The Project Gutenberg eBook ofChildren of menThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Children of menAuthor: Eden PhillpottsRelease date: October 23, 2023 [eBook #71941]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1923Credits: Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF MEN ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Children of menAuthor: Eden PhillpottsRelease date: October 23, 2023 [eBook #71941]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1923Credits: Al Haines
Title: Children of men
Author: Eden Phillpotts
Author: Eden Phillpotts
Release date: October 23, 2023 [eBook #71941]
Language: English
Original publication: London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1923
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHILDREN OF MEN ***
BY
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
AUTHOR OF "EUDOCIA," "BRUNEL'S TOWER," ETC.
LONDONWILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD.
First Published, 1923
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WOODS & SONS, LTD., LONDON W.1.
FOREWORD
The egotism of a personal note may, for once, be permitted to me, since an enterprise, launched some thirty years ago in 'Children of the Mist,' now reaches its port of destination with the present story. When 'Widecombe Fair' was written, that book appeared the end of the matter; but fresh challenges from life on the Dartmoors, and renewed strength to meet them, enabled me to add certain passages to the total and render the design orbicular and complete. With 'Children of Men' it is accomplished and the purpose may be related in brief words.
Without learning, or bias, or convictions to determine my trend, I have said 'Yes' to life as it unfolded in this small theatre. Mine was neither a great nor a subtle vision, but unvitiated within its limitations.
Given faith that conscious Will is at the helm of human affairs, then a definite attitude must result before the spectacle of humanity; but if the mind be built to accept only unconscious Law as controller, the outlook differs and a resolute trust may develop in man, as ultimate arbiter of his own destiny. Neither assumption can be proved, or disproved; but the relation of a controlling, guiding Spirit to the Universe lies open to doubt; its subjection to Law does not; and building upon this latter certainty, I discovered, in the evolution of the moral principle, full cause for trust and for hope.
Observation has convinced me that moral evolution is upward, despite massive, contemporary evidence to the contrary. For the War and the peace alike I recognise as a transient paralysis of human reason, not its negation. The War was an attack of familiar maladies for which man's own errors of ignorance were to be condemned, not the laws of his being; but it was an unutterable infamy and disgrace to him, for this reason, that it proves him to be lagging behind the time-table of moral evolution. Ere now he should have outgrown his present stature, and the causes of his tardy progress, his centuries of loitering in the desert, are as plain as pitiful. An impartial ethics can point to where his faith took the wrong turn; but progress in righteousness is only delayed; I have seen dawn upon the mountain tops too often not to trust that it will presently descend into the shadowed homes and sleeping hearts of men.
Fortified by this opinion—the only opinion I ever clung to—my instinct turned from the way of least resistance on easy and level lands and strove to climb, to sacrifice without regret the highest, best, most hopeful, as life itself actually does. Thus only is the vitality of the creator proved in his creation and tragedy achieved, which, according to the measure of an artist's endowment, is clean, cathartic, inspiring and obedient to the laws and realities of things as they are. Irrationalism chokes under this atmosphere: only the humanist can breathe it.
But the world grows braver, for we have seen great artists open its eyes and blow the breath of honesty and truth into its lungs; we have seen the sentimental vapours of the past dispelled in the freedom that art now attains; we have seen the artist pitiless, that his audience may learn the meaning of pity; ugly, that others may find wherein true beauty lies.
By the kindness of Messrs. Heinemann and The Macmillan Company full titles of my Dartmoor cycle are recorded on another page; and it is a source of deepest gratification to know that in the future, when conditions of production admit it, they design for me a definitive edition. His publishers can pay no author a greater compliment than that, and I take this opportunity to thank them for the highest distinction my work has ever brought.
As a man's footsteps in the dew of the morning are the labours of the minor artist; but if he challenge surer feet and greater strength to pursue his quest before the dews are dried and his passing forgotten, then he also has played a part. The masters flash lightning through our clouds of human passion, ignorance and error, or hang rainbows of promise upon their gloom; but for us of the rank and file, it is enough that we make happy such as have only heard of happiness and waken the dayspring of courage in fearful hearts; it is enough if we kindle one valley mist with a gleam of beauty, or pour some few, pure drops of hope into the thirsty and percipient soul.
E. P.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER
I.BetrothalII.On Ugborough BeaconIII.The Rescue
BOOK I
I.JeremyII.At Red HouseIII.Barton Gill Under NoticeIV.On Shipley BridgeV.The ChildrenVI.Huntingdon WarrenVII.SundayVIII.The RevelIX.The GiftX.After the HolidayXI.The Offer of OwleyXII.On the HillXIII.The OrangesXIV.End of a Home
BOOK II.
I.ChorusII.VerdictIII.UtilityIV.Auna TriesV.RevengeVI.The Witch DoctorVII.At Jacob's BedsideVIII.Jeremy EvasiveIX.Jacob Comes HomeX.FlightXI.After the WeddingXII.A Problem for AunaXIII.At the Barbican
BOOK III.
I.'Mother's Stone'II.Driving in the PoniesIII.The Pilgrim FathersIV.Evening StarV.The Autumn WindVI.The ChildrenVII.William's BirthdayVIII.JeremyIX.ExodusX.FeverXI.Jacob LivesXII.The ChristeningXIII.The Promise
CHILDREN OF MEN
On a day in high summer the valley was full of light, and Auna River, her moorland journey ended, bowed under a plantation of pine and fir, then sparkled forth, to learn what welcome awaited her in the lower lands. Above the stream, easterly, a green hill towered against the sky; stunted thorns broke the sweep of the eagle fern, grey rock clitters spread and cloud shadows drifted over all, to cool the brightness.
A wood massed beneath in the mouth of the vale, and from this dusky retreat there leapt the river, in a succession of planes broken at each little fall by an apron of granite. Here the ripples flashed with foam; here the blue of the sky was caught in the gliding surface between, where Auna's tresses twined soberly, and fern, heather, woodrush cast their reflections into her tremorous mirror.
Two stone shelves presently barred the waterway and, leaping one, the river made a circular sweep above the second and eddied in a little backwater. The later ledge was gentle and its steps sloped to three feet above the stream. It was fringed with herbage and flowers, and here Auna loitered, making shadows for fingerling trout to play in. Through the limpid crystal there shone agate and amber tones of rock and pebble beneath; and these warm colours were repeated in the tunic, breeches and gaiters of a girl who sat above the pool.
Round her thronged a dozen lesser lives, that wove a restless, ruddy pattern about her feet, in her lap and upon her shoulders. Girl and puppies completed the harmony and made a splash of rich, auburn light beside the river. The Irish terriers kept on the move about their kennel-maid and seemed to flow over her, as the stream flowed over the stones. They nuzzled her cheeks, licked her fingers, thrust their noses into the black hair coiled up under her cap. She was a slim, brown girl with grey eyes, that seemed large for her small features, and a pretty, yielding mouth. She was tall and of maidenly slimness; her little breasts moved under the light garments that she wore; she laughed and played with the puppies; but a deeper joy than they could give lighted her face.
"Leave me alone, my chicks!" she said, and pushed them away from her with both hands. They scattered, tugging and tumbling; then, while the girl tidied her hair and stilled her laughter, the puppies set up their infant barking; and she knew that somebody must be upon the by-road that ran parallel with the stream.
She rose, jumped over the narrow neck of the pool and joined the man who was coming up the valley. The puppies already swarmed round his heels.
"Could you get it?" she asked, and the man held up a large tin.
"Just in time," he answered. "They were starting off with the cream to Brent, but Mr. Winter spared me a pound."
"Are they settling in pretty clever?"
"Yes; they're getting straight."
Jacob Bullstone stood half a foot taller than the girl and was fifteen years older. Now a great thing had happened to him, and, at thirty-five, one whom his neighbours declared would remain a bachelor was in love with his kennel-maid and engaged to be married. He owned varied possessions and, thanks to an industrious and prosperous father, inherited some fortune. Two farms were his property in the lap of Ugborough Beacon, at the foothills of the moor a few miles from his home; while here, beside the river behind the pine wood, he dwelt with his widowed mother and pursued the business dearest to his own heart.
Bullstone bred a famous strain of red Irish terriers and sustained the reputation that his father had won before him. He was a man of good education, great energy and high principle, and he lived a narrow life. He had never roamed, but found his intelligence and spirit of enquiry satisfied in his native environment of moor and vale, comfortable state and interesting occupation. He did not guess that his outlook was limited, for he had been educated at a grammar school and thought himself to possess clearer wits than most of his neighbours. The fact, together with his prosperity, made him satisfied with his own accomplishments and wits. His old mother did nothing to modify his self-judgment; but none ever found the man unfriendly or puffed up, for he was of a kindly, generous disposition, did good things and held it no fault in another to differ from his opinions.
Love, however, opened Jacob's mind to a lack in himself that he had not suspected. He still felt timid and distrustful before the depths of ignorance revealed by his new emotions.
In person Jacob Bullstone was large and heavily modelled, with broad shoulders and a clean-cut, swarthy face. His eyes were dark brown and of a sulky cast in repose, but the expression belied him. He had a low, wide forehead, a square jaw and heavy chin. He shaved clean and his mouth was large and well shaped. He kept his black hair so short that the lines of his skull were clearly seen. It sloped rather steeply backward from the brow and bulged a little above his small ears.
He was hatless and clad in tawny tweeds with black leggings and a dirty, red waistcoat. He walked with a long stride, that he was now taming to go with Margery Huxam's footsteps, and for adornment he wore his father's gold signet-ring on the little finger of his left hand and the silver mask of a fox in his green tie.
The lovers proceeded together deep in their own concerns, for they had been betrothed a week; the startling news was known at Margery's home in Brent, four miles away down the valley, and to-day her parents and her brother were coming to the kennels, that they might dine with Mr. Bullstone and his mother.
The cream from Shipley Farm was for them.
Margery Huxam had turned kennel-maid for love of the life and not because any reason existed that she should earn her own living. Barlow Huxam, her father, kept the post-office at Brent as an addition to his own prosperous drapery establishment. He had but two children living, and Margery, who adored dogs and understood them, came to Red House, Jacob Bullstone's home, that she might fill the vacancy until he should be suited with a new assistant.
The families were long acquainted and Mr. Huxam, little dreaming that such a great matter would spring from the incident, raised no objection to his daughter's wish.
She came for a fortnight in friendship, but liked the work so well that she presently proposed to stop on at a salary; and since she had proved herself skilled and had won the affection of old Mrs. Bullstone and Jacob's head kennel-man, he was glad to secure her.
Her parents, however, protested and, after six months, began to agitate for the return of their only daughter; but when Judith Huxam demanded that Margery should come home again, the dog-breeder had discovered that his future happiness depended upon her.
Their courting, at first almost unconscious, proceeded quickly towards the finish, for man and woman were of a mind, and though a gap of fifteen years separated them and made Bullstone fearful when he found the truth, circumstances combined to diminish this disparity, for the girl had been bred in a puritanical home under a strenuous mother, who regarded happiness at best as doubtful. Margery's experience of young men was exceedingly limited and, to her, Jacob's sobriety, steadfast outlook and fixed opinions were more attractive than the happy-go-lucky attitude of her own generation. She loved him very heartily before he had given a gleam that he also was in love; but her emotion had been of a gentle pattern and thrust away with secret blushes as something near akin to wickedness. She felt a gulf was fixed between such an important, well-to-do man and her young self. Indeed she did not even suffer, but rather laughed at herself for her moonshiney dreams. Then came the evidence from the other side and she was overwhelmed to find her power over one regarded as unyielding before women. He approached her with humility, declared genuine pride and satisfaction on the discovery of her love, rejoiced to learn that he seemed not too old to her and instantly acquainted her parents with the fact that she had consented to wed him.
Barlow Huxam declared gratification, but his wife was not so well pleased.
The match, while in every respect a brilliant one and beyond what they might have hoped for Margery, found her mother in some doubt. She suspected that fifteen years was too great a difference of age; and she professed uncertainty concerning the past life of a bachelor of thirty-five. She did not know anything against Bullstone, or his parents before him; she could not name the quality of her suspicions, yet she questioned Margery very closely and warned her of the step that she designed. But no permanent cloud appeared and Jacob conducted himself in a manner to disarm Mrs. Huxam; for his views of matrimony satisfied her and he proposed a settlement that could only be regarded as generous. In this matter, however, Barlow Huxam was not behind his future son-in-law.
Twice on Sundays the lover brought Margery to her family, and twice he worshipped with them at their tabernacle. His behaviour was agreeable to Mrs. Huxam and her doubts finally dwindled.
To-day, while Margery and Jacob walked side by side towards Red House, nestling under a shoulder of the hill behind the pine woods, the girl's parents and her brother were already upon their way, tramping through shady lanes upward through the valley to Shipley Bridge.
"I'd best change into a petticoat before they come," said Margery. "Mother little likes my breeches, and thanks God I shan't wear 'em much longer."
"I feel the same," said the man. "You know I'm at you to doff them once for all."
"I love 'em," she declared. "I'll miss them cruel. You courted me while I was in 'em, and I shall put them on now and again—for luck. Petticoats slow your going and be tame after breeches."
"'T was never heard that man and wife both wore 'em," he said.
They passed through the woods with the puppies galloping round about, and then they came to the stone-built home of the Bullstones—a granite house under red tiles, which covered the upper storey of the walls also. It basked under the hot sun in a hollow notch of Black Tor, while the river ran at its feet and a grass lawn spread before the windows. Above, on the hillside, were scooped terraces where grew cabbage and turnip, and beyond sprang the trees to the hill crest westerly. Laurel and rhododendron made the slope snug; the kennels extended behind the house, while Bullstone's property spread to the other side of the river also and there an acre or two had been cleared, where potatoes grew in the rich alluvial. Fowls and ducks flourished at stream side and the link between Red House and the outlying cultivation was a bridge of pine logs thrown across Auna, where her banks rose high.
Everything about the place was neat, trim and stern. The hedges were clipt, the ground clean; for Jacob Bullstone's mother was an old-fashioned woman and had lived with a husband inspired by the same ideas.
"The highest beauty be tidiness," Mrs. Bullstone never wearied of declaring, and her son was content to echo that opinion. His home and its surroundings proclaimed the distinction of use, but none other. There were no flower beds, no attempt to decorate house, garden, or river. Indeed Auna was chastened by stone-built banks, until she passed southerly away to the rocks and rapids and the deep mossy pools, where Red House ducks and geese spent their pleasantest hours. Nature strove with man, but man conquered for a little space.
Mrs. Bullstone was at the door and repeated her son's directions, as she took the cream from him.
"Get up to your chamber and doff them clothes, Margery. I well know your mother don't hold with 'em and I hope you won't wear 'em no more."
"I'm kennel-maid a little longer, mother," replied the girl. Then she entered and Jacob conducted the puppies to their quarters. Behind the house was a large exercise yard, with open compartments wired off round about it, a boiler house for the preparation of food, and various buildings on two sides of the square. The red mothers of the puppies welcomed them back and the little things knew their parents. Separated dogs barked to Jacob from enclosures and pressed their noses through the bars; but all were of the same breed and to an untrained eye exactly resembled each other. Jacob accosted a few, then turned to a man who was mixing food.
"The goats are gone up Shipley Tor," he said. For goats were a feature of the establishment. A little flock was kept, since goats' milk in Bullstone's opinion was the primest food for new born dogs.
Barton Gill, though bald and wrinkled, was not so old as he looked. As a lad he had worked for Jacob's father and was now little more than fifty, though he appeared to be nearer seventy. He was slow of voice and gesture, but still was strong and hearty behind his wrinkles and somewhat pessimistic view of life.
"They goats be the bane of my days," he said, "and a time's coming when I shan't be able to keep pace with the toads."
Jacob laughed shortly.
"Must be grizzling—and you only in your full manhood, as we all know."
A mile away walked slowly Barlow Huxam and his wife, while Jeremy, their son, a lad of fifteen, loitered behind them, to play and fling stones; but he kept his parents in sight. Mr. Huxam, a solid fair man of five and forty, mopped his brow and declared that he must rest and grow cooler before proceeding.
"We ought to have hired Mr. Catt's little chaise as I ordained to do," he said. "'Tis drouthy weather and a thunder-storm promising for certain."
His wife, however, did not agree with him.
"You don't take enough foot exercise, Barlow. If you was to walk more, it wouldn't pour out of you same as it does. There's no thunder in the air, else my head would know it. We'll rest by the bridge since we're a thought before time."
Judith Huxam—a daughter of the prosperous race of the Pulleyblanks—-was the same age as her husband. A dark-haired, neat woman was she, who put folk in mind of a bantam hen. Always trim, alert and self-possessed, character marked her face, voice and opinions. She was pious, with the piety of a generation now vanishing away, and also very proud; but she had the instinct to hide much of herself from the world, being seldom in her neighbour's houses and restrained in the matter of criticism. She was stern and never forgot a wrong; but she accepted everything that happened, because she held it her duty to do so. She ruled her husband and her children as a matter of course, and Mr. Huxam pretended greater enthusiasm for her bleak religion and opinions than he felt; but he entertained the keenest admiration for her and, if he ever differed from her conclusions, it was only in his mind. He never crossed Judith, but supported her rule in the home, as he had long since fallen in with her conduct of the shop. Her face was strong and her natural expression attractive, for she had a frank gaze and regular features. But her grey eyes were hard, and while a pleasant, receptive expression marked her features, her lips were set closely together. She never laughed and rarely smiled, save conventionally upon customers. She dressed in puritanical fashion and eschewed finery. Her dark brown hair was parted in the middle and curled up closely behind in a plain roll. She wore a small bonnet and always dressed in grey. Her voice was rather low pitched and of agreeable quality, but she spoke little save to the purpose. Indeed she distrusted volubility.
The drapery establishment reflected Judith, and young people rarely patronised it save for necessities. The maidens of Brent held that if you wanted clothes that wouldn't show, Huxam's might be sought; but for adornments, fripperies and "fal-lals," one must seek elsewhere.
At Shipley Bridge the road crossed the river half a mile below Red House; and here Mr. Huxam stopped, where, shaded by oak trees, there spread inviting herbage.
"We'll sit here on the spine grass for ten minutes while I cool down," he said.
He subsided, opened his waistcoat and dabbed his face, hands and neck with a white handkerchief, while Mrs. Huxam called her son, tidied him, made him dust his boots with a frond of fern and walk beside her for the rest of the way.
She looked at a gold watch on a thin gold chain, then paced to a gate a few yards distant and regarded the roof of a farm that rose under the flank of Shipley Tor.
"I wonder how Miss Winter and Adam and Samuel are settling in," she said. "A bit lonesome after Five Elms, and a poor place, so the last man always declared."
"The last man would have made a poor place of any place," answered her husband. "He was always clever at picking the eyes out of a farm and then leaving it for a better than himself to build up again. And so it will be here; but Winter's got it at a very low rent, and he's a worker and may do well. His zany brother's a mighty worker also. The Lord denied wits, but gave him a strong body."
Mrs. Huxam continued to regard the roof of Shipley Farm without speaking.
"He's a man who'll come to Sunday meeting no matter how long the way," declared Barlow Huxam hopefully.
"And his sister too. One of the Chosen her, if ever a woman was chose," answered his wife.
Then Jeremy raised a shout and ran over the bridge.
"Here's Margery!" he cried.
The kennel-maid had put on a blue skirt, a straw hat with a white ribbon and a plain white blouse. Mr. Huxam rose, while his daughter, having kissed her brother, now greeted her parents.
"You're hot, you dear," she said to Mr. Huxam; but he declared that he was now cool again.
They set out, Margery walking between her mother and father, Jeremy playing with an adult terrier who had accompanied her.
"I hope," said Mrs. Huxam, "that they've made no great meal on our account."
"They have then. We've got a sucking-pig!"
"A waste, and it ain't the weather for it anyway," declared Judith.
"It's always the weather for sucking-pig," said Mr. Huxam, "though seldom enough nowadays do any man let himself go in that direction. A dish for kings, and of such a tender substance that I've never known the day was too hot to enjoy it. But it asks for mastery in the kitchen. If I'd known, I'd have let Mrs. Bullstone have a recipe from my old mother's cookery book. Full of vanished wisdom that book."
"Fuller of vanished greediness," asserted his wife. "People thought more of their stomachs in them days; at least you Huxam people did. The Pulleyblanks——"
She stopped and called to Jeremy.
"Don't run no more—quiet down and walk along with me, boy."
Her eyes softened when they rested on her son.
A cool and refreshing shadow embraced them as they entered the pine wood; then their destination glinted red through the tree stems and Jacob Bullstone appeared to welcome them.
"Punctual to the stroke," he said.
"Them as keep a post-office don't fail there," declared Mr. Huxam. "And how's yourself, Jacob? Still of a mind?"
"So much of a mind that I don't want you people to be gone till Margery's named the day," answered the lover.
"Plenty of time for that," replied Margery's mother. "There's a lot to be thought upon."
Her eyes were everywhere. She had a trick to bend her head a little when she was observing, and now, herself unmarked, Judith took in a thousand incidents, regarded with approval the spotless purity of the place, its thrifty details of contrivance and the somewhat brusque and stark lines of the outlying ground and little grass-covered garden patch.
She had never been here before, but Red House was familiar to her husband.
Mrs. Bullstone appeared at the door and in five minutes the party sat at dinner. The parlour was a plain room with a solid table, solid chairs and a solid and enormous sideboard bright with cups and trophies won by Bullstone terriers. A few dog portraits hung upon the walls, and the empty grate was heaped with red pine cones. Jacob sat at the head of the table and his mother at the foot, while Margery and her father were on Bullstone's left, Mrs. Huxam and Jeremy upon the right.
The master devoted himself to his future mother-in-law.
"Margery favours you, ma'am," he said, "and Master Jeremy's like his father."
Judith considered the suggestion.
"I wouldn't say that altogether," she answered. "My children's more Huxam than Pulleyblank; but Thomas, my eldest boy—who died so brave doing his duty two years ago—he was very like me."
"The daps of his mother was our dear Thomas," added Barlow. Then he sighed.
"Thomas was all Pulleyblank, same as I am," continued Mrs. Huxam. "A good young man."
"A sad loss for you," said Mrs. Bullstone.
"No; don't think that. I'm not one of those who say, 'What Thou doest we know not now.' That's too grudging to the Lord. I know where Thomas went, and faith is but an idle word if it can't help you to face the Divine Will. When God sends for a young man, his mother ought to be gay and proud to let him go."
"No doubt, no doubt," murmured Mrs. Bullstone.
"Faith is a fine thing carried to such a pitch," admitted Jacob.
"Yes," assented Barlow Huxam, "but, all the same, when you think on the details of that fatal catastrophe, you feel bound to say, 'What Thou doest we know not now.' For look at it. What happened? Our Thomas sees a runaway hoss with a trap behind it, and a man and woman in the trap. And like the chap he was, without a thought of self, he goes for the creature's head. But he was carried off his legs in an instant moment, and though he stopped the hoss and saved the man and woman alive by so doing, the shaft struck him under the ribs and he lived but three hours afore he went to his reward. And who did he save? He saved Squire Blake's son and a scarlet woman he was driving to Plymouth; and Marsden Philip Blake was drunk as a lord at the time, else the badly used hoss wouldn't have run away."
"All true," said Judith quietly, "and to the common eye it will always be matter for wonder that Providence worked like that. But no wonder to me. Marsden Blake's not forgot. He was saved for a deep reason, and before we die, we shall know it."
"He was up here with the otter hounds last week," said Jacob Bullstone.
"Wait and watch," answered Mrs. Huxam. "Time will show why my Thomas was called to save that man. It won't be hid from this generation."
Barlow guided the conversation into cheerfuller channels and praised the sucking-pig; but he declined the decanter of brown sherry.
"All water drinkers," he said.
"Same here," answered Jacob. "I only bought it on your account."
Mr. Huxam regarded the wine without condemnation.
"Very good to go with such a rare dish," he admitted, "but my family were never much addicted to it, and Pulleyblanks were famous teetotallers always—though great on tea."
"I don't remember that we were great on tea," said Judith. "Who was great on tea, Barlow?"
Mr. Huxam never argued with his wife.
"I'm mistook then," he answered. "I had a fancy your grandmother doted on it, but no doubt I'm wrong."
"She liked the old herby tea made of marjoram," answered Mrs. Huxam.
"And a very pretty drink too," chimed in Jacob's mother. "I'm old enough to remember it, and I've often had a mind to store marjoram; but I dare say now it would seem very weak after proper China tea."
"My mother loves tea; and I'm all for cider," said Bullstone, "but Margery won't touch even that."
"And never will," promised Mrs. Huxam. "Cider's too often the thin end of the wedge. I've known it happen so. No young man stops at cider."
Judith was quite silent for a considerable time after this remark, and their talk ranged over various subjects.
Jacob felt not sanguine for his new neighbour.
"Adam Winter's making a mistake," he said, "and hardly a man that can afford to make another by all accounts. A very honest chap they tell me, but too trustful. No good ever come out of Shipley Farm—else I dare say I'd have bought it before now; but my father always warned me against it. I shall lend Winter a hand if it lies in my power, however."
After dinner Mrs. Bullstone led the way to her little drawing-room and she and Margery's mother spent half an hour together. It was an apartment seldom used and impregnated with that faint smell common to chambers not much occupied. The furniture was ugly and solid—a suite upholstered in Cambridge blue. Adornments of coloured glass occupied the mantelshelf, a case of gaudy stuffed birds stood on a bracket, and another of waxen fruits filled the midst of a round and highly polished walnut table in the centre of the room. A few books were disposed round the central decoration, and upon a little "what-not" reposed tropical shells. Elsewhere, as the chief feature of a sideboard with a looking-glass back, a large and heavy book with gilt edges reposed upon a red wool mat, while a smaller book lay upon the big one.
Mrs. Huxam observed these two books and her eyes narrowed; but she said nothing.
They chatted concerning their betrothed children, and each implicitly indicated that the other mother might consider herself fortunate. Then, apparently conscious that this attitude was exhausted, Jacob's parent began to praise Margery and declared her to be a good and attractive girl, well suited by her nature to her future husband and by her nurture to the varied duties and obligations of married life.
Judith listened, but it was characteristic of her that when others echoed her opinion, she generally began to modify it, and now, even in the matter of her daughter, she put a period to the elder's praises.
"We mustn't be blind, however," she said. "I think with you that there's great virtues in Margery, and I've watched her grow up and done my best to build her character; but she's not perfect: there's a full share of Huxam. The Huxam qualities are there—good as well as bad. And the good you've noted very clever, and I hope the bad won't have any chance to display themselves. Yet that's a vain hope, too, because the Tempter always takes very good care that life shall strike at the roots of our weakness sooner or later, and touch the danger spots."
"And what might they be, Mrs. Huxam?"
"A tendency to take the line of least resistance. We're all prone to take it, but I hope your son doesn't. In my experience I find that nine times out of ten, when two courses of action offer, nature, which is our weakness, points one way; and religion, which is our strength, points another. And religion's way is almost certain to be the unpleasant one—so certain, in fact, that you may lay it down as a rule the right way is always the one you shrink from."
"Well, I much hope they won't have no difficult and painful puzzles to solve like that," said Mrs. Bullstone. "At any rate at first. If they get used to each other and face life in love and understanding, then troubles, when they come, will no doubt be met in a large, Christian spirit by both, with love to lessen 'em. But I don't fear. There was only one sort of woman I wouldn't much have liked for Jacob, and that's the light-minded sort—not the bad sort, but just the light-minded, pleasure-seeking kind of woman, who can't see that marriage is a serious subject, but flits after amusement where she may, and takes the whole solemn business of life and death as though it didn't matter to her, no more than it does to a butterfly without a soul to save."
"There are plenty such, I grant," said Judith; "and the men that hanker after that empty sort deserve what they get."
"Lord knows what anybody deserves," confessed Mrs. Bullstone. "The older you grow, the doubtfuller you be bound to get about rewards and punishments, for whatever bounds the young break nowadays, they must keep inside their characters; and to punish for wickedness they can't help be, in honesty, no fairer than to reward for goodness that comes natural. However, I know you won't see with me there, because, in your Persuasion, your text is 'Many be called, but few chosen.'"
"And don't life show the text to be true?" asked Mrs. Huxam. "Don't we see the many fail and the few succeed?"
"Leave that. I'm talking of Jacob and saying how glad I am that he never cared for the wenches who put their pleasure first. My son has had nothing to do with women, and you may say, till your Margery won his heart with her beauty and simple, fine nature and, of course, her worship of the dog kind—for dogs draw folk together in a way no other beasts can—till then, Jacob's been heart-whole and come to thirty-five without knowing the meaning of love. So it's all poured out for Margery; and that's why I'm telling you I feel it a great blessing she's one of the self-contained, sober sort—not a gadabout or hungry for admiration. For if she had been, my son wouldn't have liked it. His admiration she'll get and keep for ever; but, if I know anything, I should say he might be a jealous man and greedy as the grave in that direction."
"I don't quarrel with that," answered Margery's mother. "Jealousy—so to call it—ought to be there in reason. But no sane woman seeks to provoke it. He'll have no cause for that, and I hope my daughter won't neither."
They talked amicably and found themselves in agreement, allowing for the difference of their outlook and convictions. Judith perceived that Mrs. Bullstone was honestly and deeply attached to her daughter, and her study of Jacob led her to hope that he might furnish the strength and force of character she held Margery to lack. Yet, within this hour, a thing had much disquieted her. It was not very great in itself, but argued faults in a vital direction—so Judith feared.
The men called them out, and together all visited the kennels and listened to Jacob expatiate on the subject of his Irish terriers. Neither Barlow nor his wife liked dogs, but they were patient under the ordeal.
Presently they walked beside the river and, after an early tea, the Huxams started to return home. Mr. Bullstone offered to drive them, but Mrs. Huxam declined and held the exercise would do her husband good. Margery and Jacob accompanied them as far as Shipley Bridge; then they parted, and while the lovers loitered by the river, Margery's family proceeded homeward.
Judith preserved silence and her husband respected it. She had not spoken so much for a long time. They walked through the gracious evening light now roseal on the fields and hedges. The slow miles passed and still Mrs. Huxam spoke not.
Then Barlow lifted his voice as Brent appeared beneath them, stretched like a grey cobweb on the green vale.
"All gone off very nice and pleasant—eh? You've seen and heard nought that wasn't convenient, Judy?"
"I've heard nothing, allowing for the difference between our clear sight and the cloudy view of other Christians," she answered. "Nothing I've heard, but something I've seen that was very ill-convenient indeed, and I'm sorry I did see it."
"Dear me—I'm sorry, too, then," answered he. "Nothing as can't be righted, I hope?"
"The thing can be righted," she answered, "and for that matter I did right it with my own hand; but the fault that committed the thing goes far deeper. It was in the parlour, where I sat with Mrs. Bullstone. And a very nice room too. And on a shelf lay the family Bible and upon it somebody had set another book!"
"Dear, dear," replied Mr. Huxam, displaying more concern than, as a reasonable being, he felt. "That's bad! You never did ought to put any other printed word on a Bible, of course."
"It's hard to think of a live Christian doing so. But he'd laid down a dog book on God's Word; and it went through me like a knife."
"It would; it would," murmured Barlow.
"I took it off before the man's mother. I said no word, but just took it off and put it aside and looked at her. She didn't seem to understand. I'll tell Margery on Sunday."
"More thoughtlessness than wickedness, I'm sure," ventured Mr. Huxam; but she continued to take a serious view.
"A man of thirty-five has no excuse for thoughtlessness," she answered. "It was indifference, and that makes it a very serious thing."
Meantime Jacob and Margery wandered till the stars sent them homeward. They assured each other that all had gone very well, and the girl declared how she had never seen her mother so bright, cheerful, or talkative.
There came an August morning when Margery and Jacob made holiday and left Red House after breakfast to climb a famous hill some few miles distant.
Bullstone designed to visit his two farms, which extended their acres and lifted their homesteads upon the way; and they started, after an early breakfast, with two of the red terriers for company.
The road ran west and brought them through ferny lanes, that twined like a necklace beneath the border heights of the moor; while strung upon them at intervals stood farmhouses in coomb and hollow, where streams from aloft descended to the vale. Round each dwelling spread orchard and meadow and dark tilth; behind them heaved the grey hills, now brushed with the light of the ling.
Bullstone Farm, the ancient abode of Jacob's family, first appeared, and he spoke to his companion concerning the name.
"We were called Bullhornstone once," he said, "and on the old graves at Ugborough village you can see slates dating back far more than a hundred years under that name. But I suppose some busy forefather of mine found it was too much of a mouthful and dropped the 'horn.' And he dropped his luck at the same time. My grandfather, who died here, called himself 'Bullstone,' and there's a very good tomb to him and my grandmother at Ugborough that I'll show you some day. The family's nearly petered out. I am an only son; but I've got cousins in America—in Kentucky—heard from one not six months ago."
Margery was interested by one detail of this narrative.
"How did your forbear drop his luck?" she asked.
"Along of a wicked wife," he answered shortly. "No tale for your nice ears, yet a common enough thing for that matter. We're jealous folk, or was. He had a wife, and she had a lover, and Michael Bullstone caught them together and slew the pair of them. Then he gave himself up; but women were a bit lower in male value then than they are now, I reckon. The case was plain, but the jury—married men, no doubt—brought in Michael Bullstone not guilty. It put the fear of God into a good few wives I reckon. But the strange part of the tale is to tell. He was forty when he killed them—-forty and a childless man. But at fifty he married one of the Elvins, of the same family that are at Owley Farm now. Jemima Elvin he married, and he had three sons and one daughter by her. People said it was like the tale of Job—only in that case the Devil took everything from the man but his wife; and in Michael Bullstone's case, his bad wife was the only thing he lost, and that by his own act."
"'Tis beyond belief to me," said Margery, "that a woman can ever roam from the man she loves."
"Such good-for-noughts don't know the meaning of love," he answered; "and you'll find such dregs and trash of women generally end in the gutter, where they belong."
"Must be an awful thing if love dies," she said.
"Love doesn't die," he answered with ingenuous conviction. "The woman that can look on her husband with a cold heart never loved him. True love is what you and I know—built for a lifetime."
"At first I was so proud, when you told me you loved me, that I couldn't feel anything else but the pride. It seemed too wonderful a thing to have happened to such an everyday girl as me. But when it came home, then the secret love I'd hid for you burst out in a sort of triumphant worship, till I felt, even if I died that instant minute, I'd have had more happiness than any woman ever deserved."
He laughed at that.
"You're the old-fashioned sort, I reckon—content for man to be master," he replied. "Women don't think so much like that now seemingly. They want to run their own lives a bit more and be free; but they'll soon tire of that caper and find security is better than adventures. You'll be the crown of my house and my mother's right hand so long as she's spared; and I'll do the man's work and stand between you and every wind that blows if I can."
"And well I know it," she said.
At Bullstone, the farmhouse stood back from the lane at the summit of a steep hill, and everything was well ordered. The whitewashed front of the house shone in bright sunlight, only broken by the open windows, and a great climbing shrub of buddleia, whose purple tassels fell over the porch. The roof was of Delabole slate, and behind the farm, a rising copse straggled up to frontier ridges of Ugborough Beacon. Round about the farmyard stood buildings, mostly under corrugated iron, that glittered silver bright, and in the porch sat an old man shelling peas.
He saw Jacob and Margery enter the outer gate and came to welcome them.
"Well, Mr. Catt, and how d'you find yourself?" asked the landlord, shaking hands.
"Pretty peart, master; but seventy-five years is a middling load," answered the other, putting his hand to his ear. "And who's the young lady? They tell me——"
"I know what they tell you, Matthew; they tell you; I've gone the way of all flesh and fallen in love."
"So they do then; and this will be Mrs. Huxam's daughter."
He shook hands with Margery.
"A godly mother you've got, my dear, and a godly husband you'll have. Come in and take a sup."
Jacob Bullstone's eyes were about the place while he smiled on the old man.
"How's Mrs. Parsons?" he asked,
"Nicely. She was here a minute agone. Dogs I see. When was you known without a dog? I'll call her."
Mr. Catt, who farmed Bullstone with a widowed daughter to keep his house, brought them to the kitchen, and Margery praised the room. It was rosy-washed, of surprising cleanliness and bright with brass upon the mantel-shelf and copper on the walls. There hung two warming-pans of ancient pattern and, between them, an 'eight-day' clock.
"You're a thought slow," said Jacob; then came Milly Parsons.
"Wish you both good luck and good fortune," she said, shaking hands with them. "When's it going to be, master?"
"Next November, Milly; and I'm hopeful you and Mr. Catt will mind the day and come along as my guests."
She brightened.
"Thank you, I'm sure. A great compliment."
Milly was a thin, sallow woman with pale hair and a kindly, but anxious face. With her came a pretty little, fair girl of ten years old—her daughter. Milly raised her voice and talked to her father, who heard badly.
"Mr. Bullstone's inviting us to the wedding next November, my dear."
"If I'm here, I'll gladly come," said Matthew.
Mrs. Parsons fetched a seed cake, two plates and two glasses.
"I was just thinking of 'forenoons," she said. "Father likes a snack about now. He've been trying a cup of cocoa, and he catches a nice bit of heat from it. He's a cold, old man, because he can't travel much about nowadays. But laziness don't fatten him. I wish it would. This is my daughter, Jane."
Mr. Catt nodded and smiled, aware that they were speaking of him, but not hearing the words. Margery made friends with the child who was very shy.
"I've got an old coat lined with rabbit-skin and only a bit worn," said Jacob. "Too hot for me in the coldest weather. Would he take it amiss from an old friend?"
"Not him," answered Mrs. Parsons. "He'd be proud to wear a coat after you I'm sure."
"He shall have it, then, next time somebody's along for Red House."
"Your father was always his great hero," continued Mr. Catt's daughter. "He often runs back over the past now and always says the same thing. He says 'Ah—ah—there were giants in the land in them days, and George Bullstone was the best of 'em.'"
"I like to hear the old generation praise my father," answered Jacob. "And now we must be gone. We're holiday making I must tell you—going to eat our dinner on top of the Beacon."
"And why not? Not often you make holiday."
Mr. Catt accompanied them to the outer gate and, as they went on their way, Jacob praised Matthew.
"Done for now—just waiting for time to throw him; but a rare good farmer in his day, and he's got three understanding men, so Bullstone's all right. A lot of quiet wisdom in the old chap that he didn't get out of books. The Catts were as good as the Bullstones once—yeomanry people like us; but they went down and we held up."
"There's a lot of Catts at Brent. One's a job master, and father thinks very well of him," said Margery.
"I wish Joe Elvin at Owley had a bit of old Matthew's sense; but he's always under the weather—a complaining man. Married to a good woman, though a bit fanciful in her ideas. She was upper housemaid at Beggar's Manor, and you'll find women who have gone to service in big houses pick up a lot of notions—some useful and some useless."
"Father, when he was a boy, took the first telegram that ever came to Brent out to Beggar's Manor," said Margery.
"A funny name for an estate; but no beggars ever lived there in human memory I should reckon."
Their way fell sharply beside an orchard beyond Bullstone and descended into a valley, where through the green and tangled bottom ran Glaze Brook. The road crossed this little water by a bridge of one arch, where, through a thicket of over-grown laurel, hazel and alder, peered the grey ruin of Owley Mill. But now its wheel had vanished, its roof was gone and only shattered walls remained. Beside the bridge stood a tall pear tree—a ghost of a tree draped in grey lichens that fluttered like an old woman's hair from every branch. The venerable thing still lived; leaves struggled with the parasite; scattered blossoms starred the boughs in early spring and a few small fruits annually ripened.
"Still it stands—a hundred years old, they say, and may be more," declared Jacob. Then they breasted the hill beyond and presently reached Owley. The farm showed fewer marks of prosperity than Bullstone. Green mosses throve on its ancient thatch, and the man who here pursued his life was not much disposed to tidiness.
"Who'd think that this was the richer place?" asked Jacob.
On one side of the way spread the farm, with fields round about; on the other stood Owley Cot, a pretty dwelling bowered in climbing roses with two great red firs springing beside it. Margery praised the cottage.
"I always think that the dinkiest little home I ever saw," she said. "But Mr. Elvin's mother ain't too contented for all that."
"Your home is nought if your heart's heavy," answered Jacob. "She knows that Joe is not particular happy, and he gets his cranky nature from her. Yet I'll be sorry if he's got to go."
"He pays his rent of course?"
"Oh, yes; but it drags a bit sometimes. He's had a good year, however; and his corn is above average as he admits himself, so it must be wonderful."
They entered, and Joe Elvin—a tall, thin man with a long nose, a black beard and a discontented face—himself answered Bullstone's knock.
They shook hands and Jacob explained that he had called on pleasure, not business.
The farmer welcomed them and took them into the kitchen, where his wife was making pastry, and two little boys played in a corner with the dried knuckle bones of sheep.
"Just want to introduce Mrs. Bullstone to be," said Jacob.
Mrs. Elvin, a handsome, big-built woman, showed pleasure and congratulated the lovers. Her little boys came and shook hands. They were a well-mannered, cheerful pair and resembled their mother.
"Going to make farmers of 'em I hope, Joe?" asked the owner of Owley; but Mr. Elvin was doubtful.
"Robert shapes for it," he answered. "But Jack is all for the sea."
"That's because he doesn't know anything about the sea," asserted Jacob. "You keep him on the land, Joe. There's little enough to be picked up off the sea, by all accounts."
The men strolled into the yard presently, for Elvin had a sick sheep-dog and Bullstone readily offered to see it.
"Just my luck if he's going to die," said Joe moodily. "Best ever I had, and sheep-dogs be so scarce you can't get a trained one over distemper for money."
"He's not going to die," declared Bullstone. "He's too thin—same as you are yourself."
He prescribed for the dog and Joe continued to grumble until Bullstone grew impatient.
"What the mischief's the matter with you? Always grizzling for nought. A man in fair health with a good wife, a good mother and two fine, healthy sons. What more d'you want?"
Joe laughed mirthlessly.
"It sounds all right to your ears I dare say. But if you looked underneath, perhaps you'd find a different story. Don't much matter how good people are if they ain't good to you? Nobody knows where the shoe pinches except the wearer, and you've no right to say I'm one of the lucky ones, because you don't know nothing about it."
"Don't meet trouble half-way, Joe, and keep your eye on the bright side."
"Time's past for silly sayings. Life's broke me and I know it; but why it's broke me, and how it's broke me, be my own business."
"Rubbish and stuff! Get some physic for your bad digestion and you'll soon feel hopefuller. It ain't life's broke you, but your own low-spirited outlook on life. Life don't break us. It's the canker inside spoils all when it works through. You can't help being a melancholy sort of man, I suppose. That's your nature. But you've got brains in your head and reasoning powers, and you ought to fight yourself and have it out, and balance your good against your bad; and look round with seeing eyes and count how many can't hold a candle to you for fortune."
"A canker inside is a very good figure of speech—a very clever thought," admitted Mr. Elvin. "And I'll tell you another thing: it's not much use for them as haven't got cankers to preach to them as have. Us ban't born with cankers most times. They grow, and I'm not grumbling against my lot in particular. I know there's many things might be worse. Only I've got in a state when I don't much like my fellow-creatures, and I don't like myself no more than the rest."
"A foolish thing to feel. We have our faults and our virtues also. You ought to see the faults in yourself and the virtues in other people. At your gait, you'll end by thinking life isn't worth while at all."
"I've thought that a powerful long time."
"Well, set about to make it worth while then—and if you can't make it worth while for yourself—then make it worth while for your wife and children. Do that, and you'll mighty soon find it worth while for yourself too."
"Sounds all right," admitted Joe. "You wise blades always do sound all right; but against a canker wise words be vain. A canker was a very true word, Jacob."
Bullstone preached a little longer, asked Joe to come and see him at Red House and shook his hand in friendly fashion when they parted.
He sighed, however, to Margery as they entered Ugborough Plain above Owley and began to climb the fern-clad bosom of the Beacon.
"There's a man Fate can't tempt to be sane," he said. "And if I were Fate and had the handling of him, I'd give over treating him fair and knock him about a bit. He's one of the sort that don't know he's born. He's asking for trouble, and his nature so poisons his mind and blinds his eyes that he can't see his blessings, but looks through and beyond into fancied woe that isn't there."
"Don't you know why?" she asked. "Old Mrs. Elvin will tell you. His father lost his wits and was put away."
Jacob reflected.
"I'd forgot that," he replied. "I'll mind it next time I have a word with him."
They ascended by a vast but gentle slope to Ugborough's crown of cairns, and presently sat at the summit, with the sun and wind in their faces and their backs against the stones.
Beneath them extended the mighty prospect of the South Hams, a mosaic of hamlet, forest and field, that seemed to be basking in the sun and stretching itself like a living thing. The varied colours of red tilth and pasture were washed in air, brought together and made harmonious. Earth rolled hugely out to the dim skyline of the sea, and westerly the Channel bit into the land, while easterly, Devon rose and swept the great waters out of sight behind her cliffs and ridges. Knap and knoll ascended to break the coverlet of the fields; here woods darkened the land and cloud shadows, vaster than they, hid a parish in their passing and swept over the sun-soaked expanses, to quicken the landscape with play of light and shadow.
"How tiny Brent looks from up here," laughed Margery; "just a grey smudge and no more. And Brent Hill, shrunk to no bigger than a slice of cake on end!"
"It's good to get a bird's view sometimes," said Jacob. "Steadies the mind and makes you see things their proper size compared to other things."
"But I was angry the first time I came up here, as a little one with a school treat," continued the girl. "Properly vexed I was, because it seemed all wrong somehow in my young eyes that the houses should be so small and the church and chapels no more than spots. And Marley Wood, that had always seemed to me the most wonderful place of mysteries on earth, was just a dark dab no bigger than a coal-scuttle, and the railway a thread, and the great thundering trains no bigger nor faster than caterpillars! It didn't seem right to have things turned upside down like that."
"I bet you were glad to go down among the familiar sights again and find they hadn't changed, Margery."
"But they had," she answered. "I couldn't forget. I tried—I tried hard, but children remember so. I hated the Beacon for days after that, and was always glad when his head was covered with clouds, so I couldn't see him. I thought he was a wicked monster that had gone and spoiled things I set store by, and showed me they were small and mean compared to him. But after to-day I'll forgive him."
Jacob felt mildly surprised at this unexpected glimpse into his sweetheart's mind.
"Who'd have thought a chit of a child could get such fancies," he said; "but I dare say girls are different from boys and dream all manner of funny things like that."
"Don't boys dream too?" she asked.
"Maybe some do. I never did. All the same I like to hear about your dreaming. Pretty I call it."
"No, you don't, Jacob. You'd call it silly in anybody but me. But so it was. I made up things and told 'em to other children. And I tried telling 'em to my brother, Thomas, who was some years younger than me. He had a great contempt for girls, however. He was just short of seventeen when he died, poor little chap."
"Took after your mother, she says."
"Yes, terrible serious, and that good! Goodness was his nature. Jeremy's more like me."
"Your mother's a thought stern."
Margery nodded.
"Brings religion into everything," she answered. "A wonderful mother she's been. You mustn't mind my seeing a lot of her after we're married, Jacob. The little that's good in me I owe to her."
"You're frightened of her?"
Margery considered this.
"I was—we all were. A sort of love we'd got that didn't cast out fear exactly. But I'm not frightened of her now. I trust her so in every thing. Where there's perfect trust, there didn't ought to be fear."
"I feel a very great respect of her, but she's hard," declared Jacob.
"I suppose she is to you," admitted Margery, "and I'll tell you why she seems so. 'Tis her great goodness and high religion. Very few can rise to it; and to everyday people mother does seem hard; but it's only because most are soft. There's a bit of jealousy also. Because even good people know they can't be as good as she is all round."
Jacob differed and held Mrs. Huxam to be narrow and self-righteous; but he did not say so.
"Don't you fear I shall quarrel with her," he said. "She's the mother of my wife to be, and I'll be a very good son to her if she lets me alone."
"She lets everybody alone when she can't help them," answered Margery. "She pours her whole thoughts and all her time into religion and the shop. It was a grief to her that I didn't go into the shop; and, looking back, I always wonder how I didn't; but I was such a one for out of doors, and father supported me, and doctor told her I'd be a stronger girl if I lived in the air. Till I was fifteen I was a poor, pinnikin thing."
"Never!"
"I was then—you look at my first photograph, took with Thomas and Jeremy. But now I'm—so strong as a pony."
They ate their meal and Margery did most of the talking, while Jacob, his hunger satisfied, lolled and smoked and listened to her.
Presently they set their faces northward and tramped Ugborough Moor, their goal, Three Barrows, towering ahead among lesser hills. Jacob dearly loved the Moor and discoursed upon it for his sweetheart's benefit.
"They are cairns, not barrows," he explained, when they stood on the great hill; but Margery was occupied with her old thoughts.
"Now even Ugborough looks small," she declared, gazing down whence they had come. "He's not everybody, after all!"
The feminine view amused Jacob and he declared the unimportance of size.
"It's not the greatness of a thing in bulk; it's the goodness and fineness in quality that matters," he told her. "Now we're lifted up between two rivers. Down there runs the Ernie and away beyond Zeal Plains lie the famous 'rings' and your beloved Auna."
They talked of the 'old men' who had built the ruined pounds, alignments and hut circles.
"Were they half apes, or creatures much like ourselves?" asked Margery. "Father says they were less than us, and mother doubts if they had souls at all. But mother says there can't be much hope for any before Jesus Christ came, whatever they were."
Bullstone laughed.
"And little hope for very many that came since, if Mrs. Huxam's right. I trust you are a bit larger hearted in that matter. It's not often you see such a terrible, good woman with such harsh views on the subject of heaven and hell as her."
Margery looked uncomfortable.
"It's hard to think so few be chosen; but of course there's chapter and verse for it," she answered. "I dare say a lot more will be saved than mother fears."
"A bootless business," he answered. "After all, there's no higher thought for living man than his duty to his neighbour; and if you do that, you'll mostly find you're doing your duty to yourself. God forbid I should quarrel with your mother; but I won't pretend, Margery; I don't go all the way with her and I'm glad of it."
The girl did not reply and he talked of the Moor.
"The 'old men' are gone," he said, "and be sure they were men and women as good as we, if not so clever. They lived hard for certain, but I dare say they had their bit of fun, if it was only fighting; and as for goodness and hope of salvation, who are we, with all our comforts and inventions, to deny goodness to them, or the eternal reward of goodness? Why in the name of charity must nine out of every ten humans that come into the world be doomed to hell? What did the Lord die for, Margery, if all the doubtful characters are to be damned?"