



Produced by Al Haines.




                         THE VIRGIN IN JUDGMENT


                                   BY

                            EDEN PHILLPOTTS

             Author of "The Portreeve," "The Secret Woman,"
                      "Children of the Mist," etc.



                                NEW YORK
                        MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
                                  1908




                          Copyright, 1908, BY
                        MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
                                NEW YORK


                        Published, October, 1908




                               *CONTENTS*


                                *BOOK I*

CHAPTER

      I. Crepuscule
     II. Warren House
    III. Harmony in Russet
     IV. Coombeshead
      V. The Virgin and the Dogs
     VI. The Host of 'The Corner House'
    VII. Dennycoombe Wood
   VIII. In Pixies' House
     IX. The Dogs of War
      X. Some Interviews
     XI. Mr. Fogo is Shocked
    XII. For the Good Cause
   XIII. The Fight


                               *BOOK II*

      I. 'Meavy Cot'
     II. Bartley Doubtful
    III. Preparations
     IV. The Wedding
      V. Arrival of Rhoda
     VI. Repulse
    VII. Eylesbarrow
   VIII. Triumph of Billy Screech
     IX. Common Sense and Beer
      X. Crazywell
     XI. Reproof
    XII. The Courage of Mr. Snell
   XIII. Rhoda Passes By


                               *BOOK III*

      I. Mystery
     II. A Pessimist
    III. The Voice from the Pool
     IV. Points of View
      V. End of a Romance
     VI. Virgo--Libra
    VII. A Sharp Tongue
   VIII. Under the Trees
     IX. Darkness at 'The Corner House'
      X. Third Time of Asking
     XI. Bad News of Mr. Bowden
    XII. Rhoda and Margaret
   XIII. The Search
    XIV. David and Rhoda
     XV. Night Tenebrious




                                *BOOK I*



                        *THE VIRGIN IN JUDGMENT*



                              *CHAPTER I*

                              *CREPUSCULE*


Night stirred behind the eastern hills and a desert place burnt with
fading splendour in the hour before sunset.  The rolling miles of
Ringmoor Down lay clad at this season in a wan integument of dead grass.
Colourless as water, it simulated that element and reflected the tone of
dawn or evening, sky or cloud; now sulked; now shone; now marked the
passage of the wind with waves of light.

Ringmoor extends near the west quarter of Dartmoor Forest like an ocean
of alternate trough and mound, built by the breath of storms.  This
region, indeed, shares something with the restless resting-places of the
sea; and one may figure it as finally frozen into its present austerity
by action of western winds that aforetime laboured without ceasing here
on the bosom of a plastic earth.  Only the primary forces model with
such splendid economy of design, or present achievements so unadorned,
yet so complete.  The marvel of Ringmoor demanded unnumbered centuries
of elemental collaboration before it spread, consummate and
accomplished, under men's eyes.  Rage of solar flame and fury of floods;
the systole and diastole of Earth's own mighty heart-beat; the blast of
inner fires, the rigour of age-long ice-caps--all have gone to mould
this incarnate simplicity.  Nor can Nature's achievement yet be gauged,
for man himself must ascend to subtler perception before he shall gather
the meaning of this moor.

The expanse is magnificently naked, yet sufficing; it is absolutely
featureless, but never poverty-stricken. To the confines of a river it
extends, and ceases there; yet that sudden wild uplifting of broken
hills beyond; their dark, rocky places full of story; their porphyry
pinnacles and precipices haunted by the legends and the spirits of old
strike not so deeply into human sense as Ringmoor's vast monochrome
fading slowly at the edge of night; fading as a cloudless sky fades; as
light fades on the eyes of the semi-blind; fading without one stock or
stone or man or beast to break the inexorable tenor of its way.

Upon some souls this huge monotony, thus mingling with the universal at
eventide, casts fear; to others it is a manifestation precious as the
presence of a friend; and for those whose working life brings them here,
the waste's immensities at noon or night are one; its highways are their
highways, and indifferently they move upon its bosom with the other
ephemeral existences that haunt it.  Yet by none of these people is
Ringmoor truly felt or truly seen.  Cultured minds weave pathetic
fallacies and so pass by; while for the native this spot is first a
grazing ground and last a recurrent incident of stern spaces to be
compassed and recompassed on his own pilgrimage--to the young a
weariness and to the old a grief.

Now light suffered a change.  There was no detail to die, but a general
fleeting radiance failed swiftly to the thick pallor that precedes
darkness.  Each perished grass-stem, of many millions that clad the
waste, reflected the sky and paled its little lamp as the heavens paled.
Then sobriety of dusk eliminated even the sweep and billow of the heath,
and reduced all to a spectacle of withered and waning grey, that
stretched formless, vague, vast, toward boundaries unseen.

It was at this stage in the unfolding phenomenon of night that life
moved upon the void; a black, amorphous smudge crawled out of the gloom
and crept tardily along.  At length its form, as a double star seen
through a telescope, divided and revealed a brace of animals, one of
which staggered slowly on four legs, while the other went on two.  A man
led a horse by a halter; and the horse was old and black, bent,
broken-kneed and worn out; while the man was also bent and ancient of
his kind.  Neither could travel very fast, and one was at the end of his
life's journey, while the other had a small measure of years still
assured.

Death thus moved across Ringmoor and trod a familiar rut in the
wilderness; because, under the darkness eastward, was a bourn for beasts
that had ceased to possess any living value.  Through extinction only
they served their masters for the last time and made profitable this
final funeral march.  The horse stopped, turned and seemed to ask a
question with his eyes.

"Get on!" said the man.  "There ban't much further for you to go."

The brute dragged towards peace and his hind hoofs struck sometimes and
sounded the dull and dreary note of his own death bell; the old man
sighed because he was very weary.  Then from the fringe of night sprang
young life and met this forlorn procession.  A tall girl appeared and
three collie dogs galloped and circled about her.  Noting the man, they
ran up to him, barked and wagged their tails in greeting.

"Be that anybody from Ditsworthy?" asked the traveller of the female
shadow.

"'Tis I--Rhoda Bowden.  I thought as you might be pretty tired and came
to shorten your journey--that is if you'm old Mr. Elford from
Good-a-Meavy."

"I am the man, and never older than to-night."

He stopped and rubbed his leg.  The girl stood over him by half a foot.
She was tall and straight, but in the murk one could see no more than
her outlines, her pale sun-bonnet and a pale face under it.

"Have you got the money?" said the man.

"Yes--ten shillings."

She spoke slowly, with a voice uncommon deep for a young woman.

"Not twelve?"

"No."

The ancient made a sound that indicated disappointment and annoyance.

"And the price of the halter?"

"We don't want that.  One of my brothers will bring it back to you next
time they be down-along."

He handed her the rope and took a coin from her. Then he brought a
little leathern purse from his breeches pocket and put the money into
it.

"You're sure your faither didn't say twelve?"

"No."

"He's a hard man.  Good-night to you."

"'Tis the right price for a dead horse.  Good-night."

The ancient had no farewell word for his beast, and the companions of
twelve years parted for ever.  The girl took her way with the old horse;
the man turned in his tracks moodily, chattering to himself.

"Warrener did ought to have give twelve," he said again and again as he
went homewards.  By furze banks and waste places and the confines of
woods he passed, and then he stopped where a star twinkled above the
gloomy summits of spruce firs.  Beneath them there peered out a thatched
cottage, but no light shone from its face.  The patriarch entered with
his frosty news, and almost instantly a female voice, shrill and full of
trouble, struck upon the night.

"It did ought to have been twelve!"

Owls cried to each other across the forest and seemed to echo the
lamentation.




                              *CHAPTER II*

                             *WARREN HOUSE*


A river destined to name the greatest port in the west country, makes
humble advent at Plym Head near the Beam of Cater in mid-Dartmoor.
Westward under the Harter Tors and south by the Abbot's Way to Plym
Steps the streamlet flows; then she gathers volume and melody to enter a
land of vanished men. By the lodges of the old stone people and amid
monuments lifted in a neolithic age; beside the graves of heroes and
under the Hill of Giants, Plym passes and threads the rocky wilderness
with silver.  And then, suddenly, a modern dwelling lifts beside her--a
building of stern aspect and most lonely site.  Round about for miles
the warrens of Ditsworthy extend, and countless thousands of the coney
folk flourish.  The district is tunnelled and tracked by them; the
characteristics of the heath are altered.  For the turf, nibbled close
at seasons, shows no death, but spreads in a uniform far-flung cloth of
velvet, always close shorn and always green.  Its texture may not be
rivalled by any pasture known, and so fine has it become under this
cropping of centuries that the very grass itself seems to have suffered
dwarfing and reduction to a fairy-like tenuity Of blade.  Grey lichens
are woven through the herbage here and there, and sometimes these
silvery filigranes dominate the turf and create fair harmonies with the
rosy ling in summer and the red brake-fern of the fall.

Inflexible Ringmoor approaches Ditsworthy on one side; while beyond it
roll the warrens.  Shell Top and Pen Beacon are the highest adjacent
peaks of the Moor; and through the midst runs Plym with the solitary,
stern Warren House lifted upon its northern bank.

A gnarled but lofty ash has defied the upland weather and grown to
maturity above this dwelling.  It rises wan in the sombre waste and
towers above the squat homestead beneath it.  Granite walls run round
about, and the metropolis of the rabbits, with natural and artificial
burrows, extends to the very confines of the building.  A cabbage-plot
and a croft or two complete man's work here; while at nearer approach
the house, that looked but a spot seen upon such an immense stage, is
found to be of considerable size.  And this is well, because, at the
date of these doings, it was called upon to hold a large family.

Fifty years ago Elias Bowden reigned at Ditsworthy, and with his wife,
nine children, and ten dogs, lived an arduous, prosperous existence on
the product of the warrens and other moorland industries.  Rabbits were
more valuable then than now, and Mr. Bowden received half a crown a
couple, where his successors to-day can make but tenpence.

Elias and his boys and girls did the whole work of Ditsworthy.  All had
their duties, and even the youngest children--twin sons now aged
nine--were taught to make netting and help with the traps.  There were
six sons and three daughters in the family; and the males were called
after mighty captains, because Elias loved valour above all virtues.
Such friendships as happen in large families existed among the children,
and the closest and keenest of these associations was that between the
eldest boy and second girl.  David Bowden was eight-and-twenty and Rhoda
was twenty-one. A very unusual fraternity obtained between them, and the
man's welfare meant far more to his sister than any other mundane
interest.  After David came Joshua, the master of the trappers, aged
twenty-five; and he and the eldest girl, Sophia--a widow who had
returned childless and moneyless to her home after two years of married
life--were sworn friends.  Then, a year younger than Rhoda, appeared
Dorcas--a "sport" as Mr. Bowden called her, for she was the only red
child he had gotten.  The two boys, Napoleon and Wellington, aged
thirteen and fifteen, shared the special regard of Dorcas; while the
twins were mutually sufficing. One was called Samson and the other
Richard--after the first English monarch of that name.  Mrs. Bowden had
lost three children in infancy, and deplored the fact to this day.  When
work at the warren pressed in autumn, and the family scarce found
leisure to sleep, the mother of this flock might frequently be heard
uttering a futile regret.

"If only my son Drake had been spared," she often cried at moments of
stress; and this saying became so familiar among the people round about,
that when a man or woman breathed some utterly vain aspiration, another
would frequently cap it thus and say, "Ah, if only my son Drake had been
spared!"

A distinguishing characteristic of this family was its taciturnity.  The
Bowdens wasted few words.  Red Dorcas and her father, however, proved an
exception to this rule; for she chattered much; and he enjoyed a joke
and could make and take one.  Of his other girls, Rhoda was most silent.
She, too, alone might claim beauty.  Sophia was homely.  She had a
narrow, fowl-like face inherited from her mother; and Dorcas suffered
from weak eyes; but Rhoda, in addition to her straight and splendid
frame, was well favoured.  Her features were large, but very regular;
her contours were round without promise of future fatness; her nose and
mouth were especially beautiful; but her chin was a little heavy.
Rhoda's hair was pale brown and in tone not specially attractive; but
she possessed a great wealth of it; her feet and hands were large, yet
finely modelled; her eyes had more than enough of virginal chill in
their cool and pale grey depths.  David somewhat resembled her.  He was
a clean-cut and sturdy man, standing his sister's height of five feet
nine inches, and having a slow-featured face--handsome after a
conventional type, yet lacking much expression or charm for the
physiognomist.  He shared his thoughts with Rhoda, but none else.
Neither parent pretended to know much about him, but both understood
that it would not be long before he left Ditsworthy.  David was learned
in sheep and ponies, and he proposed to begin life on his own account as
a breeder of them.  At present his work was with his father's sheep and
cattle, for Elias ran stock on the moor.  As for Rhoda, her duties lay
with the dogs, and she usually had two or three galloping after her;
while often she might be seen carrying squeaking, new-born puppies in
her arms, while an anxious bitch, with drooping dugs, gazed up at the
precious burden.

Sober-minded and busy were these folk.  Elias had few illusions.  In
only one minor particular was he superstitious; he hated to see a white
rabbit on the warrens.  Brown and yellow, grey, and sometimes black,
were the inhabitants of the great burrows, but it seldom happened that a
white one was observed.  Occasionally they appeared, however, and
occasionally they were caught.  Elias never permitted them to be killed.
The master's lapse from rationality in this matter was respected, and if
anybody ever saw a white rabbit, the incident was kept secret.

Enemies the warren had, and foxes took a generous toll; but the hunt
recompensed Mr. Bowden for this inconvenience, although it was suspected
that his estimates of loss were fanciful.  Once the usual fees had been
delayed by oversight, and Sir Guy Flamank, M.F.H. and Lord of the Manor,
was only reminded of his lapse on meeting Elias at "The Corner House,"
Sheepstor.

"Ah!" said the sportsman, "and how's Mr. Bowden faring?  I've forgot
Ditsworthy of late."

"Foxes haven't," was all the warrener replied.  And yet a sight of the
honeycombed and tunnelled miles of the burrows might have justified an
opinion that all the foxes of Devonshire could have done no lasting hurt
here.  In legions the rabbits lived.  They swarmed, leapt from under the
foot, bobbed with twinkling of white scuts through the fern and heather,
sat up, all ears, on every little knap and hillock, drummed with their
pads upon the hollow ground, scurried away in scattered companies and
simultaneously vanished down a hundred holes at sight of dog or man.

This, then, was the place and these were the people, animals and things
that Plym encompassed with her growing volume before she thundered in
many a cataract and shouting waterfall through the declivities beneath
Dewerstone and left Dartmoor.  Much beauty she brings to the lowlands;
much beauty she finds there. The hanging woods are very fair; and the
great shining reaches where the salmon lie; and those placid places
where Plym draws down the grey and azure of the firmament and spreads it
among the water-meadows.  She flows through Bickleigh Vale and by Cann
Quarry; she passes her own bridge, and anon, entering the waters of
Laira, passes unmarked away to the salt blue sea; but she laves no scene
more pregnant than these plains where the stone men sleep; she passes no
monument heavier weighted with grandeur of eld than that titan menhir of
Thrushelcombe by Ditsworthy, where, deep set in the prehistoric past, it
stands sentinel over a hero's grave.  Great beyond the common folk was
he who won this memorial--a warrior and leader at the least; or
perchance some prophet who wrought men's deeds into the gaunt beginnings
of art and song, fired his clan to the battle with glorious fury, and
welcomed them again with paean of joy or dirge of mourning.  But one
chooses rather to think that these tumuli held ashes of the men who
fought and conquered; who lifted their lodges to supremacy; who bulked
as large in the eyes of the neoliths as their gravestones bulk in ours.
The saga and the singer both are good; but deeds must first be done.

Of Plym also it may be said that nowhere in all its journey does it
skirt a home of living men more sequestered and distinguished than the
broad, low-roofed and granite-walled Warren House of Ditsworthy.
Notable and spacious mansions rise as the stream flows into
civilisation; abodes, that have entered into history, lift their heads
adjacent to its flood; but none among them is so unique and distinctive;
and none at any period has sheltered a family more eager, strenuous and
full of the strife and joy of living than Elias Bowden and his brood.




                             *CHAPTER III*

                          *HARMONY IN RUSSET*


Sheepstor lies beneath the granite hill that names it like a lamb
between a lion's paws.  Chance never played artist to better purpose,
for of the grey roofs and whitewashed walls that make this little
village, there is scarcely one to be wished away.  Cots and
farm-buildings, byres and ricks cluster round about the church; a few
conifers thrust dark spire and branch between the houses, and fields
<DW72> upward behind the hamlet to the shaggy fringes of the tor.  A
medley of autumnal orange and copper and brown now splashes the hills
everywhere round about; and great beeches, that hem in the churchyard
and bull-ring, echo the splendour of the time and spread one pall of
radiant foliage on all the graves together.  Behind the church,
knee-deep in thick-set spinneys, ascends the giant bulk of Sheep's Tor,
shouldering enormous from leagues of red brake-fern, like a ragged, grey
dragon that lifts suddenly from its lair.  The saddle of the hill falls
westerly in a more gentle <DW72>, and sunset paints wonderful pictures
there; while beyond, breaking very blue through the haze of distance,
Lether Tor and Sharp Tor's misty heights inclose the horizon.

A river runs through the village, and at this noon hour in late November
the brook made all the music to be heard; for not a sound rose but that
of the murmuring water, and not any sight of conscious life was to be
noted.  Clear sunshine after rain beat upon the great hill; its ruddy
pelt glowed like fire under the blue sky, and beneath the mass a church
tower, whose ancient crockets burnt with red-gold lichens, sprang
stiffly up. Sheepstor village might now be seen through a lattice of
naked boughs, fair of form in their mingled reticulations and pale as
silvery gauze against the sunlight. Their fretwork was touched to flame
where yellow or scarlet leaves still clung and spattered the branches.
Yet no particular opulence of colour was registered. All the tones
remained delicate and tender.  The village seen afar off, seemed painted
with subdued greys, pale yellows and warm duns; but at approach its
deserted street was proved a haunt for sunshine and glittered with
reflected light and moisture.

One cottage near the lich-gate of the churchyard had served to challenge
particular attention.  The building was of stone, but little of the
fabric save one chimney-stack appeared, for on the south side a huge
ivy-tod overwhelmed all with shining green; to the north a cotoneaster
of uncommon proportions wrapped the house in a close embrace, covered
the walls and spread over the roof also.  Its dense, stiff sprays of
dark foliage were laden with crimson berries; they hung brilliantly over
the white face of the cottage and made heavy brows for the door and
windows.  A leafless lilac stuck up pale branches on one side of the
entrance; stacks of dry fern stood on the other; and these hues were
carried to earth and echoed in higher notes by some buff Orpington fowls
upon the roadway, and a red setter asleep at the cottage door.  Over all
this genial and spirited colour profound silence reigned; and then the
mystery of the deserted village was solved by sudden drone of organ
music from the church.  It happened to be Sunday, and most of those not
engaged at kitchen fires were attending service.

At last, however, a human being appeared and a man came out from the
cottage of cotoneasters with a metal pail in his hand.  He wore Sunday
black but had not yet donned his coat, and his shirt-sleeves were rolled
up to his elbows.  His fore-arms were somewhat slight, but hard and
brown; and his face had charmed any student of faces by its obvious
kindness of heart and innate merriment of disposition.  Bartley Crocker
was thin and tall.  He stood about six feet, yet weighed not quite
eleven stone.  He was, however, tough and very energetic where it
pleased him so to be.  Small black whiskers clung beneath his ears,
while the rest of his face was shorn.  His upper lip was short, his
mouth full and rather feeble, his colour clear and pale.  His eyes were
small, somewhat sly, and the home of laughter. He was five-and-twenty
and lived with a widowed mother and a maiden aunt under the berried roof
of the cottage.  The Crockers kept cows and poultry, and Bartley was a
good son to his mother, though not a good friend to himself.  He had a
mind, quick but not deep, and his feelings were keen but transitory.  He
belonged to the order of Esau, won wide friendship, yet woke a measure
of impatience among reflecting people, in that he spent his time to such
poor purpose and wasted an unusually good education and a splendid
native gift of nervous energy on the sports of the field. He had, in
fact, become a man without putting away childish things--an achievement
as rare among rustics as it is common under conditions of university
education.  Yet nobody but his mother ever blamed him to his face, and
the tone of her voice always robbed her reproaches of the least forceful
quality.  She was proud of him; she knew that the men could not quarrel
with him and that the girls were all his friends.

Bartley filled a pail with water from the brook, and then carried it
home.  His mother was in church; his Aunt, Susan Saunders, prepared
dinner.  The man now completed his costume, put on a collar and a red
tie, donned his coat and a soft felt "wide-awake" hat. He then went into
the churchyard, sat upon a tomb exactly in front of the principal door
and there waited, without self-consciousness, for the congregation to
emerge.  Anon the people came--a stream of old men and maidens, women
and children.  Ancient beavers shone in the sun, plaid shawls covered
aged shoulders; there was greeting and clatter of tongues in the
vernacular; the young creatures, released from their futile
imprisonment, ran hither and thither, and whooped and shouted--without
apparent merriment, but simply in obedience to a natural call for swift
movement of growing legs and arms and full inflation of lungs.  The
lively company streamed away and Bartley gave fifty of the folk
"good-morning."  Some chid him for not attending the service.  At last
there came his mother. She resembled her son but little, and looked
younger than her years.  Nanny Crocker was more black than grey.  She
had dark brown eyes, a high-<DW52> face, a full bosom and a square,
sturdy body, well moulded to display the enormous pattern of a red,
black and blue shawl.  Beside her walked Mr. Charles Moses, the vicar's
churchwarden--a married man with a grey beard and crystallised opinions,
who on week-days pursued the business of a shoemaker.

"Where's Margaret?" asked young Crocker.  But his mother could not
answer him.

"I thought she'd have found me and prayed along with me, in the pew
behind the font, that catches heat from the stove, where I always go
winter time," explained Mrs. Crocker.  "She never comed, however.
Haven't she arrived home?"

"No," said Bartley.  "But 'twas a promise to dinner, and since there's
no message, without doubt she's on the way.  I'll up over Yellowmead and
meet her."

His mother nodded and went forward, escorted by the shoemaker; people in
knots and strings thinned off by this gate and that; then came forth the
imposing company of the Bowdens, for Sheepstor was their parish, and wet
or fine, hot or cold, they weekly worshipped there.  Only on rare
occasions, when some fierce blizzard banked white drifts ten feet deep
between Ditsworthy and the outer world, did Elias abstain and hold long
services in the Warren House kitchen, lighted by the glare of the
snow-blink from without.

To-day he came first, with his widowed daughter Sophia.  Then followed
David and Rhoda, Napoleon and Wellington, Samson and Richard, in the
order named.  Joshua was not present, as he had gone to spend the day
with friends; and Dorcas kept at home to help her mother with dinner.

The Bowdens were well known to Bartley, and he bade them "good-morning"
in amiable fashion.  He shook hands with Sophia and Rhoda, and nodded to
Elias and David.  None of the family showed particular pleasure in the
young man's company, but this did not trouble him.  Their way was his
for a while, and therefore he walked beside David and Rhoda and prattled
cheerfully now to one, now to the other.

"How those boys grow!" he said.  "A brave couple and so like as a pair
of tabby kittens.  They'll go taller than you, David.  You can see it by
their long feet."

"Very like they will," said David.

The other's ruling instinct was to please.  He addressed Rhoda.  In
common with most young men he admired her exceedingly; but the emotion
was not returned.  Rhoda seldom smiled upon men; yet, on the other hand,
she never scowled at them.  Her attitude was one of high indifference,
and none saw much more than that; yet much more existed, and Rhoda's
aloof posture, instead of concealing normal maiden interest in the
opposite sex, as Bartley and other subtle students suspected, in reality
hid a vague general aversion from it.

"If I may make bold to say so, Miss Rhoda, those feathers in your
beautiful hat beat anything I've ever seen," declared Mr. Crocker.

"'Tis a foreign bird what used to be in a case," answered she.  "The
mould was getting over it, so I thought I'd use its wings for my hat
afore they went to pieces."

"A very witty idea.  And what might the bird be?"

"Couldn't tell you."

"I wonder, now, supposing I was to shoot a kingfisher, if you'd like him
to put in your hat when this here bird be done for?"

"No, thank you."

"If she wants a kingfisher, I can get her one," said David.

Bartley tried again.

"I hear that yellow-bearded chap, the leat man, Simon Snell, be taking
up with your Dorcas.  That's great news, I do declare, if 'tis true."

A very faint tinge of colour touched Rhoda's cheeks.

"It isn't," she said.

"Ah, well--can't say I'm sorry.  He's rather a dull dog--good as gold,
but as tasteless as an egg without salt."

"Simon Snell can stand to work--that's something," said David, in his
uncompromising way.

But Mr. Crocker ignored the allusion.  He looked at and talked to Rhoda.
The pleasure of seeing her beautiful face and of watching that little
wave of rose-colour wax and wane in her cheeks, was worth her brother's
snub.  He had often been at the greatest difficulty to abstain from
compliments to Rhoda; but there was that in her bearing and consistent
reserve that frightened him and all others from personality. Even to
praise her hat had required courage.

Elias called Rhoda, and Bartley was not sorry to reach the point where
their ways parted.  He went to meet a maiden of other clay than this.
Yet Rhoda always excited a very lively emotion in the youth by virtue of
her originality, handsome person and self-sufficing qualities.  When any
girl made it clear to Bartley that she took no sort of interest in him,
the remarkable fact woke quite a contrary attitude to her in his own
ardent spirit.

Where a row of stepping-stones crossed Sheepstor brook under avenues
of-beech-trees above the village, Bartley left the Bowdens with a final
proposal of friendliness.

"Hounds meet at Cadworthy Bridge come Monday week.  Hope I'll see you
then, if not sooner, Miss Rhoda."

"Thank you, but I shan't go.  Fox-hunting's nought to us."

"Well, good-bye, then," answered he.  "I'm walking this way to meet
Madge Stanbury from Coombeshead. She's coming to eat her dinner along
with us."

A silence more than usually formidable followed the announcement, and it
was now not Rhoda but David who appeared to be concerned.  He frowned,
and even snorted.  Actual anger flashed from his eyes, but he turned
them on his sister, not on Mr. Crocker.

Rhoda it was who spoke after a very lengthy peace.

"If that's so, there's no call for you to go over to Coombeshead after
dinner, David.  Belike Margaret Stanbury's forgot."

"I was axed to tea, and I shall go to tea," he answered in a dogged and
sulky voice.  "We've no right to say she's forgot."

"That's true," Rhoda admitted.

Bartley wished them "good-bye" again and left them.  He skipped over the
stream and climbed the hill to Sheep's Tor's eastern <DW72>s, while they
went up through steep lanes, furze-brakes and stunted trees to the great
tableland of the Moor.

Mr. Crocker once turned a moment; and, as he did so, he marked the
Bowden clan plodding on in evident silence to Ditsworthy.

"Good God! 'tis like a funeral party after they've got rid of their
dead," he thought.

Ten minutes later a dark spot on the heath increased, approached swiftly
and turned into a woman.  Such haste had she made that her heart
throbbed almost painfully.  She pressed her hands to it and could not
speak for a little while.  Her face was bright and revealed an eager but
a very sensitive spirit.  There was something restless and birdlike
about her, and something unutterably sweet; for this girl's temper was
woven of pure altruism.  Welfare of others, by a sort of fine instinct,
had long since become her welfare.

She was four-and-twenty, of good height and a dark complexion.  Perhaps
her boundless energy preserved her from growing stout and kept her as
she was--a fine woman of ripe and flowing figure with a round, beautiful
neck and noble arms.  Her hair, parted down the middle in the old
fashion, was black and without natural gloss; her eyebrows were full and
perfect in shape and her eyes shone with the light of a large and
sanguine heart.  Her face was well shaped and her mouth very gentle.
Margaret Stanbury possessed a temperament of fire.  She made intuition
serve for reason, and instinct take the place of logic.  Her capacity
both for joy and grief was unusual in her class.

"Whatever will your people say, Bartley?" she gasped.  "They'll never
forgive me, I'm sure."

"No bad news, I hope?"

"Yes, but there is.  Mother scalded herself just as I was starting to
church, so I had to stop and cook the dinner.  And, what's far worse,
I've kept you from yours."

"We'll soon make up for lost time," he answered.  "I hope your mother
suffered but little pain and will soon be well."

"She makes nought of it; but of course I couldn't leave her to mess
about with a lame hand."

"Of course not; of course not.  I wish you hadn't hurried so.  You've
set yourself all in a twitter."

Nevertheless he much admired the beautiful rise and fall of her tight
Sunday frock.  It was as pleasant a circumstance in its way as Rhoda's
ghostly blush when he had mentioned Simon Snell.




                              *CHAPTER IV*

                             *COOMBESHEAD*


The character of Margaret Stanbury affected very diversely those who
came in contact with it. Her never-failing desire to be helping others
was sometimes welcomed, sometimes tolerated and sometimes resented.
Most people have no objection to being spoiled, and mothers of sick
children, old bedridden folk and invalids welcomed Margaret gladly
enough, and accepted her gifts of service or food--sometimes as a
privilege, sometimes, after a few repetitions, as a right. But others
only endured her attentions for the love they bore her, and because they
knew that she joyed to be with the careworn and suffering.  A residue of
independent people were indifferent to her.  These wished her away, when
she sought to share their tribulations or lessen their labours.

Nanny Crocker and her sister Susan belonged to the last category.  They
hated fuss and they mistrusted sympathy.  They were complete in
themselves--comfortable, superior, selfish.  They liked Margaret
Stanbury so much that they held her worthy of Bartley; and he liked her
as well as a man might who had known her all his life.  His mother had
settled with Susan that her son was husband-old, and this visit from
Madge might be said to open the campaign.

The old women took cold stock of her as she ate her dinner.  To an
outsider they had suggested two elderly lizards, with wrinkled skins and
large experience, studying a song-thrush on a bough.  Madge trilled and
chirruped from the simple goodness of her heart; they, in their deeper
shrewdness, listened; she had much to say of many people and not an
unkind word of any; but unfailingly they qualified her generous estimate
of fellow-creatures.

After the meal Margaret declared that she must start immediately for
home to keep an appointment; and she took with her Bartley Crocker
himself and an elaborate prescription for scalds.  Then, when they had
gone, Susan and Nanny discussed the girl without sentiment or
imagination, yet not without common sense.

They differed somewhat, but not in the conclusion. Both felt that though
too prone to let her heart run away with her head, Madge would make a
good wife for their man.  The suspicion was that she might not be quite
firm enough with him.  That, however, appeared inevitable.  Mrs. Crocker
felt that Bartley must certainly be humoured.  No woman born would ever
deny him his own way or cloud his spirit with opposition. Susan feared
that the girl had expensive tastes and an instinct which carried
generosity to absurd lengths; but the mother of Bartley believed that,
once married, this lavish benevolence would centre upon Margaret's
husband and find all necessary scope for its activity in that quarter.

Meantime Bartley's own attitude had to be considered, and upon that
point his parent and his aunt were satisfied.  He had been attentive to
Margaret at dinner and more than usually polite.

"It only remains to see what the girl thinks," said Susan; but her
sister held that problem determined.

"She goes without saying, I should fancy, even if Bartley was different
to what he is.  He's only to drop the handkerchief.  The girl's no fool.
Catch a Stanbury refusing a Crocker!"

"I doubt he'll ask her afore Christmas."

"May or may not.  That's not our job.  'Tis for us to bid her here now
and again, and I may even get out to Coombeshead presently and pay her
mother a visit.  Of course Mrs. Stanbury and her husband will be hot for
it."

Thus, despite their large worldly wisdom and knowledge of their
fellow-folk, these elderly sisters, cheered by Sunday dinner, took a
rosy view of the future and held the things which they desired to happen
as good as accomplished.  They even debated upon a new home for Bartley
and wondered where it had better be chosen.

The man meantime was moving at one point of that great trio of tors
known hereabout as "the Triangle."  The heights of Sheep's Tor, Lether
Tor and Down Tor are equidistant, and once upon a time, in the hollowed
midst of them, Nature's hand held a lake.  Then its granite barriers
were swept away and the cup ran empty.  Hereafter Meavy river flowed
through the midst of meadows and, at the time of these incidents,
continued to do so.  It was not until nearly fifty years later that
thirsty men rebuilt the cup to hold sweet water for their towns.

Across the river went Margaret and Bartley; then they turned and, by a
detour, set their faces towards her home.  Their talk was light and
cheerful.  It ranged over many subjects, including love, but no note of
any close, personal regard marked the conversation.

"What do you think of Rhoda Bowden?" he asked, and Margaret answered
slowly:

"I think a lot of her.  She's a solemn sort of girl and goeth so
grand-like!  She'm different to most of us--so tall and sweeping in her
walk.  Maidens mostly mince in their going; but she swingeth along like
a man."

"She's a jolly fine girl, Madge."

"David be terrible fond of her."

"Yes, he is.  I saw that this morning before dinner. And I got actually
a touch of pink into her cheek to-day, if you'll believe it."

"You're that bowldacious always--enough to make any girl blush with your
nonsense."

"Not at all.  I wouldn't say anything outright--but I just mentioned
Simon Snell of all men, and I'll swear Miss Rhoda flickered up!"

"You never know what natures catch heat from each other.  I don't reckon
Rhoda's fond of men."

"And surely Snell would never dare to be fond of girls."

"And yet, for just that reason, they might be drawn together."

By chance the man of whom they spoke appeared a little farther on their
way.  He was a large-boned, ox-eyed labourer, with a baby's face on
adult shoulders. Not a wrinkle of thought, not a sensual line was ruled
upon his round cheeks or brow.  A yellow beard and moustache hid the
lower part of his face.  His skin was clear and high-; his nose
was thin; his forehead was high and narrow.

"Give you good-afternoon," said Mr. Snell.  He spoke in a thin,
colourless voice and his face revealed no expression but a sort of ovine
placidity.

Bartley winked at Madge.

"And how be all at Ditsworthy Warren House, Simon?" he asked.

"I was there last Thursday.  They was all well then. I'm going there now
to drink tea with--"

"With Miss Rhoda--eh?  Or is it Miss Dorcas?"

The shadowy ghost of a smile touched Simon's mild face.

"What a dashing way you have of mentioning the females!  I never could
do it, I'm sure.  'Tis about some spaniel pups as I be going up over.
Give you good-afternoon."

He stalked away, calm, solemn, inane.

Mr. Snell was engaged upon the Plymouth water leat. His neighbours
regarded him as a harmless joke.  It might have been said of him, as of
the owl, that he was not humourous himself, but the cause of humour in
others.

"I always think there's a lot of sense hidden in Simon, for all you men
laugh at him," said Margaret.

"Then give up thinking so," answered Bartley, "for you're wrong.  That
baby-eyed creature have just brain-power to keep him out of the lunatic
asylum and no more.  His head is as empty as a deaf nut.  He's never
growed up.  There's nought behind that great bush of a beard but a
stupid child.  He's only the image of a man; and you'll never hear him
say a sensible thing, unless 'tis the echo of somebody else.  He don't
know no more about human creatures than that gate."

"A childlike spirit have its own virtues.  He'd never do a bad thing."

"He'd never do anything--good or bad.  He's like a ploughing horse or a
machine.  Lord, the times I've tried to shock a swear or surprise a
laugh out of that chap!  Yet if ever Rhoda Bowden showed me a spark of
herself, 'twas when I said I thought Simon was after her red sister."

"'Twas only because you angered her thinking of such a thing."

"How d'you like David Bowden?" he asked suddenly, and the question
signified much to them both.  For Bartley had been not a little
astonished to hear that David was going to drink tea at Coombeshead.
The eldest son of Elias was an unsociable man and little given to
visiting.  Yet this visit, as Mr. Crocker had observed after church,
meant a good deal to young Bowden.  Now he desired to know what it might
mean to Margaret.

Her merry manner changed and a nervousness, natural to her and never far
from the surface of her character, asserted itself.

"What a chap you are for sudden questions that go off like a rat-trap!
Mr. David is coming to drink tea along with us to-night."

"That's why you're in such a hurry."

"Why not?"

"No reason at all.  David Bowden's rather a grim sort of man; but he's
got all the virtues except a gentle tongue.  I speak better of him than
he would of me, however."

"I'm sure not.  He's never said a word against you that I ever heard."

"You've heard him pretty often then?  Well, he despises me, Madge.
Because I don't stick to work like he does.  Don't you get too fond of
that man. He's a kill-joy."

She gasped and changed colour, but he did not notice it.  All that
Bartley had needed to turn his attention seriously to this girl was some
spice of rivalry; and now it promised to appear.  They walked along to
Nosworthy Bridge, and from that spot Margaret's distant home was
visible.

Like a picture set between two great masses of fruiting white-horn,
Dennycoombe spread eastward into Dartmoor and climbed upward through
glory of sinking light upon autumnal colour.  To the west Sheep's Tor's
larch-clad shoulder sloped in pale gold mottled with green, while
northerly Down Tor broke the withered fern.  Between them lay a valley
of lemon light washed with blue hazes and stained by great darkness
where the shadows fell.  Many a little dingle opened on either hand of
the glen; and here twinkled water, where a brook leapt downward; and
here shone dwindling raiment of beech and oak.

Coombeshead Farm, the home of the Stanburys, stood at the apex of this
gorge and lay under Coombeshead Tor.  Still higher against the sky
rolled Eylesbarrow, its enormous and simple outline broken only by the
fangs of an old ruin; while flying clouds, that shone in opposition to
the sunset, crowned all with welter of mingled light and gloom.  The
modest farmhouse clung like a grey nest into the tawny harmonies of the
hill, and above it rose blue smoke.

"You'll come to tea?" said Madge; but Bartley shook his head.

"Two's company, three's none," he said.

"But we're all at home."

"No, no; I've had my luck--mustn't be greedy.  One thing I will swear:
David Bowden won't make you laugh as often at your tea as I did at your
dinner--will he now?"

"We've all got our different qualities."

"I tell you he's a kill-joy," repeated Bartley; but Margaret shook her
head.

"Not to me--never to me," she said frankly.

This fearless confession reduced the man to silence. Then, while he
considered the position and felt that, if he desired Margaret, the time
for serious love-making had come, there approached the sturdy shape of
young Bowden himself.

They were now more than half-way up the valley, and David had seen them
long ago.  He advanced to meet them, took no notice of Bartley, but
shook Margaret's hand and spoke while he did so.

"It was ordained that I should drink a dish of tea along with your
people this afternoon; but if you've forgot it, I can go again."

"No fay!  Of course 'twasn't forgotten.  Why ever should you think so,
Mr. David?"

"Because Bartley here--however, I'm sorry I spoke, since 'tis as 'tis."

"Not often you say more than be needed in words," remarked Mr. Crocker.
But he spoke mechanically. His observation was entirely bestowed upon
Margaret's attitude towards Bowden.  That she liked him was sufficiently
clear.  Her face was the brighter for his coming and she began to talk
to him of certain interests not familiar to Bartley.  Then she
remembered herself and turned to the younger man again.

"But what's this to you, Bartley?  Nought, I'm sure."

He had remarked that she addressed David by his Christian name, but with
the affix of ceremony.

"Anything that interests you interests me, Madge," he answered.  "But
I'll leave you here and go back-along through the woods."

"Better come on, now you're so near, and have tea with us."

"What does David say?"

"Ban't my business," answered Mr. Bowden.

The men looked at each other straight in the eyes and grasped the
situation.  Then Bartley shook hands with Margaret and left them.

Bowden made no comment on Mr. Crocker.  Indeed he did not speak at all
until they had almost reached the homestead of Coombeshead.  Then,
suddenly, without preliminaries, he dragged a little square-nosed
spaniel puppy out of his pocket, where it had been lying fast asleep.

"'Tis weaned and ready to begin learning," he said. "Your brother Bart
will soon teach it how to behave. But mind you let him.  Don't you try
to bring it up. You'll only spoil it.  No woman I ever knowed, except
Rhoda, could train a dog."

The little thing licked Madge's face while she kissed its nose.

"A dinky dear!  Thank you, thank you, Mr. David. 'Twill be a great
treasure to me."

He set his teeth and asked for a privilege.  He had evidently meant to
accompany this gift with a petition.

"And if I may make so bold, I want for you to call me 'David,' instead
of 'Mr. David.'"

He looked at her almost sternly as he spoke.  His voice was slow, deep
and resonant.

"Of course--David."

He nodded and the shadow of a smile passed over his face.

"Thank you kindly," he said.

The pup occupied Margaret's attention and hid the flush upon her cheek.
Then they entered together, to find the rest of the Stanbury family
sitting very patiently waiting for their tea.

Bartholomew Stanbury and his son, Bartholomew, were men of like
instincts and outlook.  Coombeshead Farm had but little land and the
farmer was very poor; but father and son only grumbled in the privacy of
the family circle, and presented a sturdy and indifferent attitude to
the world.  They were tall, well-made men, flaxen of colour and scanty
of hair.  Their eyes were blue; their expressions were frank; their
intelligence was small and their physical courage great.  Save for the
difference represented by thirty years of time, father and son could
hardly have been more alike; but Bartholomew Stanbury, though little
more than fifty was already very bald and round in the shoulders; while
"Bart," as the younger man was always called without addition, stood
straight, and though his face was hairless, save for a thin moustache, a
good sandy crop covered his poll.

Both men rose as Madge and David appeared; both wrinkled their narrow
foreheads and both smiled with precisely the same expression.  The
Stanburys had set their hopes on a possible match with the more
prosperous and powerful Bowdens.  Bartholomew, indeed, held that his
daughter's happiness must be assured if she could win such a husband as
David.

"Call your mother, Bart," said Mr. Stanbury, "and we'll have tea.
Haven't seen 'e this longful time, David, but I hope all's well to home
and the rabbits running heavy."

"Never better," answered young Bowden.

"As for us, can't say it's been all to the good," declared the farmer.
"Never knowed a fairer or hotter summer, but in August the maggots got
in the sheep's backs something cruel.  Bart here was out after 'em all
his time--wasn't you, Bart?"

Bart had a habit of patting his chin and nodding when he spoke.  He did
so now.

"Yes, I was," said Bart.  "A terrible brave show of maggots, sure
enough."

Mrs. Stanbury appeared, and it might be seen that while her son
resembled his father, it was from the mother that Margaret took her dark
skin, dark hair, dark eyes and wistful cast of countenance.  She was a
neat, small woman, and to-day, clad in her plum- Sunday gown
with a silver watch-chain and a touch of colour in her black cap, had no
little air of distinction about her.  Her face was long and rather sad,
but it had been beautiful before the mouth fell somewhat.  Constance
Stanbury was eight years older than her husband and of a credulous
nature, at once vaguely poetical and definitely pessimistic.  She
depreciated everything that belonged to herself; even when her children
were praised to her face, she would deprecate enthusiasm with silence or
a shrug.  She believed in mysteries, in voices that called by night, in
dreams, in premonitions, in the evil omen and the evil eye.  Her brother
had destroyed himself, and she was not the first of her race who had
suffered from a congenital melancholia.

"I hope your scalded hand be doing nicely, ma'am," said David, with the
politeness of a lover to the mother of his lass.

"Yes, thank you.  'Twas my own silly fault, trying to do two things at
once.  'Tis of no consequence."

"I'll pour out the tea," said Margaret.  "Then you needn't take your
hand out of the sling, mother."

Mrs. Stanbury's profound and pathetic distrust and doubt that she could
possess or achieve any good thing, extended from the greatest to the
least interest in life. Now they ate and drank, and David ventured to
praise a fine cake of which he asked for a second slice.

"Glad you like it, I'm sure," she said, "but 'tisn't much of a cake.
Too stoggy and I forgot the lemon."

"Never want to taste a better," declared David, stoutly.  "Our cakes to
Ditsworthy ban't a patch on it."

Mrs. Stanbury smiled faintly.

"Did your mother catch any good from the organy tea?" she asked.

"Yes," answered David.  "A power of good it did her, and I was specially
to say she was greatly obliged for it; and if by lucky chance you'd
saved up a few bunches more organies, she'd like 'em."

"Certainly, an' t'other herb to go along with it.  I dried good store at
the season of the year.  Some people say the moon don't count in the
matter; but there's a right and wrong in such things, and the moon did
ought to be at the full without a doubt.  Who be we to say that the wit
of our grandfathers was of no account?"

The herb "organies," or wild marjoram, was still drunk as tea in Mrs.
Stanbury's days, and decoctions of it were widely used after local
recipes for local ills.

"This here Chinese tea be a lot nicer to my taste, all the same," said
Bart.  "We have it Sundays, and I wouldn't miss it for money."

"We drink it every day," said David.

"Ah! you rich folk can run to it, no doubt."

"But we don't brew so strong as what you do," added young Bowden.

"This is far too strong," declared Mrs. Stanbury, instantly.  "It have
stood over long, and the bitter be drawed out."

"That's my fault for being late," answered Margaret.  "No fault of
yours, mother."

"I like the bitter," said Bart.  "'Tis pretty drinking and proper to
work on.  Cider isn't in it with cold tea."

Dusk gathered, and the firelight flickered in the little whitewashed
kitchen.  Then David mentioned a project near his hopes.

"You thought you'd found a fox's earth 'pon Coombeshead Tor," he said to
Madge.

"I do think so; and if you've made an end of eating, us'll go an' see
afore 'tis dark."

"I've finished, and very much obliged, I'm sure."

David rose, picked up his felt hat and bade the parent Stanburys
"good-evening."  Then he and Margaret went out together.  Bart prepared
to accompany them, when suddenly, as if shot, he sank down into his
chair again beside his father and put his hand to his chin.

"Why for did 'e kick me, faither?" he asked when the lovers had
disappeared.

"You silly zany!  They don't want you!"

Bart grinned.

"He be after Madge--eh?"

"Wait till you'm daft for something in a petticoat yourself, then you'll
understand--eh, mother?"

"I suppose so, master.  We shall lose 'em both, without a doubt; 'tis
Nature," she said.

Meantime Margaret and David climbed into the gloaming on Coombeshead
Tor, and she talked to him, and for the first time let him know how much
the wonderful granite masses of this hill meant to her.

"I was born on the farm, you know, and this place was my playground ever
since I could run alone.  A very lonely little girl, because Bart was
six year older than me, and mother never had none but us.  I never had
no toys or nothing of that sort; but these gerstones was my dollies, and
I used to give 'em names, an' play along with 'em, an' sleep among 'em
when I was tired. That fond of chattering I was, that I must be talking
if 'twas only to the stones!  Never was a cheel cut out for minding
babies like me; and yet I've not had a baby to mind in my life!"

He listened and enjoyed her voice, but felt not much emotion at what she
told him.

"So these boulders were my babies; an' now this one took a cold and
wanted nursing; an' now this one was tired and I had to sing it to
sleep.  And I'd bring 'em flowers an' teach 'em their lessons, an' put
'em to bed an' all the rest of it.  They all had their names too, I
warrant you!"

"'Twas a very clever game to think upon," he said.

"Thicky stone, wi' grass on his head, was called 'Pilgarlic.'  His hair
is green in summer and it turns yellow, like 'tis now, when winter
comes.  And yonder rock--its real name is the 'Cuckoo stone,' because
cuckoo always sits there to cry when he comes to Dennycoombe; that flat
rock was 'Lame Annie'--a poor friend of mine as couldn't walk."

David laughed.

"Fancy thinking such things all out of your own head!" he exclaimed.
"Ah! here's the earth!  Yes, that's a fox."

Presently he prepared to go homeward and she offered to walk a little of
the way by a sheep-track under Eylesbarrow.

He agreed and thanked her; but when the turning point was reached, David
declared that it was now too dark for Margaret to see her way home at
all.  And so it became necessary for him to turn again and walk beside
her until Coombeshead windows blinked through the night.

Then he left her, and ventured to squeeze her hand rather tightly as he
did so.  He went home somewhat slowly and suffered as many sensations of
affection, admiration and uneasiness as his nature would admit.  He was
deep in love and felt that possession of Margaret Stanbury represented
the highest good his life could offer.




                              *CHAPTER V*

                       *THE VIRGIN AND THE DOGS*


Rhoda Bowden loved the dogs, and her part in the little commonwealth of
Ditsworthy lay with them.  Ten were kept, and money was made from Elias
Bowden's famous breed of spaniels.  To see Rhoda, solemn and stately,
with puppies squealing and tumbling before her, or hanging on to her
skirts, was a familiar sight at the warren.

"It takes all sorts to make a world," said Mrs. Bowden, "and I must
allow my Rhoda never neighboured kindly with the babbies--worse than
useless with 'em; but let it be a litter, and she's all alive and clever
as need be."

Indeed, the girl had extraordinary skill in canine affairs.  She loved
and understood the dogs; and they loved her.  By a sort of instinct she
learned their needs and aversions, and the brutes paid her with a blind
worship that woke as soon as their eyes opened on the world.  Yelping
and screaming, the puppies paddled about after her; the old dogs walked
by her side or galloped before.  Sometimes she went to the warren with
them and watched them working.  After David they were nearer to her
heart than most of her own species.  She seemed to fathom their
particular natures and read their individual characters with a closeness
more intense and a judgment more accurate than she possessed for
mankind.

Perhaps not only dogs woke this singular understanding in her.  As a
child she had chosen to be much alone, and in silent reveries, before
the ceaseless puzzles of Ditsworthy, she had sat sequestered amid
natural things and watched the humble-bees in the thyme, the field mice,
the wheat-ears, and the hawks and lizards. She had regarded all these
lives as running parallel with her own.  They were fellow mortals and no
doubt possessed their own interests, homes, anxieties and affairs.  She
had felt very friendly to them all and had liked to suppose that they
were happy and prosperous. That they lived on each other did not puzzle
her or pain her.  It was so.  She herself--and David--lived by the
rabbits.  Many thousands of the busy brown people passed away through
the winter to make the prosperity of Ditsworthy.  That was a part of the
order of things, and she accepted it with indifference.  Death, indeed,
she mourned instinctively, but she did not hate it.

She loved the night and often, from childhood, crept forth alone into
darkness or moonlight.

There was no humour in Rhoda.  She smiled if David laughed, but even his
weak sense of the laughter in life exceeded hers by much, and she often
failed after serious search to see reason for his amusement.  Such
laughter-lovers as Bartley Crocker frankly puzzled her.  Indeed, she
felt a contempt for them.

Life had its own pet problems, and most of these she shared with David;
but of late every enigma had sunk before a new and gigantic one.  David
was in love with a girl and certainly hoped to marry her.  Until now the
great and favourite mystery in Rhoda's life was the meaning of the old
sundial at Sheepstor church. Above the porch may still be seen a
venerable stone cut to represent a human skull from whose eye-sockets
and bony jaws there spring fresh ears of wheat.  Crossbones support the
head of Death, and beneath them stands a winged hour-glass with the
words 'Mors Janua Vitae.'

This fragment had since her childhood been a fearful joy to Rhoda.  It
was still an object of attraction; but now she had ceased to want an
explanation and would have refused to hear one: the mystery sufficed
her. David, too, had shared her emotions in the relic and had often
advanced theories to explain the eternal wonder of the wheat springing
from human bones.

And now all lesser things were fading before the great pending change,
and Rhoda went uneasy and not wholly happy, like an animal that feels
the approach of storm.  Margaret Stanbury interested her profoundly and
there lurked no suspicion of jealousy in Rhoda's attitude; but critical
she was, and terribly jealous for David.  Young Bowden's mother had been
much easier to satisfy than his sister.  With careful and not
unsympathetic mind Rhoda summed up Madge; and the estimate, as was
inevitable, found David's sweetheart wanting.

The irony of chance had cast Madge into a house childless save for her
elder brother; and her instincts had driven her to pet and nurse the
boulders on Coombeshead; while for Rhoda were babies and to spare
provided, but she ever evaded that uncongenial employment and preferred
a puppy to a child.

Rhoda held her own opinions concerning the opposite sex, and they were
contradictory.  A vague ideal of man haunted her mind, but it was faint
and indefinite. She required some measure of special consideration for
women from men; but personally she could not be said to offer any charm
of womanhood in exchange.  She expected attention of a sort, but she
never acknowledged it in a way to gladden a masculine heart.  And yet
her loveliness and her presence made men forget these facts. They began
by being enthusiastic and only cooled off after a nearer approach had
taught them her limitations.  In the general opinion Rhoda "wanted
something" to complete her; but here and there were those who did not
mark this shadowy deficiency.  Mr. Simon Snell regarded her as the most
complete and admirable woman he had ever seen; and David also knew of no
disability in his sister.  It is true that she differed radically from
Margaret; but that was not a fault in his estimation.  He hoped that
these two women would soon share his home; he believed that each must
win from the other much worth the winning; and he held each quite
admirable, though with a different sort of perfection.

On a day at edge of winter, the mistress of the dogs sat on a rock and
watched her brothers Napoleon and Wellington, and her sister Dorcas,
engaged with a ferret.  The long, pink-eyed, lemon- brute had a
string tied round its neck and was then sent into the burrows.  Anon the
boys dug down where the string indicated, and often found two or three
palpitating rabbits cornered at the end of a tunnel.  Then they dragged
them out and broke their necks.  At Rhoda's feet four spaniel puppies
fought with a rabbit-skin, while she and their mother watched them
admiringly.

Towards this busy scene there came a woman, and Rhoda, recognising Mrs.
Stanbury, walked to meet her.

"Be your mother at home, my dear?" asked the elder.  "'Twas ordained us
should have a bit of a tell about one or two things, and I said a while
ago, when us met Sunday week, that I'd pick a dry day and come across."

"She's at home, and faither too.  We're making up a big order for
Birmingham and everybody's to work."

"Such a hive as you be here.  Bless them two boys, how they do grow, to
be sure!"

She pointed to the twins, Samson and Richard, who had just joined their
elder brothers.

Rhoda led the way and they approached the house. White pigeons and blue
circled round about the eaves, and sweet peat smoke drifted from the
chimney.  A scrap of vegetable garden protected from the east by a high
wall, lay beside the dwelling, and even unexpected flowers--gifts from
the valleys--made shift to live and blossom here.  Aubrietias struggled
in the stones by the garden path, and a few Michaelmas daisies, now in
the sere, also prospered there.  Sarah Bowden herself, and only she,
looked after the flowers.  They were a sort of pleasure to
her--especially the daffodils that speared through the black earth and
hung out their orange and lemon and silver in spring.  Walls of piled
peat and stone surrounded the garden, and the grey face of the Warren
House opened upon it.  At present the garden and porch were full of
rabbit baskets packed for market.  One could only see rows and rows of
little hind pads stained brown by the peat.

Mr. Bowden was doing figures at a high desk in the corner of the
kitchen, and his wife sat by the fire mending clothes.  Rhoda left Mrs.
Stanbury with them and went out again to the boys.

Sarah Bowden had grown round-backed with crouching over many babies.
She loved them and everything to do with them.  Had Nature permitted it,
she would gladly have begun to bear another family.  Now she picked up
her skirt and dusted a chair.

"Don't, please, demean yourself on my account," said Constance Stanbury.
"I've come from master. As you know, my dear, there's something in the
wind, and Bartholomew thought that perhaps you'd be so kind as to spare
the time and tell me a little how it strikes you and what you feel about
it."

"Fetch out elderberry wine and seedy cake," said Elias.  "Mrs. Stanbury
must have bit and sup.  She've come a rough road."

"No, no.  No occasion, I'm sure.  Don't let me put you to no trouble,
Sarah."

"Very pleased," said Mrs. Bowden.  "'Tis about David and your maiden you
be here, of course?"

"So it is then.  My children ain't nothing out of the common, you must
know--haven't got more sense than, please God, they should have.  But
all the same Margaret's a very good, fearless girl, and kind-hearted you
might say, even."

"Kind-hearted!  Why, her name's knowed all up the countryside for
kindness," said Mrs. Bowden.  "She's a proper fairy, and we be very fond
of her, ban't we, Elias?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bowden.  "She's got every vartue but cash."

"She'm to have twenty-five pounds on her wedding-day, however.  Of
course to people like you, with large ideas about money, such a figure
be very small; but her father's put it by for her year after year, and
she'll have it."

"Well done, Stanbury!" said Mr. Bowden.

"They ban't tokened yet, and you might think us a thought too pushing,
which God forbid, I'm sure," said Mrs. Stanbury, crumbling her cake and
not eating it. "But it's going to be.  I know the signs.  Your David's
set on her, and he's the sort who have their way.  That man's face
wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, if I may say so.  Not that he'll get
'no' for an answer.  There's that in my daughter's eyes when his name is
named.--So 'tis just so good as done so far as they're concerned."

Mr. Bowden left his desk and came to the table.  He poured out a glass
of elderberry wine for himself and drank it.

"Listen to me," he said.  "Wool is worth one shilling and sevenpence a
pound, and David be going to buy fifty sheep.  You might ax how?  Well,
his Uncle Partridge--Sarah's late brother--left him five hundred pound
under his will; and when he marries and leaves here, he'll spend a bit
of that on sheep--old Dartmoor crossed with Devon Long Wool.  'Tis a
brave breed and the wonderfulest wool as you'll handle in England. The
only care is not to breed out the Dartmoor constitution.  I may tell you
an average coat is twelve pounds of wool.  So there you are."

Mr. Bowden instantly returned to his stool and his ledger.  He appeared
to regard his statement as strictly relative, and, indeed, Mrs. Stanbury
so understood it. In their speech, as in their written communications,
the folk shear off every redundancy of expression until only the bare
bones of ideas remain--sometimes without even necessary connecting
links.

"We never doubted that he was snug.  But where be he going, if I might
ask?" said Mrs. Stanbury.

"Wait," answered Elias, twisting round but not dismounting.  "We haven't
come to that.  I should mention ponies also.  There'll be ponies so well
as sheep, and in God's good time, when old Jonathan Dawe's carried to
the yard, David may become Moorman of the quarter.  Nobody's better
suited to the work.  Well--ponies.--With ponies what live be all profit,
and what die be no loss.  In fact, if you find the carpses soon enough,
they be a gain too, for the dogs eat 'em.  The chap as was up here afore
me twenty-five year ago, was a crooked rogue, and many a pony did he
shoot when they comed squealing to the doors in snowy weather--for his
dogs."

"David be going to build a house," said Mrs. Bowden. "He couldn't abide
living in no stuffy village after the warren, so he's going to find a
place--he've got his eye on it a'ready, for that matter."

"Not too far away, I hope--if I may venture to say so."

"Not at all far, and closer to you than us.  He was full of a place
under Black Tor as he'd found by the river.  There's a ruin of the 'old
men' there, as only wants building up to make a very vitty cottage."

"And you see no objection and think 'tis a good enough match for your
boy?"

"Just so," said Elias.

"Then I won't take up no more of your time, for I mark 'tis a rabbit day
with you."

"There's a thought comes over me, however," said Sarah, "and 'tis about
the young youth, Bartley Crocker.  Mind, Constance, I'm not saying
anything against him.  But David's had the man on his mind a bit of
late, and perhaps you know why."

"No doubt I do," said Mrs. Stanbury.  "You see, Nanny Crocker have took
up with Madge lately, and I believe she actually thinks as my girl be
almost good enough for her boy.  'Tis a great compliment, but she've
begun at the wrong end--curious such a clever woman as her.  Margaret
likes Bartley Crocker very well, as all the maidens do for that matter.
A very merry chap, but terrible lazy and terrible light-minded."

"You'll not often find a young man so solid and steady as our David."

"Never seed the like, Sarah.  An old head on young shoulders."

"I've said of him before, and I'll say of him again that nought could
blow David off his own bottom," declared Elias.  "As to t'other chap, he
may have a witty mother, but bottom--none; ballast--not a grain. A very
frothy, fair-weather fellow."

"What I say is, with so much open laughter there must be hidden tears.
Nobody can always be in such a good temper--like a schoolboy just runned
out of school," said Mrs. Stanbury.

"Why, 'tis so--ever grinning and gallivanting, that chap," answered the
man.  "David's built of different clay, and though your daughter may not
have much to laugh at, for I'll grant he's a bit solemn, yet she'll have
nought to cry at; and that's a lot more to the point."

"Her nature do tend to laughter, however; I won't hide that from you.
Madge will get a bit of fun out of married life.  Her very love for
David will make her bright and merry as a dancing star."

"Why not?  Why not?" asked Mrs. Bowden.

"No reason," summed up the warrener.  "She'll bring the flummery and
David will bring the pudding. Leave it so.  They must do the rest.  And
as for laughter, why, I can laugh in the right place myself, as well as
any man."

Mrs. Stanbury rose.

"I may tell master, then, that you'm both willing and agreeable?"

"Certainly you may; and when things is forwarder, David will put his
prospects afore Bartholomew Stanbury all straight and clear."

"'Tis a very great match for any daughter of mine, and I hope she'll
rise worthy of it."

"Don't be downcast, my dear," said Sarah. "Margaret's as good as gold,
and lucky the man that gets her, though my own son."

"You speak too kind, I'm sure--both of 'e," declared Mrs. Stanbury; then
she departed and her neighbours discussed her.

"Never seed the like of that woman for crying 'stinking fish,'" said Mr.
Bowden; and his wife admitted it.

"She do make the worst of herself and her belongings without a doubt;
but a good sort and better far than the puffed-up people."

"Seems to go in fear whether she ought to be alive--eh?"

"Yes, you might say so."

Elias uttered one of his sudden chuckles.

"What be laughing at?" asked his wife.

"Why, I was thinking when that humble-minded creature comes to die,
she'll tell the angels when they come to fetch her, that she really
ban't anything like good enough for the Upper Place!"




                              *CHAPTER VI*

                    *THE HOST OF 'THE CORNER HOUSE'*


'The Corner House' stood just outside Sheepstor village, and Mr. Reuben
Shillabeer--a childless widower--was host of it.  His wife had been dead
ten years, but he kept her memory green, and so much that happened in
the world appeared to remind him sorrowfully of her, that the folk found
him depressing.  Some air of romance from the past hung about Mr.
Shillabeer: he had moved in sporting circles and been a prize-fighter.
Though his own record in the ring was not glorious and consisted of five
battles and one victory, yet Mr. Shillabeer had known as a friend and
equal the giants of the past.  In rare moments of cheerfulness he would
open his huge palm before the spectator and explain how that hand had
shaken the unconquerable and terrible 'rights' of the three immortal
'Toms.'

"I've knowed all three--Tom Cribb, Tom Spring and that wonder of the
world, Tom Sayers," Mr. Shillabeer would say; "all Champions of England
and all very friendly to me.  And Mr. Spring would have been my second
in my affair with Andy Davison, 'the Rooster,' but he had other business
on hand.  And now," Mr. Shillabeer would sum up mournfully, "now Cribb
be in his grave and Spring in his, and Sayers will fight no more, though
still the glory of the nation.  But they always called me the
'Devonshire Dumpling'; and when I had my one and only benefit in the
Fives Court, Mr. Spring showed, God bless him for it, though only a
fortnight after his first mill with Jack Langan."

In person the 'Devonshire Dumpling,' now a man of sixty, was built on
massive lines.  He stood six feet two inches, and weighed sixteen stone.
His large heavy-jowled face was mild and melancholy; his eyes were brown
and calf-like.  One nostril had been split and flattened in battle, and
the symmetry of his countenance was thereby spoiled.  He shaved clean,
but under his double chin there sprouted and spread a thick fringe or
mat of hair--foxy-grey and red mingled. Tremendous shoulders and arms
belonged to Mr. Shillabeer. Sometimes he would perform feats of strength
for the pleasure of the bar, and he could always be prevailed upon to
discuss two subjects, now both defunct: the prize-ring, and his wife.

Tom Sayers had recently fought John Heenan, and the great records of the
Ring were closed.  Jem Mace was now champion, and his prowess perhaps
revived the moribund sport for a few years; but prize-fighting had
passed into the control of dishonest rascals and the fighters were
merely exploited by the lowest and most ruffianly types of sporting men.
The Ring had perished and many a straight, simple-hearted spirit of the
old school regretted the fact, even as Shillabeer did.  He was not vain
and never hesitated to give the true reasons for his own undistinguished
career.

There fell an evening in the bar of 'The Corner House' when Mr.
Shillabeer appeared in a temper unusually brisk and genial.  He even
cracked a massive joke with Charles Moses, the shoemaker and vicar's
warden.  There were present also Simon Snell, David Bowden from
Ditsworthy, Ernest Maunder, the village constable, and other persons.

Mr. Moses reproved a certain levity in the leviathan host.

"What's come to you, 'Dumpling'?  A regular three-year-old this evening.
But you'm not built for it, my dear.  'Tis like an elephant from a
doomshow trying to play the monkey's tricks."

At this criticism Reuben Shillabeer instantly subsided.  He drew beer
for Bowden, cast David's three halfpence into the till and turned to Mr.
Moses.

"You're right.  'Tis for dapper, bird-like men--same as you--to be light
and pranksome.  I've marked that you shoemakers do always take a hopeful
view of life.  Working in leather dries up the humours of the body and
makes all the organs brisk and quick about their business, I believe.
Then, as vicar's warden, you get religion in a way that's denied to us
common men. You're in that close touch with parson that good must come
of it."

"It does," admitted Mr. Moses.  "It surely does."

"You can see it in your face, Charles," asserted Mr. Maunder.  "Some
people might say you had a more religious face than parson's self--his
being so many shades nearer plum-red."

"But it's not a fault in the man," argued Mr. Shillabeer. "There's no
John Barleycorn in the colour, only nature in him.  Yet an unfortunate
thing, and certainly lessens his weight in the pulpit with strangers."

"I'm glad that you feel my face to be a good face, Ernest Maunder,"
replied Mr. Moses.  "Only once have I ever had my face thrown in my
face, so to speak; and that was by a holy man of all men.  In charity,
I've always supposed him short-sighted.  'Twas the 'revival' gentleman
that put up with you, Shillabeer, a few years agone, and preached in the
open air, and drawed a good few to hear him."

"A Wesleyan and a burning light and proud it made me having him here,"
said the innkeeper.  "A saintly soul the man had."

"Well, he met me as he was going to pitch one Sunday morning--me in
black, of course, and off to church.  'Friend,' he said, 'be honest with
yourself and with me.  Are you saved?'  You could have knocked me down
with a feather, folks.  'Saved,' I said, 'saved!  _Me_!  Good God
A'mighty, man,' I said, 'you'm talking to the vicar's warden!'  No doubt
he was shocked to think of what he had done; but he didn't show it.  He
went his way with never a word of apology neither.  But a righteous
creature."

"I quite agree.  I listened to him," said Mr. Snell. "I wasn't saved
afore; but I have been ever since."

A labourer laughed.

"You're safe enough, Simon.  It ban't in you to do nothing wrong."

"I hope not, Timothy Mattacott, but I have my evil thoughts with the
worst among you," answered Snell. "I often wish I had more money--and
yet a well paid man."

"You leat chaps all get more than you're worth," said Bowden.  "Why,
'tis only when the snow-banks choke the water that you have anything to
do, save walk about with your hands in your pockets and your pipes in
your teeth."

Mr. Snell had certain miles of Drake's historic waterway under his
control.  This aqueduct leads from the upper channels of West Dart and
winds onward and downward to Plymouth.  Behind Lowery, Simon's home, it
passed, and for a space of two miles was in his care. They argued now
upon the extent and gravity of Snell's task, and all agreed that he was
fortunate.  Then Mr. Maunder, returning to the point from which
conversation had started, bade Reuben explain his unusual hilarity.

"Without a doubt you was above your nature when us first came in,
'Dumpling'--as Moses here pointed out.  And if any good fortune have
fallen to you, I beg you'll name it, for there's not a man in this bar
but will be glad to hear about it," declared the policeman.

"Hear, hear, Maunder!" said Mr. Moses; "your good be our good,
neighbour."

"Thank you kindly, souls.  'Twas nought, and yet I won't say that.  A
letter, in fact, from an old London friend of mine.  A very onusual sort
of man by the name of Fogo.  I may have mentioned him when telling about
the old fights."

"Be it the gentleman you call 'Frosty-faced Fogo'?" inquired Mattacott.

"The same," answered Reuben.  "'Frosty-faced Fogo' is in Devonsheer--at
Plymouth, if you'll believe it.  There's a twenty-round spar between two
boys there, and Fogo, at the wish of a sporting blade in London, who's
backing one of 'em, be down to see the lad through.  And what's made me
so cheerful is just this: that, for the sake of old times, 'Frosty-face'
is coming on here to put up with me for a week, or maybe more.  You'll
hear some wonders, I warn 'e.  That man's knowed the cream of the P.R.s
and pitched more Rings, along with old Tom Oliver, the
Commissary-General, than any other living creature."

"My father must come down for to see him," said David.  "There's nought
rejoices him like valour, and he wouldn't miss the sight of such a
character for money."

"All are welcome," declared Shillabeer with restrained enthusiasm.  "I
shall hope to have a sing-song for Mr. Fogo one night.  And he'll tell
you about Bendigo, and Ben Gaunt, and Burke, 'the Deaf 'Un,' and many of
the great mills in the forties.  I was the very daps of Ben Gaunt
myself--though he stood half an inch higher.  We was neither of us in
the first rank for science, but terrible strong and gluttons for
punishment.  Gaunt was Champion in his day, but never to be named
alongside Cribb or Dutch Sam or Crawley or Jem Belcher."

"When's he to be here?" asked Mr. Maunder.  "I feel almost as if such a
man of war threatens to break the peace by coming amongst us."

"You're a fool," answered David, bluntly.  "A man like you, instead of
being in such a mortal dread of peace-breaking, ought to welcome the
chance of it now and again.  If I was a policeman, I should soon get
tired of just paddling up and down through Sheep's Tor mud, week in,
week out, and never have nought to do but help a lame dog over a stile
or tell some traveller the way.  'Tis a tame and spiritless life."

"The tamer the better," declared Ernest Maunder, frankly.  "I like it
tame.  'Tis my business to maintain law and order, and that I will do,
Bowden.  And to tell me I'm a fool is very disorderly in you, as well
you know.  I may have my faults, but a fool I'm not, as this bar will
bear me out."

"I merely say," returned David, "that if I was a peeler, I should want
to earn my money, and have a dash at life, and make a stir, if 'twas
only against poachers here and there."

"Shows how little you know about it," answered Maunder.  He was a
placid, straw-<DW52> man, with an official mind.  "You say 'poachers.'
Well, poachers ban't my business.  Poachers come under a different law,
and unless I have the office from headquarters to set out against 'em to
the neglect of my beat, I can't do it.  I'm part of a machine, and if I
got running about as you say, I should throw the machine out of order."

"What for do you want to speak to the man like that?" asked Mattacott,
who was the policeman's friend.  "You Bowdens all think yourselves so
much above the common people--God knows why for.  One would guess you
was spoiling for a fight yourself. Well, I daresay, the 'Dumpling' here
could find somebody at your own weight as wouldn't fear a set to with
you."

"Why not you?" said Bowden.  "When you like, Mattacott."

"What a fiery twoad 'tis!  Why, you'm a stone heavier than me, and years
younger."

Mr. Shillabeer regarded David with some professional interest.

"You'm a nice built chap, but just of that awkward weight 'twixt light
and middle.  In the old days I knowed some of the best bruisers you
could wish to see were the same; but 'twas always terrible difficult to
get 'em a job, because they was thought too light for the heavies and
too heavy for the lights.  But Dutch Sam in his day, and Tom Sayers in
his, showed how eleven-stone men, and even ten-stone men, can hit as
hard as anything with a fist.  As for you, Bowden, you've a bit of the
fighting cut--inclined to be snake-headed, though your forehead don't
<DW72> enough.  But you're a thought old now."

"Not that I want to fight any man without a cause," said David.  "If
there's a reason, I'd fight anything on two legs--light or heavy--but
not for fun.  And I hope you men--Mattacott and Ernest Maunder--haven't
took offence where none was meant."

"Certainly not," declared Mr. Maunder.  "I'll take anything afore I take
offence.  'Tis my place to keep the peace, and if I don't set an example
of it, who should?  Twice only in my life have I drawed my truncheon in
the name of the Queen, and I hope I'll never have no call to do it
thrice.  Have a drink, David; then I must be going."

But Bowden declined with thanks, and the company soon separated.

When he was alone, fired by the prospect of seeing his old friend once
more, Reuben Shillabeer took a damp towel and, visiting each in turn,
polished up the portraits of a dozen famous pugilists which hung round
the walls of his bar.  Where sporting prints of race-horses and
fox-hunting are generally to be met with, Mr. Shillabeer had a circle of
prize-fighters; and now he rubbed the yellow stains of smoke off the
glasses that covered them, so that the stern, but generally open and
often handsome countenances of the fighting giants looked forth from
their grimy frames.  Before a print of the famous 'Tipton Slasher' Mr.
Shillabeer paused, and thoughtfully stroked his battered nose.

"Ah, Bill Perry," he said, "if I'd been ten year younger--"

Then having extinguished two oil lamps, the old man retired and left his
gallery of the great in darkness.




                             *CHAPTER VII*

                           *DENNYCOOMBE WOOD*


Of dingles under Dartmoor there is none so fair as Dennycoombe.  Here
wood and water, rock and heath, wide spaces and sweet glens mingle
together, and make a theatre large enough for the pageant of the
seasons, a haunt small enough to be loved as a personal possession and
abiding treasure.  Dennycoombe tends upward to Coombeshead, and the
little grey farmhouse of Bartholomew Stanbury dominates the scene, and
stands near the apex of the valley.  At this hour, after noon in early
December, a croft or two made light on the hill, where green of turnips
and glaucous green of swedes ran parallel, and black tilled earth also
broke the medley of the waste.  Then winked out the farm from twin
dormer windows--a thing of moorstone colour, yet splashed as to the
lintel-post with raw whitewash, so that it should be seen in the
darkness of moonless nights.  Beneath, through a bottom of willow scrub,
furze and stunted oak, the Dennycoombe stream tumbled and rattled to
join Meavy far below.  A single 'clapper' of granite spanned this brook
for foot-passengers; while above it, under heathery banks, the rivulet
crossed a cart-track at right angles, and widened there to make a ford.

Over these small waters at this hour came Margaret from her home; and
though the day lacked for sunshine, her heart was full of it, because
now she went to meet the man she loved best on earth, at a place she
loved best of earth.

There are words that light a lamp in the heart and wake in the mind
images of good things, with all the colour and life, the loveliness and
harmony proper to them.  There are syllables whose chance utterance
unlocks all the gates of the mind; floods the spirit with radiance;
lifts to delight, if the fair thought belongs as much to the future as
the past; but throbs chastened through the soul if the fragrant memory
is appropriated by the past alone.

Dennycoombe Wood meant much to this woman.  In spring and summer, in
autumn and winter, she knew it and cherished it always.  And now she saw
it with the larches feathering to a still grey sky, their crests of pale
amber spread transparently upon the darker heart of the underwood
beneath them.  Grey through the last of the foliage thrust up a network
of bough and branch; here a cluster of blue-green firs melted together
and massed upon the forest; here dark green pines, straight-limbed,
lifted their pinnacles all fringed with russet cones.  A haze of the
larch needles still aloft washed the whole wood delicately and shone
against the inner gloom of it.  Round the spinney edge stood beeches
with boles of mottled silver, and their remaining foliage set the faint
gold of the forest in a frame of copper.  Lower still, under broken
banks, lay the auburn brake; and great stones, in the glory of their
mosses, glimmered like giant emeralds out of the red water-logged tangle
of the fern.  The hill fell steeply beneath Dennycoombe Wood, and there
were spaces of grass and many little blunt whitethorns, now naked, that
spattered the <DW72> with patches of cobweb grey.

All was cast together in the grand manner of a forest edge; and all was
kneaded through by the still, gentle light of a sunless and windless
December hour before dusk.  The place of the sun, indeed, appeared
behind a shield of pearl that floated westerly and sank upon the sky;
but light remained clear and colourless; tender, translucent grey swept
the firmament, and scarcely a darker detail of cloud floated upon it.
The day was a tranquillity between two storms, of which one had died at
dawn and the other was to waken after midnight.

Nothing had influenced Margaret towards Elias Bowden's eldest son but
her own heart.  She had known now for some time that two men loved her,
and she felt a certain affection for both; but the regard for Bartley
was built on their likeness in temper; the love for David arose out of
their differences.  Hartley's weakness, which in some measure was her
own, attracted Madge towards him; but David's strength--a quality quite
different to any that she possessed--drew her forcibly into his arms.
When she found that he loved her, the other man suffered a change and
receded into a region somewhat vague and shadowy.  Friendly she felt to
Bartley Crocker and eager to serve him and advance his welfare, but the
old dreams were dead.  She had thought of him as a husband, in the
secret places of her heart, long before he thought of her--or of
anybody--as a wife; but now that his mind was seriously turned in her
direction and he began to long for her, the time was past and his sun
had set upon a twilight of steadfast friendship that could never waken
again into any warmer emotion.  Madge liked him, and the years to come
showed how much; but she never loved him.

The tryst was a great stone under a holly tree, and through the
stillness, over a sodden mat of fallen leaves, she came and found David
waiting.  He had not heard her, and he did not see her, for his back was
turned and he sat on the stone, his chin in his hands, very deep in
thought.  His hat was off and his hair was brushed up on end.  He wore
velveteens and gaiters, and had made some additions to his usual
week-day toilet in the shape of a collar, a tie and a white linen shirt.
The collar appeared too tight and once he tugged at it and strained his
neck.  For a little while Margaret watched him, then she came forward
and stood by him and put out her hand.  He jumped up, hot and red; then,
for a long time, he shook the small hand extended to him. As he did so,
she blushed and felt an inclination to weep.

His slow voice steadied her emotion and calmed them both.

"Sit here, if not too hard for 'e.  'Tis dry fern.  I found it a bit
ago."

She mounted the stone with help from his arm.  Then he sat beside her.

"I think it terrible kind of you to be here," he said. "To come here for
to listen to a great gawkim like me."

"You're not a gawkim.  You're the wittiest chap this side of the Moor.
Leastways my father always says so."

"Very kind of him.  There's no man I'd sooner please.  Well--well--'tis
a thing easily said and yet--  However, all the same, I wouldn't say it
to-day if I hadn't axed you to come here, for I had a fore-token against
it yesterday."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"A white rabbit.  You'll laugh, but your mother wouldn't.  And my father
have a great feeling against 'em, though he can't explain it, and grows
vexed if anybody says anything.  Not on the warren; but over on the
errish[#] down to Yellowmead I seed it."


[#] _Errish_ = Stubble.


"I care nothing for that--at least--"  She stopped doubtfully.

"If you don't care, more won't I.  Then here goes. Can you hear it?  Can
a rare maiden like you let a rough chap like me offer to marry her?  For
that's what I've axed you to come here about."

She was silent and he spoke again.

"Could you?  There's things in my favour as well as things against me."

"There's nothing, nothing against you, David."

"Then you'll take me!"

"And proud and happy to."

"Lord!  How easy after all," he said--more to himself than to her.  "And
here I've been stewing over this job for two months, and sleeping ill of
nights, and fretting.  Yet, you see, 'twas the work of a moment. Thank
you, thank you very much indeed for marrying me, Madge.  I'll make you
the best husband I know how.  I must tell you all about the plans I've
built up in hope you would say 'yes'--hundreds of 'em.  And you'll have
to help now."

He was amazingly collected and calm.  He told her how he proposed a
house for them far from other dwellings, where they would have peace
from the people and privacy and silence.  He had found such a place on
the upper waters of Meavy, where stood a ruin that might easily be
restored and made a snug and comfortable home.  He meant to breed ponies
and sheep.  The suggestion was that Rhoda joined them and looked after
the dogs.  He could hardly get on without her, and she would certainly
be very miserable away from him.

"She reckons that no woman living be good enough for you," said
Margaret, faintly.  Her voice showed her heart was hungry, empty.  She
had expected a meal and it was withheld.

David laughed.

"To be frank, she do."

"And no man living good enough for herself."

"As to that, the right one will come along in time. She shan't marry
none but the best.  She likes you well, Madge, as well as she may; but
she hasn't got hold of the idea of me married yet.  Now she'll jolly
soon have to do it.  There's five hundred pound has come to me, you must
know, under the will of my mother's brother who died back-along.  It's
goodied a bit since and us'll have some sheep and you'll have a nice
little lot of poultry.  And Sir Guy will rebuild the ruin.  It is all
his ground.  And now you've said 'yes,' I shall ask 'em to begin.  When
can you come to see the place?"

"So soon as ever you like," she said.  "I hope 'tisn't too far away from
everybody."

"Not so far as I could wish; but far enough.  The ruins be old miners'
works; and we'll have a shippen and a dog-kennel and all complete, I
promise you."

For a long time he talked of his hopes and plans, but she came not
directly into them.  It seemed that her help was hardly vital to the
enterprise.  At last she brought the matter back to the present; and she
spoke in tones that might have touched the stone she sat on.

"I'll try so hard to make you a good wife, David."

He started and became dimly conscious of the moment and the mighty thing
that had happened to him in it.

"I know that right well.  Too good for me every way.  Too gentle and
soft and beautiful.  I'll be tremendous proud of you, Madge.  And I'll
do my share, and work early and late for you, and lay by for you, and
lift you up, perhaps, in ten years or so to have a servant of your own,
and a horse and trap of your own, and everything you can wish."

"I wish for you to love me always, always, always--nothing but that."

"And so I shall, and the best love be what swells the balance at the
bank quickest.  Now I know you can take me, I feel as if I should like
to get up off this rock this instant moment and go away and begin
working like a team of horses for 'e."

"Don't go away yet.  Think what this is to me--so much, much more than
it can be to you."

"'Tis everything in the world to me," he said solemnly.  "You little
know how you've been on my mind.  My folk will tell you now, no doubt,
how it has been with me.  That glowering and glumping I've been--not a
word to throw at man or woman.  But they'll see a different chap
to-night!"

She put out her hand timidly.  Would he never touch her?  Was she never
to put her face against his?

Love reigned in his plans, and the little things that he had thought of
surprised her; but there came no arm round her, no fierce caress, no hot
storm of kisses.  He talked hopefully--even joyfully, with his eyes upon
her face; but there was no sex-light in their brightness; while hers
were dreamy with love and dim with unshed tears.

"I must get back-along with the great news now," he said.  "And it will
be well if we're moving.  Coarse weather's driving up again.  I'll see
you home first."

"You'll come in and tell mother?"

"Must I?"

"Yes," she answered.  "You've got to obey me now, you dear David.  I
wish it."

"Then off we go."

He helped her down like a stranger and talked of crops as they returned
to Coombeshead.  Rhoda was better at figures than he was.  He hoped that
Margaret was good at figures.  She said waywardly that she was not, and
he regretted it but felt sure that she would soon learn.

A rain-laden dusk descended over Eylesbarrow as they returned, and
through, the gloaming the white lintel and door-posts of the farm stared
like an eye.

Silence fell between them, and during its progress some touch of nature
woke in David.  After they had crossed the stream and reached a
rush-clad shed where a cart stood, he spoke in a voice grown muddy and
gruff.

"Come in here a minute," he said, "afore we go on, Madge.  I want--I
want--"

She turned and they disappeared.

"I want to kiss you," he said.

A fearful clatter ascended from long-legged fowls roosting on the cart,
for their repose was roughly broken.  They clucked and cried until Mrs.
Stanbury, supposing a fox had descended from the lulls, hastened out to
frighten it away.

Then she met Margaret and David--shame-faced, joyous.

"We'm tokened, mother!" cried the man; "and please God, I'll be a
dutiful second son to you."

"Thank you for that," she said.  "Give you joy, I'm sure.  And I'll be
proud to have you for a son; and may you never repent your bargain."

She put up her face to his and kissed him; and since he still held Madge
by the waist, all three were thus, for an instant, united in a triple
caress.

By chance some moments of happy magic in the sky smiled upon this
incident, for the grey west broke at its heart above the horizon and
little orange feathers of light flashed suddenly along the upper
chambers of the air.  The Hesperides--daughters of sunset--danced
golden-footed on the threshold of evening, and their glimmering skirts
swept earth also, set radiance upon Eylesbarrow and hung like a beacon
of fire against the deep storm-purple of the east.  Thrice this glory
waxed and waned; then all light vanished; the colour song was sung; the
day died.

Not observing these gracious phenomena upon Night's fringes, the mother,
the man and his maiden went in together.




                             *CHAPTER VIII*

                           *IN PIXIES' HOUSE*


Various interests are served by the great bulk of Sheep's Tor.  Not only
the colt and the coney prosper here and the vixen finds a place for her
cubs, but man also avails himself of the hill in a manner little to be
guessed.  Battleships, swinging far off to adjust their compasses in
Plymouth Sound, use the remote, ragged crown of the tor as a fixed point
for determining the accuracy of their instruments; while once, if oral
tradition may be respected, the stony bosom of the giant offered hiding
in time of stress to a scion of the old Elford clan, lords of the
demesne in Stuart days. This king's man, flying for his life from the
soldiers of Cromwell, hid himself in a familiar nook; and we may suppose
the 'foreigners' tramped Sheep's Tor in vain, and perhaps stamped
iron-shod over the rocks under which he lay safe hidden.  To-day this
cleft, called the Pixies' House, can still be entered.  It is of a size
sufficient to contain two adults in close juxtaposition; but an inner
chamber has fallen, and certain drawings, with which it was alleged the
concealed fugitive occupied his leisure, have, if ever they existed,
vanished away.

In the very bosom of the great south-facing rocky <DW72> of Sheep's Tor
where the lichen-coated slabs and boulders are flung together in
magnificent confusion, there may be found one narrow cleft, above which
a mass of granite has been split perpendicularly.  Chaos of stone
spilled here lies all about, and numberless small crannies and chambers
abound; but the rift alone marks any possible place of concealment for
creature larger than dog or fox; and beneath it, invisible and
unguessed, lies the Pixies' House, one of the local sanctities and a
haunt of the little people.

Here, two days after Margaret had accepted David Bowden, Bartley Crocker
was walking with a gun.  His goal lay up the valley and he hoped to
shoot some snipe; but circumstances quite altered his intentions.

The day was one of elemental unrest and the clouds rolled tumultuous.
They unrolled great planes of shifting gloom and splendour, of accidents
of vapour that concealed and of light that illumined.  But at mid-day a
mighty shadow ascended against the wind and thunder rumbled along the
edges of the Moor.  The storm-centre spun about a mile off, then it
drove in chariots of darkness over Sheep's Tor.

At this moment Bartley remembered the Pixies' House, and, hastening
sure-footed over the wild concourse of stones that extended around it,
he approached the crevice where it lay.

A woman suddenly caught his eye, and as the breaking storm now promised
to be terrific, he called to her and, turning back, joined her.

It proved to be Rhoda Bowden on her way home, and she accepted Bartley's
offer of shelter.

"Something pretty bad's coming," she said.  "Be the Pixies' House large
enough for the both of us? I've got a bit of news you'll be surprised to
hear."

"Full large enough--quick--quick--down through there--let me have your
hand."

But she accepted no help and soon crawled through the aperture into
shelter.  Then Bartley, taking two caps off the nipples of his gun,
thrust it in after Rhoda and followed swiftly to avoid the onset of the
storm.

They had acted with utmost speed and Rhoda was now aghast to find the
exceeding propinquity of Mr. Crocker.  He could hardly have been closer.
She moved uneasily.  It occurred to her that he ought to have
surrendered the Pixies' House to her and himself found shelter
elsewhere.  The idea, however, had not struck him.

"Can't you make a little more room?" she asked, breathing rather hard.

"I wish I could, but it's impossible.  I forgot you were such a jolly
big girl," he answered.

She set her teeth and waited for the outer darkness to lighten.  The
thunder roared and exploded in a rattle overhead; they heard the hiss
and hurtle of the ice and water; while at intervals the entrance of
their shelter was splashed along its rough edges with glare of
lightning.

"Better here than outside," said Bartley; but Rhoda began to doubt it.
It seemed to her that he came nearer and nearer.  At last she asked him
to get out and let her pass.

"Can't stand this no more," she said, "I'm being choked.  I'd sooner
suffer the storm than this."

"You don't want to go out, surely!"

"Yes, I do."

The lightning showed him her face very close to his, and he saw her
round cheek, lovely ear and bright, hard eyes with a wild look in them,
like something caught in a trap.  The storm shouted to the hills and
cried savagely against the granite precipices; it leapt over the open
heaths and roared into the coombes and valleys. The waste was all a
dancing whiteness of hail, jewelled ever and anon by the lightning.

Already the heart of conflict had passed and it grew lighter to
rearward.

"You must wait a bit yet.  Your people would never forgive me if I let
you go into this."

She pushed forward, then strained back horrified, for she had
accidentally pressed his face with her cheek. But Bartley was not built
to stand that soft, firm appulse of woman's flesh without immediate
ignition.

"I must have one if I swing for it!" he said.  Then he put his arms
round her and kissed her.

He expected an explosion and found himself not disappointed.  The
thunder-storm outside was mild to the woman-storm within when Crocker
thrust his caress upon this girl.  She started back as though he had
stamped a red-hot iron upon her face.

"You loathsome, godless wretch!" she shrieked out, and her voice broke
the rocky bounds of earth and leapt into the storm.  Thence frantically
she followed it and trampled heavily on the amorous sportsman as she did
so.

"I could tear the skin off my face!" she cried; and her words came deep
and fierce and shuddering.  "You coward!  I'd sooner be struck by the
lightning than have suffered it!"

She departed, running like a frightened child, and he crawled out after
her and rubbed his bruised shins. Her nailed shoe had stamped on his
hand, torn it and made it bleed; but his wound was light to hers.  He
was back in the shelter presently, laughing and smoking his pipe while
the weather cleared; but she sobbed and panted homeward under the sob
and pant of the storm. She felt unclean; every instinct of her nature
rebelled against this touch of male lips.  She magnified the caress into
a mountain of offence; she held up her cheek that the rain which
followed the hail might wash it and purge it from this man's hateful
blandishment.  Passion got hold of her violated soul, and she would
gladly have called down fire from the cloud upon Crocker.

He, meantime, waited a while, and wondered what thing it was she had
meant to tell him.  As yet none at Sheepstor knew of Margaret's
engagement, the great subject in Rhoda's mind; but though he did not
learn it from her, chance and his own act put the information into
Bartley's hand within that hour.  This reverse with David's sister
altered his intentions and turned him towards another woman.  He
suddenly longed for a sight of Margaret, and, abandoning the thought of
snipe, decided to go to Coombeshead and see her instantly.  A still
larger resolve lurked behind.  Now bright weather-gleams of blue and
silver opened their eyes to windward; the storm had gathered up its
skirts of rack and flame into the central moor; a thousand gurgling
rivulets leapt over the grass; the hail melted; the ponies turned head
to wind again and went on grazing, while their wet sides steamed in a
weak tremor of sunlight.

Bartley stepped forth, shouldered his gun and whistled to his dog, which
had taken refuge near at hand and gone to sleep in a hole.  Then he
started over the Moor to his destination and his great deed.

Margaret was at home and came out to see him. His greeting amazed her,
for it differed by much from what she expected.  The girl doubted not
that her friend had heard the news and had come to offer his
congratulations; but he had not heard it, and he came to offer himself.

Mr. Crocker had toyed with this achievement for six weeks; and now the
storm, and Rhoda, and certain uneasiness begot of Rhoda, and a general
vague desire for something feminine as different as possible from Rhoda,
together with other emotions and sensations too numerous to define, all
affirmed his resolve.

He wasted no time, for he was full of desire for Madge and honestly
believed that she cared for him. And in answer to his abrupt but
impassioned plea, she assured him that she did care for him and that his
welfare was no small thing to her.

"We've known each other ever since we was dinky boy and girl to infant
school together; and I, with my managing ways, would oft blow your li'l
nubby nose when it wanted it," she said, looking at him with shining
eyes and in a mood emotional.  "But with my David--yes, my David he
is--well, 'twas love, dear Bartley, and we'm tokened.  And I'm glad
'twas left for me to tell you, though 'tis terrible strange it should
fall out at such a minute as this."

He stared and stammered and wished her joy.  He was disappointed, but
not by any means crushed to the earth.  It only occurred to him that no
other woman's lips would that day destroy the flavour of Rhoda Bowden's.

"Then what becomes of me?" he said; but not as though there were no
answer to the question.

"You'll get a better far," she replied.

"But you--you to go into that silent family--all so stern and proper.
Think twice afore 'tis too late, Madge."

"I love them all," she answered.  "But silent they surely are.  I took
my dinner along with them yesterday and, if it hadn't been for Dorcas
and me, they'd have gone without a word spoken from grace afore meat to
thanksgiving after."

"Dorcas is cheerful enough."

"I like her--best after David," said Madge, a little nervously, as
though she talked treason.

Then Mr. Crocker told of the storm and his companion in the Pixies'
House.

"Like a damned fool, just because her cheek happened to touch mine, I
kissed her."

"Bartley!"

"Well you may stare.  Lord knows what come over me to do it; but I got
hell for my fun, and so like as not your David will have a bit more to
say later on. Him and Rhoda are the wide world to each other.  I suppose
you know that?"

Margaret's face clouded, but she was loyal.

"Rhoda's a splendid woman, Bartley."

"She is.  Now that you won't take me, I believe I shall have a dash at
her.  But 'twill be a long year afore she forgives this day's work."

He left Margaret soon afterwards and his depression of spirit steadily
gained upon him as he returned home. At 'The Corner House' he stopped
and drank a while; then he got back to his mother and took a gloomy
pleasure in shocking her pride with his news.

Nanny Crocker was sewing at the kitchen table when he returned, and his
Aunt Susan brought a belated meal to him hot from the oven.

He looked at the food and then spoke.

"Can't eat," he said.  "I've had a full meal to-day a'ready."

"Was you in the storm?" asked Susan.  "In the midst of all that awful
lightning, with thunder-planets falling and a noise in the elements like
the trump of Doom.--If the cat haven't chatted in the pigs' house! Her
always brings six, so no doubt that's the number."

"I've just come from asking Margaret Stanbury to marry me," said
Bartley, showing no interest in the kittens.  "That's what I meant when
I said I've had a full meal."

"At last!" cried Nanny Crocker.  "Well, well, well--and what a day to
choose, my dear!  God bless you both, I'm sure.  She's a lucky girl and
we must set to work now to teach her more than she's been able to learn
at home.  Rise up and kiss me, my son."

Bartley obeyed with a sort of sardonic smile under his skin.  His mother
kissed him fervently and sighed.

"You didn't ask twice, I lay," said Susan.

"No," he answered, "I didn't."

"'Tis a terrible pity her mother's such a chuckle-headed, timid
creature," declared Nanny.  "Not a word against her after to-day, of
course.  But I'm sorry she haven't got larger intellects and don't
believe a little less."

"When is it to be, Bartley?" asked his aunt. "You're not the sort to
wait long, I reckon."

"It isn't to be," he answered.  "You two silly old souls run on so, and
can't imagine any woman turning up her nose at me.  But unfortunately
other people haven't such a good opinion."

"Won't have you!" gasped his parent.  "A Stanbury won't take a Crocker!"

"Madge Stanbury won't take this Crocker--which is all that matters."

"The chit!" said Nanny.

"The ninnyhammer!" cried Aunt Susan.

"The sensible girl," answered Bartley.  "She's found somebody better--a
man as stands to work and will make a finer fashion of husband than ever
I should."

"How you can sit there and talk in that mean spirit passes me!" answered
his mother.  "Have a greater respect for yourself, and let that girl see
to her dying day what a fool she's been."

"Who is it?  I suppose you got that much out of her?" asked Bartley's
aunt.

"It's David Bowden from Ditsworthy, and they've been tokened two days,
so, you see, I was a bit behind the fair."

"Nobody would blame her for changing her mind yet now you've offered
yourself," declared Susan.

"She's no wish to change.  She likes me very well as a friend--always
have since she used to blow my nose for me in infant school--but she
likes him a long sight better--well enough to wed."

"She'll change yet--mark me," foretold his aunt.

"My son have got his self-respect, I believe, Susan, and, change or not
change, he'll never give her another chance, I should hope.  'Tis done,
and to her dying day she'll rue it--as she well deserves.  To put that
rough rabbit-catcher afore--however, I thank God she did--I thank God
she did; and I shall thank Him in person on my knees this night.  Never,
never was such an empty giglet wench heard of.  A merciful escape
without a doubt; for a fool only breeds fools."

"I may be her brother-in-law if I can't be her husband," said Bartley;
and then he departed and left the indignant and wounded old women to
wonder what he might mean.




                              *CHAPTER IX*

                           *THE DOGS OF WAR*


The renowned Mr. Fogo, with the modesty of a man really great, arrived
at Sheepstor in a butcher's trap from Plymouth.  He brought a box of
humble dimensions, studded with brass nails; while for the rest, a very
large umbrella, two walking-sticks and a cape of London pattern
completed his outfit.

Reuben Shillabeer walked as far as Sheep's Tor Bridge, and the two
notable men met there and shook hands before numerous admiring
spectators.  Then the sporting butcher, who had driven Mr. Fogo from
Plymouth, proceeded to Reuben's familiar inn, while 'Frosty-face' and
the 'Dumpling' made triumphal entry into the village together.  The
contrast between them could scarcely have been more abrupt.  Shillabeer
ambled with immense strides and heaving shoulders, like a bear on its
hind legs, and his great, gentle face, set in its tawny fringe of hair,
smiled out upon the world with unusual animation as he shortened his
gait, crooked his knees somewhat and gave his arm to his friend. The
notable Fogo was a good foot shorter than Reuben--a thin, brisk,
clean-shaved man with eyes like a hawk, under very heavy brows, now
quite white.  His nose was sharp and thin; his mouth, a slit; his hair
was still thick and white as snow.  Fogo numbered seventy years, yet
bore himself as straight and brisk as a youth. He was agile, thin and
wiry; but a certain asperity of countenance, which had won him his
nickname in the past, was now smoothed away by the modelling of time,
and Mr. Fogo's face, though keen, might be called amiable; though
exceedingly wide-awake, revealed no acerbity of expression.  His glance
took in the situation swiftly.

"Crikey!" he said.  "And you live here among all these trees and
mountains and rocks!  But I daresay, now, there's pretty fishing in this
river."

"Trout--nought else.  And 'tisn't the season for 'em.  But a fisherman
still, I see--eh?  What a man! Not a day older, I warrant.  And how did
they serve you at Plymouth?"

"I've no fault to find with Plymouth," said Mr. Fogo.  "They done me a
treat there, and we had a pretty sporting house and a nice set-to in the
new way with the mufflers.  I got my boy through, but he'd have lost if
I hadn't been there.  And now let me cast my eye over you, 'Dumpling.'
The same man; but gone in the hams, I see.  You big 'uns--'tis always
that way. Your frames can't carry the load of fat.  And so your lady has
passed away to a better land.  But that's old history."

"No, it isn't, Fogo," declared Mr. Shillabeer, his animation perishing.
"'Twill never be old history so long as I bide in the vale; and I hope
you'll have a good tell about her many a time afore you leave me. But
not to-day.  We'll talk about her in private--you and me--over a drop of
something special."

"'Twas the weather killed her, I doubt," hazarded Mr. Fogo.  "You
couldn't expect a London woman to stand so much fresh air as you've got
down here. Why--Good Lord!--you breathe nought with a smell to it from
year to year!  There's not a homely whiff of liquor or fried fish
strikes the nose--not so much as the pleasant odour of brewing, or them
smells that touch the beak Covent Garden way.  Nought for miles and
miles--unless it's pigs; and that I don't like, and never shall."

"Our air will make you terrible hungry, however," promised Mr.
Shillabeer; "and by the same token we'd better get on our way, for
there's a goose with apple sauce and some pretty stuffing to welcome
you."

That evening a very large gathering assembled in the public bar of 'The
Corner House,' and the men of Standing were introduced each in turn to
Mr. Fogo. He had changed his attire and produced from the box of many
nails a rusty brown coat, a shirt with a frill and black knee-breeches.
Thus attired, he suggested some pettifogging attorney from the beginning
of the century.  He sat by the fire, smoked a clay and conducted himself
with the utmost affability.  He was, in fact, no greater than common men
while ordinary subjects were under discussion.  Only when the Prize Ring
began to be talked about, did the aquiline and historic Fogo soar to his
true altitudes and silence all listeners before the torrent of his
discourse.

The visitor drank gin and not much of that.  He was somewhat silent at
first until Reuben explained his many-sided greatness; then, when the
company a little realised the man they had among them, he began to talk.

"The Fancy always felt you was unlike the rest," said Shillabeer.  "Even
the papers took you serious. There was pugs and there was mugs; there
was good sportsmen and bad ones, and there were plenty of all sorts
else, but never more than one 'Frosty-face.'"

Mr. Fogo nodded.

"I can't deny it," he said.  "'Twas my all-roundness, I believe.  Fight
I couldn't--not being built on the pattern of a fighting man, though the
heart was in me; but I had a slice over my share of wits, and I'd forgot
more about the P.R. than most people ever knew before I was half a
century old."

"You must understand," said Shillabeer to his guests, "that Fogo always
had letters stuck after his name, for all the world like other learned
men.  They was complimentary and given to him by the sporting Press of
the kingdom."

"Quite true," said Fogo.  "I was D.C.G., which stood for Deputy
Commissary-General--the great Tom Oliver of course being C.-G.  We had
the handling of the stakes and ropes of the P.R. from the time that
Oliver fought his last serious fight in 1821.  He's a fruiterer and
greengrocer now in Chelsea, and a year or two older than me."

"Then you was--what was it--P.L.P.R.--eh?" asked the 'Dumpling.'

"I was and still am," returned 'Frosty-face,' proudly.
"P.L.P.R.--that's 'Poet Laureet of the Prize Ring.'  And it may interest
these gentlemen here assembled to know that many and many a time my
poems about the great fights was printed in the sporting papers afore
most of those present was born or thought of."

"I hope you've brought some along with you," said Reuben.

"Certainly I have--a sheaf of 'em.  I never travel without them,"
returned the Londoner.  "And when by good chance I find myself in a bar
full of sportsmen of the real old sort, like to-night, I always say to
myself, 'not a man here but shall have a chance of buying one of the
poems on the great fights, written by old 'Frosty-faced Fogo.'"

"And you never fought yourself, Mr. Fogo?" asked David Bowden, who was
of the company.

"Never in a serious way," answered the veteran. "There wasn't enough of
me."

"I can mind when you come very near a mill though," declared Shillabeer.
"'Twas after the fight between Tim Crawley and Burke, and the rain was
coming down cats and dogs."

Mr. Fogo lifted his hand.

"Let me tell the story, 'Dumpling.'  Yes, 'twas in 1830 at East Barnet,
and 'the Deaf 'Un,' as Burke was called, had Master Tim's shutters up in
thirty-three rounds.  Then, afore I'd pulled up the stakes, if that
saucy chap, Tommy Roundhead, the trainer, didn't come on me with a lot
of his bunkum.  I was on the losing side that day and not in the best
temper; but I let him go a bit and then gave him some straight talk; and
'Dumpling' here will tell you that as a man of forty my tongue was as
ready as my pen.  Anyhow, I touched Roundhead on the raw and lashed him
into such a proper passion that nothing would do but to settle it there
and then in the old style.  Tommy put down his five shillings and I
covered it, though nobody knew 'twas the last two half-crowns I had in
my fob at the time.  But I was itching to have a slap at the beggar, and
into the Ring I went and shouted for Roundhead.  Raining, mind you, all
the time--raining rivers, you might say.  Well, up hops Roundhead,
stripped to the buff and as thin as a dead frog; and when the people saw
him in his skin and counted his ribs, they laughed fit to wake the
churchyard.  But thin though Tommy was, I knew right well that I was
thinner.  However, I cared nothing for that, and was just getting out of
my togs, when some reporters and other chaps, having a respect for me as
a poet and a man in a thousand, came between and wouldn't hear of it.

"'What about my five bob?' I said.  'D---- your five bob, "Frosty,"'
they said.  'Here's ten.'  And so, without 'by your leave,' they thrust
me back into my clothes and dragged the arm out of my 'upper Benjamin'
in doing it.  'Twas just the world's respect for me as a maker of
verses, you might say, that kept me out of the Ring that day.  So I soon
had the true blue stakes up and went off with 'em; and the ropes and
staples and beetle, and all the rest of it."

A warlike atmosphere seemed to waken in the peaceful bar of 'The Corner
House.'  The youths imagined themselves engaged in terrific trials of
strength; their elders pictured the joy of playing spectators' parts.
Mr. Fogo told story after story, and it seemed with few exceptions that
the heroes of the ring, tricky though they might be in battle, were men
of simple probity and honourable spirit.  His great hero was 'Bendigo,'
William Thompson of Nottingham, a Champion of England.

"And 'Bendy's' going strong yet," said Mr. Fogo. "After his last fight
with Paddock, about ten year ago now--a bad fight too--'Bendy' won on a
foul; after that he got converted, as they say, and took to preaching.
He's at it yet and does pretty well, I believe."

"'Bendy' with a white choker!  What a wonder!" declared Mr. Shillabeer.

"Yes--he met a noble lord last time he was in London," continued Mr.
Fogo.  "And his lordship recognised him for all his pulpit toggery.
'Good Gad!' says his lordship, ''tis "Bendy"!  And what's your little
game now, my bold hero?'  'Not a little game at all, my lord,' says
'Bendigo'--always ready with a word he was.  'I'm fighting Satan, and
I'm going to beat him.  Behold, my lord, the victory shall be mine,' he
says in his best preaching voice.  'I hope so, "Bendy,"' answers his
lordship; 'but pray have a care that you fight Beelzebub fairer than you
did Ben Gaunt, or I may change my side!'  Not that 'Bendigo' ever fought
unfair; but he had to be clever with a giant like Gaunt; and he had to
go down--else he'd have stood no chance at all with such a heavy man."

"One of three at a birth 'Bendy' was," concluded the 'Dumpling.'  "I
never knew one of triplets to do any good in the world before."

At this juncture in the conversation Bartley Crocker entered the bar.
He had not heard of the celebrity, but soon, despite his own cares,
found himself as interested as the others.  The talk of battle inflamed
him and, to the delight of the guests assembled, a thing most of them
frankly desired actually happened within the hour.

David scowled into Bartley's eyes presently, and the younger, who was
quite willing to pick a quarrel with this man of all men, walked across
the bar and stood close to him.

"Is there any reason why you should pull your face crooked at sight of
me, David Bowden?" he asked.

Something of the truth between these two was known. Therefore all kept
silence.

"'Twas scorn of you made me do it.  A chap who could kiss a girl,
without asking if he might, be a coward."

"Bah! that's the matter--eh?  Because I kissed your sister!"

"Yes; and if you think 'twas a decent man's act, it only shows you're
not decent.  Shame on you--low-minded chap that you are!"

"Not decent, because I kissed a pretty girl?  D'you mean that?"

"Yes, I do."

"Did Rhoda tell you?"

"Yes, she did--when I axed her what ailed her."

"Well, hear this.  You're a narrow-minded, canting fool; and if women
understood you better, you wouldn't have won Madge Stanbury."

"Don't you name her, or I'll knock your two eyes into one!"

"Do it!" answered Bartley; "and if that'll help you to start, so much
the better."

As he spoke and with infinite quickness he raised his hand and pulled
David's nose.  A second later they were in the sawdust together.

The huge Shillabeer pulled them apart, like a man separates a pair of
terriers.  Then Simon Snell, Ernest Maunder and Timothy Mattacott held
Bartley, while, single-handed, the 'Dumpling' restrained young Bowden.
Immense excitement marked the moment.  Only Mr. Fogo puffed his long
clay and showed no emotion. A senseless babel choked the air, and then
Shillabeer's heavy voice shouted down the rest and he made himself
heard.

"I won't have it!" he said.  "I'm ashamed that you grown-up chaps can
sink to temper like this and disgrace yourselves and me and the company.
Strangers present too!  If you want to fight, then fight in a decent and
gentlemanly way--not like two dogs over a bone."

"I do want to fight," said Bartley.  "I want nothing better in this
world than to give that man the damnedest hiding ever a man had."

"And I'm the same," said Bowden.  He was now quite calm again.  "I'm
sorry I forgot myself in your bar, Mr. Shillabeer, but no man can say I
hadn't enough to make me.  I'll not talk big nor threaten, nor say what
I'll do to him, but I'll fight him for all he's worth--to-morrow if he
likes."

"Now you're talking sense," declared the innkeeper. "A fair fight no man
can object to, and if it's known in the proper quarters and not in the
wrong ones, there ought to be a little money moving for both of you. How
do they stand for a match, Fogo?  Come forward, David, and let
'Frosty-face' have a look at you."

"Let 'em shake hands first," said Mr. Fogo.

"I'll do so," declared Bowden, "on the understanding that we're to fight
this side of Christmas."

"The sooner the better," retorted Crocker.  Then they shook hands and
Mr. Fogo's glittering eyes inspected them.

"Weight as near as can be," he said.  "At least, I judge it without
seeing your barrels.  This man's the younger, I suppose."

He pointed to Bartley.

"I'm twenty-five," said Mr. Crocker.

"Ay; and stand six feet--?"

"Five feet eleven and a half."

"Weight eleven stone?"

"A bit less."

Mr. Fogo nodded.

"You've got the reach, t'other chap's got the powder."

Then he examined David.

"Age?" he said.

"Twenty-eight."

"Height?"

"Five foot nine."

"Weight?"

"Eleven two, or thereabout."

"Do either of you know anything of the art?"

"I don't," said Bartley.

"No more don't I," added Bowden.

Fogo looked them up and down carefully.

"There's no reason on the surface why you shouldn't fight a pretty
mill."

"How long can you stop with me, 'Frosty'?" asked Mr. Shillabeer.

"Well, if there was a few yellow-boys[#] in it, I might go as far as
three weeks.  I ought to see Tom King about something of the greatest
importance before long; but I can write it.  If these chaps will come to
the scratch in three weeks, I'll stop.  And they both look hard and
healthy; and as neither of 'em know anything, it may be a short fight."


[#] Sovereigns.


Much talk followed and, in the midst, the visitor rose, put down his
pipe and left the bar.

Then up spoke Ernest Maunder in the majesty of the law.

"I warn you, souls," he said, "that I can't countenance this.  If
there's to be fighting, you've got me against you, and to-morrow I shall
lay information with the Justice of the Peace and get a warrant out."

"I hope you'll mind your own business," said Crocker, warmly.  "The man
who spoils sport when Bowden and me meet, is like to get spoilt
himself."

"You won't frighten me," returned Ernest.  "As a common man I'd give you
best, Bartley; but in my blue and with right my side, you'll find me an
ugly customer, I warn you.  Bowden here was daring me to be up and doing
a bit ago.  Well, you'll soon see how 'tis if you try to plan to break
the law and fight a prize fight in this parish!  I know my business, and
that you'll find."

"And I'm with you," declared Mr. Moses.  "Have no fear, Maunder.  The
Church and the State are both o' your side, and let vicar but get wind
of this and he'll--"

"You keep out of it, Moses," said Mr. Shillabeer, warmly.  "We be very
good friends and long may we remain so; but stick to your last,
shoemaker, and if these full-grown men be pleased to settle their
difference in the fine old way, 'tis very churlish in you to oppose it."

"Well said, 'Dumpling,'" shouted a young, odd-looking, hairy man with
the uneuphonious name of Screech; "if Moses here don't like fair play
and nature's weapons, let him keep out of it; but if he tries to
interfere, never a boot do he make for me again."

"Nor yet for me," cried Bowden.  "You'll do well to go back on that, Mr.
Moses, and keep away from the subject."

"Nor yet for me," echoed Timothy Mattacott, firmly.  "I'm Maunder's
friend, as you all know, and hope to remain so.  But if there's to be
the glad chance of a proper prize fight in this neighbourhood, I'm for
it heart and soul."

Mr. Fogo had returned and heard some of this conversation.

"If the gentleman's a Jew," he said, "he ought to take kindly to the
sport.  Some of the best boys as ever threw a beaver into the Ring were
Israelites--only to name Mendoza and Dutch Sam and Barney Aaron, 'the
Star of the East.'"

"I'm not a Jew," said Mr. Moses, "though I don't blame you for thinking
so."

"Not with that name?"

"Not at all.  My people are Devon all through."

"Well," said Fogo, "my humble custom is to make hay while the sun
shines.  We Cockney blokes learn that quite as quick as you Johnny Raws
from the plough-tail; and as there's a fight in the air, I'll be so bold
as to sell a few of my verses to them brave blades that would like to
see what fighting was once."

On his arm he carried fifty broadsheets, and now the old sportsman began
to distribute them.

"Twopence each, gentlemen--all true and partickler with the names of the
Fancy present: Mr. Jackson, Mr. Gully, Tom Cribb, Jem Burn, Tom Spring,
and all the old originals.  The poems go from the first fight that I
ever saw between Hen Pearce, 'the Game Chicken,' and that poor, old,
one-eyed lion, Jem Belcher, in 1805; to the great mill between Mr.
Sayers and Mr. Heenan a year ago, when our man fought the Yankee with
one hand and jolly near beat him at that.  All out of my own head,
gentlemen, and only twopence each!"

Mr. Fogo distributed his warlike verses in every direction; then when
not a poem remained, he began to collect them again.  But the company
proved in very vein for these lays of blood.  Both the future combatants
made several purchases; Mr. Snell also patronised the poet, while
Mattacott, Screech, and even Mr. Maunder himself, became possessed of
'Frosty-face's' sanguine chronicles.

It being now closing time, the storm-laden air was cleared; the noisy
company, with laughter and repetition of racy couplets from Mr. Fogo's
muse, retired, and at last the two old friends were left alone.
Shillabeer shut up his bar and locked the house; 'Frosty' counted the
contents of his pocket and gathered up the poems still unsold.

"I ought to share the booty with you, 'Dumpling,'" he said, but his host
scorned the thought.

"Hope you'll be sold out long afore you go," he returned.  "And as to
sharing, that's nonsense.  You're a great man, and if you be going to
stop along of me for three weeks, you'll bring a lot of custom, for the
people will come from far and near to see you."

"Of course if you put it that way, I say no more, because you know
best," declared Fogo.

Presently they sat together over a final pipe.

"Now talk of the wife," said Reuben.

Mr. Fogo obeyed, cast his acute countenance into a mould of melancholy,
appeared to draw a film over his piercing eyes, ceased joyously to
rattle the money in his breeches pocket, and shook his head sadly once
or twice to catch the spirit of the theme.

"The biggest and the best woman I ever saw, or ever hope to see," he
began.  "I picture her now--as a young, gay creature in her father's
shop at the corner of the Dials.  Rabbits and caveys and birds he sold
and him a sportsman to the marrow.  Thirteen stone in her maiden days,
they used to say, and very nearly six feet high--the wonder and the joy
of the male sex. And 'twas left for you to win that rare female.  And
you did; and you was the envied of London, 'Dumpling'--the envied of
London."

Mr. Shillabeer nodded, sighed heavily, and licked his lips at these
picturesque words.

"It brings her back--so large as life--to hear you tell about her.
'Twas the weight she put on after marriage that killed her, 'Frosty,'"
he said.  "You must see her grave in the burying-ground."

"And take my hat off to it--so I will."

"There's room for me beside her, come my turn, Fogo."

"Quite right--perfectly right.  You couldn't wait for the trump of Doom
beside a better woman."

Reuben next gave all details of his wife's last illness, and the subject
occupied him until midnight when conversation drifted from Mrs.
Shillabeer to other matters. They talked until the peat fire sank to a
red eye and the air grew cold.  Then conversation waned and both heroes
began to grow sleepy.

Mr. Shillabeer rose first and concluded the wide survey.

"Ah, 'Frosty,' the days we've seen!" he said.

"I'm with you," answered the poet, also rising. "'Tis all summed up in
that word and couldn't be put better,--'The days we've seen!'"




                              *CHAPTER X*

                           *SOME INTERVIEWS*


Those from whom it was most desired to keep all information of the
coming fight were the first to hear of it.  Mr. Moses told Mr. Merle,
the vicar, and Mr. Merle resented the news bitterly.  He decided,
indeed, that such a proceeding would disgrace the parish.

"We might as well revive the horrors of our bull-ring," he said.  "It
cannot and must not be."

The good man referred to a considerable tract of ground beneath the
southern wall of the churchyard--a region known as the 'bull-ring' and
authentically connected with obsolete sports.

Ernest Maunder was most unfortunate in the ally that he had expected to
win.  Sir Guy Flamank, the lord of the manor, though enrolled on the
Commission of the Peace, was before all else a sportsman, as he declared
at every opportunity.  Somehow this gentleman, by means mysteriously
hidden, became aware of the little matter in hand on the very morning
after the arrangement, and though Ernest called at the Manor House, he
found the Justice unable to see him.  Thrice he was thus evaded, and
when once he met Sir Guy on horseback, Mr. Maunder could not fail to
mark how the knight retreated before him with obvious and paltry
evasion.  That a Justice of the Peace could thus ignore his
responsibilities, caused both Mr. Maunder and Mr. Moses much indignant
uneasiness.

At breakfast on the day after his undertaking, David Bowden announced
the thing he intended to do; and while his mother wept some natural
tears, nobody else showed any sorrowful emotion.  Indeed Elias was
grimly glad.

"Well done thou!" he said.  "I've long wanted for some son of mine to
show me a bit of valour above common, and now 'tis left for the eldest
to do it.  You'll trounce him to the truth of music, for there's a
tougher heart in you than that man, and you've lived a tougher life."

"What'll Madge say?" asked Dorcas.

"She needn't know about it," declared David. "We're to fight in about
three weeks, and the day's to be kept a secret as long as possible."

"What d'you want to fight for?" asked his mother.

"It's natural.  We can't be friends no more till we've had it out.  You
see, he was after my Madge, and I bested him, and--besides--I had
another crow to pluck with the man."

A martial spirit awoke at the Warren House and Mr. Bowden frankly
revelled in this business, the more so because he believed that his son
must win easily. The twins took to sparring from that hour, and Napoleon
and Wellington fought their battles over again. Elias sent to Plymouth
for a pair of boxing gloves, and Joshua for the good of the cause,
albeit not fond of hard knocks, stood up to David for half an hour each
day.  It was arranged that young Bowden should train at home for a
fortnight and then go to Plymouth and put himself in the hands of a
professional at that town for some final polish.

The brother and sister had a private talk of special significance soon
after the making of the match.

David met Rhoda returning from Sheepstor, and her face was grave.

"I've just heard more about that business than you told us, David," she
said.  "'Tis as much for what he done to me as anything, that you be
going to fight him."

"No matter the reason.  A licking will do him good--if I can give him
one."

"Look here," she said--impulsively for her--"I must be in this fight.
You're everything to me, David--everything.  I can't keep away and I
won't keep away.  You know the sort of pluck I've got.  Well, I must be
in that Ring--me and father--"

David gasped.

"Would you?"

"I tell you I must.  Something calls out to me to do it.  You can't
fight without me there, and I don't believe you can win without me.  I
swear I feel it so. Wouldn't you rather have me in your corner than any
man if it comes to that?"

"Yes," he admitted, "I would; but you can't do what's got to do."

"I can do all," she replied.  "I talked to Mr. Shillabeer to-day, when
I'd made up my mind, and I axed him what the bottle-holder have to do;
and he told me. I can do it all--every bit of it."

"You shall then!" said David.

She flushed with pleasure.

"You won't regret it.  I may help you to win a bit. A woman that can
keep her head, like I can, is useful anywhere."

"'Twill be you and faither--and I suppose that Crocker will have the
'Dumpling' and this queer, old, white-headed London man on his side."

"I'm gay and proud as you can trust me in such a thing," she said, her
breast heaving.

"Yes--and now I think on it--you and me being what we are each to
t'other--I will have it so.  I couldn't fight all I know if you wasn't
there, Rhoda. But I warn you, 'tis ugly work.  You mustn't mind seeing
my head knocked into a lump of black and blue flesh."

"That's nought so long as you win.  'Twill come right again."

"But I may not win.  You never know how the luck will fall."

"You must win," she answered.  "'Tisn't in nature that such an evil man
as him can beat you."

"I shan't stop so long as I can see, or so long as I can stand," he
said.  "I think I shall win myself, but it don't do to brag."

Then Rhoda told him something that disturbed him not a little.

"Margaret Stanbury knows about it," she said.  "I met Mr. Snell, and he
was full of it, and we had a tell. Then he told me that Timothy
Mattacott was out Down Tor way, and met Madge, and went and told her.
So you'll have to calm her down somehow."

"Better you do," he answered.  "'Tis a woman's job.  Get over this
afternoon, like a good girl, and just make light of it.  Tell her I'm
coming across o' Sunday but can't sooner."

Rhoda obeyed and later in the day saw Madge. David's sweetheart was
tearful and much perturbed.

"'Tis all my fault," she said.  "Oh, Rhoda, can't nothing be done to
stop it?  Such terrible strong men--they'll kill each other."

"No, they won't; and 'tisn't all your fault," answered the elder.  "It
had to come off afore they could be friends again.  'Tis to be a fair,
stand-up fight; and the best man will win; and that's our David.  Don't
take on and make a fuss afore him, if you want to keep friends with him.
David's like faither, all for valour. He'll be vexed if you cry about
it.  Time enough for us to cry if he's worsted.  But he won't be."

"'Tis hard for me, because I know 'em both so well," said Margaret.

"And 'tis easy for me, because I know 'em both so well," answered Rhoda.
"No man ever wanted his beastly nature cooled down with a good hiding
more than what Bartley Crocker does.  And, be it as 'twill, 'twas
Crocker that made the fight, not David."

"I shall go mad when the day comes," said Margaret.

"No, you won't, because you won't know the day. 'Tis to be kept a dark
secret.  And I'm going in the Ring to look after my brother."

"Rhoda!"

"I am, though.  He wants it.  He will have it so."

"Be you made of iron?"

"Yes, where David's good is the matter.  He wants me there--and there I
shall be."

"The men will hoot you--'tis an unwomanly thing."

"D'you think I care for that, so long as I know it isn't?"

"If any woman's to be there, 'tis his future wife, I should think," said
Madge; but Rhoda laughed.

"You!  You'd faint when--but there, don't think no more about it.  Men
will be men, when they're built on the pattern of David.  I come from
him to tell you not to fret, so mind you don't."

"'Fret!'  I shall fret my hair grey, and so will mother," said the
promised wife.  "To think of his beautiful face all smashed about--and
Bartley too--both such good-looking, kindly chaps!  What ever do they
want to fight about?  Can't they settle their quarrels no other way?"

"You should know 'em better.  'Tis a deeper thing than a quarrel.  If
they are to be friends, they must hammer one another a bit first.  Why
not?  You puzzle me.  Do 'e want 'em to have their minds full of poison
to each other for evermore?  Better fight and let it out."

"I shall pray David, if ever he loved me, not to do it."

"Don't," said Rhoda.  "Don't be a fool, Madge.  I know David better than
what you do; and, if you're that sort, you never will know him as well
as I know him; because you'll vex and cross him and he'll hide himself
from you.  He's a strong, hard man and straight as sunlight.  If you're
going to be soft and silly over this, or over anything, you won't make
him love you any the better.  Take my advice and try to feel like I
do--like a man about it.  It's got to be, and if you are against it and
come to him with a long face and silly prayers not to fight for your
sake, and all that stuff, you won't choke him off fighting, but you may
choke him off--"

"'Off me' you were going to say.  Well, that's where I know him better
than you do, for all you know him so well, Rhoda.  But don't think I'm a
fool.  'Tis natural I don't want the dear face I love to be bruised by
another man's fist; but if 'tis to be--'tis to be.  I only ask to know
_why_ 'tis to be.  I suppose David can tell me that?"

"We'll leave it so then, since you don't know why," said the other.
"How's the pup?  Have it settled down?"

But if Margaret Stanbury viewed this battle with dismay, her emotions
were trivial compared with those of Bartley Crocker's mother and Bartley
Crocker's aunt.

In vain did the fighter try to keep his great secret from them.  It was
impossible, and Mr. Moses laid every detail of the proposed encounter
before Nanny two mornings after he had heard about it.

Bartley was from home when Charles Moses arrived, and the shoemaker
harrowed and horrified his two listeners at leisure.  Such palpitation
overtook Mrs. Crocker, that the very cotoneaster on the outer walls
seemed to throb to its berried crown; while as for Aunt Susan Saunders,
having once grasped the nature of the things to be, her heart quite
overcame her and she wept. But the mother of Bartley wept not: she
panted--panted with wrath till her expansive bust creaked.  Her anger
flowed forth like a tide and swallowed first Mr. Shillabeer and the low
characters he encouraged at 'The Corner House'; next, David Bowden and
his family; next, the Stanburys, who doubtless were deeply involved in
this contemplated crime; and lastly, the aged stranger, Mr. Fogo,
concerning whose bloodthirsty and blood-stained career Charles Moses had
dropped some hints.  Her son Mrs. Crocker blamed not at all.  She
scoffed at the notion of her innocent and amiable boy seeking to batter
any man.

"Bring me my salts, Susan, and don't snivel," said the mother.  "For
Bartley to be up in arms like this here--why, I never will believe it!
And me a bailiff's daughter, as everybody knows, and him with the blood
of the Saunders family in his veins.  They've harried him into it along
of his pluck and courage; but it shan't be if I can put my bosom between
him and bloodshed. Bartley to be struck and assaulted by a warrener, and
a common man at that!  Wasn't it enough thicky, empty-headed wench at
Coombeshead chose that yellow-haired Bowden, when she might have had a
Crocker? And now, if you please, the ruffian, not content with getting
the girl, wants to fight my boy!"

"It's my duty to tell you, ma'am, that your son's quite as set on it as
t'other," declared Mr. Moses.

"No doubt; and a good whipping he'd give the man if it came to it; but
it mustn't come to it.  We're in a Christian land, and this firebrand,
that's crept among us with his wicked rhymes, ought to be taken up and
led behind the cart-tail and flogged out of the parish."

"I'm glad you take such a high, womanly view," said the shoemaker;
"because you'm another on our side, and will be a tower of strength.
They are to fight in about three weeks' time--afore Christmas.  That is,
if we, on the side of law and order--namely, his reverence, and me, and
you, and Ernest Maunder, can't prevent it. I'm sorry to say everybody
else wants to see them fight--even Sir Guy--more shame to him!"

"I'll have the place by the ears rather than it should happen," said
Mrs. Crocker.  "I'll have Bartley took up rather than he should have his
face touched by that--that rabbit-catching good-for-nought up to
Ditsworthy.  Why, I'll even go up there myself and talk to Elias Bowden.
This thing shan't be--not if a determined woman can prevent it."

Mr. Moses retired comforted in some sort, for he felt that Mrs. Crocker
was probably stronger than the policeman and the vicar put together.
But meantime, on the other side, matters developed steadily.  Shillabeer
and 'Frosty-faced Fogo' had taken charge of Bartley Crocker, and he
prepared for battle with the benefit of all their immense experience.
From the first, rumours of interference and interruption were rife; but
Fogo treated them with disdain.

"Leave all that to me," he said.  "I've been evading the 'blues' and the
'beaks' ever since I came to man's estate, and if I can't hoodwink you
simple bumpkins--parsons and all--well, I'll pay the stakes myself."

For stakes there were, and Mr. Fogo, who insisted on seeing all things
done decently and in order, arranged that five pounds a side should be
posted to bind the match and five pounds more paid in the day before the
battle.  Mr. Bowden found the money for David, and no less a worthy than
Sir Guy Flamank himself, having first commanded terrific oaths of
secrecy from Mr. Fogo and Mr. Shillabeer, produced ten pounds for
Bartley Crocker.  He was young and had never seen a fight.

A great many local sportsmen evinced the keenest interest in the
proceedings, but with British hypocrisy strove hard to conceal that
interest, out of respect to the people who were not sportsmen.  As for
the combatants, to their surprise they found themselves rapidly
developing into men of renown.  Even the hosts of the lesser Bowdens
were received with respect among their friends, in that they happened to
be actual brothers of a hero.  It might have been remarked that while
most people at first expected Bowden to win, the larger number coupled
the prophecy with a hope that they would be mistaken.  From the
beginning Bartley was the more popular combatant; and when certain
opinions respecting him left the narrow lips of Mr. Fogo at 'The Corner
House,' a little betting opened and ruled at two to one on the younger
man.

Mr. Shillabeer set to work to teach Bartley the rudiments, but he found
himself too slow and scant of breath to be of any service.  A young
boxer from Plymouth was therefore engaged--he who in Mr. Fogo's skilful
hands had won a recent battle--and he swiftly initiated Crocker.

And then it was that the Londoner pronounced this raw material in many
respects above the average, and declared that Bartley, among his other
qualifications, had some unsuspected talent for milling.  He was quick
and very active on his legs.  He hit straight naturally, not round.  His
left promised to be very useful and he had a vague idea of hitting on
the retreat and countering--arts usually quite unappreciated by the
novice. In fact, Mr. Fogo, from an attitude of indifference, presently
developed mild interest in the coming battle and was often at hand when
Bartley donned the mittens. He also superintended his training, and bore
him company, for a part of the distance, on some of those lengthy tramps
prescribed by Mr. Shillabeer.

Upon one of these occasions, however, Bartley was alone and chance
willed that he should meet Margaret returning from Ditsworthy.  She was
depressed and he asked her why.

"For fifty reasons; and you know most of 'em," she answered.  "I've just
been eating dinner to the Warren House.  Somehow it always makes me
wisht.  There's that young fellow, by the name of Billy Screech, running
after Dorcas, and none of 'em like him or will hear of such a thing.
And then the silence!  They won't talk afore me.  You can hear every
pair of teeth working and every bite and sup going down.  But that's not
what's on my mind.  'Tis this awful fight.  Oh, Bartley, can't you make
it up?"

"We have, long ago.  We're quite friendly.  'Tis no more now than a
sporting fixture for ten pounds a side.  There'll be twenty pounds more
for furniture for your new home, Madge--if I'm licked."

"Don't talk like that.  'Twould always be covered wi' bloodstains in my
eyes.  Can't you use the gloves? Why do you want to knock your poor
noses crooked for?  'Tis like savage tigers more than Christian men."

"Don't you worry.  The colours be coming Monday. Of course I can't ask
you to wear mine; but they're prettier far than David's.  'Twas Mr.
Fogo's idea.  I shall have the same as the mighty champion, Ben Caunt,
once had."

"I don't want to hear nothing about it, and I pray to God every night on
my knees that it may be stopped."

"Well, you'll be proud of one of us," he said.  "I can't expect you to
want me to win; but you mustn't be very much surprised if I do.  This
old Fogo finds I've got a bit of the right stuff in me; and for that
matter, I've found it out myself.  I take to it like a duck takes to
water.  I've always been fond of dancing--nobody knows that better than
you--and dancing is very helpful to a fighter.  To hit and get off
without being hit back--that's the whole art of prize-fighting, and I'm
afraid I shall hit David twice to his once."

Instantly the lover came to Madge's heart, despite herself.

"He doesn't brag," she said.  "He's very quiet and humble about it.  But
maybe you'll find he can hit too, Bartley, though I grant you he can't
dance."

He laughed and left her then; and next day as the pugilist from Plymouth
had to return home about his business, an experienced local called
Pierce, from Kingsett Farm, near Crazywell, on Dartmoor, was prevailed
upon to assist.  He and Crocker set to steadily.  But Pierce was nearly
forty, and too small for Bartley; therefore the lord of the manor
himself filled the breach. Not, indeed, that Sir Guy Flamank put on the
gloves; but he found a large-limbed youth down for Christmas from
Oxford, who was the heavy-weight champion at that seat of learning, and
this skilful youngster gave Bartley some invaluable information.

Little was known respecting David's progress; but Elias Bowden made the
acquaintance of 'Frosty-face,' and provided this celebrity with one or
two days' sport on the warren.  Mr. Fogo proved no mean shot, and among
other game of a good mixed bag, two wood-pigeons and three golden plover
fell to his borrowed weapon.  He discussed the Prize Ring for the
gratification of Mr. Bowden on this occasion, but though David's father
tried hard to learn how Bartley was coming on in his training, Mr.
Fogo's silence upon that theme exceeded even the customary taciturnity
of the Warren House.  He was only concerned with the growing rumours of
organised interference, yet he assured Mr. Bowden that the fight would
certainly come off, at a time and place to be arranged by him and Reuben
Shillabeer.

It is to be noted that Crocker had now left his home altogether, and was
living at 'The Corner House.'  The high-handed attitude of his mother
and her immense energy and indignation rendered this step necessary. The
reminder that his grandfather had been a bailiff lacked force to shake
Bartley from his evil determination; therefore she threatened to
disinherit him, and hinted at incarceration and other vague
counter-strokes. But when day followed day and nothing moderated his
intention; when she saw that he had given up malt liquor and spirits;
that he insisted on certain foods; that he rose at reasonable hours and
took an immense deal of active exercise--when, in fact, she grasped the
truth that her only son meant to fight a prize-fight, and was taking
every possible precaution to win it, then she broke down and threatened
no more, but became hysterical, melodramatic and mournful.  It was
enough that he entered the house for Nanny to fling herself into an
attitude of despair.  Her appetite suffered, her sleep suffered, even
her spirits suffered.  From being a dictatorial and assertive woman, who
used her personality like a pistol, she grew meek, mild and plaintive.
She wearied her hearers; she filled Susan's ears with pathetic details
concerning her wasting flesh, and begged her to report them again to
Bartley.  Thus her son learned that his mother's stockings had become
too large for her attenuated calves, and that her dresses were being
taken in many inches as the result of a general atrophy of tissue
produced by his behaviour.  Nanny's eyes haunted him.  She had,
moreover, an art to drop tears exactly at those moments when he cast a
sly side glance at her face.  She would drop them on to her work, or her
plate, or into her tea.

These distressing circumstances finally ejected Bartley from the
maternal threshold.  He saw his mother daily, but felt that until the
battle was lost or won, he could endure her constant remonstrances no
more.  He strove to make her take a sterner view, and she assured him
that had she not been a woman of gentle birth, it might have been
possible; but from one with the delicate Saunders blood in her veins,
only a genteel outlook on life could be expected; and there was no room
for tolerance of prize-fighting in that survey.




                              *CHAPTER XI*

                         *MR. FOGO IS SHOCKED*


'Frosty-face' very naturally looked to it that this little encounter of
rustics should have some useful bearing on his own affairs.  He was a
poor man and could not afford to ignore opportunities.  With Mr.
Shillabeer he set about reviving all the glories of the twenty-four-foot
square, and he was determined that nothing should be omitted which could
make the approaching fight a dignified and successful entertainment,
worthy, in its small way, of the best traditions.

Before a full bar Mr. Fogo spoke at length.  He had sold thirteen of his
poems that evening, and he was now about to unfasten a parcel that day
received from London; but, before doing so, he outlined the situation.

"I'm very pleased to find you know a bit down here," he began.  "There's
more of the right sort in these parts than we might have expected, and
there'll be a good sprinkling of Corinthians at the ring-side too. The
doctor from Tavistock, who is going to referee, is as spicy a dare-devil
as I wish to meet at any mill; and he knows his job; and afterwards, if
either of you chaps want to be blooded, he can do it for you."

"We shall judge of the patronage by the number of fogies the swells take
up," said Mr. Shillabeer.  "You see, the old rule is that a fighter
gives his colours to all who'll take 'em; and it's understood that if
he's beat, the colours cost nought; but if he wins, everybody as took a
handkerchief be expected to pay a guinea for it."

"Well, here they are," answered 'Frosty-face.'  "I got 'em myself so
cheap as they could be got through a friend.  Fifty there
are--twenty-five for each of the men--and if they go off, I can get more
at the same low figure."

He opened his parcel and revealed the colours. Bartley and several of
his friends were present; but David, who was to call that night with his
father, had not yet arrived.  Mr. Crocker's handkerchief was much
admired.  It showed a rich orange centre bordered with three inches of
purple.

Both Fogo and Shillabeer took one, though not on the usual
understanding, and Bartley calculated that he knew about twenty
sportsmen, including Sir Guy, who would be glad to possess this memento
of the battle.

Then came the Bowdens, and the future combatants shook hands in a
friendly spirit and compared their colours.  David's were simpler and
quieter--a blue 'bird's-eye' with a white spot.  Both parties could
number a good handful of patrons, and the encounter, albeit date and
place were still kept a dark secret, promised to be well attended.

"I'm painting the true blue stakes myself," said 'Frosty-face,' "and
we'll have a nobby ring if we don't have a nobby fight in it."

"And where is it to be, Mr. Fogo?" asked Simon Snell.

"I wouldn't tell everybody, but you shall know," answered the old man,
assuming a grim expression, which always preceded his finest jokes.
"We'll have our turn up in the bull-ring, Mr. Snell.  It have seen many
a bit of fun, they tell me, so why not a bit more?"

Everybody laughed, because Sheepstor bull-ring was the most public spot
for many miles round.  It lay under the churchyard wall at the centre of
the hamlet.

"Couldn't choose a better place, all the same," said Reuben Shillabeer,
"that is, if they'd let us alone.  The burying-ground runs eight feet
above the ring; and there's good grass there, and a nice tilt to the
ground, and proper trees all round for the sporting public to climb
into.  However, that's rather too warm a corner for modest men.  We
don't want the eyes of the nation on us."

"Leave it to me," said the Londoner.  "There are certain people we
shan't have no use for on the morning of the fight.  And if they stop at
Sheepstor, 'tis clear we must go somewhere else.  However, look to me;
I'll give you the office in plenty of time."

"You'll never get round parson and Mr. Moses and p'liceman and Mrs.
Crocker," foretold Tim Mattacott.

"I fear but one of 'em," answered Mr. Fogo.  "They are all harmless men,
and I can handle 'em as easy as a mother handles her tenth babby.  'Tis
that spry lady will take some stopping.  I've not got the length of her
foot yet--to say it with all respect.  But all in good time."

"There's to be a sermon preached by Mr. Merle next Sunday against this
here fight," said Mr. Bowden. "I'm sorry to the bone that he's taken
this view, because I never like to quarrel with my betters; but to the
House of the Lord me and mine go as usual next Sunday, and whatever he
may preach won't change my opinions."

"And I'll go too," declared Fogo.  "Yes, I'll go and hear his
argeyments.  'Tis a good few years since I was in a place of prayer--in
fact, never since I stood best man when Alec Reid, 'the Chelsea Snob,'
was married.  But on Sunday I shall be there, and you'll see I can shut
my eyes and sniff my hat with the best among ye."

"You shall come along of me," said the 'Dumpling.'  "I go most times and
get a deal of good from it.  My wife was a steady church member, for
though she'd fling off to chapel for change now and again, as women
will, yet she comed back again and again to the Establishment; and she
died in it, and Parson Merle will tell you 'twas so."

Then exploded suddenly a piece of news that quite staggered and shocked
the renowned visitor.  It also cast down Mr. Shillabeer, for he felt
that Fogo, as a man, and the P.R., as an institution, were alike
insulted by such an astounding assertion from the rival camp.

The question of seconds had been raised and Mr. Fogo explained that he
and Shillabeer proposed to look after Crocker.

"I shall carry the bottle and offer advice as it's called for, and
Reuben will pick him up and give him a knee," he declared.

"If he wants it," added the 'Dumpling'; "but unless David here be
cleverer than we think he is, Bartley won't ask for much picking up."

"And who are going to look after you?" asked Fogo of David.

"My father and--"

"He can't pick you up.  Who else?"

"And my sister, Rhoda Bowden--a strong maiden. She and father will do
all that's got to be done."

"Blow my dickey!" said Mr. Fogo, "that's the first knock-down for you
anyway.  A woman--a woman in the P.R.!  You really thought that?  That's
the best joke I've heard since '45."

"It's settled," said David, calmly.

"A woman in the P.R.!" repeated Fogo.  "Well, I've seen most things
during the last seventy years, but not that.  Why don't you ax your
sister to fight for you?"

"Look here," said the elder Bowden, "I won't have nothing said in this
matter by you or anybody, Mr. Fogo, till you see for yourselves.  Anyway
it's going to happen."

"I quite agree!" declared Mr. Snell, suddenly. "Miss Rhoda's a born
wonder and a most renowned creature for courage.  None ever was like
her.  A female no more feared to look on blood than we be to count our
wages.  And as to picking him up, she could pick him up--and you too,
Mr. Fogo, as easily as I can turn a stop-cock."

"Can such things be?" asked Mr. Fogo.  "This bangs Bannagher!  A
woman--a young, female woman inside the P.R.!  'Tis enough to provoke
the anger of Heaven.  May I die like a trundle-tailed cur, with a brick
round my neck, if I could ever stand it!"

"'Tis my girl that you saw up to the Warren House," said Mr. Bowden,
"her you said was a very fine woman, and you wished you'd got such a
pair of arms."

"Her with the chin?"

"She have a chin, I grant you."

"And who haven't?" asked Mr. Snell.

"You must know 'tisn't a common case," explained David.  "My sister and
me be very close friends, and she's terrible interested in this fight,
and, in short, she'll have to be there--there's no law against it."

"I'm shocked," said the old man.  "'Tis a very indecent, outrageous
thing, and I protest with all my might.  A petticoat in the P.R.!  Can't
everybody in this bar see it's all wrong and disgraceful and
disorderly?"

"In a general way it would be," admitted Shillabeer; "but she ain't no
common young woman, 'Frosty,' and I'm not surprised to hear she means
it.  She was axing me what a bottle-holder be expected to do a bit
back-along; and I half twigged that she'd got this idea in her noddle."

"Then it's the end of the world," declared Mr. Fogo. "I ask for nothing
more.  Perhaps our man wants his mother in his corner--also his aunt?
I'm sure they very much wish to be there by all accounts."

"Since the fight be in part about my sister, she's a right on the spot,"
said David; "and this I'll tell you, Mr. Fogo: though you laugh, you'll
see what she's like in the Ring; and if she does one thing--one single
thing--she shouldn't, and fails of aught where a man could do better,
then I'll give you the stakes if I win 'em."

"It's contrary to all history and law and decency and nature.  It isn't
possible, I tell you.  Here am I trying to revive the P.R. in a first
chop, gentlemanly fashion, and then you yokels plan a sin and a shame
like this," said Mr. Fogo.  He was very much annoyed and returned again
and again to the threatened female incursion.  Most of the company
agreed with him; indeed, only the Bowdens and Simon Snell supported
Rhoda as a second.  Mr. Shillabeer was doubtful.

"Be there any law against it?  That's the question," he said.  "Well, I
can't say there is, 'Frosty.'  Of course there's nought in the rules
about it."

"Because the rules was drawn for respectable, law-abiding people,"
answered Mr. Fogo.

They wrangled on, while David and Bartley spoke aside.

"Did you say that Miss Rhoda was really interested?" asked Crocker.  "I
shouldn't like to think that, David.  I know I kissed her, like a silly
fool, in the Pixies' House that day of the storm; but she don't bear
malice, I hope, any more than you do?"

"Oh, no--no malice.  It angered her cruel all the same, as it did me;
and she won't be sorry to see you lose--though there's no
malice--certainly not."

"You're in luck with such a sister and such a wife to be."

David changed the subject.

"Have they settled where 'tis to come off?"

"No--only the day."

"Monday week?"

"Yes."

"I'm going down to Plymouth Monday to practise with the boxers there,"
said David, and Bartley nodded.

"They'll larn you a lot," he said.

Mr. Fogo's voice again rose in wrath.

"The Fancy won't stand it.  Mark me; they'll hiss her out of the Ring.
Such a thing won't be suffered in a Christian land."

The hour grew late and Mr. Maunder looked in somewhat coldly.  Since his
vital difference of opinion on the subject of the prize-fight, he had
withdrawn his patronage from 'The Corner House.'  It was felt that he
could hardly be present in the camp of a combatant until the matter of
the pending battle was at an end.

"Closing time, Mr. Shillabeer," he said, and the 'Dumpling' nodded.

"Right you are, Ernest.  Come in and take a thimbleful along with me,
won't 'e?"

"No, thank you.  Not till this business is over.  I'm against you, and I
won't have bit or sup along with the enemy.  I speak as the law,
Shillabeer, and not as a man. Of course _afterwards_ I shall come back
again; but not till I've bested you, or you've bested me."

"Nobody could speak fairer," declared Mr. Shillabeer.

Then the company departed; Bartley Crocker went to bed; and Reuben asked
his friend what steps he proposed to take with respect to evading the
police on Monday week.  But Fogo was in no amiable or communicative
mood.  His feelings had that night been much lacerated and the prospect
of seeing a woman in a prize-ring affected him acutely.  He would not
talk about the matter, and when Mr. Shillabeer, according to custom,
brought conversation round to his vanished partner over the last glass,
Mr. Fogo failed of that tact for which he was renowned and refused even
to speak well of the deceased.

"I've heard enough about women to make me sick of the name of female
this night," he said.  "I won't utter a word more about 'em, living or
dead.  Thank my stars I kept single anyway.  They may be all right in
their proper place, but they don't know the meaning of fair play, and
are worse than useless in every branch of sport that man ever invented.
You mark me: this man's sister will come across the ring and try to
gouge our eyes out if her brother's getting worsted!"

"Not she," promised the 'Dumpling.'  "I grant 'tis a sign the P.R.'s
coming to nought that a chap should have his sister to second him in a
fight; but since it had to be, never was a woman built more likely to
give a good account of herself in that place than Rhoda Bowden."

"Well, I hope to God the Fancy will rise like one man," answered Mr.
Fogo.  "And now I'll go to my bed; and if I don't have a nightmare and
dream that I'm in a Ring along with the Queen of England and a few
duchesses and other high female characters, may I be blowed from here to
the top of Paul's cathedral and back again."

He then retired.

Bowden and Crocker had both paid for their colours and Mr. Shillabeer
called his friend back to hand him the money, which, in his misery, Mr.
Fogo had forgotten.




                             *CHAPTER XII*

                          *FOR THE GOOD CAUSE*


Probably the Prince of Darkness himself had won little more profound
attention than Mr. Fogo when, in his cape and black knee-breeches, the
old sportsman attended divine service on the following Sunday. Those
interested entirely attributed the forthcoming fight to him, and many of
the mothers and grandmothers of the hamlet would have been well pleased
to mob 'Frosty-face' and drive him by force of arms from the village.

One painful interview with Bartley Crocker's mother he had not been able
to escape.  She offered him ten pounds in gold to prevent the fight, and
when he explained that not for a hundred or a thousand pounds would he
be party to a 'cross,' she had 'given him a bit of her mind and
threatened him with her ten commandments,' as he afterwards expressed
it.

And now Mr. Fogo, supported by Mr. Shillabeer, sat at worship, answered
the responses and even essayed to join in the hymns.  The behaviour of
both old men was marked by highest propriety; and both put a penny in
the plate when it reached them.  The Bowdens, including David, were also
present, and Mr. Fogo's sole acts of inattention were caused by the
circumstance that Rhoda sat beside her father.  He stole several glances
at her and observed a powerful, handsome young woman, exceedingly
self-possessed and apparently well able to keep her nerve under any
circumstances.  He admitted to the 'Dumpling' that in an ordinary
emergency or difficulty Miss Bowden might probably hold her own; but a
prize-fight was not an ordinary emergency, and he held that, under no
conceivable tangle of circumstances, should a woman, in any capacity
whatsoever, be present at such a proceeding.

Mr. Merle preached, or it would be more correct to say thundered, from a
peaceable text in the New Testament.  He hit hard and spared not.  From
the lord of the manor to the landlord of 'The Corner House' he ranged;
and he called heaven to witness that, for his part, no stone should be
left unturned to overthrow the forces of disorder.  Incidentally Mr.
Merle gave his hearers a picture of a prize-fight, for it appeared that
in his degenerate Oxford days the pastor had witnessed a battle.

"One of the unhappy creatures who marred God's own image on that
occasion was called Peter Crawley and known to his friends by the vulgar
soubriquet of 'Young Rump Steak,'" said the clergyman.  Then glaring at
his congregation as though to dare a smile, he pulled his black gown
from his wrists and proceeded: "The name of the other pugilist was Jem
Ward, and they met on a winter's day within a hundred miles of London--"

"At Royston--I was there," whispered Mr. Fogo to Reuben Shillabeer.
Both old men paid the preacher every attention.

"Their degrading operations were considered to constitute a pretty day's
sport," continued Mr. Merle. "These men battered and tore and dashed
each other upon the earth time after time.  Again and again they fought
themselves to a standstill, which is, I believe, the technical
expression for absolute physical exhaustion. It was a battle of
ferocious fiends disguised as men, and when this Peter Crawley had
stricken the wretched Ward senseless in the eleventh round; and when
both were reduced to mere swollen, half-blind palpitating masses of
bruised and bleeding flesh, the people present shouted with infamous joy
and bore both combatants away in triumph from the ensanguined field."

"Jem lost all along of not having Tom Oliver for second," whispered
Fogo.

The clergyman proceeded at considerable length to point his moral, and
he wound up an eloquent appeal with special allusion to the stranger who
had come among his sheep.  He did not actually describe 'Frosty-face' as
a wolf; but he left no manner of doubt as to his opinion of the
Londoner; and he expressed acute regret that this Philistine should be
spending his leisure in Sheepstor, to the debasement of the youth and
manhood of the district.

Mr. Fogo listened with attention and propriety; while Mr. Shillabeer,
fearing what might happen, rolled uneasily, puffed, perspired and grew
red at intervals.

Of the principals and those who intended to aid them, only Bartley
Crocker was not present; but his mother heard the sermon, and the vision
of Peter Crawley and Jem Ward caused her to become so faint, that she
had to be helped into the air by Charles Moses long before the sermon
was finished.

Mr. Fogo himself and the company of the Bowdens accepted all the vicar
said without emotion.  Only once, when he quoted Horace, did they lose
him for a moment. Elias Bowden had long convinced himself that a fair
stand-up fight, between men pretty closely matched, was a circumstance
morally justifiable in every respect; and his children accepted this
conclusion without demur. As for 'Frosty,' his deep mind moved far too
busily with the future to trouble about any harsh present criticisms,
personal and public though they might be. He saw in Mr. Merle's attitude
an opportunity that he sought, and after the service was ended, he bade
Reuben Shillabeer get home and leave him behind. Then, when most of the
people had gone; when the Bowdens, full of this charge, trailed up to
Ditsworthy; when the 'Dumpling,' in great uneasiness, got him back to
his public-house; and when the congregation of chattering women and
dubious men had vanished this way and that, Mr. Fogo prevailed upon Mr.
Moses to introduce him to the vicar.  The Rev. Theodore Merle was a
solid, plethoric parson of the old school--a pillar of Church and State,
loud-voiced, red-faced, kind-hearted, narrow-minded and conservative.

Mr. Fogo saluted this gentleman with the greatest deference, and briefly
explained that his discourse had caused him deep interest and touched
his conscience very forcibly at certain points.  He then begged to know
if he might, at the vicar's convenience, enjoy a little private
conversation.

Mr. Merle gladly consented to go at greater length into the matter with
the old stranger.  He named the following evening for their meeting at
the vicarage, and expressed a hope that he might yet lead the Londoner
from his turbulent and unlawful ways.

Mr. Fogo replied that if any man had the art to do such a thing, it must
be Mr. Merle, whose eloquence had deeply impressed him.  He then bowed
in a very courtly manner and withdrew.  Afterwards, he secretly confided
to the shoemaker that the sermon had left him in great doubt of his
conduct, and he very patiently suffered Charles Moses to press the case
for law and order without offering much in the nature of opposition.  He
hoped finally that Mr. Moses would make it convenient to be present at
the meeting with Mr. Merle; and the cobbler, firmly convinced that
'Frosty-face' was yielding, promised to oblige him.

At 'The Corner House,' in public, Mr. Fogo maintained a taciturn
attitude, and when invited to express an opinion on the sermon, replied
that there was a good deal to be said on both sides.  Mr. Shillabeer
smelt mystery, but knew his friend's ways too well to interfere. At
present the event stood fixed for an early hour on the following Monday
week, and Mr. Fogo was prowling about the neighbourhood to find a
secluded and suitable theatre for it; but nothing had been settled, and
not until the Tuesday before the fight did he make the final
announcement.

Mr. Fogo had already kept his appointment with Mr. Merle and listened to
the arguments of the vicar and the churchwarden.

"I may tell you that the lord of the manor has only just left me,"
remarked Mr. Merle.  "He, too, has harboured some erroneous opinions on
the subject of this outrage, and I have gone far to convince him of his
mistake."

But Mr. Fogo knew all about the opinions of Sir Guy Flamank.  Indeed, he
had enjoyed a considerable discourse in private with that sound
sportsman only a few hours earlier in the day.

"Sir Guy Flamank," said the vicar, "at first argued speciously that
there are times when a magistrate ought to act, and times when he ought
to shut his eyes, or look the other way.  Deluded by fanciful
obligations to the claims of sport, he supposes that this is an occasion
for looking the other way.  But he is wrong--ignorantly, rather than
wickedly, wrong--and I have thoroughly convinced him of the fact.  A
fight between two men, no matter whether they fight in the spirit of
friends, or avowedly as foes, is none the less legally a breach of the
peace, morally an outrage on the Creator.  It is an un-christian, a
brutal, a degraded performance, even though we regard it not as a battle
of enmity but a trial of strength.  Who are we that we dare to deface
the image of God?  Tell me that, Mr. Fogo.  A prize-fight is the most
complicated and many-sided offence it is possible to conceive--an
affront alike on man and his Maker.  None can attend such orgies without
lowering his sense of decency and manhood; none can be present at such a
spectacle and not suffer for it in the secret places of his
self-respect.  In the interest of public morals and of religion I take
my stand, Mr. Fogo; and as a minister of the Word of God I tell you
that, Heaven helping, this thing shall not be within my spiritual
jurisdiction--nay, or beyond it, if energy and foresight can prevent."

Mr. Fogo rose from the chair whereon he sat, and bowed.

"I have not heard such burning words, your reverence, since I sat under
a bishop a few weeks ago in Paul's, London.  I would have you to know
that I take life seriously.  I am a pious man, though my calling has to
do with rough characters; but I never saw things quite in this light
before.  We sporting blades mean no harm, and we are honest according to
our lights. I've known many of the noted pugs and can assure your
reverence that they are straight and kindly men--just such good souls as
Mr. Shillabeer, my friend in this village.  If they've done wrong, 'tis
through their ignorance of right.  And as for me, never, until I heard
your great and forcible discourse o' Sunday, did I think that a fair
mill was not agreeable to the morals of the kingdom, even though the law
don't allow it."

"A prize-fight is not agreeable--either to the morals of this kingdom or
the next," said Mr. Merle; "and I hope you are convinced of it."

"You told me you was," said Moses.  "You made it very clear to me you
was wavering, Mr. Fogo."

"I am wavering," answered the old hawk, while he tried to cool the fire
in his eye with a film of piety. "I am hit very hard over this.  You've
let in the light on me, your reverence.  It calls back to my mind that
famous party, namely Bendigo--once a Champion of England, now a champion
of the next world; for he's taken to preaching and, as he told me last
time we met, is under articles to fight the Devil and all his works.  A
great man in his way, and they've given his name to half Australia, I'm
told; but, though very free and forcible with words, he hasn't got the
flow of your reverence.  Of course you wouldn't expect it from a
prize-fighter.  And now with your solemn speeches booming on my sinful
ears, I ask myself what I am to do."

"Let me tell you the answer to that question, Mr. Fogo," said the
clergyman, very earnestly.  "If your conscience has been mercifully
permitted to waken at my voice, take heed that it shall not sink to
sleep again. Emulate your reformed friend, Mr. Bendigo.  Put on the
armour of light and the breastplate of righteousness. Look back at these
days of seclusion in this rural scene as Paul looked back to that
journey on which burst in the dazzling light of living truth.  Let the
scales fall from your eyes, Mr. Fogo.  Choose the better path,
henceforth, sir.  You are an able man.  I can see it in your face.
There is intellect there.  With greater advantages you might have made a
mark in the world and assisted its welfare.  And that you must and shall
still do!  There is none among us so humble but that he possesses the
grand, the glorious privilege and power to help the world towards
goodness.  Act rightly in this matter and great will be your reward--if
not in this world, my dear friend, none the less and of a surety in the
world to come."

"Exactly so," said Mr. Fogo.  "I know you're right--I'm sure of it.  You
understand these things--nobody better.  It is your holy calling so to
do.  I see now as never I saw before, that fighting oughtn't to be.  I
almost begin to believe that it's my duty to stop this fight.  And
yet--"

"Don't dally with the idea, Mr. Fogo," urged Charles Moses.  "Believe it
once for all and do your duty.  Your salvation may hang upon it!"

Mr. Merle was a little vexed with the warden's interference.  He put up
his hand and said, "Hush, Moses; leave this to me, please."

"It's like this," explained 'Frosty-face,' mildly; "most of the males
are for the fight; most of the women are against it.  And his reverence
here is against it, and you're against it, Mr. Moses, and of course the
constable is against it, being paid by the nation to be so. Well, I must
tell you that in these cases, if the police appear on the ground, the
fight is always stopped at once and the Fancy goes off--either into
another county, where the warrant don't hold, or else, if that's
impossible, they stop altogether till the next meeting is arranged by
the referee.  Now, in this business, the fight has either got to stop or
not begin at all if the police put in their appearance, because there's
no getting into another county; so it all comes to this: if your
reverence knows when and where the fight is to take place, you can stop
it."

"Then your duty stares you in the face, Mr. Fogo. You must tell me,"
asserted Mr. Merle.

"It isn't decided yet."

"You'll have a hand in the decision, all the same," declared Charles
Moses.  "Very like they'll look to you to settle that point, as, with
your learning of such things, would be natural."

Mr. Fogo glanced round about him as though he feared an eavesdropper.

"If I do this, and tell you the battle-ground, will you promise never to
let it out?" he asked.

"It will be for you to let it out, and triumph in your righteous
action," said Mr. Merle.

"Well, I'd rather not," answered the Deputy Commissary, with frankness.
"I'll do good by stealth, and 'twill be quite time enough for me to
write and tell Mr. Shillabeer that 'twas my work after I've got back to
London out of harm's way.  So there it stands: you've conquered me, your
reverence.  I put myself in your power.  But this is thirsty work--this
well-doing. Might I make so bold as to ask for a drop of
liquor--spirits, if they may be taken without harm in the dwelling of
holiness?"

Mr. Merle went to his sideboard and got a bottle of whisky, from which
the repentant Fogo helped himself to a stiff glass.

"On Monday next at eleven o'clock the fight will begin, unless we stop
it," he said.  "And since, in the high name of the church and parson, it
did ought to be stopped, stopped it shall be.  The place is still a
secret. But this I'll do for the sake of my own salvation, and other
reasons, including my great respect to your reverence--this I'll do: on
Monday morning next, at cock-light or earlier, I'll be here in secret to
meet the police and his reverence and Mr. Moses; and I'll lead them to
the ring.  That's the work of your Sunday sermon on the heart of a
sinful creature, parson Merle.  At five o'clock next Monday I'll be at
this house; but I trust those present to keep the secret, for if a word
is breathed and it gets out, there's men interested in this fight that
will change the 'rondeyvoo' and hide it even from me."

The clergyman, elated, yet not without secret doubts, gave all necessary
promises, and Mr. Moses did the like. Then Mr. Fogo went his way.

He was in church again next Sunday and, meantime, conducted himself in a
manner that mystified most frequenters of 'The Corner House.'
Shillabeer declared that something was weighing on Mr. Fogo's mind, and
Moses, who heard rumours, carried them to the vicar.


Then came grey dawn on the eventful morning and, before it was yet
light, 'Frosty-face,' as good as his word, arrived at the vicarage.

Mr. Ernest Maunder, with the warrant and another constable, had already
arrived, and a moment later Mr. Moses came on the scene.  The first
glimmer of light was in the sky and the day opened cold and clear. Stars
shone overhead and the road tinkled with ice underfoot; but clouds were
already banking against the northern horizon.

"I'm here to take you to the appointed place," said Fogo.  "All is
settled and the men are to be in the ring before eleven o'clock.  You
will be snugly hidden not a hundred yards from the spot when they begin.
'Tis Ringmoor Down has been chosen--alongside the wood at the west end
by the turnpike.  We can't miss it, because the ring was pitched
overnight--I helped, so as not to bring down no suspicion on myself."

They started silently to climb the steep hill that ascends out of
Sheepstor to Ringmoor.  At Fogo's advice they carried food and drink
with them, for the morning was very cold and laden with promise of snow.

"You mustn't mind hard words," said the betrayer. "They can't do nothing
to any of you, because it's a fair score and you've won for two reasons.
Firstly, by having more wits in your heads than them, and secondly,
because his reverence has converted me to see the truth. I'm the only
one as would be roughly handled and very likely--an old man like me--get
my death from it; so I shan't stop for the great moment when you step
forth in the name of the Queen's Majesty and bid 'em all to keep the
peace.  I shall see you in your places, and then I've arranged for a
trap to come for me to the pike, and off I go to Plymouth.  I won't face
the music--why should I?  As it is, I shall go in fear and trembling
this many a day."

"You need neither fear nor tremble, Fogo," said Mr. Merle.  "The mind
conscious of rectitude is armed against all fear.  You have done your
duty, difficult though it was; you will have your reward."

"Thank you for that helpful word," answered 'Frosty-face'; "and I beg,
if your reverence don't find it too much for your bellows against the
hill, that you'll speak a few comforting speeches to me as we travel
along.  I'm an aged man to turn from vanity at my time of life; yet in
your sermon yesterday you said 'twas never too late to mend, and I took
that to myself."

"You were perfectly justified in so doing," said Mr. Merle.

He uttered exhilarating reflections until the severity of the hill
reduced him to silence.  Then Ernest Maunder, who had not yet recovered
from his amazement at finding Fogo a traitor, asked him a question.

"If you're going straight away off to Plymouth, what about your
luggage?"

"You'll see it in the trap," answered 'Frosty.'  "I've got a box and a
bundle and no more.  Mind, Constable Maunder, that you step boldly into
the ring; and don't do it too soon.  Wait till the men have stripped and
shook hands.  Then out you go, and not a man dare withstand you.  Have
no fear for yourself.  At their everlasting peril would they do it, for
you are the State. 'Twill be the greatest moment in your life, and I
hope you'll bear yourself with dignity."

"I hope I shall," replied Mr. Maunder; "but 'twould be easier if 'twas
milder weather."

Dawn rolled along Dartmoor edge as they reached the silent hill-top, and
it revealed an unfamiliar object upon the featureless bosom of Ringmoor.
As Fogo had foretold, distant one hundred yards from a little wood
beside the highway, the twenty-four-foot Ring stood stark in the
twilight of morning.  Heavy stakes, painted blue, supported the ropes.
An outer ring--to keep spectators clear from the fight--was also set up
beyond, and the ground could not have been better chosen.

Close at hand an open trap was waiting, and the driver stamped up and
down to keep himself warm. Mr. Maunder, with a flash of professional
zeal, satisfied himself that 'Frosty's' luggage was really in this
vehicle and marked a wooden box, studded with brass nails, and a parcel
containing a large umbrella and some walking-sticks.

"I got my kit out last night, after Shillabeer had gone to his rest,"
explained Mr. Fogo.  "This morning he'll think that I've risen betimes
and come up here--and he'll think right, for that matter."

In half an hour the party had cut down some boughs of fir, made a screen
against the north wind, and hidden themselves carefully at the edge of
the wood.  Then Mr. Fogo joined the vicar in a light breakfast of
hard-boiled eggs and cold tea; and finally he prepared to take his
leave.

He declared that he left for Plymouth with reluctance and would much
have liked to see the triumph of right; but, in plain English, he feared
greatly for his own skin if the disappointed sportsmen discovered him
with the police.  Therefore he bade all farewell, invited and obtained
Mr. Merle's formal blessing upon his future, and then drove away along
the road to Plymouth.

Yet, for some private and obscure reason, when a mile had been
traversed, Mr. Fogo appeared suddenly to change his mind.  He directed
the driver to sink down to Meavy valley; and thence the trap returned as
swiftly as possible to Sheepstor.

Already that village was awake and alert.  Strange men moved about
through it; within the field, under the churchyard wall, had sprung up a
square of ropes and bright blue stakes--the counterpart of that besides
which Mr. Merle and his friends were waiting and crowing somewhat cold
on the sequestered loneliness of Ringmoor.

Mr. Fogo had told Simon Snell the truth, though his listeners all
laughed at the joke when they heard it. The fight, instead of taking
place upon Ringmoor Down at eleven o'clock, was planned for Sheepstor
bull-ring at nine.




                             *CHAPTER XIII*

                              *THE FIGHT*


The bull-ring of Sheepstor is a grassy field of near an acre in extent,
surrounded west and east with beech trees, hemmed by a road and a little
river southward, and flanked by the churchyard wall on the north. Here
bull-baiting, cock-fighting, cock-shying, and other rough sports of our
great-grandfathers were enjoyed; and here, on this winter morning, one
of the last authentic prize-fights ever fought in England was duly
conducted with all right ritual, pomp and circumstance, under direction
of that high priest and poet of the P.R., 'Frosty-face' Fogo.

From Lowery and Kingsett by Crazywell; from Yellowmead and Dennycoombe;
from Meavy and Middleworth and Good-a-Meavy those in the secret came. A
large sprinkling of local sportsmen rode into Sheepstor before eight
o'clock and stabled their horses at 'The Corner House.'  Sir Guy
Flamank's friend, the young boxer from Oxford, and a Plymouth
professional, were umpires for the men; while the sporting doctor from
Tavistock acted as referee on the strength of wide experience and sound
knowledge.

Bowden and his party came down from Ditsworthy in a cart, and beside it
walked Bartholomew Stanbury and his son.  Simon Snell also arrived, with
Mattacott, Screech and other local men.  Just before nine o'clock two
stout and frantic women rushed to the rectory and then disappeared up
the hill towards Ringmoor.  They were Mr. Crocker's mother and aunt.

As for Bartley, he arrived in the bull-ring at five minutes to nine, met
David beside it and shook hands with him and his father.  Rhoda stood
by, clad in a dark stuff dress with short skirt and short sleeves.  On
her head was a man's cap and her bright hair had been coiled small and
tight on her neck.  She paid no attention to Mr. Crocker.  Then Fogo
appeared and assumed command.  With him came the Corinthian contingent,
jovial and jolly, clad in the most showy and stylish sporting costumes
of the 'sixties.'  The colours of both men were generally displayed.

"Throw your castors in the ring," said Shillabeer, and the fighters
dropped their hats over the ropes.

A crowd of above a hundred persons was assembled. The front row sat ten
feet from the ring; others stood behind them and twenty men clustered
along the churchyard wall.  Into the beech trees many boys had also
climbed.  Rhoda Bowden was the only woman present. Many protested and
shook their heads, but none interfered.

The colours were tied to the stakes and the combatants tossed.  Bowden
won, and his father chose the corner with its back to the rising sun.
Red light ranged along the eastern edge of Dartmoor; but it promised
swiftly to perish, for the air was already heavy with coming snow.

Both men now stripped to the waist.  They wore flannel drawers, socks
and shoes with sparrow-bill nails in them.  Each was clean-shaved and
close-cropped. Fogo and Shillabeer, with bottles, towels and sponges,
entered Bartley's corner, while his father and sister took their places
in Bowden's.

As the church clock struck nine the men came to the scratch, listened to
a brief word from the referee and again shook hands.  Each in his
different way looked strong and well.  David's white body shone in the
red sunlight and showed a silky texture over the big muscles.  He was
shorter in the reach than Bartley Crocker and far sturdier below the
waist.  Big thews and sinews held him up; but, as he came on guard, he
shaped rather awkwardly with his hands and his head was somewhat too far
forward.  Crocker appeared slighter, taller and more graceful.  His
brown body seemed somewhat thin about the ribs, but his face was clean
and hard and his eyes bright.  His legs were not so solid as David's,
but they showed more spring about them.  His pose was good: he carried
his head well back, and his hands neither too high nor too low.  One man
obviously possessed greater strength; while the other looked likely to
be quicker both on his legs and with his fists.  What either had learned
about scientific fighting in the short time of preparation remained to
be seen.  Both were nervous and both were eager to begin.

David dashed out at his man and hit with his right but was parried.
Again he tried his right, rather round, and just touched Crocker's
shoulder; whereupon Bartley, hitting straighter, got his left on the
other's face and followed it with his right on the throat.  The second
blow was heavy and shook David for a moment. They stood apart, then both
began to fight desperately, but with little science.  Some tremendous
counters succeeded and each received a few blows in the face; but Bowden
evidently hit harder than the younger man, though he did not get home so
often.  The little knowledge either possessed belonged to Crocker.  He
guarded to some purpose with his left and avoided one or two strong,
right-handed blows in this manner.  Twice Crocker missed his right; then
the best blow of the round was struck by him.  It fell fairly and full
on David's forehead, and he followed it by another, under the eye.  Then
Bartley received one on the nose which drew blood.  A moment later the
men closed and Crocker threw Bowden with an ordinary cross-buttock and
fell on him.  Both walked to their corners and the round ended with
nothing of importance done on either side. First blood was claimed and
allowed for David.

Bartley sat on Mr. Shillabeer's knee, while Mr. Fogo polished him up and
poured advice into his ear.

"Keep moving more," he said.  "Dance 'Jim Crow' round the man! make him
come after you and blow him a bit.  He hits harder than you do; but he's
not as clever and not as long in the arm.  Get on to the right eye
again.  If you can shut that at the start, it's worth half the stakes."

And elsewhere David reposed on Elias Bowden's knee while Rhoda, white to
the lips, but firm as a rock, sponged his face.  He laughed at her.

"It's all right," he said to his father.  "He only hit me once worth
mentioning.  I'll soon find his measure.  I'm stronger than him."

"Don't talk," answered the old man.  "And get the fall, if you can, next
round.  Better you drop on him than he drop on you."

The half-minute was over and both came instantly to the scratch.
Preliminary nervousness had passed and they were eager to fight.  David
panted a little; Hartley appeared quite calm.  The second round began
with Bowden leading off; but Crocker easily jerked his head out of
harm's way and escaped an ugly round hit.

They fell to heavy milling of a scrambling character, with few blows
getting home on either side.  Presently they stood apart, panting with
hands down a moment; then, in response to shouts from partisans, they
began to fight again.  Crocker now had the best of it until the end of
the round.  David seemed unable to use his left and Bartley was learning
to avoid the swinging round-arm blows delivered by his opponent's right.
Thrice he escaped these attempts and each time countered with his own
right.  To Mr. Fogo's satisfaction one of these blows reached the
damaged eye with great force and instantly raised a big 'mouse' beneath
it.  Then the round ended, almost exactly like the last, by David
landing on the other's nose and drawing a copious flow of blood.  Upon
this they closed and David tried hard for the crook, but Bartley was the
cleverer wrestler and Bowden went down with the other on top of him as
before.  Again they walked strongly to their corners and their friends
did all that was necessary in the space of thirty seconds.

"Fight for his eyes, and even take a bit of risk to get there," said Mr.
Fogo.  "But, for the love of the Lord, don't let him land that round-arm
hit on your ear.  It won't do you no good.  And use your left more."

Rhoda bathed the curious blue mark that had leapt into existence under
her brother's eye.  His face was puffy round it, but neither she nor her
father guessed at the threatened danger.  As for David, he was very
cheerful and only vexed that he had missed so often with his right.

"I've got to get nearer to him," he explained. "Out-fighting's no good
against his long arms.  I must go inside 'em and see what I can do
then."

The men smiled and nodded at one another as they came up to time.

Bartley began with his left.  David threw it off well with the right
guard and tried to begin in-fighting. But the taller man danced away
before him and hit twice, right and left, on the retreat.  Then Bowden,
coming with a rush, caught him, and the finest rally of the battle
followed.  The combatants fought all across the ring with both hands
almost entirely at the head. More by good chance than science each
stopped some heavy hits and sparred much above their true skill. Immense
applause greeted the round, and the 'Dumpling' bellowed a word of
encouragement to his man. Fogo watched every move with his old, keen
eyes.  He was not entirely pleased with the result of the round. It
ended in a scrambling fall with no advantage to either.  But both,
though blowing heavily, were still strong, and each man rose instantly
and got back to his corner without aid.

The little advantage of the rising sun in his opponent's eyes was now
lost to Bowden, for grey clouds had swallowed the morning and already a
few stray flakes of snow fell leisurely.  Elias, at the end of this
round, complained that Crocker was holding some hard substance within
his fists, but Fogo with disdain showed that they carried paper only.

Some marks of the last bout were visible when 'time' brought the men to
the scratch.  Bartley had a cut on his forehead and another on his
cheek-bone, while his nose and lips had swollen and become distorted;
the eyelids of Bowden's right eye were puffed and bulged. His face and
breast were mottled with red; but Crocker, on the contrary, was as pale
as a parsnip.  David led off right and left, just touching with the
first but missing with the latter.  They countered heavily and then, in
obedience to orders, Crocker got in suddenly, caught David's head in
chancery, and before the elder, by sheer strength, broke loose, fibbed
him thrice.  Mr. Fogo rolled in an ecstasy.  The blows had reached
David's sound eye and done some damage.  In getting away David fell and
Bartley immediately went to his corner. The round had been much in his
favour.

Rhoda worked hard to reduce the swelling on her brother's face, but it
was not possible.  He continued strong, cheerful and impatient to repay
a little of Crocker's attention in the last round.

Yet from this point the fight went steadily in favour of the younger
man.  He was naturally quicker, neater and straighter in his hitting.
The next round was a long one.  David got to work first and lashed out
as usual with his right, but was short.  Then Bartley retreated until he
had his enemy on the move, whereupon he stood and let fly both right and
left at the head. Both told, though the blows were light.  David slipped
on to one knee but was up again instantly, and a moment later, for the
first time since the beginning of the battle, he got his right home on
Crocker's ear.  The hit fairly staggered Bartley but did not drop him.
He recovered before Bowden could repeat the blow and some furious
fighting brought the men into Bartley's corner, where David had the
worst of the rally. Crocker at last closed and might have gone far to
end the fight, for he had his enemy on the ropes and was about to punish
him in that position.  His instinct, however, prevented it.  He had
raised his right and Bowden was for the moment defenceless; then the
younger drew back and shook his head.  "Nay, David," he said, "I'll not
take advantage of thee."

A hearty cheer greeted this sportsmanlike act; but in his corner at the
end of the round, Mr. Fogo took occasion to caution his man against
further display of such a spirit.

"You haven't got him beat yet," he said.  "'Tis all very well to play to
the gallery when you're safe, but not sooner.  He's harder than you and
will take a lot of knocking out.  You had it in your power then to give
him pepper, and you ought to have done it till he dropped.  Fight for
his eyes and don't let's have no softness.  You mind there's a lot of
money going to change hands over this job, and you've no right to throw
away half a chance."

In answer Crocker showed temper.

"I'll fight fair and be damned to you and your London ways," he said;
but Mr. Fogo permitted himself no retort.

A great deal of tedious sparring occurred in the next round and Bowden
got his second wind.  He was strong and still confident, but the sight
of his right eye grew much impaired.  After a time the pace quickened,
but when they began to fight in earnest, the round was Hartley's own.
David received all the hits, and one on the mouth nearly floored him.
At the end they closed and Bowden was thrown.  Both still went to their
corners without help.

Five and six to one were betted on Crocker, and even Fogo felt sanguine.
But he had time to take close stock of his man and noticed that Crocker
was weaker.

In the next round the men closed almost instantly and went down, David
undermost.

"All Dartmoor to a lark-sod on our chap!" said Mr. Shillabeer.  "Go in
and finish him, Bartley.  Only get on his left peeper again and the
shutters will be up. The right's done for."

"I can do it, but I'm frightened to--might blind him for life," answered
the fighter; and 'Frosty-face' was frantically expostulating at this
mistaken sentiment at the call of 'time.'

Heavy counter hits were exchanged in this round and Bartley's left ear
was again visited.  Blood sprang from it in answer to the blow and for a
moment he was dazed; then he hit David heavily on the neck and jaw. A
rally followed and Bartley used his legs and got away.  At the end
Crocker hit out with his left and caught David on his sound eye.  The
blow was well timed and Bowden nearly fell.  A moment later they closed
and wrestled long for the fall.  Neither won it decisively, but they
went down together.  Both were weak after this round and both, for the
first time, were carried to their corners.  Rhoda and her father lifted
David swiftly and neatly.

Bowden began the next round and hit Bartley with right and left on the
chest, but he made no impression though the blows were hard.  Crocker,
on the contrary, while lacking much force, yet planted one hit to
purpose on Bowden's left eye.  This stroke evidently caused great pain
for, despite himself, David's hands went up to his face.  Then it seemed
that he began to realise his peril, for he fought desperately and showed
tremendous energy and renewed strength.  A blow on the ribs made Bartley
wince, but others as heavy missed him and his returns went over David's
shoulder.  Towards the end of the round, however, Crocker, catching the
other as he advanced, and timing his right better than usual, sent
Bowden clean off his legs with a flush hit on the mouth.  It was the
first knock-down blow in the battle, and Fogo waited with desperate
anxiety and fervent hope that Bowden might not come up to time. But
Rhoda and her father achieved the feat.  Within the regulation eight
seconds after time was called, David stood at the scratch.  He was very
shaky, but cheerful. He grinned out of his distorted features as Bartley
approached and said, "Now I'm going to get some of my own back,
Crocker."

Fogo, during the respite, had given his man brandy and implored him to
try and finish before his strength was gone.  The opportunity to
administer a final blow had come.  Bowden was shaken, and for the moment
very weak.  Alive to the situation, Crocker did his best; but now the
man's own nature came between him and the necessity of execution.  As he
grew more feeble a vein of sheer sentimentality in his character
asserted itself. For the moment he could not strike the bruised, bloody
and defenceless eyes of the enemy.  His gorge rose at the act.  Between
the rounds he had been watching Rhoda with a sort of vague, unreal
interest.  In his increased weakness, the whole business appeared like a
dream out of which only Rhoda clearly stood.  He admired her immense
courage and pictured her secret emotions as round succeeded round, and
she saw David's face being battered from all semblance of humanity.

Nevertheless, Crocker began this--the tenth round--with a determination
to let it be the last.  He hit out of distance but eventually struck
Bowden on the nose. The blow was not heavy, but David went down and was
carried to his corner.

Bartley stared across at his foe, while Fogo attended to him.  He saw
Rhoda sponge the other's face and speak to him.  Then David laughed.
The expression of amusement was hideous on his countenance in its
present condition.  Fogo kept speaking, but when he stood at the scratch
Crocker quite forgot the last advice he had received.  It was clear now
that David was fighting for strength, and each round in the next five
saw him go down at the least legal provocation.  Some shouted scorn at
him, but he paid no heed.  He was hit several times during these rounds
and did little in return; but once he visited Bartley's damaged ear, and
once he got a good cross-buttock and fell heavily on his man.

Seeing Elias and Rhoda busy with David's hand after the thirteenth
round, Shillabeer whispered that the enemy's left was gone; but he erred
as the sequel proved. Bowden had only cut himself on Bartley's teeth.

Fogo, however, still felt satisfied, because it seemed clear that even
if Crocker could not finish his task, he would be able to stay until
Bowden went blind. David's right eye had long since closed and the left
was beginning to vanish.  Another blow would probably complete the work
of obliteration and leave Crocker with victory.  Both men's faces were
much swollen and disfigured, but both were still game and both were
cheerful.  Bartley, however, began to get slow and his ear was causing
him much dizziness.  It had swollen to horrible dimensions.

Snow now fell briskly and the ring had become very slippery.

The sixteenth bout found David busiest.  He rushed in right and left,
and a good ding-dong round was fought in which advantage only came to
Bartley at the end.  Then, after receiving some heavy body-blows, he got
on to Bowden's lip, split it and drenched the man's face with blood.  In
the close they both went down, David, as usual, undermost.  Both were
carried to their corners and both were weak.

In the next round David tried to upper-cut Crocker, but missed, and was
knocked down by a blow on the throat.

Elias asked his son if all was well with him, and David nodded.  Rhoda
gave him the brandy bottle and he rinsed his mouth, but did not drink
any.  Fogo did all that his knowledge suggested for Bartley, but knew
that he was growing weak very rapidly.  It remained to be seen whether
Crocker's strength or David's eyesight would last longest.

In the eighteenth round Bartley began the fighting and with immense
impetuosity dashed in right and left on the face.  He tried for the eye,
but just missed it and caught heavily on the body.  And then fortune
smiled in earnest on David, and as the other came again to finish his
enemy at any cost, Bowden caught him with crushing force on the left
cheek.  Chance timed the blow to perfection.  It was by far the heaviest
hit in the fight, and the effect at this juncture proved terrific. The
tremendous blow seemed to go all over the side of Crocker's face.  It
brought the blood gushing from his mouth and nose; and it dropped him in
a heap.

A shout of consternation rose from the younger man's friends, and Mr.
Fogo and Shillabeer picked up Bartley, while David, cheered by the yells
of his supporters, walked, with Rhoda guiding him, to his corner. It was
now the turn of the Bowdens to wait the call of time with anxiety; but
Fogo got his man to the scratch, though all fight was out of him.  David
could still see but he had lost the power of calculating distances.  He
struck thrice in the air; then he hit Crocker, where he stood dazed with
his hands down, and dropped him.

The crisis had come and Mr. Fogo kept back Bartley till the last
available moment, while on the other side Rhoda led David to the
scratch, for he could no longer see it.  A blow now was likely to settle
the matter; but the one man was too weak to strike, the other too blind
to make sure of hitting.  Two more rounds were fought in this manner and
Fogo fancied that Bartley had a little recovered from the effects of his
terrible punishment; but the return of strength did not serve him.  In
the twenty-second and final round Bowden--fortune still smiling--hit
Crocker heavily with a round arm on the ear and the younger man fell
unconscious.  Fogo and Shillabeer picked him up and did what they could,
but Bartley knew nothing.  His head had swollen in an extraordinary
manner from the smashing stroke in the eighteenth round, and it was that
blow which had put 'paid' to his account.  David walked to the scratch
with Rhoda's help and waited to hear time called.  He had, it seemed,
snatched victory at the last moment and now it was his battle as surely
as it had been Bartley's after the ninth round.  The referee cried
'time,' the eight seconds crawled past, and 'Frosty-face,' with a word
not to be chronicled, threw up the sponge.  Bartley Crocker was deaf to
the call.  Indeed, he remained unconscious for another five minutes.

The fight had lasted about three quarters of an hour.

Then a roar rose round the ring and a hundred men and boys crowded in
upon it.  Many hastened away at once to avoid possible future trouble.
Rhoda threw her emotions into one kiss that she pressed upon her
brother's mangled mouth; then, rosy as her name, she walked up to the
colours, unfastened them with unshaking, ensanguined hands, and tied
them round David's neck.  Many cheered her; and some fell in love with
her from that moment.  David, for his part, asked to be led to Bartley,
and when, with the referee's assistance, the beaten man had recovered
consciousness, Bowden held out his hand and Crocker took it.

By this time the winner was stone blind.  His party stopped on the
ground only a few minutes, during which Mr. Fogo, as became a poet and a
man of imagination, insisted on shaking hands with Rhoda Bowden.

"Woman," he said, "you're a wonder.  I've never seen the like in seventy
years; and I hope I never shall again."

Then David was led to the cart and, with his sister, three of his
brothers and his father, drove off to Ditsworthy.  A cheering mob of
fifty men and boys accompanied him half way; the Stanburys--father and
son--walked for some distance beside the vehicle, while one or two
energetic spirits ran on ahead with tidings of victory for Mrs. Bowden
and her daughters, Sophia and Dorcas.

Snow fell heavily now and detail was vanishing under it.

Mr. Fogo had no difficulty in explaining the defeat to the Fancy.  He
threw light upon the situation, while Mr. Shillabeer and others carried
Bartley to 'The Corner House' in a large wheelbarrow and put him to bed.

"'Twas just such a hit as the Tipton gave Tass Parker in their last
fight--to compare small things with great," said Fogo.  "When a man's
shaky, a smack like that is a receipt in full.  A pretty finish, but it
ought never to have come to it.  Bowden was beat half an hour ago, and
if our chap hadn't been so milk-hearted, he'd be the winner this minute.
If he'd had a bit of the other's kill-devil in him, 'twould have been
all over long ago.  He fought better and wrestled better; but there it
was--the human nature in him couldn't punish, though the fight depended
on it and t'other man was blind.  He was never meant for a fighting
man--more the dancing master turn of mind."

"Very fond of the ladies, I believe," said Timothy Mattacott.

"So I've found; and if that amazing girl with the chin had been in his
corner with me instead of the 'Dumpling,' I believe that Crocker would
have won," declared 'Frosty.'

At this moment there hastened frantically down a hill from the south
certain devoted peacemakers. Bartley's relatives had learned at the
vicarage that Mr. Merle and others were gone at break of day to the pike
by Ringmoor Down, and they had struggled upward with the fatal truth.
Now it happened that these deceived upholders of the law came full upon
Mr. Fogo and a select company, on their way to the inn. Whereupon the
clergyman thrust among them and stood before Mr. Fogo, his face dark as
a mulberry with rage.

"You infamous scoundrel!" he shouted.  "What is the meaning of this?"

The old man stared blankly and unknowingly before him.  Not a spark of
recognition lighted his eagle features.

"I don't quite understand," he answered; then he turned to his friends.

"Who may these snowy gentlemen be?" he asked. "His reverence seems to be
a little put out.  But he's got a kind expression of countenance.  If
they wanted to see the mill, they ought to have started a bit earlier."

But then Mr. Fogo saw Mrs. Crocker approaching and he did not hesitate
to run with his bodyguard about him.

Snow began to fall in earnest at last.  Heavier and heavier it came,
until Sheepstor and the churchyard and the bull-ring, with hills and
valleys round about, vanished under a silent, far-flung cloth of silver.
After all the riot and life, noise and blood-letting, peace fell like a
pall at noon.  The folk kept their cottages. Only at 'The Corner House'
persisted a mighty din and clatter of tongues, while the larder and many
bottles were emptied, the barrels were heavily drawn upon and the battle
was fought and lost again a dozen times before nightfall.




                               *BOOK II*



                              *CHAPTER I*

                             *'MEAVY COT'*


On a day in summer, David Bowden wandered up the higher valleys of Meavy
and stopped in a little dingle where the newborn river tumbled ten feet
over a great apron of granite into a pool beneath.  In four separate
threads the stream spouted over this mossy ledge, and then joined her
foaming forces below. Grey-green sallows thronged the top of this
natural weir and the wind flashed a twinkle of silver into their foliage
as the leaves leapt and turned.  Low hills sloped to this spot and made
a natural nest.  Black Tor and Harter ascended at hand, and on the
horizon northerly Princetown's stern church tower rose against the sky.
Beside the pool, wherein Meavy gathered again her scattered tresses, an
old ruin stood; and round about the dwelling-places of primaeval man
glimmered grey upon the heath.

David Bowden had chosen this spot for his home, and his reason was the
shattered miner's cottage of Tudor date that rose there.  Four-square,
crowned with heather and fretted with pennyworts and grasses,
stone-crop, grey lichens and sky-blue jasione, the old house stood.
Broken walls eight feet high surrounded it; an oven still gaped in one
angle, and the wide chimney-shaft now made a green twilight of dewy
ferns and mosses.  Bowden crept into the ruin and looked about him, as
he had already done many times before.  At his feet lay old moulds
hollowed out of the granite; and where molten tin once ran, now
glittered water caught from the last shower.

Since first he found the place, David, with his scanty gift of
imagination, had pictured a modern cottage rising on these venerable
foundations.  And soon the thing was actually to happen.  He knew that
the hearth whereon his feet now stood would presently glow again with
fires lighted by Margaret's hands; he thought of white wheaten loaves
baking in the oven; he almost smelt them; and he saw above this
loneliness the thin blue ringlets of peat smoke that soon would rise and
curl on the west wind's fingers and tell chance wanderers that a home
lay hidden by water's brink in the glen beneath. The place was very
sequestered, very remote from all other habitations; and he liked it the
better for that. Here was such privacy as the man desired.  Margaret
would do her shopping at Princetown; and since she knew scarcely anybody
there, the chances of gossip and vain conversation were small.  His
ambition was a life far from trivial social obligations and the talk of
idle tongues.  He desired opportunity to pursue success without
distractions and waste of time.  Whether this home might suit the
sociable Margaret, he did not pause to consider.  As for Rhoda, she
would certainly be of his mind.

The facts that most impressed Bowden at the moment were certain loads of
lime and sand, together with granite boulders, water-worn, from the
stream bed close at hand.  Materials for his house were already
collected and the building of it was to begin during the following week.
It would need five or six months to finish, and Bowden proposed to be
married and settled in his future home before another Christmas came.

While he sat here now, slowly, stolidly planning the future and waiting
for Margaret to meet him, certain black-faced, horned sheep approached,
drew up at a safe distance and lifted their yellow eyes to him
inquiringly.  David returned their regard with interest, for they were
his own.

Presently came Margaret and he kissed her, then pointed with
satisfaction to the preparations.

"They've kept their word, you see.  Next week our house is to be
started.  There's a good bit of pulling down to do first, however.  And
Sir Guy have given way about that ruined spot t'other side the stream.
It's going to be built again for a lew place for stock; and I'm to pay
two pound a year more rent."

"'Twill be good for the kennel," said Madge. "Rhoda tells me as you'll
have five or six dogs at the least for her to watch over, not counting
'Silky' here."

'Silky' had grown from puppyhood into adolescence. He was now a
beautiful but a spoiled spaniel, who never wandered far from his
mistress.

Bowden looked down and shook his head at 'Silky,' where he sat with his
nose between his fore-paws at Margaret's feet.

"A good dog ruined," he said.  "If you was to do the proper thing, you'd
let me shoot it.  'Twill never be any manner of use here."

"He'll be of use to me, David.  I should miss him cruel now."

"God send you don't bring up the childer so, when they come, Madge."

"No childer of yours will ever be spoilt," she said.

"I hope not.  And I hope they don't prove of wayward nature; for that
sort's a thorn in the parent's side.  Take Dorcas now--so different to
the rest of us as you can think.  Light-minded and a chatterer--colour
and mind both different.  I hope as I'll never have a red child, Madge."

"I'm very fond of Dorcas.  She's the happiest of you all,
anyway--light-minded or not.  Only her father sees her good points.  I
don't think, David, that you rate her high enough."

"I know her very well--light-minded and a laugher," he repeated.  "And
now there's that insolent chap, Screech, after her; and he had the cheek
to talk to faither and mother about it, and offer to take her--a
beggarly man, with none to say a good word for him--a man that have
lived on his widowed mother all his days, and haven't even got regular
work, but picks up an uneven living where he can."

"What did your father answer?"

"Sent him away with a flea in his ear!  There was a few high words, and
then I seed my gentleman marching off across Ringmoor, and Dorcas with
her apron to her eyes.  'Better bide single all your days than marry an
out-at-elbows good-for-nought like that,' I told her; but, of course,
she knowed better, and said he was all he should be, and that her life
would be gall and wormwood without him."

"Your father's not one to be flouted."

"He is not; and Dorcas knows it very well.  Us shan't hear no more about
the chap."

"She'll tell me, however."

"Mind you speak sense to her then, Madge.  Don't go pitying her.  You're
too prone to pity every mortal thing that's in trouble, or thinks it is.
You know as well as any one that Billy Screech is a bad and lazy man.
You know that he's not built to make any female a good husband.
Therefore tell her so."

"I hope she'll soon find a better to make her forget him."

"I hope she won't then.  She've got Sophia's poor luck before her eyes.
Better for a woman not to wed at all than wreck her life in it.  Dorcas
is better at home in my judgment.  Nought but a tramp would fancy such a
homely creature as her."

"You're wrong there, David.  A girl's face isn't everything.  But no
brother ever yet knew what his sisters were worth."

"'Tis you who are wrong to say that," answered David.  "I know their
virtues very well.  Sophia was far too good for her husband, and
Rhoda--well, never was a better than her--a marvel of a woman."

"She is--yet the men keep off.  But her heart's so warm and soft as any
woman's, I daresay."

"Men generally want something less fine and high-minded," said David.
"Something weaker and wilfuller than Rhoda.  They are frighted of her.
She makes 'em see how small they are, if you can understand that."

"She does.  So strong and fearless.  Looks through men and women with
those eyes of hers.  Yet you wouldn't have her bide a maiden into old
age surely, David?  There's men good enough--even for Rhoda."

Not a spark of spite marked the speech, and Madge only meant what she
said.

"We must find her a husband, David!"

He shook his head doubtfully.

"A kicklish business.  She's not the sort to let others do that work for
her.  She've got no use for a man in my opinion.  There's only one male
as ever I saw her eye follow for a yard, and that, if you please, be the
leat-keeper, Simon Snell."

Madge laughed.

"Poor Mr. Snell!  I can't picture him ever daring to lift his eyes to
Rhoda."

"No more can't I," agreed David.  "And don't you breathe what I've told
you to Rhoda, for I may be wrong, and, right or wrong, she'd never
forgive even me for saying it.  She'll be happy enough here with us, and
if a husband comes--come he will.  But I don't want him to come in a
hurry."

"Such a lover of the night as she is!" declared Margaret.  "Never was a
stranger girl in some ways, I think--to say it lovingly.  Give her a dog
or two and nightfall, and off she'll tramp to meet the moonrise.
Whatever do she do out in the dark, David?"

"Blest if I can answer that.  She've got her secrets--like everything
else that goeth in petticoats, no doubt. But few enough secrets from my
ear, I reckon.  'Twas always a great desire in her to be out by night,
and more'n once faither whipped her, when she was a dinky little maid,
because she would go straying in the warrens when she ought to have been
in bed, and fright her mother nigh to death.  I've axed her many a time
about it, but she can't or won't offer reasons.  It pleases her to see
the night creatures at their work, I suppose. She'll tell you things
that might much surprise you about the ways of the night, and what
happens under it."

"She likes the moon better than the sun, I believe. Sometimes I'm
tempted to think her blood's cold instead of hot, David."

"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen her kiss my smashed face after the
fight last winter;--no, nor heard her when she spoke of Bartley Crocker
kissing hers."

"I believe Bartley would marry her joyfully," said Margaret; but David
doubted it.

"Not him--not after what she said to him in the Pixies' House, and after
what I said to him in the bull-ring.  No man ever paid dearer for a kiss
than him, I reckon.  But very good friends now, thank God.  But my
brother-in-law--no.  He'll never come to be that.  He don't want Rhoda
and Rhoda don't want him."

"He told me that well he knew he'd have beat you, if Rhoda had been o'
his side."

"I daresay that's true."

They sat together in the theatre of their future life, and Madge brushed
David's hair away from his right ear.  The organ was slightly larger
than the other and she shook her head discontentedly.

"'Twill never be just so beautiful as the left one," she said.

He laughed.

"What do it matter so long as I can hear with it?"

"And your dear eyelid will droop for ever."

"Yes, but the eye behind be all right.  Bartley's got his mark
too--where I hit him that last time."

"He's coming up one evening to see this place.  Not but he knows it well
enough already.  He told me that the valley under Harter up along and
beyond be nearly always good for a snipe at the season of the year."

"A pity he don't come and lend a hand here, if 'twas only mixing mortar.
'Twould be something for him to do.  How any living being can waste his
life like that man is a mystery and a shame."

"Always happy too," said Madge.  "He've got a very kind heart, David."

"I know that--else he'd have licked me instead of my licking him.  Don't
think I bear the man any ill-will--far from it.  We're real good friends
and he's very clever by nature.  I'm only sorry he can't find man's
work.  He've larned a trade now, then why don't he use it?"

The conversation shifted to their house presently and Madge declared her
longing to see it grow.

"And what be us to call the place?" she asked.

"I thought of 'Black Tor Cottage,'" he said, "since Black Tor's just
above us."

But Madge little liked the name.

"'Black' ban't a comely word for a home," she said. "Think again,
David."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"'Tis only the name of the tor," he answered; "black or white be no more
than words."

"Call it 'Meavy Cot,'" she said.  "'Tis an easy name for folks to bring
to mind, and I'd sooner my home was called after the river than they
great stones up over, though I daresay I'll get very fond of them too."

"So be it," he answered.  "'Meavy Cot' is the name! and I hope that a
good few prosperous years be waiting for us in it.  But if ever I come
to be Moorman of this quarter, I might have to leave it."

"You'll do greater things than that some day, David."

"I hope I shall," he answered; "but to be Moorman is a very good
stepping-stone, mark you."




                              *CHAPTER II*

                          *BARTLEY DOUBTFUL.*


A great drake waddled out from the yard of Mrs. Crocker's dwelling, and
some white ducks followed him.  The male bird was grey, but his head
shone with the rich black-green of the fir trees behind him on the hill
and the light of these metallic and glittering feathers made a fine
setting for his brown eyes.  He marched to the stream, put down his bill
and tasted the water; he then threw up his bill again, quacked an order
to set forth, and so floated away with the current, while his household
followed after.  Under the little bridge they went, and the drake,
screwing round his head, cast an upward glance at the parapet as he
passed by. There he might have marked a familiar figure, for Bartley
Crocker, with his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth, sat
and talked to a woman who stood beside him.  Their position was public,
but the subject of their discourse might have been considered
confidential.  For the woman the revelation he now made opened a
desirable possibility.  The man spoke half in jest, yet it seemed clear
that he found himself perfectly serious and meant all that he said on
the main question.

"Set down your basket, Madge, and listen.  I'll carry it along for you
presently; but I can't talk and walk together--not when the subject is
so large.  Where are you going?"

"Over to they old Elfords down at Good-a-Meavy. They be terrible poor,
you know, and he's fallen ill and the pair of 'em was pretty near
starving last week. One of the Bowden boys--Wellington, I think it
was--called there, and he told his father; and of course the matter was
looked to.  I'm just taking them a thing or two, till the old man can
get out again."

"'Tis only putting off the workhouse."

"Maybe--yet a good thing to put it off.  They'll be too old to smart
soon; and then it won't matter."

"How's Rhoda Bowden?" he asked suddenly.

"Very well, so far as I know."

"I've hardly seen a wink of her since I came back. Yet somehow, Madge, I
find her terrible interesting."

"She's a fine character, Bartley."

"Well, when I went up to Barnstaple for three months after the fight, I
did two things: I learned a trade, as you know, and I thought a lot off
and on of Rhoda Bowden."

"Yes."

"'Tis something to be anything at all.  Now, if anybody asks what I am,
I can say I am an upholsterer. My uncle was well pleased for me to learn
the business, and a very nice girl helped me how to do it.  But,
somehow, while I looked at her clever hands I thought of Rhoda Bowden."

"You ought to tell Rhoda, then--not me."

"Why should I?  It's all ridiculous nonsense, of course; but you see I
can't forget the peculiar way we were flung together.  If you'd seen her
after I kissed her!  A princess couldn't have raged worse.  Then--at the
fight--time and again I tried to catch her eye; but never once she
looked at me--always busy with David.  Did you hear that she came down
two nights after, all by herself, through the snow, to ask my mother how
I was faring?"

"No!"

"She did; but nobody ever heard it--not even David, I believe.  She told
my mother not to mention it; and mother began to give her a piece of her
mind; but she didn't wait for that."

"'Tis just like her.  Something got hold of her to do it, no doubt,
while she was walking through the night.  She feels kindly to all sorts
of dumb things; but she don't often show any interest in humans--except
David, of course."

"If I was a dog now, she and me would be very good friends--eh?"

"Not a doubt of it.  Anyway this is terrible interesting to me,
Bartley--for more reasons than you'd guess.  David and I were telling
together only a week agone.  I said that when we were married, we must
set to and find Rhoda a husband; but David felt a bit doubtful about
it."

"Well he may be!"

"You think that too?"

"I'm going to scrape acquaintance with her when you're married.  Mind I
don't say 'twill go very far. I'm a bit frightened of her yet, and
'twouldn't be very clever to offer marriage to a female that makes you
feel frightened.  But a man must get a wife some day or other, I
suppose, and my mother's at me morning, noon and night to find one."

"You do tell me wonderful things!"

"But for the Lord's sake keep 'em dark.  I can trust you--and only you.
You've been a rare brick where I was concerned all your life, and 'tis
very hard we couldn't have been married, as I shall always think whoever
takes me.  Still, you'll have to go on wishing me well."

"Yes, indeed."

"Say no more about it then.  'Tis only a moonshiney fancy at best, and
very like I'd hate the woman if I knew her better--hate her as much as
she does me. You know what a fool I am about 'em.  I always see her
sponging the blood off David's face and always catch myself wishing
she'd been doing the same for mine.  But I should have felt the same
silly wish about any girl, no doubt."

"There's not another girl that ever I heard about would have done it."

"I know--and I ask myself if that's to praise her or to blame her.  To
hear my mother--"

"Better hear David.  She didn't do it for fun, I can tell you.  Not to
me--not to no woman--did she ever tell what she felt afterwards; but she
did tell David; and he says that she didn't know where she was for the
first four rounds, and that once or twice after, when it looked like
David being beat, that 'twas all she could do by sticking her nails into
herself to keep herself from dashing out to help David against you."

Bartley nodded admiringly.

"I believe it," he said.  "I saw it in her face."

"And now I must get on," declared Madge.  "Can't waste no more time
along with you to-day."

"I'll walk up over then and carry your basket," he answered.  "When are
you going to be married?"

"Not till the house is ready.  They've started. There's a lot of the old
building will work very suent into our new cottage."

"Yes," he said.  "I was over there watching 'em at it yesterday evening.
And d'you know what I was wondering?--What I should give you and David
for a wedding present."

"No need, I'm sure."

"Every need.  You'm like your mother.  You'd give your head away if you
could; yet when people think to do you a turn, you always cry out
against it. 'Twill be a joy to many more people than your humble
thoughts will guess, to bring something to help you set up house."

"It 'mazes me, the kindness of the world."

"It might--if the world followed your example.  'Tis your due, and it
oughtn't to 'maze you.  'Twould be funny if anybody could be unkind to
you."

"'Tis all very hopeful and beautiful, I'm sure--yet here and there I
feel a doubt.  Wouldn't name it to none but you; but mother don't seem
at all hopeful--"

"Don't let her fret you," urged Mr. Crocker.  "I beg you won't do that,
Madge.  There's not a kinder, humbler-hearted woman on the Moor than
Mrs. Stanbury; but she's far too superstitious and given to the old
stories--you know it."

Margaret looked troubled.  These folk belonged to a time when still a
few fine spirits from the middle place between man and angel haunted
Dartmoor.  The pixies were yet whispered of as frequenting this farmer's
threshing-floor, or that housewife's dairy; the witch hare leapt from
her lonely form; herbs and simples in wise hands acted for potions of
might; and the little heath hounds were well known to hunt the Evil One
through the darkness of winter nights and along the pathway of the
storm.  The toad still held a secret in its head; the tarn, in its
heart; rivers hungered for their annual banquet of human life; the
corpse candle burned in lonely churchyards; charms were whispered over
sick children and sick beasts; the evil eye still shone malignant; the
murmur of the mine goblins was often heard by the workers underground.

But the time of these mysteries has quite passed by. Back to the opal
and ivory dream-palaces of fairy-land, back to the shores of old
romance, have Dartmoor's legendary spirits vanished; they are as dead as
the folk whose ruined homes still glimmer grey on twilight heaths at
sunset and at dawn.  Knowledge has stricken our traditions hip and
thigh; our lore is obsolete; and our Moor children of to-day, as they
pass through the stages of learning's dawn, see only an unlikeness to
truth that stamps the faces of these far-off things.  Yet who shall say
that knowledge and wisdom are one?  Who shall deny that not seldom the
story loved in life's dawn-light and rejected at noon, is welcomed again
and only understood when evening shadows fall?

Mrs. Stanbury was saturated with the ancient myths, and they brought her
more sorrow than joy.

"I could wish that dear mother didn't believe so many things," admitted
Margaret.  "But there it is--father haven't changed her in all these
years, so it isn't likely that ever he will.  She was full of Crazywell
Pool only yesterday.  You know it--a wisht place, sure enough, and it
tells about nothing but death and such-like dismal matters.  But if you
was to say to her 'twas all nonsense--not that I would go so far as that
myself--she'd answer that you was courting your undoing and would surely
come to harm."

"I know she would and you yourself are as bad, pretty near."

"Crazywell is harmless enough every night but Christmas Eve," explained
Margaret.  "Only then can you say that there's aught out of the common
hidden in the water.  But then--well, you know what they say."

"Stuff and nonsense!  Your mother believes that you hear a voice there
after dark on Christmas Eve; and that it calls out the names of them
that'll die afore another year's out.  What can be sillier than that?"

"Strange things have happened, all the same," argued Margaret.  "I don't
say I trust in all that dear mother does, though she can give chapter
and verse for most of it; but Crazywell have spoken out the death year
of more men than one.  Why, only ten year agone you know how Joseph
Westaway, being over-got by the fog, was along there on Christmas Eve
and heard an awful voice saying, 'Nathan Snell!  Nathan Snell!'  And
didn't Nathan Snell--Mr. Simon Snell's own father--actually die the
March afterwards, of a kick from his horse?  You can't deny that,
Bartley, because Joseph Westaway heard it with his own ears--him being
on the way to eat his Christmas dinner at Kingsett Farm, with the
Pierces, and not so much as market merry."

"You're as bad as your mother, Madge, and worse than Bart.  You'll
believe in the pixies next, I doubt. But there's one thing I do say
where Mrs. Stanbury's right, though I can't be supposed to know much
about such matters--a bachelor man like me.  Your mother told mine how
'twas arranged that Rhoda joins you and David at 'Meavy Cot' after you'm
married; and Mrs. Stanbury said that somehow, though far be it from her
to set her opinion over other people, she couldn't think 'twas a wise
plan; and my mother who never beats about no bush, and always sets up
her opinion over everybody, said for her part 'twas flat foolishness,
not to say madness, and would end in a rumpus.  What d'you think of
that?"

"'Tis taken out of my hands, Bartley.  I wasn't asked--no more was
mother.  Some might think that it wouldn't suit Rhoda--living along with
a young married couple; but I know, and you know, what Rhoda is to
David.  'Tisn't a common friendship of brother and sister, but a lot
more than that.  She'd be lost at the Warren House without him."

"But surely the man doesn't want her now that he's going to take a
wife?"

"Yes, he does--to look after his dogs."

"Can't you look after his dogs?"

"No," said Margaret, firmly, "I can't.  I don't treat dogs right.  I
spoil 'em."

"Well, if the three of you are of one mind, I can't see that it's any
other body's business.  Here's the top of the hill, and I can't go no
farther, though I'd like to."

He put down her basket, and she thanked him for carrying it.

"And what you say is true, I'm sure! if we three--Rhoda and David and
me--be well pleased at the thought of biding together, why shouldn't we
do so?"

"Of course.  You can but try it.  Perhaps she'll marry afore long, and
you'll have the dogs on your hands yet afore you expect it."

"I'm sure I hope--at least--good-bye, for the present," said Margaret,
and hurried off.

"Ah! she told the truth then!" thought the man; "told the naked truth
and caught herself up too late! 'I'm sure I hope she will go,' was what
her heart prompted her to say.  Maybe 'twill be my luck to cut the knot.
Anyhow, as a full-blown upholsterer equal to making two pound a week at
any time, I've a right to cast my eye where I please.  Funny 'twould be
if I should ever kiss Rhoda Bowden again.  But 'twill be 'by your leave'
next time, I reckon, if ever that happens."




                             *CHAPTER III*

                             *PREPARATIONS*


To Margaret Stanbury belonged the mind that suffers sadness at the
return of autumn; and even with this autumn, which was to see her marry
the man she loved, her usual emotions wakened as the light again faded
out of the ling; as the brake-fern once more flashed its first auburn
signal from the hills; as the lamp of the autumnal furze went out and
left the Moor darkling.  Grey rain swept the desert and the fog-banks
gathered together in high places.  Sheep's Tor's crown and the ragged
scarps of Lether Tor were alike hidden for many days.  Winter returned
with the careless step of a conqueror.  Now he delayed for a little,
while belated flowers bloomed hastily and ephemeral things, leaping into
life, hurried through their brief hours during some golden interval of
sunlight and warmth; but the inevitable came nearer as surely as the
days grew short and the nights long, as surely as the sun's chariot
flamed on a narrower path and the way of the moon ascended into higher
heaven.

The wedding day was fixed; the cottage under Black Tor was finished, and
David laboured there to fence the scrap of reclaimed ground and make all
sightly and pleasant for his bride when she should come.  And now, while
yet six weeks of maidenhood remained to her, Madge set off one day to
visit Warren House upon various errands.  Work was in full swing again
at Ditsworthy and David laboured with the rest for his father.  The
mother of the household viewed this pending great exodus of a daughter
and a son with tearful mind, only soothed by thoughts of the increased
convenience when David and Rhoda should be gone; but as for the rest,
none regarded the incident from a standpoint sentimental.

Now Margaret on her way fell in with Mr. Shillabeer, gun in hand, and
she expressed gladness at the sight of him taking his pleasure.  For
Reuben Shillabeer by force of accident has until the present appeared in
a light unusual and exceptional.  The prize-fight and all that went
before it created an atmosphere wherein the master of 'The Corner House'
appeared translated from his true self.  During that time he responded a
little to the joy of life and went about his business a cheerful and
even a sanguine soul; but with the decision of the contest and the
departure of Mr. Fogo to his metropolitan activities, Shillabeer found
life an anti-climax, the darker for this fleeting spasm of excitement.
His wife, as if in reproach, returned upon him with the force of an
incubus that haunted not only his pillow but hung heavy on his waking
hours; a settled melancholy, the more marked after its recent
dissipation, got hold upon him; he exhaled an air of depression even
behind his own bar, and only the high qualities and specific vigour of
his malt liquors were able to dispel it. The 'Dumpling' became
increasingly religious and Mr. Merle had long since forgiven his
lamentable lapse of the previous winter.  Mr. Shillabeer was actually
now engaged on behalf of the vicar of the parish, as he explained to
Margaret.

"Come Woodcock Sunday, 'tis always my hope and will to get the bird for
parson," he said.  "He do read the chapter with special purpose to catch
my ear; and so sure as it comes, I fetch out my gun and set forth for
the man.  But what with my failing strength and sight, I can't shoot a
cunning creature like a cock many more years.  I'm going down under
Coombeshead to-day and I shall call on your mother come the evening for
a cup of tea and a talk about the revel.  Since the wedding feast is put
into my hands, I shall do my duty, though I may tell you that a wedding
in the air cuts me to the quick.  It brings her back as nothing else
does."

"I'm sorry for that--truly sorry."

"You can't help it," he said, rubbing the walnut stock of his gun with
his sleeve until it shone.  "Ban't your fault.  But a oner for weddings
she was--a regular oner for 'em; and a christening would draw her miles
despite the girth of her frame.  'Tis only at the business of a funeral
I can comfort myself with an easy and cheerful spirit; for she hated
them.  No doubt she knowed her own would come untimely."

"Perhaps 'twas an instinct in her against 'em."

"Though never a woman hastened to dry other people's tears quicker than
her.  Then 'churchings'--she never had no use for them herself, yet
she'd often stop for the pleasure of:--'Like as the arrows in the hand
of the giant; even so are the young children.'  And so on.  Nought's
sadder than to see a childless wife, in my opinion--specially if she's
fond of 'em.  I hope you'll have a sackful, my dear."

"It's very kind of you--very kind," said Margaret, frankly.  "David and
me dearly love the little ones."

"As you should do.  I've often thought if that blessed angel had given
me a pledge, that I could have better stood up afore the trials of life.
But there's only the Lord for me in this world now.  True, Mr. Fogo
talks of coming to see me again some day; but I don't suppose he will.
What can the likes of me do for the likes of such a man as him?
Besides, parson would never forgive me if I had him here again."

He wandered off, and Margaret, who instantly reflected the tone of other
minds with the swiftness common to sympathetic and not very intelligent
people, went saddened on her way.  Some light expired out of the earth
and sky for her.  She could not use reason and remember that Mr.
Shillabeer was--in a word--Mr. Shillabeer.  She merely felt that she had
met and touched hearts with an unhappy old man.  Therefore herself
instantly grew a little unhappy and a little older. Chance objects, as
they will at such times, intruded and carried on the dominant mood.  A
thing beside her path chimed with Madge's emotion and lifted itself as a
mournful mark and reminder by the way.  Among reddening banks of bracken
that spread in a tangle above a little hollow, where scarlet and purple
of the bramble fluttered, and sloes took the hue of ripeness, there
thrust up an object, livid and gigantic.  It resembled some monstrous
kindred of the fern that had taken root and risen here.  But this
bleached frond, so regular and perfect in its graduated symmetry of
structure, had once supported an animal, not a vegetable organism.
Margaret saw the backbone and ribs of a horse scoured into spotless
whiteness by carrion crow, by frost, by rain; and the spectacle added
another shade of darkness to her mind.  She thought upon it a little
while; then there came in sight part of the population of Warren House,
and the twins, Samson and Richard, succeeded in lifting their future
sister-in-law's spirits nearer to gaiety.  The children were sailing
boats in a pond, but they abandoned the sport at sight of Margaret,
because they had secrets for her.

"You'll promise faithful not to tell, won't 'e?" asked Richard.

"If you don't promise, us won't tell 'e," said Samson.

"'Tis the present us have got against David's wedding-day," said
Richard.

"But you must say 'strike me dead if I'll tell,'" added Samson.

"Mother gived us sixpence to buy it with, and Joshua got it last time he
was to Tavistock," explained Richard; "but 'tis our present, mind."

"You ought to give us something if we tell you," suggested Samson; but
Madge shook her head.

"I shall know soon enough," she answered.

"That you won't, then," replied Samson.  "You won't know for six weeks."

"You might try to guess and give us a ha'penny each time you lose,"
suggested Richard.

"Yes, you might," declared Samson.

They walked beside her and, since nothing was to be made out of the
secret, presently told Madge that their gift was a shaving-brush.

"And Napoleon and Wellington have given him a razor," said Richard; "so
now he's all right."

"Yes," continued Samson, "and Nap was showing us how a razor cuts hairs
in half, and he missed the hair and showed us how a razor cuts thumbs."

"My word--bled like a pig, he did," concluded Richard.  "I'm sure I
never won't use such a thing when I grow to be hairy.  Much too 'feared
of 'em."

"You mind when I'm married to David that you often come over and see me,
Dicky; and you too, Sam," said Margaret.

"If one comes, t'other will come," said Samson.

"Us hunt in couples, faither says--like to foxes," declared Richard.
"And we'll often come to tea."

"And oftener still if there's jam--not beastly blackberry jam, mind you,
but proper boughten jam from a grocer's."

"I'll remember," promised Madge.

They reached the Warren House after some further bargaining on the part
of Samson and promising from Margaret.  Then the twins returned to their
boats and she entered her lover's home.

David was at work, as the girl knew, but her business lay with Mrs.
Bowden, and it happened that Elias himself was also within to welcome
her.  Both kissed Margaret and both declared their good pleasure at
sight of her.  She had already become a great happiness to them, and
Elias did not hesitate openly to declare that his firstborn was luckier
than even he deserved to be.

"'Tis about the Crockers I'm here," said Madge. "Mother, and father too,
be wishful for them to be axed; but of course nothing in the world would
be done by mother that could hurt your feelings.--Too tender herself for
that.  So I was to find out if you were for it or against it; and I was
to learn if there was any other folk as you'd like specially invited
that we mightn't hap to know."

"There's four or five must be there," said Mrs. Bowden. "God knows I
don't want 'em; but even at a wedding it ban't all joy, and people often
have to be axed for the sake of the unborn, though not for their own
sakes by any means."

"I met with the 'Dumpling' up over a bit ago," said Mr. Bowden.  "Going
shooting he was--might have been going to shoot hisself from the look of
him; for a mournfuller man never throwed a shadow.  But we had a tell,
and I hear as Bartholomew Stanbury means to give a handsome party."

Margaret smiled.

"So he does then.  'Tis wonnerful how father's coming out.  Of course
the farm's too small and too far off from the neighbours; but Mr. Moses
has very kindly given us the loan of his shop nigh the church--the big
room."

"'Twill smell of cobbler's wax, but that will be forgotten when
Shillabeer takes the covers off," declared Mr. Bowden.  "As for him, I
could find it in my heart to wish he wasn't going to be there at all,
for 'twill remind him of his wife and cast him down till he'll blubber
into the plates, but of course he must be on the spot as he provides the
dinner.  And Charles Moses must be asked, if he's going to lend his big
room, though, to be honest, I never liked the man since he made all that
fuss about the fight.  Pious it may have been, but godly it weren't, for
fighting be the backbone of human nature, and you'll find that the
Lord's chosen hadn't got far before He set 'em at it, hammer and tongs."

"But about the Crockers," said Margaret; "and if I may say so, I hope
there's no objection, for David and Bartley be very good friends now,
and I'm sure Bartley's terrible sorry he so far forgot hisself as to
kiss Rhoda."

"He can come and kiss her again for all I care," replied Elias.  "All
the nation may be at the wedding and welcome.  There's only one living
man won't be there if I'm anybody.  But Crocker's welcome, and his
managing mother, and his Aunt Susan also."

"I don't like Nanny Crocker myself," confessed Mrs. Bowden.  "She's a
thought too swallowed up in vain-glory and seems to think that her
family be something special and above common earth.  But I had the best
of her in argument when my twins was born, and I can afford to be
large-minded.  As for Susan, there's plenty of sense in her, only she
don't dare to show it."

"Bartley's learnt upholstering," said Madge.  "He could earn two pound a
week in the world now at any time, and he's going to look out for a
wife."

"All to the good and all sound sense," replied the warrener.  "Well, us
had better ask him to tea.  Here's plenty here for all markets--our
Sophia, with all the larning of a widow and youth still on her side, and
our Rhoda--though 'twill have to be a frosty pattern of man to take her
fancy, and our Dorcas--not much to look at, but very anxious to get
married seemingly."

"'Tis Screech--that bowldacious ragamuffin!" burst out Mrs. Bowden.  "To
think such a man should dare to offer for any daughter of mine.  A
poaching, ragged rascal--more like one of they tramps than a respectable
man.  Faither's going to lay his horsewhip round the fellow's shoulders
if he comes up here again--ban't you, faither?"

"Yes," said Elias, "I am.  And don't you ask him to the wedding,
Margaret, because I wouldn't have it."

Margaret was true to herself.

"Poor chap," she said.  "I'm very sorry he can't have Dorcas, but of
course you know best.  Perhaps he'll mend some day."

"That sort don't mend.  But they've a terrible power to mar--like one
rotten apple will soon spoil a bushel.  And if Dorcas grumbles to you
about it, as she will, because you're the sort that hears all the
trouble of the world, then you mind and talk sense to her.  I'm a
reasonable man and I wouldn't say 'no' to a hedge-tacker so long as he's
honest; but William Screech don't have no child of mine."

The subject changed and Sarah spoke of all that David's departure meant
to her.

"Can't see the place without him for tears," she said. "'Tis weak, but
they will flow every time I say to myself 'one day less.'  You see, it
ban't as if we was all here, then I'd say nought.  But Sophia, though
she went, was soon back again; and let faither say what he pleases about
Joshua, Joshua can't stand to work day and night like David, and Dorcas
won't look after the dogs like Rhoda.  'Tis a great upheaval, look at it
which way you will.  If my son Drake had only been spared, of course all
things would have fallen out differently."

"Yes," admitted Elias; "and if the moon had only been made of green
cheese--us should always have had plenty of maggots for fishing."

Upon this great aphorism Margaret Stanbury took her leave; and Dorcas,
who had been waiting for her, now approached in a mood neither lightsome
nor joyous.

"I've got the headache," she said.  "I've been crying my eyes out for a
fortnight and I wish I was dead."

"Dorcas!"

"'Tis all along of Billy Screech--cruel and wicked I call it.  But us
will be upsides with father and mother yet.  Why for shouldn't I marry
the man if I love him? Such a clever man as he is--full of ideas and
quite as able to make a living, I'm sure, as anybody else.  And I want
for your mother to ax him to the wedding, Madge--just to pay father out.
If he sees Billy there his pleasure will be spoilt--and sarve him
right--the cruel old man!"

"Don't feel so savage about it.  Bide your time and tell Billy to stand
to work and get regular wages and make Mr. Bowden respect him.  I've
often heard Bart say that Mr. Screech is wonnerful clever in all sorts
of queer ways, and 'tis only the poaching makes your father angry, I
expect."

"He's given all that up long ago.  Will you ax him to your wedding?"

"I can't, Dorcas.  Mr. Bowden has just expressly forbidden it.  I'm
very, very sorry.  Perhaps after I'm married I shall be able to help
you; but it rests with Billy."

"I'll marry him," said Dorcas.  "And not a thousand fathers shall stop
it; and I'll tell you another thing: it won't be long afore I do.  Just
you wait and see."




                              *CHAPTER IV*

                             *THE WEDDING*


"'Tis the difference in our natures," said David Bowden's mother.  "Some
folk haven't never ended their work, and some don't never begin theirs.
I've known men and women--as thought they were busy people too--who died
without ever tasting what I call a day's work."

Sarah walked between Nanny Crocker and Constance Stanbury, and the
matrons on her right and left admitted the truth of the remark.  They
had all come from church; they had seen David and Margaret made man and
wife; and it was during a brief review of the immediate past and its
arduous duties that Mrs. Bowden uttered her philosophical observation.

"And rabbits going on all the time, mind you," she added.  "Come what
may, in season, year in, year out, Sundays only excepted, the rabbits
goes over all--even a son's wedding.  'Tis the ordering of nature and
we've got to bend under it."

"A very tidy little wedding," said Mrs. Crocker, who had pardoned all
parties on hearing that her son was to be best man.  David owned no
close intimate of his sex, and since he and Bartley were now become
excellent friends, he thought upon this idea and his old antagonist
agreed to the proposal.  For Nanny's son could feel, but not deeply.
The past was past, and its disappointments had left no heavier scar on
his mind than David's fist upon his face.  He could view the prospect of
being best man at Margaret's wedding without disturbing emotions, and he
accepted the invitation gladly. True he wished once to marry her and
would have been proud to do so; but when she chose elsewhere, his desire
towards her perished.  Other interests had taken its place, and he found
himself well able to enjoy the friendship of David and Margaret without
any tinge of bitterness even when the past filled his mind.  It seldom
intruded, for he was of the sort who lack much instinct of retrospection
and, childlike, trust all their future happiness on the hope and promise
of great to-morrows.

"A very tidy little wedding," repeated Mrs. Crocker, as though uttering
a challenge.  The mothers of the bride and bridegroom had waited each
for the other to speak upon the first utterance of this graceful
compliment; but now Mrs. Stanbury responded.

"Thank you for that kind word, I'm sure," she said. "Coming from you it
will be a delight to all the parties to hear it, and I know Madge will
be proud when I tell her.  We was up altering her dress till the small
hours, and it didn't fit to the last.  No doubt you noted that ruckle
right across the back of her stays, especially when she knelt down.  But
I hope you won't blame us. We did our best."

"A thing like that is of small account," declared Mrs. Crocker
graciously.  "Lord! how they'm ringing the heart out of the bells, to be
sure.  They never peal like that o' Sundays."

Mr. Moses approached and shook hands with each of the women in turn.

"No," he said; "the fellows be ringing for the best beloved young woman
in the countryside to-day; that's why you hear what you do in the bells,
my dears.  Of a Sunday they'm ringing to worship and the glory of the
Lord, all steady and solemn.  'Twouldn't be respectful to the Throne of
Grace to peal so free as that."

Then he became personal.

"When I seed you three ladies come through the coffin gate, 'My stars,'
I said, 'there's a bit of summer flower garden come back into winter!'
'Twas your bonnets, you must know.  Such flowers I never did see out of
nature, or in it for that matter.  And in church--when the sun comed
through Christ washing the Apostles' feet--as it do about mid-day at
this season, and fell on your bonnet, Mrs. Crocker, 'twas as though a
dazzling rainbow had broke loose in the holy place."

Mr. Bowden joined them and whispered to his wife. He was clad in Sunday
black, but, to mark the great occasion, wore a blue-green tie with an
old-fashioned garnet breastpin and chain in it.

"Did you see that scamp, Billy Screech, in church?" he asked.

"No," she answered; "but 'tis a free country: us couldn't forbid him to
come there."

Rhoda, the widowed Sophia in a sentimental spirit, and Dorcas followed
together.  All were clad in new finery and all were quite silent.  Mr.
Hartley Crocker approached them and took off his hat.  He remarked their
moods and observed that Rhoda only was cheerful. She looked superb, he
thought, in her purple cloth dress and little hat of squirrel fur.

"Cheer me up," he said.  "I've got to propose the bride and bridegroom
after the wedding, and I'm horribly frighted to have to do it.  I'd
almost sooner be fighting again, Miss Rhoda."

"I doubt you'll come well out of it," she said

"Did I hand David the ring all right?"

"I suppose so.  The ring's in its proper place now--that's all that
matters."

She was indifferent, but not absolutely cold.  She had, he thought,
forgiven him, and that made the day pleasant to him.  It was the first
time since the tragic moment at the Pixies' House that she had directly
spoken to Mr. Crocker; and the sound of her voice, though not very
mellow, yet gave him the greatest satisfaction.

"Did you take the best man's kiss when you was in the vestry?" asked
Dorcas.

The interrogation was far from being a happy one; yet Bartley made a
masterly answer, intended for other ears than those of the questioner.
As a matter of fact, he had forgotten the immemorial privilege or most
certainly he had exercised it.  But now he was glad that he had
forgotten.

"No," he answered.  "There's a lot of silly old customs better left out,
Miss Dorcas.  'Tis not a comely thing for any male to kiss a bride but
her father or her husband."

This virtuous sentiment was directed at Rhoda, but she made no sign save
a perceptible pursing of her lips.

Then the party, led by bride and bridegroom, passed through rows of the
folk and swiftly reached the workshop of Mr. Moses near the bull-ring.
It had been cleared for the occasion, and certain busy, kindly spirits
had decorated it and concealed its somewhat naked and austere
proportions with garlands of holly and laurel and trophies of 
tissue paper.  The place smelt of leather and cobbler's wax; but, as Mr.
Bowden had prophesied in the past, these harmless odours vanished when
the meal began.

Thirty people sat down to dinner, and Reuben Shillabeer, with his
immense back view presented to the company, carved at a side table.  To
the windows of the chamber small, inquisitive boys and girls succeeded
in climbing.  They pressed their noses and cheeks flat against the
glass, the better to see the glories within; and, thus distorted, their
small faces made an unlovely decoration.  From time to time Ernest
Maunder wiped his mouth, rose from his seat at the table near the
entrance, and drove the little ones away with vague threats familiar in
his calling; but they feared him not and all climbed up again when he
returned to his plate.

There were present the whole family of the Bowdens, the family of the
Stanburys and the family of the Crockers.  Mr. Moses occupied a seat
beside the bride's mother, and strove, without success, to rouse a
spirit of complacence and satisfaction in her; Mr. Timothy Mattacott, as
Mr. Maunder's friend, sat by Mr. Maunder; and he showed extreme
deference to everybody, because this was the greatest social experience
of his life; while as for Simon Snell, who had also been invited, his
beard shone with pomatum, and he experienced a real satisfaction in
finding himself exactly opposite Rhoda, and in regarding the meal that
she made and the two full glasses of beer that she drank with it.

"Will there or won't there be wine?" secretly asked Mrs. Crocker of Mr.
Moses.

"From the large way in which everything has been carried out so far, and
the loads of food over, I believe Bartholomew Stanbury has run to it,"
he murmured under his breath.

And he was right.

"Afore we come to the healths, I'll thank you to open they six bottles
of brown sherry wine, Reuben," cried out the giver of the feast in a
hearty voice, when the apple tarts and cream began to be eaten.

"Only got to say the word," responded Shillabeer.

"All's ready."

He was near Margaret as he spoke, and she put up her hand and stopped
him.

"And you've got to drink too, mind," she said. "You've done everything
as only you could do it.  I never did dream of such a wonderful dinner
in all my days; and to see all these beautiful wreaths and ribbons on
the ceiling!  I want to be thanking everybody.  'Tis almost too much
kindness."

"Never!" he answered.  "If I could put gold and diamonds in the food for
you, I would; and them as hung up the adornments never did a bit of work
with better appetite."

The wine was opened and poured into thirty glasses.

"There's only one health, or I should say two in one, to be drunk,"
explained Mr. Stanbury; "and Mr. Crocker here have kindly consented to
do the speechifying."

Mrs. Bowden, rather to her own surprise, grew lachrymose with the
dessert.  She cheered up, however, when Bartley rose to propose the
health of the bride and bridegroom.  To the habitually taciturn folk
about him, his flow of speech appeared astounding, and not a few agreed
that, though Crocker never did any work, yet his native talents were
extraordinary and might have led him to any height of achievement.

"Upon my word," admitted the bridegroom's father, "it can't be denied
that the chap--light-minded though he may be, here and there--has got
amazing gifts.  In fact, to be honest, he can turn his hand to
anything--larn a trade, fight a great fight and run into mouth-speech as
easy and flowing as a parson.  He's a wonder--though I say it to your
face, ma'am."

He made this handsome criticism to Bartley's mother, and she explained
how that Sheepstor as yet knew but a fraction of the truth concerning
her son. That the warrener spoke thus, however, largely warmed Nanny
Crocker's heart after her second glass of brown sherry; and she told
Susan later in the day that there was rather more in Elias Bowden than
met the eye.

Bartley received a cheer when he rose and a still louder round when he
sat down again.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I beg leave to ask you all to drink
long life and happiness to our friends David and Madge Bowden, who this
day have joined hands for holy matrimony.  I know 'em both and can give
them both a very good character, I assure you.  As for Madge, she's just
a warm, loving heart on two legs--all heart; and if you want to know
what she is, don't ask her, but ask the old people, and the terrible
poor people, and them that be badly off for food and friends.  They'll
tell you all about her.  But you prosperous people, all sitting around
here waiting to have a dash at your sherry--you don't know nothing about
her.  She's a good angel, that's what Madge Stanbury have been ever
since she could run to pick up some baby smaller than herself; and
that's what Madge Bowden will be to her dying day.  As for David here,
last time him and me met in company, he was the best man, I believe.  No
use for you to shake your head, David.  Bested I was; but to-day I'm the
best man and he've got to sing second.  And I tell him to his face that
he's a right down good chap, and every good man be proud to know him.
And, for my part, I think such a lot of David that I'd challenge him to
fight again this day three months, but that I very well know what Madge
would say about it.  Besides, there's one or two other people in the
world besides David to be thought upon, and, though I know 'twould cheer
Mr. Shillabeer up a lot if we could get Mr. Fogo down again and have
another fight, I'm afraid we're all too happy to want to go fighting;
and we can't all hope to have David's luck in the ring and out.  Well,
he had one brave, beautiful woman in his corner when he fought me; and
she helped him to beat me without a doubt; and now he has got another
brave, beautiful woman in his corner, and she'll help him to win
whatever battles he may have to fight. And here's good luck and long
life and happiness and content for them and God bless the pair of 'em
from this day for ever!"

Everybody rose, and David and Madge in their ignorance also rose, but
were thrust back into their seats again.  Immense applause welcomed
Bartley's great oratory, but for his part he kept his eyes on one face,
while he drank the health that he had proposed.  Rhoda, however, did not
return the gaze.  She had blushed faintly at the sudden allusion to
herself and the cheer from the men that punctuated it; but Bartley's
craft and rhetoric quite missed her.  The man seemed all of a piece to
her: facile, unstable, untrustworthy--and his compliments touched her
even less than he imagined. He had prejudiced himself in her eyes for
ever, and it remained to be seen whether his own skill and pertinacity
would prove strong enough to conquer and destroy that prejudice.  It was
true, as he had suspected earlier in the day, that her forgiveness was
real; but her attitude towards him had been radically changed, or rather
radically established, by his outrage.  Before the event she had
entertained no opinion, good or bad, concerning him.  She was henceforth
constitutionally unable to regard him as she regarded the bulk of men;
and he felt this; but he also felt that he must always interest her; and
there is no edifice of emotion that cannot be erected upon permanent
foundations of interest.

So he hoped on and when Mr. Charles Moses, to please Mrs. Crocker, and
to show the company that others of the hamlet also possessed a pretty
gift of words, arose to propose the good health of Bartley himself, he
listened in the best possible humour and made a reply that was full of
rough and ready fun.

Health drinking became the feature of the wedding feast, despite the
fact that it had been intended to eschew it.  Everybody found himself or
herself toasted, and every man of the company was tempted or chaffed on
to his legs in turn.  The wine running out, Mr. Shillabeer insisted upon
a personal contribution in this sort, and sent a pot-boy for certain
claret that had hung fire for some years and yet, owing to intrinsic
poverty of nature, could not be said much to improve with age.  Nobody
liked it as well as the more generous and mellow brown sherry; but the
liquid was wine and free of cost: therefore the folk consumed it,
thanked the giver and invited him also to say a few words. Several shook
their heads at the prospect and foresaw that the ample spectre of Mrs.
Shillabeer must instantly rise to cast a chill upon the spirit of the
hour; but it was Mr. Bowden himself who urged the host to speak, and
Reuben straddled his legs, heaved a mighty sigh, crossed his arms and
addressed the company.

"Why for you want me to say anything, Elias Bowden, I'm sure I don't
know; but I must do my share with the rest, I suppose, and I'm sure I
hope, as we all hope, that this here wedding will be the beginning of a
happy united life for bride and bridegroom.  We, as have been in the
state and had the fortune to draw a prize, like Mr. and Mrs. Bowden
here, and Mr. and Mrs. Stanbury, and Mrs. Crocker, though she's lost her
prop and stay these many years, and me--we know what marriage is.  But
them as draw a blank, 'tis hidden from them, and the bachelor men and
spinster women sprinkled about--they don't know neither.  But perhaps
nobody in this company--widows or them as be still happily joined
together--ever felt to marriage what I felt to it.  Time and again I
said to my dead partner that 'twas too good to last, and she'd laugh at
me and say I was the sort that always met trouble half way.  And I seed
her fading out week after week; and I seed the wonnerful bulk of her
dwindling; and yet I couldn't realise what was coming till it did come.
The last words she said to me--or rather she whispered 'em, for she was
got far beyond speech--the last words was, 'Don't you take on too much,
Reuben.  We shall meet again in the Better Land.'  And I'm sure I hope
it may be so, though I'm an unworthy creature.  And I hope you won't
think that I say these things to cast down any joyful member amongst us.
Far from it.  I only want for these young people to remember that the
more they love, the worst must they suffer if things fall out
contrariwise.  But whether David goes, or Margaret here be plucked off
untimely, 'twill be the joy and gladness of the one that's left to
remember what it was to have a well-loved partner.  And so, whatever
haps, they'll never regret this day's work.  And I hope everybody have
eaten and drunken to their liking."

Then the bride insisted that Reuben should himself have some dinner.

"If 'twas anybody else proposed it, I should certainly refuse," he said;
"but since you want for me to do it, and my inwards are hollow as a
drum, I'm quite agreeable to pick a bone and drink a quart."

Bartholomew Stanbury now spoke.  He thanked everybody for coming,
praised the dinner and the wine, declared it to be the second most
joyful day in his life, and explained that the first had been when he
himself was married.  He confirmed Mr. Shillabeer's view of matrimony,
staggered the publican by advising him to look round and find a second;
and concluded by proposing the health of Mr. Charles Moses, who was
among the oldest and best thought upon residents of Sheepstor, and who
to-day had specially distinguished himself by lending his famous shop
for the wedding breakfast. "Free of charge he done it, mind you,"
explained Mr. Stanbury, "just out of the goodness of his heart he turns
all his tools and leather and what not out of this here place, and lets
me have it for the feast; and I wish to publicly thank the man afore
you, neighbours, and let everybody know the sort he is."

In reply, Mr. Moses, who usually became reminiscent after successful
feeding, traced briefly the history of Sheepstor in so far as his own
family helped to make that history.  In addition to being a staunch
Church of England man, Mr. Moses unconsciously subscribed to a still
more venerable creed.  He worshipped his ancestors, and now detailed the
great and picturesque part played by his great-grandfather, his
grandfather and his father in the development and elevation of the
village.

"Once," said he, "we were merely a little bit of a hamlet at Dartymoor
edge, and scarce a man farther off than Tavistock knew ought about us.
But my forbears and others like 'em rose up in our midst and toiled and
laboured for the good of the town, and each did his appointed part,
until--well--all I say is, look at us now!  Sheepstor stands as high as
any other place of note that ever I heard about in the kingdom, and we
be carrying on the good work in the good old way."

With the recollections of Mr. Moses, which were much protracted, light
began to wane, and certain prominent members of the party prepared to
wend homewards, while yet their wild roads might be seen.  All rose, and
there began great hand-shaking and well-wishing, together with some
laughter and some shedding of tears.  Reuben broached a bottle of whisky
for the men and tea was brought in for the women.  All the young people
had long since departed, because the entertainment from their standpoint
ended with the eating. Now nearly a score of pipes began to glow, and
the wedding guests set out on many roads.  The adult Bowdens departed
homewards, and Elias carried his wife on his arm and strove to cheer
her.  Her son, Drake, had unhappily intruded himself largely upon these
final emotional moments, and she refused to be comforted.  With a
quintessential distillation of pessimism worthy of Mrs. Stanbury's self,
Sarah declared that somehow during Mr. Shillabeer's speech it had been
borne in upon her that Margaret's firstborn would prove a failure.

"Stuff and nonsense--silly woman!  'Tis your digestion," said the master
of the Warren House.  "I very well knowed how 'twould be when I seed you
taking that sour purple muck they call claret atop of the good
old-fashioned sherry.  No stomach could be expected to endure one on top
of t'other, and you're fairly paid out for it."

Mrs. Stanbury was very silent on the way home, but Bart and his father
did the talking.  Both assured Constance that the entertainment might be
considered absolutely and brilliantly successful from first to last.
She, however, expressed a multiplicity of doubts.

"The loin of pork was done to rags, and the stuffing tasted of nought,"
she said.  "'Tis things like that are remembered months after all that
went right be quite forgotten.  And I hope to God they've got the
cottage walls dry, and that leak over the ope-way made good.  When I was
up there a fortnight agone to see the wall-papers, you'd never have said
mortals could live in the place inside two weeks."

"Madge vowed 'twas all right when I drove her over with her boxes a bit
ago," declared Bart.  "The house will be very vitty after they've lived
in it a week or two."

Of course, the first to leave Sheepstor were bride and bridegroom.  In a
trap hired from 'The Corner House' David carried Margaret off to her
home.  Their possessions were already stored at 'Meavy Cot.'  Fires had
been burning for a week and everything was made ready for the married
pair.

David's last words were addressed to Rhoda.

"Mind," he said, "a fortnight from to-day us shall be ready; and I'll
come up to Ditsworthy in my new cart for you and your box.  But we all
shall meet afore then, no doubt."

He drove his wife away under a wild evening sky, amid blessings and
cheers and cries of "Godspeed."  Some of the voices were shrill and
tearful, some merry, some deep and gruff.  The trap trundled along;
Madge flashed a white handkerchief; then she and her husband were
swallowed up by the roaming, red light that misted under the sunset.

"A happy omen, souls," said Mr. Stanbury.  "For the sun have been
shining ever since it rose.  A cloudless marriage day is all to the
good, I believe; and though the sky may offer for rain afore midnight,
nought of the day can be marred now."




                              *CHAPTER V*

                           *ARRIVAL OF RHODA*


A fortnight after her marriage there came a day when Madge roamed
restlessly and rather nervously about her little house.  She was very
happy, yet with a clouded happiness, because this ideal bliss of
dwelling with David alone drew to its close.  Real life had yet to begin
at 'Meavy Cot,' and real life included Rhoda Bowden.  On this day David
started early to fetch his sister.  Among his other possessions was a
horse and a light cart; and with these he set out in the chill
half-light of six o'clock on a November morning for the Warren House.

Now Margaret's preparations were complete.  A dish of cakes kept hot
upon the hearth; and aloft in Rhoda's room the severe simplicity of the
rosy-washed walls, low roof and little iron bedstead seemed to echo
Rhoda's maiden mind.  But her sister-in-law was not content with the
unadorned chamber.  She had nailed an illuminated text or two upon the
walls; she had hung there also an old grocer's almanac with a picture of
a deerhound's head upon it, because she thought this portrait of a dog
would please Rhoda; and she had made a little bouquet of wild berries
and set it with a sprig of ivy in a vase on the chest-of-drawers.  A few
of Rhoda's own possessions had already arrived.  On the floor of the
room lay no carpet; but the white deal boarding was broken by some
skins--black, brindled and tawny. These memorials were all that remained
of certain defunct dogs who had owned Rhoda as mistress during their
bustling and eventful lives.  She was wont to preserve the pelt of any
special favourite; and her nature received a placid satisfaction in
possession and use of these remains.  The rough coats that had
often-times received caress or chastisement as occasion demanded, now
felt only her naked feet at morn and evening.

Margaret began to fear for the tea, but David was a punctual man, and at
five minutes past the appointed time a light flashed in the outer
darkness, a cart creaked and jolted over the rough way, a dog barked and
Rhoda's deep tones answered it.  She was soon beside Margaret, and they
shook hands and kissed affectionately.

"Come and see your room," said Madge, "while David puts up the horse and
cart.  I'm afraid you was jolted a bit at the finish.  The new road
round the hill be terrible rough travelling for wheels."

Rhoda was not cheerful and had little to say.  She produced some parcels
and one from Mrs. Bowden; but it seemed that some trouble sat upon her.
She brightened up, however, on reaching her room and much admired it.

"Like your kind heart to think of all these things," she said.

"You'll see the sun of a fine morning rise 'twixt Hessary and Cramber,"
explained Margaret.  "And I'm afraid the noise of the waterfall may keep
you waking a bit till you'm used to it.  'Tis quiet to-night, but after
heavy rain Meavy comes down like thunder."

"Nought keeps me awake," declared Rhoda.  She altered the position of
the fragments on the floor. "That was the best collie ever I had," she
said, drawing a black and orange skin to her bedside; "a terrible fine
dog, and only in his prime when he died.  Father said he was going mad,
though I never thought it.  However, he was queer and snapped at the
childer in a way very unlike himself, and father would not risk it, but
put a charge of shot into his head when I was out of the way.  You'd
hardly believe it, Madge, but I cried! On my honour I cried--and a girl
of near eighteen at the time."

Rhoda had brought a few of her special treasures and Margaret now helped
her to arrange them to advantage.  Her library was trifling and included
a Bible and prayer-book, an anthology of verses, which Madge saw for the
first time and felt astonishment at seeing, and a work on canine
diseases.

"You can have they rhymes if you've got any use for them," said Rhoda.
"They was given me by my gossip, old Martha Moon, when I was confirmed,
but I don't understand poetry, though you may."

Then Rhoda admired the dog almanac, and she was still doing so when
David's voice below brought the women down together.

He was thirsty and wanted his tea.

Rhoda produced one of the famous Bowden cakes, famed alike for size and
wealth of ingredients; but the meal, while lacking nothing of goodness,
warmth and variety, awoke no answering glow in the master's mind. He was
clearly troubled, and Rhoda's passing brightness also gave place to a
taciturn demeanour before her brother's concern.  Margaret thereupon
rated David and he explained his annoyance.

"What ever has come over you?" she asked.  "So glumpy and glowry as you
are!  What's amiss with him, Rhoda?  But I'll wager I know.  It all
looked so cosy and homelike at the Warren House that David felt homesick
and didn't want to came back to me!"

David was bound to laugh at this absurd theory.

"Homesick!" he said.  "I'm only homesick when I'm out of the sight of
our brave chimney; and well you know it."

"'Tis Dorcas," explained Rhoda.  "She's giving mother and father a lot
of trouble for the minute. She'll see sense come presently, we'll hope."

"Billy Screech?"

Rhoda nodded.

"She'll come round; but for some cause us common folk can't fathom,
she's in love with the man.  So she says, anyhow, though 'tis hard to
believe it."

"As to that," declared Margaret, "Billy ban't particular ugly.  He've
got a long, sharp nose, I grant you--"

"Yes," interrupted David, "and he've been told to keep that nose away
from the Warren House; and the mischief is he won't obey father's
commands. Two nights agone the moon was full, and Rhoda went out for to
breathe the air and see if there was a fox down by the fowl-house.  And
a fox there was--long nose and all, and his name was Billy Screech."

He looked at his sister and she continued the narrative.

"I hate spying," she said, "and God, He knows I didn't go afield to seek
that man, or any other man. And I thought Dorcas was to bed, for she'd
gone off after supper with a faceache.  But travelling quick and silent,
as my way is, over the close surf of the warrens, I came round a rock
right on top of 'em.  And--"  Rhoda grew hot at the unpleasant
recollection and broke off.

"And he was sitting on a stone, and she was sitting on his lap," said
David, who spared his sister the details. "Little red-headed fool!  I
wish I'd found 'em, for I'd have thrashed the man to jelly afore her
eyes, and cured her that way."

"What did you do, Rhoda?" asked Margaret.

"I made her come in.  As her elder sister I had the right.  She wasn't
in the least ashamed of herself seemingly.  I boxed her ears, when the
man had gone, and she forgot herself and tried to bite my hand."

"She's like a rat in a trap over this business," said David.  "Never
would you have guessed or dreamed 'twas in her to show her teeth so."

"All laughter and silly jokes till this miserable man came after her,"
continued his sister.  "And now--I blush for her.  'Tis very horrid and
shameful to think that any girl can demean herself so."

David here left the room and Madge continued to Rhoda.

"She feels 'tis her great chance for a home of her own, I expect.  Us
all gets that hope sometimes, so why not Dorcas?"

But the other did not sympathise with this theory.

"Us don't all feel it," she declared.  "A many women never do.  And if
all of us was to marry, the work of the world would stand still.
There's a great deal for free women to do that nobody else can do so
well as them; and it seems to me that the first thing a female does,
after she's brought childer into the world, be to look about and try to
find an unmarried woman to help her do her work.  There's scores of
spinsters spending their lives messing about with their sisters'
babbies."

"Babbies ban't everything, I grant that," said Margaret; but she said it
doubtfully.  In her heart children certainly took the first place.
Indeed, Madge felt a little guilty of being untrue to herself in the
last sentiment.  Therefore she modified it.

"All the same, they mean a lot to most women, and I long for 'em cruel
and ban't ashamed to say it."

"The likes of you would; and so do David; and when they come, you'll
want for me to look after some young things beside puppies," said Rhoda.
She smiled, but did not laugh.  There was a saying at Warren House that
none had ever heard her laugh.

"As to that," answered her sister-in-law, boldly, "you talk like an old
maid a'ready, and you but a few and twenty.  We'll soon larn you
different!  When you see what 'tis to have a li'l home of your very own,
and a man of your very own, I'm sure you'll begin to find that marriage
is good.  Now come and look at my parlour and tell me if there's not
something there that you'd wish away."

She lighted a candle and exhibited the glory of her best room to Rhoda's
gaze.

"'Tis everything it should be, and you've arranged it beautiful, I'm
sure," declared Rhoda; "and the presents do look better far than they
did afore.  This here, that me and Sophia bought for you"--she indicated
a little looking-glass in an ornate gold frame--"why, it's ever so much
finer than ever I thought it in the shop at Tavistock where we bought
it; and father's sideboard do look splendid."

"You must see the pictures by daylight," said Madge.  "They be proper
painted pictures that David picked up in a sale.  He got the four for
seven shillings, and the auctioneer said the frames were worth the
money."

Rhoda admired very heartily and again congratulated Margaret on her
skill and taste.

"What should I wish away?" she asked.  "I can't sec nothing that isn't
just where it should be, I'm sure."

"Look round again."

But the other, after a further scrutiny, only shook her head.

"Why, those two handkerchiefs in the glass frames hanging each side of
your lovely looking-glass.  There's poor Bartley's purple and yellow and
David's blue and white spots.  Now surely, surely, Rhoda, it ban't a
seemly thing to hang 'em up there to remind everybody of that horrid
fight?  And besides, as 'tis only of a Sunday the parlour's likely to be
used, that makes it worse, for who wants to think of such a business on
the seventh day, of all days?"

Rhoda was looking at the colours, but showed only interest.

"They come out very nice," she said, "and of course they ought to be
here.  If I was you, I should be prouder of them two things and the
great, valiant battle they stand for, than anything else belonging to
David. And if you'd been there, Madge, as I was, and had seen David,
despite all that he went through, come out top and smash in t'other
man's face with his last strength afore he went blind--if you'd seen it,
you wouldn't wish the colours away.  'Twas I hitched 'em off the post
when everybody else had forgot 'em."

"There's the other man to think of, however."

"Why?" asked Rhoda.  "I'm sure that Bartley Crocker, who be pretty
large-minded with all his faults, wouldn't think none the worse of David
for hanging up the handkerchers like this.  He'd have done the same
quick enough--or his mother would have done it for him.  The men be good
friends, and so they ought to be.  But that's no reason against it."

Margaret admitted the justice of the argument.

"If you think it can't hurt anybody's feelings, no doubt there's no real
harm," she said.

"Of course not.  Men be men, and not so tender and touchy as the likes
of you.  Why, what did Mr. Crocker say at your wedding?  Nothing but
what was friendly and kindly, I'm sure."

"No, indeed--a beautiful speech; and 'twas as much for that reason as
any other that I thought perhaps, if ever he came to see us and caught
sight of the colours--"

"He'll be the first to say they look very fine," prophesied Rhoda.  "All
the same, I hope I shan't be here when he calls--if he does call--for--"

She stopped and Margaret answered.

"Don't say that.  I'm sure, after what he spoke about you in his speech,
you ought to let bygones be bygones and feel friendly."

"That's all past and forgiven," said Rhoda; "but I won't pretend I feel
to him like I do to other men."

"I hope you don't," replied Madge, laughing. "That's just what I want to
hear, Rhoda."

The younger was puzzled and her sister-in-law, unconscious of the
fateful moment, made the first move in a game that was to determine
three destinies.

"I hope you don't.  I hope you feel that Bartley Crocker be worth a
little more thought than most men. At any rate, don't set your mind
against him.  That wouldn't be fair--to yourself, Rhoda."

"My mind's neither for nor against any human creature outside my own
people.  Why should it be?"

"There's no reason at all.  You're young and you're terrible pretty, and
not a soul that's ever set eyes upon you feels anything but kind
thoughts of you."

Rhoda did not answer for a few moments; then a bewildered expression
faded from her face.

"I'll go out and see the kennel now."

"Leave that till the morning and unpack your things.  'Twill be dark as
a wolf's mouth over there."

"I've brought my own lantern," said Rhoda; "I'll go over now, if you'll
show me the way."

The horn lantern was lighted and Madge led Rhoda where her husband had
planted a row of flat stepping-stones across the river.  The kennel and
a byre stood there together, and four dogs whined a welcome to their new
mistress.  In the light of the flame their shining noses and lustrous
eyes flashed out of the gloom, and they leapt about the women.  David
appeared; then Madge went in to wash up and prepare supper, while Rhoda
stayed beside her brother.

"'Tis good to be back-along with you," she said, "and I do think, all
ways, it must be better.  Joshua be coming out wonderful and surprising
father every day since you went; and Sophia will take my place; and Nap
and Wellington, between them, will look after Joshua's work with the
traps.  'Tis all right but for Dorcas.  There's nobody left to keep her
in order now I'm gone--hateful little toad!  I axed father to set parson
on her; but he wouldn't.  Something will have to be done, but I don't
know what."

"I'll see father later," replied David.  "Dorcas be the first Bowden
that's a fool, and we must treat her according."

They all supped together presently, and David planned the nature of the
life before his sister.  The course of laborious days did not spare her
and left little margin for idleness; but Rhoda neither knew nor wished
to know the meaning of leisure.  She appeared well content with David's
plans and nodded from time to time, but said little.




                              *CHAPTER VI*

                               *REPULSE*


At noon in early May, when the willow's golden flowers ran up the still
naked stems like fire; when the clouds in the sky were large and fleecy
and the birds sang again from dawn till even, Bartley, walking beside
the leat, where it wound like a silver ribbon between Lowery Tor and
Lowery Farm, met Rhoda Bowden. Neither expected to see the other in that
spot.  She explained that she had been far afield with a message for her
brother; he admitted that he walked there with no special object but to
kill an hour.

"How's your mother?" she asked.

"No better.  I'm only here now till I know the doctor's been.  As soon
as I see his gig drive up the hill, I shall go down across the river
home.  She vows 'tis nothing; but I think she's worse than we know."

"Summer may get up her nature again."

"I'm sure I hope so too.  And 'tis more than kind of you to cheer me
up."

He walked beside her.

"May I give your dogs a sandwich?" he asked.  "My aunt cut me a bit of
bread and meat to fetch along with me; but I don't want it."

She nodded and Bartley divided his food between a fox-terrier and a
collie.  In a twinkling his luncheon vanished.

They kept silence for a long time and she, astonished that he could be
mute, addressed him.

"David be going to show sheep at Tavistock this year."

"Good luck to them then," he answered, wakening from his reverie.
"Those horned creatures he has got look very fine and carry an amazing
deal of wool--anybody can see that.  I'm very much inclined to try a few
myself.  Must ask him all about them if he'll be so kind as to tell me."

"No doubt he would.  He's doing a bit of Moorman's work now in the
quarter, and looking after a good few things besides his own."

"The Moorman, old Jonathan Dawe, is past his work, I doubt?"

"Far past it.  But he and David understand each other, and David does
very well out of it.  He'll be Moorman for certain come Mr. Dawe dies,
unless something better turns up."

"Why doesn't the old chap retire?"

"David have often axed him the same question.  He says the race of Dawe
never retires.  He means to die in harness--unless Duchy won't lease the
quarter to him no more."

Bartley nodded and silence again fell.  He had seen not a little of
Rhoda during the past few months, and he knew now that he longed to
marry her and none else. Madge had promised to use her wits in the good
cause, and she did her best for him, but Crocker perceived that his
wooing must take place upon no very conventional lines.  Rhoda Bowden
was not to be taken by storm but by strategy.  So, at least, he
believed, and he had devoted much time to the problem of her capture and
displayed a patience and pertinacity alike very remarkable in him.  He
paid no regular and obvious court, for fear of being warned off by David
before he had given Rhoda a fair opportunity to change her mind
concerning him. He merely considered her when the chance offered; spoke
well and enthusiastically about her behind her back, and seized every
incident and event that could serve to bring her into his company, or
take him into hers.  Margaret helped, but not as she would have liked to
help.  Bartley held himself cleverer than she in this matter and
expressly forbade her either to ask him at present to 'Meavy Cot,' or
take any other step which must result in a meeting between him and
Rhoda.  She did just what she was told, watched his cautious progress
and felt absolutely certain that he was mistaken.  Her way had been
quite different from his, and, as she came to know Rhoda better, she
felt that Bartley's elaborate plans would miscarry and leave her
sister-in-law absolutely indifferent.

"You can try your plan and I'll look on," she said to him; "and, after
you've proved you're all wrong, then you will have to try mine.  Mind, I
don't say my wits will be much more use than your own; but they may be."

And now the time was ripe, in Crocker's opinion, to put his experiment
to the proof and see whether his unostentatious but steady siege had in
reality shaken the fortress at any point.  He felt tolerably certain
that Rhoda would refuse him; but he intended to ask the great question.
He was, indeed, prepared to put it many times before taking 'no' for an
answer.

At a stile their ways parted.  She would follow the leat, which leapt
Meavy at an aqueduct not a quarter of a mile from her home; and he would
plunge into the valley, cross the river and return to Sheepstor.

"Well, good-morning to you," she said.  "I hope that Mrs. Crocker will
mend afore long."

"Wait," he answered.  "I won't keep you, Rhoda, but 'tis a pretty place
and hour for speech.  May I ask you something?"

"I'm a thought late for dinner as it is.  But ask and welcome."

"'Welcome'!  I wonder?  'Twould be a very welcome thing to think I was
welcome.  But I'm not vain enough to think it.  I only hope it."

His personality and the masculine look and voice of him troubled her.  A
man who was obviously alive to sex and alert before women made her
uncomfortable. The deep-eyed sly man--the man who was servile to women,
who rushed to set chairs for them, who bowed to them and strove to catch
their eye in public--these men she hated.  Bartley was such a man, but
he had long since perceived her dislike of gallantry and had given her
no second cause to resent his attentions in that sort.  His sustained
reserve and apparent indifference had satisfied her and modified her
former detestation; but it had not advanced him one span in her regard.
She did not answer him now, and he continued--

"You see, Rhoda, very queer things happen--things that are deeper than
we can explain or understand. And, before I speak, I want to go back a
bit, because what I'm going to say may seem pleasanter in your ears if I
remind you of a thing that happened long since. When I kissed you in the
Pixies' House you were terrible angered with me, and 'twas as natural
for you to be so as 'twas for me to kiss you."

"I don't want to hear no more of that, and I won't," she said fiercely.

"You must," he answered.  "You've no choice. You're a just woman--as
just and honourable as all who be called Bowden, and you must hear.  I
insist on it, for 'tis almost life or death to me.  When I kissed you
and you tore from me like a frightened bird, what did you say?  You
forget, but I remember, and I'll remind you.  You pressed your face
against my cheek by accident, and I couldn't stand it, and I kissed you
and you said: 'You loathsome, Godless wretch!  I could tear the skin off
my face.  I'd sooner the lightning had struck me.'  Then you fought your
way out and trampled on my hand with your boot till the blood ran. Now,
Rhoda, listen.  I'm not loathsome, and I'm not Godless.  You touched me
accidentally and I took a terrible fierce fire from it.  Why?  Not
because I'm a free liver; not because I would do the like from any
maiden's touch.  Not from that--I swear it; but because that touch meant
a great deal more to me than I understood.  I did a thing any man may do
under certain circumstances, Rhoda; but the circumstances were hid from
me then, though they came out clear enough after.  I loved you in the
Pixies' House, though I didn't know it then; but my nature was quicker
than my mind, and my nature took charge and made me do the thing I did.
Not out of insult, but out of honour I did it; and I've honoured you
more and more ever since that day.  I honoured you when you helped
David; and I knew then, as well as I know that God made me, that if
you'd been in my corner instead of his I'd have beat him.  I honoured
you at his wedding--so graceful and lovely and above the rest as you
were; and I honour you now, and I've been a better chap since I knew
you. And--and if you'll marry me, Rhoda, I'll try with all my strength
to be worthy of such a wife.  Oh, Rhoda, don't say 'no.'"

She only understood a part, and the tone of his voice spoke and soothed
her to patience, though his words left her cold.  She perceived that he
was deeply in love with her and had hidden it carefully from her.  That
he had hidden it was a grace in him: she thanked him for that.  His
excuse for the past did not impress her. All that remained was to refuse
him and leave him as swiftly as possible.  She did not feel very
flattered or elated.  She did not like him any better for this avowal.
The master-sense in her mind was one of frank discomfort.  She felt not
particularly sorry that she had to disappoint him; she experienced only
a desire for haste--to speak and end this unsought scene and get out of
his sight.  She wasted no words.

"'Tis kind, no doubt, to offer marriage," she said, "but you're wrong.
Us wouldn't suit each other. You'll find a girl to please you better
than me.  Ban't no use talking about it.  I don't feel--I don't feel
drawed, Mr. Crocker, and I suppose unless both parties be drawed 'tis no
use hoping for a happy marriage."

"Think of it--take a bit of time.  'Tis mere moonshine the likes of you
going single, Rhoda."

"I've seen marriage under my eyes ever since I could mark anything," she
answered.  "I've seen it and still see it."

She stopped and shook her head, implying that as yet the state offered
no large charm for her.

"Good-bye.  Think no more of this--and no more will I."

She left him, and he sat down where a sluice opened off the leat, so
that the overflow in time of torrent might do no hurt to the banks.  He
sat and regretted what he believed to be his precipitation.  The time
was not ripe.  He had sprung this proposal too suddenly upon her.  For
her own sake he had not played the lover as a preliminary, and as a
result she failed to recognise the lover in him.  He had erred in
tactics.  He was not much downcast, but felt that the opening battle was
well ended, with a defeat that he foresaw.  He had explained the kiss,
and this interview was thereby justified.  It would not be necessary to
retrace that old ground again. And yet he doubted whether Rhoda had
quite understood him.

"If she did understand, she didn't believe," he told himself.

He was not ill-pleased with the encounter.  He had fired the first shot
and engaged her in the first skirmish.  He must tell Margaret all that
had happened, and he must hear from Margaret if any results of this
adventure were displayed by Rhoda.  He felt pretty certain that none
would be.  David she might confide in, but not in Margaret.  The
interview as a whole did not dismay him, and it was not until he reached
home and heard an unfavourable report of his mother's health that he
became gloomy.

Meanwhile the girl, a little fluttered by this occurrence, proceeded on
her way with thoughts not wholly pleasant; and to her came the leat man,
Simon Snell, upon his rounds.  His eyes grew large and watered a little
when he caught sight of her in the distance.  At first, indeed, he was
minded to dive off the footpath, hasten away and make as though he had
not seen her; but he fortified himself against this pusillanimous
instinct, held on boldly, and presently saluted her in his thin,
somewhat senseless voice.

"Good-day to 'e, Miss Rhoda Bowden.  Glad to meet you on the leat path,
I'm sure.  Don't often see you this way."

"Good-morning, Mr. Snell."

"And a very good morning to you.  Beautiful spring weather, to be sure.
Beautiful dogs, to be sure.  Never see you or David without a fine dog.
And the dog as I had off your farther would have made a very fine,
upstanding dog without a doubt, if her hadn't have gone and died.  Not
your fault--I'm not saying that."

"I was very sorry to hear it."

"Of course you was; and if I'd had enough sense, and put the poor young
dog in a basket and carry 'un up over to you, I'll lay with your dog
cleverness as you'd have saved 'un.  But, instead, I traapsed off to
Walkhampton with him--to Adam Thorpe--and he got the dog underground in
a week."

"Thorpe don't know much about dogs."

"You're right there; I quite agree.  Would 'e like to see me open a
sluice-gate?  'Tis purty to see the water go down all of a tumble, and
often a rainbow throwed off when the wind be blowing slantwise across
the sun."

"Can't stop, but I'll see the thing done some other time, if you
please."

"An' welcome; and I'm sorry, I'm sure, to have kept 'e with my talk, and
you wild to be on your way, no doubt."

"If you want a puppy, you can have one next month," said Rhoda.  "That
yellow collie there, with a bit of Gordon setter in him, be the faither.
They're very nice-looking creatures."

"And so I will then, and gladly and thankfully," he said.

Simon walked by her and she felt easy and comfortable. His neutral, not
to say neuter, personality met and matched her own.  His round, innocent
eyes, smooth face and silly beard put her at ease.  He did not thrust
masculinity upon her, but was merely a fellow-creature talking upon
subjects that interested her.  What Crocker had of late tried to be in
his attitude towards this woman Mr. Snell really was.  The one attempted
a posture other than his own, and failed in it; for no woman could look
into his eyes and not know something about him.  The other equally
remained himself, yet even so he satisfied Rhoda, although she came to
him unusually exacting from her recent interview with Mr. Crocker.
Simon's thoughts, Simon's humble humour, and Simon's general attitude to
life, if vague, were quite acceptable to Rhoda.  To her his voice did
not sound thin or his opinions childish.  She was comfortable in his
company, and she left him presently with a pleasant nod and a 'good-bye'
that was almost genial.

He stood a long time, scratched his beard when she had gone out of sight
and felt that thus to walk and talk beside a maiden was rather an
achievement for him. He admired Rhoda very much, but he thought of her
with chronic rather than acute admiration.

She had certainly been amazingly gracious and kind to him.  Could it be
possible that she liked him?  The idea brought moisture upon his
forehead, and he sat down and mopped it.  He began to fear that he had
been too bold in thus proceeding for more than a hundred yards beside
her.  Perhaps she had indicated annoyance and he had failed to observe
it.  Then he assured himself that he was a man, like other men, and had
a perfect right to talk to a woman.  He decided that he must think about
Rhoda quietly for the next month or two. He asked himself if he should
take her a dish of the fat leat trout that he caught sometimes; but he
felt doubtful whether such a step would not be going too far.

"I might catch 'em, and clean 'em, and start with 'em," he reflected;
"and then, if it comes over me on the way that I'm a bit too dashing, I
can just sneak home again, and none the wiser."




                             *CHAPTER VII*

                             *EYLESBARROW*


Margaret Bowden not seldom visited the haunts of her youth, for many
favourite places lay within a walk of her home, and she had a measure of
loneliness in her life which might be filled according to her fancy.
Sometimes she blamed herself that life should offer intervals for
amusement or for rest.  David found no such leisure from dawn until
after dark; Rhoda was always busy out of doors, and even when she had
nothing left to do, as happened in the evening, would often sequester
herself afield under the night.  But Margaret's holiday generally
followed the midday meal; and after noon she often went to see her
mother, or sought some holt in Dennycoombe Wood, or beside Crazywell, or
among the heathery hillocks of Eylesbarrow.  That great eminence upon
the forest boundary was familiar and pleasant to her.  She knew it well,
from its tonsure of stone, piled above a grave, to its steeps and <DW72>s
and water-springs.  A pool with rushes round about spread under the
highest elevation and mirrored the sky; while southerly the ling grew
very large, and there were deep scars and embouchures torn by torrents
from the sides of the hill.

Hither came Margaret to keep tryst with Bartley Crocker on a day in
June.  She had not seen him save for a moment since his interview with
Rhoda, but meeting a week before at Sheepstor, he made a plan and she
promised to join him on Eylesbarrow and hear what he had to tell her.
The east wind roared over Madge where she sat snug in a little pit; but
the sun was warm and found her there.  From time to time she rose and
lifted her head to see if Bartley was coming.  Then she sat down again
and fell back upon her own thoughts. She began to apprehend the mixed
nature of marriage and those very various ingredients that complete the
dish.  As yet only one cloud hung over her united life with David.  But
time might reasonably be trusted to lift it.  They were a happy pair,
and if his stronger will lacked ready and swift sympathy on all
occasions, it still served the fine purpose of controlling her
sentimentality.  He hurt her sometimes, but she kept the pain to
herself.  His sledge-hammer methods were new to her; while he could not
understand her outlook, and, indeed, he made no attempt to do so.  But
she never argued; she always gave way and she loved him so dearly that
it was easy to give way.  Rhoda, too, she liked better as she knew her
better.  She felt sorry for Rhoda and longed to round off her life into
a more complete and perfect thing.  It appeared an outrage on nature
that such a girl should remain unmarried. She strove to enlarge Rhoda's
sexual sympathies and make her more tolerant of men.  But she did not
succeed.  And so it gradually happened that the future of Rhoda rather
obsessed the young wife's mind.  She was determined to see Bartley and
Rhoda man and wife if she could bring it about.  She was here upon that
business now.  That he had spoken to Rhoda she did not yet know; but she
suspected it.

Again Margaret looked round about her, while the wind flapped her
sunbonnet till it stung her cheeks.  At hand morning and night
alternately swung up over the uttermost eastern desolation that even
Dartmoor offers. By Cater's Beam and the sources of Plym and Avon, the
solemn, soaking undulations ranged; and they were shunned by every
living thing; but to the north a mighty company of tors thrust up about
the central waste; and westerly stretched the regions of her home. Far
beneath lay Dennycoombe under Coombeshead, and Sheep's Tor, like a
saurian, extended with a huge flat head and a serrated backbone of
granite.  She saw her father's fields on the hillside and knew them by
their names.  In their fret of varied colour under the stone-crowned
hill, they looked like a patchwork coverlet dragged up to some old,
gnarled chin.  Men were working there and elsewhere on the land; and in
the stone quarries, far off on Lether Tor, men also worked.  She gazed
upon the familiar places, the homesteads and the solitary homes.  She
busied her mind with the life histories advancing beneath these
roof-trees; and here she smiled when she marked a dwelling where joy
harboured for a little; here she sighed at sight of one where joy had
ceased to visit: here she wondered at thought of houses where the folk
hid their hearts from the world and stared heavy-eyed and dumb upon
their kind.  But she had an art to win secrets, and few denied her
knowledge or declined her sympathy.

One house chained her attention and awoke in Madge personal thoughts
again.  She looked at a small cottage near Lowery, far distant on the
opposite side of the river.  It stood under a few trees and crouched
meanly a hundred yards from the highway.  The roof was of turf, mended
with a piece of corrugated iron kept in its place by heavy stones; the
broken windows were stuffed with clouts.  A few fowls pecked about the
threshold, and adjoining the dwelling stood a cow-byre under the same
roof with it.  The front gate was rotted away and rusty pieces of an old
iron bedstead had taken its place.  These details were hidden from the
distant watcher, but she knew them well, and in her mind's eye could see
a flat-breasted, long-nosed, hungry-faced woman, with grey hair falling
down her back and dirt grimed into her cheeks and hands.  It was Eliza
Screech, widow of a man who had blown himself to pieces with blasting
powder in the adjacent quarry, and mother of William Screech, the
mistrusted admirer of Madge's sister-in-law, Dorcas.  This young fellow
had lately brewed a sort of familiar trouble; and while she thought upon
it, David's wife considered her own situation and wished that a thing
presently to happen to Dorcas might happen to her instead, and so turn
sorrow into rejoicing.  This was the cloud on her horizon. Her mother,
indeed, shared her pessimism but everybody else laughed at Margaret's
concern and declared it to be ridiculous in one scarcely six months a
wife.

She debated on the ways of nature and the ironies of chance; then
Bartley's voice was lifted, and she popped up again, and he saw her and
approached.

"Didn't you hear me sooner?" he asked, flinging himself down near her.

"No, indeed.  I was thinking so much about one thing and another, that I
never heard you.  Hope you've not been seeking for me a long time?"

He did not answer but struck at once into the subject that had brought
him.

"Well," he said, "I've started on her.  I've begun and told her a few
things to clear the way and get her into a better frame of mind.  Pity I
hadn't stopped there and left what I said to soak in a bit; but I had to
go on and give the reason for saying it."

"You told her then?"

"I did, and she took it fairly quiet.  Of course she said 'twas out of
the question and never, never could be. I expected that.  But I'm not
going to believe it, Madge.  The thing is how to go on with it.  I want
you to tell me what to do next.  You promised you would.  Mustn't worry
her, and at the same time mustn't let her forget I'm at her
elbow--dogged and determined and fixed in my mind.  I want you to be
clever for me, as well you know how, and tell me what line will please
her best.  I shall leave talking for a bit, and then I shall offer
again.  My only fear is that she'll see somebody else in the meantime,
and that while I'm planning and holding off and doing nought to fluster
or anger her, some other pattern of fool will blunder in and shock her
into saying 'yes' before she knows what she's done.  You can often
surprise a woman into relenting who never would relent if you went on
grinding away in a cold-blooded fashion.  They're obstinate themselves,
but they don't admire obstinacy in us. Would you have a dash at her and
keep on, or would you hold off and busy yourself in other quarters?
Which would bring her to the scratch quickest? You know her; you can
give me a few good hints, surely."

"Do neither of these things, Bartley.  She hates anything like courting,
or speech about marriage.  And she hates surprises of any sort.  She's
an old woman in the way she likes things to jog steady.  If aught falls
out unexpected, it flurries her.  And that's the hard thing you've got
afore you, if you are going on with it.  Because you're all for dash and
quickness and surprises, and she's all against everything of the sort."

"I must keep grinding on in a cold-blooded style, then?"

"Ess fay, and the more cold-blooded, the better like to please her."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Be damned if I think I've got patience for it, Madge.  I love her well
enough but I can't bide like a lizard or a spider watching a fly.  I
lost you along of taking it too easy--yes, I did, for I swear you'd have
married me if I'd offered myself a year before David came along.  And
now, perhaps, I'll end by losing Rhoda.  There's nobody else in the
field and she's got no excuse for not taking me; and that's just what
will make her hard to catch.  But I'm determined in reason to have her.
Only I'm not built to wait till we're both grey-headed."

"Let me begin to help," she said.  "You bade me do nought so far, and
I've done nought.  Not by a word or wish have I let her guess I thought
about you or about her.  She don't know that I'm interested yet. And I
won't let her know; but I can set to work witty and say the word in
season and help the good cause on. Why not?  I want to see her married
just as much as I want to see you married.  'Twould mend you both--yes,
you so well as her."

"That wise you've grown since you took David! Though, for that matter,
you was always wise enough for any two girls."

"Not a bit wise--wish I was; far from that, worse luck; but sensible how
things are and sensible how difficult 'tis to get two natures to fit in
sometimes.  I be sure as possible that you and she would make a happy
couple and that you'll never regret it if she takes you, and no more
will she; but the difficulty is to see where your natures be built to
fit together.  'Tis like a child's puzzle: to fit you and her close."

"There's not much we've got in common except love of roaming by night."

"A pretty useful taste in common for lovers, I should think.  But I'll
find more out than that.  I know a lot more about her now than once I
did; and I'll tell you this: I'm not so much in secret fear of her as
once I was.  Yes--fearful I felt at first--so off-handed and stern and
aloof she was.  But now I've come to see she's terrible simple really,
and not very different from other girls--except here and there.  She's
interested in all that falls out, and she's hopeful to-day and cast down
to-morrow like anybody else.  She sits of a night thinking--yes, she
thinks.  Lord knows what about, but 'tis a sign of a heart in her that
she can pucker up her forehead thinking.  Kind, mind you, too.  Not
partickler kind to me, or interested in me away from David--I must grant
that.  But kind to living things in general."

"But I don't want her to be kind--to anybody but me.  I want her to be
grand and odd and unlike t'others. 'Tis her oddness as much as her
loveliness took my fancy; but if her oddness ends in her being an old
maid, that'll mean a good deal of my time wasted."

"Don't think it.  A rare good wife's hid in Rhoda, and, please God,
you'll be the man to find it out.  I'll set to work, Bartley.  Don't
fear I'll be clumsy.  Too fond of you both for that.  We'll meet again
in a month, if you can wait so long--"

"Which I certainly can not."

"In a fortnight then.  Thursday's always David's morning for Tavistock;
so this day fortnight we'll meet again, unless anything falls out to
prevent it. And I won't be idle.  But I mustn't frighten her; and she's
easily frighted when men are concerned.  Fellows drop in of a night
often to speak to David; but nine times out of ten, if she's to home,
she'll pick up her work and pop up to her chamber, or take her hat and
away out of the house by the back door."

"Never was such another, I believe.  All the same, I'm a hopeful fashion
of man.  I'll win her yet, with your help."

"I do trust so, Bartley."

Silence fell between them, only broken by the hiss of the wind above
their heads.

"I must get back-along now," she said at length. "How goes on Mrs.
Crocker?  Better, I hope?"

He shook his head but did not reply.

"I shall come to see her again next week, if I may."

"Do, and welcome, Madge.  Strange how illness breaks down the pride and
shows the naked truth of a man or woman.  She's frightened to think of
dying--her that you might have said was frightened of nothing."

"And still frightened of nothing really.  'Tisn't this world that
frights her, nor yet the next--only the link snapping between.  There's
a lot like that."

He changed the subject again and followed her eyes that had roamed
across the valley once more.

"You're looking at Screech's house," he said.  "I hope this thing they
tell about isn't true?"

"I hope not, Bartley, but I think it is."

"And if it is?  However, it don't become a giddy bachelor to make light
of it.  Only you'll hear such a devil of a lot on the other side, that
perhaps before long you'll be thankful to find one here and there who
can keep his nerve about it."

"Yes, I shall hear enough about it--and to spare: you're right there."

He laughed.

"I'm not one of those that can see no good in Billy Screech," he said.
"Too like him myself, I reckon. All the same, I know if the right woman
came along to make it worth while, I could stand to work--for her--as
well as any man.  You'll see some day.  I can't be bothered to work for
myself, Madge, but if ever I get hold of Rhoda, 'twill surprise you to
find what a knack for earning money I shall show.  And same with yonder
hairy chap.  He's clever and cunning.  He'll make a very good partner,
if the woman ban't too hard to please, and don't worry him with silly
questions."

They parted a few minutes later; but before he went Bartley Crocker
shook Madge's hand very heartily as he thanked her with great
earnestness for her promises.

"What you'll do for me I can't guess," he said; "yet well I know that
what you can do you will."

"Couldn't name it in words myself," she answered. "But all the same, I
feel as one woman might have a bit of power over another in such a
matter.  I put my hope in her common sense.  She don't lack for that,
and, once you win her, her common sense will be a tower of strength for
the both of you."

"That's good to know, I'm sure; for common sense never was my strong
point and never will be," he confessed.

"And if I've promised more than I can perform, you must forgive me," she
said.  "I must guard myself against your disappointment, Bartley, for it
may come to that."

"You'll do what you can," he answered, "for liking of me; and you'll do
the best you can; and if I lose, 'twill be no blame to you; and if I
win, 'twill be such a feather in your cap as few of the cleverest women
can boast."




                             *CHAPTER VIII*

                       *TRIUMPH OF BILLY SCREECH*


On a day in early summer David Bowden met his father by appointment at
Nosworthy Bridge in Meavy valley.  It was not Sunday, but both wore
their Sunday clothes.  The fact would have led observers to suppose that
a funeral or a wedding must be at hand, but it was not so.  They had
before them a serious and, they feared, a difficult duty.  Neither knew
that the other proposed to wear black; yet a sort of similar instinct
led to the donning of the colour, and each felt glad, when he saw the
other, that he had been of that mind.

"'Twill be for you to speak, father," said David; "and where I can think
of words to back you up, I shall put them in.  If you and me together
ban't stronger than such a man as Screech, 'tis pity."

"The law be weak, unfortunately," answered Elias, "else I'd never have
gone near the man, but just left justice to take its course.  But as it
stands, so lawyer tells me, we can't make Screech marry Dorcas if he
won't.  The thing is to be as patient with the man as we know how, and
coax him into it if possible."

David nodded.

"It's a bad business, looked at which way you will. Rhoda's took it more
to heart than all of us.  She won't never speak to Dorcas or see her
again."

"We mustn't talk that nonsense.  Nature will out, and for my part, to
you, David, though to none else, I'm sorry to God now I said 'nay.'
However, we'll see if we can fetch him to reason.  Here's the house--a
ragged, hang-dog look it hath."

"And there's the man," added David.

Billy Screech was digging in a patch of garden beside his cottage, but
at sight of the visitors, he stuck his spade into the earth, cleaned his
boots on it, drew down his shirt-sleeves, donned his coat and came
forward.

"You'm a thought earlier than I expected," he said. "Give you a very
good-morning, Mr. Bowden; and you, David."

Elias took the hairy Screech's hand; David nodded, but avoided a direct
salute.

"In your black, I see--a black business, no doubt," said Billy.  "And if
you'll give me a matter of minutes, I'll polish up a bit and put on
mine.  Perhaps you didn't know as I've got some good broadcloth for my
back; but I have."

He called to his mother and went upstairs.  Then, while he was absent,
the thin and slatternly woman known as Eliza Screech shuffled in and put
chairs for the Bowdens.  She stood and rubbed her hands over each other
and listened to the noise her son made overhead.  By certain sounds she
knew how his change of attire advanced.

"I hope you are on our side in this matter, ma'am," began Elias,
solemnly.

"Yes, I am, and always have been since I heard about it," she said.
"I've been at him night and day till he threatened to take the
wood-chopper to me.  I can't say what he thinks about it, for not a word
will he utter.  He's always chuckling to hisself, however. 'Tis a very
shameless thing to have happened, though very common.  I'm sorry about
it."

She spoke kindly but indifferently.

"My girl is the same as him," declared Mr. Bowden. "'Shameless' is the
only word to be used against her--a hardened giglet as keeps her own
secrets and did keep 'em till they would out.  And, instead of going in
tears and sackcloth, she's as gay as a lark and don't care a button for
our long faces.  Even to church she'll come, if you can believe it.  And
not a word of sorrow."

Mrs. Screech heard her son putting on his boots.

"Well, I hope that your way of saying things will catch hold on
William," she answered.  "He's a thoughtless man; but he was never fond
of the girls till he met your Dorcas, and 'twas a very great blow to him
he couldn't take her."

"He must take her: that's what we've come about," declared David.

Mrs. Screech shrugged her shoulders.

"There's room here," she said, "and though us be a little down in the
world, I daresay for a pound or two we could mend up the glass and make
things vitty for Dorcas.  I'm very fond of her, I may tell you. Here's
William coming down, so I'll go."

She left them, and a moment later Mr. Screech entered transformed.  He
wore excellent black.  He had brushed his hair and beard; he had washed
his hands and put on a pair of tidy boots.

"Now," he said, "perhaps you'll let me know what I can do for you, Mr.
Bowden.  Not long since there was a thing as you might have done for me;
but I got a very sour answer, if I remember right.  However, you'll find
me more reasonable if you come in reason."

"In reason and in right I come, William Screech. And well you know why
for I'm here," said the master of Ditsworthy.  "You've seduced my
daughter Dorcas, and you cannot deny it."

"Yes, I can," answered Mr. Screech.  "I can deny it and I can take my
Bible oath of it.  I never seduced her, and I never even offered to.
I'll swear she never told you that I seduced her."

"She'll tell me nought."

"Then why d'you charge it against me?"

"Don't fiddle with words," broke in David.  "The question be simple, and
the answer be 'yes' or 'no.'  Do you deny that you are the father of the
child she'm going to bear?"

"Certainly not.  I am the parent; and a very proud man I shall be on the
day."

"Then why d'you say you didn't seduce her?" cried David.

Mr. Screech looked at him in a pitying and highly superior manner.

"Better let your father talk," he said.  "You childless men be rather
narrow in your opinions.  He's more sensible and more patient.  Because
a maiden changes her state and starts out to bud, it don't follow
nobody's seduced her.  If anybody was seduced, 'tis me, standing here
afore you."

He grinned genially at the humour of the situation. David uttered an
inarticulate sound of anger; Mr. Bowden settled himself in his chair.

"Explain yourself, William," he said.

"Well, I will.  Perhaps you may remember when you forbade the match,
that your daughter was a bit savage about it."

"She was.  I allowed for that."

"You didn't allow enough.  You didn't know what a clever girl Dorcas
was; and you didn't know how well she understood me.  None ever
understood me like her.  I was merely a sort of a mongrel man--good for
nought--in your opinion.  You didn't know how witty I could be if I
chose; or what a lot of brains there was in my head.  But she knowed and
she trusted me. Pluck!  Talk about this here prizefighter's pluck and
your Rhoda's pluck--Good Lord! there's more valour in Dorcas than the
whole pack of you!  She's a marvel, she is.  This be her work, master,
not mine.  After her big sister catched her with me and boxed her ears,
she soon knowed what to do.  And she done it; and I was very pleased to
help.  And here we are."

Mr. Bowden gasped.

"Do you mean to say a daughter of mine axed you to get her in the family
way?" he asked.

"That's the English of it," answered Mr. Screech. "There was nothing
else she could do.  'Anything to oblige you, Dorcas,' I said, and my
bosom swelled with rejoicing to think the maiden I loved best in the
world could trust me like that.  ''Twill larn my father and that
self-righteous David and Rhoda to mind their own business in future,'
said Dorcas to me; and I'm sure I hope it will.  You must all try to be
sensibler without a doubt."

David felt an inclination to crush and smite the hairy and insolent
Screech; but nothing could be gained by such an act.

"And how do we stand now, please?" inquired Mr. Bowden, very humbly.

"In a very awkward fix, of course," answered Billy. "Here's my dear
Dorcas going to have a babby, and me wrapped up in her, and my mother
cruel fond of her, and her own people all shocked out of their skins at
her; and yet I ban't allowed to make an honest woman of her; because
you've sworn afore witnesses that you'd sooner see her dead than Mrs.
William Screech.  It do seem a pity; but of course we all know the man
you are--never known to call back an opinion.  Dorcas and me be halves
of a flail--one nought without t'other; but you've spoken.  I shall be
very pleased to help with the child, however; and I hope you'll bring it
up well to the Warren House."

This was too much for David.

"If you give us any more of your cheek, I'll smash you where you sit,"
he said.

Billy shrugged his shoulders.

"Where's the cheek?  What a silly man you are! Ax your father if I've
said a syllable more than the truth.  I'm only sorry about it.  Of
course the likes of me, with my skilled inventions and general
cleverness, ban't worthy to be your brother-in-law--you with your great
ideas and your five hundred pounds--left to you by somebody else.  But,
maybe, your father may feel different.  A father can understand a
father.  'Tis for him to speak now, not you, and say what he thinks had
better be done about his child--and mine."

"There's only one thing to be done, and that afore the month is out,"
said Mr. Bowden.  "And you know what, for all your sly jokes, Billy.
The pair of you have bested me.  Well, I know when I'm beat.  And the
sooner the wedding be held, the better for everybody's credit."

Billy pretended immense surprise.

"You mean as you'll call home all them high words, master?"

"Every one of 'em," answered Elias, calmly.  "If I'd been a bit sharper,
I might have guessed as you and her would find a way.  You have found
it--'tis vain to deny that.  So there's nothing to do but wed; and I
hope you'll live to make good your promises; and so soon as you do, I'll
be the first to up and own I misjudged you."

"That's fair and sportsmanlike, master, and I'll be as good as you; and
if my new rabbit trap don't make you proud of me for a son-in-law, Elias
Bowden, you ban't the honest man I think."

"It's settled then," said David, rising, and eager to be away.

"On one condition," answered the other; "that me and Dorcas have a
proper show wedding, same as David here had.  Us won't have no hole and
corner sort of job; and there's no reason why we should.  Only us and
you know about it."

"She shall have a perfectly right and proper wedding, Billy," declared
Mr. Bowden.

"Very good," answered the other; "and the day after we'm married and my
Dorcas comes here to live, I'll show you the trap, and save you twenty
pounds a year if a penny."

Mr. Screech rose and indicated that the interview was ended.

"The banns go up on Sunday," he said.  "Have no fear of me.  I'm in
quite so much of a hurry as anybody."

Mrs. Screech, who had heard everything from behind the door, crept off,
and the Bowdens departed, while Billy went as far as the gate with them.

"Please give Dorcas my respects, and tell her I'll be up over to tea on
Sunday, if agreeable to all parties," he said.

"I will, William," answered Elias, mildly; "and 'twill be quite
agreeable, I assure you."

The victory was complete and time proved Mr. Screech a just and even
magnanimous conqueror.  But for the moment the friction set up by his
methods of approaching matrimony caused not a few persons a little
uneasiness.  While David had writhed before Billy's satirical humours,
Rhoda Bowden also suffered; but she took herself off and thus escaped
direct contact with the cause of it.  It happened that Dorcas was
restless after her father had set forth to see Mr. Screech. She had
wandered towards Coombeshead and finally--moved as many others were
moved--determined to seek Madge, and so win comfort, and wait with her
at 'Meavy Cot' until David returned.  Of the issue Dorcas felt no manner
of doubt.  Mr. Screech longed to marry her, and his single-hearted
devotion was the finest element in a rather mean character.  Marriage
Dorcas felt to be a certainty; but she was none the less eager to learn
how the great interview had fallen out and to what extent Billy had
punished his future brother-in-law. Mr. Screech especially despised the
Puritanical views of David; and Dorcas suspected that he might have
taken pleasure on this occasion in wounding rather deeply her brother's
susceptibilities.  She went to see Margaret, therefore, and felt sorry
to find Rhoda also at home.  Her sister was in the garden; but Rhoda saw
the visitor some way off and departed leisurely without any interchange
of words.  The red girl flushed and set her teeth in a sneer; the other
passed quickly into the Moor.

Then Dorcas entered and found Madge making a pudding.  She sat down,
took off her sunbonnet, and nibbled a piece of raw rhubarb.

"Did you see Rhoda go off?" she asked.

"Never mind, 'twill come right.  You know how she feels things."

"Feel!  Don't you think she feels, Madge.  She's hard as them stone
statues of women in church--a dead-alive, frozen beast!  Feel!  I wish
somebody would make her feel.  Don't you look like that.  You've lived
with her now half a year and more.  You know what she is."

"Be fair, Dorcas.  She takes this a bit to heart; but that's only what
all of us do."

"You don't, and you needn't pretend it--not like her, anyway.  You'd
have done the same if your father had said you wasn't to have David.
You'd have trusted David, same as I trusted Billy.  Things like
her--Rhoda, I mean--why, good Lord! they're not women; they ban't built
to bring dear li'l, cuddling, cooing babbies into the world, like you
and me.  All for yowling dogs and walking in the moonlight--_by
herself_! Pretty frosty sport that for a female creature with blood in
her veins!"

"It's throwed her into a great trouble, and 'tis no good to deny it,"
said Margaret.  "Of course the man will marry you, as you've told me in
secret, and no doubt David will come back presently in a good temper
about it; but Rhoda's different.  She's rather terrible if a girl slips.
I've heard her say frightful things long before this--this business of
yours.  'Tis the point of view, Dorcas.  You'm so good as a married
woman now, and me and you can talk; but Rhoda's awful different--as the
maidens often be till they'm tokened.  Then they begin to soften and
understand men-folk a bit better."

"Fool!" said Dorcas.

"She'll take a bit of time to recover; but she'll be at your wedding
with the best of us, if I know her."

"Not her!  Mark me!  She'll never come inside my house or put a finger
to my childer.  And God knows I don't want her to."

"She will--she will.  You're too hard.  She'll grow wiser and more
understanding.  She's a very kindly, sensible girl in a lot of ways.
Only she's made of sterner stuff than me and you.  I wish I was so
noble-minded as her and so brave, I'm sure.  She's as plucky as David,
Dorcas.  Nought on four legs can frighten her."

"Four legs!" said Dorcas.  "I want for a man on two legs to frighten
her--ay, and master her and make her run about and do his will.  But no
man will ever look at her.  They want something to put their arms
around--not the sour, stand-offish likes of she.  'Tis no better than
facing the east wind to be along with her."

"Not at all, Dorcas.  You'll soon see different.  She have a sort of
queer feeling in her that 'tis an awful horrid thing to give yourself
over to a man.  I do believe she feels almost the same if a woman
marries. You'd think the whole race of women had received a blow in the
face when one takes a husband.  She can't talk of 'em with patience.
But us will get her a husband come presently.  Then her eyes will open."

"Never--never!" foretold the other.  "She'll go single to her grave--and
a good riddance when it happens."

"Here's David coming up the path," said Margaret, and both women went
out to meet him.

But Madge's prophecy was only partly fulfilled.  He brought, indeed, the
news that Mr. Screech was prepared to wed with Dorcas at the earliest
opportunity; but he showed no joy at the fact, and was indeed in an
exceedingly bad temper.

"What are you doing here?" he said to Dorcas, sternly.  But she never
had been and never was likely to be brow-beaten by a man.

"Come to see Madge, seemingly, and hearing that you was gone with father
to have a tell with my William, I thought I'd wait and see what came of
it."

"Your William!" he said.  "I wonder you don't blush for yourself, Dorcas
Bowden."

"Ah! you must see a lot of things that make you wonder," she answered
insolently.  "Not for myself did I ever blush; but for father, as forbid
me to marry the only chap that ever loved me, or was ever likely to.
What do I care?  I suppose you and father, in your righteous wisdom,
have decided that we may be married now, anyway; and if you haven't 'tis
no odds, because parson will mighty soon shout out the banns when we ax
him to do it."

"You're a bad woman," said her brother, shortly, "and this is a very
brazen, shameless piece of work."

"That for you," she answered, flicking her fingers in his face.  "I'm as
straight and honest and true as your wife, or Rhoda either.  'Tis her
that's nasty and shameful, with her prudish ways, not me.  And if I've
done anything to think twice about, 'tis father's fault--and yours."

David was angry and turned to his wife.

"The less you hear of this sort of talk the better," he said.  "I'll
have no trollop here, fouling your ears with her lewd speeches."

"Call yourself a man!" sneered Dorcas.  "Call yourself a man, to speak
of me like that.  You know I loved the chap as faithful and true as a
bird its mate, and I was his wife just as much as Madge be yours in
everything but the jargon and the ring.  And you turn round and call me
'lewd,' because I did the only thing I could do to force father to say
'yes.'  'Tis you that are lewd--you and yonder creature, who won't see
me nor touch me no more; and so much the better for me."  She pointed to
Rhoda, who was sitting a little way off calmly waiting for Dorcas to
depart.

"Larn from your wife to be larger-minded," she began again; then David
silenced her.

"Stop!" he thundered out.  "Who are the likes of you--a common, fallen
woman--to preach to me?  You get going out of this!  I don't want you
here no more, and I won't have you here no more."

"Bah!" she answered.  "You're jealous of my William--that's what you
are!  Because you can't do what he's done!"

"Begone before I come back," he answered, "or I'll wring your neck, you
foul-thinking slut!  And look to it you treat her as I do, Margaret, or
there may come trouble between us."

He glanced at his wife darkly, then, in most unusual anger, left the
threshold and walked across to Rhoda.

"A pair of 'em," commented Dorcas.  "And, please Heaven, they'll both be
childless to their dying day.  I hate the ground they walk on!"

"Don't! don't, for God's sake, curse like that," cried the other, and
Dorcas, divining what she had done, was instantly contrite.  Indeed, she
began to cry.

"I'm--I'm that savage; but not with you, Madge--never with you.  Forgive
me for saying that.  Of course you'll have plenty of
children--plenty--more'n you want, for that matter.  Never think you
won't--such a lover of the little creatures as you be.  You'll make up
for lost time when you do start.  And I hope you'll love mine as well as
your own, for, barring me and Billy and Billy's mother, there won't be
many to love 'em."

Her words had turned Margaret's thoughts upon herself and made her sad.

"Sometimes there comes an awful fear over me, Dorcas, that I shall have
none," she confessed.  "'Tis all folly and weakness, yet you'd be
astonished how oft I dream I'm to have none.  And if it fell out so, I
doubt David would break his heart."

"Don't think such nonsense.  Dreams never come true, and 'twill be all
right," declared Dorcas.  "But now I'll clear out, else he'll bully you
for talking to me so long after what he threatened.  And, David or no
David, you've got to be our friend, Madge; because there never was such
a dear, sweet creature afore, and never will be.  And if 'tis a girl,
Billy have promised me I may call it 'Madge'; and I shall do."

Dorcas dried her eyes and prepared to depart, but the other bade her
wait a moment.

"A drop of milk you must have; and--and--I know 'twill be a dinky
darling, and I shall love it only less than you and your husband will,"
Margaret said.

Then Dorcas drank and set off homeward, fearing further trouble; but
with her father she had no painful scene, for by the time that Elias
returned to the warren, the humorous side of that day's encounter had
struck him.  He kept this to himself most firmly however; but, as a
result, he indulged in no anger.  Instead he merely informed Dorcas that
Mr. Screech would marry her at the earliest possible moment on one
condition: the bridegroom insisted upon a wedding of ceremony and
importance.




                              *CHAPTER IX*

                        *COMMON SENSE AND BEER*


Certain persons of local note had gathered together for evening drinking
in the bar of 'The Corner House.'

Charles Moses, Bartley Crocker, Mattacott, and Ernest Maunder were
there; but interest chiefly centred in one just entered upon the state
of matrimony.  The truth concerning his marriage was known to none
present but Mr. Crocker, and he kept the secret.

Mr. Moses chaffed Billy Screech, and Billy, whose wit was nimbler than
the shoemaker's, answered jest for jest.

"As for cleverness, we well know you're clever," declared Mr. Moses.
"You've got a clever face, Screech--a clever nose, if I may say so--'tis
sharp as one of my awls."

"My nose has a point, I allow," said Mr. Screech, "and your awl's got a
point; but I'm damned if there's much point to the things you say,
Moses.  All the cleverness in your family was used up afore you come
into it, I reckon."

"I knowed the cleverest man that ever was seen in Sheepstor," said
Timothy Mattacott, slowly.  "So does Maunder here.  So clever he was
that he tried to walk faster than his own shadow, and he sowed a
barrow-load o' bricks once, thinking as they'd grow up into a house."

"And what became of him?" asked Crocker.

"They put him away," said Mattacott.  "He was afore the times.  He's up
along with the Exeter pauper lunatics to this hour, I believe."

"Samuel Edge was cleverer than that," declared Bartley.  "And I'll tell
you why: he weren't content with anything as it stood, but must be
altering and changing and pulling down and building up."

"A foreigner from Bristol way," said Mr. Moses.

"Yes, and the great cleverness of the man undid him. There was an
egg-bottomed well to his house, you remember, 'Dumpling'?"

"I do remember," admitted Mr. Shillabeer.  "One of they egg-bottomed
wells the man had."

"And though it ran out more than enough water for all his needs, nothing
would do but he must cut his egg-bottomed well into a bell-bottomed
well.  A pushing, clever chap."

Reuben took up the narrative.

"He went down hisself to do the work; and the sides fell in when he'd
under-cut a bit; and they didn't get the carpse out for three days," he
said, gloomily.

"Yet an amazing clever man was Edge," concluded Bartley.

"Better he'd left well alone, however," ventured Mr. Screech.  His jest
was greeted with a stare and an uncertain sort of laugh.  The folk treat
a pun like a conjuring trick: they are dimly conscious that something
unusual has happened in conversation, but they cannot say what, and they
have no idea how it was done.

"If Edge was the cleverest man, which, for my part, I won't allow,"
proceeded Moses, "then who was the cleverest woman, I wonder?"

"My wife," declared Mr. Shillabeer, instantly. "You must be just to the
dead, Charles, for they can't defend their characters.  But I say that
my wife was both the largest and best and cleverest woman that ever
comed here; and if anybody doubts it, let 'em give chapter and verse."

"Nobody does doubt it, 'Dumpling,'" said Bartley, in a soothing voice.
"There may be a smart female here and there yet, and there may be a
clever maiden or two coming on also; but never did any such grand
creature as Mrs. Shillabeer appear among us.  Mr. Fogo used to tell
about her, and how you won her from a regular army of other men."

"True as gospel.  There was a good few fighters after her besides
me--heavy weights too.  She'd never have looked twice at anything less
than a fourteen stone man.  In fact, to see any male short of thirteen
to fourteen stone beside her was a thing to laugh at. 'Twas when I was
in training for my fight with the old Tipton--years younger than me he
was all the same, that I won her.  I was at a little crib out Uxbridge
way, and her father had me in hand, and she come out from Saturday to
Monday, and us went walking over fields.  Then a bull runned at us, and
my girl weren't built for running, but I got her over a stile somehow by
the skin of the teeth, and the bull helped me after her from the rear.
Horched me in the buttock, and I bled like a pig after.  In fact, I
saved her life.  And she knowed it; and when I offered myself 'twas
'Dumpling' first and the rest nowhere, like the race-horse."

Mr. Maunder spoke.

"A faithful man to her memory.  No doubt if the widow-men could all look
back on such partners, there'd be less marrying a second than we see
around us."

"In my case," declared the host, "I can't forget her enough to think of
a second.  Her great largeness of character was the peculiar trick of
her; and she took such delight in everyday things, owing to being
town-bred, that when I look at a sow with young, or a pony and foal, or
the reds in the sky at evening, or a fall of snow, they all put me in
mind of her.  For whether 'twas a budding tree, or a fish in a pool, or
one of they bumbling bees in a bit of clover, everything made that woman
happier.  Never wanted to go back to London, took to the country like a
duck to water.  So I can't forget her so long as the lambs bleat and the
clouds gather for rain and the bud breaks on the bough.  I say, 'Ah! how
my wife would have liked to see that fox slip off that stone;' or 'how
my dear woman would have clapped her hands to look at this grey-bird's
nest with the eggs in it.'"

The old man heaved a sigh; the rest nodded.

"Mr. Fogo was different," declared Simon Snell, who had recently
arrived.  "He'd got terrible tired of Sheepstor afore he left it; for he
told me so."

Reuben admitted this, and his gloom increased.

"He'll never come no more, I'm afraid.  'Twas only the mill that kept
him so long.  He must have London booming round him.  He's been in
hospital since he was here, for the doctors to cut a lump of flesh out
of his neck.  But he's very well again now; and busy about a coming turn
up between Tom King and an unknown."

"How do it feel to be among the race of married men, Billy?" asked Simon
Snell.

"'Tis a very proper feeling, Simon," answered the other.  "In fact, I'll
go so far as to say a man don't know he's born until he's married.  You
chaps--Bartley here and suchlike--talk of freedom.  But 'tis all stuff
and nonsense.  You ban't free till you'm married; you be a poor,
unfinished thing without your own woman, and I should advise dashing
blades like you, Simon, and you, Timothy, to look around before the grey
hairs begin to thrust in.  Thirty to thirty-five is the accepted time.
I'm thirty-three myself."

"There's outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace I
see, too," said Mr. Moses.  "I was by your house a bit ago, and I was
terrible pleased to mark all the windows mended and a bit of paint on
the woodwork of 'em, and a new swing gate where you used to have nought
but a pole across and a piece of old sacking to keep the chickens in.
The place is a changed place and so smart as any bride could wish for."

"'Tis all that and more," declared Mr. Screech. "And if you'd gone
in--and you'll always be welcome, Moses--you'd have found my wife fresh
as paint herself in her new print, and, what's still more wonderful, my
mother with her hair all twisted tidy and her clothes neat as ninepence.
I would have it, you must know. 'Us must pull ourselves together,' I
said to mother. 'Dorcas comes from a terrible tidy family,--too tidy,
you might say, and I'm not pretending I mind the fowls in the kitchen
myself, or the dogs on the beds; but there 'tis--with a bride we must
meet her halfway; and she's as clean and trim herself as a hen
hedge-sparrow.'  My mother made no objection--took to her second-best
dress without a murmur, and bought a new one for the Lord's Day."

"You're a reformed character, in fact," declared Maunder.  "And I for
one rejoice at it, for I've often feared you and me might some day meet
in an unfriendly way when I stood for the law."

"Don't fear it," answered the other.  "I'm all right and full of
contrivances for making a bit of money in a straight and proper manner."

"David tells me your rabbit trap is the wonderfullest thing in that line
he've met with, and good for ten pounds to sell," put in Bartley.

"More like twenty," answered Screech.  "'Tis a masterpiece of a trap,
and I've had a good offer or two already, but not enough."

"We get more greedy after money when we'm married, I suppose," ventured
Snell.  "Of course we want more then."

"We ought to have more.  We're worth more," answered Billy.  "The moment
a man takes a serious hand in the next generation, he becomes a more
dignified object and ought to fetch better money, for the sake of the
wife and family.  A married man ought to have better wages and be
rewarded according to his breeding powers."

"And the women too.  'Tis a great fault in the State that our women
don't make a penny by getting children," declared Moses.

"Unless they bring forth three at a birth," said Mr. Shillabeer.  "Then
'tis well known that the Queen's Majesty sends three pounds out of her
own money, to show that 'tis a glorious feat, in her gracious opinion."

"Well, we single men had better waste no more time, if Billy is right,"
said Mattacott.  "For my part I've been looking round cautious for two
years now; but I haven't found the right party.  'Tis the married girls
I always feel I could have falled in love with, not the maidens."

"Just t'other way with me," declared Bartley.  "I like the unexpected
things the girls say and do.  The ways of a woman are like the ways of
the mist: past all finding out."

"True," declared Mr. Screech.  "I know a bit about 'em; and shall know
more come presently.  But like the mist you'll find 'em."

"Now here, now away again," continued Bartley. "Now lying as still and
as white as washing on the hill, now scampering off, hell for leather,
without rhyme or reason.  And so with them: they never do the expected
thing."

"True," said Mr. Moses, "you've hit 'em there.  As soon as a girl
answers me the direct opposite of what I expect, then I know that girl's
a child no more.  She's grown up, and 'tis time for her to put up her
hair and let down her dress."

"Never the expected thing," repeated Crocker, meditatively.  "They cry
when they ought to laugh; they cuss when they ought to cherish; they
fondle when they ought to whip.  They forgive the wrong sins; they
punish the wrong men; they break the wrong hearts."

"And when they've done their bitter worst," added Charles Moses; "when
they've set a man against Heaven, and life in general, and made him
pretty well hungry to creep into his grave and get out of it; when
they've driven him to the edge of madness and forced him to damn and
blast 'em to the pit--then what do the long-haired humans do?"

"Why, they jump into his lap," declared Mr. Crocker, "and kiss his eyes,
and press their soft carcases against him, all purring and cooing--half
cats and half pigeons that they be!"

"And the men give way," summed up Mr. Moses. "Leastways the manly,
large-minded sort, like 'Dumpling' and me and Crocker.  We can't stand
against 'em--not for a moment."

"We take, when our turn comes, in fear and trembling," continued
Bartley, "and we hope we'll be one of the lucky ones."

"The fear and trembling comes afterwards, as you'll find some day,
Bartley, and as Screech here may find any day," foretold Moses.  "Every
man backs his own judgment and will lay you any odds he's drawn a
prize."

"'Tis always the other people be fools in this world," declared Screech.
"It holds of life in general.  'Tis said the world be full of fools, yet
no man will ever allow he is one."

Mr. Snell spoke.

"I'm sure you hear of happy marriages here and there," he said
doubtfully.

"So you do, Simon.  You hear of 'em--same as you hear of pixies.  But
you don't see 'em.  Leastways I don't," answered Bartley.

"Present company excepted, I hope," said Screech.

"You forget Mrs. Shillabeer also," murmured Mattacott. "I'm sure nobody
here knows more about marriage than what the 'Dumpling' do.  He's seen a
happy marriage."

"In a way, yes," admitted the host; "and also in a way, no.  You can't
be right down happy with a woman--not if you love her as well as I loved
the wife."

"'Perfect love casteth out fear,' however," quoted Mr. Moses, vaguely.

"Just what it don't do, Charles; and the man that said it, saint or
sinner, didn't know what it was to love," answered the old
prize-fighter.  "If you love a female right down from the crown of her
head to the tip of her toes, and through and through likewise, you fear
for her something cruel.  I was built so soft where that woman was
concerned, that I hated for her to go for a drive in a trap, and
couldn't be easy--for thinking of the springs--till I seed her safe
again.  And when illness overtook her--why, 'fear' wasn't the name for
it. I crawled about like a beaten dog and cringed to God A'mighty for
her in season and out.  But she had to go, and I had to be left.  And
she took twenty year of my life underground with her."

They sympathised with him; then Mr. Snell returned to the main theme.

"They'm quicker than us, however," he asserted. "I'm sure their brains
work faster than what ours do. There's many a thing a woman can't make
clear to a male mind, try as she will."

Mr. Crocker laughed.

"Yes," he admitted.  "Such things as two and two make five--when they
want 'em to make five.  And they try and they try to make us see it; but
we can't.  And yet they are always ready to believe that our two and two
be five, God bless 'em!"

"I wonder," said Mr. Snell.

"'Tis so; but you must be masterful, Simon.  You must make 'em feel
you're in earnest and have no shadow of doubt," said Billy Screech.
"They love to see you strong, and they'd sooner see you wrong and
sticking to it than be blowed from your purpose by another man.  Nought
on God's earth be more hateful to a brave woman than to see her husband
bested.  And if a man bests you--whether 'tis at business or in any
other way--don't you tell her if you can help it.  Love you as she will,
you'll drop in her mind and be so much the less if she hears about it."

The clock struck; mugs were drained.

"Closing time, souls," said Mr. Shillabeer; and five minutes later the
company had separated and the bar was empty.  The 'Dumpling' mused on
the things that his guests had uttered.

"'Tis summed up in that word 'unexpected' without a doubt," he thought.
"Never the expected thing. And if we grant so much, then us never ought
to expect the expected thing.  They be all of a piece; and because my
wife looked like living for ever, I ought to have knowed she'd die.  I
ought to have known it, and prepared for it, and laid in wait for it.
Yet nobody was more surprised than me, and nobody less so than her when
it leaked out of the doctor.  She knowed it herself well enough; but
hadn't the heart to tell me."




                              *CHAPTER X*

                              *CRAZYWELL*


Nature, passing nigh Cramber Tor, where old-time miners delved for tin,
has found a great pit, filled the same with sweet water, and transformed
all into a thing of beauty.  Like a cup in the waste lies Crazywell;
and, at this summer season, a rare pattern of mingled gold and amethyst
glorified the goblet. Autumn furze and the splendour of the heath
surrounded it; the margins of the tarn were like chased silver, where
little sheep-tracks, white under dust of granite, threaded the
acclivities round about and disappeared in the gravel beaches beneath.
Upon the face of the lake there fell a picture of the bank, and it was
brightened, where heather and honey-scented furze shone reversed with
their colour-tones subtly changed by the medium that reflected them.
But at midmost water these images ceased and fretted away into
wind-ripples that frosted and tarnished the depths.  And there, when the
breeze fell dead for a moment, shone out the blue of the zenith and the
sunny warmth of clouds.  At water's brink stood three black ponies--a
mare and two foals of successive births.  The mare's daughter already
attained to adult shapeliness; her son was a woolly baby, with a little
silly face like a rocking-horse.  He still ran to her black udder when
thirsty and flew to her side for protection if alarmed.

Peace, here brooding after noon, was suddenly wakened by the stampede of
half a dozen bullocks, goaded by gadflies.  Down they came from above
with thundering hoofs and tails erect.  They rushed to cool their
smarting flanks, sent ripples glittering out into the lake, and
presently stood motionless, knee-deep, with their chestnut coats
mirrored in the water.

Upon the side of the pool there sat a woman--as still as a picture in a
gold frame.  She was clad with such sobriety that one might have thought
her a stone; but she moved and her sunbonnet shone as she flung it off
and then wiped her hot forehead with the fall of it. For a moment she
thought of the legends of Crazywell and cast back in her memory for the
evidence of their truth.  Here was a haunt of mystery and a water of
power.  Voices murmured in this hollow once a year, and if none of late
had heard them, doubtless that was because none permitted himself or
herself to do so.  A spirit neither malignant nor benign, but wondrously
informed, dwelt here--a sentient thing, a nether gnome, from whom was
not hidden the future of men--a being who once a year could cry aloud
with human voice and tell the names of those whose race was run.  All
dreaded the sortilege of the unknown thing that haunted Crazywell; but
since its power was restricted to Christmas Eve, little general sense of
horror or mystery hung over the pool.  For Margaret Bowden, however, it
had always possessed a sort of charm not wholly pleasant. She avoided
the place of set purpose and was beside it to-day by appointment only.
Another had named Crazywell as a tryst, and she lacked sufficient
self-assertion to refuse.  Now she blinked in the direct sunlight and
longed for shade where no shade was.

She envied the kine below, and being in a mood a little morbid, by
reason of private concerns, she cast her thought further than the cattle
and pictured the peace and silence beneath the heart of the water.  A
long sleep there seemed not the hardest fate that could fall on human
life.  There was a man--and Margaret had known him--who drowned himself
in Crazywell.  By night he ended a troublous life, and joined the spirit
of the pool for a season.  Then he floated into light of day again, and
was found by his fellows.  They drew him out and called him mad, and
buried him in the earth with Christian burial, that his wife's feelings
might be saved a pang.  Yet nobody knew better than the coroner's jury
that this man was very sane, and had shortened his own life for sound
reasons.  Margaret remembered that at the time, she had blamed him much,
but her mother had not blamed him.  And she herself, having been married
nearly a year, no longer blamed him.  Who was she to judge?  If she, a
happy wife, could look without horror at Crazywell in this unclouded
hour, was it strange that an unhappy man might do more than look, and
rest his head there?

"A happy wife--so happy as any woman ever can hope to be, who--who--"

Her thought broke off.  She envied the mare at water's edge.  The
pot-bellied old matron stood still, and only moved her tail backwards
and forwards to keep off the flies.  The foal galloped around
her--playing as children will.

"So happy as any wife can hope to be, who has no child."

Margaret made herself finish the sentence; for everything that happened
to her now revolved upon it.  She explained the least little cloud or
shadow of cloud thus; she referred the least impatience or short word to
the same cause.  There was no rift, no failure of understanding, no
lessening of love--so the wife assured herself--but she must do her
duty.  She must not much longer delay to bring to David the thing his
soul most desired.

Her thoughts ran unduly upon this theme, and her own anxiety seemed like
to stand between her and her object.  She exaggerated the truth; out of
a natural and innate diffidence she imagined a condition of mind in her
husband which did not exist.  David indeed desired children and expected
them; but he was in no violent hurry, and had not as yet even
entertained the possibility of having none.  When she mentioned the
matter, he consoled her and blamed her for giving it a thought.  In
reality, the thing in their lives that she marked and deplored and thus
explained, belonged to a far different and deeper cause.  After love's
fever certain differences of temperament began slowly and steadily to
declare themselves.  There was no radical change in David; but his
self-absorption increased with his prosperity--a circumstance
inevitable.  For comradeship and for sympathy in business he had Rhoda;
and her understanding of dumb animals so much exceeded Margaret's, that
brother and sister unconsciously made common cause and seemed to live an
inner life and develop personal interests from which Margaret found
herself in some measure excluded.  None could be blamed.  The thing
simply so fell out; and as yet not one of the three involved perceived
it.  David and Rhoda were full of his enterprises, and she did much
man's work afield for him and advanced his welfare to the best of her
strength and sense.  Margaret shopped, cooked, mended clothes, and made
ready for the others in the intervals of work.  She relieved her
sister-in-law of much sewing and other toil that Rhoda might have the
more leisure to aid David.  This woman, indeed, was unlike most women,
and for that reason she did not clash with Margaret as much as another
might have.

Rhoda Bowden had struck an observer from without as an exotic creature,
who homed here by accident, but who by right belonged to no dwelling
made with hands.  A sister of the deep green glade was she--a denizen of
the upland wilderness and the secret antre. She followed the train of
Selene.  The silver light and the domain of nocturnal dew were hers.
Silence was her familiar; from her own brother she hid a part of her
days and her nights.  And of the varied aspects of her mistress, the
moon, Rhoda shared not a few.  The young of beasts seemed her special
care and joy.

    "The tender whelps, new-dropped, of creatures rude,"

found a ready friend in her; but while thus gracious to all the lesser
things that shared her place in time, this girl revealed for humanity,
beyond her brother, but little love.  She was zealous for him, but to
other men she stood as heretofore: in an attitude enigmatic, tending to
aloofness.  Margaret, however, had yet to be convinced that she was not
to be won.

To women Rhoda's aspect of late was made more widely manifest.  Out of
her own virginal fount of feeling no drop of sympathy with the
unvirginal could flow; and the thing that Dorcas had accomplished was
above all measure infamous, treacherous to womankind, beyond hope of
pardon in her eyes.  Had the power to do so rested with Rhoda, she had
swept her sister out of life; and in her mind this yielding wanton, and
her husband, and her new-born baby were already as objects dead and
banished from existence.

Margaret's thoughts now centred on Rhoda and she lost sight of her own
misty tribulations.  Two great problems awaited solution, and with the
optimism of a large heart this woman hoped yet to solve them.  She
wanted to see Rhoda a wife; and she wanted to see her reconciled to
Dorcas.  The one achievement might depend upon the other.  Let Rhoda
once wed, and there must come understanding into her life.

Margaret had spoken often, with tact and warmth, of Bartley Crocker; and
she had been helped in a very valuable quarter, as it seemed, for David
also considered the man as among his closest friends at this season.
There had recently been some talk between them of a sort specially
interesting to David, for Bartley was attracted, or declared himself
attracted, by the prospect of leaving England to farm in Canada, and the
information he had gathered together respecting that wider world of the
Colonies could not fail to be of interest to Bowden.  At David's
invitation Bartley had spent a Sunday afternoon recently at 'Meavy Cot';
and Madge was now at Crazywell to tell the lover what had followed his
visit.

She waited yet half an hour; then Bartley appeared on the hither bank of
the pool, looked about him a while, caught sight of Madge's sunbonnet,
and approached her.  So busy with her own thoughts was she that she did
not see him until he was beside her: then she rose and bade him find
some shade.

"The sun's that fierce I must get out of it," she said.

Thereupon he took her to a little glen close at hand--a lip through
which the pool sometimes overflowed in winter--and under a white-thorn
they sat down together, while Margaret, looking at the golden furzes in
front of her, spoke to him.

"I do believe the gorse be going brown already. Just a little gladness
we get from it, then 'tis gone again, like a candle blown out."

"What a thought!  You're down, I see.  No use saying you're not.  And of
late you've been like this more than once.  'Tis for me to talk to you
to-day, I think.  'Tis for me to tell you what I saw last Sunday at
'Meavy Cot,' not for you to tell me what fell out after I was gone."

"I'm cheerful enough--only wisht to spend such a long day away from
David.  He's to Tavistock again. He's terrible hopeful of some work
there; but I hardly think he'll get it--hasn't been well enough
eggicated, I fancy.  Though clever enough, I'm sure."

"He don't know everything, however."

"Who does?"

"He don't know a thing or two that even I could teach him."

"Such as upholstering?"

"Just so.  I upholster chairs--at least I know how to.  And you
upholster David's life--make it easy and comfortable and soft at the
edges.  But what about your life, Madge?"

"Well, what about it, Bartley?"

"I suppose 'tis infernal impudence of me," he said. "All the same I'm an
old friend and one good turn deserves another.  You're trying to help me
to get what I want; I wonder if I could help you a bit here and there?"

"Whatever do you mean?  And what did you see at our home that makes you
say such a curious thing?"

"'Tisn't what I saw, but what I didn't see.  But there, what on God's
earth am I saying?  'Tisn't to you I should speak."

"Go on and tell me."

"I can't, for I can't give it a name.  Only somehow--look here, I'm a
fool to touch this.  I'm talking too soon.  I must wait and see a bit
more.  You can't have your mind in two places at once, Madge.  I'm not
myself of late and very likely I fancy things. You'd reckon I had enough
to think about without mixing up myself in other people's business.  But
you are different to everybody else.  I feel we've been hunting in
couples of late, and so your good's mine."

"How you run on!  And that wild.  I don't know now what you're talking
about, you silly chap."

"More do I.  I only know two things for certain. And one is that my
mother is worse, and the other is that your sister-in-law was jolly
interested in what I said about Canada.  Did you mark that?"

"She was.  The wildness and bigness of the land would draw her to it.  I
meant to tell you.  After you'd gone--but I am so sorry about your dear
mother. I thought last week that she seemed a little better."

"No--not really.  It's got to be.  God knows that if talking would mend
her, I'd talk for a year.  But it won't.  So go on about Rhoda, please."

"Well, she didn't say much herself, but she listened to my husband after
you'd left us, and when he asked her joking whether she'd like Canada,
she said quite seriously that she would.  'Twas the great size and
wildness of the place took her mind.  'To think of them woods and the
wonderful creatures in 'em!' she said.  And when David thought how fine
'twould be to have a bit of ground pretty near as big as all Dartymoor
for your own, she nodded and her eyes shone."

"But she couldn't go out walking all alone of a night there," said
Bartley.  "There are bears, I believe, and Indians, too, for all I know.
But very like she'd take to them--bears and Indians both.  I daresay now
one of them grimy, naked-faced men with their features looking as though
they were cut out of stone, and a hat of hawks' feathers, would please
her better than ever I shall."

Margaret laughed.

"You must persevere," she said.  "You must be patient too.  After she
refused you she was more than common silent for a month.  She thought a
lot about it and went afield more than usual with nought but dogs for
company.  Keep at her, but don't ax again just yet.  Time ban't ripe."

"D'you think if I was to offer to go to Canada and make her mistress of
a mile or two of it, that she'd be more like to say 'yes?'"

"'Tis a great question that, and I won't answer 'yes' or 'no.'  'Tis
very difficult to guess what's passing in her mind, for her face don't
alter like most faces. 'Tis more the light in her eye tells you."

Mr. Crocker nodded.

"I've marked that.  Her lips and brow don't play and lift like yours.
She keeps her mouth shut and her eyebrows steady.  But her eyes talk
more than her lips.  She likes me--I do honestly think that, Madge."

"I'm glad of it.  I've gone as near as I dare to asking her what she
thinks of you, and I've sung your praises--not from myself, mind, but as
an echo to David.  But she gives no sign.  She listens and her face
don't alter.  I'll do all I dare, but with such a maiden we must be very
nice.  If she thought I was on your side, trying to help you to get her,
she'd never forgive me."

"I know how clever you are.  And David's not against it neither; though
I can't expect him to wish such a thing, for she's as good as a couple
of men to him.  In fact, no two would do what she does for him.
Hirelings can't work like them that labour for love.  She'd make a model
wife for an open air man.  And if I win her, Madge, 'twill be farming
without a doubt, for a shop would be no use to her--nor to me neither,
for that matter."

Margaret laughed out loud at the idea of her sister-in-law in a shop.

"Nought will ever tame her down to that," she said. "'Twas a pity you
learnt the upholstering business, Bartley.  It didn't lift you in her
eyes, I'm afraid."

"Let her say 'yes,' and I'll learn what she pleases that'll help to make
a living.  I'd very well like to go to Canada and grow apples and corn."

"So would she, I do think--if she could get to care enough about you."

"Why shouldn't she?  A maiden can always find one chap that's good
enough to marry, and I'm sure she'll not meet with a better in these
parts."

"I'm very sure she won't."

"Well, then, I've a right to expect her to give in. There's nobody else?
You can honestly say there's nobody else, Madge?"

"There's always somebody else where a pretty girl be wife-old," she
answered.  "In the case of Rhoda--well, it seems absurd--it is
absurd--too absurd to be true, and yet I won't deny there's something in
it."

"You mean that bearded antic of a Snell?"

"He's very much gone on Rhoda in his cautious, lizard sort of a way.  He
looks at her in church."

"Yes, like a cow looks at a passing coach.  Surely that slow-witted,
knock-kneed shadow of a man can't interest Rhoda?"

"Such things ban't easily explained, but it's true that he's about the
only male that ever keeps her talking.  I wouldn't say that he ever
dreams of such a thing as marriage, but--"

"Good Lord--marriage!  I'd so soon expect to see him a bishop as a
husband.  What now can it be that she likes in poor Simon?  I wish I
knew, for I'd try to copy it."

"I've oft wondered.  'Tis something in the air of him that makes her
feel easy and friendly."

"I wish he'd got the wit to tell me how he does it."

"He doesn't know--no more does she.  But there 'tis. She can suffer him;
she can even talk about him."

"Try and see what the trick is, Madge.  Ask Simon to tea and watch 'em
together.  What do they speak about?"

"I'll do what I can.  She was a bit ruffed with Simon last week,
however."

"Angered with him!  That's a bad sign, if she could be interested enough
in such a shadow as Simon as to be cross with him.  She've never been
cross with me--not since we made it up."

"She was angry because Mr. Snell has got rather friendly of late with
Billy and Dorcas Screech.  Their house is near his work and he drops in
sometimes, I believe.  He told Rhoda that the baby was very like its
grandmother to Ditsworthy Warren, and Rhoda flared up and answered that
she'd thank him never to name it to her again."

"Another mystery in her.  If I ever have any luck with her, the first
thing will be to make her a bit kinder to women, Madge."

"She's kind enough; but to say it without feeling, she's narrow and she
hates the mother business.  She never will be fond of childer, I'm
afraid, Bartley."

"Then we shall be of one mind there anyway.  I don't like 'em
either--never did and never shall."

"Wait and see.  You'll change from all that nonsense."

Suddenly Bartley started.

"Talk of--there goeth Rhoda by the footpath yonder."

"So she is!  Fancy that.  I'll call her.  She's on her way to Ditsworthy
till evening.  But I thought she'd gone long ago."

Bartley whistled and a solitary fox-terrier, who was the woman's
companion, rushed over to see what was doing.  He recognised Margaret
and stopped; then he turned, held up a paw and waited to see whether
Rhoda was coming after him.

Madge called and Rhoda came to them.  Mr. Crocker greeted her with
friendship and Margaret asked where she had been.

"I fell in with your brother," she said.  "Bart was up over rounding up
some ponies.  Him and your father have got ten ponies for Princetown
fair and they hope great things from them.  But they'll not do so well
as David's--they ain't so forward as our three."

"A lucky chance this," declared Bartley.  "I'm just going up to
Ditsworthy myself to see Mrs. Bowden.  My dear mother's weaker and she
wants to have a talk with her old friends before 'tis too late."

"I'll tell mother for you," said Rhoda.  "Only last Sunday she was
wondering if Mrs. Crocker would care for to see her."

"I must tell her myself and carry back her message to my mother,"
answered the crafty lover.  His parent had expressed no desire whatever
to see Sarah Bowden; but the excuse came as an inspiration to the man.

Rhoda said nothing and he spoke again.

"Perhaps if you are going that way, you won't be offended if I walk
along with you?"

She shook her head, implying that he was welcome.

"I've gathered a bit more about the backwoods and the life out in the
Dominion of Canada, you must know. And I was wondering if, among all
your brothers, there might not be one, or perhaps two, as would like to
make their fortunes there.  'Tis a pity for all to bide on the Moor."

"So I think," said she.  "For men to be cooped up, like chickens on a
run, is a vain thing.  I'd much wish for to see them go out in the world
a bit--same as other young men."

"If your brother Drake had been spared, I'm sure he'd have gone," said
Crocker, with a twinkle of the eye.

Madge saw the jest, but Rhoda quite failed to do so.

"That's so silly as mother," she said.  "But I should like to see Nap
and Wellington under articles to some trustworthy farmer in them parts.
'Twould make men of 'em.  The whole family can't be rabbit-catchers."

This common sense impressed Bartley not a little. It was another side of
Rhoda, familiar enough to Margaret, but not to him.

They departed now together and Margaret heard Rhoda laugh as they went.
Such an exceedingly rare sound cheered her not a little.  It rang like a
hopeful augury, and she rejoiced for Bartley's sake and went home happy.




                              *CHAPTER XI*

                               *REPROOF*


Life is an unconscious effort on the part of the individual to get the
world to see him at his own valuation; and some by force of will
partially achieve it; and some by preciousness of attributes are justly
appraised above their own self-estimate.  David Bowden was respected and
counted a man of weight--a rising man, a man whose honesty, industry,
and sense achieved increasing prosperity, and whose justice and goodness
of heart robbed his success of bitterness to all save base minds.  But
Margaret's character, so largely different, won open love.  The folk
nodded appreciation when her name was mentioned and old eyes brightened
at it.  Sympathy from her own brimming cup poured over; and the people,
perceiving this couple from the outer standpoint, declared that no such
happy diversity of qualities ever before mingled to make a perfect
union.

But it was not quite the union of the moss and the stone; where the hard
is made lovely by the soft and, in return, establishes a sure, enduring
foothold for it. There were permanent disparities in the texture of
their characters that neither could alter and neither could suffer
without pain.  David frequently failed to see Madge's point of view: she
was constitutionally unable to harden her nature that she might accept
his attitude. Out of this disability grew hunger and dearth in the
woman's spirit, discomfort on the part of the man.  He tried, as far as
his nature would let him, to bridge the gulf; and she came to the other
side and held out her hands to him.  Sometimes they touched for a glad
moment, but only thus briefly; and despite his deep affection and her
passionate worship, these vital constituents of character stood between
them, deep-rooted in attributes beyond the power of love to overthrow.
Unconsciously he bruised her; unconsciously she aggravated him.  His
native spirit held the wider outlook of her charity and lenity as
weakness.  Sin and the sinner were closely allied in his judgment;
therefore her tolerance, her magic ingenuity of excuse for error, her
clemency and her patience with folly puzzled him. She had a genius for
identifying herself with those the world forgot or shunned.  She was a
champion of failures; and her attitude to the sick, the wretched, and
the outcast sometimes troubled David.

On one occasion she caught an evil from a house full of sickness and
brought it home, so that David, too, fell ill and was from his work for
three days.  When the doctor came and bade him keep within doors, he
turned on his wife, and for the first time she saw him angry with her.
The incident passed; the sting lasted a long while.  Her attitude to
Dorcas won a milder reprimand; but here she was obstinate and asserted
her own liberty of action.  She visited Dorcas; rejoiced in her
happiness and content, and congratulated her on the reformation she had
achieved in her husband.  But David held off and waited to see Billy
Screech return to his irregular ways; while Rhoda kept her word and saw
her sister no more.

It happened that David found his wife on an afternoon in autumn going to
the house of Mr. Screech with a basket on her arm.  She never openly
irritated him by visiting his sister under his eyes, though her
friendship with Dorcas was not hidden; but now it chanced that husband
and wife unexpectedly met.  She was on foot and he rode.  She smiled and
stopped.  He nodded and asked where she was going with a full basket.

"Not to they Fosters, Madge?  There's some bad catching sickness there,
and I won't have it.  I can't afford no more of that nonsense."

"I'm going to see Dorcas."

"What for?"

"Because her li'l chap's queer.  Nothing at all, David--only a bit of a
tissick on the chest.  And I've made up some cautcheries[#] after a
recipe of mother's for him.  And this here's a bit of that big,
blue-vinnied cheese as you said we never should be able to eat.  'Tis a
pity to waste it."


[#] Physic.


"Anything else?"

"No--except a pint of whortleberries what I gathered yesterday; and a
couple of they pigs' trotters for your sister."

"Can't they pick their own whortleberries?"

"Dorcas be a thought poorly herself.  There's another little one coming
a'ready."

He frowned and sat still on his horse, looking straight between its
ears.

"Always swarm where they ban't wanted--like bees," he said.  Then he
turned to Margaret.

"Give me that food.  Let Screech buy his own cheese. I'm going up over
to see my mother.  I'll carry it to her."

He held out his hand and she took the cheese from her basket and gave it
to him.

"And no more of this, my dear.  I'm not going to keep other people's
children--because I haven't got none of my own.  And don't you never
think so, Madge; because if you do, you'll think wrong.  Good-bye for
the present.  Don't think 'tis hard: 'tis only sense."

He put the food in his pocket and rode on; she stood and watched him;
then her lips parted a little and as she pressed them together tears
started from her eyes. There was none to see and she made no effort to
restrain her sorrow.  Her face was still tear-stained when two men
overtook her and Bartley Crocker, with Billy Screech, bade her good-day.
Billy was in a hurry and had to call at his home on the way elsewhere.
He dearly liked Margaret and now, hearing that she was on the way to see
Dorcas, took her basket for her. Mr. Screech rapidly passed out of sight
and she was left alone with Bartley.

He spoke at once.

"What's amiss?" he said.  "You've been crying."

"Nonsense!"

"I daresay it was.  Still, you have.  And if 'twas nonsense, you can
tell me so much the easier."

"Some silly trifle.  You oughtn't to have taken any note of it."

"I've just met David--going up to Ditsworthy.  He must have passed you.
Well, well--no business of mine, Madge.  I'll say nought and ask you to
forgive me for being so bold as to see.  Only I'm different to other
people.  We've got such a lot of secrets--you and me."

Instantly she confided in him.

"I know 'tis nought but your soft, silly heart, Bartley.  We'm too much
alike here and there, you and me. But David's always right, and I do vex
him with my foolish ways--too well I know it.  I can't be so firm and
just as him.  God knows I try; but my mind ban't built in his manly
pattern.  I'm all for forgiving everybody and being friendly with
everybody.  He says I'm no better than a spaniel to fawn, but--"

"Don't," said Mr. Crocker.  "Don't tell me no more, Madge.  I quite
understand.  'Tis the man's nature to be firm and stern, same as it is
yours to be soft and gentle.  You've got to meet one another.  He must
try and be soft, and you must try and be hard.  I don't suppose either
of you can succeed; but if you try--and yet what silly rummage I be
talking!"

"I vexed him rather sharp a moment ago."

"Look here!" he exclaimed.  "In a bit of a cloud like this, Rhoda ought
to be the very one living creature of all others to put everything
right.  Don't you see that with her sort of nature--as firm as David and
yet a woman--she ought to be able to see both sides and just speak the
very word and do the very thing to make all go smooth and happy?"

"I'm sure she would if she could," answered Margaret at once.  "Rhoda
and me are capital friends nine days out of ten.  But of course she's
more like David than me."

"I heard Screech say she was David in petticoats; but that's only rude,
foolish nonsense.  She's a woman, and she must have a woman's softness
and gentleness and understanding for women hidden away in her--a clever,
beautiful creature like her."

The lover spoke and Margaret did not contradict him.  Bartley, though he
could arrive at fairly accurate estimates of character as a rule, proved
blind where Rhoda Bowden was concerned.  He had judged her better in the
past; but now he only loved her and erred accordingly.

"Trust to her; tell her," he advised.  "She can do anything with David."

And Margaret, knowing perfectly well that Billy Screech's opinion of her
sister-in-law was the more correct, yet took some heart of hope from Mr.
Crocker's advice and promised him to do as he suggested.

"But what am I to waste your time?" she asked. "Such a happy woman as I
be.  To see such a foreign thing as a tear on my cheek!  No wonder you
was surprised.  'Twas all about nothing really and I'm ashamed of
myself.  Now let's talk of you.  When be you coming up again to tell us
more about Canada?"

"I've forgot all about it," he answered.  "The question is, when am I
going to ask Rhoda to go there with me?  I feel 'twill be do or die next
time.  But I can't wait much longer.  Then there's my mother.  She'll be
gone by October, they say.  'Tis curious how she hankers after that man,
Charles Moses, now.  And I'm sure he's terrible kind.  Comes in when he
can and reads the Bible to her by the hour.  Mr. Merle's very good too.
But she'd rather have Moses than anybody."

"There's you."

"Yes--me first, poor dear.  I've scraped the skin off my throat, as you
can hear.  I was reading to her till three o'clock this morning.  Then,
thank God, she got off to sleep."

They had reached the home of Dorcas and there parted.  Margaret went in
and Mr. Crocker, with a resolution recently made and carefully concealed
from her, proceeded towards Sheepstor.

He had decided to speak to David, and since, knowing himself tolerably
well, he guessed that time might very easily destroy this intention,
Bartley proceeded then and there to the way by which Bowden would return
to his home.  In a dingle not very far from Dennycoombe he waited, and
after two lonely hours, during which he considered the probable futility
of his intention, David came along.

He was in good spirits and asked his old adversary to return home with
him for a cup of tea.

"I know you'll need no second bidding," he said, "for my wife have told
me about your fancy for Rhoda, and though I can't further it, I'll not
stand in the way if 'tis to be.  You'd better come and tell her some
more about foreign parts: she likes that better than courting. If any
man ever wins her, 'twill have to be a wild man of the woods, I reckon."

Crocker, pleased that David was in a mood so easy, nerved himself to a
dangerous task.  He had decided to do no less than try and light
Bowden's imagination. This on any subject had been a difficult feat; but
since the man's own wife was the matter, Bartley felt that he could
hardly have attempted anything less likely to succeed or more likely to
end in tribulation.  Indeed, as soon as his mouth was open he regretted
his unwisdom; but it was then too late to draw back and he proceeded.
Chance inspired him to make an excellent case and speak with very
genuine discretion; but David was a long time silent and the other
feared that he had done more harm than good.

"'Tis well we met," he began, "for I want to speak to you, David.  And
'tis a kicklish subject at first glance; but not at second.  I mean
Margaret.  You know very well I wanted to marry her once, and you know
she loved you better far and you won her.  But though she never would
have taken me for a husband, yet I've been close as a brother to her all
my life, and she's fond of me too in her way."

"I know it," said Bowden.  "And why not?  Fond she is, else she wouldn't
take so much trouble to try and get Rhoda to have you."

"Exactly so.  And now I'm coming to the tricky place in our talk.  I met
Margaret a bit agone--mind, I'm talking like her brother might--and she
was crying. Just after leaving you it was, David.  I asked her what was
amiss, and she told me 'twas all her weak nonsense. Then it come out--as
a sister to a brother.  She'd vexed you and she was cut to the heart
about it.  She loves the ground you walk on, David; and when she don't
hit it off with you--when you look black at her--'tis like holding back
water from a flower.  By God, she droops!"

"Crying, you say?"

"Had been, and couldn't hide it.  You'd never have known it; but I said
to myself, 'that man don't guess what he is to her, or that a cold word
frets her like a wound.'  Be angry with me if you like, Bowden, and tell
me to mind my own business.  I'll take it now--now that I've told you."

David stopped and got off his horse.

"I'm not angry," he said.  "The question is, what have you told me?
I'll thank you to say it again; and don't fear to use clear words.  I
like 'em best."

"The point is that, busy as you are and up to the eyes in affairs and
beasts and money-making in general, you've missed a lot in Madge that's
worth finding out. And you must find it out if you want her to be a
happy woman."

"What don't I know?"

"You don't know how to humour her."

"A sane, grown-up woman don't want humouring, surely?"

"Every woman that ever was born wants humouring. Think now.  Don't you
humour Rhoda?  Don't even Rhoda do and say things you can't fathom now
and again?  Don't you give in to her against your own better knowledge
now and then--for the sake of pleasing her and so that she may the
quicker do as you want her to do next time?  Be honest--don't you?"

Bowden looked at the other with surprise and nodded.

"Lord!  How you know the ins and outs of 'em!"

"Not me.  No man ever can.  We just glimpse a bit here and there.  But
this I know; patience is the first virtue with women.  Patient, as a
spider, we've got to be when the fly is a female.  Now Margaret feeds on
one thing, and if you hold it back you starve her. That's sympathy,
Bowden--just a natural, tender sort of feeling such as you don't hold
back even from a cow that's just dropped a dead calf and had her trouble
for nought.  I'll say it in a word and trust your large sense and
justice not to be angered.  You're not so kind as you might be to
Margaret.  'Tis summed up in that, and I ask you to forgive me for
saying it.  I've nought to gain, and everything to lose by losing your
friendship.  I wouldn't have spoken such a strong thing for any less
serious reason than her happiness. And now you can tell me to go about
my business if you please, and I'll gladly go."

"Wait a bit and hear me," answered the other.  "I can see, fixed up as
you are, and hoping what you hope, that it wasn't all fun for you to say
this to me.  You're not the sort of man as ever goes across the road to
teach other people or meddle with them.  And that's why I've listened so
patient to you.  Some--most men--I'd have stopped at the first word;
because most men be very fond of giving advice and lifting themselves
above their neighbours; and that sort I very soon put in their place if
they talk to me.  But you don't offer your opinions unasked as a rule,
and you've knowed my wife since she was a baby, and you'm a thought like
her here and there--a softness there is in your nature. 'Twas pointed
out after our fight."

"I said that very word to her to-day," answered Bartley.  "'Tis because
I'm rather the same pattern as she that I can feel so sharp about this
as even to risk your friendship by speaking.  She'd die for you; but
would you die for her, David?  Well, yes, without doubt you would; but
do what's harder.  Try to do the little, twopenny-halfpenny, every-day
sort of things for her that'll show her she's never out of your
thought."

The other had retired into his own mind and failed to hear this
admonition.  His intellect moved much more slowly than Crocker's, and he
was now retracing an incident.

"To show you the softness of her," he said, "I may tell you that when
you was coming to see us, she begged me to take down the
fight-colours--the two handkerchers you might have seen hanging in shiny
wood frames one on each side of the parlour looking-glass in my house.
She said that it would hurt your feelings cruel to see the signs of the
battle there, and I think even Rhoda looked a sort of question with her
eyes at me.  'But no,' I said.  'He's not a fool.  'Twill be no pain to
him to see 'em.'  And I wouldn't take 'em down. Rhoda saw it my way; but
Margaret kept on to the end that 'twas not a proper thing--'specially as
you came at my invitation to tea.  Yet, of course you didn't mind seeing
your fogle there?"

"Not a bit in the world.  A very natural and proper place for it.  But
don't it show what stuff she's made of--Margaret, I mean?"

"It do," admitted David.  "I thank you for saying these things to me.
I'm not above learning from any man or woman either."

"Learn from her then.  You can't learn from a better.  Be out of bias
with her no more."

"I'll have a tell with Rhoda about it.  'Tis the little silly things, as
you say, that please women.  I do big things when I can, you must know.
There was another twenty pound put out at interest for her last month.
But she didn't take much delight seemingly in a valuable matter like
that.  She thanked me loving enough, but not as though she knowed what
it means to earn and to save twenty pounds."

"She'd sooner you took her back a bunch of they wild strawberries out of
the hedge than all the money in Tavistock," declared Bartley.  "Foolish,
if you like, but take my word for it, David.  She's built in that
particular way.  Try it."

Bowden laughed.

"If any man had told me that I should ever listen to such a lot of sense
from you, I'd have judged him mad," he answered.  "Yet here it has come
about, and I thank you, honest, for trying to do me a good turn. And
succeeding too.  I'll see how a little silliness will work.  Perhaps a
holiday come the next revel. Good-bye--unless you'll drop in for a
bite."

"Next week, perhaps.  But there's a lot of trouble afore me just now.
My mother--"

"You're welcome when you please to come," concluded Bowden, and
re-mounted, full of his own thoughts.  It was characteristic that when
the other mentioned his dying parent, he said nothing.  He had heard,
but the ready word made no effort to leave his lips.  He was for the
moment quite occupied with his own business.  Crocker left his old
antagonist very full of thought and, when the younger was out of sight,
Bowden, at a sudden whim, took his advice literally, dismounted again
and tethered his horse.  Then he ranged about and gathered a great bunch
of wood-strawberries that clustered in a dewy hedge and shone ruby-red
in the level sunset light along the lane.

They would have been a very real and deep joy to Margaret; she must have
been the nearer to his heart that night by the tie of that simple
thought; but such an act was foreign to his nature.  He fell to thinking
how really and practically to please her, and in the light of definite
and weighty deeds, this piece of sentiment looked in his eyes so
exceedingly foolish, that he flung the berries away impatiently long
before he reached home.

What would anybody have said, he asked himself, had they seen the busy
and prosperous David Bowden carrying along rubbish from the hedge-row,
like a child playing truant from Sunday school?

That night, after Margaret had gone to bed, he talked with Rhoda
concerning her, and Rhoda was deeply interested and anxious to fall in
with his purposes.  David mentioned the source of his inspiration, and
finding that he showed no anger against Bartley Crocker, his sister took
the same attitude.  They strove very steadily henceforth to please
Madge, and to understand the things that were good to her.  They tried
hard, and in a measure succeeded; for Margaret was quick to mark their
efforts and gather happiness from them.  Yet the attempt could not
largely avail; because sympathy, without imagination to light its way,
can only grope in the dark and, groping, perish.




                             *CHAPTER XII*

                       *THE COURAGE OF MR. SNELL*


The instinct which drew Simon Snell towards Rhoda Bowden--the instinct
which, exemplified in her, suffered the advance without active
discomfiture--while slight and subtle, was none the less real.  There
was that in this simple soul which suited the woman; or if such an
expression is too strong, she found him more easily endured than any
other man.  Most girls fled instinctively from Simon.  The dullest found
him dull; the least humourous found his beard a jest; the worst educated
discovered that they possessed wider knowledge than he.  Yet Rhoda, who
was not stupid, who was handsome and who enjoyed a measure of sense,
could accede something to this egregious man that she denied all others.
She did not spurn him and she did not find his companionship a joke or a
bore.  On the other hand, she did not seek him and made no attempt to
better their acquaintance.

Simon, for his part, developed similar and even stronger sentiments; and
he had wit sufficient to perceive that any increase of friendship must
come from him.

He debated the matter in his mind with oriental deliberation; and he
consumed several months on the great problem of whether he should or
should not ask Rhoda to take a walk with him during some Sunday
afternoon. His inclinations varied, and occasionally he believed that to
walk with her was desirable; but more often he feared that such an
action would be too definite and must commit him.  Moreover, he felt
extremely doubtful as to Rhoda's reply and, thanks to a spark of
imagination in his character not to have been suspected, he believed
that if she said 'no,' he would feel very uncomfortable.

She met him on a day when the first opinion was uppermost, and almost
before he knew it, Mr. Snell had succeeded in asking Rhoda if she would
take a stroll with him upon the following Sunday afternoon. She replied
without emotion that she was engaged to dinner with her parents at
Ditsworthy.

"The next then," faltered Mr. Snell.  As he spoke, he determined with
himself that in thus pressing himself upon her, he had gone too far, and
he prepared to leave her.  To his surprise, however, Rhoda agreed.

"If 'tis a fine afternoon Sunday week, I'll come.  But not if 'tis
pouring torrents," she said.

"I'll be to your house at three of the clock," he answered.

Then he left her and found himself in great agitation. This was the most
audacious thing that he had ever done.  He felt proud and alarmed by
turns.  As the day approached he heartily hoped that it might be wet;
but it arrived clear, cold, and fine.  Therefore he went forth in his
Sunday clothes, reached his destination too soon and waited out of sight
behind a stone, until his watch told one minute to the appointed hour.

Rhoda was ready for him and they set off together up the valley.  From
his cottage door David watched them and smiled grimly.  His sister had
not mentioned her appointment, and both Margaret and her husband were
exceedingly surprised.

"It can't surely be that poor Mr. Snell--?" said Madge.

"Anything can be," he answered; "but 'tis hard to believe.  On the
whole--no.  It amounts to nought. Look at the way Simon carries his
legs--that loose from the thigh--that loose and wandering, as though
they belonged to a Guy Fawkes!"

"'Tis a most amazing thing, David, what different sort of people
sometimes have something in 'em that draws them together willy-nilly.
But Hartley!"

"'Tis no good looking that way," he answered with decision.  "I sounded
her as to the man a bit ago, as I promised.  She's got no fancy that
way, Madge, and the sooner he knows it the sooner he'll stop wasting his
time."


Meanwhile Mr. Snell walked beside Rhoda and talked of the amazing number
of water rats in the leat. Presently he lifted the theme to poultry, and
then, returning to the water, detailed the exact manner of his
professional labours.  She said little but listened to his statement of
facts.  His mind was only constituted to assert crude happenings.  He
had no ideas, no theories, and few opinions.

"You can see the tower of Princetown church very clear from here," he
said; "but if a mist comed over, it would be hidden."

She admitted that this was so.

"A gentleman stopped in our best bedroom and parlour a year back,"
continued Simon; "and his custom was to paint pickshers.  And once I
comed this way and he was painting pretty near where we be standing now.
And I made so bold as to look, and then I made so bold as to talk,
because the gentleman axed me what I thought of it.  'You've left out
the church tower,' I says to him.  'Yes,' he says, ''twasn't like I was
going to stick such a beastly, ugly thing as that in the middle of they
hills.' So he left it out, though to my eye 'twas the most interesting
sight to be seen."

"Did he make his pickshers for pleasure, or did he get anything by
them?" asked Rhoda.

"He lived by 'em.  He said to me once that there were one or two sane
men in the world who bought everything he liked to paint.  'Twas a very
curious speech to my ear.  And to be honest with you, I didn't like his
pickshers--messy and half done to my eye--very different to the
pickshers you see on grocers' almanacs, where everything, to the hairs
on a horse's tail, be worked out to a miracle."

"Have 'e seen they pickshers that David got to Tavistock?" she asked.

Mr. Snell had seen them; but with a great and sudden access of cunning
he replied in the negative.  He expected her to invite him home to do
so; but she did not.

A silence fell until they came to a clapper bridge of rather narrow
dimensions.

"Shall I hand you over, miss, or would you rather go alone?" he
inquired.

But Rhoda had crossed before he finished the question.

The church-tower seemed to draw his eyes like a magnet, and after
further silence Mr. Snell began to talk about it again.

"'Tis a very wonderful and curious thing that the old prisoners made
thicky pile," he said.  "You might not know it, but so it was in ancient
days."

"Very sad for them, because they was foreigners," ventured Rhoda.

"Exactly so.  'Twould be a very sad thing to have a wife and family and
be shut away from them."

"Yes."

"Very sad without a doubt."

"Yes."

Mr. Snell next ventured on a great generality.

"I don't think 'tis a very good plan for fighting men to marry," he
said.

"Perhaps not."

"Because, if they get the worst of it, and get shot dead or taken
prisoners, or any such like misfortune, their children and females have
to suffer."

Rhoda did not answer.

"'Tis a deep question, if you come to think of it, miss, who ought to be
married and who ought not to be married."

"There's a lot married as had better not be," she declared.

"I quite agree, I quite agree," answered Simon; "and you might even go
so far as to say there's a lot might be married who ain't."

"There's a lot don't want to be, I believe."

"Women, I grant you.  I do think here and there you'll find a woman who
won't change the single state, along of experience with married sisters,
or babies, or cross-grained men, or what not; but us was telling to 'The
Corner House' a bit back along, and it seemed the general idea that
there comes a time in every manly mind when the chap cries out for a
wife.  Should you think that might be so?"

"How should I know?"

"Beg pardon, I'm sure.  Perhaps 'twas a silly question to put to a young
woman.  No offence, I hope?"

"Yes, it was a silly question."

"Sorry, I'm sure, and I hope you'll overlook it. But, when I ax myself
if ever it was so with me--but perhaps it don't interest you?"

She considered before answering, then replied:

"I don't much care what men think, but if you want to tell me, tell me."

"Not at all--far from it, I'm sure.  For that matter I couldn't tell you
very easy.  I haven't been throwed much with the female kind."

"So much the better for you very like."

"I quite agree--as a general thing; but, however--" he broke off and
looked at his watch.

"My word, only four o'clock!  Who'd have thought it?" he exclaimed.

"In my case I've been throwed a lot with men," said Rhoda.

"So you have, and no doubt you'll understand 'em pretty well.  In fact,
you're as brave as most men. I'm sure now you are braver than me."

"Ban't you brave then?"

"I'm brave by fits and starts," said Mr. Snell.  "With cattle, yes; with
horses, no.  When I was a little nipper, not above twelve or thirteen
year old, a wicked horse got me down and bit my shoulder to the bone.
He'd have killed me in another moment, but the Lord sent a man with a
pitchfork and I was saved.  But I feared a horse from that day, and if I
could show you my shoulder, which, of course, I wouldn't offer for to
do, you'd see how I was mangled by the teeth of him."

"Some horses be as uncertain as dogs, and they've got terrible long
memories--better than ours sometimes."

"No doubt you know, so full of learning about four-footed things as you
be."

"We'll turn now, please."

"Certainly.  Us have come a longer way than I thought to.  But you step
out something wonderful."

"I like walking."

"So do I--nothing better.  I go along ten miles of the leat six days a
week, winter and summer.  You might be surprised to know that I go more
than three thousand miles in the year.  'Twas done out in figures by Mr.
Mattacott all quite correct."

They had turned, and now walked a considerable way in absolute silence.
Then a neighbour came in sight, and Mr. Snell grew nervous.

"There's that clacking creature, Mary Main.  She haven't seed us yet.
If you'd rather for me to go away afore she does--?"

"Yes, if you like."

"It might be better--unless--  Well, here's good-bye then for the
present, and I'm very thankful to you for walking--very thankful and no
less."

"Us have had a nice walk."

"I quite agree, I'm sure; and thank you kindly; if I get over this here
wall I can pick up the leat yonder; and to see me by the leat will be an
everyday sight for anybody."

"Yes, it will."

He hurried off, and Mary Main, when she met Rhoda alone as usual, had no
idea of her recent great adventure.

What impression the walk with Simon left in the girl's mind none ever
knew; but Mr. Snell felt mildly elated by the achievement, though he
told nobody about it.  He was secretive, and his own mother knew nothing
of his thoughts.  Indeed, she was scarcely aware that he did think.
Rhoda, too, confided in none but her brother.  She said nothing about
her amusement, and when Margaret openly asked her if she had enjoyed it,
she did not answer the question, but replied with some other matter.  It
happened thus.

"Did you like Mr. Snell's opinions?" asked her sister-in-law, as Rhoda
took off her hat and came to the tea-table.

"They horned sheep have all gone down in a crowd from the high ground,
and they want to be driven back, which I'll do after I've had a cup of
tea and changed my clothes," said the other.

Six weeks later there fell out an unfortunate incident which went far to
extinguish the slightly closer understanding that had obtained between
these women since Bartley Crocker met David.  By ill-fortune Madge
annoyed Rhoda exceedingly, and her brother was also implicated.  Mr.
Snell, however, suffered most in the sequel.  With great circumspection
he had avoided Rhoda for a month after their walk, then he met her and
proposed another.

"'Twill have to be short, for the evenings close in so," she said.

"I like the dark so well as you, however," he assured her.

"I only like the dark alone," she answered.

"How coorious!  I only like it in company," he declared.  "But, if you'm
willing, I'll be so bold as to call at the cot half after two come
Sunday week."

"I shall be home that day.  I dare say my sister-in-law will come too."

"As to her--" began Mr. Snell, then he checked himself.  "She's a very
nice woman; in fact, you'd have to look a long way further than
Sheepstor parish to find her equal," he declared.  And then he went his
way, dimly conscious that he had chosen his words awkwardly.

When he arrived Rhoda was ready, but Margaret had a cold in her face,
and the other had not asked her to join the party.  Mr. Snell's
appearance came as a surprise, and David spoke.

"Why, here's Simon again!  So 'tis him you be prinked up in that new hat
for, Rhoda!"

Margaret laughed despite herself, and the virgin flushed; but with
anger.

"Look at her roses!" said David, whose Sunday dinner had left him in an
easy mood.  Then his sister instantly restored him to seriousness.

"How dare you!" she cried.  "How dare you laugh, Margaret, or you say
such things, David?  You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.  I won't see
the man! Never again will I see him!  'Tis you coarse creatures ought to
blush--not me!"

She left them, went to her room, and refused to descend though Margaret
came up and pleaded with her.

"Tell him to go," was all that Rhoda said.

Mr. Snell was placidly regretful to hear that Rhoda had a headache.

"The headache is a very painful thing; but she'll soon be rids of it,"
he said.  "Us was going for a walk, but 'tis not of any consequence.  I
can go just as easy alone.  Or I needn't go at all, come to think of
it."

He went to the gate, hesitated, and returned.

"When she comes down house again, you might give her my respects," he
said; "and if 'tis her stomach that is out of order, there's nothing
better than a little cold onion broth without salt, taken when the
organs all be empty."

"I'll tell her," promised Margaret, and Mr. Snell shuffled off.

He walked over the exact ground of the former peregrination and recalled
the former topics very accurately.

"I shall leave it now till well on into the new year," he told himself;
"then, if my feelings be so fierce and fiery as they seem to be at
present, I might offer for to go walking again.  There's nought like a
walk for helping a male to see into the female mind.  'Twas Crocker, I
remember, who said in the bar that if you could get a girl to laugh at
your jokes, 'twas a great thing done. But 'twill have to be something
out of the common funny to make that woman laugh.  And as to making a
joke--I don't know I'm sure."




                             *CHAPTER XIII*

                           *RHODA PASSES BY*


A great uncertainty prevailed above Margaret Bowden, where she sat on
the lofty side of Lether Tor before noon and waited to meet Bartley.
The aerial doubt was reflected on earth in shadows and darkness shot
with fitful light; an increasing opacity threatened rain; yet, where the
vapours crowded most gloomily and massed their hooded cowls, light and
wind would break their conclaves and scatter them upon the humid bosom
of the Moor.  Through this welter, sunshafts fell and flashed over the
grey and russet of the wilderness.

A sort of mystery belonged to the day seen in its huge encounter between
cloud legions and the light of heaven.  Strange things might have been
happening within the penetralia of the fog-banks, where they drove
through the valleys gloomily.  There was an air of mighty preparation,
of imminent explosion, of forces stealthily taking stand and making
ready to declare themselves in elemental encounter between the armies of
the sun and the rain.  Light and darkness joined battle, and Mother
Earth lowered heavily, in mood to welcome the victory of her own
innumerable cloud children.  The sobriety of the hour increased.  The
distant details of the land faded; the tors ascended solemn and purple
above the grey.

Yet, through loopholes in the driving fog, the sun still shot his arrows
strongly and, where they fell, there broke forth fire on dene and
dingle, and small roof-tree isolated in the loneliness.  The watcher
marked a sudden shaft sweep the vale of Kingsett with a besom of light,
while another radiant gleam broke the clouds, descended upon her old
home, and set the far-off whitewash glimmering like a jewel at the
throat of Dennycoombe.

Now the high lands southerly shone for a moment; now the ragged crest of
Sheep's Tor was glorified with a nimbus of light, that revolved in a
broad, wet fan, and then shut up again, as the clouds thrust between sun
and earth.

In process of time, as the war swept hither and thither, there grew a
cheerful hope in Madge's mind that the clouds might be beaten.  When all
seemed lost and new vapours gathered even to her feet, she saw the upper
heaven shine with sudden access of glory.  It collected in close,
dazzling centres; it pierced and riddled the fog beneath with silver
that warmed into gold. And then the earth, that had taken service with
storm and lifted her dark bosom to welcome rain--the faithless earth
paid court to the conqueror and welcomed him with beauty.  No longer she
sulked; no longer the tors and hog-backed hills answered the dark strata
of the sky with greater darkness, and spread beneath the sullen colours
of the clouds a face still more sullen.  Instead they donned a brighter
aspect; while banderoles of blue unfurled aloft in the widening rents of
the cloud rack. A great wind gathered strength, scattered the mists, and
drove them flying down the hills; there fell warmth on the watcher's
cheek; the world smoothed out her granite wrinkles, smiled, and
reflected the azure of heaven upon her manifold stony faces, her
water-ways and plains. Light conquered and upon the skirts of the
defeated fog there burnt cold fires and glimmered the iris.

This transformation and overthrow of the day's dark prophecy much
heartened Madge.  The victory of sunshine lifted her spirits
unconsciously.  She grew happier with the unfolding serenity of the
hour; and she was singing to herself when Bartley Crocker arrived.

Of late not seldom they had met unseen in lonely places, far afield.
Sometimes she waited for him by the great menhir of Thrushel Coombe;
sometimes at Plym Steps; sometimes in spots even more remote, haunted by
the heron and the shadows of clouds.  But during the past fortnight
Margaret had only seen Mr. Crocker on one occasion, when she called to
know of his mother's fading health.  Then he made the present
appointment; and now, as she sang, he climbed up through the wild
clitters of Lether Tor to keep it.

"Go on," he said.  "I heard you long afore you saw me.  'Tis pleasant to
my ear; for nought be singing just now but the robins."

"I was cheered somehow when the sun mastered the fog."

"How's Rhoda?"

"Very well.  She'll come this way herself presently, by Nosworthy
bridge."

"Mr. Snell called again?"

"Not again.  'Tis a pity you can't see a bit more of Rhoda, however."

"My mother wouldn't let me out of her sight at the last."

"Well I know it, poor dear.  How does she find herself to-day, Bartley?"

"A bit strange, no doubt; but with my father to show her the new place.
She's dead."

"Dead!  Oh, Bartley!"

"Yes--thank God.  Faded out at four o'clock yesterday morning.
Flickered out just the same as a night-light flickers out.  Wavers and
shakes--then steadies down again--then gets brighter than ever--then
grows dim--slowly, slowly, till there's nought but a bead of fire left.
And then a flash, and then--gone. And your eyes think it's there still;
but it isn't."

"Dear Bartley, I'm so sorry for you."

"Are you?  But I know you are.  Not many else will be--not many but me
and my Aunt Susan.  She's torn to the heart.  I couldn't stand no more
of it."

"I'll see your aunt to-morrow.  I'll see her to-day."

"She'll thank you.  Make it to-morrow.  My dear mother wasn't a very
much sought after woman--too wise for that, I expect.  But you could
comfort her sister.  Nobody else will trouble about her."

"To-night I shall go down."

"The funeral's on Tuesday.  Would you put her to the west where the big
holly tree is, or under the sunny wall where the slates of the Moses
family all stand?"

"She'd have liked to be buried by her husband.  She told me so."

"I know; but 'tisn't convenient.  He lies at Honiton, and 'twould cost a
King's ransom to take her there. But I asked her almost the last thing,
and she thought and shook her head.  Past caring then."

"Me and David will be at the funeral--I can promise for myself, and I'm
pretty sure he'll go."

"D'you think you could get Rhoda to come?  D'you think I might go so far
as to ask her to come?"

"I'm sure she'd go if she thought it would give anybody any pleasure."

"Not pleasure exactly.  You might almost say 'twas business more than
pleasure.  Don't think I'm hard-hearted and all that sort of thing; but
when you're in love like I am--everything--even the funeral of his own
mother--is used by a man to his advantage, if it can be. To feel like I
feel for Rhoda makes me as hard as a millstone for everything else.  I
want her at the funeral; because if she sees me there burying my dear
mother, it may bring a pinch of softness to her.  I've planned to get
her there if 'tis possible."

Margaret stared at him in wonder.

"Don't think me daft.  I'm suffering enough; but 'tis man's way to look
on ahead.  And I can't look on ahead into nothing.  I've grown to feel
to Rhoda that she's got to marry me.  And yet 'tis idle to pretend that
I've much right to be hopeful.  What's the best news about her?"

"There's no news, unless her long, lonely walks be news.  She must think
of something when she takes 'em. She can't talk to the dogs all the
time.  Her mind can't be empty, can it?"

"Certainly not," Mr. Crocker assured her.  "She must be travelling over
something in her brain, if 'tis only the joneys on the mantel-shelf in
your parlour. But it isn't about me and Canada she thinks, I reckon.
Canada, perhaps, but not me."

"I will say this: there's no unfriendliness in her.  I never hear her
speak a word against any man, bar William Screech.  And I go in hopes
that she'll forgive even him and Dorcas."

"She'd forgive 'em right enough if she was married to me.  Anyway, when
my dear mother's laid to her rest, after a few days are past, I shall
ask Rhoda again. The time has come to do it."

"I think it has."

"Will she be along with you at Christmas?"

"No," answered Margaret.  "'Tis ordained that we all go to Ditsworthy
for Christmas dinner.  'Tis a longful time since David was to home, and
his mother has planned this."

"Well, you must ask me a bit later.  Or I'll try to get David to bid me
come and eat along with you after New Year.  I may tell you this: David
wouldn't make any objection."

"None--none at all."

Bartley began to spare a little thought from himself for Margaret.  He
had often wondered whether his plain hints to her husband brought any
fruit for her. To-day he was in a high-strung and somewhat emotional
mood; therefore he did not shirk the subject as usual; but prepared to
plunge into it.

"Let's get down the hill," he said.  "We'll go so far as Nosworthy
bridge together, if that's not drawing you too much out of your way."

"'Twill suit very well," she answered.  "I want to meet Rhoda, and
she'll be fetching back by the bridge afore long."

"You'll be hungry."

"No; I've got a bit of bread and cheese in my pocket. You can have half,
if you mind to."

He shook his head.

"Can't eat to-day.  'Twill be a fast day in my life for evermore."

"Dear Hartley, I don't say much.  Who can say anything to the purpose
against such a loss?  But I do feel for you."

"I know it, Madge.  Nobody'll feel for me like you. Give me your hand.
'Tis a thought steep here; but it leads to the best road to the bottom."

He helped her down the crooked acclivities, and in half an hour they
were at the bridge beneath.

Here Meavy opens her arms, and shutting them again, creates a little
island.  The waters join once more below and sing and foam under the
ivy-mantled span of one grey arch.  To-day naked boughs thrust up from
the drooping red mat of the brake-fern, and the leaves of the willows
were reduced to a mere yellow sparkle of yellow on the boughs.  Only the
greater furze laid a heavy green in great masses on the harmony of
winter colours.

Bartley led the way by mossy stones beside a backwater where dead leaves
danced.

"We'll sit on the island," he said, "while you eat your food.  There's
an old hurdle there, and I'll put my coat over it for you."

A few moments later they were talking about Margaret's self, and she
felt her heart flutter somewhat at this sudden and very unexpected
change of subject.

"D'you mind what you told me some time since, Madge?" he asked.  "At
least it can't be said you told me; but, between the lines of things
that you spoke, I somehow pieced together a sort of feeling you wasn't
as happy as you'd a right to be."

"How can you think so?  I'm sure--"

"Well, anyway, it got into my stupid head, and as luck would have it I
fell in with David a bit after I'd left you.  You must remember the day,
Madge.  It's idle to pretend you've forgot."

"Yes, I remember.  I was down-daunted and silly. You oughtn't to have
thought twice about my feeble grumbling."

"You didn't grumble.  Another person would have marked nothing in what
you said; but I know you so well--quick as lightning I am where you are
concerned, or any woman I care about.  And I talked to David."

She started and stared at him.

"Then I'm very angry indeed with you, Bartley."

"Are you?  Well, he wasn't.  There's few more sensible, clever chaps
knocking about than your husband.  Like a flash I opened his eyes, and
he thanked me for doing it.  Thanked me, mind you."

"Opened his eyes!  Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean I opened his eyes.  He's a terrible busy man and I'm a terrible
lazy one.  And 'tis no use being lazy if you can't use your time to do
the busy folk a good turn.  Fools would say 'twas interference; but not
a wise man like David."

"What did you tell him?"

"Say you forgive me."

"It depends what you said."

"It depends on the result of what I said.  I told David that I reckoned
he was--well--too busy.  I said he dropped you out of his life a bit too
much and didn't humour you enough.  I told him plump out that he wasn't
so kind as he might be.  Now you're properly angered with me, no doubt;
but just think if you've a right to be."

She was silent, and her flush faded and her eyes fixed on him and grew
puzzled.

"'Twas only because I knew him so well and his straight, just way that I
dared," he continued.  "And now you've got to say if that talk did harm
or good. And if it did harm, heap hard words on me; but if it did
good--"

She put out her hand impulsively, but not until a silent minute had
sped.  During the moments she retraced the past and remembered what had
surprised her and made her happier.  Then she stretched out her hand and
clasped his.

"Good came of it," she said.

"If that's so, I've gained something to-day as well as lost something,
Madge."

"David--it shows what he is, Hartley."

"Yes.  He's high above anything small or mean."

She continued to reflect.  It was impossible to say much more on the
subject, and, indeed, the brightest that could be said was spoken.  The
wife, though she knew that her husband had long since resumed his old
absorbed attitude and found less and less leisure for amenity and
tenderness, could not whisper this outside her own heart.

"It was good and brave of you," she said.  "And dear David belongs to
the large-souled sort of men that ban't above learning even on such a
sacred, secret business as his wife.  But he knew you had known me ever
since I was a little girl."

Bartley nodded.

"So long as you can tell me that good came of it, I'm content.  Now
leave it.  Eat your lunch and then I must go.  And strive to bring 'em
both--Rhoda and David--to the funeral."

"All Sheepstor will surely go."

She brought her food from her pocket and he watched her eat some little
sandwiches made of bread and cheese. Their backs were turned to
Nosworthy bridge, but they were quite visible from it.

"There's more here than I want," she said.  "I wish you'd take some."

The whimsical child in the man, even on this dark day, broke loose.

"Feed me," he said.  "Don't think I'm a fool for asking; but feed me.  I
mean it.  'Twill comfort me. I'm cruel miserable, though not to the
eye."

Of old she remembered his follies and fancies.

"When you was young you was always like a little, silly, petted bird or
puppy," she said, smiling.

"So I often am still--and especially when I'm down on my luck.  There's
no dear, silly mother to pet me no more and make me chirrup again.  How
she would do it!  Feed me, Madge."

She held a sandwich to his mouth.

"One more."

"Here's four more.  Eat 'em quick.  And then I must get going."

One by one she put the morsels of food to his lips, and laughed at him,
in spite of herself, while she did so. Then he thanked her and declared
that he was much the better and happier for her charity.

"Mother's in heaven," he said.  "And I'm going to her again some day.
If a man believes that really, and doesn't only fool himself to think he
believes it, 'tis the greatest comfort of all.  And I didn't ought to be
miserable to-day, and I'm damned if I will be."

"Of course you believe it.  So do I--heart and soul--and so do every
true, faithful Christian creature."

"Of course.  Didn't you say you counted to meet Rhoda here?"

"Yes--'tis time she came by."

"I shall pass her going back; and I'll tell her you're at the bridge
waiting for her.  Good-bye, Madge; and the Lord bless you for the kind
things you've said to me."

"And thank you, too, Bartley, for--for--"

"That was nought."

He helped her back from the island to the road; then he left her and
went his way in expectation of meeting Rhoda at every turn.  But he did
not meet her, because she had already passed by.

She had flitted swiftly over the bridge; but stricken to passivity by a
sudden and astounding sight--she had stood a moment upon the farther
side.  She had then gone forward without disturbing those who astonished
her.

Therefore Margaret and Mr. Crocker were wholly unaware that Rhoda Bowden
had seen her sister-in-law not only putting food into the man's mouth,
but also laughing at him while he ridiculously imitated the fluttering
action of a fledgling bird.

Rhoda gasped and slipped her foot once or twice from sheer absorption of
mind as she proceeded homeward.  She considered this spectacle in the
light of news just gleaned at Sheepstor.

"And the man's mother not much more than cold in her grave-clothes!" she
thought.




                               *BOOK III*



                              *CHAPTER I*

                               *MYSTERY*


The company at 'The Corner House' had divided into two groups, and each
was concerned with a separate subject.  Mr. Shillabeer himself, with
Bartley Crocker, Mr. Moses, Simon Snell, and Bart Stanbury, discussed a
strange phenomenon that had of late startled the dwellers at Sheepstor;
while, with their backs to this throng, Ernest Maunder, his friend
Timothy Mattacott, and Billy Screech whispered together upon a private
problem.

"The thing can be explained in a word," said Moses; "there be amongst us
some high-minded, religious creature that have got hold of this way of
advertising the Truth.  He have said to himself, 'There's nought like a
gate to catch the eye of the passer-by.'  And so, where a gate happens
to stand by the wayside, he have gone by night and painted up a Bible
truth.  Farmer Chave found '_Prepare to meet thy God_' on his bullock
byre yesterday morning, and there's 'Eternity'--just that one solemn
word--on every second gate betwixt here and Meavy."

"He's come out our way, too, since last week," said Bart Stanbury.
"There be a text up over on the moor-gate above our house: '_Now is the
accepted time_.'"

Young Stanbury was courting a girl at Nosworthy Farm, near his home, and
this text, staring out of the dawn-lit desert, had come to him with the
force of a direct command.  But he made no mention of its private
significance in his affairs.

"The party means well enough," declared Hartley. "There's no doubt about
that.  And it can't be denied that coming upon these solemn things all
of a sudden makes men and women think.  The puzzle is to know who's
doing it."

"Some of the people that own the gates don't like it, however," said
Simon Snell.  "Farmer Bassett, out to Yellowmead, says 'tis a form of
trespass and battery to write on a man's gatepost; and it don't bring
you any more within the law because you write up Scripture. The man
stuck up '_Let there be light_' on Mr. Bassett's big gate--the one going
into his four-acre field--and Bassett was cruel vexed and said as how
he'd let light into the chap himself if ever he caught him."

"And he's cleaned his gate with sand-paper," added young Stanbury.

"'Tis written on again since then," said Mr. Shillabeer. "I was that way
not long since, and there's words written there again--namely, 'God is
Love.'"

"Strange thing is that Ernest Maunder on his nightly rounds should have
never catched the man," mused Crocker.

"Not at all," explained Mr. Moses.  "The man no doubt knows the way of
Ernest's beat as well as Ernest himself do, and avoids him.  They were
saying yesterday that it might even be parson's self; but of course
that's a rash and silly idea.  His reverence is as much interested in it
as anybody--especially since he found '_The Lord loveth a cheerful
giver_' on his own back-garden door--the one that leadeth out into the
lane. He holds that the man means well; all the same, he wants him
catched and stopped."

"What could be done to him if they did lay hold on him?" asked Reuben
Shillabeer.

"Why, there you beat me," answered Moses.  "I'm sure I don't know.  The
lord of the manor might talk to him; but I don't think any law has been
broken, whereas 'tis certain many people have been made to think about
religion in consequence."

"My mother for one," asserted Mr. Snell.  "She came across '_After death
the Judgment_' 'pon a broken paling out Yennadon Down way, and it turned
her faint on the instant and made her very unwell.  But 'twas all to the
good, as she herself declared two days afterwards.  The man's doing a
very proper work, whoever the man is."

"With a pot of blacking and letters cut out of tin he does it," said
Bartley Crocker.  "It ought to be pretty easy to find him out.  He must
have been round here only a day or two ago.  I see he's been busy at the
bottom of your paddock, 'Dumpling.'"

"Yes," admitted Mr. Shillabeer.  "He knows a bit about everybody.
'_Swear not at all_' he put up on my fence, down the bottom end of my
cabbage plot.  That ought to be a lesson to us in this bar, for, try as
I will, the crooked words slip out among you."

"I quite agree," said Mr. Snell.  "I catched myself saying 'damn' to a
young dog only yesternight.  And no fault of the dog."

"If we was all as careful as you, no great harm would come to the
parish," answered Charles Moses.  "For my part, swearing never drew me.
I found I could be righteously angry without it, and also forcible of
speech."

"Some fall back upon it as natural as drink," asserted Bartley, "though
'tis certainly no sign of strength to put in swear words."

"Yet Sir Guy Flamank, his honourable self, be a great hand with them,"
argued Snell.  "I've heard him in the hunting field use the most
terrible parts of speech you can imagine--though not when ladies was
out, I admit that."

"Take my good friend, David Bowden," said Bartley. "No man ever yet
heard him use an oath.  And yet, by all accounts, nobody gets his way
quicker with smooth words."

Mr. Shillabeer nodded.

"Without a shade of unkindly feeling against the man, I could wish he
wasn't quite so own-self, all the same," he said.  "That wrapped up
heart and soul in work and money-making, that he haven't eyes for
anything else in the earth."

Mr. Crocker looked round about him.

"What you say is gospel truth, 'Dumpling.'  We're all friends here, I
believe--friends to 'em both.  Therefore none will think it anything but
kindness in us to be sorry about 'em."

"I met Margaret a while back," said Mr. Shillabeer. "My wife was
terrible fond of her when she was a mere strip of a girl.  We had some
talk together, and--there 'twas.  I'd give my whiskers to make 'em go
along a thought happier; and yet when you say the word, she'll have
nought of it and tell you there never was a happier, luckier creature."

"In a way that's true," declared Bartley, "but in another way 'tis
false.  What did you say to her, Reuben?"

"To be plain," answered Mr. Shillabeer, guiltily, "I was full of rather
gloomy thoughts along of it being the death-day of the wife.  And I
said, in my darkness, that self-slaughter might not be all bad, if a man
had outlived his value.  And she reproved me--yes, she said the word in
season."

"You oughtn't to think of such things, Shillabeer," declared Mr. Moses.

"I know it, Charles; yet thoughts will come over the mind unbidden.  But
leave that."

"As to David, he's easier to talk sense to than you might think," added
Crocker.  "I risked it once, and he took it in a very manly spirit that
made me respect him more than ever.  But I doubt he's forgotten it all
long ago.  Why for don't you try, Moses?  You're a light among us and
carry the weight of the church on your shoulders.  Catch the man coming
out one Sunday and go a bit of the way back-along with him, and some of
us will take Madge and Rhoda out of earshot."

"No," answered the shoemaker.  "Don't ask me to attempt any such a
thing.  You can't alter it, and they can't alter it.  'Tis in them:
they're built so.  Just a pinch of salt makes or mars a stew, and just a
pinch of character makes or mars a home.  If we even knew exactly what
'twas, we couldn't alter it.  You can't pull out a bit of human nature,
like a hollow tooth.  Just an over-seasoning of pepper in a man, or a
pinch of softness in a woman, may spoil all.  It takes terrible little
to wreck a home, and I've known large tragedies rise up out of nought
but a taste."

"That's true," declared Bartley.  "A man with a failing, or a fancy, as
wouldn't count against him in one woman's eyes, may come to eternal
smash on it if he happens to wed with another woman.  'Tis the little
twists of character that lead to the biggest troubles, as the acorn
breeds the oak."

Mr. Shillabeer obliged with an instance.

"I knowed a very good Christian girl who was a moderate drinker and
never dreamed of taking a thimble too much afore she married.  And she
never would have done so afterwards, but for the bad luck of her husband
being a furious teetotaller.  I've seed that man talk about drink till
you'd think he was blind drunk himself! And so he was--drunk with rage
at the thought of there being such a thing as drink in the universe.
And what come of it?  She took to drink, that woman did, driven to it,
you might say, out of sheer spite; and the man catched his only son
market merry at ten years old; and he dashed him to the earth in his
righteous indignation and broke the poor child's arm in two places."

"'Tis just the sort of thing that happens every day," declared Charles
Moses, mournfully.  "But, please God, with the Bowden pair, they are
both too sensible to drift apart.  'Tis a terrible sad thing to see
husband and wife lost, as it were--each feeling along alone, trying to
find the man or the woman they loved and married, and not finding 'em.
For why?  Because each have gone back to themselves, and put off all
that hoodwinking toggery they was hidden in during the courting time.
We talk about being disguised in drink, Reuben Shillabeer, but we ought
to talk about being disguised in love also.  There's nought makes a man
act further from his true self than wanting to win a woman."

"'Tis supposed to bring out the best of us; but I'm with you there; I
don't know that it does," said Bartley.

Mr. Snell stared.

"For my part, though you might say such a man as me hasn't the right to
lift his voice afore such a learned person like you, Mr. Moses, yet I do
believe in love.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've felt it more
than here and there--back and forward, like rheumatism, according to the
state of the blood and the season of the year; but when it comes, it
makes me more valiant without a doubt; and that's to the good."

Mr. Crocker looked at his rival.  Then he opened his mouth to speak; and
then he shut it again and kept silence.

Elsewhere Mattacott, Maunder, and William Screech debated a great
matter.  They argued now as to whether Mr. Shillabeer should hear the
secret, and the policeman advised against it.

"An honest and an upright man, outside prize-fighting," he said; "but in
this you can't expect him to take sides.  We are all his customers--Bart
Stanbury just as much as Mattacott here; therefore I say, 'keep the
thing from him.'"

"And from everybody," added Mattacott.  "If it get's out, all's marred.
The fewer hear of it, the better; and I hope you won't tell your wife,
Billy."

Mr. Screech laughed.

"That shows how little you know of the world, Timothy.  Why, 'twas my
wife had the brilliant thought!  She knowed Mattacott wanted for to
marry Jane West, and I told her how another man was after Jane also, and
that she couldn't decide between 'em. Then says Dorcas--quick as a
needle, that woman--'Jane believes in all that rummage about Crazywell.
So what Mattacott have got to do is to plan to get her that way come
next Christmas Eve; and he've got to lie hid; and when he sees her,
he've got to shout out the name of t'other chap; and Jane will think
'tis the spirits; and she'll fancy t'other chap is bound to die afore
the year's out; so he'll be no good to her whether she likes him or not.
Then, of course, she'll take Mattacott.'  Those were her very words, as
near as I can call 'em home.  And when did you hear a cleverer thing?"

"'Tis terrible clever," confessed Mattacott.  "But Jane West wouldn't
never go up past the pool alone on Christmas Eve for a hundred pounds;
so us must plan somehow for somebody to go along with her.  'Tis a very
tricky business to be drawn into a plot."

"All be fair in love," said Mr. Maunder; "else, of course, I couldn't
countenance any such a plan.  But the matter is outside the law and
therefore I'm not called to take any steps--especially as I very much
want to see Mattacott get the woman.  He's the wrong side of forty now,
and 'tis more than time he was suited, if it is to be."

Mr. Mattacott looked across jealously at the innocent Bart Stanbury.

"He's too young for her even if she'd have him," he said.  "'Tis his
sandy hair and his blue, silly eyes have made her think twice about
him."

"Keep to business," interrupted Billy Screech. "Now it's agreed we get
the girl to Crazywell come Christmas Eve next; and that's nearly two
months off, so we've got plenty of time to cabal against Bart.  The
first question is, who shall take her to Crazywell on the day?"

They all frowned over this problem; then Screech solved it brilliantly.

"Why, Bart hisself, to be sure!  What better could happen?  He hears his
doom come up out of the water; and of course, even if they was tokened,
he'd have to release her after that.  Any man would have to do it."

They applauded and Mattacott was especially enthusiastic.  But the
policeman acknowledged a doubt.

"It don't strike you as too terrible a thing?" he asked.  "For my part,
as a tender man, though guardian of law and order, I can't think we
should let the fellow hear his own fate.  He might believe it and go
mad.  Stranger things have happened."

"Have no fear: he won't believe it," said Mr. Screech. "'Tis her that
will believe it, and 'tis her that we want to believe it."

"A fine stroke certainly--to make Bart hear it himself," admitted
Maunder; "that is, if I've got your word for it the man won't be hurt in
his mind by such an adventure."

"That's settled then; and now there's the great question of who does the
spirit," continued Screech.  "Of course, 'tis Mattacott's job--not mine;
yet I must point out that his voice is not well suited to the deed."

"I wouldn't do it for anything," said Mattacott. "I'm nought at a pinch;
and if 'twas thrust upon me to do it, fifty to one but I should go and
lose my head and very like shout out the wrong name, or some such
foolishness."

"'Tis true," said Maunder.  "With all your good gifts, Timothy, you're
the very man to make a mess of this.  Besides, your voice will surely
betray you."

"I ax this here chap to do it," said Mattacott, turning to Screech
himself.  "Maunder, no doubt, would do it for me, as my lifelong friend;
but he's a government servant and his time is not his own.  Therefore I
ax Billy; and, if it goes right, I'll pay him down a crown; and if it
don't go right, I'll pay half-a-crown; and who can say fairer?"

"So far so good then," summed up Billy; "and I'm bound to say I think
you're right.  I can put a hollow sound into my voice and bring it up
from my boots, in a way that would make any girl go goose-flesh if she
heard me after dark on a common week-day, not to name Christmas Eve at
Crazywell.  Leave that to me when the time cometh.  Now the next thing
is, what shall I say?"

"Nought but the man's name," advised Ernest Maunder; "the less you say
the awfuller 'twill be."

"Just 'Bart Stanbury!  Bart Stanbury!' twice," whispered Mattacott.
"You'll be snug hid in a fuzz bush, of course; and once you mark that
she's heard you, you can slip off home as quick as need be to prove
'twasn't you, if anything comes to be said about it after."

Billy nodded.

"Just so; but I mustn't say 'Bart' Stanbury," he explained.  "You see
the man's christening name is 'Bartholomew,' and the spirit wouldn't
know as we called him 'Bart' for shortness.  The full name must be
spoken, and that I shall do.  So there 'twill be, and Jane West will
believe that the man's booked for death afore another year be out."

Mr. Mattacott showed a little emotion on Stanbury's account, but Billy
overruled his qualms.  The matter was allowed to drop and a diversion
threw the two groups together and turned conversation into a former
topic.

Ellas Bowden came in, cold and rosy, out of the night.

"Evening, souls!" he said.  "On my way up-along and thought I'd give the
pony five minutes and myself a drop out of the special bottle.  What's
the best news?"

"'Tis for you to tell us what's the latest, master," said Bartley.

"The latest," answered Mr. Bowden, "is this: that pious blade with his
blacking brush and his Bible have been up over!  Ess fay; Nap and
Wellington runned in with the news after daylight.  There's no gates up
my way except my own; but he'd fastened 'pon that, and there it was.  I
heard a dog bark last night, but 'twas dark as pitch and no good looking
out the window."

"And what might he have chosen for you?" asked Ernest Maunder.

"The solemn words, '_Jesus wept_,'" answered Elias. "A drop more water
to this, Shillabeer, if you please. Yes, he'd writ those deep words
there.  Can't say exactly why he put them in particular; but they drive
the love of the Lord into the mind and make a man religious, no doubt.
Not that I'm ever anything else, when you come to the bottom of me, I
hope."

"The thought that the Redeemer of mankind shed tears is a very sad
thought, however," declared Mr. Moses.  "And yet not all sad, if I make
my meaning clear, because it brings Him nearer to us on the human side;
and the nearer, the better."

"Very well put, Charles," said Reuben Shillabeer. "The nearer the
better, I'm sure."

"Upon the rocks in the warrens too--so the boys tell me," continued the
master of Ditsworthy.  "The busy man have set up a good text or two here
and there. I doubt he'll take to writing 'em life-size upon the tors
next."

"That's a great idea, now!" declared Shillabeer. "Then everybody passing
by could catch the Word. In fact, none could miss it if the letters was
big enough."

"For that matter, if I may say so," argued Mr. Moses, "the tors be the
word of God a'ready, and nought out of the Bible could make 'em grander
than they be.  Not that this curious man thinks so.  Without a doubt
he'd write great Bible news across the moon's self, if he could only
find a ladder long enough to reach her; and a brush big enough for the
work."




                              *CHAPTER II*

                             *A PESSIMIST*


Three days before Christmas and an hour before dusk, Mr. Shillabeer, gun
in hand, called at Coombeshead Farm, and Constance Stanbury opened the
door for him.

"I'm that finger-cold," he said, "that I thought as I might make so free
as to drop in and warm myself a bit afore going back."

"And welcome.  Come in; come in.  My husband will be home in a few
minutes, so you'll have a bit of male company.  We women be that
chuckle-headed."

"No, no!  Won't hear you run yourself down," said the 'Dumpling,'
gallantly.  "There's no better company in these parts than your company,
and very few women be in it for sense alongside of you."

"Tea or cider?" she asked.

"A drop of tea, if 'tis making.  And I'll leave a bird, if you'll please
to accept it.  The plovers are on the Moor very plenty.  A hard winter's
in store."

"Each be harder than the last nowadays," she answered.  "And thank you,
I'm sure.  A plover's pretty eating, but too good for the likes of us."

"Don't you say that.  You'm like me--take yourself too humble; but 'tis
a mistake.  People in the world always pull us a peg lower than our own
conceit of ourselves.  So we should screw up a peg higher--to be ready
for 'em.  How's Margaret?  You'll never hear no two opinions about
her--such an angel as she be."

"Yes," admitted Constance; "and I'm much feared that she's got more in
common with the angels than us could wish.  'Tis coming over me worse
and worse; and over her, too, poor lamb."

"What ever do you mean?" he asked.  Then he walked to the fire, removed
his right gaiter and rubbed his huge leg where the strap had pressed too
hardly upon it.

"My Madge is not like every girl you meet," said Mrs. Stanbury.

"Wish there was more of the same pattern."

"And I'm terrible jealous for her--I'll fight the world for her, like a
hen with one chick; because her vartues are her own, and her faults she
got from me."

"Faults!--who ever heard tell of her faults?"

"I take no credit in her beautiful goodness," continued the mother.
"But I take shame in her softness. Too soft and gentle and yielding she
is for this world, and the people in it.  And, as her parent, I'm
savage--savage as a wild cat, down in my secret heart--when I see people
don't understand.  'Tis me they ought to blame, not she."

Mr. Shillabeer stared.  His fingers were spread and a saucer of tea
smoked upon them.

"You do amaze me; but I'll make bold to say you'm all wrong for once.
'Tis her softness that people take joy in.  Always wanting to do for
others--always putting herself on one side."

"A few may see her goodness," admitted Mrs. Stanbury; "but what's the
use of that if them nearest to her can't see?  Her own husband haven't
got no patience with her now and again; and, mind you, I don't blame
him--such a common-sense, hard man as him.  And Rhoda the same.  'Tis
their natures to take a practical stand."

"Don't be downcast," urged the publican.  "Drink a dish of your own tea
and look on the bright side.  'Tis rather odd I should say that, seeing
I've never been known to look on the bright side myself since my wife
died.  David's a very good chap, and nobody thinks higher of him than
me; but he's just an everyday man--wise and businesslike and honest.
There's nought in him would make Margaret a beautifuller character than
she is.  Us don't want for her to be hard and business-like, I'm sure."

"'Tis what her husband wants is the thing, not what we want," explained
Mrs. Stanbury.

"If he wants finer than she, he wants better bread than is made with
wheat," declared the old prize-fighter; "and if he can't see the shining
vartue and wonder of that woman's heart, he must be blind as well as
busy."

"All very well; but Margaret's to blame too," declared the other.

"Never--nowhere.  'Tis always your way to give everybody best but your
own."

"To say 'blame' is too strong a word, perhaps; but you must think how
'tis from her husband's point of view.  No children.  Oh, Shillabeer,
'tis a dreadful thing!  Just that might have made all right, and just
that won't happen.  Nought worse could have fallen out--nought worse
than that.  A very terrible misfortune every way.  To Ditsworthy I know
they take an awful serious view of it.  Naturally they would do so.  And
when I see that mother of a quiverful coming, I wish I could sink into
the earth!  Her eye brims over with reproaches, though never a word she
says."

"This is all silly nonsense you'm talking," declared Mr. Shillabeer,
strapping up his gaiter again.  "Never did I hear such foolishness.
Good Lord, han't there enough childer in the world?  Take comfort, I beg
of you."

Bartholomew Stanbury entered at this moment and was glad to see the
publican.

"Heard your fowling-piece banging away up over," he said, "and hoped as
you might perhaps drop in 'pon the road back.  Well, here's Christmas
again, and like to be a soft one after all.  The weather's changing."

"A busy Christmas in the village," said Reuben; "but nothing out of the
common offering to happen, I believe."

"Don't you be too sure of that, 'Dumpling.'  What would you say to
another fight?"

"No, no, Stanbury.  No more fighting.  You mean your son Bart and that
chap Mattacott.  They be galled against each other without a doubt,
along of a she; but fight--no.  Mattacott's ten year older than your
boy.  Bart couldn't hit a man whose hair be turning grey."

"That's what I said.  Still, they long to be at each other."

"They'll have to settle their difference some other way.  No more
fighting if I can prevent it.  You mustn't suppose I'm what I was--far
from it.  I look at life quite different now.  All's vanity, as the
Preacher saith.  I may give up 'The Corner House' afore the world's much
older, neighbour."

"Good Lord! what's come to you?" exclaimed the farmer.

"What come to Bendigo," said Mr. Shillabeer solemnly.  "I've had the
Light, Stanbury.  Make no mistake: when the Light does come it shows up
everything in a manner very different to what we've seen it before."

"Well," said Bartholomew, "don't let it turn you out of 'The Corner
House.'  Beer have got to be sold, and there's nothing in the Law and
the Prophets against keeping an inn and giving good money's worth, same
as you've always been famed to do."

But Shillabeer doubted.  Having drunk another cup of tea, he rose,
wished the Stanburys a Merry Christmas in a mournful voice, and
disappeared.  Constance shook her head when he was gone and declared
that a great change began to creep over the old man.

"Mark me, he's breaking up," she said.  "He's casting away all his old
opinions and growing more and more religious-minded and low-spirited.
Nought would surprise me.  I've seen it happen before.  He'll be a
teetotaller yet, and then he'll go melancholy mad so like as not."

Her husband protested.

"Such a one you are for looking on the cloudy side! There's too much
good sense in the man for any such thing as teetotalism to overtake him.
A moderate drinker always, and won't serve anybody beyond the twinkling
eye stage.  Why, he've made bitter enemies by withholding liquor where
any other man wouldn't have thought twice about it.  Where's Margaret
to? She was coming over, wasn't she?"

"Yes," said his wife.  "But 'tis nearly dark.  She'll have changed her
mind or been hindered."

Half an hour later Bart arrived, and he was able to explain his sister's
absence.

"She's took ill," he said.  "I met Rhoda back by Lowery.  Madge have a
cold on the chest--nought to name, but enough to keep her in against
this fog.  I'm feared they won't be able to go up to Ditsworthy for
Christmas now, unless she mends very quick."

At his first word Mrs. Stanbury began to be busy. Under the lofty
mantelshelf before the fire there hung a row of little linen bags, and
in them were various simples culled through vanished spring and summer.
They contained elder-flowers, marjoram, thyme, sorrel, and calamint.
She selected ingredients and took them to the table.

"Us must see to this afore she gets worse," declared Constance; and soon
she was preparing a decoction of herbs.

Her son had further news.

"They'm saying to Sheepstor that Bartley Crocker's off," he announced
with his mouth full.

"Off where?" asked Mr. Stanbury.

"To foreign parts.  'Twas always thought he might go when his mother
died.  They do say he's cruel sweet on Rhoda Bowden, but I don't think
she's of the same mind."

"I've heard Madge say that she would much like it to fall out," declared
Mrs. Stanbury; "but, for my part, Rhoda don't look to be seeking a
husband.  She's different to her kind, and I don't see her either wife
or mother."

Bart was reminded of another maiden and he sighed, put his hand to his
chin, and looked into vacancy with a very lack-lustre expression.

"Shillabeer was here afore you comed home," said his father; "and he
says you'm too young to stand up to Mattacott.  You'd kill the man."

"I may yet," declared Bart gloomily.  "Anyway I can't wait like this
much longer.  No more can he.  She won't say which 'tis to be, and the
strain of mind is getting a bit too sharp.  Something's got to go scat
afore long--either him or me--or her."

"She ought to decide, no doubt," admitted his mother.  "But I hope you
ban't hopeful, Bart, for I'm not.  T'other's better off than you and
wiser; and Jane West has found it out, of course."

"He may be wiser, or he may not be," answered Bart.  "Anyway I'm too
wise to wait till Doomsday; and so I've told her; and she's going to
decide afore the New Year."

"She'll take Timothy Mattacott," repeated his mother.  "Stanburys ban't
no good at competing with other people.  No more was my family--they
always went under; and now they've gone under altogether, for I'm the
last of 'em."




                             *CHAPTER III*

                       *THE VOICE FROM THE POOL*


Mr. Billy Screech found himself more than usually busy on the eve of
Christmas Day; but when three o'clock came he abandoned his work and set
off into the Moor.  A dismal enterprise lay before him, and bad weather
made the prospect worse; but he had promised, and failure to keep his
promise would upset others and lessen Billy's credit.  Therefore he
went, and presently, ascending above Kingsett Farm, reached Crazywell
where it stared up out of the waste, like a blind eye in a black socket.
Silence and desolation haunted the pool.  It seemed an hour indeed when
secret spirits might wake from sleep, rise, strike the leaden face of
the waters, and bring terror to mankind.  A heavy and hushed trance held
the pool.  But little wind blew; no cloud stirred in the grey vault of
heaven; but beneath at earth level, fog crept leisurely along in streaks
and hung motionless in patches.  Even Billy--hardened unbeliever though
he was--felt some slight uneasiness as he sank down into the hollow cup
of Crazywell.  The threatening mist made him both glad and fearful.  It
would certainly help the dramatic force of the thing to be done; but it
might also increase in density and cause him to lose his way home.  He
turned up his coat collar, found a clump of furze near the water's
brink, and settled there.  All had fallen out as Mr. Screech desired,
and presently Jane West and Bart Stanbury would pass that way on the
road to Princetown for some Christmas shopping.  Only one fear existed
in the watcher's mind.  If the mists increased in density, Bart might
hesitate to take his sweetheart this way, but prefer to tramp round by
road.

Billy had hidden himself beneath the principal footpath near the pool,
and he knew that the travellers must pass by him.  It was certain that
he would not be called upon to wait long.  He practised to himself once
or twice, and as he had suffered from a cold in his throat for some
days, the voice of Mr. Screech promised to be sufficiently sepulchral.

But the day grew more dark and more still.  A lifeless, listless gloom
haunted the spot, a blank despondency that reached even Billy's nerves,
dashed his spirit, and made him long heartily to be away.  Then came the
crawling tentacles of the fog, and they stole over the brim of Crazywell
and thrust here and there, like some blind, live creature feeling for
food.  They poured down into the hollow presently and crept over the
water at the bottom.  Half an hour passed and the vapour increased in
density.  It hung drops of moisture on the thorns of the furze and
spread a glimmering dew over Billy's hairy face and ragged eyebrows; it
struck cold; it entered his sore throat and promised to silence his
voice altogether.

"If they ban't here pretty spry, I shan't be able to croak no louder
than a frog," thought Mr. Screech.

He determined to give Bart and Jane fifteen minutes more.  If they had
not passed by during that time, he would leave the pool.  It seemed
pretty certain that the plot had failed.  Billy had no watch, but he
began to count slowly up to sixty, and each of these instalments
represented one minute.  The gloom increased, and unconsciously he
hastened his counting.  And then he heard voices and knew that the man
and woman were passing, high above him in the fog.  They shuffled slowly
along and both spoke, but the plotter could not hear their words.  He
was quite safe from possibility of observation and so rose and descended
to the sandy shore of the pool.  Then he lifted up his voice and
astonished himself, for his words rose and reverberated in the fog with
a strange resonance, quite proper to the supernatural creature that
might be supposed to live in Crazywell.

"Bartholomew Stanbury!  Bartholomew Stanbury!" he cried.

Then he heard a woman's thin shriek up aloft in the grey mist; and a
man's voice answered:

"By God! who's down theer?"

But Billy made no reply to the question.  He hastened to the further
side of the pit and crawled up on to the Moor; then he ran for a couple
of hundred yards, struck the Kingsett road and so got home, by Lether
Tor Bridge, as swiftly as possible.

Meantime a woman had fainted above Crazywell and a man was stirring
himself wildly to restore her.  It was neither Bart Stanbury nor Jane
West who had been shocked at the message from the pool, but Bart's
mother and father.  The young couple were far away, tramping in close
communion along the highroad; but Constance and her husband had been to
see sick Madge and take her and David their Christmas gift and good
wishes.  They were returning from Meavy Cot, and it was upon their
ears--where they moved slowly-fog-foundered above Crazywell--that this
mournful doom had fallen from invisible lips beneath.

Mrs. Stanbury sank before the shock.  She had just time to make her
husband understand that it was the spirit of Crazywell who thus
addressed them, before she lost consciousness.  Bartholomew, too
concerned for her to trouble about his own fate, gathered moisture from
the heath, wetted her forehead and loosened her gown. But it was long
before she recovered.  She sat and shivered for half an hour upon a
stone, and only by slow stages and with much assistance was able to
reach her home.

It had grown dark before man and wife returned to Coombeshead and
Bartholomew got his partner to bed. She had suffered a terrific nerve
shock and was incoherent until a late hour.  Then she became
intelligent, and her native pessimism thus fortified, broke loose in the
small hours of Christmas morning.

"Never out of my sight shall you go--God's my judge!  You mustn't seek
to do it, Bartholomew.  Your time's drawn down to within twelve month,
and us must spend it hand-in-hand to the end.  Oh, that awful voice! And
for me to hear the name--me of all people!  God A'mighty never did a
crueller thing; and if I'd knowed we was going back along by the pool,
I'd rather have walked the soles out of my boots and the flesh off my
feet than do it.  Your name of all names, and it might have been any
other man's.  But you are chosen.  If they'd only take me--not that I
can bide after you, Bartholomew.  Mark me, I shall be after you long
afore you know your way about in the next world."

Mr. Stanbury, albeit a man without superstition, had also suffered not a
little under the tragedy of the day.  He had always laughed at the pool
until now; but this was not a laughing matter.  He could trust his ears
and it was impossible to deny that a very extraordinary voice, hardly to
be called human, had shouted his name up through the mist from
Crazywell. It struck him also that the words actually ascended from the
face of the water.

"Things look a bit black," he admitted, "and I'm powerful sorry I've
scoffed at thicky water; but I ban't gwaine to throw up the sponge yet,
my old dear, and no more must you.  If 'tis the Powers of Darkness live
in the pool, then we must call in the Powers of Light to fight against
'em.  God in Heaven's the only Party who knows when I be going to be
took off, and 'tis a gert question in my mind whether He'd let it out to
this here queer thing that lives in Crazywell--like a toad in a
tree-stump.  What do you say, Bart?"

Their son had returned and was in great trouble at this evil news.

"I say that I'd better tell Jane not to come here for her Christmas
dinner," he answered.  "Mother won't be up for any high jinks to-morrow.
She won't even be good for getting over to worship.  She's white as a
dog's tooth still.  Why, there ban't hardly a spark of nature left in
her.  And as for the voice, I've no patience with such things.  I'd have
gone down and pulled the spirit's damned nose if I'd been there, same as
I would any other man's.  I don't believe a word of it, and faither's
right: God A'mighty wouldn't let no vagabond ghosts poke about on
Christmas Eve of all times--just afore the birthday of the Lord--to
frighten God-fearing, respectable people with their nonsense. If 'tis a
spirit, 'tis a bad one; and I wouldn't care no more for a bad
tankerabogus than I would for a bad man.

"If us can get to church in the morn, I'll ax parson Merle afterwards,"
said Mr. Stanbury.  "For my part, I won't pretend I like it; but all the
same, I've got a right to make a fight for it; and if parson be of your
view, Bart, that I oughtn't to care a button about it, then I won't
care."

"What's the use of telling like that?" asked Mrs. Stanbury fretfully.
"How be twenty parsons going to overrule a voice like what we heard a
bit ago?  Oh, my God! my flesh creams to the bones when I call back them
awful sounds."

"'Twas more like a parrot than a human," said Bartholomew.

"And there'll be some such way to explain it," declared the son.  "I'll
wager that Mr. Merle will laugh the whole story to scorn."

"How's that going to mend it, even if he do?" asked Constance.  "Time
enough to laugh when next year be dead and your father's still living.
But it can't be. He's got to leave us and I want for to know what
becomes of me then?"

She relapsed into a condition of hysterical emotion, and her husband sat
up with her all night.

In the morning Bart went for the doctor and also explained to Jane West
that the hoped-for meeting at dinner could not take place.

A medical man reached the fastness of Coombeshead before midday and
found Mrs. Stanbury suffering from shock.  He was interested and
sympathetic.  He drove Bart home to his surgery six miles off, and, at
evening, Constance took her physic and soon slept in peace.

Bart and his father were in the habit henceforth of regarding that
occasion as the most mournful Christmas Day within their memories; and
when the adventure began to be known a little later, their friends
deeply sympathised with them and were divided in their opinions.  Some
secretly hoped that the solemn tradition of the pool would be upheld,
and felt that it would be better for Mr. Stanbury to pass away than that
the great mystery and glory of Crazywell should vanish. Others flouted
the spirit and agreed with Bart that no sane person should take this
meddlesome hobgoblin seriously.


Elsewhere Christmas Day brought other discomforts. Mr. Screech and his
wife and children spent the anniversary at Ditsworthy; but they went
reluctantly as a substitute for David and Rhoda.  This spoilt the
pleasure of Dorcas, and both she and her husband were glad to be home
again.  They criticised everybody at the Warren House in an unfriendly
spirit, and Dorcas could find nothing genial to say even of her own
mother. Indeed, none of her own had ever been forgiven for their initial
adverse attitude in the matter of Billy. With her father alone could
Mrs. Screech be said to remain on good terms.

And while the Screech family were able to go to Ditsworthy, owing to the
enforced absence of David and his household, Christmas passed pleasantly
at Meavy Cot. Margaret did not know of her mother's misfortune, and as
her own health now mended again, she much enjoyed the day.  Moreover,
there came a visitor, for David invited the lonely Bartley to share the
feast, and Mr. Crocker, after hesitating between his duty to his Aunt
Susan Saunders and his duty to himself, finally felt the opportunity of
seeing Rhoda must be taken, in justice to his own future plans and
ambitions.  He went, therefore, and added to Margaret's pleasure, but
failed to advance his personal cause.

The dinner was a great success, and Hartley, quite unconscious that
every jest he made was damaging his most cherished hope, excelled
himself in merriment, and kept David and Madge in much laughter.
Rhoda's amusement, however, was at the best but frosty.  She could not
forget the past, and when she looked at Mr. Crocker she did not see an
unstable, good-natured, and kindly spirit, mentally incapable of
sustained sorrow, but a man whose mother had but lately died, and who
found it possible to laugh and utter futile jests before the grass was
grown upon her grave.  She allowed for no extenuating circumstances; she
forgot that Nannie Crocker's end was a release for which to be thankful.
She only saw an orphaned son playing the fool; and that he could do so
now, to the accompaniment of a good dinner, did not surprise her; for
had he not done the same upon the day after his mother's death?  She
remembered what she had seen upon the island above Nosworthy Bridge; and
she hardened her heart against Bartley and his humour.  Rhoda had been
influenced in other directions also by that unfortunate incident. To
explain Margaret's share in it with credit to Margaret was impossible.
Her brother's wife must have known that Mrs. Crocker had just died;
indeed, the man had doubtless gone to tell her so.  And Madge's apparent
reply was to conduct herself like a silly and irresponsible child.  Such
an action frankly disgusted Rhoda, and she was deeply offended and
shocked at it. The emotion waxed with time and even made her uneasy. She
believed that with no man living, other than her husband, might a woman
permit herself such pleasantries. The past looked more and more unseemly
in Rhoda's eyes.  It lessened her respect for Margaret, and
unconsciously she showed it.  Yet when Margaret, whose sensitive nature
was lightning-quick to mark such a change of attitude, asked her
sister-in-law how she had offended, Rhoda could not bring herself to
speak. She evaded the question, but made some general allusions, hoping
thereby to remind Madge of her recent folly. She failed, however, for
David's wife did not see the application of a theory of man's lightness
to herself or to Mr. Crocker.

And now, at this inauspicious hour, and fired thereto by a successful
dinner and an excellent opportunity, the lover offered himself again.
Chance so to do was deliberately made by Madge.  She planned with David
to leave her sister-in-law and the visitor, and, before Rhoda could
avoid the trap, Bartley and she were alone together in the parlour.

"Keep Bartley in good spirits till I come back, Rhoda," said Margaret
suddenly; "I must take my medicine, else doctor will be vexed when he
calls again."

She hurried off, and as David had already gone out, man and maid found
themselves alone.


Rhoda frowned; Bartley pulled himself together and wished he had taken
half-a-pint less of the bottled porter.

Each in secret heart was planning speech, and Rhoda, not guessing that
he had ever again thought of her as a wife, after her definite reply to
his proposal, wondered now if she might reprove Mr. Crocker himself for
his folly on the island.  Her object was not the welfare of the man.
She was thinking a little for Margaret and a great deal for David.  She
knew surely what David must have said had he crossed the bridge when she
did. But to speak to David about it appeared impossible, for he brooked
no criticism of Margaret even from her; and to approach Madge seemed
equally out of the question in Rhoda's view.  But here was an
opportunity to speak directly to the offender himself; for it could not
but be that Bartley had led Margaret into the lapse of self-respect with
the sandwiches.

Rhoda's mind swiftly traced this path, and she was preparing to speak
when her companion began to talk. His conversation related to a very
different matter, and for some time the woman found little opportunity.

Mr. Crocker had picked up a photograph album and was gazing at the
picture of the Bowden family taken at Tavistock in their full and
imposing completeness before David's marriage.

"My word!" he said, "that's a proper piece of work sure enough.  Let's
see--father and mother--boys of all sizes, your married sister, you and
David, and Dorcas and Joshua.  I hope you've made it up with Dorcas,
Miss Rhoda?"

She flushed.

"You'll do well to mind your own business," she said.

He shut the book and put it on the table.  It rested upon a red and
yellow wool mat, and he was careful to place it exactly in the middle.

"You're right," he answered.  "When aren't you right?  I oughtn't to
have said that.  It's not my place to dictate to you--quite the reverse.
I'm sorry."

She did not reply and he spoke again.

"But my own business is different.  I can mind that, and it's time I
thought a bit more about it.  Not that 'tis ever out of my thoughts
really; yet life comes between a man and his deepest desires sometimes,
and life--and death--has stood between me and the first business of my
life lately."

"Has it?" she said in an indifferent voice.

"You know it has, Rhoda.  You know what I've been through.  You came to
the graveside of my dear mother at my express wish--"

"'Twas at your aunt's wish--not yours."

"Anyway you came, and not being blind, you must have known what putting
her into the ground meant to me."

She stared at him coldly, but did not speak.  The grief that Bartley had
displayed above his mother's coffin when it sank to earth was real
enough.  He had mourned her then from his heart.  But while Rhoda
watched the man weep on that mournful occasion, there had filled her
mind, not sympathy at his present real grief, but sheer amazement at his
past equally real levity.  It was quite beyond her mental endowment to
understand how the same man could laugh on the day after his mother's
death, and weep at the ceremony of her interment.

Her thoughts now hardened her heart.  She guessed that he was about to
be personal and prepared to waste no consideration upon him.

"You'll be gone out of England soon, I suppose. What's Miss Saunders
going to do?"

"Lord knows.  My Aunt Susan's been rather difficult since mother died.
She wants to go to Canada with me; but--well, my mind's set on somebody
else."

"You'll never find anybody to care for you like she will."

"Shan't I?  That's bad news," he said.  "And, what's more, I'll make so
bold as to question it.  Why should I waste time and beat about the
bush?  Look back a bit--to that day on the leat path, Rhoda.  Well, a
lot's happened since then; but nothing has happened to my great love of
you except it's grown stronger and stronger.  And you, Rhoda?  Don't say
that you never thought of it again.  Perhaps you blame me for holding
off so long; but you see how I was placed. Couldn't go on with it and
mother fading out day by day."

In the light of her knowledge she believed that this statement was
untrue.  At best the hypocrisy of it offended her.  The man who played
with Madge on the island was surely not the man to let his mother's last
illness interfere with love-making.

But she did not comment upon this side of the question. She did not
comment at all, but waited for him to make an end.

"And now, though you might think I was too near her still, yet I know it
isn't so.  And I ask you to remember what I said before, and answer me
different. You're more to me than all the rest of the world put
together, and I'm sure that I could make you a happy woman.  I've
watched you, like a cat watches a mouse, these many months.  I've
followed your ways and learned your fancies.  David's self don't know so
much about you as I do--all I know of your beautiful, brave nature and
likes and dislikes--down to the walks by night with nought but the
moonbeams and your own thoughts for company.  And you--can't you feel a
bit too, and picture your life along with me away over the water?  Can't
you see yourself mistress of such a place as you've heard me tell about
to David?  Can't you let me love you and make you my dear wife, Rhoda?
For God's sake think about it, and don't say 'no' again. I'll wait your
pleasure; I'll not hurry you.  Take a year to say 'good-bye' to Dartmoor
if you like; or stop on Dartmoor if you like; and I'll gladly stop too,
if you say the word; but oh, Rhoda Bowden, do marry me and find what it
is to have a husband who worships your shadow!"

He stood over her as he spoke, while she sat motionless and looked out
of the window.  Now she saw David returning and was glad.  But her quick
ears heard Margaret stop him outside, and husband and wife went into the
kitchen together.

"Say 'yes' and have done with it," begged Bartley.

She was thinking, but not of him.  It occurred to her that Margaret had
planned the entire incident.  Her thoughts retraced many past events,
and she wondered how much more Margaret might have planned.  Then she
asked herself the reason.

Her sustained silence made the lover speak again; but she was so
interested in side views of the situation that the central fact seemed
unimportant.  To him, however, nothing else mattered; and her answer to
one who had just asked her to marry him, struck the man as
extraordinary.

"Don't be dumb, unless silence is to give consent," he said; then she
came to herself, looked at him blankly, and shook her head.

"Good God!  Is that all your answer?" he asked.

"That's all," she replied.

"Why--why--why?  What's between us?  I'm frank to you; be frank with me,
Rhoda.  It's now or never.  Say everything in your mind to say.  Leave
nothing unsaid.  What is it between us?  What's the bar?  Can it be got
over or broken down?  Where do I fail?  Can I mend it?  Can I change
anything--every thing to please you better?  Don't fear to hurt me.
Anything is better than refusal."

"You're too light-minded," she said.  "And, even if you wasn't, I
shouldn't care about you.  You're not the sort of man that I like."

"What sort do you like then?  Tell me, and I'll try to be that sort."

She did not answer the question, but reproved him for the past.  It
occurred to her again that by protesting now against the incident on the
island she might prevent any such folly in the future.  She was only
considering David--not Margaret, and not the man before her.

"Too light-minded," she repeated, "and I'll tell you for why I say it.
On the day after your mother died, you met my sister-in-law and it
chanced that I saw you together.  She don't know it and needn't.  But
you'd better know.  The man who could play child's tricks at such a time
wouldn't be trusted by any woman, I should think."

He wrinkled his forehead and endeavoured to remember.

"Whatever did you see that shocked you so much?"

She told him and he shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm afraid I can't expect to make you understand that.  Perhaps no
woman that ever I met but Madge would understand it.  Don't let that
come between us. Be just.  Moods and whims and silliness after a long
cruel strain may happen to men as well as women."

"Well, I despise the men, or women either, who could sink to such
things."

"You were at my mother's funeral.  You know if I felt her loss or not."

"Things are as they are," she answered calmly. "'Tis no good us telling
any more.  My brother and his wife want to come in the parlour, and
we're keeping 'em out."

Bartley rose.

"I'll be off then.  And mark this: you'll have to listen to me once more
yet before I go.  No man worth the name would take 'no' for an answer
under thrice."

"Better save your time.  You'll never make me feel different to you.
We're not built to look alike or feel alike at any point.  The sooner
you know that the better."

"Bid 'em good-bye for me and try to think different."

He offered his hand and she took it.

"I'll never think different so long as I can think at all," she said.

He departed, and Margaret and David saw him go and knew that he had
failed.

Madge sighed for him; her husband showed no emotion.

"Come what may come, 'twill be best," he declared. "Rhoda knows her own
mind; and that's more than half the maidens do nowadays."

They returned to her and found her sweeping the hearth.

"Mr. Crocker have gone," she said.  "I was to bid you good-bye from
him."


Elsewhere the baffled suitor tramped through Dartmoor under conditions
of setting sunlight and approaching darkness.  Strong winds had
scattered the fog of the preceding evening and now a gale shouted along
the heath and drove the clouds before it.  Flashes of light broke
through the west and, like golden birds, floated upward over the dark
bosoms of the hills.  They reached the ragged summits of the land,
revealed the granite there, then seemed to take wing into the sky.




                              *CHAPTER IV*

                            *POINTS OF VIEW*


The folk were coming to church, and some walked by road; some drove from
distant hamlets; some tramped by sheep-tracks and rough pathways over
wide spaces of heath and stone.  Down through outlying farms that
stretch tentative fields into the Moor; down past gorse-clad banks and
great avenues of beeches; down past Kit Tin Mine--busy then, but empty
and silent now; down into the valley bottom, drawn by the thin bell
music from the tower above the trees, came the family of the Bowdens.
It was smaller than of old. But the boys were growing; Napoleon and
Wellington had become responsible persons in the scheme of life at
Ditsworthy, and even the twins could be trusted to work without a ruling
eye upon them.  Mr. Bowden and his wife came to pray upon this early
summer noon.  Of women there were only two left at Ditsworthy; therefore
Sarah and her daughter Sophia had to take Sunday at church alternately;
and to-day the widow stopped at home to cook the dinner.  With the
Bowdens came other of the people.  Susan Saunders appeared beside her
nephew; but he saw her to the entrance only; there he stopped and talked
with a knot of men.  Among them was David Bowden.  He, however, stayed
not long outside and soon joined his family and Rhoda.  She was already
seated between Joshua and her father in the Bowden pew.  Charles Moses
was finding seats for chance visitors; Reuben Shillabeer, who never
missed Sunday service, sat in his corner, having just handed four
collecting dishes to those who would presently carry them through the
congregation.  He was a sidesman now, and Mr. Merle held the old
prize-fighter in high esteem as a valuable example to the young men.

Mr. Screech arrived with his elder child.  Mattacott met him and they
talked apart.  Their conversation concerned Timothy himself.  Jane West
had ceased to smile on Mattacott since the winter; yet there was no
report of any engagement between her and Bart Stanbury.  The appearance
of Timothy's rival cut this conversation short.  He came with his father
and mother.  The men entered and Mrs. Stanbury spoke to Mr. Crocker.

"Be Margaret gone in?" she asked.

"No," he said.  "She's home to-day.  David and Rhoda are here.  Madge
hasn't come."

Mrs. Stanbury sighed with dismay.

"There!  And I want particular for to see her. Now whatever shall I do?"

"Come and see her," suggested Bartley.  "I'll be very pleased to walk
along with you.  I'm not going in.  The weather's too fine to miss two
hours of it, and I shan't taste another English June for many a long
day--perhaps never."

Constance considered, and then, the matter being of some urgency,
consented.

"I'll just go into the church and tell master I'm stepping over to see
Margaret.  And I shall have to get my dinner there.  Everything's locked
up at Coombeshead till evening.  We was all going to take our meat along
with Mr. Moses to-day; but my men can do so, and I'll ask Madge for a
bit."

So it fell out, and Hartley, quite to his satisfaction, escorted Mrs.
Stanbury to 'Meavy Cot.'

First he chattered about his own hopes and disappointments; then he
interested himself in his companion's affairs.

"Yes, I must be gone.  No good staying here in sight of that girl--only
makes me savage and good for nothing."

"A pity she won't take you; but she'll never take anybody.  She's cut
out for the single state," declared Constance.

"How can you say that?  Was ever a finer woman seen in Sheepstor?"

"Womanhood's a matter of heart, not body, my dear. To the eye she's
female, to the mind she's male--that, or neither one nor t'other.  I
know all about her through my daughter.  Not that I don't wish with all
my heart you could have her, and take her long ways off.  Not a word of
unkindness do I mean; but 'twould be better every way, and better for
Madge if she lived somewhere else."

"Yes--I understand that," he said.  "David never can be everything to
Madge while he thinks such a deuce of a lot of Rhoda.  They're all good
friends, however."

"Good friends enough.  But 'tisn't the home it might be.  You don't see,
and strangers don't see; but I see, because my mother's eyes can't be
blinded."

"I see too--I know very well what you mean."

"If you do, then say nought," she answered; "for 'tisn't for you--nor me
neither--to stand between a man and his wife.  D'you know what Madge
said to me last week?  I grant she was down when she said it; but she's
down too often now.  She said, 'Life was sunshine with only a little
cloud three year agone; now it's cloud with only a little sunshine,
mother.'  Not a very nice thing for me to hear.  But it didn't astonish
me.  We're an unlucky race, I must tell you.  Whether luck comes through
the blood, or through some dark powers outside us, I don't know yet;
'tis a very real thing, and some has it from the cradle and some never
gets a pinch of it.  Stanburys don't."

But Crocker was thinking of Margaret Bowden.

"I'm terrible sorry to hear you tell this about her. She keeps such a
stiff upper lip before the world and looks out with such cheerful eyes,
that I never guessed 'twas quite as bad.  Yet now you say it, I mind the
signs."

"Keep out of it, however, and go away.  You can't do no good if Rhoda
won't have you."

"Don't be sure of that.  I was a lot of use once.  I might again."

Mrs. Stanbury was mildly surprised.

"Seeing David's good sense and patience, I won't say 'tis impossible to
do anything.  But David be David, and even if he had the will to alter,
how can he do it, more'n the leopard his spots?  There's nothing you can
put your hand upon and say 'there's the evil'; and yet 'tis clear
enough.  They've drifted apart through having no family.  'Tis all said
in that word."

Mr. Crocker sighed and felt a moment of real sorrow.

"If she'd married me," he said, "'twould have saved us both a lot of
bother."

The other did not answer and they proceeded some distance silently.

Then he turned the conversation to Mrs. Stanbury herself.

"This is telling on you too.  You're not all you might be, I'm sure.  I
wish it was in my power to do you a good turn."

"Like you to say it.  Many have to thank you for a good turn.  But 'tis
outside human strength to help me.  I've run against the Powers of
Darkness; I've heard Crazywell tell how my husband is to go inside the
year."

"Does he believe it?"

"I don't know.  He won't talk about it.  He's very careful of hisself,
and he gets a bit short if I run on about it; so we've agreed to let the
matter drop.  All the same it's aged him, and God knows how many years
it has took off my life."

Mr. Crocker was interested.

"I only heard about it from David.  There may be some sort of
explanation."

"How can there be?  'Tis like a thunderbolt hung over us.  Bart's the
only one who takes no account of it."

"It might be him just so likely as his father," said the man.  "Why are
you so positive 'twas your husband the voice meant?  They're both called
'Bartholomew.'"

Mrs. Stanbury stood still, stared at him, and then sank down suddenly in
the hedge.

"But--but that can't surely be?  The one's 'Bart' always," she gasped
out.

"To other people; but if this was some magic thing from another world,
you couldn't expect it to care about nicknames."

"Oh, my God! where do we all stand now?" cried out Mrs. Stanbury.
"Nobody ever thought of that afore!"

"One person did, if not others; and that person's Jane West," he
answered.  "I saw her a bit ago and asked her--out of kindness to
Bart--why she held off and didn't take him.  I know only too well what
'tis to be hanging about with your heart telling you not to take 'no'
for an answer and your head telling you that you're a fool.  And Jane
said that, so far as it went, she'd decided between Mattacott and
Stanbury.  'But,' she said, 'though I'm addicted to Bart and like him
very well, 'tis no use taking the man if he'm going to die afore next
Christmas.'  'Twas only by the merest chance she and Bart didn't hear
the voice themselves, for they went up to Princetown shopping that very
afternoon, and nothing but the fog made 'em go round by road."

But Mrs. Stanbury heard none of these words.  She had never connected
this catastrophe with her son; neither had Bart himself done so.  Jane
West, however, inspired thereto by Mr. Mattacott, perceived the real
significance of the situation, and she proposed to wait until time
showed whether father or son was to fall. Now Mrs. Stanbury was herself
faced with this hideous complication, and it struck her almost as
harshly as the original blow had done.  Her weak mind whirled; she
became incoherent and spoke without sense.

"Leave it, for God's sake," urged the man.  "You'll go mad at this gait.
One thing be just as absurd as t'other.  Some innocent fool saw your
husband through the fog and shouted to him--perhaps just wished him a
merry season or some such thing--and then went on his way and thought no
more of it.  Be sure you'll hear the truth soon or late, and you'll live
to see your men as well and hearty next January as they are now."

"You mean kindly to say these things," she answered. "But 'tis vain, and
you'll know it afore the year's gone."

"Well, give God Almighty a chance," he urged. "'Tis you will be dead,
not them, if you go on so."

They reached 'Meavy Cot' and found Margaret. Her mother sat down, took
off her bonnet and rested, while Madge stood a few minutes at the gate
with Mr. Crocker before he started homeward.

"Try and cheer her up," he said.  "'Tis that damned nonsense about the
voice at Crazywell.  She'll fret herself into her grave over it if this
goes on."

They discussed the matter for a while; then Madge spoke of Bartley
himself.

"Don't know what to be at," he said.  "My life's stuck for the minute.
I can't ask her again yet, and I'm not going till I have.  Just once
more.  But the thing is to know what to be doing meantime--how to get a
bit forwarder.  How is she?"

"She's all right--silenter than ever to me, though. Sometimes I think
she's judging me rather hardly and don't reckon I'm a very good wife for
David."

"I'm sure that can't be.  She's a long way too sensible to imagine any
such nonsense."

"She may be right, all the same.  I don't know what it is; I wouldn't
even name it to anybody but you and mother; but sometimes I feel as if
there was a door between me and David, and sometimes he tries to open
it, and I'm sure I'm always trying to, but it keeps shut."

"Stuff!" he repeated.  "You're such a parcel of nerves, Madge--like poor
Mrs. Stanbury.  You mustn't let yourself think such things.  David's
wrapped up heart and soul in you, and if 'tisn't his way to show all he
feels, that's only to say he's a Bowden.  They are built on that
fashion.  You must try and look at life more with his eyes.  He's a rare
man and I envy him his tremendous power of sticking to a thing till he's
got through with it.  His ideas are big, not little; I can see that, and
you ought to see it.  You and me are a bit too much alike there, and
'tis our luck not to be rated at our real value in consequence.  But we
mustn't repay in the same coin.  Because David don't quite understand
you, and Rhoda don't understand me, we, who are nimbler-witted than
them, mustn't be cross.  They may not see the truth of us and all the
virtues that we've got--and we've both got a rare lot in my opinion--but
we do see the truth of them, and so we must be patient with their
characters."

It was a new light to the woman, and she perceived the wisdom under his
jesting manner.

"If he'd only let me into his secrets!" she said.

"You must be content with mine," he answered. "David lets you into his
good fortune and tells you when he's drawn a prize.  But the bother and
battle he keeps to himself."

"He doesn't," she answered.  "I'd forgive that. But he tells Rhoda.
Again and again I've known them to break off a subject when I came
along--as if I was a baby."

"Try to think 'tis out of their kindness they do it."

"I have tried; but I know different.  David don't believe in me--that's
the bitterness of my life in a word, Hartley.  He don't trust me like he
trusts Rhoda."

"Then tell him so.  Let him see what he's losing by keeping you out.
And I believe, come to think of it, that might be good advice to myself
too.  With Rhoda I mean.  How would it be if I took a bit of counsel
with her, Madge--asked her advice, like David does, and treated her like
a man instead of a girl?  Would that work?"

She considered.

"It would work, no doubt, as far as her being civil went.  If you asked
her questions, she'd answer 'em; and if you asked her opinion she'd give
it.  Whether 'twould lead to anything further, I can't tell.  We've
drifted apart a bit of late, and I see it clear enough without seeing
the reason for it.  However, I daresay I'm to blame too.  No doubt I
don't look at life from their point of view all I might.  But I wish--I
wish to God she'd take you--as much for my sake as her own."

The woman's unusual bitterness impressed him.

"Follow my advice and have a good talk with David. Thresh it out and
open his eyes a bit.  If you see from his point of view, as you will
now, then 'tis but fair he should see from yours; and if he can't see
your side single-handed, then you must help him.  We'll meet again afore
long and I'll tell you what comes of my new idea.  Perhaps we shall both
be lucky!"

He left her and she returned to her mother.

Mrs. Stanbury was absorbed in the dreadful new problems raised by
Bartley Crocker's theory of the voice.  She explained these
complications to Margaret, and her daughter strove to comfort her
without success.




                              *CHAPTER V*

                           *END OF A ROMANCE*


Rhoda Bowden was walking over Yennadon Down, a broad tract of common
above the gorges of Meavy.  Great spaces stretched beneath her and a
still higher and mightier wilderness heaved upward beyond the river and
the forests to the east.  There Ringmoor extended, and its lone miles
basked in unclouded sunshine.  Beneath lay Sheepstor and Meavy, each
crowned by a church tower; while beyond rolled out long leagues of Devon
to the margins of the sea.  But Rhoda's eyes were on the ground and she
moved with less than her usual steady purpose.  An empty cartridge met
her glance and some small grey object that fluttered in the mouth of it
led her to stop and pick up the fragment.  The cartridge was old and
weather-worn; the live creature that had found this convenient
receptacle was a large and dusky moth.  For a moment Rhoda felt
interested, then, perceiving that this insect had laid many eggs within
the empty cartridge, she shuddered slightly and flung the moth and its
nursery away; because maternity on such a scale seemed loathsome to her
even in an insect.

She was on her way to Buckland of the Monks with a message from David,
and she welcomed the long and lonely day promised by this task, for not
a few matters lay heavy on her mind.  Rhoda's responsibilities were
growing beyond power of control.

But the anticipated hours of reflection were largely curtailed, for when
she returned to the highway nigh Dousland Barn, a light cart overtook
her and the driver was Simon Snell.  His face indicated the most
profound surprise.  He smiled, hesitated, gave her 'good-morning,'
proceeded on his way, then changed his mind again, pulled up and
alighted.

"What a terrible coorious thing as me and you should both be bound out
along like this--on the very same day too!" he said.

"So 'tis then, and I hope you're well.  Us haven't met this longful
time."

"I was coming over one Sunday this summer," he declared; "but now will
do just so well.  I be going out to Vartuous Lady Mine to spend the day
along with my brother James and his wife.  You might not have heard me
tell much about him, perhaps?  I've took a day off--by permission, of
course--and I'm carrying 'em a gift, because they'm not very well-to-do,
I'm sorry to say."

"I'm going to Buckland Monachorum for David."

"Well, I never!  What could have falled out better? I very nearly drove
by you; because I said to myself, 'Perhaps it might be too pushing in me
to offer to give her a lift.'  But I'm very glad I didn't, and I hope
you'll accept of a seat till I leave your road.  'Tis a fainty sort of
day, with thunder offering, in my opinion."

"Thank you, I should be very glad if you've got room."

"Room enough.  I'm taking my brother half a pig as we killed last week,
and his wife a bunch of they white Mary lilies, what grow to a miracle
in our garden. People stop and stare at 'em.  And if you'll sit
alongside me--if it isn't making too bold--"

She ascended and they proceeded together.

"There'll be a thunderstorm afore long, as you say," she remarked.

"I quite agree.  And how be you faring?  You'm looking purty middling;
and I be purty middling, and so's my mother, thank God, though she was
into her seventy-fourth year last month."

"I'm all right."

"I ban't too close to you, I hope?"

She shook her head.  She felt comfortable and easy with him, as usual,
but her heart beat no quicker for his voice or the inquiring gaze of his
great mild eyes.

"My brother was married afore I comed acquainted with you.  He's a
gamekeeper and his wife has a child every second year.  For my part I
think they're unlucky; but their way is to trust the Lord to look after
the childer.  But I'm not sure.  By the same token you might not know
that you've got another nephew.  Your sister, Mrs. Screech, had a son
yesterday betwixt six and seven of the evening.  Screech comed in to
smoke a pipe when 'twas all over.  A very clever job, I hear, and the
child to be called after your father."

"I don't want to know nothing about it, thank you."

"Beg pardon, I'm sure."

He was silenced for some time.  Then he observed that Rhoda had a finger
tied up.

"I do hope as you haven't hurt yourself," he said.

"Nothing at all.  A dog bit through when he was playing."

"They will, and yet mean no harm."

She considered with herself whether this man could be of any use to her,
and she decided that he could not. It was in any case almost impossible
to state her difficulties.  She found it hard to put them into words
even in thought, where an idea, though it cannot live away from the
symbols of words, yet develops without any coherent sentences and
reasoned speech.  To tell to another what was in her mind had as yet
been beyond her power; and to mention the difficulty to Mr. Snell, even
if possible, must have proved a futile task.  Her instinct assured her
that his mind was no more built to speak wisdom on sex questions than
her own.  She reflected thus, while he, employed upon a different
matter, wondered vaguely if he might arrange another walk with her;
whether it was worth while to do so; and whether, even if she accepted
the invitation, he really desired such a thing.

Presently she uttered a generality which bore obliquely upon his own
ideas.

"What a terrible difficult world it do seem to become, if you'm married!
And even if you'm thrown much against married people, you can't escape
it.  If you care a lot about folk, you'm bound to feel for 'em, I
suppose."

"I quite agree--never heard a truer word," he said. "'Tis the worst of
being fond of people that, if they get in a mess, it makes you feel
uncomfortable.  You can't escape from that."

"The fewer we care about, the more peace we have, seemingly."

"Exactly so.  I've thought that very thought, and I've often thanked God
that, after my mother, and my brother, and my brother's wife, and one of
my nephews, there's nobody in the world I should shed a tear for if they
was took."

She nodded, and he suddenly perceived that this was one of the speeches
wherein he had failed of perfect tact.  Yet to modify it needed some
courage.

"I should say one other--one other, if I may make so bold," he added.

She did not answer and he considered before continuing.  Then he decided
that he could not leave the matter there.  Yet he was cautious.

"You mustn't think the worse of me for it.  I don't mean anything by it
to cause you any uneasiness.  But you're the one, Miss Rhoda.  I should
certainly be very vexed if anything happened to you."

"Thank you, I'm sure, Mr. Snell."

"Don't," he said.  "These things don't merit thanks.  I've never told a
lie, and so I won't hold my reason back.  I think a lot of your
character: that's why I should be sorry if harm happened to you."

"We've understood each other very well, I believe."

"Very well indeed; and you've taught me a lot about the female sex.
And, but for you, I don't suppose I should ever have knowed anything at
all about them.  I may tell you, owing to your large understanding, that
I've often considered about the sense of marrying.  But I'm sure I don't
know.  When you look round--the heart sinks."

"Yes, it does."

Mr. Snell did look round, and the beautiful woman roused some faint,
feeble flicker of his anaemic passion.

"I grant you that the wedded state as shown by other people--and yet I
won't go so far as Bartley Crocker do."

"How far's that then?"

"Mind, don't you say it against him.  I've no wish to be thought a
tale-bearer.  But, in open speech at the bar of Shillabeer's
public-house, he said that though you hear of happy marriages, you never
see them.  Now that's too far-reaching--eh?"

"Not much.  He's not far out, I reckon."

"Well, you know better than me; but, begging pardon for mentioning her
again, your own sister is as happy as a bird.  And I really don't say
it's impossible to be happy with a home of your own."

"The right ones never meet.  I'd warn every man and woman against it for
my part."

With this speech Rhoda quite extinguished the paltry flicker in Mr.
Snell's broad bosom.  He looked rather frightened.  He stroked his
beard.  At heart he felt a sort of relief that even the shadow of
disquiet was now banished in the light of her plain statement.

"If that's your opinion, 'tis no part for a common man like me to say a
word against it," he answered. "Sometimes--I won't deny it--I've
thought, in uplifted moments, that the married state with such a meek
nature as mine--and then again, however--"

"I speak what I know; but nobody can be sure they're right, I suppose.
What do you think about it?" asked Rhoda.  But why she gave him this
loophole she knew not.  Her interest in Mr. Snell was at a low ebb
to-day, and her own thoughts filled her spirit to the exclusion of all
else.  Still she was always content with him.  He appeared to her to be
a sensible and responsible man whose opinion was better worth having
than that of most people.

"Now you ask a poser," declared Simon, "for my own opinion on such a
high subject be very unsettled. In fact, I'd a long ways sooner go by
yours, and if you, of all females, feel as marriage be too doubtful in
the upshot, then I'd so soon, if not sooner, take your word for it.  And
I may say that I will.  There's nothing so restful as having your mind
made up for you by a better one.  And I can't say the men I know--they'm
all for it in a general way--bring up very strong arguments.  There's
Amos Prouse tokened now, and he goes about properly terrified, so far as
I can see; and there's Mattacott, from being an even-tempered man,
turned so sour as a sloe, because Jane West keeps him on the
tenterhooks.  To keep company is certainly a very bad state; and you
can't be married without going through it; so that's another reason
against."

"I shall never marry," she said.

"Then no more shan't I," he declared.  "And 'tis a troublesome weight
off the mind to hear you say that."

"Better not go by me, however."

"'Tis just you and no other I would go by.  Because--well, now since
you've spoken and never been known to go from your word--the coast be
clear for me and I feel so light as a lark in the air.  If you'd said as
you were for it, then my manhood would have--well, God knows what might
have overtook me; for at such times a man gets into a raging fever and
be ready to fight creation for the female, as the savage beasts do.  But
you've said it; and I quite agree.  I know you'm right, and I say ditto
to it.  And we'll see t'others dashing into it, but 'twill be nought to
us."

"It looks to me as if the useful people be often the single ones," she
said.

"There again!  What good sense!  'Tis the very height of sense!  And
Paul's on our side too.  Better to marry than to burn, he says in his
large wisdom.  But better not to marry if you'm perfectly cool and
contented, same as what I be, year in, year out."

She did not answer and he spoke again.

"Still, mind this.  If it had been otherwise with you, it would have
been otherwise with me.  Never was a manlier man in his instincts of
self-preservation than me, as my mother will tell you.  And if by chance
I'd fallen upon a creature of the female sex as appeared to be looking
to me to share life with her, then I doubt it might have happened.  But
not now.  If she comed along now it would be too late.  Because I've had
walks along with you in my time, and we've been terrible close, and
we've understood each other as well as any two people could."

"I suppose we have."

"I tell you this, because you've given your word you ain't going to
marry," he concluded; and nothing more was said until they reached a
lane that broke from the main road.  Then Mr. Snell pulled up.

"Here's my way.  You must get down now.  You go straight on.  I shall be
back after eight o'clock, and will bide here till a quarter past if I
can help you home."

"No.  I'll be back long afore that, I hope."

So the lifeless, bloodless abortion of a romance passed stillborn from
between them, unregretted by either. They often met in after life, and
they were always friendly within their natural limitations; but marriage
never again rose as the most dim possibility on the horizon of the man.

He permitted her to alight without assistance.  They talked a while
longer before separating, and conversation drifted to David and his
wife.

"I hear the people air their opinions and I say nothing--that being the
way of least trouble seemingly," declared Mr. Snell.  "But certainly now
and again very outrageous speeches be spoke.  Take Screech, for
instance.  He's no fool, Screech isn't.  But he have a very coarse way
of putting things, to my mind.  His wife--begging pardon for mentioning
her--was saying something about her brother David.  I've forgot what it
was, except that it weren't flattering, and Screech, he ups and says,
'Them two'--meaning David and Mrs. Bowden--'them two,' he says, 'be like
a moulting cock and hen--that down on their luck, and all about nought,
for the man's prospering and getting home the money with both fists.'
'Twas a vulgar thing to say, and I went so far as to tell him so."

"You might have told him he was a liar too," said Rhoda.  "When did
anybody ever see David down on his luck, even if he was?  He don't carry
his heart in his hand.  A cheerful and a steadfast man always; and if my
sister-in-law be not cheerful nor steadfast--that's another matter, and
the fault's not David's.  I tell you this because you've got sense and
was never known to make mischief."

"And never shall, please God!"

"What does an evil thing like Screech know about David?"

"Nought--less than nought.  He allowed that, for in my cautious way, I
went so far as to ax for chapter and verse, when he said your brother
and his wife weren't happy.  'I don't know nothing about 'em and don't
want to,' he said in his coarse style; 'but a good few eyes be open
round these parts, and 'tis very well marked they go different roads
when out of sight of each other.' It might become you to mention it, or
it might not. You know best, living along with them."

Rhoda hesitated but said nothing.  The inclination to confide in Mr.
Snell was not revived.

"Thank you for telling me.  But whether I'll name it--"

"Don't mention me if you do," said Mr. Snell.  "'Tis only to you I'd
have said as much as I have said--out of respect to the family.  And now
I must be going on."

They shook hands and parted.  He returned to his cart and, the lane
leading up a hill, went slowly forward.  His horse sagged at his collar
and the thill chains clanked.  With each step forward Simon's body
jolted on the board.  One leg of the quartered pig also waved
spasmodically, and the candid lilies powdered their purity with golden
pollen.

Thus it came about that Snell left the woman's thoughts where he found
them.  She tramped forward full of the matter of Margaret; she did her
business; ate some bread and butter and drank some milk; started for
home again.  But, returning by way of Horrabridge, she was detained
awhile and she did not ascend a steep hill out of Walkhampton on her
return journey until the evening.  Her brother, who had gone to
Okehampton, was combining business and pleasure in a ride across
Dartmoor.  He would not come back until late, and it was understood that
Rhoda herself might not be expected home before him.  She, however,
pursued her direct way under the acclivities of Black Tor while yet it
was light, and looking down into the valley, the raw blue patch of the
roof of 'Meavy Cot' stared up a mile distant and smoke surmounted it.
At nearer approach Rhoda saw Madge and a man come out of the cottage.
They went off in the direction of Coombeshead and they walked close
together and talked very earnestly.  She altered her way somewhat, to
get nearer to them, and was able to make sure of Margaret's companion.
At first she trusted that he had been her brother Bart; but it was Mr.
Crocker with whom Madge proceeded and with whom she kept such close
converse.

Rhoda went back, took the key of the door from a secret hiding-place,
where it was always hidden for the first home-comer, and entered the
cottage.  A litter of tea things stood on the table and Bartley had
evidently partaken of that meal.


And on the road to Coombeshead farm David's wife and David's friend were
talking with profound interest not of Rhoda and not of David--but
concerning Constance Stanbury.  That day, early after noon, Crocker had
met Madge's father in trouble and had taken a message to the doctor for
him, that he might the quicker return to his wife.  Mrs. Stanbury had
quite succumbed to her nerves again and was suffering much terror and
horror through the hours of night.  Her agitation culminated in what Mr.
Stanbury held to be "a fit," and he felt that the unfortunate, haunted
woman again needed medical care to help her fight these superstitious
fears.

Mr. Crocker gladly conveyed an urgent message to the physician, and soon
afterwards he walked to Meavy Cot, that he might tell Madge.  To his
satisfaction he found her alone, accepted her invitation, drank tea with
her, and then accompanied her to learn how her mother fared.

Now they talked of this curse that had fallen upon the old woman's life,
and Crocker tried hard to conceive some possible way of relief.  The
truth was hidden from them and he did not for an instant suspect it; but
the thought and care of both were entirely centred upon this subject,
and for a time every other interest remained in abeyance while they
strove to hit on some device by which Mrs. Stanbury might be comforted.
Bartley suggested a visit from Mr. Merle; and Madge declared such an
idea to be quite vain.

But Rhoda Bowden knew nothing of these facts.  It was not until night,
when Margaret returned and David also came home, that she heard the
truth from her sister-in-law.  And her inclination was to disbelieve at
least a part of it.




                              *CHAPTER VI*

                             *VIRGO--LIBRA*


A moon at full rolled hugely up over the Moor edge, outlined a black
peat wall and by chance made a brilliant background for an atom of life
that was there.  Here Rhoda's kitten rested on an August night after
great hunting of moths; and the planet threw a golden frame around it.

Rhoda herself, sitting alone at hand in the presence of her mistress,
the moon, perceived this accidental conjunction and noticed her little
pet dark against the immensity of the bright dead world now ascending.
Rhoda sat with her hands folded in her lap and watched the red-gold
rise.  The moon and the kitten, for some subtle reason, alike comforted
her.  One rose clear of the horizon, and the other vanished.  The work
of the first was to diffuse a warm and wondrous stain upon the cloudless
air; to permeate the earth's atmosphere with fleeting radiance and then,
swimming upwards, to cool the passing heat of ruddy colour she had
created and to supersede this glow with a pale rain of silver-grey
light.  It poured down into the silence and spread pools and patches of
misty pearl upon the ebony of the waste.  The work of the second was to
come to Rhoda, stick up its little tail, pad in her lap, purr with
infant heartiness, and, lifting its nose, mirror the moon in a pair of
phosphorescent green eyes.  So from both she won good and had sense to
see that the stars in heaven and the beasts of earth might each minister
after their fashion to such a soul as hers.  They soothed her; but they
did not advance her reflections or help to solve the gathering
difficulties that conscience cast into her path. She was troubled and
knew not where to turn.  She stated the situation again and again to
herself, but no light fell upon the picture from anywhere.  Her belief
was that her brother's wife saw far too much of another man.  That the
man in question wanted to marry Rhoda herself was an added complication;
and from that fact, she judged that Margaret must be fonder of Bartley
Crocker than he could be of her.  Her mind was not constituted to weigh
very subtly the shades and half shades of this situation, or appraise
the extent of its danger.  She concerned herself with David and busied
her spirit to consider only her duty towards him. Indifference toward
Margaret of late tightened into dislike.  Secretly she had always felt
impatient with the other's softness; but since that softness began to
lead David's wife astray, she became alarmed and angered. She retraced
the general attitude of her brother and could see nothing in it at all
unreasonable.  He was very busy, very hard-working, very ambitious.  He
treated Margaret much as Elias Bowden treated his wife; and Rhoda
believed that her mother was always happy and contented.  But it could
not be said that David's wife was particularly happy.  Rhoda often broke
upon her, when entering the house suddenly, and at such times Margaret
would put on cheerfulness in haste, as a surprised bather might put on a
garment.

What then was this woman to do?  She had a high sense of duty and that
sense had now begun to torment her.  It was impossible to formulate any
charge against Crocker or against Margaret.  Yet she blamed the man not
a little, for she believed that he ought to know better than seek the
society of Margaret so frequently. Again justice reminded her that Madge
made no secret of the meetings.  Some, indeed, she might have
had--perhaps many--which were never reported; but of others (and others
which Rhoda had not seen) she spoke freely afterwards; and she often
asked David if she might invite Bartley to Meavy Cot.

Rhoda remembered that Bartley and her sister-in-law had been children
together and that they had known each other all their lives.  Herein was
comfort, but reflection dashed it.  At one time most certainly they had
not felt the mere close friendship of brother and sister; for it was an
open secret that Crocker had asked Margaret to be his wife within a few
days of David's engagement.  But the thinker did not permit this view
long to discomfort her.  She strove with native resolution to look at
the position in a clean and reasonable light.  David himself had said
that Bartley and Margaret were like brother and sister.  He exhibited
not a shadow of uneasiness; and if he felt no concern, why should she do
so?  This argument, however, broke down; because Rhoda knew much more
than David.  He went about his business and it absorbed him.  Margaret
was always at home to welcome him; everything was waiting as he wished
it; his whispered word was law, and his wife anticipated his very
thought and remembered chance utterances and desires in a way that often
surprised and gratified him.  Rhoda could not blame Margaret's attitude
to David, and she could not for an instant blame David in the amount of
time and consideration he devoted to his wife.  Upon her estimate it
seemed ample and generous.

She considered the brother and sister theory of Bartley's friendship
with Margaret and resolved to cleave thereto with all her strength.  She
reminded herself of what she felt for David; she was very fair; she
perceived that even as she and David thought and felt alike, with such
mysterious parity of instinct and judgment that they often laughed when
they simultaneously uttered the selfsame words, so Margaret and Bartley
Crocker were certainly built on a similar pattern.  They too looked at
life through the same eyes; they too doubtless arrived at similar
conclusions.  The side issue of this man's regard for herself recurred
in the weft of Rhoda's thought; but she drew it out.  That relation was
beyond the present problem and did not influence her decision.  She had
twice dismissed the man, and doubtless her second refusal would be taken
by him as final.

She came to a conclusion with herself and decided to do nothing but
watch.  Such a task pained her to reflect upon; but there was none to
whom she could speak, for she had none to be regarded in any light of
close friendship but her brother.  Her father, her mother, her elder
sister were of no account.  Therefore she determined to wait and watch
as a duty to David. She hoped that a brief period of such work would
bring peace back to her mind; and she went about it with a rising gorge,
in doubt whether to be ashamed of herself or not.

But it happened, only two days later, that opportunity to modify this
plan offered and David himself gave it to her.  Thankfully she took it,
and after a conversation to which he opened the way, Rhoda felt a
happier woman than she had felt for many weeks.

He was mending some garden tools in his outhouse at dark and called for
another candle.  She carried it to him and stopped with him while he
worked.  The man was in a very good temper and happened to wax
enthusiastic over his life and his wife.

"'Tis borne in upon me more and more, Rhoda, that I have better luck
than I deserve.  Me--such a stand-off chap--yet I'm always treated civil
and respectful and taken as a serious and important sort of person.
Sometimes, looking back, I can hardly believe it all.  But I suppose
'tis my gert power of holding to work does it."

"'Tis because you'm a straight man and never known to go from truth and
honesty by a hair," she said. "People see that your word's your bond,
and that you set truth higher than gain.  You deserve all you get or
ever will get--and more."

"Like you to say it; and well you know that my good is your good,
Rhoda."

Then he praised his wife.  His admiration was genuine but mechanical.

"What with you and her--Margaret--I've got a lot more than falls to
most.  Needn't say nought about you: we're one; but she's different.
She can't see so deep and far off as we do; but she can feel more; and
she trusts me; and I'm proud of the simplicity of her. Never wants no
figures nor nothing.  Never asks no questions.  Leaves her life in my
hands as trusting as the dogs are with you.  And ever thinking for me.
I said a bit ago as I dearly loved cold rabbit pie, made after mother's
way.  Well, the pie to-night was like the Ditsworthy pies.  I thought
for sure 'twas a present from home; but not a bit of it.  She went
up-along two days ago and larned the trick of it.  If only--but 'twould
be mean in me even to name it with such a woman--"

"If only what?  All the same, I know.  There's compensations against
childer, David.  Leave that and go on feeling grateful for her goodness;
and--and wake up to a bit more too."

She spoke suddenly and with no little feeling.  An inspiration had come
to her--a brilliant thought greater and finer far than her recent
solitary imaginings under the moon.

"'Wake up'!" he exclaimed.  "Whatever do you mean, Rhoda?  If I'm not
wide awake, who is?"

Her ideas struggled within her.  She strove to say the right thing, yet
almost despaired.  He waited during her silence, then spoke again.

"Don't think I'm not grateful to God for such a good wife.  I love her
more than she knows, or ever will know.  I'm even down about her
sometimes, when I think she don't know.  Yet what more can I do?  If
there's anything, 'tis your bounden duty to tell me."

He made the way clear; yet she felt a doubt that if she did speak, he
might take it ill.  She was frightened--an emotion so rare that she did
not recognise it and feared that some physical evil must be threatening
her.

"I saw Simon Snell not long since," she said. "Didn't mention it at the
time, for 'twasn't interesting, except to me; but I will now.  He gave
me a lift on my way to Buckland and said a good few very sensible
things, as his manner is.  He told me of a saying he heard made by that
Screech that married Dorcas. Screech was speaking of you and your wife,
and he said you was like a moulting cock and hen sometimes--both down on
your luck and didn't know what was the matter."

David laughed.

"So much for that then.  I'll tell you how that happened.  I fell in
with the man--we're friends of a sort now--and chanced to talk of
children.  I may have just hinted I was sorry to be without 'em.  But
that was all.  He's jealous of me as a matter of fact. He's getting on
pretty well too; but he don't get on as quick as me; and he's
handicapped by his mother and his children."

"He spoke of Margaret, too, however."

"What he may have heard her say I can't guess. Nought against her home,
that I will swear.  Of course, 'tis only human nature to have our up and
down moments."

"No doubt that spiteful woman--Dorcas I mean--would be quick to make
mischief if 'twas in her power," declared Rhoda.

"It isn't.  There's no power on God's earth powerful enough to make
mischief between me and Madge."

"Then look after her closer," said his sister.

It was out and she expected a shower of exclamations and questions.  But
they did not come.  David dropped a hammer, stood up, and replied.  He
had not wholly understood.

"I will," he answered.  "I'll think this very night how to give her a
bit of a treat.  'Tis natural, without a cradle in the house, she's
moped.  Us must make it up to her a little, Rhoda.  Such towsers for
work as you and me forget sometimes that some natures call for a little
play as well.  I'll look closer after her pleasure and such like.  We'll
go to Tavistock revel.  I hadn't thought to do it; but we'll all take a
whole holiday and not do a stroke of work for the day.  At least no more
than we'm bound to do."

"I mean all the time, David, not just for a day."

"Fancy your saying this to me!  And now I'll surprise you too.  You
ban't the first who has talked like this.  Crocker did the very same a
bit ago, and I took it as kind in him, for I'm that sort of man.  I'm
not a jealous chap--too sensible for that.  But if 'twas known what I
felt for Madge, I dare say people, that see me so busy and wrapped up in
getting on, might wonder.  Even you don't quite see it, Rhoda.  Still,
this I will say I blame myself as I did before.  I'm not one to think
I'm always right; and love should out, not lie asleep in the heart.
'Tis nought unless you see it and let it work all the time, as you say."

"Don't for God's sake, talk like that," she begged earnestly.  "Who am I
to lecture you?  What do I know of love?  What do I want to know of it?
I only care for you and your good, else I wouldn't have said this much."

She was thinking more of what he had just spoken than what she herself
was saying.  Bartley Crocker had taken her brother to task on this
identical theme! She gasped with secret amazement at such extraordinary
news.  Doubtless this meant that Crocker and Margaret--  Here she barred
her own thoughts.  She refused to examine what such a fact could mean.

Her brother made an end of his work.

"Now I'm going in to have a tell with Madge," he said.  "You come too."

But Rhoda refused.

"I'm for a walk.  'Tis a fair night."

They parted; he returned to his house; she loosed two dogs and went off
on to the Moor.

David lighted his pipe and sat by his fire.  Margaret was working at the
table.  For a time he kept silence, and then she spoke.

"What are you thinking on, dear heart?  I hope all be going well at
Tavistock?"

"I wasn't troubling about Tavistock," he answered. "I was thinking what
a wonder you be, and how you spoil me, and how I'm not worth it--such a
man as me."

"David!"

"To think as you went to Ditsworthy about rabbit pies!  'Tis things like
that make me wonder."

Her face shone and she set down her work and came to him.

"'Twas nought; but 'tis lovely to know you marked it and was pleased,"
she said.

"I don't mark enough," he answered.  "I'm that set on driving ahead, and
making a bit of a splash, and getting up in the world for you--for you,
Madge,--that I forget here and there.  Don't gainsay me.  Too well I
know it in my leisure moments."

"You shan't say so.  'Tis all along of me being so small-minded and not
looking on ahead like you do, but living in the stupid every-day things.
I know they don't matter; and I know what you feel to me; and 'tis for
me to see things with your eyes, not for you to see 'em with mine."

"'Tis for me to set higher store by the every-day things," he declared.
"'Tis for me to value better the home you keep always sweet and ready
for me; and the food you cook, and the hundred little odd worries and
bothers many married men have to face, but me never.  You don't bring no
trouble to me; but you'm always ready and willing to hear my troubles.
I can't expect you to understand when I talk about figures and such
like.  Such things ban't your part.  But you'm always ready with your
bright eyes to be glad and rejoice when good comes; and 'tis for me to
be glad and rejoice in lesser things when you tell me about 'em.  I
don't let you know how clever I think you.  And you always hold yourself
so cheap that 'tis my duty to lift you up in your own conceit, for if
you thought half so well of yourself as I think of you, you'd be the
proudest woman in England, Madge."

She sat on his lap and put her arms round his neck and kissed him.

"'Tis like life to me to hear you say such things," she answered.
"Though too well I know how little I deserve 'em.  I wish I was a
better, cleverer sort to lend a hand with high matters like figures and
work and sheep. But I'm only useful here."

"Us will each stick to our own share of the load," he said.  "We'm both
doing our part pretty well, I believe; and so long as you never forget
that I mark your cleverness and love you better every day of your life,
the rest don't matter.  I've been a thought too buried in my own hopes
of late, and I own it and I'm sorry for it.  But my eyes was opened half
an hour agone, and I want you to forgive me, Madge.  'Twas only seeming,
mind you; but I doubt it looked real and it's made you down-daunted, as
well it may have; and I'm truly sorry for it."

"You've a deal more to forgive than me.  Many men would fling it in my
face every day of my life as I'd brought 'em no family."

"I'm not that sort, and I'm hopeful in that matter as in every other.
Put that out of your mind, same as I do.  Man plants, but God gives the
increase.  I've found out--all my life so far--that, if we do our part,
He's very willing to do His.  And if He holds back--that's His business
and not for His creatures to fall foul of.  Who knows best?"

She tightened her arms round him and her tears flowed.

"Doan't 'e cry," he said, "unless 'tis for happiness. And I'll speak yet
further, Madge, since I'm confessing my sins to-night.  There's another
that must have credit for this useful talk betwixt me and you."

Her thoughts leapt to Hartley Crocker; but she did not speak.

"I was saying to Rhoda a minute ago in the shed, that 'twas just like
you to go up to Ditsworthy for the secret of mother's rabbit pies.  And
then she--Rhoda, I mean--told me a thing or two I ought to have found
out for myself."

"I know right well Rhoda loves me dearly.  Whatever--" began his wife;
then she broke off.

"Of course--like every other mortal.  And she's a woman, and soft
too--though not like you.  She's content with me as I am, but you're
not; and there's no reason why you should be.  You're right to ask for a
bit of worship from me; and the hard thing is you should have to ask."

"I never--never did, David.  I was content too--always content, and
proud of you always."

"I know.  You didn't ask with your lips.  But maybe you asked another
way; and I didn't see the question till--till others in the past, and
again to-day, put it afore me.  I'm a contrite man. I'm--"

She put her hand over his mouth.

"You're a million times too fine and great for me. And I won't hear
another word.  There ban't a happier she on Dartmoor this minute than
me!"

"Look here," he said.  "I'll tell you what: we'll have a lark next week.
There's a revel to Tavistock and we'll all go--you and Rhoda and me.
Would you like it?"

"Dearly, and--d'you think, David, that we might ax Bartley Crocker to
come?  For his own sake and for Rhoda's?"

"Ax him an' welcome.  But I'm afraid 'tis all up. She's actually against
him now, I should judge, and at best she merely kept an open mind.  She
never cared a straw about the man, and never will.  I'm sorry for him,
because he's very fond of her; but I'm not sorry for her."

"I am.  Any woman with a good husband must be sorry for them who haven't
got one."

"But 'tis no use thinking about it.  She'll die an old maid unless
something very different from Crocker comes along.  I met poor Snell but
yesterday and asked him how the world wagged with him.  And he said as
he saw his way clearer than ever he had, owing to a talk with Rhoda.
Rhoda of all people!  'Glad you see what a sensible woman she is,' I
told him, and he swore he'd always seen it, but never more than when she
told the risks of marriage were greater than the gains. 'I'm off it for
evermore,' he says; 'and so be she--I've got her word.'  Never a man was
more relieved in his mind, I should reckon."

"Nonsense!" declared Margaret.  "She's young for her years, and maidens
all talk like that.  I won't believe it yet awhile.  I won't even
believe that Bartley's not the man.  I see a lot of him and none knows
him better.  He's gained a deal of sense and patience of late. He's a
kind-hearted, gentle creature, and she'd soon wake up to know what
happiness really meant if she'd take him."

"She's happy enough in her own way."

"I hope 'tis so; yet how can such a lone life be happy?"

"The heron be so happy as the starling," said David; "though one's his
own company most times and t'other goes in flocks.  She needn't trouble
you.  However, since you still think it may be, I'll forget a thing here
and there and help you, though 'tis against my own wish in a way.  Of
course Rhoda's good is as much to me as my good have always been to her.
I want her to be a happy woman and a married woman too, if Mr. Right
comes along.  But all the same, I can't think whatever I should do if
Bartley Crocker was to win her and take her off to Canada."

"The thing is to make her happy," answered his wife.  "Before all else I
want to do it.  We're as happy as birds.  'Tis for us, one way or
another way, to fill her cup fuller."

"We'll do what we may," he replied.  "At least be sure that no man nor
woman cares for her more than we do."

"And poor Bartley--don't leave him out.  He mustn't be left out," she
said.

His mind for the moment was on another issue.

"I'll grant in one particular she's not too happy," he remarked
suddenly.  "And that's over Dorcas.  I'm not speaking a word for Dorcas.
She behaved very badly and she's very well out of it, with a lot more
luck than she deserves.  Screech isn't what I thought him, and I've
admitted I was wrong in my opinion of him; but Rhoda can't pardon her.
I'm feared to say much, though she knows, for that matter, that I go so
far as to nod to Dorcas now, and give her 'good-morning' or 'good-night'
when we meet.  But Rhoda won't budge an inch.  I suppose 'tis out of our
power, Madge, to soften her a little bit in that quarter?"

"I've tried full often, but I'll gladly try again," she answered.  "And
you're right and put your finger on the sore place, no doubt.  You can
see so deep into people, David.  For certain 'tis being out with her own
flesh and blood that makes Rhoda wisht and mournful. But we'll try yet
again to bring 'em together.  I know 'tis a great thorn in Dorcas,
though she pretends not to care about it."




                             *CHAPTER VII*

                            *A SHARP TONGUE*


Timothy Mattacott and his life-long friend, Ernest Maunder, walked and
talked together. The latter was on duty, but since the way led over an
open space skirted with wild and empty land, the constable relaxed his
official manner and gave ear to Mattacott.

"I ban't too easy," confessed the elder man; "for it's rumoured that
along of that silly business on Christmas Eve, when Screech hollered out
Stanbury's name in the fog to Crazywell, and the wrong people heard him,
that Mrs. Stanbury's going out of her mind. Something ought to be done."

"Something certainly ought to be done," admitted Maunder.  "You couldn't
say strictly that it comes under the head of law, else I should take
steps; but we must consider of it before the woman gets worse."

"I don't want to anger Screech, for he took a lot of trouble, and
'twasn't his fault that Jane didn't hear the voice.  For that matter,
'twas as good as if she had done, and she's holding off even now from
Bart Stanbury, as Screech foretold me she would do.  But I don't get no
forwarder with her, and 'tis only an evil postponed from my point of
view, because she's plainly told me that she likes Bart better than me,
and she's only waiting to see if there was anything in that voice, or if
'twas all nonsense and stuff."

"In other words," said Mr. Maunder, "if the man lives over into next
year, which, of course, he will do, then she'll take him."

"Yes, exactly so.  If he died she'd have me, but on no other terms."

"I'm afraid then, to say it kindly, Tim, the game's up," declared
Ernest.  "You see, the man ban't going to die, and you'm harrying his
mother silly for nought. If I may venture to advise, I'd urge for you to
let it out and give her up."

"I don't mind for myself, but there's Billy Screech."

"If you've lost her, 'tis no good keeping up these hookem-snivey doings.
Nought's gained by it.  To use craft, though foreign to my nature, I
hope, in a general way, I should advise that Screech lets the thing out
sudden.  He might pretend that he's just heard tell about it, and his
wife could tell Mrs. Stanbury's daughter, Margaret Bowden.  Then 'twould
be all right in a day, and the poor creature might recover her senses
and rest in peace."

"As 'tis," explained Timothy, "she's in a double mess, which we never
thought upon--no, not the cleverest among us--for she can't tell whether
'tis her son or her husband be going to drop.  And she goes in fear
according."

"It oughtn't to be.  It mustn't be," declared the other.  "'Tis unworthy
and improper; and though I couldn't say 'twas an actual crime against
law, yet 'tis a very indecent situation, and if the poor creature was to
go mad, you'd feel a heavy load on your conscience, Timothy, even though
Billy Screech may be so built as not to care."

"Yes, I should," admitted Mr. Mattacott; "and something must be
done--especially so, since I've lost the woman.  'Tis very vexatious in
her, for she's as near as damn it said 'yes' a score of times."

"You'll do better to look elsewhere, whether or no. Them uncertain
creatures afore marriage are often uncertain afterwards, and then they
be the very mischief," said Ernest.  "And as for wits, upon my life I
don't think Mrs. Stanbury's the only one that's tottering. 'Twouldn't
maze me any day to hear as Reuben Shillabeer had to be handled.  That
man's not what he was."

"He hath a wandering eye, I grant you."

"More than that, and worse than that.  'Tis my business, in its higher
branches, to take thought of what be passing in a man's brain, Timothy,
and oft of late I've marked the 'Dumpling' waver in his speech and break
off and lose the thread."

"Have you now!"

"True as I'm here on duty.  He don't fix his intellects as he used."

"He's always down--I grant that.  'The Corner House' ban't very lively
nowadays."

"He is down, and that's a sign of a screw loose. Say nought, however,
for 'twould be libel and land you in trouble; but mark me, the poor
fellow changes from his old self, though never a cheerful creature since
his wife went."

They overtook a woman and both saluted Rhoda Bowden.  She had just
crossed Lether Tor bridge, and was proceeding by the road to Lowery.
They talked concerning Mr. Shillabeer a while longer, and then Mr.
Maunder mentioned Dorcas and her children.  Whereupon from urbanity
Rhoda lapsed into silence, soon bade them good-day, and turned off the
main road into a lane.  They passed on, and having left the track, Rhoda
pursued the way she had chosen.  It wound to her right, skirted a quarry
on Lowery Tor, and returned to the main thoroughfare half a mile beyond.
The detour was of no account, and yet, owing to this trivial incident,
there happened presently an event that set rolling deep waves along the
shore of chance.

The rough footpath led directly behind Mr. Billy Screech's cottage, and
just as Rhoda was speeding by with her eyes turned from the place, the
eldest child of Dorcas--a boy of more than three years old--fell
headlong out of the hedge at her feet.  The accident looked serious.
For a moment her nephew lay motionless and silent, then he began to
utter piercing screams and cry for his mother.  The noise stilled
Rhoda's alarm and brought Dorcas flying from her cottage, with her
mother-in-law after her.  When they arrived at the hedge Rhoda had
picked up her sister's first-born, and was endeavouring to calm it.

The lesser William Screech was found to have escaped with no worse hurt
than fright and bruises.  He was soon in his mother's arms, and she
handed him on to his grandmother.  Dorcas thanked Rhoda and told the
elder Mrs. Screech to depart; then, the opportunity being a good one,
she descended into the road herself, set her face, shook her red fringe
out of her eyes, and resolutely overtook Rhoda, who had hastened
forward.

"Stop, if you please," she said.  "It's a free country and you've no
right to deny speech to any civil-spoken creature.  I want to speak to
you, and I'll be obliged if you'll listen for a minute.  You can't
refuse to hear me."

Even at this moment Rhoda was struck by the calm authority in her
younger sister's voice.  She spoke as the superior woman, with all the
weight of a husband, a family, and a home behind her.  The aggressive
personality of Dorcas was something new.

"I don't want to have aught to do with you," said Rhoda.

"Nor I with you," answered the other.  "But we've all got to do a lot of
things we don't like in this world--you and me among the rest."

"Speak then," said the elder.  She had not stood face to face with her
sister for some years, and now she marked that Dorcas looked better far
than of old.  She had filled into neat matronly lines; her eyes were
stronger; her gift of ready words was still with her.

"'Tis this: I'm weary of the scandal between us. I'm looked up to and
treated proper by other women, and 'tis a wonder to them all why you
hold off as you do.  I don't want your friendship, God knows, nor yet
your good word; but civility I've a right to ask for, and 'tis a
beastly, obstinate wickedness in you that refuses it.  Here, but three
days since, Madge comed in and said how hard she'd tried again to make
you see different, but not a kindly thought to your own flesh and blood
have you got.  A minute agone, if you'd known 'twas my child you'd
picked up, no doubt you'd have let the poor little toad drop again.  And
Madge says you won't make friends and be civil, even on the outside, out
of respect to everybody; and I'll ask you why and thank you to tell me."

Rhoda lacked the usual armoury of women.  Her mind moved slowly; her
words did the like.  She made no instant answer, but looked down into
the angry eyes of Mrs. Screech and noticed her hands were wet and puffy.

"'Tis washing-day with you, I see," she said in a mechanical voice.  Why
she made this remark she had not the least idea.  It was certainly not
meant as an offence; but Dorcas held such irrelevance as rude.

"Never mind whether 'tis my washing-day or not. Please to answer me and
give me a reason for what you'm doing year after year.  I suppose you
think 'tis terrible fine to stick your vartuous nose up in the air, and
pretend you'm a holy saint and not a common woman.  Terrible fine, no
doubt--and terrible foolish--like many other terrible fine things be.
Don't you judge your betters so free, and sneer at every woman who does
her first duty in the world and helps the world along; but look at home
a bit and see what a nasty-minded, foul-thinking creature you be,
without enough charity to keep your brains sweet.  You was very fond of
bally-ragging me in the old days, when I was a stupid girl and didn't
know what I was born for; but you shan't come it over me no more, and I
warn you not to try."

Her voice was shrill, and Rhoda, listening to the sound, perceived
another whom marriage had made a shrew.

"What's the use of this noise?" she asked coldly. "You can't make me
have aught to do with you or your children, and I refuse to do it.  'Tis
playing with the past to ask the reason.  You know the reason.  I never
would speak, and never will speak to any woman who does what you did.
I'm jealous for women, and the like of you, that makes them a scorn and
a laughing-stock, should be cast out by all right-minded females. Then
such things as you did wouldn't be done no more."

"No!  If the women were like you, there'd mighty soon be no more
women--nor men neither--a poor, unfinished thing--like a frost-bitten
carrot--good for nought.  You to talk to me out of your empty life! You
to say I'm not fit company for people--me as be bringing brave boys and
girls into the world, while you look after puppies and lambs!  Why, damn
you, you be no more than a useless lump of flesh, as might so well be
underground as here!  You--out of your empty, silly life--to talk to me
in my full, busy days!  I spit at you; and if you think to punish me,
then I'll punish you too.  I can bite so well as bark; and if you ban't
on your knees pretty soon, I'll have you and David by the ears--then
we'll see what becomes of you!"

Mrs. Screech suggested a woman suffering under too much alcohol.  But
she was merely drunk with anger. Her sister's calm attitude and patient
indifference to this attack did not help to soothe her.  Rhoda looked at
the sun, and Dorcas knew that she was judging the time of day.

"You'll call for the hours to move a bit faster afore long," she said.
"Don't you think you can insult me and my husband, year 'pon year like
this, and not smart for it.  We know very well how to hit back, and if
it hadn't been for a better woman than you, I'd have done it a long time
ago.  I don't forget how you boxed my ears once, because I knowed how to
love a man.  You'd have better axed me what the secret was and begged to
know it.  But you think you've got no use for a man; and they've got no
use for you and never will have--as you'll live to find out.  And I'll
sting you to the quick now--now--this instant moment, if you don't say
you'm sorry for the past and promise on your honour to treat me and mine
decent in future.  I warn you to mind afore you speak."

A malignant light shone over the face of Dorcas. She set her teeth and
panted at her own great wrongs, while she waited for the other to speak.

"You can't hurt me," said Rhoda, "and you know it."

"Can't I?  We'll see then!  God defend the world from white virgins like
you--that's what I say.  A holy terror you are; and we're all to be
brought up for judgment, I suppose--to have our heads chopped off,
because we dare to be made of flesh and blood instead of dead earth.
Pure and clean--is it?  What _you_ call pure.  All the same, the likes
of you does things, and thinks things, us married women would blush to
do and think."

"If that's all you want to say, I'll thank you to get out of my road,"
answered the other.

"'Tisn't all, as it happens.  I'm going to talk of Bartley Crocker now,
and then you can take away something to think about yourself, you frozen
wretch!  I suppose, in your pride, you fancy he's after you all these
days, and comes because he wants to marry you--wants to marry a lump of
granite!  'Tisn't you he thinks about, or cares about, or ever will;
'tis one whose shoes you ban't worthy to black--or David either. Between
you she'd be like to die of starvation, I reckon; and who shall blame
her if she does take her hungry heart to somebody, else?  You and
him--good God! 'tis like living between two ice images--enough to kill
the nature in any creature higher than a dog.  And she knows it, and a
good few more--Bartley Crocker among the number--knows it.  Belike Madge
grows tired of being moss to his stone, and working her fingers raw for
such as you and her husband.  And even your precious David ban't the
only man in the world.  And so a decent chap like Bartley comes along,
an old friend that knows a little about girls and what they feel like,
and knows they be different from sheep and heifers. Hear that!  'Tis not
for you the man seeks your house. He uses your name like a blind.  He
laughs at you and your airs and graces.  He's got no use for you and
never will have.  They meet here and there and everywhere--and why not?
'Fallen woman' be the word for me, I suppose.  'Tis you be the fallen
woman; and to call you woman is too good for you!  You never was a
woman; but Madge is, and I hope to God you'll wake one day to find
she've had pluck and sense enough to leave you and David and run for it
with a better man. You may stare your owl's eyes out of your head.  But
you've got it now, and you've earned it."

Dorcas stopped, panting from her tirade, and passed her sister and
disappeared without more speech.  Rhoda, left alone, stood quite still
for a little while; then she proceeded on her business.  Not a shadow of
anger clouded her mind, only dreadful dismay at the things she had
heard.  She was not galled for herself; she did not wince at the foul
torrent loosed upon her.  It passed over her harmlessly.  But her
thoughts busied themselves entirely with David.  That Dorcas should thus
have supported her own fears, and driven home her own cloudy suspicions
and terrors, struck Rhoda dumb.  Here was the thing that she had hidden
and suffered to gnaw her breast without a sign, now shouted on the loud,
vulgar tongue of the world, as represented by Dorcas.  Here was the
secret that she had suspected, and searched out in fear and trembling,
blurted coarsely for any ear.

A period of increased happiness had recently passed over 'Meavy Cot,'
and Madge, who appeared to hide her emotions no more than a bird, went
singing and cheerful through it.  Then matters drifted into the old
ways.  Now much of hope deferred was upon David's mind and some
abstraction and silence clouded the home again, for the Tavistock
appointment remained still a matter of uncertainty.  But the
circumstance chiefly in Rhoda's thoughts at this moment was the attitude
of her brother to Bartley Crocker.

Their relations had grown more and more friendly of late.  Crocker often
came uninvited to 'Meavy Cot,' and David always appeared well pleased to
see him. When the younger was not by, her brother often spoke of him,
and both he and Margaret endeavoured to make Rhoda share their high
opinion.  From Madge she had always turned impatiently away; but to
David she had listened and not seldom wondered that he and she--who
found themselves thinking alike in most questions of life and
character--should differ so widely upon the subject of this man.  The
reason was now easy to discover: she knew the truth and her brother did
not.  Her judgment was confirmed.  Then, upon this appalling conclusion,
came doubt and deepest perplexity.  Why should such a woman as Dorcas be
right?  Her evil heart might have invented the whole story with no
purpose but to torture and torment.  Rhoda had next reluctantly to
consider Crocker himself and his bearing when they met.

If he was acting a lie, he was acting it well.  He had made it clear
half a hundred times, though without offering another formal proposal,
that he would be rejoiced and thankful above measure if she threw in her
lot with him, and married him, and accompanied him to Canada.  She asked
herself what would happen if she accepted him.  Her thoughts grew more
and more difficult.  She reached the lowest depth of discomfort that
life had shown her.




                             *CHAPTER VIII*

                           *UNDER THE TREES*


There is a lonely wood where Meavy hides upon her way and whence her
waters cry like siren voices from copse and thicket and the darkness
under great trees.  Hither she passes, amid mossy stones and through
secret places curtained by green things.  At the feet of Lether Tor
there rise forests of oak and beech; and here, by day and night, through
all times and seasons, two songs are mingling.  The melodies change as
the singers do; but they never cease.  In summer the shrunken river
tinkles to the murmur of the leafy canopy above it, and her voices
ascend fitfully to meet the whisper of the leaf and the sigh of the
larch; in winter the legions of the branch have vanished and naked
woodland and swollen stream make wilder music.  Then the trees lend
their lyres to the north wind, and the rocks beneath utter strange cries
that combine their choral measures with fierce throbbing of the forest
harps above.  The foliage fallen, Lether Tor's grey castles and jagged
<DW72>s are visible, lifted against the west and seen through a lattice
of innumerable boughs. Behind this mountain sinks the sun, now in an
orange-tawny aureole above the purple, and now wrapped with sullen,
lifeless cloud; now upon the clearness of summer twilights, and now
through the flaming arms of a red mist.

To-day, in August, this haunt of Meavy was a nest of light and cool
shadows dappled together, a tent of leaves--dark overhead, where the sky
filled the fretwork of the tree-tops, and alive at the forest edge with
a glory of gold, where sunshine poured through loops and ragged,
feathered fringes of translucent foliage. The leaves formed a
commonwealth of song and gladness and harmonious concessions.  Each
integral of the arboreal courts advanced the same beauty, lifted to the
same zephyr, glittered to the same sun and moon, drank life from the
same dew, trembled to the same threat of autumn and of death.  Beneath,
through rifts in the bosom of the wood, the blue-green brake-fern shone
and panted out her fragrance on the hillside.  A colour contrast very
vivid was thus offered through the frames of the forest; and beyond this
region of rock-strewn fern there spread a haze of light and darkness--of
indigo and silver blended about the shaggy knees of Lether Tor where it
lifted to the sky.

Through the midst of the dingle under shadows, yet with her breast bared
to those amber shafts of sunshine that fell upon it, came Meavy, with
many a curl and turn and leisurely dawdling in deep pool.  Fern fronds,
fingered with light, bent over the face of the water; fresh-
flowers of agrimony rose above; flash of golden-rod and the seeding
spires of foxgloves mingled there; while a ripple of filched fire from
the sun-shaft broke the glass of each smooth pool, and heaven's blue was
also reflected from many a rift in the veil of the leaves.  Bramble and
woodrush spanned the stream and nodded, linked together with a spider's
trembling web; by broken, subterranean channels the river held her way;
light, sobered into half light where moss sponges soaked crystal water
and golden sunshine together, penetrated through the heaviest shade;
darkness only dwelt in the deepest rifts and crannies and upon the
black, submerged vegetation of the rocks.  Out of these mysteries arose
new songs and whispers, where the stream slid stealthily forth from her
secret places and the hidden homes of unseen things that she also
blessed and forgot not.  Here the sun stars, catching upon her convex
ripples, were reflected and thrown upward, to dance and flash unexpected
brightness into gloom, or set wonderful radiance upon the under-face of
leaves.

Life, in shape of bird and beast and fish, prospered here; and
glittering insects--ichneumons, that hung motionless like golden beads
in some beam of light; butterflies, that came and went; and long-legged
spiders and great ants--likewise justified themselves.  The trees were
garlanded with ivy, polypody, and many mosses, that hung in festoons and
fell even to the dim, moist river-ways, where shy flowers blossomed in
shade, and the filmy fern spread its small loveliness upon the stone.

Here, at the hour near summer twilight, when life ranges at full stress
and passion before rest, one may see, in the low red light that pierces
to each inviolate place, some vision of the shepherd god aglowing; and
through the wail of insects, under the melody of ripple and frond, there
steals sweet warbling of the syrinx at Pan's own puckered lips.  Music
full of the unfulfilled he plays--music fraught with world sorrow and
world joy.  Now it is mellow as the dying day, now tender and triumphant
as the dawn; but it is never satisfied; it is never satisfying; because
it whispers of precious things felt but not known; it hungers after the
ultimate mystery; it thirsts for the secrets behind the sunset.

At one spot in this wood a young beech leapt from a rock, and the earth
cushion which supported it hung over the river.  A little precipice fell
beneath to water's edge, and the whole force of Meavy struck here and
leapt on again, crested with light.  It was a human haunt and suited
well a soul who went between sadness and fitful happiness, who declared
herself reconciled and contented, yet knew that it was not so.  Hither
Margaret often came and found a temple of peace.  She brought sorrow and
doubt here; and sometimes the glen lifted it; and sometimes she departed
again not happier than she came.

To-day she sat with her back to the beech; and two others shared these
precincts with her.  One reclined at her feet; the other watched unseen.


Prospects of important employment kept David Bowden much from home at
this season.  The matter was now as good as accomplished and it appeared
certain that, with the new year, he would leave Dartmoor and enter the
service of a cattle-breeder at Tavistock.  Such a position opened
possibilities far better than the man could have expected at his present
work. With mingled feelings Margaret contemplated the change; and she
met with Crocker on two or three occasions at this period during her
husband's prolonged absence.  She made no secret of these appointments,
yet it came about that one most vitally interested did not always hear
of them; because Rhoda had of late lapsed into a very saturnine vein and
eschewed converse with her sister-in-law.  Madge, therefore, judging
that her affairs were of no consequence or interest to Rhoda, kept them
to herself.  They were at 'Meavy Cot' alone together and, in all
kindness, the wife had proposed that Rhoda should take this opportunity
of David's absence and herself visit Ditsworthy for a day or two.  Mrs.
Bowden had expressed a desire to this effect and the opportunity seemed
good.  But Rhoda curtly refused. Her dogs might be trusty guardians for
the hearth and home of 'Meavy Cot'; but they could not guard the
mistress of it or protect her from herself.

The elder woman stopped therefore, and, the more suspicious for this
invitation to depart, watched in secret.

She was watching now, while Margaret and Bartley, under the beech, sat
close together and talked like kind-hearted children about the welfare
of another person. He had great information for her and promised to lift
a sustained cloud of darkness from her mind.

"What'll you give me for the best piece of news you've heard this year?"
he asked; and she replied that she had nothing in the world to give
anybody but good-will.

"If I could give you Rhoda, I would," she said; "but nobody can give her
to you save herself."

"I've made a great discovery--or so good as made it," he answered.
"'Twas out of Tim Mattacott of all people that I got a clue.  Him and
Maunder are well-meaning, harmless men, and in the bar--at
Shillabeer's--three days ago--I heard them talking together. They were
at my elbow and I couldn't help listening to a few words.  After that I
didn't blame myself for listening to a few more.  It's all about your
brother Bart and Jane West, and your mother."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Why, there's been a plot, and I'm after the ringleader.  I may or may
not find him, but one thing is clear, and that's all that matters.
Somebody--not Mattacott himself but a friend of his--has tried to help
him to get Jane West away from Bart."

"It looks as if they had succeeded too," said Margaret; "for Bart tells
me the girl won't say 'yes' and won't say 'no.'"

"There it is!  'Twas a deep idea to stop her once and for all.  How,
d'you think?  By letting her hear the Voice of Crazywell call out Bart's
name!  'Twas planned very clever that she and Bart should actually hear
it on Christmas Eve; and they would have done so, but for the fog that
kept 'em to the road.  Instead, as luck would have it, your mother of
all people, hears the Voice.  And now, as far as I can gather, those in
the secret--or some of them--hearing how she's taking on, begin to be a
bit uneasy--as well they may."

"Oh, Bartley!"

"'Tis true; but we must go to work witty and catch the sinner himself.
'Sinner' I call him, yet that's too strong a word belike.  All that
really matters is for you to tell your mother 'twas nonsense, and that a
man lay hid by the pool, and that 'twas never meant to fret her to
fiddle-strings about it."

Margaret jumped to her feet.

"Sit down," he said.  "Can't let you off like this before I've been here
two minutes.  We'll go up over to Coombeshead together presently.  Must
talk a bit first. An hour more or less won't make no difference to your
mother."

She sat by him and put her hand on his arm.  Then she bent and kissed
his hand impulsively.

"You've paid me after all!" he laughed.

"I'd give you your heart's desire and the keys of heaven, if I could,"
she answered.  "This is the best fortune that's come to me for many,
many a long day; and I bless you for bringing it."

"Thought you'd be pleased.  But tell 'em to say nought yet.  I'm putting
my mind into it, for I've got nothing to do now but twiddle my thumbs
and wait till I can decently go to her--Rhoda--for the third and last
time of asking.  I doubt 'tis a vain thing, though. She likes me less
and less, I believe."

"I hope not; but this I know: she likes me less and less."

"You!"

"Yes--for reasons I can't fathom.  Either that, or she've got some deep
matter on her mind that keeps her more than common silent.  With David
away the nights be cruel.  Sometimes 'tis all I can do to help crying
out and begging her, for pity, to open her mouth.  I get off to bed so
soon as I can; and so like as not, when I'm gone up, she'll go abroad
again and keep out, Lord knows where, till long after midnight."

"I don't call it respectable," said Bartley, shaking his head with
pretence of disapproval.  "I really don't, Madge.  I wish I could meet
her on one of these moony walks.  Perhaps she'd listen to reason
then--if she didn't set her pack of dogs on me!"

"'Tis hard to live so close to a fellow-creature and understand her so
little."

"I understand her well enough--if she'd only believe it," he said.

For a moment they lapsed into silence.  Then he plucked a long
grass-blade and began to tickle her ear. She shook her head and laughed.
A bright thought came to her mind.

"I heard by letter from David this morning.  The matter's settled.
He'll be bailiff of the great breeding farm--everything under him--the
actual head man under the master.  I feel very proud about it, for it
shows how high the people rate him."

"And well they may.  You could trust him with the Bank of England.
Never was such a dead straight, lofty-minded man in the world before."

"I like you to praise him.  He thinks such a lot of you.  He's even been
at Rhoda about you too."

"What will she do if you go to Tavistock?  I reckon 'tis the thought of
that more than me, or anything else, is making her down on her luck."

"I was hopeful 'twould perhaps turn her more to you. She could never
live in Tavistock."

"No," he said, "that's a certainty.  She wants more room than a town can
give her.  You're right, Madge: this must make her think a bit more of
me.  Canada, or here, or the North Pole--'tis all one to me if she'll
come.  And if she says 'no' again, then I'm off alone--to the Dominion.
Why I'm drawn that way I hardly know.  But I am."

"Third time's lucky.  How I hope it will be!"

"If she cared for me, even half as much as you do, I'd win her."

"If she knew what a rare good chap you are, you'd win her, or any
woman."

"You're always too easy with me," he said.  "Lucky you didn't marry me:
you would have spoilt me utterly--not that there was much to spoil.  Yet
I daresay we should have jogged along very comfortable."

"Who knows?  Perhaps none too well, Bartley."

"Perhaps not.  We're too much alike," he declared.

"In many things we are."

"But the weak help the weak.  You'll see a pair of bryony stems twirl
round each other, and so do far better and go farther than ever they
could single-handed."

"'Twould be the blind leading the blind--you and me together.  The oak's
more good to the ivy than anything soft like itself."

"Pity I haven't a bit of David's iron in me," he confessed.

"It is," she admitted.  "A pity I haven't too."

"And a pity he haven't got a bit of my--"

She nodded strong assent.

"That's pity too," she said.  "That's what I've wished many and many a
time--just like a silly creature to wish what can't be.  'Tis worse than
a child crying for the moon to want a man's nature changed."

"Yet half the people spend their time wanting the other half to change,"
he told her.

Again there was a pause and then he spoke.

"So long as it's well with you, I don't care."

"Well enough--if I could see it," she said.

"If you could see it!"

"I mean if I could feel it."

"If you don't feel it, then 'tisn't well."

"It can't be well because we've got no family.  'Tis a grievance--and a
just grievance.  But yet 'tis well with me none the less, Bartley.  The
real way to be happy is never to look at home too much.  Perhaps, better
still, never to look at home at all.  By 'home' I mean a person's own
heart.  Keep out of that and always be busy for other people.  Then you
haven't time to be miserable."

He shook his head.

"We've all got time for that; there's always the night," he answered.
"Nature gives us the night time for sleep, and life takes a big slice
out of it for trouble."

"I ought to understand him by now.  But 'tis the ups and downs I never
can get used to," she explained. "My dear man will be a husband in a
thousand now and again, and I'll thank God in my prayers and say to
myself as he understands my poor feeble nature at last, and that we
never shan't see a cloud again; then he's off and hidden away behind
himself for months at a time, and I can't win a smile from him or hardly
a good word."

"He's so ambitious."

"No doubt 'tis that.  'Twas Rhoda herself got him into his good way last
time; and a right glad week we had of it.  Then there came all this over
his mind. Somehow he can't bring himself to ask my advice over anything
bigger than his own clothes.  He lets me choose them, bless him.  That's
something."

"And jolly smart he always looks.  But mind this, Madge, you talk of ups
and downs.  That's no hardship--'tis the natural, healthy state, like
the ebb of the river in summer drought and the seasons coming round one
after the other.  You can't have ups without downs, and if you want one
you must brave the other."

"I don't want neither," she said.  "I'd sooner far we kept at a steady
jog-trot and got closer to each other every year we lived, and saw with
the same eyes, and felt with one heart."

"Things balance out pretty fair.  That sort be comfortable, but 'tis
terrible tame work.  If you don't fall out, you never make it up, and my
experience of females is that almost the best part of the fun with 'em
is making it up.  They like it as much as we do too."

"Marriage is different."

"Nought keeps the air of marriage sweeter than a good healthy breeze now
and again."

"You talk as one outside.  You know nothing at all about it!"

"I'll kiss _you_ in a minute--and not on the hand neither!" he laughed.
"And 'twill be for punishment, not payment, if you can say such hard
things to me. No, I'm not married, worse luck; but you oughtn't to throw
it in my face like that, for 'tis no fault of mine, I'm sure."

"I'd be happier than any woman ever was on Dartmoor, I do think, if
she'd take you."

"You've done all you could--so's David.  But there's no more in your
power.  If I can't rise to the skill to win her, then so much the worse
for me."

"Come and do a kind thing," she said suddenly. "Come and explain to my
dear mother this wonder you've found out.  Nobody but you ever would
have been so clever as to do it."

"And may I come home and have supper with you and Rhoda afterwards as a
reward?"

"And welcome," she answered.

"There's a moon and everything.  I wish to God she'd let me go out
walking in the dark with her afterwards."

"Perhaps she might.  She took walks with Mr. Snell."

"Not by moonlight?  No--no, 'tis all waste of time and hope and sense.
But, good Lord! if she's so frosty under the summer sun, what must she
be in moonlight? Freezing cold enough to make a man's heart stand
still!"

"Perhaps 'tis all the other way and the dark hours soften her,"
suggested Margaret.

They rose and she brushed his back, which was covered with scraps of
leaf and moss.

Presently they moved away together towards Coombeshead; and then from
her lair in a brake fifty yards distant, Rhoda departed to return home.
Their speech had been entirely hidden from her, but their actions were
all observed; and their actions, unlit by the spirit that informed them,
left her soul dark.

Mr. Crocker, on second thoughts, decided that he would not sup at 'Meavy
Cot' until David came back, and Madge went her way alone after bringing
large comfort and peace to Mrs. Stanbury.  She was full of the incident
when she came back to Rhoda, and gave her silent and sceptical listener
the true account of the meeting by Meavy.




                              *CHAPTER IX*

                    *DARKNESS AT 'THE CORNER HOUSE'*


As time advanced even the least observant took note of an increasing
gloom that hung over Reuben Shillabeer.  It fluctuated but set steadily
in upon him. He grew more silent and more fanatical where matters of
religion formed the topic.  He talked of giving up 'The Corner House.'
He declared that had it been in his power, he would long since have
emulated the bold Bendigo and preached to his fellow men.

"I can't do that, along of having no flow of words," said Mr. Shillabeer
moodily.  "Speech in the pulpit manner have been denied to me.  All the
same, I may have done more for the Lord than any of you men know about."

He addressed a Saturday night bar and reduced most of those who listened
to an embarrassed silence.

"'Tis things like that we don't expect and have a right to object to in
a public house," declared Mr. Screech afterwards.  "We come here for
peace and quietness and a pint.  At this rate 'the Dumpling' will very
soon want to end the evening with a prayer meeting; and I for one shall
be very glad when he goes and us get a cheerfuller pattern of publican
there."

Many were of Billy's mind.  Two potmen in succession left 'The Corner
House' owing to the depressed atmosphere of that establishment; the
regular guests held serious meetings to discuss the situation.  Some
were for strong measures; others held the evil must soon cure itself.

"Either the poor soul will go melancholy mad and have to be taken from
among us--and 'twill ask for half a dozen strong men to do it--or else
the cloud will pass off," explained Mr. Moses.  "Be it as 'twill, we
can't go on like this.  I advise that we wait till the turn of the year;
and then, if nothing happens, we'll make a regular orderly deputation,
with me and Mr. Bowden as ringleaders, and wait upon Sir Guy Flamank and
explain to him that 'The Corner House' under Shillabeer isn't what it
should be."

"'Twould be better far," Ernest Maunder had said, "if the man would be
as good as his word and retire. If we can urge him without unkindness to
do so, he might get calmer and easier in his mind in private life."

"Not him," prophesied Screech.  "Take the life and company and stir of
the bar from him, and he'd become a drivelling old mump-head in six
months.  As 'tis he may be seen half a dozen times in a week sitting on
his wife's grave, when he ought to be to work in his house."

"Mr. Merle have said the same," admitted Charles Moses.  "To me the man
said it.  'I don't like to have poor Shillabeer in the churchyard so
often,' was his word.  'Tisn't seemly for the people to observe him with
his hand over his face and his hat off beside him sitting there.  To
display his grief in this manner, after nearly fifteen years, is not
true to nature, and I feel very alarmed about it.' That was what his
reverence said to me; and I answered that he echoed my very thought."

"The man wants to be lifted to more wholesome ideas," declared Mr.
Maunder.  "Nobody can say of me that I'm against the Bible; but there's
times and seasons--a time for everything and everything in its time--as
the Book says itself, I believe; but he thrusts Scripture into
conversation and peppers talk with texts till free speech be smothered.
He ought to go--to say it without feeling."

And meantime the anti-social instinct in Shillabeer, filtering by secret
ways through the old man's brain, took another turn and led him upon a
road none had foreseen.  Vaguely at first he glimpsed it, and on his
declining years a dark short cut to peace suddenly yawned.

The first glimpse of this haunting evil that now crept upon the old
prize-fighter was revealed to a woman; and on the occasion Mr.
Shillabeer not only shocked her with a thought, but astonished her by a
confession.

First, however, there came dark words between them, as happens at the
meeting of unhappy and restless spirits.  Then Margaret Bowden, for it
was she, learnt the man's simple secret.  It argued some unexpected
cunning in him that he could have pursued his purpose and also hidden
it; and the circumstance taken in conjunction with the present theme,
made her fear for his sanity.  Not the subject so much startled her as
its existence in this particular man's brain.  She listened, was
surprised to find how reasonable his arguments seemed, yet strove with
all her wits to refute them.

One day on his way back from Princetown Mr. Shillabeer noted the smoke
rising from 'Meavy Cot' under Black Tor.  He had never seen David
Bowden's home and the opportunity was a good one.  He left the main
road, therefore, and soon reached the house.  David happened to be away,
and Rhoda was also out.  But Margaret made the visitor welcome, hastened
the hour of tea-drinking, and insisted that he should stop for it.

"As nice a house as one might wish for," he said. "And I'd like to say
that I'm among them that wish all joy and good fortune and good luck to
your husband. He's one of the fortunate ones, and well he deserves to
be.  I suppose it won't be long now afore he takes up the new work?"

"We go after the winter," she answered.

"A position of great trust.  'Tis wonderful to me to think that when I
first come to Sheepstor he was a little fellow in a lamb's-wool coat, as
wanted his mother's hand to help him over the rough ground.  And I've
lived to see him rise into manhood, and show his valour in the ring, and
take a wife, and now stand up among leading people and rise to be the
right hand of one of the richest personages in the county."

"Very wonderful, as you say.  Yet not wonderful neither.  'Tis David
that is wonderful--not the things as happen to him.  Given such a man,
he was bound to get up top."

"True," declared Mr. Shillabeer, passing his cup to be refilled; "the
very same thought often came in my mind when my wife was alive.  She was
the wonder, and I was sure to be lucky and fortunate when I married her.
But death's stronger than the most wonderful life that ever was lived.
She went and took her luck with her; and her gone, I sank again to be a
common man. And when you feel puffed up, Margaret, always remember that
death lies behind every hedge and makes ready the gun trigger for this
man, the flood for that; the weak lynch-pin here, and the mad dog there.
Another thing as you may have noticed; 'tis always the usefulest be
picked off.  Heaven's terrible jealous of a real valuable man.  It ain't
got no need of the rogues and wastrels no more than we have; but if a
male or female be doing for the Lord with both hands, so often as not
the Lord says, 'That's the very man or woman I want for such and such a
bit of real high work.'  And they'm cut down like the grass of the
field."

"Yes," she said.  "The Lord harvests His own way, Mr. Shillabeer; and
because a beautiful, useful life goes, ban't for us to mourn, but to say
'twas needed for higher things."

"And another point I'd have you to know," he added. "I ban't at all sure
if the right of private judgment be withheld either.  Parson will tell
you, and most people will also tell you, that 'tis a very bad
come-along-of-it for a human creature to say 'I ban't wanted no more and
so I'll be off;' but I won't go so far as that myself. I've tried to
look at this matter with the eyes of God A'mighty, and I've done it."

She stared at him.

"You'm surprised," he said; "but listen to me.  I'm a man of many
troubles and griefs, and I hope you'll never see half a quarter the
sorrows I have.  Still as the sparks fly upwards, so you'll have your
share and know what it is to suffer."

"Yes, for certain."

"But don't you ever suppose that we're put here for nought but suffering
and nought but happiness.  I tell you, Margaret, that suffering and
happiness be both beside the great question."

"We're put here for usefulness," she said, and he eagerly agreed with
her.

"The very word!  Trouble or joy be an accident--always a matter of
chance.  You can see it everywhere. There's wise and sensible people
wading through nought but trouble and opening their eyes on it at every
sun up; and there's born fools sailing along in nought but fine weather;
and so you get men like me full of doubt and darkness, because we can't
trust our own wisdom; and fools such as--but I won't name no
names--thinking themselves terrible clever and giving themselves
terrible airs because they suppose their good be a matter of their own
making, instead of simple kind fortune."

"I suppose things come out pretty fair all round in the long run," she
said.  "If you've got money, you miss childer; if you've got love you
miss luck; if you've got health--"

"As to health, nought matters less than that," declared Mr. Shillabeer.

"You speak as one who never had an ache or pain," she said.

"Bah!" he answered, "this carcase be less to me than the bones the crows
have plucked beside the way.  I've reached a high pitch of mind now when
I could drive a red-hot needle through the calf of my leg and care
nought for the pang.  D'you think these things matter to a man who have
been hammered into a heap of bruised, senseless flesh four different
times in his life like what I have?  'Tis the inner pain that hurts me,
and if I was canker-bitten and racked with every human ill, I'd laugh at
it all, if only my wife had been spared to sit beside me and hold my
hand.  Things ban't fairly planned here.  You say they are, but it isn't
so.  I know 'tis a common speech on easy tongues, but it won't stand the
test of workaday life.  Happy people may say it to calm their
consciences if they be having an extra good life, but 'tisn't true, and
never was true. Things ban't fair all round--nothing like it."

"No, they're not," she confessed.  "'Tis just a foolish parrot speech.
I know they're not fair as well as you do really."

"Then I go on to my argeyment," said Reuben. "Granted the Lord, for His
own secret ends, ban't concerned to play fair with us, then, being a
just God, He must let us right the balance and use our own judgment
where we have the power.  If even you--with all your big share of good
luck--allow on second thoughts that things don't fall fair, how much
more must the most of people feel it so?"

"My luck--" she began, and stopped, but her tone indicated she was about
to demur, and he invited her to do so.

"There again," he said, "we can only speak what we see, but what we see
ban't always the truth.  The outside ban't a glass pane to show the
inside, but more often a clever door to hide it.  I say in my haste how
that none ever had more luck to her share than you. Well, I've no right
to say that.  Perhaps I'm wrong."

"In a way, yes.  David, you must know, is a great man now, and 'tisn't
the least of a loving woman's hardships to see her husband growing great
and herself biding little."

"Good Lord! what a silly point of view!" said he. "Ban't you bone of his
bone and flesh of his flesh? How the deuce can the man grow great and
leave you behind?"

"I can't explain," she said.  "But 'tis so--off and on.  Sometimes he
catches sight of me in his life, if you understand, and remembers me,
and we have precious days.  Then again he loses sight of me for a bit.
I tell you these things, because you be such a big-hearted,
understanding man, Mr. Shillabeer."

"I am," he said.  "'Tis my sole vartue to be so. But my usefulness is
nearly over.  So we come back to that usefulness we started with."

"Your usefulness ban't ended, I'm very sure."

"'Tis only ourselves know about that.  A thinking creature, unless he's
growing old and weak in the head, knows very well when his usefulness be
coming to an end.  Old I may be growing, but my mind is clear enough,
and it tells me that my work's pretty nearly done.  Think if 'twas you,
Margaret, and them you loved best was in heaven, and there come into
your mind the certainty that there was nought to keep you an hour from
them--what would you do?"

"Wait the Lord's time."

"What happens must be in the Lord's time, and can't fall out in any
other time.  But if the thought comes into your heart to join the dead,
ban't it the Lord as sent the thoughts; and if you do join 'em, can it
be done without the Lord's wish and will?"

"Of course nothing can happen without the Lord permits, because He's
all-powerful and wills nought but good."

"That's all I want for you to see.  And it follows--don't it?--that if
the still small voice tells me I may go home, the way be clear?"

"Go home!"

"To the home that's waiting where my woman be. I'm home-sick for
it--terrible home-sick.  And the thought have come very strong of late
that there's nothing left to bide for.  And a simple thing--such a
simple thing!  'Tis merely putting something between you and the air of
heaven for a brief minute--a drop of water, or a rope round your throat.
Or, if your nature goes against that way, you can let the immortal soul
out through a hole--"

His great eyes stared into vacancy, and she gazed with horrified
interest at him.

"To kill yourself!  Oh, dear Mr. Shillabeer, what are you saying?"

"You may call it killing," he said, "but I don't.  I call it opening the
half-hatch of the door and going home.  They say self-slaughterers be
mad mostly--at least, so 'tis brought in most times by a crowner's jury
of busy men--men as don't care a button about the job, but want to get
back to their work.  But I tell you 'tis no mark of weak intellects to
do it.  A cowardly deed it may be sometimes, but a coward isn't daft as
a rule. And now and then 'tis the bravest thing a man can do, and now
and then the wisest."

"Never--never!"

"You wait till you've seen life move into the middle time, or lost
what's better than life.  Keep your own opinions, but don't grow narrow,
and don't tell me that the still small voice ever whispered a lie to a
Christian man.  Usefulness ended, 'tis our place to seek a new bit of
ground again where we can be useful anew; and if this world have done
with us, who's to say the next won't be very glad of a new workman?"

"But not to go like that, surely?"

"I tell you the Lord's over all," he answered again solemnly.  "The Lord
chooses the fly for the fish, and hedge-sparrow for the hawk, and the
mouse for the owl. The Lord comes to me by night, and He says,
'Shillabeer,' and I say, 'I be listening, Lord.'"

Margaret shivered, yet felt no fear of him.

"And then," he continued, "the Lord says 'They've done with you,
Shillabeer; they want a cheerfuller, hopefuller pattern of man;' and I
say, ''Tis so, Lord; I read it in their faces.'"

He broke off suddenly and spoke of other things.

"D'you mind when holy words sprang up on the gates and lintels round
about--like corn springs after rain?  'Twas my work!  You're the first
to know it, and I must ax of you to keep it dark 'till I'm gone to my
reward.  But 'twas my thought and deed.  By night I'd do it; and of
lonely grey evenings; and often afore the sun was up.  I've walked with
God, woman!"

"And much good those texts in the lone places did. I know they warmed my
heart more than once, Mr. Shillabeer."

"Yes, they did a power of good.  I could see that."

"To think you was never found out!"

"The Lord hid me.  'Twas His idea, not mine. Every idea be the Lord's
first; and the cleverest things we can do be planned out by Him and then
slipped into a man's intellects, like we post a letter or whisper into a
ear."

"But the wicked thoughts?"

"Good men don't get 'em.  Proper-thinking people don't let 'em in.  Be
the God of Hosts going to suffer a humble, faithful servant like me to
be pestered with Satan's nonsense at my time of life?  Would that be a
fair thing?  If a man ban't done with the Devil when he's in sight of
seventy, 'tis a bad lookout for him. And God's nearly always been a fair
sportsman, you mind."

"Somebody far wiser and cleverer than me ought to hear about this," she
declared.  "I do think and believe you're terribly wrong."

He shook his great head impatiently.

"No, no.  I'm in the right.  I met Mr. Merle in the churchyard, when I
was sitting beside my wife's bones a bit ago, and he walked over and had
a tell with me; and I axed him if our inner thoughts come from God--just
to see what he'd say.  He answered that every good and perfect thought
comed from the Father of Gifts. So there you are.  What is it--this
thing driving me to be gone?  Why, 'tis the voice of Heaven calling
me--just like you yourself might call the cows home off the moor at
milking time."

"You make a terrible mistake."

He held up his hand.

"Say not a word, my dear.  'Tis no better than speaking against the
Master of all flesh to tell me I've heard wrong.  My wife's in Heaven.
I've got her that loved me best among the angels at the Throne of Grace.
Belike she's just fretting her spirit with cruel impatience because I
hang fire.  You might think, perhaps, that there wasn't no great haste,
eternity being what it is. But if you loved your husband like my wife
loved me, you'd know eternity's self was none too long for us to be
together again.  There's only one little thing that makes me hang back."

"'Tis the Word of God."

"Not a bit.  'Tis the way of man.  I'm very doubtful of parson
Merle--not as a righteous creature before Heaven; but he's human, and
he's a terrible narrow thinker here and there.  If I take myself off,
'tis so like as not he'll get some bee in his bonnet and withhold the
burial service or maim it over me, like he did when Pritchard hung
himself.  Not that that would trouble me very greatly; but supposing
that he wouldn't let my bones go beside hers?  Such a thing happening
would turn me into a wandering ghost till Doom without a doubt."

"Don't give him the chance.  Think a very great deal about it," she
urged.  "You may be all wrong in your opinions, dear Mr. Shillabeer, and
right well I know you are.  Perhaps, if you was to pray about it to
Christ, He'd show you how awful mistaken you was.  And as for
usefulness, there's no more useful and well thought on man among us."

"I've done my duty, and my duty's done," he said.

"Promise me not to do anything till you've talked to me again," she
urged.  "At least you might do that. I knew your wife, and she loved
me."

"Yes, my wife was very fond of you when you was a child," he said.
"I'll do your bidding that far then. You speak what be put into you to
speak, no doubt. Now I look at you, there's sense as well as sadness in
your face.  I hope the sense will bide and the sadness lift in God's
good time."

The old man departed, and that night Margaret told David of all that she
had heard and the condition of Reuben Shillabeer's mind.  He took the
matter very seriously and resolved to be busy on the sufferer's behalf.

"I can ill spare the time," he said.  "But for a neighbour in such a fix
our own affairs must be put aside.  I'll go to doctor at Tavistock
to-morrow the first thing.  He's a rare sportsman and a very keen man.
'Twas him that stood referee in the fight.  'Tis time he took the poor
old chap in hand; and Shillabeer's got high respect for him and will
trust him I hope, if he goes about his work clever."

David was not surprised to hear the secret of the texts.

"As a matter of fact amongst a few of us--my father and me and
others--'twas an open secret," he said. "Father himself first guessed
it.  But we didn't say a word for fear of vexing poor old 'Dumpling.'
'Twas a harmless thing, and very likely it did good now and again."




                              *CHAPTER X*

                         *THIRD TIME OF ASKING*


The circumstances and necessities of Bartley Crocker's wooing were
peculiar, because one-sided. Rhoda naturally never assisted him; indeed,
many carefully laid plans for meeting were consciously frustrated by her
when she chanced to learn them.  At last, however, thanks to Margaret's
aid, opportunity fell for a final proposal, and Bartley used it to the
best of his power.  A day came when David drove Madge over to Tavistock
to look at certain houses, and Rhoda stopped at home.

Her own plans began to be very doubtful now, and choice lay before her
of returning to her father or continuing to live with David.  Her love
had made light even of Tavistock; but, in a town, Rhoda's occupation
would be gone: at such a place she must cease to justify existence.  Her
greatest sorrow was reached at thought of living away from David; and a
second emotion, only less disturbing, made decision doubly difficult.
The apparent complications and secrets of her sister-in-law's life had
first alarmed Rhoda, and now they angered her.  She read the facts in
the light of her own wisdom, and her wisdom led her wide of the mark.
She believed that Crocker was using alleged love of her as a pretence
and excuse for very different affection. Some such dim thought had long
haunted her, and it remained for Dorcas and her brutal speeches to
convince Rhoda that she did Margaret no wrong by the suspicion.  In
sober truth Rhoda had felt shame upon herself when first the fear arose;
but then came her hidden watches, the spectacle of familiar meetings and
the vigorous word of Mrs. Screech.  She knew that Dorcas loved Madge and
had not spoken to injure David's wife.  Her sister, indeed, evidently
approved; and the circumstance convinced Rhoda that her opinion of
Dorcas was correct.

And now, upon restless loneliness, came Crocker knowing that he would
find her alone.  He sneered at himself for a fool as he knocked at the
door of 'Meavy Cot'; but he had sworn to ask her thrice and would not go
from his word, though the vanity of troubling her a third time was very
clear to him.

After noon on a late autumn day did Bartley call, and Rhoda, not
guessing who it was that knocked, but thinking it to be one of her
brothers, who was due from Ditsworthy, cried out, "Come in!"

She was eating her dinner of a baked potato, bread, cold mutton, and a
glass of water; and she leapt up as Mr. Crocker appeared.

"Go on," he said.  "Please go on--or I'll walk about outside till you've
finished, if you'd rather I did."

"I thought 'twas my brother," she said.  "I've done my food.  David's
not at home, if you want him."

"I know," he answered.  "I've come to see the only one who was at home;
and that's yourself."

She stood by the table.  Her mind moved swiftly. She sought to find some
advantage in this meeting; but she could not think what to say.  David
was her sole thought, and how best to serve him she knew not.

"It's a long time since I had a chance to speak to you," said the
visitor, "and I'm afraid, from your looks, you wouldn't have given me
the chance even now if you hadn't been caught and cornered.  But there's
no need for you to grudge ten minutes of talk.  'Twill be the last
time--unless there's a glimmer of another sort of feeling in you."

Her way of escape seemed to lie through this man's departure alone.  She
hated every tone of his voice and wished that he was dead.

"If you're going out of it, 'twill be by the blessing of God for all in
this house," she answered.

He started and his colour changed to pale.

"A glimmer of another sort of feeling with a vengeance!" he said.  "But
not the sort I was still fond fool enough to hope for.  You shall talk,
since you're so fired to do it, and I'll listen.  Yes, I'm going. And
you won't come?"

Her silence spoke scornfully.

"Well," he continued, "I'm paid what I deserve, I suppose: I've made you
loathe me instead of love me. It's bad luck, for I've felt for three
years--however, such queer things often happen."

"You never loved a woman like a decent man, for 'tisn't in you to do
it," she said.  "You think you hide yourself; but you don't.  You're
evil all through, and the touch of you is evil."

"Why do you say these harsh things?  What have I done but court you like
an honest man and a patient one?"

"Ask yourself--not me.  Ask yourself what you've been doing, and
plotting, and amusing yourself about of late.  Ask yourself who 'tis you
meet in this place and that!"

"Well, I never!  So you've been interested in me all the time!
Interested enough to care what I was doing and thinking about.  By all
right understanding that ought to mean you cared a bit for me.  Women
don't spy on a man, save for love or hate.  And hate me you can't
without a cause, though you speak and look as if you did.  If I thought
you were jealous--but that's too good to be true.  Who is it?  Out with
it.'  At least I've a right to know who 'tis that I meet so secret while
you peep at us."

He bantered her and cared little that she grew rosy and furious; for he
knew it was all over now and that they would probably never speak
together again.

"You ask that and pretend--and pretend!" she burst out.  "As if it might
be a score of women!  But I know, and 'twasn't for love nor yet hate
that I watched you--not for love of you or her anyway."

"Come now--no puzzles!  Then I'm after another man's sweetheart on the
quiet.  Is that it?  Well, who is she?  I've a right to know in the face
of such a charge."

"You're after another man's wife," she said, and faced him without
flinching.  But still he laughed.

"You maidens!  What hen dragons of virtue you are, to be sure.  'Another
man's wife'--eh?  Then no wonder you look a thought awry at me.  Poor
fellow! He's terribly wronged, to be sure.  Have you told him what I'm
doing?  Or are you in love with this other chap?"

"Go," she said furiously.  "You know the truth in your wicked heart, and
I know it, and it's devilish in you to take it like this.  I'll suffer
no more of you; I'll never breathe the same air with you no more;--and
them I care about shan't, if I can help it.  You ought to be torn in a
thousand pieces by honest men and women--vile thing that you are!"

He sat down calmly and patted a dog that rose from the hearth and
growled at him in some uneasiness before Rhoda's fury.

"Can't leave you like this--must understand what you're driving at," he
declared.

"Then I'll go," she said.  "What do you take me for?  Have you sunk so
low that you don't know a clean-minded creature when you meet one?  I'm
not a fool, and I am not blind; and I've seen too well what's been doing
of late; therefore I warn you to be gone afore the storm is let loose on
you."

"No fear of missing the storm while you're about. And off I shall be ere
long now.  There's nothing more to keep me, since you've gone out of
your wits.  All the same, I believe you've thrust yourself under the law
for such talk as this.  To tell me I'm going wrong with a married woman!
Damn it all, Rhoda, what nasty thoughts have crept into your head?  Why
don't you name her and have done with it?  'Tis bad enough to know you
hate me; but hear this: May the Almighty find and finish me where I sit
if--"

"Don't!" she cried out.  "Don't take His name here and belike leave your
stricken dust rooted in that chair for me to watch till others come!
I'll hear no oath and I'll name no names.  I know you--I've seen
it--I've heard it--heard it from another as quick to do evil as ever you
was."

"By God, this is too bad!" he cried, leaping up. "You--you to accuse me
of loose conduct and wrong-doing! Look to your eyes that have seen what
never happened; and your ears that have listened to lies; and your
tongue too--your tongue that can talk thus to a man who loved you truly
and uprightly and has kept as straight as yourself from the day he loved
you and longed for you!  You can't love me and I don't blame you there.
You can't love me; but is that a just reason why you should lie about
me?  See to yourself, Rhoda, and you'll find a bitter weed in your own
heart that's better out and away.  And threaten no more neither. You may
drag me as deep as you please through the dirt that's got into your
mind--God help you; but don't drag some innocent woman through it.
Anyway, you'll never see my face again--spy as you may--for I shall be
gone for good in a month or two."

She did not answer and he abruptly left her.  He was very angry, very
startled, and very shocked that she could believe and repeat such a
monstrous error. He cast about for some ground in reason, and examined
his life.  He could only think of the meetings with Margaret Bowden; but
that these were actually what Rhoda referred to did not even occur to
him.  He had, as a matter of fact, travelled recently as far as Plymouth
with a woman, but she was Rhoda's own widowed sister from Ditsworthy,
and it seemed impossible that she could refer to her.

He puzzled to know what this assault might mean; but apart from these
unexpected circumstances attending her refusal, the final negative was
all that mattered. That she believed him a libertine soon ceased to
trouble Hartley.  His anger swiftly vanished before the immediate
interest of the future.  Nothing remained but to follow his previous
plans and depart.  He had only waited for Rhoda and now the coast was
clear.  Before he reached home, he had finally determined to leave
England early in the new year.




                              *CHAPTER XI*

                        *BAD NEWS OF MR. BOWDEN*


Mrs. Stanbury's habit of mind died hard, even after the truth concerning
the Voice at Crazywell had been impressed upon her.  Slowly she
appreciated the great fact that neither her husband nor her son might
longer be considered as under sentence of death; but often still she
woke in fear or rose in gloom, while yet her mind retained only the past
terror and forgot the more recent joy.  Billy Screech had explained to
Bartley; and since Bartley was of opinion that no real blame attached to
anybody, and that the plot was perfectly reasonable in its original
purpose--all things being fair in love--the matter soon blew over. Bart,
indeed, declared that Mattacott and Billy ought to pay the doctor's bill
for his mother; but they were not of his mind, and Mr. Stanbury, who,
despite stout assurances of indifference, felt really much relieved when
the truth appeared, very gladly met this charge. The immediate result of
the event was a decision on the part of Jane West.  Bart, having safely
emerged from these supernatural threats of extinction, found her in the
most oncoming spirit, and they were now definitely engaged to be
married.

With the turn of another year this fact became generally known, and
there fell a Sunday in late January when the party from 'Meavy Cot'
visited Coombeshead and assisted at a formal meal given in honour of
Bart's betrothed.

David made efforts to rouse his mother-in-law from her invincible
distrust--both of herself and her blood in the veins of the next
generation.  They talked apart after the meal, and she, as her custom
was, doubted her son's ability to fight the world successfully for a
wife and possible children.

"A very good son, I can assure you--never a better. But whether he'll
prove a husband of any account, I'm sure I couldn't say," she murmured.

"Of course he will," answered the other.  "You don't know what a clever
chap Bart is.  Jane's a very lucky woman; and she knows it well enough,
and her family know it well enough, even if you don't."

It was an amiable fiction with Margaret's husband that she was largely
responsible for his success in life. He often solemnly declared that but
for her at the helm, he should never have prospered as was the case, and
certainly never have won the great prize at Tavistock. This statement he
would make repeatedly, despite his wife's protests and Rhoda's silences.
He made it now to Mrs. Stanbury.

"Look at Madge," he said.  "If she's such a splendid wife, why are you
afeared that Bart won't be a splendid husband?  Madge took after you;
Bart takes after his father.  Why, where should I be if it wasn't for
Madge?  Not where I stand, I can tell you.  She's the corner-stone of
the house, and always has been, and always will be.  You ought to
believe what people tell you about your children."

"'Tis very well to know you think so," she admitted; "all the same, a
mother's eye can't overlook the defects."

"Not in your case, seemingly; but 'tis just what a mother's eye be
cleverest at doing as a rule," declared he.

"'Tis no good pretending with yourself, as you do," she answered.  "You
think our Madge have helped you to greatness, and if love and worship
could bring you up top, you'd be right.  But it can't.  You was too
strong and steady a man to want any woman's help."

"No, no--never was such a man as that," her son-in-law answered, and
firmly believed it.  "Madge has helped me to take big views," he
continued.  "Why, there's no work that we do can taste so good as the
work we do for other people.  Your daughter teached me that."

The afternoon advanced and Margaret entered the parlour to say that tea
was ready in the kitchen.

Bart and Jane comported themselves with high indifference under the
ordeal of this entertainment.  They had accepted the good wishes and the
chaff; they had eaten heartily and departed together as soon as dinner
was done.

"They won't be back for tea.  They don't want no tea," declared Mr.
Stanbury.  "Why, they've even got to naming the day!  'Twill be Martin
West's turn to find the spread and give the party this time; and if he
does all I did for you and Madge, David, I shall be surprised--though
he's a richer man than me by a good few pound, I warrant you."

Talk ran on the new romance; then Rhoda reminded David that a Princetown
man was to see him that evening within an hour from the present time.
He rose at once and prepared to depart.  But Margaret did not accompany
him.

"I shan't be back afore supper," she said.  "Bartley Crocker's coming up
presently.  He won't see my father and mother no more, for his time is
getting short.  So I shall bide here till he's been and gone."

"He's so dark about dates," declared David.  "We all want to give him a
bit of a dinner at 'The Corner House'--a real good send-off; and there's
a little subscription started to get the man a remembrance.  But he's
not in very good spirits now the time's so near; and he rather wants to
escape without any fuss. However, if you have the chance, try and find
out exactly when he's going, Madge.  He'll tell you the secret. The date
is fixed, I expect.  Try and worm it out of him; and fetch him along to
supper, if he'll come."

She promised and David departed with Rhoda.

Bartley Crocker appeared in the valley as they went their way; and he
saw them going, but they did not see him.

His sister's affairs now largely occupied young Bowden's mind, because
the future, from her standpoint, was difficult.  He, however, did not
quite comprehend the moody and irritable spirit which Rhoda had of late
developed.  It fell out, indeed, that this taciturnity and
self-absorption caused David first uneasiness and then mild annoyance.
Rhoda had ceased to be herself.  She was not interested in the future.
She spoke of going out of his life.  She showed no enthusiasm in any
direction, and her attitude to Margaret he had secretly resented on
several occasions. He deplored it to Margaret herself, but she had
begged him not to think of it again, and declared it a matter of no
account.  She could afford to be large-minded now, for she believed that
Rhoda would soon be gone from her home for ever.  As for David, he
supposed this unsettled and cloudy weather of his sister's mind to be
caused entirely by the forthcoming great upheaval in her life, and the
extreme difficulty of deciding on a plan of action.  That she had
finally refused Crocker and determined to stop in England, he knew; but
whether she intended to accompany him and Madge to Tavistock, or return
to Ditsworthy, he did not know. None knew--not even the woman herself.
Her brother attributed Rhoda's darkness to the trouble of decision; yet
it surprised him that she should find decision so difficult.  She was
one who usually made up her mind with swiftness and seldom departed from
a first resolution.  But, for once, she appeared unequal to the task of
concluding upon any form of action.  The truth of Rhoda's difficulties
he could not know; and in his ignorance he revealed a little impatience.
Observing this disquiet, she believed that the time had at last come to
speak.  She knew the danger and perceived that the one thing she cared
for in life--her brother's regard--might be imperilled by such a step;
but as he, in his turn, now began openly to resent her implicit attitude
to Margaret, some decisive action was called for.

And Rhoda upon that homeward walk proposed to speak, to put her
discomfort and fear before him, and to trust his affection and wisdom to
tide them all over a terrible difficulty.  What might have fallen out
had she done so cannot be estimated.  In the result she never spoke, for
there fell an interruption and she was still casting about for the first
word, when her brother, Napoleon, rode up on a pony.  He had come from
Ditsworthy to 'Meavy Cot,' and his attire marked some haste, for he wore
his Sunday coat and waistcoat, but had taken off his trousers and
substituted workday garments of corduroy.

"Just been to your place," he shouted as he approached them.  "Farther
was took bad in the night, and he's a lot worse to-day and reckons he
may die of it. And Joshua's gone for doctor, and mother's in a proper
tantara.  And faither wants for you and Rhoda to come up this moment."

For an instant they stood, aghast and smitten.

"What's took him?" asked David.

"His breathing, and he's all afire and can't let down a morsel of food.
You'd better get on this pony and go right up along, David."

"I suppose I had.  Chap from Princetown will have his walk for his
pains; but it can't be helped."

Napoleon dismounted and David took his place. "You'll come on, you two,
after me," he said.  "Best to go across through Dennycoombe wood.
Please God, 'tis of no account.  Faither's so strong and never knoweth
ache or pain; therefore what may be a small thing would seem worse to
him than it really is."

He started and then turned back again.

"When you pass Coombeshead, just run in, Nap, and tell Margaret what's
happened.  I may be back home to-night, or I may not be.  And bid her
remember the calves."

"I shall be back for that," said Rhoda.  "I shall go back to-night in
any case."

"All right then," concluded David.  Then he galloped off and soon
disappeared.

His sister and the boy tramped without speech together until, glowing
like the bright fur of a wolf all grey and russet, Dennycoombe wood rose
before them, flung on the distant side of Sheep's Tor in evening light.

"I'll wait for you by the gate yonder," said Rhoda. "Your nearest way
from here be to the left.  Don't you stop talking, mind: you may be
useful up at home. Just tell Madge what's fallen out and then come after
me."

"I can travel twice so fast as you," answered the boy.  "No call for you
to wait.  I'll over-get you long afore 'tis dark."

He left her and she went forward, passed under Down Tor, crossed the
stream and skirted the great wood beyond.  She reached the gate and
stopped for her brother as she had promised: but he did not come, and
presently she went her way through the edge of the trees.  Then
suddenly, going on silent feet, she heard voices at hand.  A great stone
towered there and in a moment she understood that her sister-in-law and
Bartley Crocker were on one side of it, and knew not that she was upon
the other.  She guessed that the man had taken leave of the party at
Coombeshead Farm and that Margaret had departed with him.

This indeed had happened.  Bartley made but a short stay at the
Stanburys' and Madge left when he did.  They were now sitting together
and talking.

Rhoda listened but could not hear more than a chance word
intermittently.

"Your husband wanted to give me a spread and a send-off in the
old-fashioned way, but, somehow, I've no stomach for any such thing just
at present," declared Mr. Crocker.

"'Tis natural you shouldn't have."

"I shall write to David.  I can't stand all these good-byes, and all the
leave-taking business."

"'Tis crushing to think you're so nearly gone."

"But mind you keep the secret of the day and tell none, Madge--till I'm
off.  Those I care for shall hear from me--t'others don't matter.
There's nothing left to keep me but you, and I can't make you happier by
staying."

"Don't say that."

"Not really I can't.  We're beginning new lives in new places--you and
me."

"So we are in a way."

"What does Rhoda do?"

"She can't make up her mind seemingly.  She's very sad."

"She's very mad, if you ask me.  I wish to God some man could find how
to sweeten her mind.  And you're sad because she is.  I knew it the
moment I heard your voice half an hour ago."

"'Tis wonderful to think how you can always tell by my tone of voice how
'tis with me!  But then there's nobody like you for understanding us
women.  You'd have made a rare husband for the right one, Bartley."

"Yes; and the right one--well, perhaps I'll find her over the water.
'Tis the day after to-morrow I go. I sail off from Plymouth, so that's
all easy and straight-forward."

"Be the _Shamrock_ a good big ship?"

"Big enough for my fortunes."

"We must see one another once more, Bartley."

"Of course we must, Madge."

They moved forward as they spoke, and Rhoda saw Bartley kiss Margaret
and observed that her sister-in-law was weeping.  Then came hasty feet
and Napoleon appeared.  He shouted from a distance.

"She ban't there!  She's gone!  I waited a bit and had a dollop of figgy
pudden and told 'em the bad news about faither."

"Hullo!" said Bartley to Rhoda.  "You!"  He looked blankly at her, but
she ignored him and turned to Margaret.  Hate was in her voice.  She
spoke quickly and waited for no reply, then moved on with her brother.

"Napoleon have been to seek you at your father's farm, Margaret Bowden,
but you was better employed seemingly.  My father is took very ill
indeed, and your husband be gone up over to him.  You'd best get
home--if you can spare the time to think of your home.  I shall be back
by night, but David may not be able to come."

She swept on her way and left them staring at each other.  Margaret was
dishevelled and the shock of this meeting had dried her tears.

"Good Lord! that's bad luck.  She saw me kiss you, I'll swear," murmured
Bartley.  "And now she'll believe there's another married woman in the
case!  Will she tell David?"

"What if she does?  I'll tell him myself.  D'you think he'd care?"

"Shall I go after her and explain?"

"No," she answered.  "Let her be."

"It's time I was off anyhow.  But poor old Elias! 'Very ill indeed,' she
said.  I hope he's not booked. Can't think of Ditsworthy without him."

They talked a little longer and Mr. Crocker was glad that there had come
distraction for Margaret's mind. She deeply felt parting from him, for
he had bulked largely in her life, and he too had enjoyed her loyal
friendship and owed her much, though her labours on his behalf were all
fruitless.  But now the moment was come in which they must part; and he
knew that the parting was probably eternal.  He did not, however, intend
that she should know it.  He lied glibly about coming over to 'Meavy
Cot' on the following day; then he talked of other matters, and then,
when they had drifted down to Nosworthy bridge, pretended to be amazed
at the time.

"I must be pushing back in a hurry.  My boxes go off first thing
to-morrow.  And I daresay I shall get up to Ditsworthy after dark and
may have a tell with David there.  But if Rhoda has already told him she
saw me kissing you--!"

"He'd laugh.  He's not the sort to mind that between me and you."

"I know he isn't.  I was only joking."

She revealed extreme solicitude for his future.

"You'll take all care of yourself wherever you be; and you've promised,
on your word of honour, to come home and see old friends inside five
year."

"On my word of honour.  And you've got to write, and keep me up in the
news, and tell me all about the house at Tavistock and everywhere else
that's interesting."

He shook hands and moved off quickly, while she, too, went on her way.
But, when her back was turned, he stood still and took his last look;
for, despite promises, the man had no intention to see her again.  His
ship was to start after noon on the following day, and he meant to leave
Sheepstor at dawn of the morrow.

Now Margaret swiftly faded into the dusk, and he went forward, subdued
and as melancholy as his spirit allowed.

"So good and brave a woman as ever walked this earth," he said to
himself.  "God send me such another; but 'tis hardly likely."

For her sake he made time that night to go to Ditsworthy and speak with
David; and the following evening--at the hour in which he had promised
to visit 'Meavy Cot' for a final farewell--he was aboard and watching
Devon fade swiftly along the edge of the sea.  A shadow lay above the
grey, rolling ridges; and then that shadow sank out of his eyes for
ever.

But Bartley Crocker belonged to the order of lighter spirits who can
close the book of their past without a pang; and he did so now.




                             *CHAPTER XII*

                          *RHODA AND MARGARET*


When Rhoda returned from Ditsworthy, she stated briefly that a doctor
had seen Mr. Bowden and declared there was no immediate cause for
uneasiness.  David, however, proposed to stop for the night and help his
mother.

The women supped silently--each angered with the other; and then
happened that which loosed the flood-gates of Rhoda's passion and
precipitated a deed which, since the recent meeting in the wood, she had
strongly considered.  She had changed her mind with regard to David; and
now, instead, it had come to her as a reasonable thing to attack
Margaret directly.  But she hesitated to do so until the latter
unconsciously provoked her.  Rhoda had not spoken to David of the
meeting with Madge and Bartley Crocker; but now David's wife returned to
the subject and awoke anger in Rhoda, so that she lost self-control and
spilled out all the bitterness of her mind.

"Since your father's not in danger, one has time for one's own thoughts
again," said Madge, "and they are dark enough for the minute.  You
looked terrible surprised in Dennycoombe wood a bit ago, and you was
terrible rude to me; but why for I don't know.  You puzzle me sometimes,
Rhoda.  Can't you even feel that 'tis sad the man who loved you so well
be going so far ways off?"

"The sooner the better."

"You're heartless, I do believe."

"You make up for it, if I am."

"I suppose you're shocked because I kissed him.  Did you tell David?  I
lay he didn't pull a very long face about it.  But what's come over me?
To think of me talking in this loud, wild way!  Forgive me, Rhoda.  I
meant nothing.  You can't help being what you are, and feeling what you
feel, any more than I can.  I'm not myself to-night.  I shall miss him
cruel, and I don't care who knows it."

The other kept silence.  Her colour had gone and her breast was rising
and falling rapidly.  Anger put a strain on her lungs and called for
air.

"Oh, Rhoda," cried Madge feebly, "why didn't you take him?  Nobody will
ever love you like that again; and nobody will ever understand you so
well as Bartley did.  You were a fool--a fool not to take him.  Now look
at it--your life all useless and nowhere to turn, unless you come to
Tavistock with us.  Think better of it even now.  Go to him to-morrow;
keep him here afore 'tis too late and he's gone."

Then the other rose to her feet, and spoke slowly, and crushed the
slighter creature for ever.

"So you've sunk to that!  You can dare to sit there and say that openly
to me.  I'm to marry him--I'm to drag myself through the dirt of that
man's life, so that you can have him always at your elbow!!"

Margaret stared, and in her turn grew pale.

"What are you saying or thinking?" she cried. "Are you out of your
mind?"

"If I am, I've had enough to make me.  But I'm sane enough--for my
brother's sake.  I've kept sane all these cruel, cursed months, while
you've gone your way, and forgotten yourself, and disgraced his name.
Hear me, I say!  Don't you shout, for I can shout louder than you.  What
I tell be God's truth; and if you don't confess it, I'll do it for you.
D'you think I don't know what men are?  Nine in ten be of the same
beastly pattern; and this man's the worst of all, for he's a liar and a
thief, and he came to me with his false tales, but his mind was always
running on you; and he came to David and pretended to be his friend
and--and--"

She caught her breath and Margaret spoke swiftly.

"What do you accuse me of?"

"I accuse you of being unfaithful and untrue to my brother; and right
well you know it is so.  I've watched--I know--and I'm not the only one.
My sister Dorcas--clever enough in evil she be--she knows it too. And
belike a many others among that knave's friends, for he's the sort to
rob a woman of her all, and then laugh to men about it.  Maybe all the
world knows it but David's self.  I say you've sinned against my
brother, and I say he must know it--now--now--afore he begins at
Tavistock.  And, please God, he'll put you away from him, and choose
rather to live his life maimed alone, than with a foul wretch like you
under his roof."

"These are hideous lies--you're dreaming--you're mad to say such things.
You--you to come to an honest wife with this filthy story!  'Tis you
shall be cast out--'tis you.--Oh, my God! to think that I should hear
such words uttered against me by another woman!"

Madge's brief flash of fight died even as she spoke. She was not
fashioned to carry the battle with a high hand.  She began to think of
her husband.

"You shall say this to David and see where you find yourself," she
continued.  "Is not a man's wife nearer to him than a sister?  Will he
believe you rather than me?  Will he believe Dorcas rather than Bartley
Crocker himself?  That you--you, Rhoda, of all women, could sting me so!
That you--you we thought so pure and clean as newly-fallen snow--could
invent such a thing!  That you, who know me so well and my love and
worship of David....  Oh, Rhoda, I'm sorry for you!"

"Be sorry for yourself.  Well--and too well--I know you.  I had to spy.
I ban't ashamed of it. There was nothing else but to tell him and let
him spy. And I couldn't do that till I knew.  'Tis all of a piece--all
clear to any human mind--foul or fair.  God judge me if I was quick to
think evil.  I was slow to do it.  I fought not to believe it.  I tried
heart and soul not to see it.  But you took good care I should see it.
Wasn't you always after him?  Didn't you meet him in secret places
scores of times?  How could I not see? And him coming to me; and you
pretending to want me to take him.  Yet 'twas no pretence neither, for
'twould have suited you both well enough.  And David, working day and
night, and trusting you, and always ready at a word to pleasure you.
That proud of you and hungry for your happiness--  But it's ended now.
It ended to-day when I saw you in the wood.  Not that I've not seen you
kissing him afore--fawning on his hand, by God!  I've watched--yes--and
seen enough to know all I didn't see.  And he's going to know it
too--David.  He's got to know for his own honour's sake, and he shall."

"Will he believe it?  Never!  May God strike me here afore you, and kill
me slow the awfullest way that ever woman died, if by thought or deed
I've been false to him."

"Ah!  Even so the man talked, and he's alive yet. But the A'mighty won't
forget either of you.  You add lies to lies as he did.  But I know
they're lies.  You needn't talk as if I was a fool; I know him well
enough--none better.  Did such as him--lecherous-minded beast that he
was--dance about in lonely woods and secret places with you for nothing?
If an angel from heaven told me you was honest I'd not believe it.  And
I'm stronger than you think--stronger far than you--with David, I mean.
He knows I'm single-minded, anyway.  He knows I've got no thought or
hope in the whole world except his good.  He knows right well that I've
been a kind sister to you, and never done anything but strive for your
happiness as well as his.  Till now--till now.  And he'll believe me;
for he knows that I couldn't lie if I was tortured for speaking the
truth. And I am tortured--tortured as never a woman was tortured yet.
But he's got to hear it; and he shall hear it afore that man goes.  And,
as for you, whether he believes me or you, God's my eternal judge but
I'll never ope my mouth to you again as long as I live."

She said no more and went up to her room.  Margaret waited a while and
then followed her; but Rhoda's door was locked and she refused to answer
when the other spoke.

Then the wife descended and sat with companionship of her thoughts.  She
lived through many hours of poignant grief.  Again and again she fell
away stricken by her own heart; but she returned as often to the theme;
she strove to pierce the problem and see what her sister-in-law could
mean.  How was it possible that such transparent innocence as Margaret's
could from any standpoint look so vile?  The bitterest enemy was
powerless to throw one shadow over her friendship with Bartley Crocker;
and yet here was her brother's sister frenzied with this fearful idea,
and speaking of it as a fact proved beyond question.  Rhoda believed in
it as surely as she believed in her own life.  She was prepared to stake
her future and David's love for her upon it. She was going to separate
Margaret from David, or herself from David, forever.  One or other event
must inevitably happen.

A thousand plans of action rushed through the wife's brain, and their
number defeated their varied purposes. Her native timidity served her
ill now.  She did nothing but sit and think and reconstruct the past.
She remembered all the meetings with Bartley and their many plots and
plans to win Rhoda for him.  She recollected the most intimate
conversations, when her nature or his formed the subject of their
speech.  She had once kissed his hand in a sudden impulse, when he
announced the means to cure her mother.  But she did not recall a single
perilous or dangerous pass between them; for indeed no such thing had
ever existed.  Their regard was based on close and lifelong
understanding and friendship.  There never had been a reciprocal passage
of passion, even in the days of her freedom.  Her regard was the regard
of an ordinary woman for her favourite brother--an affection absolutely
untinged by any conscious sexual emotion whatsoever.  Even at that, she
had not loved him as Rhoda loved David.  She was not cast in the great
mould of Rhoda--great if unfinished.

At waste of night she began to perceive that she could be no match for
Rhoda.  Her instinct of self-preservation inclined her first to David,
then to Bartley, and then to her father's home.  She determined at last
to rest until day, and sought her bed.  She lighted a match in the dark
after a sleepless hour.  It went out before she could reach a candle,
and she was struck by the trivial phenomenon that, long after the match
was extinguished, its light shone in her eyeballs and throbbed in the
gloom like fiery rings until the impression waned.  She rose an hour
before dawn and dressed and descended.  Then she went out and breathed
the chill morning wind.  As yet it was quite dark.  Looking up, she saw
that a candle burned in Rhoda's room. Some subtle psychological instinct
crushed her spirit before the spectacle of that woman's steadfast and
unsleeping watch.  An impulse to get away from Rhoda overpowered
Margaret.  She returned, fetched her sun-bonnet, and hastened off
without any fixed purpose of destination.

When David's sister came down before six o'clock, the house was empty.
She, too, had passed through storms; she also had faltered at the hour
when life's pulses beat lowest and midnight sets its dead weight upon
human hearts.  She had longed to rise and get into the air; but she was
determined not to lose sight of Margaret until David came home.  Yet for
a time she had lost consciousness and slept awhile at edge of dawn.  And
during those fitful slumbers, Margaret had departed.

The day found Rhoda assured of her own action, though the result of it
she could not foretell; but thus to have thrust matters upon their
climax was a relief to her, and she felt only interested further to
learn the extent of David's future sufferings and her power to lessen
them.

That Margaret had disappeared did not much astonish her.  She doubted
not that her sister-in-law was gone to have the first speech with David.
Rhoda reviewed her own knowledge of facts and prepared her own
statement.  She perceived that she herself must come vilely out of it,
as a spy and informer; but she kept her intentions and object in view,
and believed that, suffer as he must, David would not lose sight of her
motives.  Her only desire was that her brother's home might be
cleansed--at any cost to its inhabitants.  She thirsted to speak to
David and hear his voice.

Yet, when she saw him coming alone through the morning, her thoughts
flashed along another train, and she held her peace until a more fitting
time for speech. And this she did because she guessed that something
vital had happened to Margaret--something which must justify her
attitude and sweep away the last shadow of doubt.

Then her brother surprised her mightily; for, when she told him that
Margaret had gone from the house before daylight, he seemed but little
astonished to hear it.




                             *CHAPTER XIII*

                              *THE SEARCH*


More for thought of Margaret than the sick master of Ditsworthy, had
Crocker climbed to the Warren House upon his last evening at Sheepstor.
He asked to see David, spent half an hour with him, and spoke explicitly
of Rhoda, of his final failure to win her, and of the attitude that she
had adopted towards him during that interview.

"God knows I wish her nought but good," he said; "and first and best
that her mind should be cleansed of things she's heard from some unknown
enemy and believes against me.  She's got it in her head that I'm a
worthless blackguard, born to make trouble.  When she met me with your
wife in Dennycoombe wood, a few hours since, she spoke as if I'd no
business to be talking to Margaret.  I say this for Margaret's sake;
because, before saying 'good-bye,' I kissed Margaret, and your sister
saw me do so, and went white with passion. There's that about kissing
she can't forgive or forget, seemingly.  But I'm off to-morrow and don't
want to leave any trouble behind me."

David nodded.

"You must allow for Rhoda.  She's terrible fretted and has got a deal on
her mind just now," he said.

"That's true enough; and she's often right; and I'm a fashion of man not
worthy to name in the same breath with her.  I only mention these things
for your sake and Margaret's.  Your sister is cruelly wrong about me,
anyway, and maybe time will show her so. Only she mustn't be wrong about
Madge.  Me and Madge did very often meet, and even in secret, if you
like.  But why?  Not to hide anything from anybody but Rhoda herself.
Madge was very wishful for me to have Rhoda, and again and again we
planned and plotted together what she could do, and what I could do, to
bring it about.  You understand that?"

"Why, yes; Margaret always told me about it of course."

"But perhaps Rhoda didn't see what we wanted to be together for behind
her back.  A stupid muddle sure enough, and nothing but Madge wanting to
do her and me a good turn was the cause of it.  You clear her mind for
her the first minute you can, David.  And if she's had a row with
Margaret, make 'em be friends again.  Only you can do it."

Thus he spoke, and the other saw all clearly.

"Rhoda's been unlike herself a good while," he answered.  "And now I
begin to see daylight.  Of course, if she had some wild, silly fancies
against you, and people have been telling her that you're not straight,
she may have been vexed and anxious that you saw so much of my wife.
For my sake she'd have felt so.  But why she should have believed
anything against you, or who spoke against you--that I can't say.
However, your character is safe with me.  I'll soon have it out and let
loose some common sense into her brains.  You must allow a bit for
unmarried girls like her.  They can't see life whole, and they get wrong
opinions about men's minds.  She's wise as need be every other way; but
where men and women combined are the matter, she never can take proper
views.  She's jealous for me without a doubt--maybe because I was never
known to be jealous for myself: too busy for that.  And why should I be
with a wife like mine?"

"You may well ask it.  Madge would rather die than think an evil
thought, let alone do an evil deed, against you.  As for Rhoda--she
beats me.  Most of the man-hating sort be ugly and a bit hard at the
angles; but she--she's as pretty as any wife you ever saw in the world.
The Lord may send her a husband yet!  And mind you let me know if it
happens, for I'd like to give her a wedding present worth having."

They parted then.

"Well, good luck to you," said the elder; "and don't forget to let us
home-staying chaps have a sight of you again presently, when a few years
be past and you've started on your fortune."

"And all good wishes to you, David; and, for a last kindness, I'll ask
you to get Madge to see my Aunt Susan Saunders sometimes and cheer her
up.  She badly wanted for me to take her along to Canada--poor old lady;
but of course I couldn't do that--such a wanderer as I shall be till I
find that place that pleases me."

Thus it came about that when David returned to his home and heard that
Madge was not there, he felt no intense astonishment.  He doubted not
that sharp words had passed and that his wife had left Rhoda until he
should come home.  For the time, however, he kept silence.  He
determined to speak to Rhoda and Madge together when the latter
reappeared.  He felt certain that she had gone to Coombeshead; and he
also believed that she would stop with her parents until he went to
fetch her.

"Put on the griddle and cook me a bit of meat for breakfast," he said to
Rhoda.  "I'm very hungry, along of having sat up most of the night with
father. He's come well through it.  He slept off and on, and feels he's
safe this morning.  I shall go up again later, when Madge be back."

He ate, then started to Coombeshead; but his wife was not there, neither
had any news been received concerning her.  Then he walked across to
Sheepstor, but none had seen or heard of Margaret.  He called at 'The
Corner House' to drink, and stopped there a while. But his mind was now
much agitated.  He soon set off for Ditsworthy; and he prayed as he went
that there his increasing fears for Madge might be laid at rest.

It was after noon when he arrived at his father's house, to learn that
the doctor had pronounced Mr. Bowden better.  But no news of Margaret
greeted him. His twin brothers were just setting out for Princetown, to
procure certain medical comforts for their father. Now they went as far
as Coombeshead with David, and there he left them and returned again to
the Stanburys. Still they had heard nothing.  In grave alarm the husband
went home, but Margaret was not there.  Night now approached, and the
man braced himself to set about systematic search and summon responsible
aid.

Rhoda had left a hot meal for him and he ate it quickly; but she herself
had departed.  A pencilled note explained that she had gone to seek
Margaret at certain farms where chance might have led her.  David now
much desired to cross-question Rhoda closely as to the matters that fell
between her and Margaret on the preceding evening; but for the present
this was impossible. He was just about to set off, give the alarm, and
institute search parties, when the twins, Samson and Richard, suddenly
appeared together and brought news.

                     *      *      *      *      *

When David's wife left her home before dawn, she walked aimlessly onward
until thought worked with her and directed her footsteps to a definite
goal.  The first note of light in the sky presently beckoned her, and
unconsciously she set her feet in that direction.  She moved along
eastward by the leat, where it raced down a steep place under Cramber
Tor; and she reflected between three courses.  Her first thought was to
seek David before all others, tell him what Rhoda was going to tell him,
and explain the truth.  Then she feared. The day broke very cold and
dawn chilled her and lowered her spirit.  Next she considered of
Bartley; and it seemed a wise thing to seek him and go to David with
him.  Finally she thought of her father, and wondered whether wisest
action might not take her to her old home.  It was a father's and a
brother's part to fight this battle for her.  They would stand before
David, man to man, and refute the infamy that Rhoda had prepared for his
ears.  But some mood led to Bartley Crocker before the rest.  She turned
presently and set her face to Sheepstor.  And thus it happened that
standing near the village, on high ground above it, she actually saw the
early departure of her friend.  He drove swiftly away under her eyes,
and she was powerless to reach him now or to communicate with him.  He
had promised to see her again that evening; but doubtless to escape
emotional leave-takings and an elaborate departure he had planned this
secret exit.  She did not blame him; but now that he was irrevocably
gone, she doubted terribly for herself and asked herself what next must
happen.  She did not fear David, but she greatly feared Rhoda.  She knew
her husband's estimate of Rhoda, and she suspected that in a deliberate
contest between them he might lean to the stronger nature.  He had never
been jealous or shown the shadow of such an instinct, and that thought
comforted her; but Rhoda was very strong, and if Rhoda was not mad, then
she must be armed with arguments to support her awful belief.  Margaret
had nothing but denials--and Bartley was gone.  Perhaps, against the
lying testimony that Rhoda possessed, and doubtless believed, her bare
denial would prove all too weak.  She amazed herself to find how calmly
she considered the sudden situation--a situation that yesterday she
would have fainted to consider.  Now, looking at the empty road when
Bartley's vehicle had left it, she felt that salvation lay in one
direction alone.  She must see David before Rhoda could see him.  He
would return that morning; therefore her safest course was to go home
swiftly, lie hidden by the way, and intercept him as he came along.  She
set off again, and as she returned, became conscious of physical hunger.
But the sensation passed and she pressed forward until her home
appeared.  She came back in time to find herself too late; for she saw
her husband descend the hill to 'Meavy Cot' and enter the house while
yet she was half a mile distant.

Now active fear got hold upon Margaret.  In spirit she heard Rhoda's
voice; she listened to the indictment; she pictured David's incredulity.
He would surely start to see Bartley Crocker on the instant; and he
would find Bartley gone for ever.  And then?  Her thoughts turned again
to her own people.  She cried out from her heart for protection.  Her
mental weakness gained upon her as she grew physically more feeble. Her
legs trembled under her.  She turned, and crouched, and crept behind a
wall, that no chance eye from 'Meavy Cot' might see her aloft on the
hill.  Then she started to go to Coombeshead, and ran some distance
until she grew suddenly weak and was forced to sit and rest herself for
fear of fainting.  David would doubtless guess that she had gone home.
He would follow; he was certain to be upon the way now, and he must
overtake her long before she reached Coombeshead. Increasing terror and
decreasing reason threw her into a shivering sweat.  She jumped up and
left the road to Coombeshead, and so in reality avoided David, who had
now set out for the farm of the Stanburys.  She actually saw him pass
within a hundred yards of her, and she rejoiced at her escape.  Then,
when he had gone by, she went forward to Crazywell and hid there, in
deep gorse brakes not far distant from the water.  Here she was safe
enough for the present.  She drank from a spring, and then sat on a
stone until she grew very cold.

The time for useful thought or a sensible decision was past; the
critical hours, when this woman's humble intellect might have led her to
salvation, had gone by. Now she stood weak every way--physically
reduced, mentally depressed and fear-stricken.  She had declined upon a
state which found her a prey to unreal terrors, phantom-driven, pervious
to the secret evils of heredity. These intrinsic ills, latent in her
blood and brain, now found their vantage, and presently reduced the
daughter of Constance Stanbury to a condition of peril.  It was in this
pitiful case, as she wandered some hours later near Crazywell, that
there came to her two children, and she had speech with them.  She was
light-headed; but they did not know it.  They stared at the things she
said and thought that brother David's wife was making very queer jokes.

Samson and Richard, with their basket carried between them, staggered
steadily homewards through thickening dusk.  They wondered which of the
luxuries in the basket their father would eat first; and they rather
envied him his collapse, when they considered the attractive nature of
these prescriptions.  Then they came suddenly upon Margaret standing by
the gorse-brakes. She started and was about to dive into cover, like a
frightened beast or bird, when she recognised the boys.

"Hullo!" cried Samson.  "Why, 'tis Madge! Whatever be you doing up here
all by yourself?"

She stared at them as they set down their basket and rested their arms.

"Oh, Lord, these good things be heavy!" declared Richard.

"Have 'e got a bit of meat there, Dicky?" she asked, her nature crying
for food.

"I should just think we had.  A half of a calf's head for soup, and
three bottles of jelly, and a bottle of wine. I wish I was faither!"

"And grapes, took out of a barrel of sawdust," said Samson.

"A long journey for your little legs; but nought to mine," she said.
"You must know, you boys, that I be going to set out on a journey myself
as far as from here to the stars--or further."

They laughed at the idea.

"Be you?  And what'll David say?" asked Richard.

"He'll understand very well.  'Tis for him I shall do it.  I lay he'll
be glad."

"Why don't he go along with you?"

"Not yet; but he'll come after some day."

"Where's your luggage to?" asked the practical Samson.

"Don't want none--no luggage--no money--no ticket--only a pinch of
courage.  Mr. Shillabeer taught me the way.  If you've out-lived your
usefulness, 'tis better to make room for better people.  And there's no
such thing as wrong-doing, Dick, because God A'mighty, being
all-powerful, won't let it happen.  You and Samson might think as you do
wrong sometimes."

"So they tell us," admitted Samson.

"Not you--you're God's children and can't no more do wrong than the
birds and the angels."

"That's worth knowing," said Richard.

"Nor yet me: I must do what I must, and the journey's got to be took.
Because I may be useful in one place, though I can't be in another....
'Tis a bitter cruel thing to be misunderstood, Samson."

"So it is--as I said last time Joshua gave me a lacing and found out
after 'twas Nap," he answered.

"When might you start?" asked Richard.

"There's nought to keep me--my usefulness be ended.  But I'm that
terrible hungry."

"I should go home along and have a bit of supper first."

"No, no, Sam.  Good-byes be such sad things. Better I go without 'em.
Bartley, he went off without, and he was wise.  But I see'd him set out.
All the same, his journey's but a span long to mine."

The boys were puzzled.  They talked together.

"Might us give her a biscuit--one of them big uns?" whispered Richard;
but Samson refused.

"No.  'Twill be found out, and of course they'll say we ate it."

"Where do 'e set out from?" asked Richard.

"From this here pool."

"Funny place to go on a journey from," said Samson. "'Tis my belief
you'm having a game with us."

Margaret shook her head.

"Never no more," she said.  "We've played many and many a good game--you
two and me.  But they all be ended now.  I'm going to new usefulness
somewhere long ways off--terrible busy I'll be, without a doubt; and you
be both growing into men, and busy too.  But don't you forget me, you
boys--because I never will forget neither of you."

"You talk as if you wasn't going to come back," said Richard.  "I'm sure
David would make a terrible fuss if you was to go for long."

"But Rhoda won't," added Samson.  "Rhoda don't like you overmuch.  For
that matter, she don't like anything but David and dogs.  Me and Dick
don't set no store by Rhoda, do we, Dick?"

"No," said Richard.  "We do not."

"I'll come back--I'll come back to watch over David," said Madge
suddenly.  "Yes, I won't bide away altogether.  I couldn't.  But not
same as I am now--not a poor, broken-hearted, useless good-for-nothing,
as have worn out her welcome in the world. I'll be a shining, joyous
thing then--winged like a lark, and so sweet a singer too."

"You can sing very nice, and always could," said Dick graciously.

"I'd sing to you boys now, but there's no time. Be it night or morning
with us?  I'm sure I couldn't say, for I've been up and about these days
and days."

"They'm looking for you, come to think of it," said Samson suddenly.
"David was up over after dinner."

"Was he kind or cross?"

"Neither--but a good bit flurried seemingly."

"He don't know about the journey, you see.  I'm afraid he'll be
sorry--after.  He'll be sorry, won't he, Dicky?"

"He'll be terribly vexed without a doubt," declared Richard.  "In fact,
if I was you, I'd change your mind. You oughtn't to do nothing without
telling him--ought her, Samson?"

"No, her oughtn't," answered his brother.

"You two--two at a birth," she said.  "Got together and born together!
'Tis a very beautiful thing--a beautiful thing, sure enough.  You'm
one--not two at all--one in heart and thought and feeling, one in your
little joys and fears and hopes.  And even so I'd thought to be with
David.  But I wasn't strong enough and understanding enough for that.
He's too much above me.  And us had no childer, you see.  There comed no
babby to my bosom, and so--there 'tis--the usefulness and hope of me all
gone--a withered, worn-out blossom as never set no fruit.  And when the
flower be fallen, 'tis all over and forgot.  My mother knowed best, you
see.  She always feared it wouldn't come to good.  How right she was!"

"What silly old rummage you do talk," said Richard. "Never heard the
like!  Why for don't you go home? Didn't Madge ought for to go home,
Sam?"

"Yes, she did," said Samson, "this instant.  She'm mazed, I believe."

"Pisgies been at her, I reckon," hazarded his brother.

"I'm going home," she answered.  "On my solemn word of honour, as a
living Christian, I'm going home; and if I'm there afore them I care
about--what's the odds?  Only there's no marrying nor giving in marriage
there.  Won't Rhoda be happy then!  But I tell you two witty boys that
I'm wickedly wronged, and the world will know it.  I won't stoop to
defend myself--I'm above that; but my God will defend me, and you must
defend me--both of you.  'Tis a very cruel thing to tell lies against
the innocent--them as never did you harm--them as only thought and
planned always to better you and bring you happiness.  And wasn't my
sorrow large enough, the black sorrow of the women that never rock
cradles--but she must--? .... you'll always have a good word for me,
Richard--won't 'e?--if 'tis only for the sake of the fun we've had."

"So we will then," said Dick.  "And if anybody says anything against
you, me and Sam won't suffer it. Because you're a jolly good sort and
always have been. Never was one like you for cake--never."

Samson pulled at Richard's sleeve in the gathering gloom.

"Us had better go," he whispered.

"Us must go now," repeated Dicky to Margaret.

"Good-bye then, and God bless you both--such little men as you be
growing!  Yet 'tis cruel not to give me a bite from your basket.  I'm
faint for want of food--God's my judge but I am."

"Can't, for fear of catching it.  You'll do best to go back home,"
advised Samson.

"I shall be there afore you are.  'Tis beautiful to be there first of
all, to welcome all the rest as they come in one after t'other, like
homing pigeons.  If they only knowed ... if they only knowed how dearly
I've loved 'em all--Rhoda, too.  I tried so hard to make her a happy
woman.  But they will come to know at journey's end.  And she'll know
then.  'Twill all be burning light then, with nothing hid and the last
heartache lifted."

They took their basket and crept off.  In the dark they stopped and
listened.  She was singing.

"Never knowed her like that afore," said Richard. "I've a good mind to
take back a biscuit for her and chance what they'll say.  She's terrible
leery[#] and terrible queer."


[#] Hungry.


"Us had better get home and tell about her."

They pushed on for a quarter of a mile, and then Samson had another
idea.

"We'm nearer 'Meavy Cot' than anywheers," he said. "Us had better go and
tell David.  'Tis his job to look after Madge, I should think--him being
her husband."

"'I'm cruel tired," answered Richard; "and as 'tis we shall catch it
pretty hot for being such a deuce of a time."

"'We'll leave the basket here, and just run down and then come back for
it.  And as to catching it, we shall catch it worse if we don't tell
David, and he comes to hear about it after Madge has sloped off."

"You go, and I'll bide here and keep guard over the basket," suggested
Dick; but Samson would not have this.

"No," he answered firmly, "I'm not going without you.  You know very
well us can't do nought apart."

They left the basket on the top of a wall and turned back and reached
'Meavy Cot.'  Then they told David that Madge was by Crazywell, and much
to their disappointment, he seized his hat and rushed from the house
before they had time to give any description of their remarkable
conversation with her.  Rhoda was not in, and finding themselves alone,
the boys sought the larder and ventured to eat heartily.  Then they went
on their way, cheered at consciousness of well-doing and the reward of
well-doing.

All that David had heard was how his brothers had met with Madge by
Crazywell.  More he did not stop to learn; and when some time afterwards
he stood by the pool, tramped its shores and shouted Margaret's name
until the hollowed cup of the little tarn echoed, he judged that the
children had been mistaken in the darkness and imagined that some other
was Madge. Because he saw no sign of her and heard no answer to his
cries.  For a time he wandered through the night and splashed along the
fringes of the pool; then he abandoned the search, groped his way
upwards, and returned home.

His wife, however, had been within sound of his voice. Through the
locked portals of a sleeping ear his cries had reached and wakened her.
When Samson and Richard were gone, she sang a hymn about the joys of
heaven; and then nature made a sudden and imperious appeal for sleep.
She had not slumbered for forty hours, and now, succumbing swiftly, lay
down under the gorse and sank into oblivion.

Anon her husband's voice reached her brain, and roused her
consciousness.  His loud summons, filtering through the sleep-drenched
avenues of her brain, begot happy dreams therein.  She smiled and
wakened. Then she heard him calling in the darkness, and sudden terrors
bound her hand and foot.  His voice, lifted in deep anxiety, to her
seemed laden with wrath.  Her dismantled mind hid the truth and turned
the man's cry into a sinister threat.  Therefore she cowered motionless,
breathless, like a bird that sees a hawk at hand, until he was gone, and
silence returned.

She slept no more, but it was not until midnight that her wounded
intellect again roused itself.  Then chance, quickening propensities
that had for ever remained asleep in another environment, swept the
woman to action.




                             *CHAPTER XIV*

                           *DAVID AND RHODA*


Dawn brought forth a wonder in the sky and lighted accumulations of
little clouds that ranged in leagues under highest heaven.  Like flakes
of mother-o'-pearl upon a ground of aquamarine the cirri were evenly and
regularly disposed.  Seen horizontally, perspective massed them until
they hid the firmament, but overhead the pale interstices of space
appeared. Like a ridged beach at low tide was the sky--like a beach at
break of day when morning twinkles, between bars of wave-woven sand and
touches the transparent green water there.  A glory irradiated heaven,
and each of the myriad cloudlets moving above the sunrise was streaked
upon its breast with amber.  Then the herald light fell from them into
earth-born mists beneath.

These phenomena were reflected in the eyes of Reuben Shillabeer; and for
a moment they roused within him thoughts of the gates of pearl and the
streets of gold that belonged to the haven of his hopes.  He had risen
before day, and now moved across the Moor with his mind steadily
affirmed.  The journey concerning which Margaret had babbled to her
husband's brothers, this old man now meant to make.  But he had hidden
his secret close, and those who knew him best supposed that his mind had
entered a more peaceful and contented road of late.  They were right.
After decision came great calm.  His affairs were in order; his work was
finished. He walked now as one who had already taken his farewells of
the earth and all that belonged to it.  The sky pleased him with its
splendour, for it promised happiness. He thought of his wife and
supposed her behind the dawn, moving uneasily, eagerly, full of
excitement and joy, counting the minutes that still separated him from
her.  He was going up to Crazywell to drown himself.

On his way the man stood still before one of his own messages.  Black
along the top bar of a gate, a text confronted him: the same that had
led Bart Stanbury to hasten his proposal of marriage.

"_Now is the accepted time._"

The old prize-fighter was well satisfied at this omen. He tramped
through mist and over frost-white heaths among the ruined lodges of the
stone men; he breasted the gorse-clad hill above Kingsett, and presently
stood and looked down into the cup of the pool, and saw the fire and
flame of the morning sky mirrored sharply there.  A thin vapour still
softened the reflections from above and hung about the water, and a
scurf of ice lay round the edges of Crazywell.  The place was deserted.
Winter had made a home here and darkness of sleeping vegetation
encompassed all, save for the silver frost and the splendour of the sky
above.  Heath, furze, grass, alike slumbered.

Shillabeer was panting with his exertions.  Now, very cautiously he
trusted his huge body on a path winding down to the water, and presently
he stood at the brink of the pool and trod the sandy beach.  Crazywell
was supposed to be of fabulous depth; tradition declared that all the
ropes from the belfry of Walkhampton church had not plumbed it.  Reuben
reflected upon this story.  "No call to sink so deep as that," he
thought. "Please God; come presently, they'll fetch me out and let me
lie beside her; not that it matters much where they put this here frame,
so long as the thinking soul be joined to she.  Still--till Doom--I'd
like to bide with her; and I hope parson will be large-minded enough to
allow it."

For some little time he walked beside the water, then suddenly addressed
himself to action.

"'Tis no good messing about," he said aloud.  "I've got to go through
the pinch, and the sooner 'tis over the better."

He took off his coat and hat, moistened his hands with his tongue, as
one about to do some hard work, clenched his fists, snorted like a bull,
and plunged in up to his knees.  He felt his boots sinking upon the mud,
but the water was still shallow.  Not far distant at the edge of the
pool, on the further side, a great stone rose. "I'll drop in off that,"
said the man; "'twill throw me out of my depth and make a quicker job of
it."

He emerged, walked round the margin of Crazywell, and clambered on to
the stone.  Beneath it, where the water was more than four feet deep,
light fell full and radiant, and made all crystal-clear.

Shillabeer was about to jump when he found himself not alone.  Separated
from him only by the smooth surface of the pool, there appeared a
fellow-creature. A woman seemed to be looking up quietly at him from
beneath.

The recent past, forgotten since he had slept, turned back upon him and
he remembered that Margaret Bowden was missing on the previous night.
He glared down at her now.

"Well might they fail to find you!" he said.  "Poor lamb--her of all
women!  Whatever should take her in the water?  And how long have she
been there?"

He forgot his own purposes absolutely.  He lowered himself into the pool
until his feet were at her side. Then he drew a long breath, dived in
his arms and head and groped round till he held her.  A touch brought
her to the surface: in the water she weighed nothing; it was only
afterwards, when he dragged her out, that he found even his strength
only equal to carrying her body to the bank.

How long she had been dead he knew not; but her face he found not
unhappy.  It was impossible to bear her single-handed to her home, and
Shillabeer now climbed out of the cup and started to the adjacent farm
of Kingsett.  But he marked a man by the leat and he shouted to him and
attracted his attention.

Twenty minutes later Simon Snell and the innkeeper carried Margaret
Bowden between them on a hurdle. Mr. Shillabeer's coat covered the
corpse.  They proceeded slowly and at last came in sight of 'Meavy Cot.'

"I'll go so far as the wicket," said Snell; "but no further.  I couldn't
face that chap--not with this load."

"'Tis I that have been told off for the purpose.  'Tis I that have found
her, though 'pon a very different errand, I assure you.  Yet not
different neither, Simon, for I went to meet death; and when I looked
down in the water, there was death, sure enough, glazing up at me."

"And yet just as if she was no more than sound asleep--poor young
woman--save for the blueness," said Mr. Snell.

"And so she looked, poor creature, when first I seed her.  But death be
the name for sleep under water."

"What was you doing up over, 'Dumpling'?"

"There again!  The ways of the Lord be past finding out, Simon.  My wife
waiting at the golden gate--waiting and watching for the sight of a
certain man--namely me--and instead this young Margaret comes along."

"My word!" said Mr. Snell.  "Was you going for to make away with
yourself, Mr. Shillabeer?  Please don't say so, for I've had as much as
I can stand this morning.  I'm quivering to my innermost inwards."

"I was going to do it; but not now--not now.  Abraham found a ram in a
thicket, you'll remember; I find a woman in the water.  The Lord works
with strange tools, Snell."

"Without a doubt He do; and here's the gate.  I'll take her no further.
David Bowden can come out and lend a hand hisself now."

"And you'd best to let it be known far and wide," said Shillabeer.  "And
doctor ought to see her, though of course no good.  Still 'tis the
fashion.  And crowner will sit--here's the man!"

David Bowden appeared and Simon Snell ran away. For a moment Shillabeer
set himself between the dead and living.

"'Tis I found her--Madge.  She's gone to glory--she's drownded
herself--dead.  Lord's will, David."

"Found!  Thank God--where?" asked the husband. He had only heard the
word 'Madge.'

"If you can thank God, 'tis a good thing, Bowden. 'Twas long afore I
could, when this happened to me," answered the other.  "Come.  She's
here--behind the edge of the wall.  'Twas the best I could do."

David had passed him, and when Shillabeer turned, the husband knelt
beside the hurdle.  A moment later he tore at the clothing of the corpse
and pressed his hand over her heart.

"Us must go for doctor as a matter of form, and he's at Princetown
to-day--his day there from eleven o'clock till two--so I'll traapse up
over and tell him to call.  And I'll ax you for a dry shirt afore I
start, poor man."

"She's dead!" said Bowden.

"And cold.  There's nought in all nature so cold as them that die by
drowning.  But you must think of her as far ways off from here."

"Dead--dead.  God help me!"

He rose to his feet and stared down.

"You take it wildly, same as I did," remarked the elder.  "When my wife
died, 'twas all three strong men could do to tear me off her.  And when
the two old women comed to do what was right, I nearly knocked their
grey heads together, for I said, in my mad way, what business had them
to live to grey hairs and my wife die afore a lock was touched by time?
Brown her hair--pale brown to the end.  Let me help you.  She'm
water-logged--poor blessed creature."

Margaret Bowden was brought to her little parlour and laid upon the
sofa.

David said nothing; Shillabeer maundered on.

"Like a dog on a grave you'll be, my poor David. And time's self will
find it hard to travel against your heart.  You'll dare him to push on.
I know--I know. And to think that I'd have been back with her--my own
wife--but for this.  Ess fay!  Crazywell would have me if it hadn't had
she.  But you mustn't speak about that.  One be taken and t'other left."

"She killed herself!" burst out the other man suddenly.  "Mark me--this
was no accident.  She took her own life--and to think that I was there
calling to her and she past hearing by then."

"Yes, she went her way.  She knowed, I suppose--but what did she know?
Weren't she useful no more? 'Tis only failure of usefulness allows this
deed."

"Useful!  What have I done?  God knows what I've done.  'Tisn't
me--'tisn't me, I tell you--there's nought between us and never
was--nought but faithful love. There's another have done it--some
other--and I shall never know--and her dead.  Is she dead?  Maybe
there's a flicker in her yet, if we only knowed what to do."

"Don't distress yourself," said Shillabeer; "only Christ could raise her
from the dead.  I know death. She was lying like a woman asleep under
the water. She's dead enough, and as a thinking man who knows trouble
very close, I'll tell you for why.  'Tis along of' being childless--all
because she had no child."

"What folly and wickedness to think so!  If I didn't mind--why should
she?"

"But they all mind, and the less sense, the more they take on.  It was
just the same with mine; and only her large belief that God couldn't
make no mistakes kept her quiet."

"Go--go!" suddenly cried David.  "Who am I to bide here talking to you,
and that woman dead behind the door?"

"I will go--this minute--'tis natural and quite proper, poor David, that
you feel like this.  Break away from man you must; but don't break away
from God.  Kneel beside her body and pray your heart out. 'Tis the only
thing will keep your brain steady.  Work and pray--work like a team of
bosses and pray like a team of saints.  Out of kindness I say it.  I'm
gone--  She saved my life, mind.  You must let me share the praying, for
by God's grace her death kept me alive. A pity you might say, poor man,
in your black misery and ignorance.  But God knew which was wanted most.
I must live--He only knows why; and this young lovely thing, in full joy
of health and happiness, must cut her thread.  'Tis too much to expect
we can understand; but we ban't expected to understand all that happens.
I tell you the longest life ban't long enough to explain the way of God
to man, David.  Now fetch me a wool shirt while I draw off this one.
Then I be going to catch doctor.  And I must look at her once more."

He went into the other room and David, having brought him a dry garment,
followed him.

"A picture of a happy creature," said Reuben, as he stripped to the
waist and dried his huge body. "Remember that.  This be only a perishing
bit of clay now, David--blue-vinnied, you see--ready to sink into
earth--but Madge--a very different tale.  A lovely, shining angel is she
singing over our heads, along with my wife and all the good dead women.
You keep that in mind and say no more cruel words against Heaven than
you can help.  They will out, but fight 'em down, same as I did."

A few minutes afterward Shillabeer went away; but he was still talking
aloud to himself, rolling his head and waving his arms.

Then David, left alone, strove wildly for some faint sign or promise
that his wife was not dead.  He stripped her, fetched blankets, lighted
a fire, thrust hot bricks to her feet, and strove to warm her body.
Thus he laboured only that he might be doing something, and through
physical exertion cheat mental torture.  He knew that all efforts were
vain, and presently he abandoned them, left his wife in peace, and went
into the kitchen and sat down there.

Nobody came to him for some hours.  Then the doctor arrived, expressed
deep sympathy, and promised to see those in authority.  He departed in
less than half-an-hour and the man was left alone again.

Two women came presently, did their office for the dead, and went away
again.

Bowden's thoughts rose and fell like an ebbing and flowing sea.  They
wearied him and sank away, leaving his mind a drowsy blank; then, with a
little rest, intellect gripped the catastrophe once more and the tide of
suffering flowed and overwhelmed his spirit.  He connected Rhoda with
this event.  The more he considered the more he suspected that something
terrible must have happened between the women.  He went several times to
the door to look for Rhoda.  But she did not come.

She had taken her nightly way with the search parties and at dawn she
was in Sheepstor.  There, too weary to return home, she had gone to the
wife of Charles Moses and slept in her house.  For several hours they
had not wakened her, but suffered her to sleep on.  She rose a little
before midday; and then she heard that Bartley Crocker had left England
very early on the previous morning, about the same time that her
sister-in-law disappeared.

All search for Margaret had proved fruitless and news of her death did
not reach Sheepstor until Rhoda left it.  Several met her and asked for
news, but none knew the truth.  She believed now that the facts were
clear and she strung herself to tell her brother what had doubtless
happened.

At dusk she returned to 'Meavy Cot' and found David, with his head on
the kitchen table, fast asleep. Outside it was growing dark and some
chained, ravenous dogs were barking loudly; inside all was silent.

David slumbered uneasily owing to his position, but his sister hesitated
to wake him.  First she mended the fire and made tea.  She drank to
fortify herself.  Then she went out, fed the dogs, and loitered until
darkness gathered upon the earth.  Then she came in and lighted a lamp.
Still her brother slept.  She reviewed the words that she must speak,
and then she wakened him.

Reluctantly, irritably, he returned to consciousness and stared at her.

"What the devil--?" he said; then he rubbed his eyes and yawned.

"Take a dish of tea," she said.  "I'm back.  There's no news of her yet,
but I believe--"

Slowly he began to connect his thoughts and link himself up with life
again.

"I believe--I'm afraid I know--I'm almost certain I know."

"What do you know?" he asked.  Then the truth returned to him in a wave
that submerged him.

"My God, my God!" he cried out.

"'Tis bitter enough, but maybe the best that could have happened--for
you, David."

Rhoda arrested him.  She was looking straight into his face.

"Make yourself clear," he said.  "What do you know--or what do you think
you know?  What's done be done, anyway."

"'Tis done---and better done, since it had to be."

"What do you know?" he repeated harshly.  "Don't beat about.  How much
do you know?  D'you know why?  What's the reason?  I can't go on with my
life till I know who have done it.  She never did, I'll swear to that.
'Twas forced upon her from outside."

"Maybe I can't tell you more than you've found out for yourself, if you
speak so," she answered.  "Yet 'twas she and only she could have done
it.  None else had the power to."

"Stop!" he cried out.  "Don't play no more with words, if you don't want
to see me go mad afore your eyes.  Speak clear and tell me exactly
what's in your head.  I can't stand no more cloudy speeches.  My mind's
a frozen fog.  If you've got the power to throw one ray of light, then
do it.  Light, I say--but there's no more light for me in this world
now."

"Don't speak like that, David.  Who can tell?  Say nothing till time
works its way.  If I hurt to heal, forgive me; and if I'm wrong, I'll
beg for you to forgive me.  But I'm not wrong.  It all joins together
very straight and smooth.  She's gone beyond finding, else they'd have
found her by now."

"Gone beyond finding."

"Surely.  There's not a brake or pit this side of Princetown, and not a
house and not a ruin that some man haven't hunted through and through
for her.  But they'll have to hunt the ships of the sea afore they'll
find your wife that was.  She's gone---she went the same time that
Bartley Crocker went--to an hour.  Oh, David, she's with him!  Find him
and you'll find her. That's the awful truth of it--clear--clear as truth
can be, and 'tis the worst that have ever fallen to me that I had to
tell you.  But only I knew, and too well I knew through the bitter
past."

He stared at her and laughed.

"What a clever woman you are--and so wonderful understanding!"

"She's happy enough, if that's anything.  She's got what she played
for--she's--"

His voice rose in a sudden yell.

"Leave her name alone!  Don't you take her name in your mouth again or
I'll silence you for evermore!"

"I'm not afraid," she answered.  "I'm doing what God Almighty drives me
to do.  If I fail, I fail.  I knew 'twas life or death.  You can silence
me when you please and how you please.  And the sooner the better; for
if you're going to hate me, I'd want to die as quick as you can put me
out of the way."

"Go on," he said quietly.  "I'm sorry I roared. You needn't fear me.
Say what you want to say. Explain just what you think you know."

"I've said it.  O' Sunday night, when I came back from Ditsworthy, I
spoke out to her.  I couldn't hold it in no more.  'Twas poisoning me
heart and soul.  I was going to tell you, but there came the boys and
father's sickness held my tongue.  Then I met her--your wife with that
man--Crocker--and he kissed her--God's my judge if I don't tell you
truth.  And that night I spoke to her and told her all I knew and all
I'd seen.  I'd watched them many a time--spied if you like--but only for
you--only for your honour's sake.  And I taxed her with it--with being
untrue to you."

He put up his hand and she was silent.  He struggled to master himself
and succeeded for one moment more.

"And what did she answer?"

"She denied it, but--"

"And Christ will deny you, you wretch!" he thundered out.  "All's
clear--all's clear now!  You thought to damn her; but you've damned
yourself--damned your own soul through the blazing eternity of hell!"

He leapt up and she faced him without flinching.

"I know what I know," she said.

"Then know a little more than you know!"

He seized her by the wrist and dragged her into the adjoining room.  It
was dark.  Only blankets that covered the dead made a streak of pallid
light in the gloom.

"With Crocker--eh?  Happy--eh?  Go there!  Get on your knees,
murderess--look under that blanket and then ax yourself whether your
carcase be fit to feed dogs!"

She realised in a moment the thing that had happened. She moved the
blanket; she touched; she recoiled; but she made no sound.

"Your work--your filthy, lewd work, to drive that angel of goodness to
make an end of herself.  She couldn't breathe the same air with you no
more. Murder, I say, if ever murder was.  You--you--to think that
you--behind my back--in my home--  You thrust her in the water--you held
her down under it! Get out of my sight to hell--hide yourself--call the
hills to cover you afore the decent world finds what you are and tears
the flesh off your bones!"

He flung himself on the dust of his wife, and Rhoda went out of the
room.




                              *CHAPTER XV*

                           *NIGHT TENEBRIOUS*


Aimless, almost mindless, Rhoda Bowden dragged herself away from the
valley under Black Tor. She knew not where to turn.  But there awakened
no desire to escape from the tyranny of existence; she suffered rather
from a mental palsy that blocked and barred every channel of thought or
outlook on action.

She moved through the night-hidden valley of Meavy, and found herself
presently at Sheepstor village.  The place slept and she drifted among
the darkened cottages, forgetting all else but the problems that now
cried vainly to be solved before the coming of another day. By instinct
her weary body obeyed the call of least resistance, and she sank down
the hill instead of climbing upward.  Mechanically she descended, as
water seeks its own level, and by a footpath presently reached the
bottom of the valley and stood at Marchant's bridge, a mile under
Ringmoor Down.  Across that wilderness lay her nearest way home; and now
it seemed to her, as she became conscious again of her vicinity and
physical condition, that her goal must indeed be Ditsworthy. She was far
spent and the time now approached midnight.

The hour was dark, mild, very still under a clouded moon; and for a
moment, thinking upon the length of the way, Rhoda doubted her strength
to reach the warrens.  She drank of the river and bathed her face. Then
she began the long climb upward to the Moor. Where her path left the
main road and ascended easterly, through furze-brakes beside a wood, a
tall grey shape, full eight feet high, stood silent by the way.  It was
Marchant's Cross that appeared there on her right hand underneath an ash
tree; and the monument's high, squat shoulders and dim suggestion of
alert and watchful humanity startled her.  Then she remembered what it
was, and climbed on.

At the edge of the woods reigned sleep universal, and not one of the
common voices of night broke in upon it.  The firs had ceased for a
moment their eternal whisper; the bare boughs of oak and larch were
still. The hour was breathless and so silent that the world seemed dead
rather than asleep.  Once only a small creature hurried from Rhoda's
path and rustled in the leaves beside her; but for the rest no cry of
night bird, no bay of hound, no whinny of roaming horse broke the great
peace.  Only the river lifted its voice like a sigh in the dimness, but
other murmur there was none. Diffused light scarcely defined a way amid
the black hillocks of the gorse.  Earth under these conditions quite
changed its contours and withheld its tones.  Such colour as persisted
was transformed and only the palest things--tree trunks and boulders
streaked and splashed with quartz--still stood forth in the vague blur
of darkness.  Such obscurity and obliteration, with its hint of unseen
dangers and obvious doubts, had been sinister, if not terrific, to many
women; night's black hand upon the extinguished world had driven most
feminine spirits even from grievous thoughts to present dread; but for
Rhoda darkness was only less familiar than noonday.  There existed
nothing in this immanent concealment to distract her torments, and all
the formless earth was distinct, clear, explicit as contrasted with the
chaos of her soul.

Upon Ringmoor she came at last, and there some faint breath of air
seemed to be stirring by contrast with the stagnation beneath.  It
touched her forehead and she sucked it in thirstily.  Here the mighty
spaces of the waste were faintly lighted within a little radius of the
wanderer, but beyond, the naked earth rolled away into utter darkness at
every side.  The sky, while luminous in contrast with the world beneath
it, was entirely overcast.  A complete and featureless cloud, without
rift or rent to break its midnight monotony, spread upon the firmament.
Even the place of the moon might not be perceived.  Below, Ringmoor
soaked up the illumination to almost total extinction; above, the
sombrous air hung heavy and clear, permeated evenly by lustre of the
hidden moon.  Only at the horizon might one perceive the immense
difference between the light of earth and sky, and the large
illumination spread by the one and swallowed by the other.

Ringmoor's black bosom opened for Rhoda, then shut behind her and
engulfed her.  Along the path, from darkness into darkness, she
proceeded and bore her weight of agony through the insensible waste, as
a raindrop passes over a leaf and leaves no sign.  Futile shadow of a
shade, she crept across the darkness and vanished beneath it; broken
with the greatest suffering her spirit was built to bear, she put forth
upon the void and tottered forward to the shuffle of her footsteps and
the muffled drumming of her own pulse.

She rested presently where a great stone thrust up out of night beside
her way.  She knew it for a friend and sank upon it now, and put her
forehead against it.  Here reigned such a peace as only the deaf and the
desert sentinel can know--a peace beyond all experience of gregarious
man---a peace impossible within any hand-wrought dwelling but the grave.
There was no wind to strike sound from dry heath, or rush, or solitary
stone; no water flowed near enough to send its voices hither; no rain
fell to utter its whisper on earth. The silence was consummate.

Light had long since been extinguished in the few dwellings visible from
Ringmoor.  Trowlesworthy and Brisworthy and Ditsworthy--all were dim.
No ray penetrated the sky or glowed upon the land; and night's self now
began to darken, as the moon sank to her setting.

And then from afar, out of the gloom of the south, a distant beacon
flashed even to this uplifted solitude; and a beam that blinked for the
ships now reached one life-foundered creature, where she sat in a
silence as deep, in a loneliness as vast, as the silence and the
loneliness of the sea.  The light was familiar to Rhoda; through
wanderings and vigils in high places she had seen it many times; and she
knew that it spoke of danger to the vessels and guarded them upon their
ways.

Time rolled on; the earth rolled on; only this conscious fragment of
life stranded here between time and earth lay still, chained down with
her load of grief and horror.  Long she remained, until there stole over
Ringmoor the unspeakable stupor and lifelessness of the hour before
dawn.  Now even creatures of night had made an end of their labours and
were sleeping in holt or den; and through this trance and absolute
desistance, the woman's soul still battled with its burdens and cried
out to her oblivious environment.

She walked onward again and forced herself and her pangs upon the
earth's suspended animation.  She outraged inert Ringmoor by thus moving
and suffering within its bosom, when the rule of the time was cessation
and dreamless peace.  She rolled unsteadily in her going, where all else
was stable and motionless; she throbbed in her body and in her soul,
where all else was unconscious; her dust endured the tortures of hunger
and profound physical exhaustion, where nearly all other living things
were filled and sleeping; her mind rose, racked to a new and higher
anguish at the thought of the future, where all else was mindless and
without care or grief.  She considered what must follow the rising of
another sun, and she longed that she might wander and suffer here,
through a moonless night, for evermore.

Again she sank to earth for a space, and again she rose and breasted the
last <DW72> which separated her from her home.  Then another life made
vocal utterance and complaint of fate.  A dog-fox barked out of
darkness, and the lonely ululation struck very loud upon the silence.
To the fellow-being who heard him, his forlorn protest spoke of a
creature to be envied; for he was only hungry and time would ease his
want.

Among the burrows of the warren she threaded her way until, black
against the night, towered Ditsworthy. And she opened the outer gate,
reached the door, struck upon it and cried two words.  Mournful they
rose, and deep, and heavy with the weight of her torments.

"Father!  Mother!"

They came down to her out of broken sleep.  They found her collapsed and
carried her in and roused the smouldering peat upon the hearth.  Then to
their questions as they crowded round her--men, women, boys, candle-lit,
grotesque, hastily robed from bed--she answered slowly--

"Margaret is drowned--driven to it by me--and David have cast me out."




                                THE END




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