enough. Presently he changed his
clothes, and set a diamond in his necktie. Then he strolled away into
the village, to see the well-remembered names above the little shop
windows; to note curiously how Chagford market-place had shrunk and the
houses dwindled since last he saw them; to call with hearty voice and
rough greeting at this habitation and that; to introduce himself again
among men and women who had known him of yore, and who, for the most
part, quite failed to recognise in their bluff and burly visitor the lad
who set forth from his father's cottage by the church so many years
before.
CHAPTER V
THE INCIDENT OF MR. JOEL FORD
Of Blanchard family history a little more must be said. Timothy
Blanchard, the husband of Damaris and father of Will and Chris, was in
truth of the nomads, though not a right gypsy. As a lad, and at a time
when the Romany folk enjoyed somewhat more importance and prosperity
than of late years, he joined them, and by sheer force of character and
mother wit succeeded in rising to power amongst the wanderers. The
community with which he was connected for the most part confined its
peregrinations to the West; and time saw Timothy Blanchard achieve
success in his native country, acquire two caravans, develop trade on a
regular "circuit," and steadily save money in a small way; while his
camp of some five-and-twenty souls--men, women, and numerous
children--shared in their leader's prosperity. These earlier stages of
the man's career embraced some strange circumstances, chief amongst them
being his marriage. Damaris Ford was the daughter of a Moor farmer. Her
girlhood had been spent in the dreary little homestead of "Newtake,"
above Chagford, within the fringe of the great primeval wastes; and
here, on his repeated journeys across the Moor, Tim Blanchard came to
know her and love her well.
Farmer Ford swore round oaths, and sent Blanchard and his caravans
packing when the man approached him for his daughter's hand; but the
girl herself was al
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