face.

“Found’em not in the Dart neither; but at Meldon Quarry. Nicky is alive and well, and you know it, and you always knew it. And your day of reckoning be near!”

She paused. You might have thought she’d expect for her husband to leap out of the cupboard, but he didn’t; he bided close where he was, like a hare in its form; and she knew he would.

Of course Bill Westaway felt a good bit disappointed. He cussed Spider up hill and down dale and poured a torrent of rude words upon him.

“That know-nought, black swine come back! And you put him afore the likes of me I You don’t deserve a decent man,” he finished up. “And the patience and trouble I’ve took, thinking you was worth it!”

“Go!” she said. “You’re a wicked, bare-faced scamp, and God, He’ll reward you. You did ought to be driven out of Little Silver by the dogs, and no right-thinking person ever let you over their drexels no more.”

“I’m punished enough,” he told her. “Good-bye, my silly dear! A thousand pities you’ve took that little worm back. You’d have grown very fond of me in time. I’m worth a wagon-load of such rubbish as him.”

He lit his pipe, cussed a bit more, hoping Spider would front him, and then went away, banging the gate off its hinges very near; and after he was well clear of the premises Nicky bounced out of his cupboard full of brimstone and thunder.

“Lock the door,” he said, “or I’ll be after him and strangle him with these hands!”

“I most feared you’d have blazed out and faced the wretch,” said Jenny to please the little man.

“I managed to hold in. I drew out my knife however; but I put it back again. I hadn’t got the heart to spoil the night of my home-coming. His turn ain’t far off. His thread’s spun. Nothing short of his death be any good to me not now.”

“Us’ll forget the scoundrel till to-morrow, then,” said Mrs. White.

It was six months later and summer on the wane, when I met a fisherman on the river a gent I knew and made him laugh a good bit with the tale of they people.

“And what did Spider do after all, Mr. Bates?” inquired the fisher, when I came to the end of the story, and I answered him in a parable like.

“When the weasel sucked the robin’s eggs, sir, the robin and his wife was properly mad about it and swore as they’d be fearfully revenged upon him.”

“And what did they do?” axed the gentleman.

“What could they do?” I axed him back.

“Nothing.”

“That’s exactly what they did do; and that’s exactly what Nicky White done nothing. Once in the street a bit after he’d come home Will Westaway turned round and saw Spider making hideous faces at him behind his back. So he walked across the road and smacked the little man’s earhole and pulled his beard. Nought happened, however.”

“And what became of William Westaway?”

“Well, most of us was rather sorry for him. He’d took a lot of trouble to queer Spider’s pitch and put up a mighty clever fight for Jenny, you see. But the woman liked her little black beetle best. In fact she adores him to this day. Billy married a very fine girl from Princetown. But I reckon he never felt so properly in love with her as what he did with Mrs. White.”