Children of the Mist
by Eden Phillpotts · English · Gutenberg #14527 · 982,924 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Children of the Mist
Author: Eden Phillpotts
Release date: December 30, 2004 [eBook #14527]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF THE MIST ***
CHILDREN OF THE MIST
BY
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
Author of "Down Dartmoor Way," "Some Everyday Folks," "My Laughing
Philosopher," "Lying Prophets," etc.
1898
BOOK I--THE BOY'S ROMANCE
I THE PIXIES' PARLOUR
II A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING
III EXIT WILL
IV BY THE RIVER
V THE INCIDENT OF MR. JOEL FORD
VI AN UNHAPPY POET
VII LIBATION TO POMONA
VIII A BROTHERS' QUARREL
IX OUTSIDE EXETER GAOL
X THE BRINGING OF THE NEWS
XI LOVE AND GREY GRANITE
XII A STORY-BOOK
XIII THE MILLER'S OFFER
XIV LOGIC
BOOK II--THE ENTERPRISE
I SPRINGTIME
II NEWTAKE FARM
III OVER A RIDING-WHIP
IV DEFEATED HOPES
V THE ZEAL OF SAM BONUS
VI A SWARM OF BEES
VII AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
VIII MR. BLEE FORGETS HIMSELF
IX A DIFFERENCE WITH THE DUCHY
X CONNECTING LINKS
XI TOGETHER
XII THROUGH ONE GREAT DAY
XIII THE WILL
XIV A HUNDRED POUNDS
XV "THE ANGEL OF THE DARKER DRINK"
XVI BEFORE THE DAWN
XVII MISSING
BOOK III--HIS GRANITE CROSS
I BABY
II THE KNIGHT OF FORLORN HOPES
III CONCERNING THE GATE-POST
IV MARTIN'S RAID
V WINTER
VI THE CROSS UPREARED
VII GREY TWILIGHT
BOOK IV--HIS SECRET
I A WANDERER RETURNS
II HOPE RENEWED
III ANSWERED
IV THE END OF THE FIGHT
V TWO MIGHTY SURPRISES
VI THE SECRET OUT
VII SMALL TIMOTHY
VIII FLIGHT
IX UNDER COSDON BEACON
X BAD NEWS FOR BLANCHARD
XI PHOEBE TAKES THOUGHT
XII NEW YEAR'S EVE AND NEW YEAR'S DAY
XIII MR. LYDDON'S TACTICS
XIV ACTION
XV A BATTLE
XVI A PAIR OF HANDCUFFS
XVII SUSPENSE
XVIII THE NIGHT OF JUBILEE
CHILDREN OF THE MIST
BOOK I
THE BOY'S ROMANCE
CHAPTER I
THE PIXIES' PARLOUR
Phoebe Lyddon frowned, and, as an instant protest, twin dimples peeped
into life at the left corner of her bonny mouth. In regarding that
attractive ripple the down-drawn eyebrows were forgotten until they rose
again into their natural arches. A sweet, childish contour of face
chimed with her expression; her full lips were bright as the bunch of
ripe wood-strawberries at the breast of her cotton gown; her eyes as
grey as Dartmoor mists; while, for the rest, a little round chin, a
small, straight nose, and a high forehead, which Phoebe mourned and kept
carefully concealed under masses of curly brown hair, were the sole
features to be specially noted about her. She was a trifle below the
standard of height proper to a girl of nineteen, but all compact, of
soft, rounded lines, plump, fresh of colour, healthy, happy, sweet as a
ripe apple.
From a position upon swelling hillsides above the valley of a river, she
scanned the scene beneath, made small her eyes to focus the distance,
and so pursued a survey of meadow and woodland, yet without seeing what
she sought. Beneath and beyond, separated from her standpoint by
grasslands and a hedge of hazel, tangled thickets of blackthorn, of
bracken, and of briar sank to the valley bottom. Therein wound tinkling
Teign through the gorges of Fingle to the sea; and above it, where the
land climbed upward on the other side, spread the Park of Whiddou, with
expanses of sweet, stone-scattered herbage, with tracts of deep fern,
coverts of oak, and occasional habitations for the deer.
This spectacle, through a grey veil of fine rain, Phoebe noted at
mid-afternoon of a day in early August; and, as she watched, there
widened a rift under the sun's hidden throne, and a mighty, fan-shaped
pencil of brightness straggled downwards, proceeded in solemn sweep
across the valley, and lighted the depths of the gorge beyond with a
radiance of misty silver. The music of jackdaws welcomed this first
indication of improved weather; then Phoebe's sharp eyes beheld a
phenomenon afar off through the momentary cessation of the rain. Three
parts of a mile away, on a distant hillside, like the successive
discharges of a dozen fowling-pieces, little blotches of smoke or mist
suddenly appeared. Rapidly they followed each other, and sometimes the
puffs of vapour were exploded together, sometimes separately. For a
moment the girl felt puzzled; then she comprehended and laughed.
"'Tis the silly auld sheep!" she said to herself. "They 'm shakin 'theer
fleeces 'cause they knaw the rain's over-past. Bellwether did begin, I
warrant, then all the rest done the same."
Each remote member of the flock thus freed its coat from the accumulated
moisture of a long rainfall; then the huddled heap, in which they had
combined to withstand the weather and show tail to the western storm,
began to scatter. With coughs and sneezes the beasts wandered forward
again, and pursued their business of grazing.
Steadily the promises of the sky multiplied and Phoebe's impatience
increased. Her position did not, however, depend for comfort upon the
return of sunshine, for she stood out of the weather, where sundry giant
rocks to the number of five arose in a fantastic pile. Nature's primal
architects were responsible for the Pixies' Parlour, and upon the awful
morning of Dartmoor's creation these enormous masses had first been
hurled to their present position--outposts of the eternal granite,
though themselves widely removed from the central waste of the Moor.
This particular and gigantic monument of the past stands with its feet
in land long cultivated. Plough and harrow yearly skirt the Pixies'
Parlour; it rises to-day above yellow corn, to-morrow amid ripening
roots; it crowns the succeeding generations of man's industry, and
watches a ceaseless cycle of human toil. The rocks of which it is
composed form a sort of rude chamber, sacred to fairy folk since a time
before the memory of the living; briars and ivy-tods conceal a part of
the fabric; a blackthorn, brushed at this season with purple fruit,
rises above it; one shadowed ledge reveals the nightly roosting place of
hawk or raven; and marks of steel on the stone show clearly where some
great or small fragment of granite has been blasted from the parent pile
for the need of man. Multi-coloured, massive, and picturesque, the
Parlour, upon Phoebe Lyddon's visit to it, stood forth against the red
bosom of naked land; for a fierce summer had early ripened the vanished
harvest, and now its place was already ploughed again, while ashes of
dead fire scattered upon the earth showed where weed and waste had been
consumed after ingathering of the grain.
Patches of August blue now lightened the aerial grey; then sunshine set
a million gems twinkling on the great bejewelled bosom of the valley.
Under this magic heat an almost instantaneous shadowy ghost of fresh
vapour rose upon the riparian meadows, and out of it, swinging along
with the energy of youth and high spirits, came a lad. Phoebe smiled and
twinkled a white handkerchief to him, and he waved his hat and bettered
his pace for answer.
Soon Will Blanchard reached his sweetheart, and showed himself a brown,
straight youngster, with curly hair, pugnacious nose, good shoulders,
and a figure so well put together that his height was not apparent until
he stood alongside another man. Will's eyes were grey as Phoebe's, but
of a different expression; soft and unsettled, cloudy as the recent
weather, full of the alternate mist and flash of a precious stone, one
moment all a-dreaming, the next aglow. His natural look was at first
sight a little stern until a man came to know it, then this impression
waned and left a critic puzzled. The square cut of his face and abrupt
angle of his jaw did not indeed belie Will Blanchard, but the man's
smile magically dissipated this austerity of aspect, and no sudden
sunshine ever brightened a dark day quicker than pleasure made bright
his features. It was a sulky, sleepy, sweet, changeable face--very
fascinating in the eyes of women. His musical laugh once fluttered
sundry young bosoms, brightened many pretty eyes and cheeks, but Will's
heart was Phoebe Lyddon's now--had been for six full months--and albeit
a mere country boy in knowledge of the world, younger far than his
one-and-twenty years of life, and wholly unskilled in those arts whose
practice enables men to dwell together with friendship and harmony, yet
Will Blanchard was quite old enough and wise enough and rich enough to
wed, and make a husband of more than common quality at that--in his own
opinion.
Fortified by this conviction, and determined to wait no longer, he now
came to see Phoebe. Within the sheltering arms of the Pixies' Parlour he
kissed her, pressed her against his wet velveteen jacket, then sat down
under the rocks beside her.
"You 'm comed wi' the sun, dear Will."
"Ay--the weather breaks. I hope theer'll be a drop more water down the
river bimebye. You got my letter all right?"
"Ess fay, else I shouldn't be here. And this tremendous matter in
hand?"
"I thought you'd guess what 't was. I be weary o' waitin' for 'e. An' as
I comed of age last month, I'm a man in law so well as larnin', and I'm
gwaine to speak to Miller Lyddon this very night."
Phoebe looked blank. There was a moment's silence while Will picked and
ate the wood-strawberries in his sweetheart's dress.
"Caan't 'e think o' nothin' wiser than to see faither?" she said at
last.
"Theer ban't nothin' wiser. He knaws we 'm tokened, and it's no manner
o' use him gwaine on pretendin' to himself 't isn't so. You 'm
wife-old, and you've made choice o' me; and I'm a ripe man, as have
thought a lot in my time, and be earnin' gude money and all. Besides, 't
is a dead-sure fact I'll have auld Morgan's place as head waterkeeper,
an' the cottage along with it, in fair time."
"Ban't for me to lift up no hindrances, but you knaw faither."
"Ess, I do--for a very stiff-necked man."
"Maybe 't is so; but a gude faither to me."
"An' a gude friend to me, for that matter. He aint got nothing 'gainst
me, anyway--no more 's any man living."
"Awnly the youth and fieriness of 'e."
"Me fiery! I lay you wouldn't find a cooler chap in Chagford."
"You 'm a dinky bit comical-tempered now and again, dear heart."
He flushed, and the corners of his jaw thickened.
"If a man was to say that, I'd knock his words down his throat."
"I knaw you would, my awn Will; an' that's bein' comical-tempered,
ban't it?"
"Then perhaps I'd best not to see your faither arter all, if you 'm that
way o' thinkin'," he answered shortly.
Then Phoebe purred to him and rubbed her cheek against his chin, whereon
the glint vanished from his eyes, and they were soft again.
"Mother's the awnly livin' sawl what understands me," he said slowly.
"And I--I too, Will!" cried Phoebe. "Ess fay. I'll call you a holy angel
if you please, an' God knaws theer 's not an angel in heaven I'd have
stead of 'e."
"I ban't no angel," said Will gravely, "and never set up for no such
thing; but I've thought a lot 'bout the world in general, and I'm purty
wise for a home-stayin' chap, come to think on it; and it's borne in
'pon me of late days that the married state 's a gude wan, and the
sooner the better."
"But a leap in the dark even for the wisest, Will?"
"So's every other step us takes for that matter. Look at them
grasshoppers. Off they goes to glory and doan't knaw no more 'n the dead
wheer they'll fetch up. I've seed 'em by the river jump slap in the
water, almost on to a trout's back. So us hops along and caan't say
what's comin' next. We 'm built to see just beyond our awn nose-ends and
no further. That's philosophy."
"Ban't comfortin' if 't is," said Phoebe.
"Whether or no, I'll see your faither 'fore night and have a plain
answer. I'm a straight, square man, so's the miller."
"You'll speed poorly, I'm fearin', but 't is a honest thing; and I'll
tell faither you 'm all the world to me. He doan't seem to knaw what it
is for a gal to be nineteen year old somehow."
Solemnly Will rose, almost overweighted with the consciousness of what
lay before him.
"We'll go home-along now. Doan't 'e tell him I'm coming. I'll take him
unbeknawnst. And you keep out the way till I be gone again."
"Does your mother knaw, Will?"
"Ess, she an' Chris both knaw I be gwaine to have it out this night.
Mother sez I be right, but that Miller will send me packing wi' a flea
in my ear; Chris sez I be wrong to ax yet awhile."
"You can see why that is; 'she 's got to wait herself," said Phoebe,
rather spitefully.
"Waitin' 's well enough when it caan't be helped. But in my case, as a
man of assured work and position in the plaace, I doan't hold it needful
no more."
Together the young couple marched down over the meadows, gained the side
of the river, and followed its windings to the west. Through a dip in
the woods presently peeped the ancient stannary town of Chagford, from
the summit of its own little eminence on the eastern confines of
Dartmoor. Both Will and Phoebe dwelt within the parish, but some
distance from the place itself. She lived at Monks Barton, a farm and
mill beside the stream; he shared an adjacent cottage with his mother
and sister. Only a bend of the river separated the dwellings of the
lovers--where Rushford Bridge spanned the Teign and beech and fir rose
above it.
In a great glory of clearness after rain, boy and girl moved along
together under the trees. The fisherman's path which they followed wound
where wet granite shone and ivy glimmered beneath the forest; and the
leaves still dripped briskly, making a patter of sound through the
underwood, and marking a thousand circles and splashes in the smooth
water beneath the banks of the stream. Against a purple-grey background
of past rain the green of high summer shone bright and fresh, and each
moss-clad rock and fern-fringed branch of the forest oaks sent forth its
own incense of slender steam where the sunlight sparkled and sucked up
the moisture. Scarce half a mile from Phoebe's home a shining yellow
twig bent and flashed against the green, and a broad back appeared
through a screen of alder by the water's edge.
"'T is a rod," said Will. "Bide a moment, and I'll take the number of
his ticket. He 'm the first fisherman I've seen to-day."
As under-keeper or water-bailiff to the Fishing Association, young
Blanchard's work consisted in endless perambulation of the river's bank,
in sharp outlook for poacher and trespasser, and in the survey of
fishermen's bridges, and other contrivances for anglers that occurred
along the winding course of the waters. His also was the duty of noting
the license numbers, and of surprising those immoral anglers who sought
to kill fish illegally on distant reaches of the river. His keen eyes,
great activity, and approved pluck well fitted Will for such duties. He
often walked twenty miles a day, and fishermen said that he knew every
big trout in the Teign from Fingle Bridge to the dark pools and rippling
steps under Sittaford Tor, near the river's twin birthplaces. He also
knew where the great peel rested, on their annual migration from sea to
moor; where the kingfisher's nest of fish-bones lay hidden; where the
otter had her home beneath the bank, and its inland vent-hole behind a
silver birch.
Will bid the angler "good afternoon," and made a few general remarks on
sport and the present unfavourable condition of the water, shrunk to
mere ribbons of silver by a long summer drought. The fisherman was a
stranger to Will--a handsome, stalwart man, with a heavy amber
moustache, hard blue eyes, and a skin tanned red by hotter suns than
English Augusts know. His disposition, also, as it seemed, reflected
years of a tropic or subtropic existence, for this trivial meeting and
momentary intrusion upon his solitude resulted in an explosion as sudden
as unreasonable and unexpected.
"Keep back, can't you?" he exclaimed, while the young keeper approached
his side; "who 's going to catch fish with your lanky shadow across the
water?"
Will was up in arms instantly.
"Do 'e think I doan't knaw my business? Theer 's my shadder 'pon the
bank a mile behind you; an' I didn't ope my mouth till you'd fished the
stickle to the bottom and missed two rises."
This criticism angered the elder man, and he freed his tailfly fiercely
from the rush-head that held it.
"Mind your own affairs and get out of my sight, whoever you are. This
river's not what it used to be by a good deal. Over-fished and poached,
and not looked after, I'll swear."
Thus, in ignorance, the sportsman uttered words of all most like to set
Will Blanchard's temper loose--a task sufficiently easy at the best of
times.
"What the hell d' you knaw 'bout the river?" he flamed out. "And as to
'my affairs,' 't is my affairs, an' I be water-bailiff, an' I'll thank
you for the number of your ticket--so now then!"
"What's become of Morgan?" asked the other.
"He 'm fust, I be second; and 't is my job to take the license numbers."
"Pity you're such an uncivil young cub, then."
"Gimme your ticket directly minute!"
"I'm not going to."
The keeper looked wicked enough by this time, but he made a great effort
to hold himself in.
"Why for not?"
"Because I didn't take one."
"That ban't gwaine to do for me."
"Ban't it? Then you'll have to go without any reason. Now run away and
don't bleat so loud."
"Look here," retorted Will, going straight up to the fisherman, and
taking his measure with a flashing eye, "You gimme your ticket number or
your name an' address, else I'll make 'e."
They counted nearly the same inches, but the angler was the elder, and a
man of more powerful build and massive frame than his younger opponent.
His blue eyes and full, broad face spoke a pugnacity not less pronounced
than the keeper's own finer features indicated; and thus these two,
destined for long years to bulk largely each upon the life of the other,
stood eye to eye for the first time. Will's temper was nearly gone, and
now another sneer set it loose with sudden and startling result.
"Make me, my young moorcock? Two more words and I'll throw you across
the river!"
The two words were not forthcoming, but Will dropped his stick and shot
forward straight and strong as an angry dog. He closed before the
stranger could dispose of his rod, gripped him with a strong wrestling
hold, and cross-buttocked him heavily in the twinkling of an eye. The
big man happily fell without hurt upon soft sand at the river's brink;
but the indignity of this defeat roused his temper effectually. He
grinned nevertheless as he rose again, shook the sand off his face, and
licked his hands.
"Good Devon, sure enough, my son; now I'll teach _you_ something you
never heard tell of, and break your damned fool's neck for you into the
bargain!"
But Phoebe, who had wandered slowly on, returned quickly at the sound of
the scuffle and high words. Now she fluttered between the combatants and
rendered any further encounter for the time impossible. They could not
close again with the girl between them, and the stranger, his anger
holding its breath, glanced at her with sudden interest, stayed his
angry growl, suffered rage to wane out of his eyes and frank admiration
to appear in them.
"Doan't be fighting!" cried Phoebe. "Whatever's the mischief, Will? Do
bate your speed of hand! You've thrawed the gentleman down, seemin'ly."
"Wheer 's his ticket to then?"
"Why, it isn't Miller Lyddon's young maid, surely!" burst out the
fisherman; "not Phoebe grown to woman!"
A Devon accent marked the speech, suddenly dragged from him by surprise.
"Ess, I be Phoebe Lyddon; but don't 'e fall 'pon each other again, for
the Lard's sake," she said.
"The boy 's as tetchy in temper as a broody hen. I was only joking all
the time, and see how he made me pay for my joke. But to think I should
remember you! Grown from bud to pretty blossom, by God! And I danced you
on my knee last time I saw you!"
"Then you 'm wan of they two Grimbal brothers as was to be home again in
Chagford to-day!" exclaimed Will.
"That's so; Martin and I landed at Plymouth yesterday. We got to
Chagford early this morning."
Will laughed.
"I never!" he said. "Why, you be lodging with my awn mother at the
cottage above Rushford Bridge! You was expected this marnin', but I
couldn't wait for 'e. You 'm Jan Grimbal--eh?"
"Right! And you're a nice host, to be sure!"
"'T is solemn truth, you 'm biding under our roof, the 'Three Crowns'
bein' full just now. And I'm sorry I thrawed 'e; but you was that
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."
"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
hard by the dwelling-house stood and offered small diamond panes and one
dormer-window to the south. Upon its whitewashed face three fruit-trees
grew--a black plum, a cherry, a winter pear; and before the farmhouse
stretched a yard sloping to the river ford, where a line of massive
stepping-stones for foot-passengers crossed the water. On either side of
this space, walled up from the edge of the stream, little gardens of
raspberry and gooseberry bushes spread; and here, too, appeared a few
apple-trees, a bed of herbs, a patch of onions, purple cabbages, and a
giant hollyhock with sulphur-coloured blossoms that thrust his proud
head upwards, a gentleman at large, and the practical countrymen of the
kitchen-garden. The mill and outbuildings, the homestead and wood-stacks
embraced a whole gamut of fine colour, ranging from the tawny and
crimson of fretted brick and tile to varied greys of drying timber; from
the cushions and pillows of moss and embroidery of houseleeks and
valerian, that had flourished for fifty years on a ruined shippen, to
the silver gleam of old thatches and the shining gold of new. Nor was
the white face of the dwelling-house amiss. Only one cold, crude eye
stared out from this time-tinctured scene; only one raw pentroof of
corrugated iron blotted it, made poets sigh, artists swear, and Miller
Lyddon contemplate more of the same upon his land.
A clucking and grunting concourse of fowls and pigs shared the farmyard;
blue pigeons claimed the roof; and now, in the westering light, with
slow foot, sweet breath, and swelling udder, many kine, red as the ripe
horse-chestnut, followed each other across the ford, assembled
themselves together and lowed musically to the milkers. Phoebe Lyddon
and John Grimbal still stood at the farm-gate, and they watched, as a
boy and an aged man came forward with buckets and stools. Then, to the
muffled thud of the water-wheel and the drone and murmur of the river,
was added a purr of milk, foaming into tin pails, and sharp, thin
monitions from the ancient, as he called the cows by their names and bid
them be still.
In John Grimbal, newly come from South Africa, this scene awakened a
lively satisfaction and delight. It told him that he was home again; and
so did the girl, though it seemed absurd to think that Phoebe had ever
sat upon his knee and heard his big stories, when as yet he himself was
a boy and the world still spread before him unconquered. He mused at the
change and looked forward to bringing himself and his success in life
before those who had known him in the past. He very well remembered who
had encouraged his ambitions and spoken words of kindness and of hope;
who also had sneered, criticised his designs unfavourably, and thrown
cold water upon his projects. John Grimbal meant to make certain souls
smart as he had smarted; but he feared his brother a little in this
connection, and suspected that Martin would not assert himself among the
friends of his youth, would not assume a position his riches warranted,
would be content with too humble a manner of life.
As a matter of fact, the ambition of neither extended much beyond a life
of peace among the scenes of his childhood; but while the younger
traveller returned with unuttered thanksgivings in his heart that he was
privileged again to see the land he loved and henceforth dwell amid its
cherished scenes, the greater energy and wider ambition of his brother
planned a position of some prominence if not power. John was above all
else a sportsman, and his programme embraced land, a stout new
dwelling-house, preserves of game in a small way, some fishing, and the
formation of a new rifle-corps at Chagford. This last enterprise he
intended to be the serious business of life; but his mind was open to
any new, agreeable impressions and, indeed, it received them at every
turn. Phoebe Lyddon awoke a very vital train of thoughts, and when he
left her, promising to come with his brother on the following day to see
the miller, John Grimbal's impressionable heart was stamped with her
pretty image, his ear still held the melody of her voice.
He crossed the stepping-stones, sat down upon the bank to change his
flies, and looked at the home of Phoebe without sentiment, yet not
without pleasure. It lay all cuddled on the bosom of a green hill; to
the west stretched meadows and orchard along the winding valley of the
river; to the east extended more grass-land that emerged into ferny
coombs and glades and river dells, all alive with the light of wild
flowers and the music of birds, with the play of dusky sunshine in the
still water, and of shadows on the shore.
A little procession of white ducks sailed slowly up the river, and each
as it passed twisted its head to peer up at the spectator. Presently the
drake who led them touched bottom, and his red-gold webs appeared. Then
he paddled ashore, lifted up his voice, waggled his tail, and with a
crescendo of quacking conducted his harem into the farmyard. One lone
Muscovy duck, perchance emulating the holy men of old in their
self-communion, or else constrained by circumstance to a solitary life,
appeared apart on a little island under the alders. A stranger in a
strange land, he sat with bent head and red-rimmed, philosophic eyes,
regarding his own breast while sunset lights fired the metallic lustre
of his motley. Quite close to him a dead branch thrust upwards from the
water, and the river swirled in oily play of wrinkles and dimples beyond
it. Here, with some approach to his old skill, the angler presently cast
a small brown moth. It fell lightly and neatly, cocked for a second,
then turned helplessly over, wrecked in the sudden eddy as a natural
insect had been. A fearless rise followed, and in less than half a
minute a small trout was in the angler's net. John Grimbal landed this
little fish carefully and regarded it with huge satisfaction before
returning it to the river. Then, having accomplished the task set by
sudden desire,--to catch a Teign trout again, feel it, smell it, see
the ebony and crimson, the silver belly warming to gold on its sides and
darkening to brown and olive above,--having by this act renewed
sensations that had slept for fifteen years, he put up his rod and
returned to his temporary quarters at the dwelling of Mrs. Blanchard.
His brother was waiting in the little garden to welcome him. Martin
walked up and down, smelled the flowers, and gazed with sober delight
upon the surrounding scene. Already sunset fires had waned; but the high
top of the fir that crowned Rushford Bridge still glowed with a great
light on its red bark; an uprising Whiddon, where it lay afar off under
the crown of Cranbrook, likewise shone out above the shadowed valley.
Martin Grimbal approached his brother and laid his hand upon the
fisherman's arm. He stood the smaller in stature, though of strong
build. His clean-shaved face had burned much darker than John's; he was
indeed coffee-brown and might have been mistaken for an Indian but for
his eyes of ordinary slate-grey. Without any pretension to good looks,
Martin Grimbal displayed what was better--an expression of such frank
benignity and goodness that his kind trusted him and relied upon him by
intuition. Honest and true to the verge of quixotism was this man in all
dealings with his fellows, yet he proved a faulty student of character.
First he was in a measure blinded by his own amiable qualities to acute
knowledge of human nature; secondly, he was drawn away from humanity
rather than not, for no cynic reason, but by the character of his
personal predilections and pursuits.
"I've seen father's grave, John," were his first words to his brother.
"It's beside the mother's, but that old stone he put up to her must be
moved and--"
"All right, all right, old chap. Stones are in your line, not mine.
Where's dinner? I want bread, not a stone, eh?"
Martin did not laugh, but shrugged his shoulders in good-tempered
fashion. His face had a measure of distinction his brother's lacked, and
indeed, while wanting John's tremendous physical energy and robust
determination, he possessed a finer intellect and instinct less animal.
Even abroad, during their earlier enterprises, Martin had first provided
brains sufficient for himself and John; but an accident of fortune
suddenly favoured the elder; and while John took full care that Martin
should benefit with himself, he was pleased henceforth to read into his
superior luck a revelation of superior intelligence, and from that
moment followed his own inclinations and judgment. He liked Martin no
less, but never turned to him for counsel again after his own accidental
good fortune; and henceforward assumed an elder brother's manner and a
show of superior wisdom. In matters of the world and in knowledge of
such human character as shall be found to congregate in civilisation's
van, or where precious metals and precious stones have been discovered
to abound, John Grimbal was undoubtedly the shrewder, more experienced
man; and Martin felt very well content that his elder brother should
take the lead. Since the advent of their prosperity a lively gratitude
had animated his mind. The twain shared nothing save bonds of blood,
love of their native land, and parity of ambition, first manifested in
early desires to become independent. Together they had gone abroad,
together they returned; and now each according to his genius designed to
seek happiness where he expected to find it. John still held interests
in South Africa, but Martin, content with less fortune, and mighty
anxious to be free of all further business, realised his wealth and now
knew the limits of his income.
The brothers supped in good spirits and Will Blanchard's sister waited
upon them. Chris was her "brother in petticoats," people said, and
indeed she resembled him greatly in face and disposition. But her eyes
were brown, like her dead father's, and a gypsy splendour of black hair
crowned her head. She was a year younger than Will, wholly wrapped up in
him and one other.
A familiarity, shy on Martin's side and patronising in John, obtained
between the brothers and their pretty attendant, for she knew all about
them and the very cottage in which their parents had dwelt and died. The
girl came and went, answered John Grimbal's jests readily, and
ministered to them as one not inferior to those she served. The elder
man's blue eyes were full of earthy admiration. He picked his teeth
between the courses and admired aloud, while Chris was from the room.
"'Tis wonderful how pretty all the women look, coming back to them after
ten years of nigger girls. Roses and cream isn't in it with their skins,
though this one's dark as a clear night--Spanish fashion."
"Miss Blanchard seems very beautiful to me certainly," admitted Martin.
"I've seen only two maids--since setting foot in Chagford," continued
his brother, "and it would puzzle the devil to say which was best to
look at."
"Your heart will soon be lost, I'll wager--to a Chagford girl, I hope. I
know you talked about flying high, but you might be happier to take a
mate from--well, you understand."
"It's all very well to build theories on board ship about bettering
myself socially and all that, but it's rot; I'll be knocked over by one
of the country witches, I know I shall,--I feel it. I love the sound of
the Devon on their lips, and the clear eyes of them, and the bright
skin. 'Tis all I can do to keep from hugging the women, and that's a
fact. But you, you cold-blooded beggar, your heart's still for the grey
granite and the old ghostly stones, and creepy, lonely places on the
Moor! We're that different, you and me."
Martin nodded thoughtfully, and, the meal being now ended, both men
strolled out of doors, then wandered down to smoke a pipe on Rushford
Bridge and listen to the nightly murmur of the river. Darkness moved on
the face of land and water; twilight had sucked all the colour away from
the valley; and through the deepening monochrome of the murk there
passed white mists with shadowy hands, and peeped blind pale eyes along
the winding water, where its surface reflected the faded west. Nocturnal
magic conjured the least meadow into an unmeasured sea of vapour; awoke
naiads in the waters and dryads in the woods; transformed the solemn
organ music of great beetles into songs of a roaming spirit; set unseen
shapes stirring in the starlight; whispered of invisible, enchanted
things, happy and unhappy, behind the silence.
A man moved from the bridge as the brothers reached it. Then Will
Blanchard, knocking out his pipe and taking a big inspiration, set his
face steadily toward Monks Barton and that vital interview with Miller
Lyddon now standing in the pathway of his life.
He rapped at the farm door and a step came slowly down the stone-paved
passage. Then Billy Blee, the miller's right-hand man, opened to him.
Bent he was from the small of the back, with a highly coloured, much
wrinkled visage, and ginger hair, bleached by time to a paler shade. His
poll was bald and shining, and thick yellow whiskers met beneath a
clean-shorn chin. Billy's shaggy eyebrows, little bright eyes, and long
upper lip, taken with the tawny fringe under his chops, gave him the
look of an ancient and gigantic lion-monkey; and indeed there was not
lacking in him an ape-like twist, as shall appear.
"Hullo! boy Blanchard! An' what might you want?" he asked.
"To see Miller."
"Come in then; we'm all alone in kitchen, him and me, awver our grog and
game. What's the matter now?"
"A private word for Miller's ear," said Will cautiously.
"Come you in then. Us'll do what we may for 'e. Auld heads be the best
stepping-stones young folks can have, understood right; awnly the likes
of you mostly chooses to splash through life on your awn damn silly
roads."
Mr. Blee, whose friendship and familiarity with his master was of the
closest, led on, and Will soon stood before Mr. Lyddon.
The man who owned Monks Barton, and who there prosperously combined the
callings of farmer and miller, had long enjoyed the esteem of the
neighbourhood in which he dwelt, as had his ancestors before him,
through many generations. He had won reputation for a sort of silent
wisdom. He never advised any man ill, never hesitated to do a kindly
action, and himself contrived to prosper year in, year out, no matter
what period of depression might be passing over Chagford. Vincent Lyddon
was a widower of sixty-five--a grey, thin, tall man, slow of speech and
sleepy of eye. A weak mouth, and a high, round forehead, far smoother
than his age had promised, were distinguishing physical features of him.
His wife had been dead eighteen years, and of his two children one only
survived. The elder, a boy toddling in early childhood at the water's
edge, was unmissed until too late, and found drowned next day after a
terrible night of agony for both parents. Indeed, Mrs. Lyddon never
recovered from the shock, and Phoebe was but a year old when her mother
died. Further, it need only be mentioned that the miller had heard of
Will's courting more than once, but absolutely refused to allow the
matter serious consideration. The romance was no more than philandering
of children in his eyes.
"Will--eh? Well, my son, and how can I serve you?" asked the master of
Monks Barton, kindly enough. He recrossed his legs, settled in his
leather chair, and continued the smoking of a long clay pipe.
"Just this, Mr. Lyddon," began Will abruptly. "You calls me your 'son'
as a manner o' speech, but I wants to be no less in fact."
"You ban't here on that fool's errand, bwoy, surely? I thought I'd made
my mind clear enough to Phoebe six months ago."
"Look you here now. I be earnin' eighteen shillings a week an' a bit
awver; an' I be sure of Morgan's berth as head-keeper presently; an' I'm
a man as thinks."
"That's brave talk, but what have 'e saved, lad?" inquired Mr. Blee.
The lover looked round at him sharply.
"I thought you was out the room," he said. "I be come to talk to Miller,
not you."
"Nay, nay, Billy can stay and see I'm not tu hard 'pon 'e," declared Mr.
Lyddon. "He axed a proper question. What's put by to goody in the
savings' bank, Will?"
"Well--five pounds; and 't will be rose to ten by Christmas, I assure
'e."
"Fi' puns! an' how far 's that gwaine?"
"So far as us can make it, in coourse."
"Doan't you see, sonny, this ban't a fair bargain? I'm not a hard man--"
"By gor! not hard enough by a powerful deal," said Billy.
"Not hard on youth; but this match, so to call it, looks like mere
moonshine. Theer 's nought _to_ it I can see--both childer, and neither
with as much sense as might sink a floatin' straw."
"We love each other wi' all our hearts and have done more 'n half a
year. Ban't that nothing?"
"I married when I was forty-two," remarked the miller, reflectively,
looking down at his fox-head slippers, the work of Phoebe's fingers.
"An' a purty marryin' time tu!" declared Mr. Blee. "Look at me," he
continued, "parlous near seventy, and a bacherlor-man yet."
"Not but Widow Comstock will have 'e if you ax her a bit oftener. Us all
knows that," said the young lover, with great stratagem.
Billy chuckled, and rubbed his wrinkles.
"Time enough, time enough," he answered, "but you--scarce out o'
clouts--why, 't is playin' at a holy thing, that's what 't is--same as
Miss Phoebe, when she was a li'l wee cheel, played at bein' parson in
her night-gownd, and got welted for it, tu, by her gude faither."
"We 'm both in earnest anyway--me and Phoebe."
"So am I," replied the miller, sitting up and putting down his pipe; "so
am I in earnest, and wan word 's gude as a hunderd in a pass like this.
You must hear the truth, an' that never broke no bones. You 'm no more
fitted to have a wife than that tobacco-jar--a hot-headed, wild-fire of
a bwoy--"
"A right Jack-o'-Lantern, as everybody knaws," suggested Mr. Blee.
"Ess fay, 'tis truth. Shifting and oncertain as the marsh gallopers on
the moor bogs of a summer night. Awnly a youth's faults, you mind; but
still faults. No, no, my lad, you've got to fight your life's battle and
win it, 'fore you'm a mate for any gal; an' you've got to begin by
fightin' yourself, an' breaking an' taming yourself, an' getting
yourself well in hand. That's a matter of more than months for the best
of us."
"And then?" said Will, "after 'tis done? though I'm not allowin' I'm
anything but a ripe man as I stand here afore you now."
"Then I'd say, 'I'm glad to see you grawed into a credit to us all, Will
Blanchard, and worth your place in the order o' things; but you doan't
marry Phoebe Lyddon--never, never, never, not while I'm above ground.'"
His slow eyes looked calmly and kindly at Will, and he smiled into the
hot, young, furious face.
"That's your last word then?"
"It is, my lad."
"And you won't give a reason?"
"The reason is, 'what's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.' I
knawed your faither. You'm as volatile as him wi'out his better paarts."
"Leave him wheer he lies--underground. If he'd lived 'stead of bein' cut
off from life, you'd 'a' bin proud to knaw him."
"A gypsy-man and no better, Will," said Mr. Blee. "Not but what he made
a gude end, I allow."
"Then I'll be up and away. I've spoke 'e fair, Miller--fair an'
straight--an' so you to me. You won't allow this match. Then we'll wed
wi'out your blessin', an' sorry I shall be."
"If that's your tune, my young rascal, I'll speak again! Phoebe's under
age, remember that, and so sure as you dare take her a yard from her awn
door you'll suffer for it. 'Tis a clink job, you mind--a prison
business; and what's more, you 'm pleased to speak so plain that I will
tu, and tell 'e this. If you dare to lift up your eyes to my child
again, or stop her in the way, or have speech with her, I'll set
p'liceman 'pon 'e! For a year and more she 'm not her awn mistress; and,
at the end of that time, if she doan't get better sense than to tinker
arter a harum-scarum young jackanapes like you, she ban't a true Lyddon.
Now be off with 'e an' doan't dare to look same way Phoebe 's walkin',
no more, else theer'll be trouble for 'e."
"Wonnerful language, an' in a nutshell," commented Billy, as, blowing
rather hard, the miller made an end of his warning.
"Us'll leave it theer, then, Mr. Lyddon; and you'll live to be sorry
ever you said them words to me. Ess fay, you'll live to sing different;
for when two 's set 'pon a matter o' marryin', ban't fathers nor
mothers, nor yet angels, be gwaine to part 'em. Phoebe an' me will be
man an' wife some day, sure 's the sun 's brighter 'n the mune. So now
you knaw. Gude night to 'e."
He took up his hat and departed; Billy held up his hands in mute
amazement; but the miller showed no emotion and relighted his pipe.
"The rising generation do take my breath away twenty times a day," said
Mr. Blee. "To think o' that bwoy, in li'l frocks awnly yesterday,
standin' theer frontin' two aged men wi' such bouldacious language!"
"What would you do, Billy, if the gal was yourn?"
"Same as you, to a hair. Bid her drop the chap for gude 'n all. But
theer 's devil's pepper in that Blanchard. He ain't done with yet."
"Well, well, he won't shorten my sleep, I promise you. Near two years is
a long time to the young. Lord knaws wheer a light thing like him will
be blawed to, come two years. Time 's on my side for certain. And Phoebe
's like to change also."
"Why, a woman's mind 's no more 'n a feather in a gale of wind at her
time o' life; though to tell her so 's the sure way to make her
steadfast."
A moment later Phoebe herself entered. She had heard Will depart and
now, in a fever of impatience, crept with bright, questioning eyes to
her father's chair. Whereupon Mr. Blee withdrew in a violent hurry. No
one audibly desired him to do so, but a side-look from the girl was
enough.
CHAPTER III
EXIT WILL
Phoebe's conversation with her father occupied a space of time extending
over just two minutes. He met her eager eyes with a smile, patted her
head, pinched her ear, and by his manner awakened a delicious flutter of
hope in the girl before he spoke. When, therefore, Phoebe learned that
Will was sent about his business for ever, and must henceforth be wholly
dismissed from her mind, the shock and disappointment of such
intelligence came as a cruel blow. She stood silent and thunderstruck
before Miller Lyddon, a world of reproaches in her frightened eyes; then
mutely the corners of her little mouth sank as she turned away and
departed with her first great sorrow.
Phoebe's earliest frantic thought had been to fly to Will, but she knew
such a thing was impossible. There would surely be a letter from him on
the following morning hidden within their secret pillar-box between two
bricks of the mill wall. For that she must wait, and even in her misery
she was glad that with Will, not herself, lay decision as to future
action. She had expected some delay; she had believed that her father
would impose stern restrictions of time and make a variety of conditions
with her sweetheart; she had even hoped that Miller Lyddon might command
lengthened patience for the sake of her headstrong, erratic Will's
temper and character; but that he was to be banished in this crushing
and summary fashion overwhelmed Phoebe, and that utterly. Her nature,
however, was not one nourished from any very deep wells of character.
She belonged to a class who suffer bitterly enough under sorrow, but the
storm of it while tearing like a tropical tornado over heart and soul,
leaves no traces that lapse of time cannot wholly and speedily
obliterate. On them it may be said that fortune's sharpest strokes
inflict no lasting scars; their dispositions are happily powerless to
harbour the sustained agony that burrows and gnaws, poisons man's
estimate of all human affairs, wrecks the stores of his experience, and
stamps the cicatrix of a live, burning grief on brow and brain for ever.
They find their own misery sufficiently exalted; but their temperament
is unable to sustain a lifelong tribulation or elevate sorrow into
tragedy. And their state is the more blessed. So Phoebe watered her
couch with tears, prayed to God to hear her solemn promises of eternal
fidelity, then slept and passed into a brief dreamland beyond sorrow's
reach.
Meantime young Blanchard took his stormy heart into a night of stars.
The moon had risen; the sky was clear; the silvery silence remained
unbroken save for the sound of the river, where it flowed under the
shadows of great trees and beneath aerial bridges and banners of the
meadow mists. Will strode through this scene, past his mother's cottage,
and up a hill behind it, into the village. His mind presented in turn a
dozen courses of action, and each was built upon the abiding foundation
of Phoebe's sure faithfulness. That she would cling to him for ever the
young man knew right well; no thought of a rival, therefore, entered
into his calculations. The sole problem was how quickest to make Mr.
Lyddon change his mind; how best to order his future that the miller
should regard him as a responsible person, and one of weight in affairs.
Not that Will held himself a slight man by any means; but he felt that
he must straightway assert his individuality and convince the world in
general and Miller Lyddon in particular of faulty judgment. He was very
angry still as he retraced the recent conversation. Then, among those
various fancies and projects in his mind, the wildest and most foolish
stood out before him as both expedient and to be desired. His purpose in
Chagford was to get advice from another man; but before he reached the
village his own mind was established.
Slated and thatched roofs glimmered under moonlight, and already the
hamlet slept. A few cats crept like shadows through the deserted
streets, from darkness into light, from light back to darkness; and one
cottage window, before which Will Blanchard stood, still showed a candle
behind a white blind. Most quaint and ancient was this habitation--of
picturesque build, with tiny granite porch, small entrance, and
venerable thatches that hung low above the upper windows. A few tall
balsams quite served to fill the garden; indeed so small was it that
from the roadway young Blanchard, by bending over the wooden fence,
could easily reach the cottage window. This he did, tapped lightly, and
then waited for the door to be opened.
A man presently appeared and showed some surprise at the sight of his
late visitor.
"Let me in, Clem," said Will. "I knawed you'd be up, sitting readin'
and dreamin'. 'T is no dreamin' time for me though, by God! I be corned
straight from seeing Miller 'bout Phoebe."
"Then I can very well guess what was last in your ears."
Clement Hicks spoke in an educated voice. He was smaller than Will but
evidently older. Somewhat narrow of build and thin, he looked delicate,
though in reality wiry and sound. He was dark of complexion, wore his
hair long for a cottager, and kept both moustache and beard, though the
latter was very scant and showed the outline of his small chin through
it. A forehead remarkably lofty but not broad, mounted almost
perpendicularly above the man's eyes; and these were large and dark and
full of fire, though marred by a discontented expression. His mouth was
full-lipped, his other features huddled rather meanly together under the
high brow: but his face, while admittedly plain even to ugliness, was
not commonplace; for its eyes were remarkable, and the cast of thought
ennobled it as a whole.
Will entered the cottage kitchen and began instantly to unfold his
experiences.
"You knaw me--a man with a level head, as leaps after looking, not
afore. I put nothing but plain reason to him and he flouted me like you
might a cheel. An' I be gwaine to make him eat his words--such hard
words as they was tu! Think of it! Me an' Phoebe never to meet no more!
The folly of sayin' such a thing! Wouldn't 'e reckon that grey hairs
knawed better than to fancy words can keep lovers apart?"
"Grey hairs cover old brains; and old brains forget what it feels like
to have a body full o' young blood. The best memory can't keep the
feeling of youth fresh in a man."
"Well, I ban't the hot-headed twoad Miller Lyddon thinks, or pretends he
thinks, anyway. I'll shaw un! I can wait, an' Phoebe can wait, an' now
she'll have to. I'm gwaine away."
"Going away. Why?"
"To shaw what 's in me. I ban't sorry for this for some things. Now no
man shall say that I'm a home-stayin' gaby, tramping up an' down Teign
Vale for a living. I'll step out into the wide world, same as them
Grimbals done. They 'm back again made of money, the pair of 'em."
"It took them fifteen years and more, and they were marvellously lucky."
"What then? I'm as like to fare well as they. I've worked out a
far-reaching plan, but the first step I've thought on 's terrible
coorious, an' I reckon nobody but you'd see how it led to better things.
But you 'm book-larned and wise in your way, though I wish your wisdom
had done more for yourself than it has. Anyway, you 'm tokened to Chris
and will be one of the family some day perhaps when Mother Coomstock
dies, so I'll leave my secret with you. But not a soul else--not mother
even. So you must swear you'll never tell to man or woman or cheel what
I've done and wheer I be gone."
"I'll swear if you like."
"By the livin' God."
"By any God you believe is alive."
"Say it, then."
"By the living God, I, Clement Hicks, bee-master of Chagford, Devon,
swear to keep the secret of my friend and neighbour, William Blanchard,
whatever it is."
"And may He tear the life out of you if you so much as think to tell."
Hicks laughed and shook his hair from his forehead.
"You're suspicious of the best friend you've got in the world."
"Not a spark. But I want you to see what an awful solemn thing I reckon
it."
"Then may God rot me, and plague me, and let me roast in hell-fire with
the rogues for ever and a day, if I so much as whisper your news to man
or mouse! There, will that do?"
"No call to drag in hell fire, 'cause I knaw you doan't set no count on
it. More doan't I. Hell's cold ashes now if all what you ve said is
true. But you've sworn all right and now I'll tell 'e."
He bent forward and whispered in the other's ear, whereon Hicks started
in evident amazement and showed himself much concerned.
"Good Heavens! Man alive, are you mad?"
"You doan't 'zactly look on ahead enough, Clem," said Will loftily.
"Ban't the thing itself's gwaine to make a fortune, but what comes of
it. 'Tis a tidy stepping-stone lead-in' to gert matters very often, as
your books tell, I dare say."
"It can't lead to anything whatever in your case but wasted years."
"I'm best judge of that. I've planned the road, and if I ban't home
again inside ten year as good a man as Grimbal or any other I'll say I
was wrong."
"You're a bigger fool than even I thought, Blanchard."
Will's eye flashed.
"You 'm a tidy judge of a fule, I grant," he said angrily, "or should
be. But you 'm awnly wan more against me. You'll see you 'm wrong like
the rest. Anyway, you've got to mind what you've sweared. An' when
mother an' Chris ax 'e wheer I be, I'll thank you to say I'm out in the
world doin' braave, an' no more."
"As you like. It 's idle, I know, trying to make you change your mind."
A thin voice from an upper chamber of the cottage here interrupted their
colloquy, and the mother of the bee-keeper reminded him that he was due
early on the following day at Okehampton with honey, and that he ought
long since to be asleep.
"If that's Will Blanchard," she concluded, "tell un to be off home to
bed. What 's the wisdom o' turning night hours into day like this here?"
"All right, mother," shouted Will. "Gude-night to 'e. I be off this
moment."
Then bidding his friend farewell, he departed.
"Doan't think twice o' what I said a minute since. I was hot 'cause you
couldn't see no wisdom in my plan. But that's the way of folks. They
belittle a chap's best thoughts and acts till the time comes for luck to
turn an' bring the fruit; then them as scoffed be the first to turn
round smilin' an' handshaking and sayin', 'What did us say? Didn't us
tell 'e so from the very beginning?'"
Away went the youthful water-keeper, inspired with the prospect of his
contemplated flight. He strode home at a rapid pace, to find all lights
out and the household in bed. Then he drank half a pint of cider, ate
some bread and cheese, and set about a letter to Phoebe.
A little desk on a side-table, the common property of himself, his
mother, and sister, was soon opened, and materials found. Then, in his
own uncial characters, that always tended hopefully upward, and thus
left a triangle of untouched paper at the bottom of every sheet, Will
wrote a letter of two folios, or eight complete pages. In this he
repeated the points of his conversation with Phoebe's father, told her
to be patient, and announced that, satisfied of her unfailing love and
steadfastness through all, he was about to pass into the wider world,
and carve his way to prosperity and fortune. He hid particulars from
her, but mentioned that Clement Hicks would forward any communications.
Finally he bid her keep a stout heart and live contented in the
certainty of ultimate happiness. He also advised Phoebe to forgive her
father. "I have already done it, honor bright," he wrote; "'t is a wise
man's part to bear no malice, especially against an old grey body whose
judgment 'pears to be gone bad for some reason." He also assured Phoebe
that he was hers until death should separate them; in a postscript he
desired her to break his departure softly to his mother if opportunity
to do so occurred; and, finally, he was not ashamed to fill the empty
triangles on each page with kisses, represented by triangles closely
packed. Bearing this important communication, Will walked out again into
the night, and soon his letter awaited Phoebe in the usual receptacle.
He felt therein himself, half suspecting a note might await him, but
there was nothing. He hesitated for a moment, then climbed the gate into
Monks Barton farmyard, went softly and stood in the dark shadow of the
mill-house. The moon shone full upon the face of the dwelling, and its
three fruit-trees looked as though painted in profound black against the
pale whitewash; while Phoebe's dormer-window framed the splendour of the
reflected sky, and shone very brightly. The blind was down, and the
maiden behind it had been asleep an hour or two; but Will pictured her
as sobbing her heart out still. Perhaps he would never see her again.
The path he had chosen to follow might take him over seas and through
vast perils; indeed, it must do so if the success he desired was to be
won. He felt something almost like a catch in his throat as he turned
away and crossed the sleeping river. He glanced down through dreaming
glades and saw one motionless silver spot on the dark waters beneath the
alders. Sentiment was at its flood just then, and he spoke a few words
under his breath. "'Tis thicky auld Muscovy duck, roostin' on his li'l
island; poor lone devil wi' never a mate to fight for nor friend to swim
along with. Worse case than mine, come to think on it!" Then an emotion,
rare enough with him, vanished, and he sniffed the night air and felt
his heart beat high at thoughts of what lay ahead.
Will returned home, made fast the outer door, took off his boots, and
went softly up a creaking stair. Loud and steady music came from the
room where John Grimbal lay, and Blanchard smiled when he heard it.
"'Tis the snore of a happy man with money in his purse," he thought.
Then he stood by his mother's door, which she always kept ajar at night,
and peeped in upon her. Damaris Blanchard slumbered with one arm on the
coverlet, the other behind her head. She was a handsome woman still, and
looked younger than her eight-and-forty years in the soft ambient light.
"Muneshine do make dear mother so purty as a queen," said Will to
himself. And he would never wish her "good-by," perhaps never see her
again. He hastened with light, impulsive step into the room, thinking
just to kiss the hand on the bed, but his mother stirred instantly and
cried, "Who's theer?" with sleepy voice. Then she sat up and listened--a
fair, grey-eyed woman in an old-fashioned night-cap. Her son had
vanished before her eyes were opened, and now she turned and yawned and
slept again.
Will entered his own chamber near at hand, doffed for ever the velveteen
uniform of water-keeper, and brought from a drawer an old suit of
corduroy. Next he counted his slight store of money, set his 'alarum'
for four o'clock, and, fifteen minutes later, was in bed and asleep, the
time then being a little after midnight.
CHAPTER IV
BY THE RIVER
Clement Hicks paid an early visit to Will's home upon the following
morning. He had already set out to Okehampton with ten pounds of honey
in the comb, and at Mrs. Blanchard's cottage he stopped the little
public vehicle which ran on market-days to the distant town. That the
son of the house was up and away at dawn told his family nothing, for
his movements were at all times erratic, and part of his duty consisted
in appearing on the river at uncertain times and in unexpected
localities. Clement Hicks often called for a moment upon his way to
market, and Chris, who now greeted her lover, felt puzzled at the
unusual gravity of his face. She turned pale when she heard his
tremendous news; but the mother was of more Spartan temperament and
received intelligence of Will's achievement without changing colour or
ceasing from her occupation.
Between Damaris Blanchard and her boy had always existed a perfect
harmony of understanding, rare even in their beautiful relationship. The
thoughts of son and mother chimed; not seldom they anticipated each
other's words. The woman saw much of her dead husband reflected in Will
and felt a moral conviction that through the storms of youth, high
temper, and inexperience, he would surely pass to good things, by reason
of the strenuous honesty and singleness of purpose that actuated him;
he, on his side, admired the great calmness and self-possession of his
mother. She was so steadfast, so strong, and wiser than any woman he had
ever seen. With a fierce, volcanic affection Will Blanchard loved her.
She and Phoebe alike shared his whole heart.
"It is a manly way of life he has chosen, and that is all I may say. He
is ambitious and strong, and I should be the last to think he has not
done well to go into the world for a while," said Clement.
"When is he coming back again?" asked Chris.
"He spoke of ten years or so."
"Then 'twill be more or less," declared Mrs. Blanchard, calmly. "Maybe a
month, maybe five years, or fifteen, not ten, if he said ten. He'll shaw
the gude gold he's made of, whether or no. I'm happy in this and not
surprised. 'Twas very like to come arter last night, if things went
crooked."
"'Tis much as faither might have done," said Chris.
"'Tis much what he did do. Thank you for calling, Clem Hicks. Now best
be away, else they'll drive off to Okehampton without 'e."
Clement departed, Chris wept as the full extent of her loss was
impressed upon her, and Mrs. Blanchard went up to her son's room. There
she discovered the velveteen suit with a card upon them: "Hand over to
Mr. Morgan, Head Water-keeper, Sandypark." She looked through his
things, and found that he had taken nothing but his money, one suit of
working clothes, and a red tie--her present to him on his birthday
during the previous month. All his other possessions remained in their
usual places. With none to see, the woman's eye moistened; then she sat
down on Will's bed and her heart grew weak for one brief moment as she
pictured him fighting the battle. It hurt her a little that he had told
Clement Hicks his intention and hid it from his mother. Yet as a son, at
least, he had never failed. However, all affairs of life were a matter
of waiting, more or less, she told herself; and patience was easier to
Damaris Blanchard than to most people. Under her highest uneasiness,
maternal pride throbbed at thought of the manly independence indicated
by her son's action. She returned to the duties of the day, but found
herself restless, while continually admonishing Chris not to be so. Her
thoughts drifted to Monks Barton and Will's meeting with his
sweetheart's father. Presently, when her daughter went up to the
village, Mrs. Blanchard put off her apron, donned the cotton sunbonnet
that she always wore from choice, and walked over to see Mr. Lyddon.
They were old friends, and presently Damaris listened sedately to the
miller without taking offence at his directness of speech. He told the
story of his decision and Will's final reply, while she nodded and even
smiled once or twice in the course of the narrative.
"You was both right, I reckon," she said placidly, looking into Mr.
Lyddon's face. "You was wise to mistrust, not knawin' what's at the root
of him; and he, being as he is, was in the right to tell 'e the race
goes to the young. Wheer two hearts is bent on joining, 'tis join they
will--if both keeps of a mind long enough."
"That's it, Damaris Blanchard; who's gwaine to b'lieve that a bwoy an'
gal, like Will an' Phoebe, do knaw theer minds? Mark me, they'll both
chaange sweethearts a score of times yet 'fore they come to mate."
"Caan't speak for your darter, Lyddon; but I knaw my son. A masterful
bwoy, like his faither before him, wild sometimes an' wayward tu, but
not with women-folk. His faither loved in wan plaace awnly. He'll be
true to your cheel whatever betides, or I'm a fule."
"What's the use of that if he ban't true to himself? No, no, I caan't
see a happy ending to the tale however you look at it. Wish I could. I
fear't was a ugly star twinkled awver his birthplace, ma'am."
"'Twas all the stars of heaven, Miller," said the mother, frankly, "for
he was born in my husband's caravan in the auld days. We was camped up
on the Moor, drawn into one of them roundy-poundies o' grey granite
stones set up by Phoenicians at the beginning of the world. Ess fay, a
braave shiny night, wi' the li'l windows thrawed open to give me air.
An' 'pon Will's come-of-age birthday, last month, if us didn't all drive
up theer an' light a fire an' drink a dish of tea in the identical spot!
'Tis out Newtake' way."
"Like a story-book."
"'Twas Clem Hicks, his thought, being a fanciful man. But I'll bid you
gude-marnin' now. Awnly mind this, as between friends and without a
spark of malice: Will Blanchard means to marry your maid, sure as you'm
born, if awnly she keeps strong for him. It rests with her, Miller, not
you."
"Much what your son said in sharper words. Well, you'm out o' reckoning
for once, wise though you be most times; for if a maiden's happiness
doan't rest with her faither, blamed if I see wheer it should. And to
think such a man as me doan't knaw wiser 'n two childern who caan't
number forty year between 'em is flat fulishness, surely?"
"I knaw Will," said Mrs. Blanchard, slowly and emphatically; "I knaw un
to the core, and that's to say more than you or anybody else can. A
mother may read her son like print, but no faither can see to the bottom
of a wife-old daughter--not if he was Solomon's self. So us'll wait an'
watch wi'out being worse friends."
She went home again the happier for her conversation; but any thought
that Mr. Lyddon might have been disposed to devote to her prophecy was
for the time banished by the advent of John Grimbal and his brother.
Like boys home from school, they dwelt in the present delight of their
return, and postponed the varied duties awaiting them, to revel again in
the old sights, sounds, and scents. To-day they were about an angling
excursion, and the fishers' road to Fingle lying through Monks Barton,
both brothers stopped a while and waited upon their old friend of the
mill, according to John's promise of the previous afternoon. Martin
carried the creel and the ample luncheon it contained; John smoked a
strong cigar and was only encumbered with his light fly-rod; the younger
designed to accompany his brother through Fingle Valley; then leave him
there, about his sport, and proceed alone to various places of natural
and antiquarian interest. But John meant fishing and nothing else. To
him great woods were no more than cover for fur and feathers; rivers and
streams meant a vehicle for the display of a fly to trout, and only
attracted him or the reverse, according to the fish they harboured. When
the moorland waters spouted and churned, cherry red from their springs
in the peat, he deemed them a noble spectacle; when, as at present,
Teign herself had shrunk to a mere silver thread, and the fingerling
trout splashed and wriggled half out of water in the shallows, he freely
criticised its scanty volume and meagre depths.
Miller Lyddon welcomed the men very heartily. He had been amongst those
who dismissed them with hope to their battle against the world, and now
he reminded them of his sanguine predictions. Will Blanchard's
disappearance amused John Grimbal and he laughed when Billy Blee
appeared red-hot with the news. Mr. Lyddon made no secret of his
personal opinion of Blanchard, and all debated the probable design of
the wanderer.
"Maybe he's 'listed," said John, "an' a good thing too if he has. It
makes a man of a young fellow. I'm for conscription myself--always have
been."
"I be minded to think he've joined the riders," declared Billy. "Theer
comed a circus here last month, with braave doin's in the way of
horsemanship and Merry Andrews, and such like devilries. Us all goes to
see it from miles round every year; an' Will was theer. Circus folk do
see the world in a way denied to most, and theer manner of life takes
'em even as far as Russia and the Indies I've heard."
"Then there's the gypsy blood in him--" declared Mr. Lyddon, "that might
send him roaming oversea, if nothing else did."
"Or my great doings are like to have fired him," said John. "How's
Phoebe?" he continued, dismissing Will. "I saw her yesterday--a bowerly
maiden she's grown--a prize for a better man that this wild youngster,
now bolted God knaws where."
"So I think," agreed the miller, "an' I hope she'll soon forget the
searching grey eyes of un and his high-handed way o' speech. Gals like
such things. Dear, dear! though he made me so darned angry last night, I
could have laughed in his faace more 'n wance."
"Missy's under the weather this marnin'," declared Billy. "Who tawld her
I ban't able to say, but she knawed he'd gone just arter feedin' the
fowls, and she went down valley alone, so slow, wi' her purty head that
bent it looked as if her sunbonnet might be hiding an auld gran'mother's
poll."
"She'll come round," said Martin; "she's only a young girl yet."
"And there 's fish as good in the sea as ever came out, and better,"
declared his brother. "She must wait for a man who is a man,--somebody
of good sense and good standing, with property to his name."
Miller Lyddon noted with surprise and satisfaction John Grimbal's warmth
of manner upon this question; he observed also the stout, hearty body of
him, and the handsome face that crowned it. Then the brothers proceeded
down-stream, and the master of Monks Barton looked after them and caught
himself hoping that they might meet Phoebe.
At a point where the river runs between a giant shoulder of heather-clad
hill on one side and the ragged expanses of Whiddon Park upon the other,
John clambered down to the streamside and began to fish, while Martin
dawdled at hand and watched the sport. A pearly clearness, caught from
the clouds, characterised earth as well as air, and proved that every
world-picture depends for atmosphere and colour upon the sky-picture
extended above it. Again there was movement and some music, for the
magic of the wind in a landscape's nearer planes is responsible for
both. The wooded valley lay under a grey and breezy forenoon; swaying
alders marked each intermittent gust with a silver ripple of upturned
foliage, and still reaches of the river similarly answered the wind with
hurrying flickers and furrows of dimpled light. Through its transparent
flood, where the waters ran in shadow and escaped reflections, the river
revealed a bed of ruddy brown and rich amber. This harmonious colouring
proceeded from the pebbly bottom, where a medley of warm agate tones
spread and shimmered, like some far-reaching mosaic beneath the crystal.
Above Teign's shrunken current extended oak and ash, while her banks
bore splendid concourse of the wild water-loving dwellers in that happy
valley. Meadowsweet nodded creamy crests; hemlock and fool's parsley and
seeding willow-herb crowded together beneath far-scattered filigree of
honeysuckles and brambles with berries, some ripe, some red; while the
scarlet corals of briar and white bryony gemmed every riotous trailing
thicket, dene, and dingle along the river's brink; and in the grassy
spaces between rose little chrysoprase steeples of wood sage all set in
shining fern. Upon the boulders in midstream subaqueous mosses, now
revealed and starved by the drought, died hard, and the seeds of
grasses, figworts, and persicarias thrust up flower and foliage,
flourishing in unwonted spots from which the next freshet would rudely
tear them. Insect life did not abundantly manifest itself, for the day
was sunless; but now and again, with crisp rattle of his gauze wings, a
dragon-fly flashed along the river. Through these scenes the Teign
rolled drowsily and with feeble pulses. Upon one bank rose the confines
of Whiddon; on the other, abrupt and interspersed with gulleys of
shattered shale, ascended huge slopes whereon a whole summer of sunshine
had scorched the heather to dry death. But fading purple still gleamed
here and there in points and splashes, and the lesser furze, mingling
therewith, scattered gold upon the tremendous acclivities even to the
crown of fir-trees that towered remote and very blue upon the uplifted
sky-line. Swallows, with white breasts flashing, circled over the river,
and while their elevation above the water appeared at times tremendous,
the abrupt steepness of the gorge was such that the birds almost brushed
the hillside with their wings. A sledge, laden with the timber of barked
sapling oaks, creaked and jingled over the rough road beside the stream;
a man called to his horses and a dog barked beside him; then they
disappeared and the spacious scene was again empty, save for its
manifold wild life and music.
John Grimbal fished, failed, and cursed the poor water and the lush
wealth of the riverside that caught his fly at every critical moment. A
few small trout he captured and returned; then, flinging down rod and
net, he called to his brother for the luncheon-basket. Together they sat
in the fern beside the river and ate heartily of the fare that Mrs.
Blanchard had provided; then, as John was about to light a pipe, his
brother, with a smile, produced a little wicker globe and handed it to
him. This unexpected sight awoke sudden and keen appetite on the elder's
face. He smacked his lips, swore a hearty oath of rejoicing, and held
out an eager hand for the thing.
"My God! to think I'll suck the smoke of that again,--the best baccy in
the wide world!"
The little receptacle contained a rough sort of sun-dried Kaffir
tobacco, such as John and Martin had both smoked for the past fifteen
years.
"I thought it would be a treat. I brought home a few pounds," said the
younger, smiling again at his brother's hungry delight. John cut into
the case, loaded his pipe, and lighted it with a contented sign. Then he
handed the rest back to its owner.
"No, no," said Martin. "I'll just have one fill, that's all. I brought
this for you. 'T will atone for the poor sport. The creel I shall leave
with you now, for I'm away to Fingle Bridge and Prestonbury. We'll meet
at nightfall."
Thereupon he set off down the valley, his mind full of early British
encampments, while John sat and smoked and pondered upon his future. He
built no castles in the air, but a solid country house of red brick,
destined to stand in its own grounds near Chagford, and to have a snug
game-cover or two about it, with a few good acres of arable land
bordering on forest. Roots meant cover for partridges in John Grimbal's
mind; beech and oak in autumn represented desirable food for pheasants;
and corn, once garnered and out of the way, left stubble for all manner
of game.
Meantime, whilst he reviewed his future with his eyes on a blue cloud of
tobacco smoke, Martin passed Phoebe Lyddon farther down the valley. Him
she recognised as a stranger; but he, with his eyes engaged in no more
than unconscious guarding of his footsteps, his mind buried in the
fascinating problems of early British castramentation, did not look at
her or mark a sorrowful young face still stained with tears.
Into the gorge Phoebe had wandered after reading her sweetheart's
letter. There, to the secret ear of the great Mother, instinct had drawn
her and her grief; and now the earliest shock was over; a dull, numb
pain of mind followed the first sorrow; unwonted exercise had made her
weary; and physical hunger, not to be stayed by mental suffering, forced
her to turn homewards. Red-eyed and unhappy she passed beside the river,
a very picture of a woful lover.
The sound of Phoebe's steps fell on John Grimbal's ear as he lay upon
his back with crossed knees and his hands behind his head. He partly
rose therefore, thrust his face above the fern, saw the wayfarer, and
then sprang to his feet. The cause of her tearful expression and
listless demeanour was known to him, but he ignored them and greeted her
cheerily.
"Can't catch anything big enough to keep, and sha'n't until the rain
comes," he said; "so I'll walk along with you, if you're going home."
He offered his hand; then, after Phoebe had shaken it, moved beside her
and put up his rod as he went.
"Saw your father this morning, and mighty glad I was to find him so
blooming. To my eye he looks younger than my memory picture of him. But
that's because I've grown from boy to man, as you have from child to
woman."
"So I have, and 't is a pity my faither doan't knaw it," answered
Phoebe, smarting under her wrongs, and willing to chronicle them in a
friendly ear. "If I ban't full woman, who is? Yet I'm treated like a
baaby, as if I'd got no 'pinions an' feelings, and wasn't--wasn't auld
enough to knaw what love meant."
Grimbal's eyes glowed at the picture of the girl's indignation, and he
longed to put his arms round her and comfort her.
"You must be wise and dutiful, Phoebe," he said. "Will Blauchard's a
plucky fellow to go off and face the world. And perhaps he'll be one of
the lucky ones, like I was."
"He will be, for certain, and so you'd say if you knawed him same as I
do. But the cruel waitin'--years and years and years--'t is enough to
break a body's heart."
Her voice fluttered like bells in a wild wind; she trembled on the brink
of tears; and he saw by little convulsive movements and the lump in her
round throat that she could not yet regard her lot with patience. She
brought out her pocket-handkerchief again, and the man noticed it was
all wet and rolled into a ball.
"Life's a blank thing at lovers' parting," he said; "but time rubs the
rough edges off matters that fret our minds the worst. Days and nights,
and plenty of 'em, are the best cure for all ills."
"An' the best cure for life tu! The awnly cure. Think of years an' years
without him. Yesterday us met up in Pixies' Parlour yonder, an' I was
peart an' proud as need be; to-day he's gone, and I feel auld and wisht
and all full of weary wonder how I'm gwaine to fare and if I'llever see
him again. 'T is cruel--bitter cruel for me."
That she could thus pity herself so soon argued a mind incapable of
harbouring great sorrow for many years; and the man at her side, without
appreciating this fact, yet, by a sort of intuition, suspected that
Phoebe's grief, perhaps even her steadfastness of purpose, would suffer
diminution before very great lapse of time. Without knowing why, he
hoped it might be so. Her voice fell melodiously upon an ear long tuned
to the whine of native women. It came from the lungs, was full and
sweet, with a shy suddenness about it, like the cooing of wood doves.
She half slipped at a stile, and he put out his hand and touched her
waist and felt his heart throb. But Phoebe's eyes rarely met her new
friend's. The girl looked with troubled brows ahead into the future,
while she walked beside him; and he, upon her left hand, saw only the
soft cheek, the pouting lips, and the dimples that came and went.
Sometimes she looked up, however, and Grimbal noted how the flutter of
past tears shook her round young breast, marked the spring of her step,
the freedom of her gait, and the trim turn of her feet and ankles. After
the flat-footed Kaffir girls, Phoebe's instep had a right noble arch in
his estimation.
"To think that I, as never wronged faither in thought or deed, should be
treated so hard! I've been all the world to him since mother died, for
he's said as much to many; yet he's risen up an' done this, contrary to
justice and right and Scripture, tu."
"You must be patient, Phoebe, and respect his age, and let the matter
rest till the time grows ripe. I can't advise you better than that."
"'Patient!' My life's empty, I tell 'e--empty, hollow, tasteless wi'out
my Will."
"Well, well, we'll see. I'm going to build a big red-brick house
presently, and buy land, and make a bit of a stir in my small way.
You've a pretty fancy in such things, I'll bet a dollar. You shall give
me a helping hand--eh? You must tell me best way of setting up house.
And you might help me as to furniture and suchlike if you had time for
it. Will you, for an old friend?"
Phoebe was slightly interested. She promised to do anything in her power
that might cause Mr. Grimbal satisfaction; and he, very wisely, assured
her that there was no salve for sorrow like unselfish labours on behalf
of other people. He left her at the farm-gate, and tramped back to the
Blanchard cottage with his mind busy 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 already won, and week after her lover's repulse Damaris
vanished. She journeyed with her future husband to Exeter, wedded him,
and became mistress of his house on wheels; then, for the space of four
years, she lived the gypsy life, brought a son and daughter into the
world, and tried without avail to obtain her father's forgiveness. That,
however, she never had, though her mother communicated with her in fear
and trembling; and when, by strange chance, on Will's advent, Damaris
Blanchard was brought to bed near her old home, and became a mother in
one of the venerable hut circles which plentifully scatter that lonely
region, Mrs. Ford, apprised of the fact in secret, actually stole to her
daughter's side by night and wept over her grandchild. Now the farmer
and his wife were dead; Newtake at present stood without a tenant; and
Mrs. Blanchard possessed no near relations save her children and one
elder brother, Joel, to whom had passed their parent's small savings.
Timothy Blanchard continued a wandering existence for the space of five
years after his marriage; then he sold his caravans, settled in
Chagford, bought the cottage by the river, rented some market-garden
land, and pursued his busy and industrious way. Thus he prospered
through ten more years, saving money, developing a variety of schemes,
letting out on hire a steam thresher, and in various other ways adding
to his store. The man was on the high road to genuine prosperity when
death overtook him and put a period to his ambitions. He was snatched
from mundane affairs leaving numerous schemes half developed and most of
his money embarked in various enterprises. Unhappily Will was too young
to continue his father's work, and though Mrs. Blanchard's brother, Joel
Ford, administered the little estate to the best of his power, much had
to be sacrificed. In the sequel Damaris found herself with a cottage, a
garden, and an annual income of about fifty pounds a year. Her son was
then twelve years of age, her daughter eighteen months younger. So she
lived quietly and not without happiness, after the first sorrow of her
husband's loss was in a measure softened by time.
Of Mr. Joel Ford it now becomes necessary to speak. Combining the duties
of attorney, house-agent, registrar of deaths, births, and marriages,
and receiver of taxes and debts, the man lived a dingy life at Newton
Abbot. Acid, cynical, and bald he was, very dry of mind and body, and
but ten years older than Mrs. Blanchard, though he looked nearer seventy
than sixty. To the Newton mind Mr. Ford was associated only with Quarter
Day--that black, recurrent cloud on the horizon of every poor man's
life. He dwelt with an elderly housekeeper--a widow of genial
disposition; and indeed the attorney himself was not lacking in some
urbanity of character, though few guessed it, for he kept all that was
best in himself hidden under an unlovely crust. His better instincts
took the shape of family affection. Damaris Blanchard and he were the
last branches of one of the innumerable families of Ford to be found in
Devon, and he had no small regard for his only living sister. His annual
holiday from business--a period of a fortnight, sometimes extended to
three weeks if the weather was more than commonly fair--he spent
habitually at Chagford; and Will on these occasions devoted his leisure
to his uncle, drove him on the Moor, and made him welcome. Will, indeed,
was a favourite with Mr. Ford, and the lad's high spirits, real
ignorance of the world, and eternal grave assumption of wisdom even
tickled the man of business into a sort of dry cricket laughter upon
occasions. When, therefore, a fortnight after young Blanchard's
mysterious disappearance, Joel Ford arrived at his sister's cottage for
the annual visit, he was as much concerned as his nature had power to
make him at the news.
For three weeks he stayed, missing the company of his nephew not a
little; and his residence in Chagford had needed no special comment save
for an important incident resulting therefrom.
Phoebe Lyddon it was who in all innocence and ignorance set rolling a
pebble that finally fell in thundering avalanches; and her chance word
was uttered at her father's table on an occasion when John and Martin
Grimbal were supping at Monks Barton.
The returned natives, and more especially the elder, had been much at
the mill since their reappearance. John, indeed, upon one pretext or
another, scarcely spent a day without calling. His rough kindness
appealed to Phoebe, who at first suspected no danger from it, while Mr.
Lyddon encouraged the man and made him and his brother welcome at all
times.
John Grimbal, upon the morning that preceded the present supper party,
had at last found a property to his taste. It might, indeed, have been
designed for him. Near Whiddon it lay, in the valley of the Moreton
Road, and consisted of a farm and the ruin of a Tudor mansion. The
latter had been tenanted until the dawn of this century, but was since
then fallen into decay. The farm lands stretched beneath the crown of
Cranbrook, hard by the historic "Bloody Meadow," a spot assigned to that
skirmish between Royalist and Parliamentary forces during 1642 which
cost brilliant young Sidney Godolphin his life. Here, or near at hand,
the young man probably fell, with a musket-bullet in his leg, and
subsequently expired at Chagford[1] leaving the "misfortune of his death
upon a place which could never otherwise have had a mention to the
world," according to caustic Chancellor Clarendon.
[1] _At Chagford._ The place of the poet's passing is believed
to have been an ancient dwelling-house adjacent to St. Michael's Church.
At that date it was a private residence of the Whiddon family; but
during later times it became known as the "Black Swan Inn," or tavern (a
black swan being the crest of Sir John Whiddon, Judge of Queen's Bench
in the first Mary's reign); while to-day this restored Mansion appears
as the hostelry of the "Three Crowns."
Upon the aforesaid ruins, fashioned after the form of a great E, out of
compliment to the sovereign who occupied the throne at the period of the
decayed fabric's erection, John Grimbal proposed to build his habitation
of red brick and tile. The pertaining farm already had a tenant, and
represented four hundred acres of arable land, with possibilities of
development; snug woods wound along the boundaries of the estate and
mingled their branches with others not more stately though sprung from
the nobler domain of Whiddon; and Chagford was distant but a mile, or
five minutes' ride.
Tongues wagged that evening concerning the Red House, as the ruin was
called, and a question arose as to whom John Grimbal must apply for
information respecting the property.
"I noted on the board two names--one in London, one handy at Newton
Abbot--a Mr. Joel Ford, of Wolborough Street."
Phoebe blushed where she sat and very nearly said, "My Will's uncle!"
but thought better of it and kept silent. Meanwhile her father answered.
"Ford's an attorney, Mrs. Blanchard's brother, a maker of agreements
between man and man, and a dusty, dry sort of chip, from all I've heard
tell. His father and mine were friends forty years and more agone. Old
Ford had Newtake Farm on the Moor, and wore his fingers to the bone that
his son might have good schooling and a learned profession."
"He's in Chagford this very minute," said Phoebe.
Then Mr. Blee spoke. On the occasion of any entertainment at Monks
Barton he waited at table instead of eating with the family as usual.
Now he addressed the company from his station behind Mr. Lyddon's chair.
"Joel Ford's biding with his sister. A wonderful deep man, to my certain
knowledge, an' wears a merchant-like coat an' shiny hat working days an'
Sabbaths alike. A snug man, I'll wager, if 't is awnly by the token of
broadcloth on week-days."
"He looks for all the world like a yellow, shrivelled parchment himself.
Regular gimlet eyes, too, and a very fitch for sharpness, though younger
than his appearance might make you fancy," said the miller.
"Then I'll pay him a visit and see how things stand," declared John.
"Not that I'd employ any but my own London lawyer, of course," he added,
"but this old chap can give me the information I require; no doubt."
"Ess fay! an' draw you a dockyment in all the cautiousness of the law's
language," promised Billy Blee. "'T is a fact makes me mazed every time
I think of it," he continued, "that mere fleeting ink on the skin tored
off a calf can be so set out to last to the trump of doom. Theer be
parchments that laugh at the Queen's awn Privy Council and make the
Court of Parliament look a mere fule afore 'em. But it doan't do to be
'feared o' far-reachin' oaths when you 'm signing such a matter, for 't
is in the essence of 'em that the parties should swear deep."
"I'll mind what you say, Billy," promised Grimbal; "I'll pump old Ford
as dry as I can, then be off to London and get such a good, binding deed
of purchase as you suggest."
And it was this determination that presently led to a violent breach
between the young man and his elder.
John waited upon Mr. Ford, at Mrs. Blanchard's cottage, where he had
first lodged with his brother on their return from abroad, and found the
lawyer exceedingly pleasant when he learned the object of Grimbal's
visit. Together they drove over to the Red House, and its intending
tenant soon heard all there was to tell respecting price and the
provisions under which the estate was to be disposed of. For this
information he expressed proper gratitude, but gave no hint of his
future actions.
Mr. Ford heard nothing more for a fortnight. Then he ascertained that
John Grimbal was in the metropolis, that the sale of the Red House and
its lands had been conducted by the London agent, and that no penny of
the handsome commission involved would accrue to him. This position of
affairs greatly (and to some extent reasonably) angered the local man,
and he did not forgive what he considered a very flagrant slight.
Extreme acerbity was bred in him, and his mind, vindictive by nature,
cherished from that hour a hearty detestation of John Grimbal. The old
man, his annual holiday ruined by the circumstance, went home to Newton,
vowing vague vengeance and little dreaming how soon opportunity would
offer to deal his enemy a return blow; while the purchaser of the Red
House laughed at Ford's angry letters, told him to his face that he was
a greedy old rascal, and went on his way well pleased with himself and
fully occupied with his affairs.
Necessary preliminaries were hastened; an architect visited the
crumbling fabric of the old Red House and set about his plans. Soon,
upon the ancient foundations, a new dwelling began to rise. The ancient
name was retained at Martin's entreaty and the surrounding property
developed. A stir and hum crept through the domain. Here was planting of
young birch and larch; here clearing of land; here mounds of manure
steamed on neglected fallows. John Grimbal took up temporary quarters in
the home farm that he might be upon the spot at all hours; and what with
these great personal interests, good news of his property in Africa, and
the growing distraction of one soft-voiced, grey-eyed girl, the man
found his life a full and splendid thing.
That he should admit Phoebe into his thoughts and ambitions was not
unreasonable for two reasons: he knew himself to be heartily in love
with her by this time, and he had heard from her father a definite
statement upon the subject of Will Blanchard. Indeed, the miller, from
motives of worldly wisdom, took an opportunity to let John Grimbal know
the situation.
"No shadow of any engagement at all," he said. "I made it plain as a
pikestaff to them both. It mustn't be thought I countenanced their
crack-brained troth-plighting. 'T was by reason of my final 'Nay' that
Will went off. He 's gone out of her life, and she 'm free as the air. I
tell you this because you may have heard different, and you mix with the
countryside and can contradict any man who gives out otherwise. And,
mind you, I say it from no ill-will to the bwoy, but out of justice to
my cheel."
Thus, to gain private ends, Mr. Lyddon spoke, and his information
greatly heartened the listener. John had more than once sounded Phoebe
on the subject of Will during the past few months, and was bound to
confess that any chance he might possess appeared small; but he was
deeply in love and a man accustomed to have his own way. Increasing
portions of his time and thought were devoted to this ambition, and when
Phoebe's father spoke as recorded, Grimbal jumped at the announcement
and pushed for his own hand.
"If a man that was a man, with a bit of land and a bit of stuff behind
him, came along and asked to court her, 't would be different, I
suppose?" he inquired.
"I'd wish just such a man might come, for her sake."
"Supposing I asked if I might try to win Phoebe?"
"I'd desire your gude speed, my son. Nothing could please, me better."
"Then I've got you on my side?"
"You really mean it? Well, well! Gert news to be sure, an' I be pleased
as Punch to hear 'e. But take my word, for I'm richer than you by many
years in knawledge of the world, though I haven't seen so much of it.
Go slow. Wait a while till that brown bwoy graws a bit dim in Phoebe's
eyes. Your life 's afore you, and the gal 's scarce marriageable, to my
thinking. Build your house and bide your time."
"So be it; and if I don't win her presently, I sha'n't deserve to."
"Ess, but taake time, lad. She 'm a dutiful, gude maiden, and I'd be
sore to think my awn words won't carry their weight when the right
moment comes for speaking 'em. Blanchard's business pulled down the
corners of her purty mouth a bit; but young hearts caan't keep mournful
for ever."
Billy Blee then took his turn on the argument. Thus far he had listened,
and now, according to his custom, argued on the popular side and bent
his sail to the prevalent wind of opinion.
"You say right, Miller. 'T is out of nature that a maid should fret her
innards to fiddlestrings 'bout a green bwoy when theer's ripe men
waitin' for her."
"Never heard better sense," declared John Grimbal, in high good-humour;
and from the red-letter hour of that conversation he let his love grow
into a giant. A man of old-fashioned convictions, he honestly believed
the parent wise who exercised all possible control over a child; and in
this case personal interest prompted him the more strongly to that
opinion. Common sense the world over was on his side, and no man with
the facts before him had been likely to criticise Miller Lyddon on the
course of action he thought proper to pursue for his daughter's ultimate
happiness. That he reckoned without his host naturally escaped the
father's thought at this juncture. Will Blanchard had dwindled in his
mind to the mere memory of a headstrong youngster, now far removed from
the scene of his stupidity and without further power to trouble. That he
could advise John to wait a while until Will's shadow grew less in
Phoebe's thought, argued kindness and delicacy of mind in Mr. Lyddon.
Will he only saw and gauged as the rest of the world. He did not fathom
all of him, as Mrs. Blanchard had said; while concerning Phoebe's inner
heart and the possibilities of her character, at a pinch, he could speak
with still less certainty. She was a virgin page, unturned, unscanned.
No man knew her strength or weakness; she did not know it herself.
Time progressed; the leaf fell and the long drought was followed by a
mild autumn of heavy rains. John Grimbal's days were spent between the
Red House and Monks Barton. His rod was put up; but he had already made
friends and now shot many partridges. He spent long evenings in the
society of Phoebe and her father at the farm; and the miller not seldom
contrived to be called away on these occasions. Billy proved ever ready
to assist, and thus the two old men did the best in their power to aid
Grimbal's suit. In the great, comfortable kitchen, generally at some
distance from each other, Phoebe and the squire of the new Red House
would sit. She, now suspecting, was shy and uneasy; he, his wits
quickened by love, displayed a tact and deftness of words not to have
been anticipated from him. At first Phoebe took fire when Grimbal
criticised Will in anything but a spirit of utmost friendliness; but it
was vital to his own hopes that he should cloud the picture painted on
her heart if he could; so, by degrees and with all the cleverness at his
command, he dropped gall into poor Phoebe's cup in minute doses. He
mourned the extreme improbability of Blanchard's success, grounding his
doubt on Will's uneven character; he pictured Blanchard's fight with the
world and showed how probable it was that he would make it a losing
battle by his own peculiarities of temper. He declared the remoteness of
happiness for Miss Lyddon in that direction to be extreme; he deplored
the unstable nature of a young man's affection all the world over; and
he made solid capital out of the fact that not once since his departure
had her lover communicated with Phoebe. She argued against this that her
father had forbidden it; but Mr. Grimbal overrode the objection, and
asked what man in love would allow himself to be bound by such a
command. As a matter of fact, Will had sent two messages at different
times to his sweetheart. These came through Clement Hicks, and only
conveyed the intelligence that the wanderer was well.
So Phoebe suffered persistent courting and her soft mould of mind sank a
little under the storm. Now, weary and weak, she hesitated; now a wave
of strength fortified her spirit. That John Grimbal should be dogged and
importunate she took as mere masculine characteristics, and the fact did
not anger her against him; but what roused her secret indignation almost
as often as they met was his half-hidden air of sanguine confidence. He
was humble in a way, always the patient lover, but in his manner she
detected an indefinable, irritating self-confidence--the demeanour of
one who already knows himself a conqueror before the battle is fought.
Thus the position gradually developed. As yet her father had not spoken
to Phoebe or pretended to any knowledge of what was doing; but there
came a night, at the end of November, when John Grimbal, the miller, and
Billy sat and smoked at Monks Barton after Phoebe's departure to bed.
Mr. Blee, very well knowing what matter moved the minds of his
companions, spoke first.
"Missy have put on a temperate way of late days it do seem. I most begin
to think that cat-a-mountain of a bwoy 's less in her thoughts than he
was. She 'm larnin' wisdom, as well she may wi' sich a faither."
"I doan't knaw what to think," answered Mr. Lyddon, somewhat gloomily.
"I ban't so much in her confidence as of auld days. Damaris Blanchard's
right, like enough. A maid 's tu deep even for the faither that got her,
most times. A sweet, dear gal as ever was, for all that. How fares it,
John? She never names 'e to me, though I do to her."
"I'm biding my time, neighbour. I reckon 't will be right one day. It
only makes me feel a bit mean now and again to have to say hard things
about young Blanchard. Still, while she 's wrapped up there, I may
whistle for her."
"You 'm in the right," declared Billy. "'T is an auld sayin' that all
manner of dealings be fair in love, an' true no doubt, though I'm a
bachelor myself an' no prophet in such matters."
"All's fair for certain," admitted John, as though he had not before
considered the position from this standpoint.
"Ay, an' a darter's welfare lies in her faither's hand. Thank God, I'm
not a parent to my knowledge; but 'tis a difficult calling in life, an'
a young maiden gal, purty as a picksher, be a heavy load to a honest
mind."
"So I find it," said the miller.
"You've forbid Will--lock, stock, and barrel--therefore, of coourse,
she 's no right to think more of him, to begin with," continued the old
man. It was a new idea.
"Come to think of it, she hasn't--eh?" asked John.
"No, that's true enough," admitted Mr. Lyddon.
"I speak, though of low position, but well thought of an' at Miller's
right hand, so to say," continued Mr. Blee; "so theer 't is: Missy's in
a dangerous pass. Eve's flesh be Eve's flesh, whether hid under flannel
or silk, or shawed mother-naked to the sun after the manner of furrin
cannibals. A gal 's a gal; an' if I was faither of such as your darter,
I'd count it my solemn duty to see her out of the dangers of life an'
tidily mated to a gude man. I'd say to myself, 'Her'll graw to bless me
for what I've done, come a few years.'"
So Billy Blee, according to his golden rule, advised men upon the road
they already desired to follow, and thus increased his reputation for
sound sense and far-reaching wisdom.
"It's true, every word he says," declared John Grimbal.
"I believe it," answered the miller; "though God forbid any word or act
of mine should bring wan tear to Phoebe's cheek. Yet, somehow, I doan't
knaw but you 'm right."
"I am, believe me. It's the truth. You want Phoebe's real happiness
considered, and that now depends on--well, I'll say it out--on me. We
have reached the point now when you must speak, as you promised to
speak, and throw the weight of your influence on my side. Then, after
you've had your say, I'll have mine and put the great question."
Mr. Lyddon nodded his head and relapsed into taciturnity.
CHAPTER VI
AN UNHAPPY POET
That a man of many nerves, uncertain in temper and with no physical or
temporal qualifications, should have won for himself the handsomest girl
in Chagford caused the unreflective to marvel whenever they considered
the point. But a better knowledge of Chris Blauchard had served in some
measure to explain the wonder. Of all women, she was the least likely to
do the thing predicted by experience. She had tremendous force of
character for one scarce twenty years of age; indeed, she lived a
superlative life, and the man, woman, child, or dog that came within
radius of her existence presently formed a definite part of it, and was
loved or detested according to circumstances. Neutrality she could not
understand. If her interests were wide, her prejudices were strong. A
certain unconscious high-handedness of manner made the circle of her
friends small, but those who did love her were enthusiastic. Upon the
whole, the number of those who liked her increased with years, and
avowed enemies had no very definite reasons for aversion. Of her
physical perfections none pretended two opinions; but the boys had
always gone rather in fear of Chris, and the few men who had courted her
during the past few years were all considerably her seniors. No real
romance entered into this young woman's practical and bustling life
until the advent of Clement Hicks, though she herself was the flame of
hearts not a few before his coming.
Neurotic, sensual, as was Chris herself in a healthy fashion, a man of
varying moods, and perhaps the richer for faint glimmerings of the real
fire, Hicks yet found himself no better than an aimless, helpless child
before the demands of reality. Since boyhood he had lived out of touch
with his environment. As bee-keeper and sign-writer he made a naked
living for himself and his mother, and achieved success sufficient to
keep a cottage roof over their heads, but that was all. Books were his
only friends; the old stones of the Moor, the lonely wastes, the
plaintive music of a solitary bird were the companions of his happiest
days. He had wit enough to torture half his waking hours with
self-analysis, and to grit his teeth at his own impotence. But there was
no strength, no virile grip to take his fate in his own hands and mould
it like a man. He only mourned his disadvantages, and sometimes blamed
destiny, sometimes a congenital infirmity of purpose, for the dreary
course of his life. Nature alone could charm his sullen moods, and that
not always. Now and again she spread over the face of his existence a
transitory contentment and a larger hope; but the first contact with
facts swept it away again. His higher aspirations were neither deep nor
enduring, and yet the man's love of nature was lofty and just, and
represented all the religion he had. No moral principles guided him,
conscience never pricked. Nevertheless, thus far he had been a clean
liver and an honest man. Vice, because it affronted his sense of the
beautiful and usually led towards death, did not attract him. He lived
too deep in the lap of Nature to be deceived by the pseudo-realism then
making its appearance in literature, and he laughed without mirth at
these pictures from city-bred pens at that time paraded as the whole
truth of the countryman's life. The later school was not then above the
horizon; the brief and filthy spectacle of those who dragged their
necrosis, marasmus, and gangrene of body and mind across the stage of
art and literature, and shrieked Decay, had not as yet appeared to make
men sicken; the plague-spot, now near healed, had scarce showed the
faintest angry symptom of coming ill. Hicks might under no circumstances
have been drawn in that direction, for his morbidity was of a different
description. Art to this man appeared only in what was wholesome; it
even embraced a guide to conduct, for it led him directly to Nature, and
Nature emphatically taught him the value of obedience, the punishment of
weakness, the reward for excess and every form of self-indulgence. But a
softness in him shrank from these aspects of the Mother. He tried vainly
and feebly to dig some rule of life from her smiles alone, to read a
sermon into her happy hours of high summer sunshine. Beauty was his
dream; he possessed natural taste, and had cultivated the same without
judgment. His intricate disposition and extreme sensitiveness frightened
him away from much effort at self-expression; yet not a few trifling
scraps and shreds of lyric poetry had fallen from his pen in high
moments. These, when the mood changed, he read again, and found dead,
and usually destroyed. He was more easily discouraged than a child who
sets out to tell its parent a story, and is all silence and shamefaced
blushes at the first whisper of laughter or semblance of a smile. The
works of poets dazed him, disheartened him, and secret ambitions toward
performance grew dimmer with every book he laid his hands on. Ambition
to create began to die; the dream scenery of his ill-controlled mental
life more and more seldom took shape of words on paper; and there came a
time when thought grew wholly wordless for him; a mere personal
pleasure, selfish, useless, unsubstantial as the glimmer of mirage over
desert sands.
Into this futile life came Chris, like a breath of sweet air from off
the deep sea. She lifted him clean out of his subjective existence,
awoke a healthy, natural love, built on the ordinary emotions of
humanity, galvanised self-respect and ambition into some activity, and
presently inspired a pluck strong enough to propose marriage. That was
two years ago; and the girl still loved this weakly soul with all her
heart, found his language unlike that of any other man she had seen or
heard, and even took some slight softening edge of culture into herself
from him. Her common sense was absolutely powerless to probe even the
crust of Clement's nature; but she was satisfied that his poetry must be
a thing as marketable as that in printed books. Indeed, in an elated
moment he had assured her that it was so. During the earlier stages of
their attachment, she pestered him to write and sell his verses and make
money, that their happiness might be hastened; while he, on the first
budding of his love, and with the splendid assurance of its return, had
promised all manner of things, and indeed undertaken to make poems that
should be sent by post to the far-away place where they printed unknown
poets, and paid them. Chris believed in Clement as a matter of course.
His honey must at least be worth more to the world than that of his
bees. Over her future husband she began at once to exercise the control
of mistress and mother; and she loved him more dearly after they had
been engaged a year than at the beginning of the contract. By that time
she knew his disposition, and instead of displaying frantic impatience
at it, as might have been predicted, her tolerance was extreme. She bore
with Clem because she loved him with the full love proper to such a
nature as her own; and, though she presently found herself powerless to
modify his character in any practical degree, his gloomy and uneven mind
never lessened the sturdy optimism of Chris herself, or her sure
confidence that the future would unite them. Through her protracted
engagement Mrs. Blanchard's daughter maintained a lively and sanguine
cheerfulness. But seldom was it that she lost patience with the dreamer.
Then her rare, indignant outbursts of commonplace and common sense, like
a thunderstorm, sweetened the stagnant air of Clement's thoughts and
awoke new, wholesome currents in his mind.
As a rule, on the occasion of their frequent country walks, Clem and
Chris found personal problems and private interests sufficient for all
conversation, but it happened that upon a Sunday in mid-December, as
they passed through the valley of the Teign, where the two main streams
of that river mingle at the foothills of the Moor, the subject of Will
and Phoebe for a time at least filled their thoughts. The hour was clear
and bright, yet somewhat cheerless. The sun had already set, from the
standpoint of all life in the valley, and darkness, hastening out of the
east, merged the traceries of a million naked boughs into a thickening
network of misty grey. The river beneath these woods churned in winter
flood, while clear against its raving one robin sang little tinkling
litanies from the branch of an alder.
Chris stood upon Lee Bridge at the waters' meeting and threw scraps of
wood into the river; Clem sat upon the parapet, smoked his pipe, and
noted with a lingering delight the play of his sweetheart's lips as her
fingers strained to snap a tough twig. Then the girl spoke, continuing a
conversation already entered upon.
"Phoebe Lyddon's that weak in will. How far's such as her gwaine in life
without some person else to lean upon?"
"If the ivy cannot find a tree it creeps along the ground, Chrissy."
"Ess, it do; or else falls headlong awver the first bank it comes to.
Phoebe's so helpless a maiden as ever made a picksher. I mind her at
school in the days when we was childer together. Purty as them china
figures you might buy off Cheap Jack, an' just so tender. She'd come up
to dinky gals no bigger 'n herself an' pull out her li'l handkercher an'
ax 'em to be so kind as to blaw her nose for her! Now Will's gone, Lard
knaws wheer she'll drift to."
"To John Grimbal. Any man could see that. Her father's set on it."
"Why don't Will write to her and keep her heart up and give her a little
news? 'Twould be meat an' drink to her. Doan't matter 'bout mother an'
me. We'll take your word for it that Will wants to keep his ways secret.
But a sweetheart--'tis so differ'nt. I wouldn't stand it!"
"I know right well you wouldn't. Will has his own way. We won't
criticise him. But there's a masterful man in the running--a prosperous,
loud-voiced, bull-necked bully of a man, and one not accustomed to take
'no' for his answer. I'm afraid of John Grimbal in this matter. I've
gone so far as to warn Will, but he writes back that he knows Phoebe."
"Jan Grimbal's a very differ'nt fashion of man to his brother; that I
saw in a moment when they bided with us for a week, till the 'Three
Crowns' could take 'em in. I hate Jan--hate him cruel; but I like
Martin. He puts me in mind o' you, Clem, wi' his nice way of speech and
tender quickness for women. But it's Phoebe we'm speaking of. I think
you should write stern to Will an' frighten him. It ban't fair fightin',
that poor, dear Phoebe 'gainst the will o' two strong men."
"Well, she's had paltry food for a lover since he went away. He's got
certain ideas, and she'll hear direct when--but there, I must shut my
mouth, for I swore by fantastic oaths to say nothing."
"He ought to write, whether or no. You tell Will that Jan Grimbal be
about building a braave plaace up under Whiddon, and is looking for a
wife at Monks Barton morning, noon, an' evening. That's like to waken
him. An' tell him the miller's on t'other side, and clacking Jan Grimbal
into Phoebe's ear steadier than the noise of his awn water-wheel."
"And she will grow weak, mark me. She sees that red-brick place rising
out of the bare boughs, higher and higher, and knows that from floor to
attics all may be hers if she likes to say the word. She hears great
talk of drawing-rooms, and pictures, and pianos, and greenhouses full of
rare flowers, and all the rest--why, just think of it!"
"Ban't many gals as could stand 'gainst a piano, I daresay."
"I only know one--mine."
Chris looked at him curiously.
"You 'm right. An' that, for some queer reason, puts me in mind of the
other wan, Martin Grimbal. He was very pleasant to me."
"He's too late, thank God!"
"Ess, fay! An' if he'd comed afore 'e, Clem, he'd been tu early. Theer's
awnly wan man in the gert world for me."
"My gypsy!"
"But I didn't mean that. He wouldn't look at me, not even if I was a
free woman. 'T was of you I thought when I talked to Mr. Grimbal. He'm
well-to-do, and be seekin' a house in the higher quarter under
Middledown. You an' him have the same fancy for the auld stones. So you
might grow into friends--eh, Clem? Couldn't it so fall out? He might
serve to help--eh? You 'm two-and-thirty year auld next February, an' it
do look as though they silly bees ban't gwaine to put money enough in
the bank to spell a weddin' for us this thirty year to come. Theer's
awnly your aunt, Widow Coomstock, as you can look to for a penny, and
that tu doubtful to count on."
"Don't name her, Chris. Good Lord! poor drunken old thing, with that
crowd of hungry relations waiting like vultures round a dying camel!
Never think of her. Money she has, but I sha'n't see the colour of it,
and I don't want to."
"Well, let that bide. Martin Grimbal's the man in my thought."
"What can I do there?"
"Doan't knaw, 'zactly; but things might fall out if he got to like you,
being a bookish sort of man. Anyway, he's very willing to be friends,
for that he told me. Doan't bear yourself like Lucifer afore him; but
take the first chance to let him knaw your fortune's in need of
mendin'."
"You say that! D' you think self-respect is dead in me?" he asked, half
angry.
There was no visible life about them, so she put her arms round him.
"I ax for love of 'e, dearie, an' for want of 'e. Do 'e think waitin' 's
sweeter for me than for you?"
Then he calmed down again, sighed, returned the caress, touched her, and
stroked her breast and shoulder with sudden earthly light in his great
eyes.
"It 's hard to wait."
"That's why I say doan't lose chances that may mean a weddin' for us,
Clem. Theer 's so much hid in 'e, if awnly the way to bring it out could
be found."
"A mine that won't pay working," he said bitterly, the passion fading
out of eyes and voice. "I know there 's something hidden; I feel there
's a twist of brain that ought to rise above keeping bees and take me
higher than honey-combs. Yet look at hard truth. The clods round me get
enough by their sweat to keep wives and feed children. I'm only a
penniless, backboneless, hand-to-mouth wretch, living on the work of
laborious insects."
"If it ban't your awn fault, then whose be it, Clem?"
"The fault of Chance--to pack my build of brains into the skull of a
pauper. This poor, unfinished abortion of a head-piece of mine only
dreams dreams that it cannot even set on paper for others to see."
"You've given up trying whether it can or not, seemin'ly. I never hear
tell of no verses now."
"What 's the good? But only last night, so it happens, I had a sort of a
wild feeling to get something out of myself, and I scribbled for hours
and hours and found a little morsel of a rhyme."
"Will 'e read it to me?"
He showed reluctance, but presently dragged a scrap of paper out of his,
pocket. Not a small source of trouble was his sweetheart's criticism of
his verses.
"It was the common sight of a pair of lovers walking tongue-tied, you
know. I call it 'A Devon Courting.'"
He read the trifle slowly, with that grand, rolling sea-beat of an
accent that Elizabeth once loved to hear on the lips of Raleigh and
Drake.
"Birds gived awver singin',
Flittermice was wingin',
Mists lay on the meadows--
A purty sight to see.
Down-long in the dimpsy, the dimpsy, the dimpsy,
Down-long in the dimpsy
Theer went a maid wi' me.
"Five gude mile o' walkin',
Not wan word o' talkin',
Then I axed a question
And put the same to she.
Up-long in the owl-light, the owl-light, the owl-light,
Up-long in the owl-light,
Theer corned my maid wi' me.
"But I wonder you write the common words, Clem--you who be so much tu
clever to use 'em."
"The words are well enough. They were not common once."
"Well, you knaw best. Could 'e sell such a li'l auld funny thing as that
for money?"
He shook his head.
"No; it was only the toil of making it seemed good. It is worthless."
"An' to think how long it took 'e! If you'd awnly put the time into
big-fashioned verses full of the high words you've got. But you knaw
best. Did 'e hear anything of them rhymes 'bout the auld days you sent
to Lunnon?"
"They sent them back again. I told you 't was wasting three stamps. It
's not for me, I know it. The world is full of dumb singers. Maybe I
haven't got even a pinch of the fire that _must_ break through and show
its flame, no matter what mountains the earth tumbles on it. God knows I
burn hot enough sometimes with great thoughts and wild longings for love
and for sweeter life and for you; but my fires--whether they are
soul-fires or body-fires--only burn my heart out."
She sighed and squeezed his hand, understanding little enough of what he
said.
"We must be patient. 'T is a solid thing, patience. I'm puttin' by
pence; but it 's so plaguy little a gal can earn, best o' times and with
the best will."
"If I could only write the things I think! But they vanish before pen
and paper and the need of words, as the mists of the night vanish before
the hard, searching sun. I am ignorant of how to use words; and those in
the world who might help me will never know of me. As for those around
about, they reckon me three parts fool, with just a little gift of
re-writing names over their dirty shop-fronts."
"Yet it 's money. What did 'e get for that butivul fox wi' the goose in
his mouth you painted 'pon Mr. Lamacraft's sign to Sticklepath?"
"Ten shillings."
"That's solid money."
"It isn't now. I bought a book with it--a book of lies."
Chris was going to speak, but changed her mind and sighed instead.
"Well, as our affairs be speeding so poorly, we'd best to do some gude
deed an' look after this other coil. You must let Will knaw what 's
doin' by letter this very night. 'T is awnly fair, you being set in
trust for him."
"Strange, these Grimbal brothers," mused Clement, as the lovers
proceeded in the direction of Chagford. "They come home with everything
on God's earth that men might desire to win happiness, and, by the look
of it, each marks his home-coming by falling in love with one he can't
have."
"Shaws the fairness of things, Clem; how the poor may chance to have
what the rich caan't buy; so all look to stand equal."
"Fairness, you call it? The damned, cynical irony of this whole
passion-driven puppet-show--that's what it shows! The man who is loved
cannot marry the woman he loves lest they both starve; the man who can
give a woman half the world is loathed for his pains. Not that he 's to
be pitied like the pauper, for if you can't buy love you can buy women,
and the wise ones know how to manufacture a very lasting substitute for
the real thing."
"You talk that black and bitter as though you was deep-read in all the
wickedness of the world," said Chris; "yet I knaw no man can say sweeter
things than you sometimes."
"Talk! It 's all talk with me--all snarling and railing and whining at
hard facts, like a viper wasting its venom on steel. I'm sick of
myself--weary of the old, stale round of my thoughts. Where can I wash
and be clean? Chrissy, for God's sake, tell me."
"Put your hope in the Spring," she said, "an' be busy for Will."
In reality, with the approach of Christmas, affairs between Phoebe and
the elder Grimbal had reached a point far in advance of that which
Clement and Chris were concerned with. For more than three months, and
under a steadily increasing weight of opposition, Miller Lyddon's
daughter fought without shadow of yielding. Then came a time when the
calm but determined iteration of her father's desires and the
sledge-hammer love-making of John Grimbal began to leave an impression.
Even then her love for Will was bright and strong, but her sense of
helplessness fretted her nerves and temper, and her sweetheart's laconic
messages, through the medium of another man, were sorry comfort in this
hour of tribulation. With some reason she felt slighted. Neither
considering Will's peculiarities, nor suspecting that his silence was
only, the result of a whim or project, she began to resent it. Then John
Grimbal caught her in a dangerous mood. Once she wavered, and he had the
wisdom to leave her at the moment of victory. But on the next occasion
of their meeting, he took good care to keep the advantage he had gained.
Conscious of his own honest and generous intentions, Grimbal went on his
way. The subtler manifestations of Phoebe's real attitude towards him
escaped his observation; her reluctance he set down as resulting from
the dying shadow of affection for Will Blanchard. That she would be very
happy and proud and prosperous in the position of his wife, the lover
was absolutely assured. He pursued her with the greater determination,
in that he believed he was saving her from herself. What were some few
months of vague uncertainty and girlish tears compared with a lifetime
of prosperity and solid happiness? John Grimbal made Phoebe handsome
presents of pretty and costly things after the first great victory. He
pushed his advantage with tremendous vigour. His great face seemed
reflected in Phoebe's eyes when she slept as when she woke; his voice
was never out of her ears. Weary, hopeless, worn out, she prayed
sometimes for strength of purpose. But it was a trait denied to her
character and not to be bestowed at a breath. Her stability of defence,
even as it stood, was remarkable and beyond expectation. Then the sure
climax rolled in upon poor Phoebe. Twice she sought Clement Hicks with
purpose to send an urgent message; on each occasion accident prevented a
meeting; her father was always smiling and droning his desires into her
ear; John Grimbal haunted her. His good-nature and kindness were hard to
bear; his patience made her frantic. So the investment drew to its
conclusion and the barriers crumbled, for the forces besieged were too
weak and worn to restore them; while a last circumstance brought victory
to the stronger and proclaimed the final overthrow.
This culmination resulted from a visit to the spiritual head of Phoebe's
dwelling-place. The Rev. James Shorto-Champernowne, Vicar of Chagford,
made an appointment to discuss the position with Mr. Lyddon and his
daughter. A sportsman of the old type, and a cleric of rare reputation
for good sense and fairness to high and low, was Mr. Shorto-Champernowne,
but it happened that his more tender emotions had been buried with a
young wife these forty years, and children he had none. Nevertheless,
taking the standpoint of parental discipline, he held Phoebe's alleged
engagement a vain thing, not to be considered seriously. Moreover, he
knew of Will's lapses in the past; and that was fatal.
"My child, have little doubt that both religion and duty point in one
direction and with no faltering hands," he said, in his stately way.
"Communicate with the young man, inform him that conversation with
myself has taken place; then he can hardly maintain an attitude of
doubt, either to the exalted convictions that have led to your decision,
or to the propriety of it. And, further, do not omit an opportunity of
well-doing, but conclude your letter with a word of counsel. Pray him to
seek a Guide to his future life, the only Guide able to lead him aright.
I mean his Mother Church. No man who turns his back upon her can be
either virtuous or happy. I mourned his defection from our choir some
years ago. You see I forget nobody. My eyes are everywhere, as they
ought to be. Would that he could be whipped back to the House of
God--with scorpions, if necessary! There is a cowardice, a lack of
sportsmanlike feeling, if I may so express it, in these fallings away
from the Church of our fathers. It denotes a failing of intellect amid
the centres of human activity. There is a blight of unbelief abroad--a
nebulous, pestilential rationalism. Acquaint him with these facts; they
may serve to re-establish one whose temperament must be regarded as
abnormal in the light of his great eccentricity of action. Now farewell,
and God be with you."
The rotund, grey-whiskered clergyman waved his hand; Miller Lyddon and
his daughter left the vicarage; while both heard, as it seemed, his
studied phrases and sonorous voice rolling after them all the way home.
But poor Phoebe felt that the main issues as to conscience were now only
too clear; her last anchor was wrenched from its hold, and that night,
through a mist of unhappy tears, she succumbed, promised to marry John
Grimbal and be queen of the red castle now rising under Cranbrook's
distant heights.
That we have dealt too scantily with her tragic experiences may be
suspected; but the sequel will serve to show how these circumstances
demand no greater elaboration than has been accorded to them.
CHAPTER VII
LIBATION TO POMONA
A WINTER moon threw black shadows from stock and stone, tree and cot in
the valley of the Teign. Heavy snow had fallen, and moor-men, coming
down from the highlands, declared it to lie three feet deep in the
drifts. Now fine, sharp weather had succeeded the storm, and hard frost
held both hill and vale.
On Old Christmas Eve a party numbering some five-and-twenty persons
assembled in the farmyard of Monks Barton, and Billy Blee, as master of
the pending ceremonies, made them welcome. Some among them were aged,
others youthful; indeed the company consisted mostly of old men and
boys, a circumstance very easily understood when the nature of their
enterprise is considered. The ancients were about to celebrate a
venerable rite and sacrifice to a superstition, active in their boyhood,
moribund at the date with which we are concerned, and to-day probably
dead altogether. The sweet poet[2] of Dean Prior mentions this quaint,
old-time custom of "christening" or "wassailing" the fruit-trees among
Christmas-Eve ceremonies; and doubtless when he dwelt in Devon the use
was gloriously maintained; but an adult generation in the years of this
narrative had certainly refused it much support. It was left to their
grandfathers and their sons; and thus senility and youth preponderated
in the present company. For the boys, this midnight fun with lantern and
fowling-piece was good Christmas sport, and they came readily enough; to
the old men their ceremonial possessed solid value, and from the musty
storehouse of his memory every venerable soul amongst them could cite
instances of the sovereign virtue hid in such a procedure.
[2] _The sweet poet._
"Wassaile the trees, that they may beare
You many a Plum, and many a Peare;
For more or lesse fruites they will bring,
As you doe give them Wassailing."
_Hesperides._
"A brave rally o' neighbours, sure 'nough," cried Mr. Blee as he
appeared amongst them. "Be Gaffer Lezzard come?"
"Here, Billy."
"Hast thy fire-arm, Lezzard?"
"Ess, 't is here. My gran'son's carrying of it; but I holds the
powder-flask an' caps, so no ruin be threatened to none."
Mr. Lezzard wore a black smock-frock, across the breast of which
extended delicate and skilful needlework. His head was hidden under an
old chimney-pot hat with a pea-cock's feather in it, and, against the
cold, he had tied a tremendous woollen muffler round his neck and about
his ears. The ends of it hung down over his coat, and the general effect
of smock, comforter, gaitered shanks, boots tied up in straw, long nose,
and shining spectacles, was that of some huge and ungainly bird, hopped
from out a fairy-tale or a nightmare.
"Be Maister Chappie here likewise?" inquired Billy.
"I'm waitin'; an' I've got a fowling-piece, tu."
"That's gude then. I be gwaine to carry the auld blunderbuss what's been
in Miller Lyddon's family since the years of his ancestors, and belonged
to a coach-guard in the King's days. 'T is well suited to
apple-christenin'. The cider's here, in three o' the biggest earth
pitchers us'a' got, an' the lads is ready to bring it along. The Maister
Grimbals, as will be related to the family presently, be comin' to see
the custom, an' Miller wants every man to step back-along arterwards an'
have a drop o' the best, 'cordin' to his usual gracious gudeness. Now,
Lezzard, me an' you'll lead the way."
Mr. Blee then shouldered his ancient weapon, the other veteran marched
beside him, and the rest of the company followed in the direction of
Chagford Bridge. They proceeded across the fields; and along the
procession bobbed a lantern or two, while a few boys carried flaring
torches. The light from these killed the moonbeams within a narrow
radius, shot black tongues of smoke into the clear air, and set the
meadows glimmering redly where contending radiance of moon and fire
powdered the virgin snow with diamond and ruby. Snake-like the party
wound along beside the river. Dogs barked; voices rang clear on the
crystal night; now and again, with laughter and shout, the lads raced
hither and thither from their stolid elders, and here and there jackets
carried the mark of a snowball. Behind the procession a trampled grey
line stretched out under the moonlight. Then all passed like some dim,
magic pageant of a dream; the distant dark blot of naked woodlands
swallowed them up, and the voices grew faint and ceased. Only the
endless song of the river sounded, with a new note struck into it by the
world of snow.
For a few moments the valley was left empty, so empty that a fox, who
had been prowling unsuccessfully about Monks Barton since dusk, took the
opportunity to leave his hiding-place above the ducks' pool, cross the
meadows, and get him home to his earth two miles distant. He slunk with
pattering foot across the snow, marking his way by little regular
paw-pits and one straight line where his brush roughened the surface.
Steam puffed in jets from his muzzle, and his empty belly made him angry
with the world. At the edge of the woods he lifted his head, and the
moonlight touched his green eyes. Then he recorded a protest against
Providence in one eerie bark, and so vanished, before the weird sound
had died.
Phoebe Lyddon and her lover, having given the others some vantage of
ground, followed them to their destination--Mr. Lyddon's famous orchard
in Teign valley. The girl's dreary task of late had been to tell herself
that she would surely love John Grimbal presently--love him as such a
good man deserved to be loved. Only under the silence and in the
loneliness of long nights, only in the small hours of day, when sleep
would not come and pulses were weak, did Phoebe confess that contact
with him hurt her, that his kisses made her giddy to sickness, that all
his gifts put together were less to her than one treasure she was too
weak to destroy--the last letter Will had written. Once or twice, not to
her future husband, but to the miller, Phoebe had ventured faintly to
question still the promise of this great step; but Mr. Lyddon quickly
overruled all doubts, and assisted John Grimbal in his efforts to hasten
the ceremony. Upon this day, Old Christmas Eve, the wedding-day lay not
a month distant and, afterwards the husband designed to take his wife
abroad for a trip to South Africa. Thus he would combine business and
pleasure, and return in the spring to witness the completion of his
house. Chagford highly approved the match, congratulated Phoebe on her
fortune, and felt secretly gratified that a personage grown so important
as John Grimbal should have chosen his life's partner from among the
maidens of his native village.
Now the pair walked over the snow; and silent and stealthy as the
vanished fox, a grey figure followed after them. Dim as some moon-spirit
against the brightness, this shape stole forward under the rough hedge
that formed a bank and threw a shadow between meadow and stream. In
repose the grey man, for a man it was, looked far less substantial than
the stationary outlines of fences and trees; and when he moved it had
needed a keen eye to see him at all. He mingled with the moonlight and
snow, and became a part of a strange inversion of ordinary conditions;
for in this white, hushed world the shadows alone seemed solid and
material in their black nakedness, in their keen sharpness of line and
limit, while things concrete and ponderable shone out a silvery medley
of snow-capped, misty traceries, vague of outline, uncertain of shape,
magically changed as to their relations by the unfamiliar carpet now
spread between them.
The grey figure kept Phoebe in sight, but followed a path of his own
choosing. When she entered the woods he drew a little nearer, and thus
followed, passing from shadow to shadow, scarce fifty yards behind.
Meanwhile the main procession approached the scene of its labours.
Martin Grimbal, attracted by the prospect of reading this page from an
old Devonian superstition, was of the company. He walked with Billy Blee
and Gaffer Lezzard; and these high priests, well pleased at their
junior's attitude towards the ceremony, opened their hearts to him upon
it.
"'T is an ancient rite, auld as cider--maybe auld as Scripture, to, for
anything I've heard to the contrary," said Mr. Lezzard.
"Ay, so 't is," declared Billy Blee, "an' a custom to little observed
nowadays. But us might have better blooth in springtime an' braaver
apples come autumn if the trees was christened more regular. You doan't
see no gert stock of sizable apples best o' years now--li'l scrubbly
auld things most times."
"An' the cider from 'em--poor roapy muck, awnly fit to make 'e thirst
for better drink," criticised Gaffer Lezzard.
"'Tis this way: theer's gert virtue in cider put to apple-tree roots on
this particular night, accordin' to the planets and such hidden things.
Why so, I can't tell 'e, any more 'n anybody could tell 'e why the moon
sails higher up the sky in winter than her do in summer; but so 't is.
An' facts be facts. Why, theer's the auld 'Sam's Crab' tree in this very
orchard we'm walkin' to. I knawed that tree three year ago to give a
hogshead an' a half as near as damn it. That wan tree, mind, with no
more than a few baskets of 'Redstreaks' added."
"An' a shy bearer most times, tu," added Mr. Lezzard.
"Just so; then come next year, by some mischance, me being indoors, if
they didn't forget to christen un! An', burnish it all! theer wasn't
fruit enough on the tree to fill your pockets!"
"Whether 't is the firing into the branches, or the cider to the roots
does gude, be a matter of doubt," continued Mr. Lezzard; but the other
authority would not admit this.
"They 'm like the halves of a flail, depend on it: wan no use wi'out
t'other. Then theer's the singing of the auld song: who's gwaine to say
that's the least part of it?"
"'T is the three pious acts thrawn together in wan gude deed," summed up
Mr. Lezzard; "an' if they'd awnly let apples get ripe 'fore they break
'em, an' go back to the straw for straining, 'stead of these tom-fule,
new-fangled hair-cloths, us might get tidy cider still."
By this time the gate of the orchard was reached; Gaffer Lezzard, Billy,
and the other patriarch, Mr. Chapple,--a very fat old man,--loaded their
weapons, and the perspiring cider-carriers set down their loads.
"Now, you bwoys, give awver runnin' 'bout like rabbits," cried out Mr.
Chapple. "You 'm here to sing while us pours cider an' shoots in the
trees; an' not a drop you'll have if you doan't give tongue proper, so I
tell 'e."
At this rebuke the boys assembled, and there followed a hasty gabbling,
to freshen the words in young and uncertain memories. Then a small
vessel was dipped under floating toast, that covered the cider in the
great pitchers, and the ceremony of christening the orchard began. Only
the largest and most famous apple-bearers were thus saluted, for neither
cider nor gunpowder sufficient to honour more than a fraction of the
whole multitude existed in all Chagford. The orchard, viewed from the
east, stretched in long lines, like the legions of some arboreal army;
the moon set sparks and streaks of light on every snowy fork and bough;
and at the northwestern foot of each tree a network of spidery
shadow-patterns, sharp and black, extended upon the snow.
Mr. Blee himself made the first libation, led the first chorus, and
fired the first shot. Steaming cider poured from his mug, vanished,
sucked in at the tree-foot, and left a black patch upon the snow at the
hole of the trunk; then he stuck a fragment of sodden toast on a twig;
after which the christening song rang out upon the night--ragged at
first, but settling into resolute swing and improved time as its music
proceeded. The lusty treble of the youngsters soon drowned the notes of
their grandfathers; for the boys took their measure at a pace beyond the
power of Gaffer Lezzard and his generation, and sang with heart and
voice to keep themselves warm. The song has variants, but this was their
version--
"Here 's to thee, auld apple-tree,
Be sure you bud, be sure you blaw,
And bring forth apples good enough--
Hats full, caps full, three-bushel bags full,
Pockets full and all--
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
Hats full, caps full, three-bushel bags full,
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"
Then Billy fired his blunderbuss, and a flame leapt from its bell mouth
into the branches of the apple-tree, while surrounding high lands echoed
its report with a reverberating bellow that rose and fell, and was flung
from hill to hill, until it gradually faded upon the ear. The boys
cheered again, everybody drank a drop of the cider, and from under a
cloud of blue smoke, that hung flat as a pancake above them in the still
air, all moved onward. Presently the party separated into three groups,
each having a gunner to lead it, half a dozen boys to sing, and a
dwindling jar of cider for the purposes of the ceremony. The divided
choirs clashed their music, heard from a distance; the guns fired at
intervals, each sending forth its own particular detonation and winning
back a distinctive echo; then the companies separated widely and
decreased to mere twinkling, torchlit points in the distance.
Accumulated smoke from the scattered discharges hung in a sluggish haze
between earth and moon, and a sharp smell of burnt powder tainted the
sweetness of the frosty night.
Upon this scene arrived John Grirnbal and his sweetheart. They stood for
a while at the open orchard gate, gazed at the remote illumination, and
heard the distant song. Then they returned to discussion of their own
affairs; while at hand, unseen, the grey watcher moved impatiently and
anxiously. The thing he desired did not come about, and he blew on his
cold hands and swore under his breath. Only an orchard hedge now
separated them, and he might have listened to Phoebe's soft speech had
he crept ten yards nearer, while John Grimbal's voice he could not help
hearing from time to time. The big man was just asking a question not
easy to answer, when an unexpected interruption saved Phoebe from the
difficulty of any reply.
"Sometimes I half reckon a memory of that blessed boy still makes you
glum, my dear. Is it so? Haven't you forgot him yet?"
As he spoke an explosion, differing much in sound from those which
continued to startle the night, rang suddenly out of the distance. It
arose from a spot on the confines of the orchard, and was sharp in
tone--sharp almost as the human cries which followed it. Then the
distant lights hastened towards the theatre of the catastrophe. "What
has happened?" cried Phoebe, thankful enough to snatch conversation away
from herself and her affairs.
"Easy to guess. That broken report means a burst gun. One of those old
fools has got excited, put too much powder into his blunderbuss and
blown his head off, likely as not. No loss either!"
"Please, please go and see! Oh, if 'tis Billy Blee come to grief,
faither will be lost. Do 'e run, Mr. Grimbal--Jan, I mean. If any grave
matter's failed out, send them bwoys off red-hot for doctor."
"Stop here, then. If any ugly thing has happened, there need be no
occasion for you to see it."
He departed hastily to where a distant galaxy of fiery eyes twinkled and
tangled and moved this way and that, like the dying sparks on a piece of
burnt paper.
Then the patient grey shadow, rewarded by chance at last, found his
opportunity, slipped into the hedge just above Grimbal's sweetheart, and
spoke to her.
"Phoebe, Phoebe Lyddon!"
The voice, dropping out of empty air as it seemed, made Phoebe jump, and
almost fall; but there was an arm gripped round her, and a pair of hot
lips on hers before she had time to open her mouth or cry a word.
"Will!"
"Ess, so I be, alive an' kicking. No time for anything but business now.
I've followed 'e for this chance. Awnly heard four day ago 'bout the fix
you'd been drove to. An' Clem's made it clear 't was all my damn silly
silence to blame. I had a gert thought in me and wasn't gwaine to write
till--but that's awver an' done, an' a purty kettle of feesh, tu. We
must faace this coil first."
"Thank God, you can forgive me. I'd never have had courage to ax 'e."
"You was drove into it. I knaw there's awnly wan man in the world for
'e. Ban't nothin' to forgive. I never ought to have left 'e--a
far-seein' man, same as me. Blast him! I'd like to tear thicky damned
fur off you, for I lay it comed from him."
"They were killing me, Will; and never a word from you."
"I knaw, I knaw. What's wan girl against a parish full, an' a blustering
chap made o' diamonds?"
"The things doan't warm me; they make me shiver. But now--you can
forgive me--that's all I care for. What shall I do? How can I escape it?
Oh, Will, say I can!"
"In coourse you can. Awnly wan way, though; an' that's why I'm here. Us
must be married right on end. Then he's got no more power over 'e than a
drowned worm, nor Miller, nor any."
"To think you can forgive me enough to marry me after all my wickedness!
I never dreamed theer was such a big heart in the world as yourn."
"Why, we promised, didn't us? We'm built for each other. I knawed I'd
only got to come. An' I have, at cost, tu, I promise 'e. Now we'll be
upsides wi' this tramp from furrin paarts, if awnly you do ezacally what
I be gwaine to tell you. I'd meant to write it, but I can speak it
better as the chance has come."
Phoebe's heart glowed at this tremendous change in the position. She
forgot everything before sight and sound of Will. The nature of her
promises weakened to gossamer. Her first love was the only love for her,
and his voice fortified her spirit and braced her nerves. A chance for
happiness yet remained and she, who had endured enough, was strong in
determination to win it yet at any cost if a woman could.
"If you awnly knawed the half I've suffered before they forced me, you'd
forgive," she said. His frank pardon she could hardly realise. It seemed
altogether beyond the desert of her weakness.
"Let that bide. It's the future now. Clem's told me everything. Awnly
you and him an' Chris knaw I'm here. Chris will serve 'e. Us must play a
hidden game, an' fight this Grimbal chap as he fought me--behind back.
Listen; to-day fortnight you an' me 'm gwaine to be married afore the
registrar to Newton Abbot. He 'm my awn Uncle Ford, as luck has it, an'
quite o' my way o' thinkin' when I told him how 't was, an' that Jan
Grimbal was gwaine to marry you against your will. He advised me, and
I'm biding in Newton for next two weeks, so as the thing comes out right
by law. But you've got to keep it still as death."
"If I could awnly fly this instant moment with 'e!"
"You caan't. 'T would spoil all. You must stop home, an' hear your banns
put up with Grimbal, an' all the rest of it. Wish I could! Meat an'
drink 't would be, by God! But he'll get his pay all right. An' afore
the day comes, you nip off to Newton, an' I'll meet 'e, an' us'll be
married in a wink, an' you'll be back home again to Monks Barton 'fore
you knaw it."
"Is that the awnly way? Oh, Will, how terrible!"
"God knaws I've done worse 'n that. But no man's gwaine to steal the
maid of my choosin' from me while I've got brains and body to prevent
it."
"Let me look at you, lovey--just the same, just the same! 'Tis glorious
to hear your voice again. But this thin coat, so butivul in shaape, tu!
You 'm a gentleman by the look of it; but 't is summer wear, not
winter."
"Ess, 'tis cold enough; an' I've got to get back to Newton to-night. An'
never breathe that man's name no more. I'll shaw 'e wat 's a man an'
what ban't. Steal my true love, would 'e?--God forgive un, I
shaan't--not till we 'm man an' wife, anyway. Then I might. Give 'e up!
Be I a chap as chaanges? Never--never yet."
Phoebe wept at these words and pressed Will to her heart.
"'Tis strength, an' fire, an' racing blood in me to hear 'e, dear,
braave heart. I was that weak without 'e. Now the world 's a new plaace,
an' I doan't doubt fust thought was right, for all they said. I'll meet
'e as you bid me, an' nothin' shall ever keep me from 'e now--nothing!"
"'T is well said, Phoebe; an' doan't let that anointed scamp kiss 'e
more 'n he must. Be braave an' cunnin', an' keep Miller from smelling a
rat. I'd like to smash that man myself now wheer he stands,--Grimbal I
mean,--but us must be wise for the present. Wipe your shiny eyes an'
keep a happy faace to 'em, an' never let wan of the lot dream what's hid
in 'e. Cock your li'l nose high, an' be peart an' gay. An' let un buy
you what he will,--'t is no odds; we can send his rubbish back again
arter, when he knaws you'm another man's wife. Gude-bye, Phoebe dearie;
I've done what 'peared to me a gert deed for love of 'e; but the sight
of 'e brings it down into no mighty matter."
"You've saved my life, Will--saved all my days; an' while I've got a
heart beating 't will be yourn, an' I'll work for 'e, an' slave for 'e,
an' think for 'e, an' love 'e so long as I live--an' pray for 'e, tu,
Will, my awn!"
He parted from her as she spoke, and she, by an inspiration, hurried
towards the approaching crowd that the trampled marks of the snow where
she had been standing might not be noted under the gleam of torches and
lanterns.
John Grimbal's prophecy was happily not fulfilled in its gloomy
completeness: nobody had blown his head off; but Billy Blee's
prodigality of ammunition proved at last too much for the blunderbuss of
the bygone coach-guard, and in its sudden annihilation a fragment had
cut the gunner across the face, and a second inflicted a pretty deep
flesh-wound on his arm. Neither injury was very serious, and the general
escape, as John Grimbal pointed out, might be considered marvellous, for
not a soul save Billy himself had been so much as scratched.
With Martin Grimbal on one side and Mr. Chapple upon the other, the
wounded veteran walked slowly and solemnly along. The dramatic moments
of the hour were dear to him, and while tolerably confident at the
bottom of his mind that no vital hurt had been done, he openly declared
himself stricken to death, and revelled in a display of Christian
fortitude and resignation that deceived everybody but John Grimbal.
Billy gasped and gurgled, bid them see to the bandages, and reviewed his
past life with ingenuous satisfaction.
"Ah, sawls all! dead as a hammer in an hour. 'T is awver. I feel the
life swelling out of me."
"Don't say that, Billy," cried Martin, in real concern. "The blood's
stopped flowing entirely now."
"For why? Theer's no more to come. My heart be pumping wind, lifeless
wind; my lung-play's gone, tu, an' my sight's come awver that coorious.
Be Gaffer Lezzard nigh?"
"Here, alongside 'e, Bill."
"Gimme your hand then, an' let auld scores be wiped off in this
shattering calamity. Us have differed wheer us could these twoscore
years; but theer mustn't be no more ill-will wi' me tremblin' on the lip
o' the graave."
"None at all; if 't wasn't for Widow Coomstock," said Gaffer Lezzard.
"You 'm tu pushing theer, an' I say it even now, for truth's truth,
though it be the last thing a man's ear holds."
"Break it to her gentle," said Billy, ignoring the other's criticism;
"she'm on in years, and have cast a kindly eye awver me since the early
sixties. My propositions never was more than agreeable conversation to
her, but it might have come. Tell her theer's a world beyond marriage
customs, an' us'll meet theer."
Old Lezzard showed a good deal of anger at this speech, but being in a
minority fell back and held his peace.
"Would 'e like to see passon, dear sawl?" asked Mr. Chapple, who walked
on Billy's left with his gun reversed, as though at a funeral.
"Me an' him be out, along o' rheumatics keeping me from the House of God
this month," said the sufferer, "but at a solemn death-bed hour like
this here, I'd soon see un as not. Ban't no gert odds, for I forgive all
mankind, and doan't feel no more malice than a bird in a tree."
"You're a silly old ass," burst out Grimbal roughly. "There's nothing
worth naming the matter with you, and you know it better than we do. The
Devil looks after his own, seemingly. Any other man would have been
killed ten times over."
Billy whined and even wept at this harsh reproof. "Ban't a very fair way
to speak to an auld gunpowder-blawn piece, like what I be now," he said;
"gormed if 't is."
"Very onhandsome of 'e, Mr. Grimbal," declared the stout Chappie; "an'
you so young an' in the prime of life, tu!"
Here Phoebe met them, and Mr. Blee, observing the signs of tears upon
her face, supposed that anxiety for him had wet her cheeks, and
comforted his master's child.
"Doan't 'e give way, missy. 'T is all wan, an' I ban't 'feared of the
tomb, as I've tawld 'em. Us must rot, every bone of us, in our season,
an' 't is awnly the thought of it, not the fear of it, turns the
stomach. But what's a wamblyness of the innards, so long as a body's
sawl be ripe for God?"
"A walkin' sermon!" said Mr. Chappie.
Doctor Parsons was waiting for Billy at Monks Barton, and if John
Grimbal had been brusque, the practitioner proved scarcely less so. He
pronounced Mr. Blee but little hurt, bandaged his arm, plastered his
head, and assured him that a pipe and a glass of spirits was all he
needed to fortify his sinking spirit. The party ate and drank, raised a
cheer for Miller Lyddon and then went homewards. Only Mr. Chappie and
Gaffer Lezzard entered the house and had a wineglass or two of some
special sloe gin. Mr. Lezzard thawed and grew amiable over this
beverage, and Mr. Chappie repeated Billy's lofty sentiments at the
approach of death for the benefit of Miller Lyddon.
"'T is awnly my fearless disposition," declared the wounded man with
great humility; "no partic'lar credit to me. I doan't care wan iotum for
the thought of churchyard mould--not wan iotum. I knaw the value of gude
rich soil tu well; an' a man as grudges the rames[3] of hisself to the
airth that's kept un threescore years an' ten's a carmudgeonly cuss,
surely."
[3] _Rames_ = skeleton; remains.
"An' so say I; theer's true wisdom in it," declared Mr. Chapple, while
the miller nodded.
"Theer be," concluded Gaffer Lezzard. "I allus sez, in my clenching way,
that I doan't care a farden damn what happens to my bones, if my
everlasting future be well thought on by passon. So long as I catch the
eye of un an' see um beam 'pon me to church now an' again, I'm content
with things as they are."
"As a saved sawl you 'm in so braave a way as the best; but, to say it
without rudeness, as food for the land a man of your build be nought,
Gaffer," argued Mr. Chapple, who viewed the veteran's withered anatomy
from his own happy vantage ground of fifteen stone.
But Gaffer Lezzard would by no means allow this.
"Ban't quantity awnly tells, my son. 'T is the aluminium in a man's
bones that fats land--roots or grass or corn. Anybody of larnin', 'll
tell 'e that. Strip the belly off 'e, an', bone for bone, a lean man
like me shaws as fair as you. No offence offered or taken, but a gross
habit's mere clay and does more harm than gude underground."
Mr. Chapple in his turn resented this contemptuous dismissal of tissue
as matter of no agricultural significance. The old men went wrangling
home; Miller Lyddon and Billy retired to their beds; the moon departed
behind the distant moors; and all the darkened valley slept in snow and
starlight.
CHAPTER VIII
A BROTHERS' QUARREL
Though Phoebe was surprised at Will Blanchard's mild attitude toward her
weakness, she had been less so with more knowledge. Chris Blanchard and
her lover were in some degree responsible for Will's lenity, and
Clement's politic letter to the wanderer, when Phoebe's engagement was
announced, had been framed in words best calculated to shield the
Miller's sore-driven daughter. Hicks had thrown the blame on John
Grimbal, on Mr. Lyddon, on everybody but Phoebe herself. Foremost indeed
he had censured Will, and pointed out that his own sustained silence,
however high-minded the reason of it, was a main factor in his
sweetheart's sufferings and ultimate submission.
In answer to this communication Blanchard magically reappeared,
announced his determination to marry Phoebe by subterfuge, and, the deed
accomplished, take his punishment, whatever it might be, with light
heart. Given time to achieve a legal marriage, and Phoebe would at least
be safe from the clutches of millionaires in general.
Much had already been done by Will before he crept after the
apple-christeners and accomplished his meeting with Phoebe. A week was
passed since Clement wrote the final crushing news, and during that
interval Will had been stopping with his uncle, Joel Ford, at Newton
Abbot. Fate, hard till now, played him passing fair at last. The old
Superintendent Registrar still had a soft corner in his heart for Will,
and when he learnt the boy's trouble, though of cynic mind in all
matters pertaining to matrimony, he chose to play the virtuous and
enraged philosopher, much to his nephew's joy. Mr. Ford promised Will he
should most certainly have the law's aid to checkmate his dishonourable
adversary; he took a most serious view of the case and declared that all
thinking men must sympathise with young Blanchard under such
circumstances. But in private the old gentleman rubbed his hands, for
here was the very opportunity he desired as much as a man well
might--the chance to strike at one who had shamefully wronged him. His
only trouble was how best to let John Grimbal know whom he had to thank
for this tremendous reverse; for that deed he held necessary to complete
his revenge.
As to where Will had come from, or whither he was returning, after his
marriage Joel Ford cared not. The youngster once wedded would be
satisfied; and his uncle would be satisfied too. The procedure of
marriage by license requires that one of the parties shall have resided
within the Superintendent's district for a space of fifteen days
preceding the giving of notice; then application in prescribed form is
made to the Registrar; and his certificate and license are usually
received one clear day later. Thus a resident in a district can be
married at any time within eight-and-forty hours of his decision. Will
Blanchard had to stop with his uncle nine or ten days more to complete
the necessary fortnight, and as John Grimbal's marriage morning was as
yet above three weeks distant, Phoebe's fate in no way depended upon
him.
Mr. Ford explained the position to Will, and the lover accepted it
cheerfully.
"As to the marriage, that'll be hard and fast as a bench of bishops can
make it; but wedding a woman under age, against the wish of her legal
guardian, is an offence against the law. Nobody can undo the deed
itself, but Miller Lyddon will have something to say afterwards. And
there's that blustering blackguard, John Grimbal, to reckon with.
Unscrupulous scoundrel! Just the sort to be lawless and vindictive if
what you tell me concerning him is true."
"And so he be; let un! Who cares a brass button for him? 'T is awnly
Miller I thinks of. What's worst he can do?"
"Send you to prison, Will."
"For how long?"
"That I can't tell you exactly. Not for marrying his daughter of course,
but for abduction--that's what he'll bring against you."
"An' so he shall, uncle, an' I'll save him all the trouble I can. That's
no gert hardship--weeks, or months even. I'll go like a lark, knawin'
Phoebe's safe."
So the matter stood and the days passed. Will's personal affairs, and
the secret of the position from which he had come was known only to
Clement Hicks. The lover talked of returning again thither after his
marriage, but he remained vague on that point, and, indeed, modified his
plans after the above recorded conversation with his uncle. Twice he
wrote to Phoebe in the period of waiting, and the letter had been
forwarded on both occasions through Clement. Two others knew what was
afoot, and during that time of trial Phoebe found Chris her salvation.
The stronger girl supported her sinking spirit and fortified her
courage. Chris mightily enjoyed the whole romance, and among those
circumstances that combined to make John Grimbal uneasy during the days
of waiting was her constant presence at Monks Barton. There she came as
Phoebe's friend, and the clear, bright eyes she often turned on him made
him angry, he knew not why. As for Mrs. Blanchard, she had secretly
learnt more than anybody suspected, for while Will first determined to
tell her nothing until afterwards, a second thought rebuked him for
hiding such a tremendous circumstance from his mother, and he wrote to
her at full length from Newton, saying nothing indeed of the past but
setting out the future in detail. Upon the subject Mrs. Blanchard kept
her own counsel.
Preparations for Phoebe's wedding moved apace, and she lived in a dim,
heart-breaking dream. John Grimbal, despite her entreaties, continued to
spend money upon her; yet each new gift brought nothing but tears. Grown
desperate in his determination to win a little affection and regard
before marriage, and bitterly conscious that he could command neither,
the man plied her with what money would buy, and busied himself to bring
her happiness in spite of herself. Troubled he was, nevertheless, and
constantly sought the miller that he might listen to comforting
assurances that he need be under no concern.
"'T is natural in wan who's gwaine to say gude-bye to maidenhood so
soon," declared Mr. Lyddon. "I've thought 'bout her tears a deal. God
knaws they hurt me more 'n they do her, or you either; but such sad
whims and cloudy hours is proper to the time. Love for me's got a share
in her sorrow, tu. 'T will all be well enough when she turns her back on
the church-door an' hears the weddin'-bells a-clashing for her future
joy. Doan't you come nigh her much during the next few weeks."
"Two," corrected Mr. Grimbal, moodily.
"Eh! Awnly two! Well, 't is gert darkness for me, I promise you--gert
darkness comin' for Monks Barton wi'out the butivul sound an' sight of
her no more. But bide away, theer's a gude man; bide away these coming
few days. Her last maiden hours mustn't be all tears. But my gifts do
awnly make her cry, tu, if that's consolation to 'e. It's the
tenderness of her li'l heart as brims awver at kindness."
In reality, Phoebe's misery was of a complexion wholly different. The
necessity for living thus had not appeared so tremendous until she found
herself launched into this sea of terrible deception. In operation such
sustained falsity came like to drive her mad. She could not count the
lies each day brought forth; she was frightened to pray for forgiveness,
knowing every morning must see a renewal of the tragedy. Hell seemed
yawning for her, and the possibility of any ultimate happiness, reached
over this awful road of mendacity and deceit, was more than her
imagination could picture. With loss of self-respect, self-control
likewise threatened to depart. She became physically weak, mentally
hysterical. The strain told terribly on her nature; and Chris mourned to
note a darkness like storm-cloud under her grey eyes, and unwonted
pallor upon her cheek. Dr. Parsons saw Phoebe at this juncture,
prescribed soothing draughts, and ordered rest and repose; but to Chris
the invalid clung, and Mr. Lyddon was not a little puzzled that the
sister of Phoebe's bygone sweetheart should now possess such power to
ease her mind and soothe her troubled nerves.
John Grimbal obeyed the injunction laid upon him and absented himself
from Monks Barton. All was prepared for the ceremony. He had left his
Red House farm and taken rooms for the present at "The Three Crowns."
Hither came his brother to see him four nights before the weddingday.
Martin had promised to be best man, yet a shadow lay between the
brothers, and John, his mind unnaturally jealous and suspicious from the
nature of affairs with Phoebe, sulked of late in a conviction that
Martin had watched his great step with unfraternal indifference and
denied him the enthusiasm and congratulation proper to such an event.
The younger man found his brother scanning a new black broadcloth coat
when he entered. He praised it promptly, whereupon John flung it from
him and showed no more interest in the garment. Martin, not to be
offended, lighted his pipe, took an armchair beside the fire, and asked
for some whiskey. This mollified the other a little; he produced
spirits, loaded his own pipe, and asked the object of the visit.
"A not over-pleasant business, John," returned his brother, frankly;
"but 'Least said, soonest mended.' Only remember this, nothing must ever
lessen our common regard. What I am going to say is inspired by my--"
"Yes, yes--cut that. Spit it out and have done with it. I know there's
been trouble in you for days. You can't hide your thoughts. You've been
grim as a death's-head for a month--ever since I was engaged, come to
think of it. Now open your jaws and have done."
John's aggressive and hectoring manner spoke volubly of his own lack of
ease. Martin nerved himself to begin, holding it his duty, but secretly
fearing the issue in the light of his brother's hard, set face.
"You've something bothering you too, old man. I'm sure of it. God is
aware I don't know much about women myself, but--"
"Oh, dry up that rot! Don't think I'm blind, if you are. Don't deceive
yourself. There's a woman-hunger in you, too, though perhaps you haven't
found it out yet. What about that Blanchard girl?"
Martin flushed like a schoolboy; his hand went up over his mouth and
chin as though to hide part of his guilt, and he looked alarmed and
uneasy.
John laughed without mirth at the other's ludicrous trepidation.
"Good heavens! I've done nothing surely to suggest--?"
"Nothing at all--except look as if you were going to have a fit every
time you get within a mile of her. Lovers know the signs, I suppose.
Don't pretend you're made of different stuff to the rest of us, that's
all."
Martin removed his hand and gasped before the spectacle of what he had
revealed to other eyes. Then, after a silence of fifteen seconds, he
shut his mouth again, wiped his forehead with his hand, and spoke.
"I've been a silly fool. Only she's so wonderfully beautiful--don't you
think so?"
"A gypsy all over--if you call that beautiful."
The other flushed up again, but made no retort.
"Never mind me or anybody else. I want to speak to you about Phoebe, if
I may, John. Who have I got to care about but you? I'm only thinking of
your happiness, for that's dearer to me than my own; and you know in
your heart that I'm speaking the truth when I say so."
"Stick to your gate-posts and old walls and cow-comforts and dead
stones. We all know you can look farther into Dartmoor granite than most
men, if that's anything; but human beings are beyond you and always
were. You'd have come home a pauper but for me."
"D' you think I'm not grateful? No man ever had a better brother than
you, and you've stood between me and trouble a thousand times. Now I
want to stand between you and trouble."
"What the deuce d' you mean by naming Phoebe, then?"
"That is the trouble. Listen and don't shout me down. She's breaking her
heart--blind or not blind, I see that--breaking her heart, not for you,
but Will Blanchard. Nobody else has found it out; but I have, and I know
it's my duty to tell you; and I've done it."
An ugly twist came into John Grimbal's face. "You've done it; yes. Go
on."
"That's all, brother, and from your manner I don't believe it's entirely
news to you."
"Then get you gone, damned snake in the grass! Get gone, 'fore I lay a
hand on you! You to turn and bite _me!_ Me, that's made you! I see it
all--your blasted sheep's eyes at Chris Blanchard, and her always at
Monks Barton! Don't lie about it," he roared, as Martin raised his hand
to speak; "not a word more will I hear from your traitor's lips. Get out
of my sight, you sneaking hypocrite, and never call me 'brother' no
more, for I'll not own to it!"
"You'll be sorry for this, John."
"And you too. You'll smart all your life long when you think of this
dirty trick played against a brother who never did you no hurt. You to
come between me and the girl that's promised to marry me! And for your
own ends. A manly, brotherly plot, by God!"
"I swear, on my sacred honour, there's no plot against you. I've never
spoken to a soul about this thing, nor has a soul spoken of it to me;
that's the truth."
"Rot you, and your sacred honour too! Go, and take your lies with you,
and keep your own friends henceforth, and never cross my threshold
more--you or your sacred, stinking honour either."
Martin rose from his chair dazed and bewildered. He had seen his
brother's passion wither up many a rascal in the past; but he himself
had never suffered until now, and the savagery of this language hurled
against his own pure motives staggered him. He, of course, knew nothing
about Will Blanchard's enterprise, and his blundering and ill-judged
effort to restrain his brother from marrying Phoebe was absolutely
disinterested. It had been a tremendous task to him to speak on this
delicate theme, and regard for John alone actuated him; now he departed
without another word and went blankly to the little new stone house he
had taken and furnished on the outskirts of Chagford under Middledown.
He walked along the straight street of whitewashed cots that led him to
his home, and reflected with dismay on this catastrophe. The
conversation with his brother had scarcely occupied five minutes; its
results promised to endure a lifetime.
Meanwhile, and at the identical hour of this tremendous rupture, Chris
Blanchard, well knowing that the morrow would witness Phoebe's secret
marriage to her brother, walked down to see her. It happened that a
small party filled the kitchen of Monks Barton, and the maid who
answered her summons led Chris through the passage and upstairs to
Phoebe's own door. There the girls spoke in murmurs together, while
various sounds, all louder than their voices, proceeded from the kitchen
below. There were assembled the miller, Billy Blee, Mr. Chapple, and one
Abraham Chown, the police inspector of Chagford, a thin, black-bearded
man, oppressed with the cares of his office.
"They be arranging the programme of festive delights," explained Phoebe.
"My heart sinks in me every way I turn now. All the world seems thinking
about what's to come; an' I knaw it never will."
"'T is a wonnerful straange thing to fall out. Never no such happened
before, I reckon. But you 'm doin' right by the man you love, an' that's
a thought for 'e more comfortin' than gospel in a pass like this. A
promise is a promise, and you've got to think of all your life
stretching out afore you. Will's jonic, take him the right way, and that
you knaw how to do--a straight, true chap as should make any wife happy.
Theer'll be waitin' afterwards an' gude need for all the patience you've
got; but wance the wife of un, allus the wife of un; that's a butivul
thing to bear in mind."
"'T is so; 't is everything. An' wance we'm wed, I'll never tell a lie
again, an' atone for all I have told, an' do right towards everybody."
"You caan't say no fairer. Be any matter I can help 'e with?"
"Nothing. It's all easy. The train starts for Moreton at half-past nine.
Sam Bonus be gwaine to drive me in, and bide theer for me till I come
back from Newton. Faither's awnly too pleased to let me go. I said 't
was shopping."
"An' when you come home you'll tell him--Mr. Lyddon--straight?"
"Everything, an' thank God for a clean breast again."
"An' Will?"
"Caan't say what he'll do after. Theer'll be no real marryin' for us yet
a while. Faither can have the law of Will presently,--that's all I
knaw."
"Trust Will to do the right thing; and mind, come what may to him,
theer's allus Clem Hicks and me for friends."
"Ban't likely to be many others left, come to-morrow night. But I've run
away from my own thoughts to think of you and him often of late days.
He'll get money and marry you, won't he, when his aunt, Mrs. Coomstock,
dies?"
"No; I thought so tu, an' hoped it wance; but Clem says what she've got
won't come his way. She's like as not to marry, tu--there 'm a lot of
auld men tinkering after her, Billy Blee among 'em."
Sounds arose from beneath. They began with harsh and grating notes,
interrupted by a violent hawking and spitting. Then followed renewal of
the former unlovely noises. Presently, at a point in the song, for such
it was, half a dozen other voices drowned the soloist in a chorus.
"'T is Billy rehearsin' moosic," explained Phoebe, with a sickly smile.
"He haven't singed for a score of years; but they've awver-persuaded him
and he's promised to give 'em an auld ballet on my wedding-day."
"My stars! 't is a gashly auld noise sure enough," criticised Phoebe's
friend frankly; "for all the world like a stuck pig screechin', or the
hum of the threshin' machine poor faither used to have, heard long ways
off."
Quavering and quivering, with sudden painful flights into a cracked
treble, Billy's effort came to the listeners.
"'Twas on a Monday marnin'
Afore the break of day,
That I tuked up my turmit-hoe
An' trudged dree mile away!"
Then a rollicking chorus, with rough music in it, surged to their ears--
"An' the fly, gee hoppee!
The fly, gee whoppee!
The fly be on the turmits,
For 't is all my eye for me to try
An' keep min off the turmits!"
Mr. Blee lashed his memory and slowly proceeded, while Chris, moved by a
sort of sudden mother-instinct towards pale and tearful Phoebe, strained
her to her bosom, hugged her very close, kissed her, and bid her be
hopeful and happy.
"Taake gude heart, for you 'm to mate the best man in all the airth but
wan!" she said; "an', if 't is awnly to keep Billy from singing in
public, 't is a mercy you ban't gwaine to take Jan Grimbal. Doan't 'e
fear for him. There'll be a thunder-storm for sartain; then he'll calm
down, as better 'n him have had to 'fore now, an' find some other gal."
With this comfort Chris caressed Phoebe once more, heartily pitying her
helplessness, and wishing it in her power to undertake the approaching
ordeal on the young bride's behalf. Then she departed, her eyes almost
as dim as Phoebe's. For a moment she forgot her own helpless matrimonial
projects in sorrow for her brother and his future wife. Marriage at the
registry office represented to her, as to most women, an unlovely,
uncomfortable, and unfinished ceremony. She had as easily pictured a
funeral without the assistance of the Church as a wedding without it.
CHAPTER IX
OUTSIDE EXETER GAOL
Within less than twelve hours of the time when she bid Chris farewell
Phoebe Lyddon was Phoebe Lyddon no more. Will met her at Newton; they
immediately proceeded to his uncle's office; and the Registrar had made
them man and wife in space of time so brief that the girl could hardly
realise the terrific event was accomplished, and that henceforth she
belonged to Will alone. Mr. Ford had his little joke afterwards in the
shape of a wedding-breakfast and champagne. He was gratified at the
event and rejoiced to be so handsomely and tremendously revenged on his
unfortunate enemy. The young couple partook of the good things provided
for them; but appetite was lacking to right enjoyment of the banquet,
and Will and his wife much desired to escape and be alone.
Presently they returned to the station and arrived there before Phoebe's
train departed. Her husband then briefly explained the remarkable course
of action he designed to pursue.
"You must be a braave gal and think none the worse of me. But't is this
way: I've broke law, and a month or two, or six, maybe, in gaol have got
to be done. Your faither will see to that."
"Prison! O, Will! For marryin' me?"
"No, but for marryin' you wi'out axin' leave. Miller Lyddon told me the
upshot of taking you, if I done it; an' I have; an' he'll keep his word.
So that's it. I doan't want to make no more trouble; an' bein' a man of
resource I'm gwaine up to Exeter by first train, so soon as you've
started. Then all bother in the matter will be saved Miller."
"O Will! Must you?"
"Ess fay, 't is my duty. I've thought it out through many hours. The
time'll soon slip off; an' then I'll come back an' stand to work. Here's
a empty carriage. Jump in. I can sit along with 'e for a few minutes."
"How ever shall I begin? How shall I break it to them, dearie?"
"Hold up your li'l hand," said Will with a laugh. "Shaw 'em the gawld
theer. That'll speak for 'e. 'S truth!" he continued, with a gesture of
supreme irritation, "but it's a hard thing to be snatched apart like
this--man an' wife. If I was takin' 'e home to some lew cot, all our
very awn, how differ'nt 't would be!"
"You will some day."
"So I will then. I've got 'e for all time, an' Jan Grimbal's missed 'e
for all time. Damned if I ban't a'most sorry for un!"
"So am I,--in a way,--as you are. My heart hurts me to think of him.
He'll never forgive me."
"Me, you mean. Well, 't is man to man, an' I ban't feared of nothing on
two legs. You just tell 'em that 't was to be, that you never gived up
lovin' me, but was forced into lyin' and such-like by the cruel way they
pushed 'e. Shaw 'em the copy of the paper if they doan't b'lieve the
ring. An' when Miller lifts up his voice to cuss me, tell un quiet that
I knawed what must come of it, and be gone straight to Exeter Gaol to
save un all further trouble. He'll see then I'm a thinking, calculating
man, though young in years."
Phoebe was now reduced to sighs and dry sobs. Will sat by her a little
longer, patted her hands and spoke cheerfully. Then the train departed
and he jumped from it as it moved and ran along the platform with a last
earnest injunction.
"See mother first moment you can an' explain how 't is. Mother'll
understand, for faither did similar identical, though he wasn't put in
clink for it."
He waved his hand and Phoebe passed homewards. Then the fire died out of
his eyes and he sighed and turned. But no shadow of weakness manifested
itself in his manner. His jaw hardened, he smote his leg with his stick,
and, ascertaining the time of the next train to Exeter, went back to bid
Mr. Ford farewell before setting about his business.
Will told his uncle nothing concerning the contemplated action; and such
silence was unfortunate, for had he spoken the old man's knowledge must
have modified his fantastic design. Knowing that Will came mysteriously
from regular employment which he declined to discuss, and assuming that
he now designed returning to it, Mr. Ford troubled no more about him. So
his nephew thanked the Registrar right heartily for all the goodness he
had displayed in helping two people through the great crisis of their
lives, and went on his way. His worldly possessions were represented by
a new suit of blue serge which he wore, and a few trifles in a small
carpet-bag.
It was the past rather than the present or future which troubled Will on
his journey to Exeter; and the secret of the last six months, whatever
that might be, lay heavier on his mind than the ordeal immediately ahead
of him. In this coming achievement he saw no shame; it was merely part
payment for an action lawless but necessary. He prided himself always on
a great spirit of justice, and justice demanded that henceforth he must
consider the family into which he had thus unceremoniously introduced
himself. To no man in the wide world did he feel more kindly disposed
than to Miller Lyddon; and his purpose was now to save his father-in-law
all the annoyance possible.
Arrived at Exeter, Will walked cheerfully away to the County Gaol, a
huge red-brick pile that scarce strikes so coldly upon the eye of the
spectator as ordinary houses of detention. Grey and black echo the
significance of a prison, but warm red brick strikes through the eye to
the brain, and the colour inspires a genial train of ideas beyond
reason's power instantly to banish. But the walls, if ruddy, were high,
and the rows of small, remote windows, black as the eye-socket of a
skull, stretched away in dreary iron-bound perspective where the sides
of the main fabric rose upward to its chastened architectural
adornments. Young Blanchard grunted to himself, gripped his stick, from
one end of which was suspended his carpet-bag, and walked to the wicket
at the side of the prison's main entrance. He rang a bell that jangled
with tremendous echoes among the naked walls within; then there followed
the rattle of locks as the sidegate opened, and a warder looked out to
ask Will his business. The man was burly and of stout build, while his
fat, bearded face, red as the gaol walls themselves, attracted Blanchard
by its pleasant expression. Will's eyes brightened at the aspect of this
janitor; he touched his hat very civilly, wished the man "good
afternoon," and was about to step in when the other stopped him.
"Doan't be in such a hurry, my son. What's brought 'e, an' who do 'e
want?"
"My business is private, mister; I wants to see the head man."
"The Governor? Won't nobody less do? You can't see him without proper
appointment. But maybe a smaller man might serve your turn?"
Will reflected, then laughed at the warder with that sudden magic of
face that even softened hard hearts towards him.
"To be plain, mate, I'm here to stop. You'll be sure to knaw 'bout it
sooner or late, so I'll tell 'e now. I've done a thing I must pay for,
and 't is a clink job, so I've comed right along."
The warder grew rather sterner, and his eye instinctively roamed for a
constable.
"Best say no more, then. Awnly you've comed to the wrong place. Police
station's what you want, I reckon."
"Why for? This be County Gaol, ban't it?"
"Ess, that's so; but we doan't take in folks for the axin'. Tu many
queer caraters about."
Will saw the man's eyes twinkle, yet he was puzzled at this unexpected
problem.
"Look here," he said, "I like you, and I'll deal fair by you an' tell
you the rights of it. Step out here an' listen."
"Mind, what you sez will be used against you, then."
"Theer ban't no secret in it, for that matter."
The husband thereupon related his recent achievement, and concluded
thus:
"So, having kicked up a mort o' trouble, I doan't want to make no
more--see? An' I stepped here quiet to keep it out of the papers, an'
just take what punishment's right an' vitty for marryin' a maid wi'out
so much as by your leave. Now, then, caan't 'e do the rest?"
He regarded the warder gravely and inquiringly, but as the red-faced man
slowly sucked up the humour of the situation, his mouth expanded and his
eyes almost disappeared. Then he spoke through outbursts and shakings of
deep laughter.
"Oh Lard! Wheerever was you born to?"
Will flushed deeply, frowned, and clenched his fists at this question.
"Shut your gert mouth!" he said angrily. "Doan't bellow like that, or
I'll hit 'e awver the jaw! Do'e think I want the whole of Exeter City to
knaw my errand? What's theer to gape an' snigger at? Caan't 'e treat a
man civil?"
This reproof set the official off again, and only a furious demand from
Blanchard to go about his business and tell the Governor he wanted an
interview partially steadied him.
"By Gor! you'll be the death of me. Caan't help it--honour
bright--doan't mean no rudeness to you. Bless your young heart, an' the
gal's, whoever she be. Didn't 'e knaw? But theer! course you didn't,
else you wouldn't be here. Why, 't is purty near as hard to get in
prison as out again. You'll have to be locked up, an' tried by judge an'
jury, and plead guilty, and be sentenced, an' the Lard He knaws what
beside 'fore you come here. How do the lawyers an' p'licemen get their
living?"
"That's news. I hoped to save Miller Lyddon all such trouble."
"Why not try another way, an' see if you can get the auld gentleman to
forgive 'e?"
"Not him. He'll have the law in due time."
"Well, I'm 'mazin' sorry I caan't oblige 'e, for I'm sure we'd be gude
friends, an' you'd cheer us all up butivul."
"But you 'm certain it caan't be managed?"
"Positive."
"Then I've done all a man can. You'll bear witness I wanted to come,
won't 'e?"
"Oh yes, I'll take my oath o' that. _I_ shaan't forget 'e."
"All right. And if I'm sent here again, bimebye, I'll look out for you,
and I hopes you'll be as pleasant inside as now."
"I'll promise that. Shall be awnly tu pleased to make you at home. I
like you; though, to be frank, I reckon you'm tu gnat-brained a chap to
make a wife happy."
"Then you reckon a damned impedent thing! What d' you knaw 'bout it?"
"A tidy deal. I've been married more years than you have hours, I lay."
"Age ban't everything; 't is the fashion brains in a man's head counts
most."
"That's right enough. 'T is something to knaw that. Gude-bye to 'e,
bwoy, an' thank you for makin' me laugh heartier than I have this month
of Sundays."
"More fule you!" declared Will; but he was too elated at the turn of
affairs to be anything but amiable just now. Before the other
disappeared, he stopped him.
"Shake hands, will 'e? I thank you for lightenin' my mind--bein' a man
of law, in a manner of speakin'. Ess, I'm obliged to 'e. Of coourse I
doan't _want_ to come to prison 'zackly. That's common sense."
"Most feel same as you. No doubt you're in the wrong, though the law
caan't drop on honest, straightforrard matrimony to my knowledge. Maybe
circumstances is for 'e."
"Ess, they be--every jack wan of 'em!" declared Will. "An' if I doan't
come here to stop, I'll call in some day and tell 'e the upshot of this
coil in a friendly way."
"Do so, an' bring your missis. Shall be delighted to see the pair of 'e
any time. Ax for Thomas Bates."
Will nodded and marched off, while the warder returned to his post, and
when he had again made fast the door behind him, permitted the full
splendor of his recent experience to tumble over his soul in a laughter
perhaps louder than any heard before or since within the confines of one
of Her Majesty's prisons.
CHAPTER X
THE BRINGING OF THE NEWS
Phoebe meantime returned to Chagford, withdrew herself into her chamber,
and feverishly busied brains and hands with a task commended that
morning by Will when she had mentioned it to him. The various trinkets
and objects of value lavished of late upon her by John Grimbal she made
into a neat packet, and tied up a sealskin jacket and other furs in a
second and more bulky parcel. With these and a letter she presently
despatched a maid to Mr. Grimbal's temporary address. Phoebe's note
explained how, weak and friendless until the sudden return of Will into
her life, she had been thrown upon wickedness, falsehood, and deceit to
win her own salvation in the face of all about her. She told him of the
deed done that day, begged him to be patient and forget her, and
implored him to forgive her husband, who had fought with the only
weapons at his command. It was a feeble communication, and Phoebe
thought that her love for Will might have inspired words more forcible;
but relief annihilated any other emotion; she felt thankful that the
lying, evasion, and prevarication of the last horrible ten days were at
an end. From the nightmare of that time her poor, bruised conscience
emerged sorely stricken; yet she felt that the battle now before her was
a healthy thing by comparison, and might serve to brace her moral senses
rather than not.
At the tea-table she first met her father, and there were present also
Billy Blee and Mr. Chapple. The latter had come to Monks Barton about a
triumphal arch, already in course of erection at Chagford market-place,
and his presence it was that precipitated her confession, and brought
Phoebe's news like a thunderbolt upon the company.
Mr. Chapple, looking up suddenly from the saucer that rested upon his
outspread fingers and thumb, made a discovery, and spoke with some
concern.
"Faith, Missy, that's ill luck--a wisht thing to do indeed! Put un off,
like a gude maid, for theer 's many a wise sayin' 'gainst it."
"What's her done?" asked Billy anxiously.
"Luke 'pon her weddin' finger. 'Tis poor speed to put un on 'fore her
lard an' master do it, at the proper moment ordained by Scripture."
"If she hasn't! Take un off, Miss Phoebe, do!" begged Mr. Blee, in real
trepidation; and the miller likewise commanded his daughter to remove
her wedding-ring.
"An auld wife's tale, but, all the same, shouldn't be theer till you 'm
a married woman," he said.
Thus challenged, the way was made smooth as possible for the young wife.
She went over to her father, walked close to him, and put her plump
little hand with its shining addition upon his shoulder.
"Faither dear, I be a married woman. I had to tell lies and play false,
but't was to you an' Mr. Grimbal I've been double, not to my husband
that is. I was weak, and I've been punished sore, but--"
"Why, gal alive! what rigmarole 's this? Married--ay, an' so you shall
be, in gude time. You 'm light-headed, lass, I do b'lieve. But doan't
fret, I'll have Doctor--"
"Hear me," she said, almost roughly. "I kept my word--my first sacred
word--to Will. I loved him, an' none else but him; an' 'tis done--I've
married him this marnin', for it had to be, an' theer's the sign an'
token of it I've brought along with me."
She drew the copy of the register from her pocket, opened it with
trembling fingers, set it before Mr. Lyddon, and waited for him to
speak. But it was some time before he found words or wind to do so.
Literally the fact had taken his breath. A curious expression, more grin
than frown--an expression beyond his control in moments of high
emotion--wrinkled his eyelids, stretched his lips, and revealed the
perfect double row of his false teeth. His hand went forward to the blue
paper now lying before him, then the fingers stopped half way and shook
in the air. Twice he opened his mouth, but only a sharp expiration,
between a sigh and a bark, escaped.
"My God, you've shook the sawl of un!" cried Billy, starting forward,
but the miller with an effort recovered his self-possession, scanned the
paper, dropped it, and lifted up his voice in lamentation.
"True--past altering--'t is a thing done! May God forgive you for this
wicked deed, Phoebe Lyddon--I'd never have b'lieved it of 'e--never--not
if an angel had tawld me. My awn that was, and my awnly one! My darter,
my soft-eyed gal, the crown of my grey hairs, the last light of my
life!"
"I pray you'll come to forgive me in time, dear faither. I doan't ax 'e
to yet a while. I had to do it--a faithful promise. 'T was for pure
love, faither; I lied for him--lied even to you; an' my heart 's been
near to breakin' for 'e these many days; but you'd never have listened
if I'd told 'e."
"Go," he said very quietly. "I caan't abear the sight of'e just now. An'
that poor fule, as thrawed his money in golden showers for 'e! Oh, my
gude God, why for did 'E leave me any childern at all? Why didn't 'E
take this cross-hearted wan when t' other was snatched away? Why didn't
'E fill the cup of my sorrer to the brim at a filling an' not drop by
drop, to let un run awver now I be auld?"
Phoebe turned to him in bitter tears, but the man's head was down on his
hands beside his plate and cup, and he, too, wept, with a pitiful
childish squeak between his sobs. Weakness so overwhelming and so
unexpected--a father's sorrow manifested in this helpless feminine
fashion--tore the girl's very heartstrings. She knelt beside him and put
her arms about him; but he pushed her away and with some return of
self-control and sternness again bid her depart from him. This Phoebe
did, and there was silence, while Mr. Lyddon snuffled, steadied himself,
wiped his face with a cotton handkerchief, and felt feebly for a pair of
spectacles in his pocket. Mr. Chapple, meantime, had made bold to scan
the paper with round eyes, and Billy, now seeing the miller in some part
recovered, essayed to comfort him.
"Theer, theer, maister, doan't let this black come-along-o't quench 'e
quite. That's better! You such a man o' sense, tu! 'T was
awver-ordained by Providence, though a artful thing in a young gal; but
women be such itemy twoads best o' times--stage-players by sex, they
sez; an' when love for a man be hid in 'em, gormed if they caan't fox
the God as made 'em!"
"Her to do it! The unthankfulness, the cold cruelty of it! An' me that
was mother an' father both to her--that did rock her cradle with these
hands an' wash the li'l year-auld body of her. To forget all--all she
owed! It cuts me that deep!"
"Deep as a wire into cheese, I lay. An' well it may; but han't no new
thing; you stablish yourself with that. The ways o' women 's like--'t
was a sayin' of Solomon I caan't call home just this minute; but he
knawed, you mind, none better. He had his awn petticoat trouble, same as
any other Christian man given to women. What do 'e say, neighbour?"
Billy, of opinion that Mr. Chapple should assist him in this painful
duty, put the last question to his rotund friend, but the other, for
answer, rose and prepared to depart.
"I say," he answered, "that I'd best go up-along and stop they chaps
buildin' the triumphant arch. 'Pears won't be called for now. An'
theer's a tidy deal else to do likewise. Folks was comin' in from the
Moor half a score o' miles for this merry-makin'."
"'T is a practical thought," said Billy. "Them as come from far be like
to seem fules if nothin' 's done. You go up the village an' I'll follow
'e so quick as I can."
Mr. Chapple thereupon withdrew and Billy turned to the miller. Mr.
Lyddon had wandered once and again up and down the kitchen, then fallen
into his customary chair; and there he now sat, his elbows on his knees,
his hands over his face. He was overwhelmed; his tears hurt him
physically and his head throbbed. Twenty years seemed to have piled
themselves upon his brow in as many minutes.
"Sure I could shed water myself to see you like this here," said Mr.
Blee, sympathetically; "but 't is wan of them eternal circumstances we
'm faaced with that all the rain falled of a wet winter won't wash away.
Theer 's the lines. They 'm a fact, same as the sun in heaven 's a fact.
God A'mighty's Self couldn't undo it wi'out some violent invention; an'
for that matter I doan't see tu clear how even Him be gwaine to magic a
married woman into a spinster again; any more than He could turn a
spinster into a married woman, onless some ordinary human man came
forrard. You must faace it braave an' strong. But that imp o'
Satan--that damn Blanchard bwoy! Theer! I caan't say what I think 'bout
him. Arter all that's been done: the guests invited, the banns axed
out, the victuals bought, and me retracin' my ballet night arter night,
for ten days, to get un to concert pitch--well, 't is a matter tu deep
for mere speech."
"The--the young devil! I shall have no pity--not a spark. I wish to God
he could hang for it!"
"As to that, might act worse than leave it to Jan Grimbal. He'll do
summat 'fore you've done talkin', if I knaw un. An' a son-in-law 's a
son-in-law, though he've brought it to pass by a brigand deed same as
this. 'T is a kicklish question what a man should do to the person of
his darter's husband. You bide quiet an' see what chances. Grimbal's
like to take law into his awn hands, as any man of noble nature might in
this quandary."
The disappointed lover's probable actions offered dreary food for
thought, and the two old men were still conversing when a maid entered
to lay the cloth for supper. Then Billy proceeded to the village and Mr.
Lyddon, unnerved and restless, rambled aimlessly into the open air,
addressed any man or woman who passed from the adjacent cottages, and
querulously announced, to the astonishment of chance listeners, that his
daughter's match was broken off.
An hour later Phoebe reappeared in the kitchen and occupied her usual
place at the supper-table. No one spoke a word, but the course of the
meal was suddenly interrupted, for there came a knock at the farmhouse
door, and without waiting to be answered, somebody lifted the latch,
tramped down the stone passage, and entered the room.
Now Phoebe, in the privacy of her little chamber beneath the thatch, had
reflected miserably on the spectacle of her husband far away in a prison
cell, with his curls cropped off and his shapely limbs clad
convict-fashion. When, therefore, Will, and not John Grimbal, as she
expected, stood before her, his wife was perhaps more astonished than
any other body present. Young Blanchard appeared, however. He looked
weary and hungry, for he had been on his legs during the greater part of
the day and had forgotten to eat since his pretence of wedding-breakfast
ten hours earlier. Now, newly returned from Exeter, he came straight to
Monks Barton before going to his home.
Billy Blee was the first to find his voice before this sudden
apparition. His fork, amply laden, hung in the air as though his arm was
turned to stone; with a mighty gulp he emptied his mouth and spoke.
"Gormed if you ban't the most
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