"We'll go away soon, my jewel," Pendoggat whispered. "Annie is not my wife—you know that. I can leave her any day. My time at the Barton is up in March, but we'll go before then."
"Don't this old place smell mucky?" was all Thomasine had to say.
They climbed up the ladder, and sat on the musty fern, which had made a bed for Brightly and his bitch, and Pendoggat continued his pleasant ways. He was in a curious state of happiness, still believing he was with the woman that he loved. The walls of the linhay continued to be the walls of Ebenezer and a shelter against the wind. They embraced and sang a hymn, but softly, lest any chance passer-by should overhear and discover them. Pendoggat knelt upon the fern and prayed aloud for their future happiness, speaking from his heart and meaning what he said. Thomasine was as happy as the fatted calf which knows nothing of its fate. It was on the whole the most successful of her evenings out. She was going to be a respectable married woman after all. Pendoggat had sworn it in his prayer. He could do as he liked with her after that, now that she was his in the sight of Heaven. The dirty linhay was a chapel, and a place of love where they were married in word and deed.
Farmer Chegwidden came thundering home from Brentor, flung across his horse like a sack of meal, and almost as helpless. He crossed the railway by the bridge, and his horse began to plunge over the boggy slope of the moor. It was darker, the clouds were hurrying, and the wind was a gale upon the rider's side as he galloped for the abandoned mines, clinging tighter. His horse knew what Thursday-night duty meant. He knew he had to gallop direct for Town Rising with a drunken man upon his back, and that he must not stumble more than he could help. There was no question as to which was the finer animal of the two. They crossed Gibbet Hill, down towards the road above St. Mary Tavy about two hundred yards above the linhay; and there the more intelligent animal swerved to the right, to avoid some posts and a gravel-pit which he could not see but knew were there; but as they came down the lower animal struck his superior savagely upon the ear to assert his manhood, and the horse, in starting aside, stumbled upon a ridge of peat, came to his knees, and Farmer Chegwidden dived across the road with a flourish that an acrobat might have envied.
These gymnastics were no new thing, but the farmer had been lucky hitherto and had generally alighted upon his hands. On this occasion his shoulder and the side of his head were the first to touch ground, and he was stunned. The horse, seeing that he could do nothing more, sensibly trotted off towards his stable, and Farmer Chegwidden lay in a heap upon the road after the manner of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves.
There was no good Samaritan about that part of Dartmoor; or, if there was one, he was not taking a walk abroad with the idea of practising his virtues. There was, indeed, no reason why any one should pass that way before morning, as people who live in lonely places require no curfew to send them under cover, and the night was wild with the first big wind of autumn. Still some one did come that way, not a Levite to cross over to the other side, but Peter, to take a keen interest in the prostrate form. Peter had been into the village, like a foolish virgin, to seek oil, and new lamps to put it in. All attempts to install the electric light had continued to prove that there was still something in the science which he had failed to master; and as the evenings were getting long, and the light afforded by the lantern was quite inadequate, Mary had sent him into the village to buy their old lamps back. Mother Cobley the shopwoman said she had sold them, which was not true, but she naturally desired to make Peter purchase new lamps. He had done so under compulsion, and was returning with a lamp under each arm and a bottle of oil in his pocket, somewhat late, as an important engagement at the inn had detained him, when he stumbled across Farmer Chegwidden. He placed his purchases upon the road, then drew near to examine the body closely.
"He'm a dead corpse sure 'nuff," said Peter. "Who be ye?" he shouted.
As there was neither reply nor movement the only course was to apply a test to ascertain whether the man was living or dead. The method which suggested itself to Peter was to apply his boot, and this he did, with considerable energy, but without success. Then he reviled the body; but that too was useless.
"Get up, man! Why don't ye get up?" he shouted.
There was no response, so Peter began to kick again; and when the figure refused to be reanimated by such treatment he lost his temper at so much obstinacy and went on shouting: "Get up, man! Wun't ye get up? To hell, man! Why don't ye get up?"
It did not appear to occur to Peter that the man could not get up.
The next course was the very obvious one of securing those good things which the gods had provided. Farmer Chegwidden had not much money left in his pockets, but Peter discovered it was almost enough to pay for the new lamps. Mary had advanced the money for them, so what Peter gained through the farmer's misfortune was all profit. Then he picked up his lamps, and hurried back to the village to lodge the information of the "dead corpse lying up on Dartmoor" in the proper quarter.
He had not been gone long when Pendoggat rode up. Thomasine had hurried back to Town Rising by the "lower town," afraid to cross by the moor in that wind. He too discovered the farmer, or rather his horse did; and he too refused to pass by on the other side. Dismounting, he knelt and struck a match. The wind blew it out at once, but the sudden flash showed him the man's face. Chegwidden was breathing heavily, a fact which Peter had omitted to notice.
"Dead drunk! He can bide there," muttered Pendoggat.
He got upon his horse and rode on. As he crossed the brow, and reached a point where there was nothing to break the strength of the wind, he pulled his horse round, hesitated a moment, then cantered back. The wind was in his lungs and in his nostrils, and he was himself again, a strong man, not a weak creature in love with a farm-wench, not a singer of hymns nor a preacher of sermons, but a hungry animal to whom power had been given over weak and lesser beings of the earth.
He knelt at Chegwidden's side, and tore the clothes off him until he had stripped him naked. He dragged the body to the side of the road and toppled it into the gorse. The clothes he rolled up, took with him, and higher up flung into an old mine-shaft. Then he rode on his way, shouting, fighting with the wind.
Old Weevil walked about the moor, because there was no room in the cottage or garden, and whispered to the sun: "I wish she wasn't so happy, I wish she wouldn't laugh so, I wish she wouldn't talk about that boy." A good many other things he wished for. Mr. Bellamie had written to present his compliments to Abel Cain Weevil, Esquire—though the old man was not used to that title—and to announce that he proposed giving himself the pleasure of calling at Lewside Cottage and enjoying a little conversation with its tenant. Weevil guessed how he would blunder through that interview in his simple beetle-hearted way; and then he would have to break his little girl's heart as carefully as he could. After all she was very young, and hearts broken early can be put together again. Plants broken off in the spring grow up as well as ever. It is when they are broken in the late summer that there is no chance, and no time, to mend.
"She will feel it—like a butcher's knife," he whispered. "I was wrong to pick her up that night. I ought to have left her. It would have been all over long ago, and she would have been spared the knife. But no, she is too nice, too good. She will do it! She will fight her way through! You'll see, Abel-Cain. You watch her, my old dear! She will beat the Brute yet." He chuckled, snapped his fingers at the sun, waved his hand at Ger Tor, and trotted back to the cottage.
Weevil talked in parables with the eccentricity, not of genius, but of habit. His life had been spoilt by "the Brute." He had done what he could to fight the monster until he had realised his utter helplessness. And now his little maid's life was to be spoilt by the Brute, but he thought she would succeed better than he had done, and fight her way out into a more serene atmosphere. Old Weevil's Brute was simply cruelty, the ugly thing that encompassed him.
He was a silly old man in many ways. People with an intense kindness for animals are probably freaks of Nature, who has tried to teach them to be cruel, only they have rejected her teaching. Love for animals is, strictly speaking, no part of the accepted religion. Hebrew literature, so far from teaching kindness to animals, as the Koran does, recommends the opposite; and the founder of Christianity in his dealings with animals destroyed them. Fondness for animals began probably when men first admitted beasts into their homes as members of the family, as the Bedouin Arab treated his horse. Such animals developed new traits and advanced towards a far higher state of evolution than they would have attained under natural conditions. With higher intelligence came also a greater sensitiveness to pain. Those animals, such as the horse and dog, who have been brought up with men, and acquired so much from them, have an equal right to be protected by the laws which protect men. Such were some of Weevil's arguments, but perhaps he was mistaken. He had failed signally to impart the doctrine of kindness to animals to his neighbours. He went too far, a common fault among men who are obsessed with a single idea. He attacked the rabbit-trap violently, which was manifestly absurd, and only convinced people that he was mad. He declared that the rabbit, caught and held in the iron jaws of the trap to perish miserably hour by hour, must suffer agonies. He had himself put his finger into such a trap, and was unable to bear the pain more than ten minutes. Naturally people laughed at him. What a fool he must be to put his finger in a trap! It had always been the custom to capture rabbits in that savage way, and if it had been cruel the clergy would have preached against it and the law would have prohibited it. But when Weevil went on to assert that the rabbits had feelings he got beyond them entirely, and they could only shake their heads at him, and feel sorry for his insanity, and despise him for being such a bad sportsman. Even the village constable felt he must draw the line somewhere, and objected to paying any tribute of respect to a dafty old man who went about telling people that rabbits could feel pain. When he met Weevil he grinned, and looked the other way to avoid saluting him.
Weevil spent much of his time drafting petitions to Parliament for the abolition of various instruments of torture, but of course nobody would sign them; and he indited lengthy screeds to humane societies upon the same subject, and these were always courteously acknowledged and placed on file for future reference, which was another way of saying that they would not be looked at again. He was himself a member of one society, and some years back had induced it to prosecute a huntsman who had been guilty of gross cruelty to a cat; but as the man was popular, and the master of the hounds was upon the Bench in the company of other sportsmen, the prosecution failed, although the offence was not denied; and old Weevil had his windows broken the next day. After that he quieted down, acknowledging that victory must remain with the strong. He went on preparing his indictments, writing his letters, and drafting his useless petitions; and whenever he discovered a rabbit-trap in his walks he promptly sprung it; and if the river happened to be handy, and nobody was about, that trap disappeared for ever.
It was unfortunate for Weevil that he was more eccentric in appearance than in habits. He had a comic face and a nervous smile. The more in earnest he was the more he grinned; and that helped to convince people of his insanity. Then he was a loose character, and had evidently enjoyed a lurid past. People were not going to be lectured by a wicked old fellow, with a face like a rag-doll and a foolish smile, who lived in a small cottage with an illegitimate daughter. Weevil had never openly denied the paternity; he did not want it to be known that Boodles was a child of shame for her own sake; and he was in his heart rather proud to think people believed he was the father of such a radiant little maid.
"You must do it," he said, as he trotted into the cottage. "You must prepare the child, Abel-Cain. Don't be a fool now."
The little sitting-room was very neat. Boodles was not there, but visible tokens of her industry were everywhere. A big bowl of late heather from the moor, with rowan and dogwood berries from Tavy woods, stood upon the table. A little stocking, rather plentifully darned, was being darned again. A blotting-book was open, and a sheet of paper was upon it, and all that was written on the sheet was the beginning of a letter: "My dearest Boy," that and nothing more. It would have been a pretty little room had it not been for that sheet of paper. The silly old man bent over it, and a very good imitation of a tear splashed upon the "dearest Boy" and blotted it out. "You must not be such an old fool, Abel-Cain," he said, in his kindly scolding voice.
Then Boodles came in laughing, with a head like the rising sun. She had been washing her hair, and it was hanging down to dry, and sparkling in the strong light just as the broken granite on Dartmoor sparkles when the sun casts a beam across and seems to fill the path with diamonds.
"Oh, what a grumpy face, old man!" she cried. "Such a toothachy face for as butiful a morning as ever was! Have you been cruel and caught a wee mousie and hurt it so much that you couldn't let it go? I think I shall throw away that trap and get a benevolent pussycat instead."
Lewside Cottage was infested with mice, very much as Hamelin town was once overrun with rats, and as Weevil could not pipe them into the Tavy he had invested in a humane trap which caught the little victims alive. Then the difficulty of disposing of them arose. Weevil solved it in a simple fashion. He caught a mouse every night and let it go in the morning. In spite of these methods of extermination the creatures continued to increase and multiply.
"I was going out this afternoon," said Boodles, tugging at her hair with a comb. "But if you have got one of your umpy-umpy fits I shall stop at home. I want to go, daddy-man, 'cause my boy hasn't got much longer at home, and he says it is nice to have Boodles with him, and Boodles thinks, it is nice too."
"Boodle-oodle, my darling," quavered Weevil, "the sun may be shining outside, but it is damp and clammy in here. The Brute has got hold of me again."
"No, it isn't clamp and dammy, daddy," she laughed. "It's only a stupid old cloud going by. There are lots of butterflies, if you will look out. See! I can nearly tread upon my hair. Isn't it butiful?"
"You must try and grow up, little girl."
"Not till I'm twenty," said she.
"You mustn't laugh so much, my little maid."
"Why, daddy?" she cried quickly. "You mustn't say that. Oh, I don't laugh too much; I couldn't. I'm not always so very happy when I laugh, because it's not always afternoon out with me, but it does us good to make believe, and I thought it helped you to forget things. You telling me I mustn't laugh! You've been and killed a mouse."
"They say fair-haired girls don't feel it like the dark-haired ones," muttered Weevil.
"What are you talking about?" cried Boodles. She had stopped laughing. The clouds were coming up all round and it was nearly snow time; and there is little laughter in a Dartmoor winter. "Is it the Brute, daddy?" she said sympathetically.
"Yes, Boodle-oodle," said the sorrowful old man, with his nervous grin. "It is the Brute."
"I wish you could catch him in your trap. You wouldn't let him go," said Boodles, with a little smile.
Weevil was kneeling at the table, his comic head jerking from side to side, while his fingers tried to make a paper-boat out of the "dearest Boy" sheet of note-paper.
"I want to talk to you, my little maid," he said. "I want to remind you that we cannot get away from the Brute. I came to this lonely cottage to hide from him, because he was making my life miserable. I could not go out without meeting him. But it was no good. Boodles. Doors and bolts won't keep him out. Do you know why? It is because he is a part of ourselves."
"Such nonsense," said she. "Silly old man to call yourself cruel."
"The Brute is only ourself after all. I cannot put my foot to the ground without crushing some insect. I cannot see the use of it—this prolific creation of things, this waste of life. It drives me nearly mad, tortures me, makes me a brute to myself."
"But you're such a—what do you call it?—such a whole-hogger," said the child. "Try and not worry, daddy. You only make yourself wretched, and you make me wretched too, and then you're being cruel to me—and that's how things get cold and foggy," said she. "May I laugh now?"
"No, Boodles," he said, quite sternly. "I was cruel when I picked you up that night and brought you in."
The girl winced a little. She wanted to forget all about that.
"Nature preserves only that she may destroy," he rambled on. "Take the plants—"
"I've taken them," broke in Boodles merrily.
"Be serious, Boodle-oodle," said the old man, grinning worse than ever. "The one and only duty of the flower is to bear seed, and when it has done that it is killed, and that it may do so Nature protects it in a number of different ways, many of which cause suffering to others. Some plants are provided with thorns, others with stinging-cells, others with poison, so that they shall not be destroyed by animals. These are generally the less common plants. Those that are common are unprotected, because they are so numerous that some are certain to survive. All the plants of the desert have thorns, because vegetation is so scarce there that any unprotected plant would soon be devoured. The rabbit is an utterly defenceless creature among animals, and almost every living thing is its enemy; but lest the animal should cease to survive Nature compels it to breed rapidly. Surely it would have been kinder to have given it the means of protecting itself. I cannot understand it, Boodles. There seems to be no fixed law, no limit to Nature's cruelty, although there is to her kindness. The world is a bloody field of battle; everything fighting for life; a pitiful drama of cowardice right through. I don't know whether I am talking nonsense, Boodles. I expect I am, but I can't speak calmly about these things, I lose control over myself, and want to hit my head against the wall."
Boodles slipped her arm about his neck and patted his white whiskers. The paper-boat was a heap of pulp by this time.
"Now it's my turn," she said gaily. "Let Boodles preach, and let old men be silent. Dear old thing, there are lots of queer puzzles, and I'm sure it is best to leave them all alone. 'Let 'em bide,' as Mary would say. We can't know much, and it's no use trying. You might as well worry your dear white head about the queer thing called eternity. You start, and you go round, and then you go round again faster until you begin to whirl, and you see stars, and your head aches—that's as far as you can ever get when you think about queer puzzles. And that's all I've got to say. Don't you think it rather a good sermon for a babe and suckling?"
"It's no use. She doesn't see what I'm driving at," muttered poor old Weevil.
"My hair is nearly dry. I think I'll go and do it up now," said Boodles. "I'm going to wear my white muslin. Shan't I look nice?"
"She doesn't know why she looks nice," murmured the silly old man. "It is Nature's cruel trick to make her attract young men. Just as the flowers are given sweetness to attract the fertilising bee. There it is again—no fixed law. Every sweet flower attracts its bees, but it is not every sweet girl who may."
"What's all that about bees?" laughed Boodles. "Oh, I forgot! I'm not to laugh."
"Boodle-oodle, do try and take things seriously. Do try and remember," he pleaded.
"Remember—what?" she said.
"We cannot get away from the Brute."
"But I'm not going to be grumpy until I have to," she said. "It would be such nonsense. I expect there will be lots of worries later on. I must be happy while I can. Girls ought not to be told anything about unhappiness until they are twenty. There ought to be a law made to punish any one who made a little girl grumpy. If there was you would go to prison, old man."
"You must think, Boodles. We are putting it off too long—the question of your future," he said blunderingly. Now he had got at the subject! "I am getting old, I have only an annuity, and there will be nothing for you when I die. I do not know what I shall do without you, but I must send you away, and have you trained for a nurse, or something of the kind. It will be bad to be alone again, with the Brute waiting for me at every corner, but worse to think of you left unprovided for."
"My dear daddy-man," sighed Boodles, with wide-open eyes. "So that's the trouble! Aren't you worrying your dear old head about another queer puzzle? I don't think I shall have to work very dreadful hard for my living."
"Why not?" said the old man, hoping his voice was stern.
"Why?" murmured Boodles prettily. "Well, you know, dear old silly, some one says that my head is lovely, and my skin is golden, and I'm such a jolly nice little girl—and I won't repeat it all, or I might swell up with pride, and you might believe it and find out what an angel you have been keeping unawares—"
"Believe," he broke in, catching at the straw as he went down with a gurgle. "You mustn't believe too much, Boodle-oodle. You are so young. You don't in the least know what is going to happen to you."
"Of course I know," declared Boodles; "I'm going to marry Aubrey when I'm twenty."
"But his parents—" began Weevil, clutching at the edge of the table, and wondering what made it feel so sharp.
"They are dears," said Boodles. "Such nice pretty people, and so kind. He is just an old Aubrey, and I expect he had the same girl's face when he fell in love with his wife. She's so fragile, with beautiful big eyes. It's such a lovely house. Much too good for me."
"That's just it," he said eagerly, wishing she would not be dense. "It's much too good for you, darling."
"Yes, but I don't think you ought to say it," pouted Boodles.
"We are ordinary people. I am not quite what the Bellamies would call a gentleman. My father was only a piano-maker," old Weevil faltered, hoping that the girl would think of her unknown parents when she heard him refer to his. "I went to a grammar-school, then became a bank-clerk until I was shelved, partly on account of my grey hairs, but chiefly because I hit the cashier on the head with a ruler for kicking a dog. I could not go into Mr. Bellamie's house, Boodles. It is too good for both of us. There is nothing to be ashamed of in my name, but it is not a genteel one. We are only unimportant beetles, and the Bellamies are big bugs," he said, laughing in spite of his feelings at his joke because it was so seldom that he made one.
"Aubrey knows all about it. He doesn't care," declared Boodles, nodding cheerfully. "Besides, I'm not really your daughter anyhow."
Weevil gasped at her innocent impertinence. Here he was trying to make her understand that she was a nameless little lady who could not possibly marry any one of gentle birth, and she was calmly suggesting she might be superior to him. It was only a thoughtless remark, but it served to show him that nothing but plain speaking would serve with a girl in love. She looked at everything through Aubrey's eyes; and Aubrey was only a boy who could hardly know his own mind. A boy does not care whether his sweetheart's father is a tinker or a rake; but a man, and an only son, who has reached an age when he can understand what his family and society and his profession demand of him, cares a great deal. There comes a time for every young person when he or she must leave fairyland and go into the world; and the pity of it is they cannot return. They look back, but the gate is shut. It is a gate which opens only one way—to exclude. For every child is born inside. They grow up, and see their children in that pleasant land, and wish they could join them there; but if they could go back they would not be happy, for it would be to them no longer a place of romance and sunshine, but a place of shadow, and dead selves, and memories. It would not be spring, with primroses and bluebells in flower, but a Christmas Eve when the dead life and the dead companions haunt the house, and grim Mother Holle is plucking her geese and dropping the feathers down the chimney. Aubrey at twenty adored Boodles. Aubrey at thirty might worry his head about her parents and her birth-name. Boodles at thirty would be the same as she was then, loving, and wanting nothing else. Weevil was right in some of his theories. Every one must suffer from the Brute, except those who deserve it most. The innocent have to suffer for them. Boodles too was right. It is no use trying to solve queer puzzles.
"No, darling; you are not my daughter. I wish you were. I wish you were."
"You are too old, daddy-man—at least rather too old," said Boodles gently. "I should have been born when you were past fifty. Why, what's the matter? You are dreadful funny to-day, old man."
Weevil had jumped up nimbly, and running to the window poked his head out to gulp into his lungs a good mouthful of air. He ran back to the astonished little girl, took her by the shoulders, shook her severely, grinned at her; then he stumbled back into his chair and began to laugh furiously.
"Shall I tell you a story, Boodle-oodle, a beautiful story of a little girl who wasn't what she thought she was, though she didn't know who she was, and didn't care, and wouldn't think, and couldn't listen when people tried to tell her? Shall I tell you all that, darling?"
"Not now," gasped Boodles. "I must go and dress. And I shall laugh as much as I like—mean old thing! Telling me I mustn't laugh, and then shaking the house down. Dad, if you go on making explosions you'll bring up rain-clouds, and my afternoon will be spoilt, and so will my frock; and then I shall have to tell you a story of a horrid old man, who wasn't a bit like what he hoped his daughter thought he was, though he didn't know how horrid he was, and didn't care, and wouldn't listen when people tried to tell him. Well, I'll give you a kiss anyhow, though you are mad."
"Not daughter," cried the excited old man. "Remember you are not my daughter, Boodles."
"I know. You needn't rub it in."
"I've got the Brute! I've got him by the neck. He's made me suffer, but I'll pay him now. Run away, darling. Run away and put on your white muslin. Laugh as much as you can, and be as pretty as you like. The Brute shan't touch you. I'll put a muzzle on him. Don't forget to tell them I am not your father. I've got the whole story in my head. Run away, little girl, while I think it out."
Boodles was used to these fits, but usually she understood them. They were generally provoked by rabbit-traps. She could not understand this one. Evidently the old man had got hold of something new; but she couldn't stop any longer, as it was nearly time to go down to the Tavy and turn up the stones to look for fairies.
Weevil certainly had got hold of something new. When Boodles had gone he jumped up and locked the door. Then he looked at his watch. Mr. Bellamie might arrive at any time; and he was not nearly ready. He began to jump about the room in a most eccentric way, snapping his fingers, and grinning at his comic features in the mantel-glass.
"You've got to be a liar, Abel-Cain, the worst liar that ever lived, as big a rogue as your namesake Cain, who murdered your namesake Abel. You're an old man, and you ought not to do it, but if lies can save her from the Brute lies shall. They'll punish you for it when you're dead, but if she is saved no matter, none at all. I shall tell them they ought not to have created the Brute. I won't be afraid of them. Now you mustn't make a mess of it. I'm afraid you will, Abel-Cain. You're a shocking old fool sometimes. Put it all down—write it out, then learn it by heart. The old hands are shaking so. Steady yourself, old fool, for her sake, for the sake of that pretty laugh. Come along now! Abel-Cainversusthe Brute. We must begin with the marriage."
He pressed his cold hands upon his hot face, and began to scribble tremulously on the paper.
"You were married at the age of twenty-five to a girl who was superior to you socially. Her name—let me see—what was her name? You must find one that sounds well. Fitzalan is a good name. You married Miss Fitzalan at—at, why, of course, St. George's, Hanover Square. She's dead now. She died of—of, well, it don't matter; she's dead. We had a daughter, or was it a son? Better keep to one sex, and then there will be no saying hims for hers, and you mustn't get confused, Abel-Cain, you must keep your brain as clear as glass. We had a daughter, and called her—now it must be something easy to remember. Titania is a pretty name. We called her Tita for short, Titania Fitzalan-Weevil That's it! You are doing it, Abel-Cain! Keep it up, you old liar. He'll be here presently. You took the name of Fitzalan-Weevil because it sounded better, but when your wife died you went back to your own. She was buried in Hendon churchyard. You don't know why it should be Hendon. Ah yes, you do, Abel-Cain. Don't you remember how you used to walk along that road on Sundays and holidays, and have some bread and cheese in the little tea-garden at Edgware; and then by Mill Hill and Arkley to Barnet, and back by Hampstead Heath to your lodgings in Kentish Town? That's why your wife was buried in Hendon churchyard. Then Titania was married, a very grand marriage, Hanover Square again. It's a pity you haven't got the press-cuttings, but they are lost—burnt, or something of the sort—and Titania's husband was the youngest son of the Earl of—No, that won't do. You mustn't lie too high, or you'll spoil the story. He was Mr. Lascelles, Harold Lascelles, second son of the late Reverend Henry Arthur Lascelles, sometime rector of St. Michael's, Cornhill, and honorary canon of St. Paul's Cathedral. Drag the clergy in, Abel-Cain. It's respectable. They lived in Switzerland for his health. You remember he was rather delicate, and Titania wasn't very strong either; and Boodles was born there. It's working out fine. You can't be her father, but you can be her grandfather. Boodles was born in Lausanne, at the hotel where Gibbons wrote his history.
"Now you come to the mystery; there must be a mystery about Boodles, but it must be respectable, a tragedy in high life, a regrettable incident, not a shameful episode. Titania disappeared. What happened to her nobody knows. You don't know, and Harold doesn't know. She may have gone for a walk in the mountains and never come back, or she may have gone out in a boat on Lake Geneva and been drowned, or she may have been murdered by a madman in a pine-wood. It was all very sad and dreadful, and has naturally cast a cloud over Boodles's life, though she knows nothing about it, as she was scarcely a year old when her mother disappeared. You have never got over it, Abel-Cain, and you don't think you ever will, as Titania was your only child. You couldn't bear to keep any of her photographs, so you destroyed them all.
"Now there is Harold. You can't kill him, Abel-Cain. So much mortality might be suspicious, and if you let him marry again that would mean a lot more names to remember. Harold went into the Catholic Church and became a priest. At the present time he is in charge of a mission in British Guiana. That's a good long way off, but you must look it up in the map and make sure where it is."
The old man leaned back and mopped his face. He was working under a kind of inspiration, and was afraid it might die out before he had got to the end of the story. Again he plunged into the narrative, and continued—
"Harold didn't know what to do with Boodles. Young Catholic priests cannot be bothered with babies, so he sent her to you, to old grandfather, and asked you to bring her up. He couldn't pay anything, as he had devoted his fortune to building a church and establishing his mission, and besides, you didn't need it in those days, He was a good fellow, Harold, an earnest, devoted man, but you haven't heard anything of him for a long time. You called the child Boodles when she was a baby because it was the sort of name that seemed to suit her, and you have never got out of it. Her real name is—There must be a lot of them. They always have a lot in high life. No girl with a long string of names could be anything but well-born. Her name is Titania Katherine Mary Fitzalan-Lascelles."
He read out the list again and again, grinning and crying at the same time, and chuckling joyfully: "There's nothing of the Weevil in her now."
"Then there came the smash," he went on, resuming his pen to add the finishing touches to the story. "You lost your money. It was gold-mines. That is quite safe. One always loses money in gold-mines, and you were never much of a man of business, always ready to listen to any one, and so you were caught. You retired with what little you could reclaim from the wreck of your shattered fortunes—that's a fine sentence. You must get that by heart. It would convince any one that you couldn't tell a lie. You retired, broken in health and mind and fortune, to this little cottage on Dartmoor, and you have lived here ever since with Boodles, whom you have brought up to the best of your ability, although you have lacked the means to give her that education to which she is entitled by her name and birth. It is almost unnecessary to add, Abel-Cain," he concluded, "that you have told the child nothing about her parents lest she should become dissatisfied with her present humble position. You are keeping it all from her until she comes of age."
It was finished. Weevil stared at the blotted manuscript, jabbered over it, and decided that it was a strong and careful piece of work which would deceive any one, even the proudest father of an only son who was much too precious to be thrown away. He was still jabbering when there were noises outside the door, and he hurried to open it, and discovered Titania Katherine Mary Fitzalan-Lascelles, looking every syllable of her names; her beautiful hair coiled under her poppy-trimmed hat, the white muslin about her dainty limbs, her lips and little nostrils sweet enough to attract bees with their suggestion of honey, and about her that wonderful atmosphere of perfect freshness which is the monopoly of such pretty creatures as herself.
"You're looking quite wild, old man. What have you been doing?" she said.
"Story-writing. About the little girl who—"
"I can't stop to listen. I must hurry. I just came to say good-bye," she said, putting up her mouth. "Be good while I am gone. Don't fall into the fire or play with the matches. You can say if this frock suits me."
"If I was a boy I shouldn't bother whether it suited you or not," said Weevil, nodding at her violently.
"But as you are only an old daddy-man?" she suggested.
"It will do, Boodle-oodle. Sackcloth would look quite as well—on you."
"I'll wear sackcloth presently; when Aubrey goes and winter comes," she laughed.
Weevil became excited again. He wished she would not make such heedless and innocent remarks. They suggested the possibility of weak points in his amazing story. Another unpleasant idea occurred as he looked at the charming little maid. She was always walking about the moor alone. The Brute might seize her in one of his Protean forms, and she might disappear just as her fictitious mother had done. Weevil had invoked his imagination, and as a result all sorts of ghostly things occurred to his mind to which it had been a stranger hitherto. There were traps lying about for girls as well as rabbits.
"Where are you going, little radiance?" he said.
"Down by the Tavy. Our walk. We have only one."
Boodles answered from the door, and then she went. She had only one walk. On all Dartmoor there was only one. Weevil caught up his manuscript and began to jabber again. She must not have that one walk taken away from her.
For two hours he worked, like a student on the brink of an examination, trying to commit his story to memory. Each time he read the fictions they became to him more probable. He scarcely knew himself what a miserable memory he had, but he was well aware how nervous he could be in the presence of strangers, and how liable he was to be confused when any special eccentricity asserted itself. As the time when his visitor might be expected approached he went and put on his best clothes, tidied himself, brushed his hair and whiskers, tried to make himself look less like a Hindoo idol, burnished his queer face with scented soap, and practised a few genteel attitudes before the glass. He hoped somebody had told Mr. Bellamie he was eccentric.
Weevil was still poring over his manuscript when the visitor arrived. With a frantic gesture the old man went to admit him. People were not announced in that household. Mr. Bellamie entered with a kindly handshake and a courteous manner; but his impressions were at once unfavourable. Well-bred men tell much by a glance. The grotesque host, the pictures, furniture, and ornaments, were alike inartistic. Mr. Bellamie was a perfect gentleman. He had come merely as a matter of duty to make the acquaintance of the tenant of Lewside Cottage, not because it was a pleasure, but he had received Boodles at his house, and his son's attachment for the little girl was becoming serious. He could not definitely oppose himself to Aubrey's love-making until he had ascertained what manner of people the Weevils were. The pictures and ornaments told him. The cottage represented poverty, but it was hardly genteel poverty. A poor gentleman's possessions proclaim his station as clearly as those of a retired pork-butcher betray his lack of taste. A few good engravings, a shelf or two of classical works, and a cabinet of old china, would have done more for Boodles than all the wild romances of her putative grandfather.
"You have a glorious view," said the visitor, turning his back upon art that was degraded and rejoicing in that which was natural. "I have been admiring it all the way up from the station. But you must get the wind in the winter time."
"Yes, a great deal of it. But it is very fine and healthy, and we have our windows open most days. Tita insists upon it."
"Tita?" questioned Mr. Bellamie, turning and looking puzzled. "I understood that—"
"Her name is not Boodles," said Weevil decidedly. "That is only a pet name I gave her when she was a baby, and I have never been able to break myself of it. She is my grand-daughter, Mr. Bellamie, and her name is Titania Katherine Mary Fitzalan-Lascelles," he said, reading carefully from the manuscript. "I think she must have inherited her love of open windows and fresh air from her father, who was the Reverend Henry—no, I mean Harold Lascelles, second son of the Reverend Henry Arthur Lascelles—the late, I should have said—sometime Director of St. Michael's, Cornhill, and minor canon—no, honorary—honorary canon of St. Paul's Cathedral. He was rather delicate and lived in Switzerland a good deal, and died there—no, he didn't, that was Tita's mother. He is in charge of a Catholic mission in British Guiana."
Polite astonishment was upon every feature of the visitor's fragile face. He had not come there to talk about Boodles, but to see Weevil and Lewside Cottage, that he might judge for himself whether the girl could by any chance be considered a suitable subject for Aubrey's adoration; to look at the pictures, and make a few conventional remarks upon the view and the weather; then to return home and report to his wife. He had certainly not expected to find Weevil bubbling over with family history, pedigrees, and social intelligence, regarding the child whom he had been led to suppose was not related to him. Mr. Bellamie glanced at Weevil's excited face, at the pencil he held in one hand and at the sheet of paper in the other; and just then he didn't know what to think. Then he said quietly: "I will sit down if I may. That long hill from the station was rather an ordeal. As you have mentioned your—your grand-daughter, I believe you said, you will, I hope, forgive me if I express a little surprise, as the girl—and a very pretty and charming girl she is—came to see us one day, and on that occasion she distinctly mentioned that she knew nothing of her parents."
Mr. Bellamie would have murmured on in his gentle brook-like way, but Weevil could not suppress himself. While the visitor was speaking he made noises like a soda-water bottle which is about to eject its cork; and at the first opportunity he exploded, and his lying words and broken bits of story flew all about the room.
"Quite true, Mr. Bellamie. Boodles—I mean Tita—was telling you the truth. I have never known her to do the contrary. She has been told nothing whatever of her parents, does not know that her daughter was my mother—"
"You mean that her mother was your daughter," interposed the gentle guest.
"Yes, Mr. Bellamie, that is what I did mean, but I am rather confused. She does not know that her father is living, nor that her rightful name is Lascelles, nor that her paternal grandfather was the rector of St. Michael's, Cornhill, and prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral—"
"I understood you to say honorary canon," murmured the visitor.
"I am not certain," cried the excited old man, who was by no means sure what a prebendary might be. "It is a long time ago, and some of the facts are not very clear in my mind. You can easily find out," he went on recklessly. "The Reverend Canon Lascelles was a very well-known man. He wrote a number of learned books. I believe he refused a bishopric. Let me see. I was telling you about my little maid. I have kept everything from her because I feared she might be upset if she knew the truth and found out who she was. She mightn't be satisfied to go on living in this little cottage with a poor shabby old man like me, if she knew how well born she was. I am going to tell her everything when she is twenty-one, and then she can choose for herself, whether to remain with me, or to join her father if he wants her in British Guiana."
"There must be some reason," suggested Mr. Bellamie gently, with another wondering glance at Weevil's surprising aspect. "I am not seeking to intrude into any family secret, but you have introduced this subject, and you must permit me to say that I feel interested in the little girl on account of my son's—er—friendship with her."
"I was just coming to it," cried Weevil, exploding again. He was warmed up by this time. He had lost his nervousness, felt he was playing a winning game, and believed he had the story pat. The lies had stuck in his throat at first, as he was a naturally truthful man, but they were coming along glibly now. "You have a right to be told. There is a little mystery about Tita's mother. They were living in Lausanne—Tita was born in the hotel where Gibbings wrote his history—and one day her mother went out and disappeared. She has never been heard of since that day. It is supposed she went for a walk in the mountains. Perhaps she fell down a glacier," he added, brilliantly inspired.
"A crevasse," corrected Mr. Bellamie mildly. "It is hardly likely. Lausanne is not quite among the mountains."
Weevil had not known that. Hurriedly he suggested a fatal boating trip upon the lake of Geneva, and was relieved when the visitor admitted in a slightly incredulous manner that was more probable.
"You have interested me very much," he went on, "and surprised me. You are the girl's grandfather on the mother's side?"
"Yes; and now I must tell you something about myself," said Weevil, with a hurried glance at his notes which the visitor could not help observing. "I am not your social equal, Mr. Bellamie, and I cannot pretend to be. I have not enjoyed the advantages of a public-school and university education, but I was left with a fortune from my father, who was a manufacturer of pianos, at an early age, and I then contracted a marriage with a lady who was slightly older than myself, and very much my superior socially, mentally—possibly physically," he added, with another inspiration, as he caught sight of his comic face in the mantel-glass. "Her name was Miss Fitzalan, and we were married at St. George's, Hanover Square."
The visitor inclined his head, and did so just in time to conceal a smile. Weevil was overacting the part. He was placing an emphasis on every word. In his excitement he dropped the manuscript, without which he was helpless. It fluttered to Mr. Bellamie's feet, and before Weevil could recover it the visitor had a distinct recollection of having read: "Your wife was buried in Hendon churchyard." It was strange, he thought, that a man should require to make a note of his wife's burying-place.
"Titania was our only child," Weevil went on, after refreshing his memory, like a public speaker, with his notes. "She was something like Boodles, only her hair was flaxen, and she was taller and more slim. I am sorry I have not a photograph of her, but after her tragic disappearance I burnt them all. I could not bear to look at them. There was one of her in court dress which you would have liked. Some time after my wife's death I lost my money in gold-mines. It was my own fault. I was foolish, and I listened to the advice of knaves. I came here with what little I could reclaim from the wreck of my shattered fortunes," he said, pausing to notice the effect of that tremendous sentence, and then repeating it with added emphasis. "I settled here, and Father Lascelles, as he was by then, sent me my grandchild and asked me to bring her up as my own. At first I shrank from the responsibility, as I had not the means to educate her as her birth and name require, but I have been given cause every day of my life since to be thankful that I did accept, for she has been the light of my eyes, Mr. Bellamie, the light and the apple of my eyes."
Weevil sank into a chair and wiped his face. His task was done, he had told his story; and he fully believed that Boodles was safe and that the Brute was conquered. The visitor was looking into the interior of his hat. He seemed to have found something artistic there. He coughed, and in his gentle well-bred way observed: "Thank you, Mr. Weevil. You have told me a piece of very interesting family history."
Weevil detected nothing of a suspicious or ironical nature in that admission. He nursed his knee, and wagged his head, and grinned triumphantly as he replied in a naive fashion: "I took the name of Fitzalan-Weevil after my marriage, because I thought it sounded better, but after I lost my wife and fortune I went back to my own."
Mr. Bellamie took another glance round the room, just to make sure he had missed nothing. There might be some little gem of a picture in a dark corner, or a cracked bit of Wedgwood ware, which he had overlooked in the former survey. There might be some redeeming thing, he thought, in the environment which would fit in with the amazing story. The same inartistic features met his eyes: Weevil pictures, Weevil furniture, Weevil carpet and wall-paper. There was nothing to represent the family of Fitzalan or the family of Lascelles. The simple old liar did not know what a powerful advocate was fighting against him, and how his poor little home was giving verdict and judgment against him. The visitor completed his survey, turned his attention to the old man, regarding him partly with contempt and pity, chiefly in admiration. Then he took out his trap and set it cleverly where Weevil could hardly fail to blunder into it.
"I think I knew Canon Lascelles a good many years ago," he said in his gentle non-combative voice. "He was a curious-looking man, if I remember rightly. Tall, stooping very much, with a red face which contrasted strangely with his white hair, and he had a trick of snapping his fingers loudly when excited. Do you recognise the portrait?"
Old Weevil gasped, said he did, declared it was life-like, and then fumbled for his manuscript. Hadn't he made any notes on that subject? There was nothing to help him in the inky scrawl. He was being examined upon unprepared subjects. So there had been a Canon Lascelles in real life, and Mr. Bellamie had known him. Well, there was nothing for it but to agree to all that was said. His imagination would not work upon the spur of the moment, and if he tried to force it he would be sure to contradict himself or become confused. He replied that he distinctly remembered the Canon's trick of snapping his fingers loudly when excited.
"Your daughter married the second son Harold. Of course you knew Philip the eldest. I think his name was Philip?"
"Quite right, Mr. Bellamie, quite right. Philip it was. He went into the Army," gasped Weevil.
"Surely not," said Mr. Bellamie. "Excuse me for contradicting you, but I know he went into the Navy, and I think he is now a captain. Aubrey will tell me. Very possibly my son has met Captain Lascelles, and may indeed have served under him."
Weevil was trying to look contemplative, but succeeding badly. He was digging new ground and striking roots everywhere. There was nothing for it but to admit his mistake. He was old and forgetful. He had probably been thinking of some one else. Of course Philip Lascelles went into the Navy. He had heard nothing of him for years, and was very glad to hear he had risen to the rank of captain.
"Then there was a daughter. Only one, I think?" Mr. Bellamie continued, in his pleasant conversational way.
"That's right," agreed Weevil, longing to add something descriptive, but not venturing. He was not going to be caught again.
"Edith?" suggested the visitor. "I think the name was Edith."
"No," cried Weevil determinedly—he could not resist it; "Katherine. She was the godmother of Boodles—Tita, I mean—and the child was named after her."
"Yes, it is my mistake this time. Katherine of course," agreed Mr. Bellamie. "But I am certain she was the eldest child, and she married young and went to India. She must have been in India when your grandchild was born."
"She came over for the ceremony. Harold was her favourite brother, and when she heard of Tita's birth she came to London as fast as she could," cried Weevil, not realising what a wild thing he was saying.
"To London!" murmured Mr. Bellamie. "The child was baptised at St. Michael's, Cornhill?" he added swiftly.
"No, in Hendon church."
"I thought you said she was born in Lausanne at the Hotel Gibbon?"
"So she was," gasped Weevil, perspiring and distraught. "I mean she was buried in Hendon churchyard."
"What! the little girl—Boodles!" said Mr. Bellamie, laughing gently.
"No, my wife. We were married there." Weevil did not know what he was saying. The pictures and ornaments, which had been his undoing, were dancing about before his eyes.
"You are getting confused," said the gentle visitor. "I understood you to say you were married at St. George's, Hanover Square."
"Ah, but I used to go to Hendon," said Weevil eagerly, nodding, and grinning, and speaking the truth at last. "I used to walk out there on Sundays and holidays, and have bread and cheese in a tea-garden at Edgware, and then go on by Mill Hill and Arkley and round to Barnet, and back across Hampstead Heath to my lodgings in Kentish Town. I was very fond of that walk, but I couldn't do it now, sir. It would be much too far for an old man like me."
Weevil was happy again. He thought he had succeeded in changing the subject, and getting away from the fictitious family of Lascelles. Mr. Bellamie was satisfied too. Canon Lascelles was a fiction with him also. The pictures and furniture had given truthful evidence. Weevil was a fraud, but such a well-meaning pitiable old humbug that the visitor could not feel angry. They had fenced at each other with fictions, and in such delicate play Weevil had not much chance; and his latest and only truthful admission had done for him entirely. Gentlemen of means do not walk up the Edgware Road on Sundays and holidays, and partake of bread and cheese in suburban tea-gardens, and then return to lodgings in Kentish Town.
"Thank you for what you have told me," said Mr. Bellamie, rising and looking into his hat; and then, succumbing to the desire to add the final artistic touch: "I understand you to have said that you were married to Miss Fitzalan in Hendon church, and that your daughter married Mr. Harold Lascelles, who disappeared in an unaccountable fashion in Lausanne?"
"No, no," cried Weevil despairingly. He was tired and had put aside his manuscript. "I never said that. You have got it quite wrong. I was married to Miss Fitzalan in St. Michael's, Brentor, and our daughter Boodles married Philip Lascelles—captain as he now is—at Hendon, and Tita was baptised in St. George's, Hanover Square, and then went to Lausanne to that hotel where Gubbings wrote his history, and there she disappeared—no, not Boodles, but her mother Tita. But she may be alive still. She may turn up some day."
"Then how about Father Lascelles?" suggested Mr. Bellamie.
"Why, he married my daughter Tita," said Weevil rather crossly. "And now he is in British Columbia at his mission. He won't come back to England again. Boodles doesn't know of his existence, but I shall tell her when she is twenty-one."
The visitor smiled rather sadly, and after a moment's hesitation put out his hand. Old Weevil had been turned inside out, and there was nothing in him but a foolish loving heart. Mr. Bellamie understood the position exactly. There was a mystery about the little girl's birth, and it was probably a shameful one, and on that account the old man had concocted his lying story, not for his own sake, but for hers. Mr. Bellamie could not feel angry at the queer shaking figure, with tragedy inside and comedy on its face. Boodles was his all, the only thing he had to love, and he was prepared to do anything which he thought might ensure her happiness. There was something splendid about his lies, which the visitor had to admire although they had been prepared to dupe him. It was not a highly moral proceeding, but it was an artistic one; and Mr. Bellamie was able to forgive anything that was artistic.
"Good-bye," he said, in a perfectly friendly way. "I hope you will come and see me at Tavistock, and look at your tors from my windows."
Weevil returned thanks effusively, happy in the belief that he had played his part well; but it was characteristic of him that his thoughts should be for Boodles rather than for himself. "If you would let her come and see you sometimes it would make her happy. It's a dull life for the little maid here, and she is so bright and full of laughter. I think she laughs too much, and to-day I told her so. There is a lot of cruelty in this world, Mr. Bellamie, and I want to keep her from it. The man who makes a little maid miserable deserves all the cruelty that there is, but it shan't touch Boodles if I can put myself before her and keep it off. I could not see her suffer, I couldn't hear her laugh ring false. I would rather see her dead."
Mr. Bellamie walked away slowly. He had prepared a mild revenge, but he did not execute it. He had intended to tell Weevil a story of a man who took a dog out to sea that he might drown it; but while fastening a stone to its neck the boat overturned, the man was drowned, while the dog swam safely to shore. He thought Weevil might be able to interpret the parable. But when he heard those last words, and saw the love and tenderness on that queer grinning face, he said no more. He walked away slowly, with his eyes upon the ground.
What luck is nobody can know, but it is certainly a gift to be preferred before natural ability. Luck is that undefinable thing which enables a man to push his head and shoulders well above the crowd. Make him wise it cannot, but no man cares about wisdom if he can only be wealthy. Lucky men pile up big fortunes, and invariably become humbugs in their old age, and assure young men that their affluence is entirely owing to the splendid virtues of application, perseverance, and early rising, which they practised in their youth. No doubt the virtues help, but hard work alone makes no man wealthy, let him toil like Sisyphus. It is luck that lodges the stone on the top of the mountain. The idle apprentice who has luck is far more likely to marry his master's daughter than the industrious apprentice who hasn't it. The clever man and the lucky one start out side by side, but they soon drift apart; the lucky man goes to the right door, the clever man goes to the wrong one; and the end of it is that the clever man writes from his cottage to the lucky man in his mansion, begging the loan of a few pounds to keep the bailiffs out. There is nothing to which a man without luck cannot attain by hard work, except one thing—success.
Decidedly there had been no fairy godmothers at Brightly's christening. None of the good things of life had fallen upon him; and yet he possessed those virtues which are supposed to make for wealth; no man could have worked harder or showed more perseverance; and as for early rising it was easy because he had no bed to rise from. Still he could not make a living. The elusive coppers refused to increase and multiply into shillings; and as for sovereigns they were as extinct as dodos.
Brightly continued his various progresses with that strict attention to business which had always characterised him, and with the empty stomach which had become a habit; but without any luck. Any one might have mistaken him for a poet.
He was working the same old stretch: Meldon, Sourton Down, Bridestowe, Lydford, Brentor, and the Tavys, his basket dragging at his arm, and Ju trotting her poor little life away at his heels. Ju also had been deserted by canine fairy godmothers. Perhaps she too had dreams—of a basket, furnished with soft cushions beside a fire, and perennial plates of bones and biscuits.
Brightly had a fresh stock of atrocious yellow vases, thanks to the generosity of the lovers at the fair; and he was hard at work again collecting rabbit-skins; and still encouraged himself by thinking of the glorious time when he would jog contentedly along the stony roads in a little cart neatly littered with fern, with a lamp to be lighted after dark, and the board bearing the inscription: "A. Brightly. Purveyor of rabbit-skins," set forth for all to read. It was not a very lofty ambition, although quite an impossible one. Brightly was getting on in years; his rheumatism and asthma were increasing; so was his blindness; he wept sometimes, but that did not assist his business. Sometimes he thought the time was getting near when he would have to sell his vases and buy two pennyworth of rat-poison. He thought he would do it with rat-poison. Perhaps when he woke up, if he did wake up, he would find himself in Jerusalem among the jugs of milk and honey-pots; and perhaps there would be somebody like Boodles looking at him with the same moist eyes. He could not go into the poorhouse. They would frighten him there, and he would much rather be dead than in that prison. Nature seemed rather to have overreached herself when she created Brightly. What was the use of such a defenceless creature, this sort of human rabbit whom any one could attack? Why turn him out feeble and half blind when he had his living to make? Even the wayside weed is better cared for. When its crown-bud is bitten off by a cow Nature sets to work to repair the injury at once, and the plant grows up as well as ever. Nature did nothing to repair Brightly's injuries. She did not even permit him to enjoy tobacco, that one luxury of the lonely and friendless. Probably she foresaw what a boon tobacco would be to him, so she afflicted him with asthma. Nature delights in thus adding toil to toil and trouble to trouble. It is only in the matter of adding pleasure to pleasure that she is niggardly.
Brightly was coming up the moor towards St. Mary Tavy. His face looked smaller and his hands bigger. There was another change, a far more striking one; he was actually well dressed; there was nothing, of course, in the shape of useless accessories, such as shirt or underwear, but the black seal-like raiment had been discarded and a suit of brown cloth had taken its place. He had picked up those clothes while burrowing in a wheal to find shelter from a pitiless downpour. It had been a great find which had rejoiced his heart, for although he was accustomed to make a living by picking up things which other people threw away, he had never before discovered anything half as priceless as a suit of stout garments. It had never occurred to him that they might not have been thrown away, but merely hidden in the wheal, or that he had no right to them, or that it could be dangerous for him to be seen about in them.
"Us will pitch here," said Brightly, stopping near the moor gate, and lowering his basket carefully. "It be dinner time, Ju."
The little dog wagged at the prospect. Dinner time occurred frequently, but generally without the dinner. She sniffed ravenously at the handkerchief in the corner of the basket, and decided that the menu of the day was cheese, largely rind, but still cheese, a slab of bread, and two onions. It was one of the feast-days. They reposed upon heather, and Brightly made a division of the food, reserving the onions for himself, but allotting Ju a bigger piece of rind as compensation. "You'm a lot littler than I," he explained. "Your belly be filled quicker. It be no good giving yew an onion, 'cause yew wun't yet 'en. Tak' your cheese—don't swallow like that, ye little stoopid! Yew don't get the taste of 'en at all. Yet 'en slow, and tak' a bit o' bread wi' 'en same as I du. Us wun't get no more to-day like enough."
The meal was soon over, and then Brightly sat up and began to whistle, while Ju squatted upon the heather, her tongue lolling out, and her poor little mongrel head following every motion of her master's body. Brightly's only recreation was whistling, and he took the pastime seriously. With his pinched face and big round glasses set towards Brentor he piped away as hard as he could; first a ballad which he had heard in an ale-house, then a hymn, and another ballad, and then the favourite of all, Jerusalem the Golden. He whistled them all wrong, but he didn't know it. For the time being he was happy enough, as he was a contented soul, and his chief happiness was to be alone on the moor, which then seemed to be his own property, with the scented garden of heather and gorse about him, and the sweet wind blowing upon his face; and they all seemed to be his own while he was alone. It was only when he saw a cottage, or a farm, or a man approaching him, that he understood they were not his own, but the property of the cottage, or the farm, or the man approaching him, and that he lived only upon sufferance, and might get into trouble for lying on the heather, and smelling the gorse, or for permitting the pleasant wind to blow upon his face.
After whistling he began to sing, making, it must be owned, a shocking noise. He did not know the words of the ballads, nor more than a single line of the Wesleyan hymn which children sing in procession upon chapel anniversary day. Brightly had often listened as he tramped by, with his full basket and his empty stomach, but he had never caught the Words because the children gabbled them so in their hurry to get the religious exercises over and attack the cakes and splits. "Jesu, Master, us belongs to yew," he howled discordantly, while Ju howled in dismal agreement, and began to whimper when her master went on to scream about Jerusalem and dairy produce.
"I reckon that be the beautifullest tune as ever was sung," commented Brightly, "I'll sing 'en again, Ju, and I'll get 'en right this time. I mun sing him a bit stronger. I reckon the end o' the world can't be over far off, wi' volks got so cruel wicked, and us mun get ready vor't."
He folded his hands upon his knees, and was about to resume his noises when the moor gate clicked. Brightly's faculties were as keen as a bat's. He could not see much, but he could sense the approach of danger; and when he heard the gate slam violently, and a thick voice exclaim: "There a' be!" he started up, anxious to get back to his solitude, conscious somehow that unfriendly beings were upon him, to steal his "duppence," and put him out of business by smashing his vases. He stared through his glasses until he distinguished two fat figures, one in uniform, the other in shabby raiment, advancing upon him with threatening movements, one the village constable, the other the village reprobate; and when he saw them, that grim thing called terror descended upon Brightly. He had done nothing wrong so far as he knew, but all the same he could not resist the fear, so he fled away as hard as he could, the basket dragging upon his arm, and Ju trotting at his heels. He knew what it meant to fall into the hands of his fellow-men. Pendoggat had shown him, and most men were Pendoggats to Brightly.
He went up the moor towards the top of the village, and the stout constable soon gave up the chase, as he was not used to violent exercise, nor did he receive any extra pay for exerting himself. Besides, he was sure of the man. He wiped his face and told the village reprobate, who was his most obliging servant and had to be, that it was cruel hot, and he'd got that lusty he didn't seem able to run properly, and he thought he would return to the village and prepare for more strenuous deeds with a drop o' cider; and he charged the reprobate to follow Brightly and head him off at the top of the village, and keep him close until he, the constable, should have cooled down and recovered from his fatigue sufficiently to attend in great pomp and arrest the rascal. He reminded the reprobate he must not arrest Brightly because that was not allowed by law; but he was at perfect liberty to knock him down, and trample on him, and inform him that the criminal law of the land was about to spread its net around him. The constable's state of mind regarding the law was peculiar. He had no idea that laws were made to punish crime. He conceived that creatures like Brightly existed to supply the demands of the law.
At the head of the village Brightly encountered more man-hunters, but he managed to escape again, although he had to leave his basket behind. Some children soon rifled it, and took the gorgeous vases home to their mothers. With the instinct of the hunted animal the fugitive turned upon his tracks, fled up a side lane, climbed over a hedge, waited until his pursuers had passed, then hurried back for his basket, hoping to reclaim it and get away upon the moor, where he could soon hide himself. But he had not gone far when he saw a vision; the angel again, the angel of Tavistock, the angel from Jerusalem, who had dropped out of the church window and set him up in business with half-a-crown; and she came to meet him in the road, as angels do, with his basket in her hand, and just the same pitiful look in her eyes. There was no church just by, only a little white cottage; but perhaps it was furnished like a church, with coloured windows, booming organ, and a big black book on the outspread wings of a golden goose.
"I have got some of the vases. The children have not taken them all," said Boodles. "I saw it from the window. What have you done?"
"They knows, your reverent; I don't," gasped Brightly. He didn't know how he ought to address the angel, but he thought "your reverent" might do for the present. He stood upon the road, panting, shivering, and coughing, while Boodles looked at him and tried to laugh, but couldn't.
"What a dreadful cough!" she said sorrowfully.
"It's asthma, your reverent. I allus has it, and rheumatics tu—just here, cruel, your reverent. I be getting blind. I don't seem able to see you properly," he said, in the voice of one saying his prayers, and half choking all the time.
"Don't call me your reverent," said Boodles. "How silly! I—I'm only a little girl."
Brightly had always supposed that celestial beings are modest. He only shook his head at that remark. He had seen little girls, and knew quite well what they were like. They didn't have golden skin and a glory about their heads, neither did they drop down suddenly before starving and persecuted beings, to give them half-crowns, and save them from their enemies.
"Asthma, rheumatics, and getting blind," he repeated, shattering the words with coughs. He hoped the angel might touch him and heal his infirmities if he told her all about them.
She only gave him the basket, and said: "You had better come in and rest. I don't like to hear you cough so. I hope you haven't been stealing anything?" she said reproachfully.
"I ain't done nothing—nothing serious," declared Brightly. "I was a-sitting on the heather, singing about Jesus and us belonging to 'en, when policeman comes a-shouting, there 'a be,' and I ran, your reverent. I was that mazed I didn't hardly know what I was doing. They'm after I now, and I ain't done nothing that I knows on. I was a-yetting my bread and cheese and singing. I warn't a-harming a living thing. I warn't a-harming not a butterfly, your reverent."
Boodles would have laughed had Brightly been a less pathetic object. She said she believed he was honest, bent to pat Ju, then took them both into the cottage and into the little room where old Weevil was preparing a long screed, to be addressed to some society, and headed: "An Inquiry into the Number of Earthworms mutilated annually by Agricultural Implements." He was very much astonished when he saw Brightly, but became as pitiful as the girl when he had heard the story.
"I am sure he speaks the truth," said Boodles for the defence.
"I don't care whether it's the truth or a lie. Another poor thing caught by the Brute," muttered Weevil. "We must help him to escape. We will keep him here until dark, and then he can creep away. It's what we are always doing, all of us—trying to creep away from the Brute."
Brightly seated himself in a reverential attitude, regarding poor old Weevil as a patriarch, a sort of modern Abraham who had pitched his tent in that part of the country for the benefit of the poor and friendless. He wondered if the patriarch was a prophet also, and could tell him if he would ever attain to the pony and cart; but he had not the courage to ask.
"What are those things in your basket?" said Weevil.
"Two rabbit-skins, sir. I makes my living out o' they. Least I tries to," added Brightly drearily.
"Where have you come from?"
"To-day from Lydford, sir. Yesterday from Belstone, round Okehampton, and over Sourton Down. Trade be bad, sir."
"How many miles is that?"
"Mebbe nearly twenty from Belstone. I went round about like, and pitched to Lydford last night."
"Twenty miles for two rabbit-skins. Merciful God!" gasped Weevil.
"Amen, sir," said Brightly.
"Don't you know what the policeman wants you for?"
"I don't, sir. I was a-sitting on the heather when he come, and I ran. I got to the top o' the village, and a lot more of 'em were after I, and I ran again. I got away from 'em, and was a-coming back vor my basket, when the reverent appeared avore I wi' my basket in the reverent's hand."
"That's me," said Boodles, demurely and ungrammatically, in answer to Weevil's puzzled look. She was feeding Ju with biscuit, stroking her thin sides at the same time, and making the poor bitch share her master's impressions concerning the pleasant nature of angelic visions.
There was a knock upon the door, not the timid knock of a visitor, nor the obsequious knock of a tradesman, but the loud defiant knock of authority. The constable had arrived, full of cider and a sense of duty, and behind him a number of villagers had gathered together, with a sprinkling of children, some of whom had stolen Brightly's vases, and seen him enter Lewside Cottage, and then had run off to spread the news everywhere.