Peter sat by his hearthstone and repeated with the monotony of a tolling bell—
"There be a lot o' volks in the world, and some be vulish, and some be artful, but me, Peter, be artful."
This was numbered one-hundred-and-seventy, and it was the latest gem from his book of aphorisms; artful meaning in that connection clever, the author having a tendency to use irregular forms of speech. Peter read the thought aloud until most people would have found him tedious; he recited it to every one; he had carried it to Master, and made the old man commit it to memory. Master finally inscribed it, number and all, in his presentation copy of Shakespeare, thinking the sentiment well worthy of being incorporated with the work of the poet, and declared that Peter's literary fame was assured. He added the information that his old pupil was beyond question a philosopher, and Peter agreed, then asked Master for his dictionary. It was an old book, however, and the word was not given, at least not in its proper place, under the letter F; so Peter failed at that time to discover his precise position in the intellectual world.
The diary was certainly advancing, as Peter was already in his second pennyworth of paper, and his bottle of ink was on the ebb. Thoughts had been coming so freely of late that interesting details of the daily life were crowded out. He omitted such confidential details as Mary was dunging the potato-patch, or he had just mended his trousers; he filled his pages instead with ingenious reflections which he supposed, and not without some justification, had possibly not occurred to the minds of thinkers in the past. He neglected biography for philosophy, and the fluency with which such aphorisms as "'Tis better to be happy than good" came from his pen, merely confirmed his earlier impression that the manufacture of literary works was child's play. He would not have allowed that he had been assisted by collaboration, even if the meaning of the word had been explained to him; although most of the sentiments which adorned, or rather which blotted, his pages were distorted versions of remarks which had fallen from the lips of Boodles. His work was entirely original in one respect; the style of spelling was unique.
Boodles did not know that she had developed into an inspiration, and the poor child was certainly far too miserable to care. She came to Ger Cottage every evening in the dimsies, stopped the night with Mary, and went home in the morning. She followed Mary like a dog, knowing that the strong creature would protect her. Her mind would have gone entirely had she stayed at Lewside during those endless winter evenings and the long nights. She owed her life, or at least her reason, to Mary. There was a good heart under that strong creature's rough hide, a heart as soft and tender as Boodles who clung to her. At first the child had refused to leave Lewside Cottage, but when she screamed, "The shadows are getting awful, Mary; they seem to bite me," the stalwart savage picked her up like a baby, finding her much too light, and stalked over the moor deaf to protest. She made up a little bed for Boodles in the corner of her hut, and every night there was the strange sight of Mary bringing the little girl a glass of hot milk to drink before going to sleep, and singing quaint old ballads to her when she couldn't. Mary had got into the way of asking Boodles for a kiss every night; she said it did her good, and no doubt she spoke the truth. It seemed to give her something she had missed.
"But I am ugly now, Mary," said Boodles, in response to her nurse's oft-repeated "purty dear."
"That yew bain't," came the decided answer. "You'm butiful. I never saw ye look nothing like so butiful as yew be now."
"I feel hideous anyhow," said the child. "I don't believe I can look pretty when I feel ugly."
Peter overheard that, put his head on one side in philosophic contemplation, and presently took his pen and wrote: "Bootiful maids what feels ugly still be bootiful. It be contrairy like, but it be true;" and the number of that thought was one-hundred-and-seventy-one.
Mary was not far wrong, for Boodles was quite as attractive as ever. She was more womanly, and had put pathos on her face with the little lines and shadows which impelled love for very pity. Her eyes seemed to have become larger, and her pale frightened face, under the radiant hair which had not changed, was fascinating with its restless changes. There was one thing left to her, and she called it everything. Each week the cold weather went away for a few hours, and warm June came round with a burst of flowers and sunshine, and her heart woke up and sang to her; for Aubrey had not forgotten. He wrote to her, though she kept her promise and did not write to him. Every week the question came: "Why don't you write?" and sometimes she thought the letters were getting colder, and then the stage sunshine was turned off and real thunder rolled. He had written to his parents, but they had told him nothing. They didn't even refer to her in their letters. It seemed to him as if she was dead, and he was getting miserable. But she would not break her promise and write; and if consent had been given she could not tell him the truth, send him out of her life for ever, and end those wonderful mornings when the postman came.
Aubrey loved her still, that gave her everything, and while his love lasted she was still on the green oasis, and could shut her eyes to the desert, scarred with the bodies of those who had tried to cross it and had fallen in the attempt, the bare desert of life without any sweet water of love, which she would have to try and cross without a guide when he came back and she had told him plainly what she was. She thought it would kill her, for love cannot be removed without altering the entire universe; for with love the sun goes, and the flowers go, and all the pleasant nooks; and there is nothing left but the rocks, the moaning of the sea, the fierce and ugly things, and faces that scowl but never smile. The only perfect happiness is the birth of love; the only absolute misery is the death of it; and it is such a tender growth that one careless word may chill it into death.
The three were sitting together in the lamplight, and Peter was giving oral evidence of his inspiration, when there came a knock upon the door, a thing almost without precedent after dark. Boodles shivered because she hated sudden knocks which suggested unpleasant visitors and horrors, while Mary turned from her work and went to the door. Annie was standing there, or staggering rather, a black shawl round her head, her face ghastly.
"Please to come in," said Mary.
Annie lurched in, and gazed about her wildly. She was sober enough to know what she had come for. She stared at them, then upon the hearthstone where the ceremonial of witchcraft was still being observed; while Peter babbled of great thoughts like a running brook. The door was open, and some of the smoke of the swaling-fires entered, and they could hear the crackling of distant flames.
"I reckon yew can tak' 'en off," said Annie hoarsely, pointing to the hearthstone. "He've done his work. All Dartmoor be in flames, and the Barton be in flame tu, I reckon. I flung the lamp into the kitchen and set a match to 'en. Coming wi' me, Mary Tavy? Best come wi' me and see the end on't."
"What would I want to come wi' yew for, woman?" said Mary.
"Where be the old goose yew was so fond of?"
"My Old Sal. He be gone. Mebbe he got stugged, and some old fox come along and took 'en," said Mary.
"Stugged was he? I saw 'en stugged," Annie shouted. "Came across Barton court, he did, and the man took 'en, and twisted the neck of 'en, and flung 'en in the vuzz. 'He be Mary's Old Sal,' I ses, but he only swore."
Mary spat upon her hands.
"He picked up a stick, and hit me on the ear, me, a free woman. I ses to 'en avore, 'If yew lifts your arm at me, Mary knows.'"
"I be coming," said Mary.
"Me tu," said Peter.
There was much for Mary to avenge. Pendoggat had beaten her brother, had terrified Boodles, to say nothing of his attempt to rob her, and now Mary knew he had killed the old goose. She had never ceased to mourn for Old Sal; and Pendoggat had destroyed the leader of her flock out of sheer malice and cruelty. The spirit of the lawless Gubbings entered into Mary as she picked up her staff and made for the door, while Peter shambled after her, a philosopher no longer, but a savage like herself.
But Boodles was crying: "Don't leave me, Mary. The shadows will get big and thick and take hold of me."
"Aw, don't ye be soft, maid," cried Annie.
"Bide here, my dear. Us will lock ye in, and no one shan't touch ye," said Mary.
"He may come this way. I can't stay here, with the light of these fires upon the window. I shall scream all the time."
"Come along wi' us," said Mary. "Come between Peter and me, my dear. Lord love ye, I'd break the head of any one what touched ye."
Peter left the hut-circles last, securing both doors, and dropping the keys in his baggy pocket. Then they set forth, the smoke over them, the fires on each side, and the white frost like snow upon the ground.
Pendoggat gave a sigh of relief as he descended into the hollow of the Barton and saw nobody, and heard nothing except the crackling of the flames and the furze screaming as the fire rushed through it; for the furze screams when it is burnt like a creature in torment. There was a smell of fire about the house and the heavy stink of paraffin; and in the kitchen he saw the broken lamp, but the fire had gone out; it could not feed upon damp stones. Pendoggat smiled when he saw the kitchen. So Annie was drunk again, which was what he had hoped for, as she was less dangerous in that condition; she could only scream and tumble about, hurting nobody but herself. She would not be able to follow him, and if she picked up his gun she would be more likely to kill herself than him. Probably she was lying in the linhay, or on her bed, hardly conscious, groaning herself to sleep. Everything was in his favour; the whole night was before him, and he had only to finish his work there, then escape through the warm scented smoke. He was feeling sorry for the minister, but the ordeal which Eli had just undergone might prove a blessing, strengthen his character, make a man of him. Annie was not in the house. Perhaps she had gone down to the Tavy to drown herself. Pendoggat shook his head as that idea occurred to him. There could be no hope in the future state for a suicide. Still it was better she should drown herself than obstruct him; and after all she was getting on in years, she would soon be homeless, and would naturally shrink from the workhouse. Pendoggat was not going to judge her harshly, as that would not be right, and she had looked after him well at one time. If she had not been so foolish as to grow elderly, and have grey hairs, he might have remained constant to her.
He had destroyed everything in his secret drawer already, so he had only to collect a few things, burn the furze and tidy up there. He fastened up his things into a bundle before remembering that Annie had a bag which was not likely to be of much use to her, so he went and fetched it and packed his things in that. He brought the bag into the court, went to the linhay for a spade, carried it to the edge of the furze, then discovered he had no matches. He went back towards the house, but as he crossed the court a figure came out of the smoke and laughed at him, the figure of a white-faced woman who seemed pleased to see him; and behind her towered another figure, tall and gaunt, the sort of figure which might have made those weird footprints in the snow; and as the smoke drifted upward there were two others in the background, a little girl wrapped up in a big coat, and gnome-like Peter with big beard and turned-up nose like an old man of the moor.
Annie said nothing, but only laughed, as a woman will when she feels satisfied. She staggered to one side, and Mary came forward. There was no laughter on her wooden face, and no drunken stupor over her body. She dropped the big stick and it clattered upon the stones of the court. The swaling-fires were all round, and they gave light enough, a weird kind of light which tinted the smoke and made the walls of the Barton red.
"Aw, man," cried Mary. "You killed my Old Sal, and I be come to pay ye vor't."
Pendoggat went white when he heard that. He could not stand before the wiry creature who seemed to represent no sex, but the cruel principle of natural strength. The trap had snapped upon him and he felt its iron teeth. He had caught others and enjoyed watching their struggles, and now he was caught himself and others were enjoying his struggles. A few yards cut him off from the moor, but there was no way out except by the gate of the court, and Mary was before him. He wondered if Brightly had felt like that when he was running for his liberty with the hand of every man against him.
"I never knew the old bird was yours," he muttered; and added: "I'll pay you for him;" but Annie watched him, saw his face, and laughed louder.
Mary made an ungainly movement, a sort of lurch as if to collect her strength, then she caught him by the neck. He struggled free and she had him round the body, twisting him like a willow-stick; a big hand came upon his throat and he felt as if water was rushing over his head. He could hear Annie's mad laughter and her jeering voice: "You'm a strong man, they ses. Why don't ye get away? She'm only a woman. Why don't ye throw her off, man?" He began to fight at that, struggling and hitting wildly, but Mary had a certain science as well as strength. She knew an animal's weak points. She struck at them with a fist like a lump of granite, and when he retaliated by hitting her on the face her savage blood seemed to rise before her eyes, and she drove him about the court until his face was bloody. Boodles turned away then, and went to the side of the house between the wall and the brake of furze, half-sick, trying not to give way. She had never felt so horribly alone. Mary, her friend and protector, was a wild beast of the moor, the savage principle of the cruel Nature which was crushing her. The red light of the fire fell upon her radiant head, which resembled it, as if she had been intended to punish Pendoggat, and not Mary, because her head was like fire just as his nature was like furze. All the time she could hear Annie's furious laughter and her mocking voice: "Why don't ye stand up to she, man? Tak' your stick and hit she on the head till she'm mazed. Hit she on the ear, man, same as you hit me. Yew twisted the old goosie's neck easy enough. Why don't ye du the like to she?"
"Aw, man, I reckon I've paid ye," gasped Mary.
"Two or dree more vor I," shouted little Peter, jumping about the court in riotous joy.
Mary was satisfied. She flung the man aside, still holding him by the collar of the coat, which was an old one, as he was too miserly to buy a better. The fabric parted at the seam, and as he fell the coat came asunder and half remained in Mary's hand, the sleeve rending off with the violence of her strength. It was the part containing the pocket which was bulging, and when Mary threw it away Annie snatched it up and tore out the contents, a letter or two, some papers, and the precious roll of notes, which Pendoggat had played for with all his cunning, had ruined the minister for, and finally had won; only Annie was too dazed and mad to know what she was holding. She staggered to the furze, holding the packet above her head, and flung it as far as she could; and it fell in the centre and settled down there invisible among the frosted prickles.
Pendoggat watched as he stood half-dazed against the well, wiping the blood from his face, and again thanked his stars which remained propitious. His soul had been thrown into the furze, but he could regain it. Annie's madness had saved him. Had she been more sane and sober she might have discovered what it was she had taken. Nobody knew he had the money even then. His punishment was over. He deserved it for being perhaps unnecessarily hard upon the minister; and now he was not only a free man, but the sin had been wiped away, because he had been punished for it and had suffered for it. The disgrace was nothing, as he would never be seen there again. He edged away towards the furze, and no one stood in his way. He caught up the spade, which he had placed there, and began to hack at the big bushes, trying to make a passage. The swaling-fires above were dying down and the red light was fading from the hollow.
"Ah, go in there, man. Go in," muttered Annie, becoming quiet when she saw what he was after.
Pendoggat had lost his senses, as men will when their money is taken from them. Had he waited a little, until Mary had gone, and he had got rid of Annie for a time, he might have started for Tavistock presently with nothing lost except honour which was of no value. But he could not wait; he was dazed by Mary's blows; and all the time he fancied he saw that precious packet which contained his future stuck in the furze; and if he could not see it he knew it was there and he must get at it. He went on hacking at the bushes, burrowing his way in, without feeling the prickles; while Mary picked up her stick, turned to Peter, and said she was going home. Then she looked for Boodles, but the girl was not there, and when she started round Annie was not there either. She and Peter were alone in the court, and the furze beyond was convulsed as though a beast had fallen there and was trying to flounder its way out.
"He'm mazed, sure 'nuff," said Peter, in a happy voice. The blows which Pendoggat had dealt him were avenged. Peter forgot just then the power of witchcraft which he had invoked by the arts that were in him. Neither he nor Mary remembered the mommet, but Annie had not forgotten. She thought of the little clay doll squatting in the glowing peat, and she seemed to see the fantastic object shaking its head at her and saying: "Who is on my side?" Annie went into the house for something, then passed round the wall, and came upon Boodles standing at the other end of the furze brake, rubbing the frost off the white grass stalks.
"Is it all over?" asked the child.
"Aw ees, it be done. You'm cold, my dear," whispered Annie hoarsely. "Tak' this, my dear, and warm yourself. You've been out swaling, I reckon."
She pushed a box of matches into the girl's hand.
"He wun't have it burnt just to spite me. Makes the kitchen so cruel dark I can't see from one side to t'other. Now be the time, for he'm mazed and can't stop us. Sot a match here, my dear."
"It's so close to the house," said Boodles.
"The house can't burn. 'Tis stone and slates. I don't want 'en to think I did it," said Annie cunningly. "Quick, my dear. Mary be calling ye."
Boodles loved swaling expeditions. In the past, furze-burning had been almost her only outdoor pleasure; and, though she was unhappy then, she was very young and the sense of enjoyment remained. That huge brake would make the most glorious blaze she had ever seen. Dropping to her knees she struck a match, hearing Annie gasp once, and then the fire touched the tinder-like masses of dead growth, there was a splutter caused by the frost, a flame darted up, then down, and up again higher; and then there was a roar, and the brake before her became in an instant like an open furnace and she jumped back to save her face and hair.
"Oh, it's splendid," she cried.
Annie was leaning against the wall screaming, sheltering her face, perhaps from the heat, perhaps from what she might see.
"It's done. My God, it's done, and nothing can put it out."
Somewhere in those flames a man's voice was shouting horribly. The fire seemed to sweep through with the rapidity of light, but nothing else could be heard except the roaring and the screaming and hissing as the big bushes melted away. Mary came running round, and Annie screamed at her—
"I never done it. I never put the match to 'en."
"Aw, my dear, what have ye done?"
"I am swaling. Did you ever see such a blaze?" cried innocent Boodles.
"Her don't know," screamed Annie. Then she staggered into the court and fell fainting.
"The man's in the vuzz," Mary shouted.
All the sounds had ceased, and already the great flames were going out, leaving a red smoulder of ashes and big scarlet stems. It seemed to be getting very dark. Boodles did not realise what she had done, and Mary said no more; but Peter shuffled round, understanding it all perfectly, though not in the least ashamed.
"'Twas just the mommet," he explained. "Her had to du it 'cause her couldn't help it."
Presently they trod over the fiery ground and dragged the body out, without clothes, without hair, without sight; without money also, for the roll of notes had melted away in one touch of those terrible flames. He looked dead, but, like the furze which seemed to be annihilated, he lived. The heart was beating in the man's body, and the roots were alive in the glowing soil. Both would rise again, the one into a fierce prickly shrub; the other into a man destined for the charity of others, scarred, maimed, and blind. There was to be no escape for Pendoggat, no new life for him. Boodles of the fiery head had fulfilled her destiny; had burnt out one malignant moorland growth which had caught so many in its thorns; and had rendered it harmless for ever.
Down the hill from St. Mary Tavy to Brentor came Brightly, most irrepressible of unwanted things, his basket on his arm, feeding on air and sunshine. It was early spring, there were pleasant odours and a fine blue sky, all good and gratuitous. Brightly had been discharged from prison as a man of no reputation, to be avoided by some and trampled on by others. His one idea was to get back to business; rabbit-skins ought to have accumulated, he thought, during' the months of his confinement; there would be a rich harvest awaiting him, which might mean the pony and cart at last, with prosperity and a potato-patch to cheer his closing days. He went for his basket, and it was not until it was slung upon his arm and he had bent himself into the old half-hoop shape to carry it over the moor, that he comprehended its emptiness. Formerly his stomach was empty and the basket was full; now both were empty; and the crushing difficulty of starting afresh without capital was with him again.
Brightly determined to subsist for a little on charity, but he soon made the discovery that Samaritanism was no longer included among the Christian virtues. People refused to do business with him on a benevolent basis. They slammed the doors in his face, and called him unpleasant names. They reminded him he had been in prison, as if he had forgotten it; and some of them added an opinion that he had got off far too cheaply. Others said if he came there again they would set the dog on him. Brightly soon became very hungry, and almost longed for the comforts of prison. It had been no easy matter to make a sort of living during those days when he thought himself honest. Now that he knew he was a criminal it appeared impossible.
Brightly was in danger of becoming an atheist. He stopped his hymn-singing; verses descriptive of the wonderful dairy were no longer found in his mouth, nor did he use the jingling refrain which concludes: "Jesu, Master, us belongs to yew." What was the use of belonging to some one who did nothing for him? Wise men have puzzled over that question, so it was not surprising if it bewildered poor foolish Brightly. He had been told in the prison that if he prayed for anything it would be granted; and his informer had added it was obviously his duty to pray for honesty. Brightly did nothing of the kind; he prayed for the pony and cart, throwing himself heart and soul into the business, as he had plenty of time. Instead of being a purveyor of rabbit-skins he became a praying machine. He considered that if there was any truth in the theory that prayers are answered, he ought to find the pony and cart awaiting him at the door of the prison. He did see one as he came out, but it could not have been intended for him, as the name upon the board was not A. Brightly, and near it was a man looking like a sweep who would probably have resisted Brightly's claims with every prospect of success. His teacher would have said the prayer was not answered because it was not a proper one, but that would not have helped Brightly in the least.
The little man went down the hill sniffing at the sweet wind, but conscious that it was not invigorating as it used to be. The truth of the matter was he was getting tired of life. He had become feeble, his cough was worse, and his eyes troubled him so much that he had to stop often, take off his spectacles, and rub them. But he couldn't rub the darkness away. The eyes were getting bigger than ever because he strained them so, trying to find the road. Sometimes he found himself sinking in a bog; his eyes had never played him such a trick before he became a criminal. As he walked he would look back and whistle or say: "Us will pitch presently." He was always forgetting that Ju had ceased to exist; and when he sat down to rest he would talk to her or stroke the heather beside him.
He entered the village of Brentor, but trade remained "cruel dull," so he gave it up and tramped along the road towards the church on the tor. As he went an idea came to him. He must give up the old stretch and try a new one. He might take the eastern side of the moor, Moreton to Ashburton, with the villages between, taking in Widdecombe where the devil dwelt. His old road had been dominated in a sense by St. Michael's Church upon its mount, but the connection had proved of no service to him, and the devil might be a better patron. He could get across to the other side in two days, and perhaps he would find there some one who would give him half-a-crown and set him up in business again.
Brightly was not entirely without capital, for Boodles had given him twopence with his basket, saying she was sorry it was so little, but she too was poor. That was another blow to Brightly; the angel had her limitations, and seemed to have lost her power of working wonders for the time. She too looked ill and miserable, and when celestial beings suffered what chance was there for him? Brightly was not going to invest that twopence in the rabbit-skin business, nor did he regard it as the nucleus round which the fund for his pony and cart would gather. He wrapped it up in many changes of paper, vowing not to touch it until he should require food. The time had almost come, he thought, when he should want food, not to stimulate his body, but to cease its action entirely. The twopence was set aside for his funeral as it were, or rather for the rat-poison which would make the funeral necessary. It amused Brightly to think that people would have to spend money upon him when he was dead, though they refused to give him anything while he was living.
He left Brentor behind and went along the winding road; and the sun came out so pleasantly he wondered if the gods or human beings would be offended if he whistled. He decided to remain silent, as the constable might be in hiding behind one of the furze-bushes, and he would be sent back to prison for making obscene noises. He knew every yard of the country, though he could see so little of it. Higher up was a big slab of granite, flat and smooth like an altar-tomb, upon which he had often sat and watched the tower of St. Michael's juggling with the big ball of the setting sun. He went up there, and it was not until his boot touched the flat stone that he discovered it was already occupied. A woman was sitting on it. Brightly apologised most humbly for his intrusion, for walking along the road, and for cumbering the face of the earth. He was always meeting people, and he felt he had no right to do so.
"You'm welcome," said the woman.
Then Brightly opened his nearly useless eyes wider and found that she was Thomasine, the young woman who had been so good to him and Ju, and had fed them when they were starving, and helped them on the way to Tavistock. He had always associated Thomasine with a well-stocked kitchen and food in abundance. She had become mixed up in his mind with Jerusalem, and he had thought of her as presiding over the milk and honey, and ladling them out in large quantities at the back door to hungry men and dogs. And there she was sitting on the big stone looking miserable, with her clothes bedraggled and boots muddy. Brightly began to think hard and to reason with himself. He was not the only miserable creature after all; there were other human things belonging to the neuter gender besides himself. Even the angel was miserable and had confessed to poverty; and not a scrap of food surrounded the former Lady Bountiful of Town Rising. Brightly was in Thomasine's debt, and he was prepared to pay what he owed as well as he could. He was willing to share his twopence with Thomasine; she should have an equal portion of the rat-poison if she was hungry for it; and they could wash the meal down with sweet water from the moor. As for Thomasine, the little dried-up fragment which had once represented a mind responded to Brightly's presence and she recognised a friend.
"I be in trouble," she said.
Brightly was glad to hear it, though he did not say so. It was good to find a partner who would enter into an alliance with him against the fat constable, the Bench of Magistrates, and all the wigs and ermine of oppression. Here was another Ju, a human being this time, and perhaps she too had been sentenced to be destroyed because she was savage, and was trying to hide from the constable and the crowd. Brightly was prepared to show her all sorts of secret places where she would be safe.
"Be yew a criminal tu?" he asked.
Thomasine was not sure, but thought she must be.
"I be one. I be the worst criminal on Dartmoor," said Brightly, trying to draw himself up and look conceited. He had never done any good in his business, but as a criminal he was entitled to regard himself as a complete success.
"I ain't got no friends. My volks wun't ha' me to home, and I've lost my character," said Thomasine.
"I never had no friends, nor volks, nor yet character," said Brightly.
"You'm the man what went to prison for robbing Varmer Chegwidden," she said, using her memory with some success.
"Dree months wi' hard labour," said Brightly proudly.
"Yew never done it. I know who done it. 'Twas Varmer Pendoggat," she said.
"I thought mebbe I might ha' done it and never knowed," explained Brightly. "Why didn't 'em tak' he then?"
"No one knows 'cept me, and I only guesses. He was wi' I just avore I heard master galloping over the moor, and he mun ha' passed master lying in the road. 'Twas no good me speaking. They wouldn't ha' took my word, and he'd ha' killed I if I'd spoke. 'Tis through he I be here now."
Adversity had sharpened Thomasine's tongue. She could not remember when she had last made such a lengthy speech.
"Where be yew going?" asked Brightly.
"Nowheres," said the girl. "Where be yew?"
"Anywhere," said Brightly, which meant the same thing. "Shall us get on?" he added.
Thomasine accepted the invitation, rose from the stone, and they walked on, up the road and the steep tor, and came out at last beside the church with its tiny burying-place of granite and its weather-beaten gravestones. They sat down to rest upon the edge of the precipice, and Thomasine wanted to know why they had come there.
"I wun't never be here again. I used to come up here to whistle and sing, and now I be come to look out for the last time," said Brightly. "I reckon I'll try t'other side o' the moor. Mebbe volks bain't so cruel wicked there."
"I reckon 'em be," said Thomasine.
"Du ye reckon they'll know I be a criminal?"
"Sure 'nuff. Policeman will tell 'em."
"My cough be cruel bad got, and I can't hardly see. If I can't mak' a living what be I to du?" asked Brightly.
This was much too difficult a question for Thomasine, and she did not attempt to answer it.
"B'est hungry?" she asked.
"I've ha' been hungry for years and years, 'cept when I was in prison, and then I was hungry for air," said Brightly.
"Got any money?"
"Duppence."
"I ain't got nothing," she said.
"Shall us get on?" said the restless little man. He felt business calling him, though he could do nothing with his empty basket.
They went back the way they had come, through Brentor village, and towards Lydford, Brightly walking on one side of the road and Thomasine upon the other. The only remark the girl made was: "This bain't the way to Plymouth;" and Brightly replied: "It bain't the place for yew." He had some knowledge of the world, and knew that it could not be well for a girl without home or friends or character to walk about the streets of a big town.
They stopped at Lydford, and Thomasine went to a cottage where people dwelt whom she had known in the days of respectability, and they gave her food which she brought out and shared with her companion. They went to the foot of the cascade in the gorge and ate their meal to the subdued murmur of the long white veil of water sliding down the face of the precipice. They were alone in the gorge, where the Gubbingses had once dwelt, as the place is deserted during the early months of the year.
"Have ye got a home?" asked Thomasine.
"Ees, a proper old cave to Belstone Cleave."
"What be I to du?" she murmured.
"Come wi' I," said Brightly gallantly. "I be going home."
The girl tried to think, but soon gave up in despair. She was barely twenty-three, and her life seemed done already. Her parents had shut the door upon her, and erased her name from the book of life—the family Bible which retained the record of those who were respectable—not so much because she had done wrong as because the man who had led her astray would not marry her. It was quaint logic, but the world reasons that way. She was ready to go with Brightly because he was friendly and she required friendship badly; she hardly looked upon him as a man; he was such a poor incomplete thing; if a man, without the power of sinning like a man. She would go with him to the cave in the cleave, and cook for him, if there was anything to be cooked, with the old frying-pan with a bottom like a sieve.
"Ees, I've got a butiful home," muttered ridiculous Brightly with pride.
He was regarding Thomasine as the reincarnation of Ju. The little dog had come back to him in the form of a woman. He could talk to her, tell her trade was dull, and he was hungry; could whistle, and sing for her amusement, and pat her gently when she rested upon the heather. She could reply to him in a manner that was better than tail-wagging. Ju had come to the cave gladly and found it homelike, so why not Thomasine? He would not be called on to pay seven-and-sixpence a year for her; but on the other hand she was so big, larger than himself in fact, and he was afraid she would want a lot of food. Brightly became prouder every minute. He had a woman of his own and "duppence" wrapped up in bits of paper. He would not touch his hat to the next man he met on the road. He would stare him in the face and say: "How be ye?" just as if he had been a man himself.
"Shall us get on?" he said again.
They went on and reached windy Bridestowe that night. Brightly, who knew every building upon that part of the moor, found a shelter for Thomasine in a peat-linhay, and a resting-place for himself in a farmyard. They started off early in the morning, and Brightly produced eggs with the half-apologetic and half-proud explanation: "Us be criminals." He had stolen them. Up to the time of his conviction he had never been a thief, but since leaving prison he had felt it was necessary to live up to his reputation as a desperate character, and so he took anything he could find. Under the oil-cloth of his basket was a feathered fowl, and Thomasine was informed there would be a good supper for her that evening.
"Yew stoled 'en?" exclaimed the girl.
"Volks wun't give I nothing," said Brightly. "They ses 'you'm a thief,' and 'tis no use being called a thief if yew bain't. Yew fed me and Ju when us was starving, and now I be going to feed yew."
They reached the cave, and Brightly produced all his possessions with pride, explaining to his housekeeper that a fire must not be lighted until after dark lest the commoners should see the smoke. The girl shivered at the wretched prospect, but resigned herself; and that night she told Brightly her story, and he told her all about his ambitions, and about the pony and cart which would not come in spite of the vain repetitions which he called prayers.
Miserable days followed. The spell of fine weather ceased and frost returned; with it a biting wind which swept across the moor and got into the cave, the outside of which became a pretty piece of architecture with icicles hanging from the rock to the ground like bars of cold steel through which the prisoners gazed into the depths of the gorge. Brightly had become a real criminal at last; and the basket, which had been the symbol of honesty, was then a receiver of stolen goods. He sallied out every day to rob fowl-houses and dairies; to gather articles of clothing from hedges and furze-bushes where they had been put out to dry. His eyes had been opened by necessity and justice; dishonesty was the only way in business; had he practised it from the start he would have obtained all those good things which he had always desired; the cottage and potato-patch, the pony and cart; perhaps his asthma and blindness would have been stayed as well. It would have been better for Brightly had he died in prison; he was living too long, and had become a moral failure, a complete failure now in every sense.
One Sunday evening they crept out of their hole in the gorge and went to Sticklepath. Thomasine wanted to hear the pure gospel preached again, and she persuaded Brightly to come with her to the big chapel in the middle of the village that he might have his frosted soul warmed by listening to a realistic account of the place "down under" towards which he was hurrying. A strange preacher arose in the pulpit, an old white-bearded man near the end of his days, and he preached from the text: "I have been young, and now am old, and yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." He seemed a pious old man, although he could not have been observant, or perhaps he had gone about with his eyes shut, as the psalmist must have done; but he was eloquent, and his words thundered upon the congregation like Dartmoor rain upon a tin roof.
When they left the chapel Thomasine was weeping, and Brightly seemed to have become quite blind. Still he could not understand things. He had been righteous, as he had comprehended it, slipping into a church or chapel as often as he dared, and singing "Jerusalem the Golden" at every opportunity. Yet he had been forsaken and had begged his bread; Ju had been taken from him; he had been cast into prison. Who could explain these things? Perhaps he had not endured long enough; if he had held out another year the pony and cart might have been brought to him driven by the angel; but he could not hold out when people would not permit him to do business, and when he was starving. It was too late then to go back and tread the old road, for he had fallen at last, become dishonest in act; and if he went on in his wicked ways the policeman would run him down again; and if he reverted to honesty the poorhouse would claim him. There was only one way out. He must buy a ticket for Jerusalem. It would only cost twopence.
They returned to the cave, and Thomasine went on crying. She said she could stand it no longer. The moor was black with storm clouds, a thaw had set in, and water was trickling everywhere. Brightly sat huddled up and moaning. His eyes were nearly useless, and rheumatism racked his poor limbs. He knew that the decree had been given against him, he had been found guilty in the higher court, judgment had been signed against "A. Brightly. Rabbit-skin merchant. Abode Nowhere."
"Us mun get on," he said firmly.
"I can't bide here," sobbed Thomasine.
"Us will walk to-morrow," said Brightly.
"I'll go to Plymouth," she said.
"Live honest;" he begged. "Don't ye go to the dirty trade."
"I wun't," she cried. "I'll live clean if they'll let me. No one knows me there, and I'll get some job mebbe."
"I ha' been young, and now I be getting old," said Brightly. "I ha' been righteous tu, and I ha' begged, and I ha' prayed, and got nought."
"What be yew going to du?" she asked.
"I be coming wi' yew as far as Okehampton. I'll set ye on the road to Plymouth."
"Wun't ye come tu?"
"'Twould kill me," said Brightly. "I be that blind I'd get run over, and my asthma be got so cruel bad I wouldn't be able to breathe. I reckon I'll stop on Dartmoor."
"You'll live honest?" she said.
"I wun't tak' what bain't mine no more," Brightly promised.
In the morning they set out. It was raining, but they did not notice that. They crossed the Taw river, passed through Belstone, and struck into the lane which would bring them down to the Okehampton road. They had not gone far before they came upon a pony and cart fastened to a gate, belonging to the washerwoman, but the cart was empty and there was no one in sight. It carried a lamp, and a board was at the side revealing the owner's name, and the bottom was covered with fern. Brightly brought his pinched face near the cart, stopped to regard this revelation of his life-long dream, and then he succumbed to the great temptation. He unfastened the pony, climbed into the cart, and drove in majesty up the lane.
"What be yew doing?" cried Thomasine in great fear. "It bain't yourn."
Brightly did not hear her. He knew at last what it was like to jog along the lane in a little pony-cart, and for five precious minutes he was in dreamland. In that short space of time he completed the allotted span of human existence. He was returning to the littlie cottage in the midst of the potato-patch, after a day of successful work. The cart behind was piled high with rabbit-skins, and in her own little corner Ju was sitting, fat and content. Brightly put up his ridiculous head and whistled "Jerusalem the Golden" for the last time. Then he got down, tied up the pony to another gatepost, and tramped through the mud with Thomasine.
In the town they passed a window where a notice was displayed: "Men wanted," and the girl drew his attention to it, but Brightly only coughed. The dream had faded and he had returned to realism. Men were wanted to dig foundations, build houses, work in stone, hairy-armed men who could lift granite, not a poor creeping thing who had hardly the strength to strangle a fluttering fowl.
They went through the town, up the long hill on the other side, and near a quarry of red stone they stopped.
"It be the way to Plymouth," Brightly said.
"Thankye kindly," said Thomasine. "Be yew going back?"
"Ees; I be going back," he answered.
"Be yew going far?"
"A bit o' the way towards Meldon."
"Yew ha' got no money," she said pityingly.
"I ha' got duppence," he reminded her.
"You'll live honest?" she said again.
"It wun't be long. I ha' a sort o' choking feeling," he said, putting a raw hand to his throat.
"Be ye going down under?" Thomasine was looking over the hedge and between the bare trees. Some way below, beside the river, she could just see the workhouse.
"I be a going to walk towards Meldon, and sot by the river. If the pains get bad I'll fall in mebbe."
"No," she cried. "Don't ye du that."
"Us mun get on," said Brightly, mindful of business. "I wish ye good-bye."
They shook hands, and Thomasine began to cry again. She did not like the idea of walking along a lonely road all the way to distant Plymouth. "Thankye kindly," she sobbed.
"You'm welcome," said Brightly.
They parted, and the little man shuffled back to the town. Upon the bridge which spans the Okement he stopped, and took out the little packet which contained the "duppence." It was a wonderful sum of money, after all, if it would procure for him admission to the celestial dairy, where he could feast, and listen to, an organ playing, and see people dancing; and perhaps Ju would be sitting at his feet, wagging her tail, looking up, and enjoying it all too. It would be better than the wet cave, better than the workhouse, better than going back to prison. He would have to be quick, or they might discover how he had attempted to steal the pony and cart. He seemed to have become quite blind suddenly, and his heart was thumping against his side. He had to feel his way along towards the chemist's, which was the ticket office where he could obtain his twopenny pass into Palestine. There would be no stop on the journey, and they would be certain to let him in. Already he seemed to hear some one like Boodles saying: "Please to step inside, Mr. Brightly. Have a drop o' milk, will ye?" And there was another Boodles coming towards him with the pleasant words: "Be this your little dog, mister? Her's been whining vor ye cruel."
Brightly held the precious "duppence" for his fare tightly in his raw hand. He was smiling as he entered the chemist's shop.
Sad-eyed little Boodles stood in the porch of Lewside Cottage holding a letter which the postman had just left. She did not know who it was from, nor did she care, as there was no foreign stamp on the envelope, and the postmark was only unromantic Devonport. Aubrey had not written for a month, and she knew the reason. His parents had told him the truth about her, and he was so horrified that he couldn't even send her a line on a naked postcard as a sort of farewell. Still it was better to have no letter than a cruel one; if he could not write kindly she was glad he didn't write at all.
What was supposed to be spring had come round again, and something which used to be the sun was shining, and the woods beside the Tavy were carpeted with patches of blue and yellow which "once upon a time" had been called bluebells and primroses. The ogre had done his work of transformation thoroughly, leaving nothing unchanged. During those days Boodles went about the house so quietly that she wondered sometimes if she was much better than a shadow; she seemed to have lost the power of making pleasant noises; and when she caught sight of herself in the glass as she moved about her bedroom she would say: "There it is again—the ghost!" She told her friends of the hut-circles that the cottage was haunted, and Mary exclaimed: "Aw, my dear, I'll be round wi' my big stick," while Peter rebuked his sister for her folly, pondered the matter deeply, and at last told Boodles he should come in his own good time to "exercise the ghost" with various spells. Peter had fallen into the pernicious habit of using strange words, as he had purchased a cheap dictionary, and made constant use of it. He was developing other evil traits of authorship, having added to his ordinary costume of no collar and leather apron a yard of flimsy material about his neck in the form of a flowing tie. Master had told him philosophers wore such things, and Peter was also contemplating the purchase of a pair of spectacles, not because he required them, but Master declared that no man could possibly appear philosophic unless he regarded men and matters through gold-rimmed circles of glass. Every evening Peter approached Boodles with the utterance: "I be coming. I be coming to-morrow to exercise the ghost." She reminded him of the clock which he had been going to clean for two years, and added: "I'm the ghost," which brought upon her the fierce denunciation of Mary, who still maintained Boodles to be the "most butiful maid that ever was," and now that her Old Sal was no more the most perfect of all living creatures; while Peter went away, not like his apostolic namesake to weep bitterly, but to indite illegible aphorism number three-hundred-and-one dealing with the sad truism that men of wisdom do not receive a proper tribute of respect from the young and foolish.
Boodles was afraid of her mysterious letter and did not open it for some time. It might be from some relation of Weevil's, claiming what property he had left; or from her unknown mother concerning the obligations upon daughters to support their parents. At last she pulled the envelope apart, glanced timidly at the signature, and her dread departed, or became lost in astonishment, when the most extraordinary name caught her eye: "yours faithfully, Yerbua Eimalleb."
Boodles had a little fun left in her, not much, but enough to let her laugh sometimes. She plunged into the letter, to discover that Miss Eimalleb had only recently come to England, she wanted lodgings on Dartmoor, and having heard of Miss Weevil she was writing to know if she could accommodate her. "I believe you prefer old ladies," Boodles read. "I am not old, indeed I am quite young, and shall be glad to be a companion to you, but I am not well off, so I cannot come unless your charges are very moderate. I have only about £80 a year left me by an aunt, though my parents are still living."
"Oh, you darling!" cried Boodles. Then she sat down and began to think. Here was a young girl wanting to come and live with her, and willing to pay; a girl to be her companion and friend, who would go about with her everywhere, help her, comfort her, work with her—what a splendid prospect it was! They would cling together like two sisters, and the winds would not trouble, and the shadows would not terrify, any more; and she could laugh at the windy moonlit nights. The gods were being good to her at last, perhaps because she had been truthful and had not told Mrs. Bellamie the lie she had invented. They had taken the great thing from her because it was obviously impossible that she should have it. Aubrey was gone from her for ever, but surely this was the next best thing; a girl friend to live with her, perhaps to enter into partnership with her. Boodles felt she could face the big desert with a friend to help her, and a companion to depend upon. Love was not for her, but she would have the next best thing, which is friendship.
The letter was certainly a remarkable one, the writer's candour being no less extraordinary than her name. It was obvious she was a foreigner, but the signature gave Boodles no clue as to her nationality until she recalled a certain book on Eastern travel which she had once read, where a Persian name—or at least she thought it was Persian—very much like Eimalleb had occurred.
"I hope she's not a nigger," Boodles sighed, as her ethnical knowledge was slight and she had no idea what a Persian girl would be like. "Ethiopians have black faces, I'm sure. And she's certain to be a heathen. What fun it will be! She will wake me at some unearthly hour and say: 'Come on, Boodles, we must hurry up to the top of Gar Tor and worship the sun.' I hope she won't have a lot of husbands, though," she went on with a frown. "Don't they do that? Oh no, it's the men have a lot of wives, and they are not Persians, but Mohammedans. I am sure Persians worship fire. Persian cats do, I know. She will kneel before the grate and say her prayers to the coals."
Boodles was getting excited. The prospect of a companion was bringing smiles to her face and colour to her cheeks. One young maid would be decidedly more congenial to her than a covey of old ones. She would give up her own bedroom to the Persian girl, and when the cottage was nicely crammed with unquestionable old maids they could sleep together. She was sure her friend wouldn't mind, because she seemed so nice.
"She must be an impulsive, warm-hearted girl," Boodles murmured. "Telling me, a perfect stranger, about her private affairs." Then she plunged again into the letter, which was full of astonishing sentences. "Could you meet me on Friday morning at eleven o'clock in Tavy woods?" she read. "There is a gate at the Tavistock side and I would meet you close to that. You are sure to know me, as it is not likely there will be any one else about. I shall wear grey flannel and a plain straw hat. I understand you are not elderly. I think you will like me."
"I shall love you," cried Boodles with much decision, laughing joyously at the concluding sentences. "She understands I am not elderly, but I expect she will be astonished when she sees what a very young thing I am. Perhaps I had better make myself look older, wear a rusty black frock trimmed with lace, and a huge flat brooch at my throat, and a bonnet—Boodles, a little black bonnet with a lot of shaking things on it."
She ran indoors, singing for the first time since Weevil's death, and sat down to answer the wonderful letter as primly as she could. "I will be at the gate of the wood Friday morning," she wrote. Shall I say weather permitting or God willing? she thought. No, I shall be there anyhow. "I will come whatever happens," she went on, in defiance of gods and thunderbolts. "I am rather a small girl with lots of golden hair, and like you I am quite young. I feel certain I shall like you." This note she fastened up, and addressed to Miss Y. Eimalleb, again exclaiming: "What a name!" at the Post Office, Devonport.
When the fit of high spirits had exhausted itself she became unhappy again. It was unfortunate that the foreign girl with the wonderful name should have asked her to come to that gate where she and Aubrey had parted for ever, the gate which was just outside fairyland. All that childish nonsense was over, and the story had finished that day they roamed about the wood, and the gate had closed with unnecessary noise and violence behind them; but still it would be hard for her to wait there, not for Aubrey, but for a stranger. Her new friend would be coming from Tavistock, she supposed, meeting her halfway, just as Aubrey had done. It was quite natural she should do so, but Boodles wished she had appointed any other meeting-place. It cheered her a little to think that the Bellamies had cast aside enough of their respectability to recommend her, as she did not know how the young foreigner could have heard of her except through them. "She cannot be quite a lady, or they would never have sent her to me," was the girl's natural inference. "Perhaps they think foreigners don't count. I do hope she will have a nice English girl's face. If she is a nigger I shall scream and run away."
She carried the good news to Ger Cottage, but the savages both expressed their disapproval. Peter, who had travelled to distant lands, such as Exeter and Plymouth, told Boodles that foreigners, by which he meant dwellers in the next parish, were fearful folk with no regard whatever for strangers. Peter did not know anything about Persia, but when Boodles talked about the East he supposed she meant that mythical land of dragons and fairies called Somerset, which was the uttermost limit of his horizon in that direction; and he declared that the folk there were savage and unscrupulous, and spoke a language which no intelligent person could understand. Peter implored Boodles to have nothing to do with such people. While Mary, who had not travelled, except in one memorable instance from Lydford to Tavistock, said regretfully: "It bain't a maid yew wants, my dear, but the butiful young gentleman." Mary was much too outspoken, and was always making Boodles wretched with her blundering attempts at happy suggestions.
When Peter was shown the astonishing signature, and had obtained the mastery over it letter by letter, he nearly strangled himself with his abnormal tie, and expressed an opinion that the stranger was coming from absolutely unheard-of places, from the paint-clad aborigines of some land beyond Somerset, although his geography did not extend beyond that county.
"Her's a heathen," he cried, without any regard for the fact that he was himself no better. "Her will worship idols."
"Aw, my dear, don't ye ha' nought to du wi' she," begged Mary.
"I think Persians worship the sun," said Boodles doubtfully.
"Aw, bain't 'em dafty?" said Mary scornfully, though she too was a sun-worshipper without being aware of it.
"Her will be a canister tu," said Peter lugubriously.
"What be that?" asked Mary, who did not profess to know things.
"Her will et she, and then mebbe her will come on and et we," explained Peter, with needless apprehension, as the most ravenous cannibal would certainly have turned vegetarian before feasting upon him.
Boodles was always rude enough to correct Peter's most obvious errors, though he was so much older than herself, and she did so then, with the usual result that he went away muttering for his dictionary. He looked up cannon-ball, and of course discovered that he had been quite right and she was hopelessly in the wrong. Then he looked up canister, and found that it was a box for holding tea; and when he turned to tea he discovered it was sometimes made of beef, and beef was meat, and meat is what human beings are composed of; and canister was, therefore, a box for containing meat. He had been perfectly right, and the presumption of young maids was intolerable.
When Boodles got back to the village she saw the people standing about the street in groups as if they were expecting some one of importance to pass that way. She looked about but could see nothing; the people were almost silent; they did not laugh and spoke only in whispers. She felt as if some calamity was impending, so she hurried indoors and kept away from the windows, as it was rather a bright day for her and she did not want it spoilt; but presently a rumbling sound made her look out, and soon she was shuddering. A black closed vehicle, like a hearse, passed, drawn by two horses; and white-faced grey-haired Annie was seated beside the driver; and then Boodles knew what the people were standing about for. It was to see the vehicle go through on its way down to the workhouse infirmary. Boodles went very white, drew back, and hid her face in her hands. She thought Annie had turned her head and seen her at the window.
"Those flames will haunt me all my life," she whispered. "I shall see them jumping about my bed, and hear them roaring—but it wasn't my fault. He must have been a brute. How awful it would have been for me if he had died there."
Had she known all the evil that Pendoggat had done she would have felt less guilty and less sorry. She could only comfort herself with the knowledge that it had been Annie rather than herself who had started those terrible and uncontrollable flames. She would not be troubled with either of them again, apart from memory, for the workhouse had received them; one would remain there, crippled and blind, the other would doubtless go on into the world, and try to earn a livelihood for a few years before returning there again in the twilight of her days.
That night there was moonlight but no wind, and Boodles awoke in horror, fancying she heard for the second time that rumbling beneath her window, and screamed when she found and felt her body enveloped in flames. She sprang up to discover that she had been frightened by her own glowing hair. She was so sleepy before tumbling into bed that she had neglected to plait it, and it was all over the sheets like fire. "I shall always get these horrors while I am alone," she cried; and then she thought again of the wonderful letter, and the foreign girl with the amazing name whom she was to meet at the gate of the wood on Friday morning, and an intense longing for that strange girl came over her, and she cried aloud to the pale and equally lonely moon: "I hope she is nice. I will pray for her to be nice. The very first thing I shall ask her will be if I may sleep with her."
Friday, day of regeneration, came clothed in a white mist, and found the girl asking herself: "Shall I try and make myself look older?" She peeped out, saw the moor shining, and thought she would be natural, and go out upon it young and fresh; dressed in white to suit the mist, like a little bride; and, having decided, she was soon trying to make herself look as sweet as possible. When she had finished, slanting the bedroom glass to take in as much of the picture as it would, she was fairly well satisfied, and was just beginning to sing the old song, "I'm only a baby," when she stopped herself severely with the rebuke that she was only a common person trying to let lodgings.
All the spring flowers lifted up their heads and laughed at the lodging-house keeper when she appeared among them—they were really spring flowers that morning—and the real sun smiled, and real singing-birds mocked the little girl in white as she tripped towards the woods, because it appeared to them quite ridiculous that Boodles should relinquish her claims to childhood. The book of fairy-tales had been shut up and put away, thought she; but somehow the young spring things about her would not admit that.
Everything in the woods was wide awake and laughing; not crying any more, and saying, lisping, murmuring, whispering: "Here's the happy-ever-after little girl." It was the proper ending of the story, the ending that the gods had written in their manuscript and the compositor-ogres had tried to mar in their wicked way. How could any story end unhappily on such a morning? The yellow patches in the woods were not artificial blobs of colour but real primroses, and the blue patches were bluebells, and the white patches were wind-flowers with warm mist hanging to them; and Boodles was not a mere girl any longer, but the presiding fairy of them all going out to find another fairy to play with. It was not the best ending perhaps, but it was the second best. So she went down to the woods and met another fairy, and they played together happily ever after. The furze, in genial generous mood, showered its blossoms at her feet and said: "Here is gold for you, fairy girl." The Tavy roared on cheerily, and a little cataract said to a conceited whirlpool too young to know how giddy it was: "Isn't that the goddess Flora crossing by the stepping-stones?" And the flowers said: "We are going to have a fine day." Boodles was ascending in the romantic scale. She had started as a lodging-house keeper; then she had become quite a young girl; from that to the fairy stage was only one step; and then at a single bound she became the goddess of flowers; and she went along "our walk" with sunshine for hair, and wind-flowers for eyes, and primroses for skin; and the world seemed very sweet and fresh as if the wonderful work of creation had only been finished that morning at nine o'clock punctually, and Boodles was just going through to see that the gardener had done his work properly.
Life at eighteen is glorious and imaginative; sorrows cannot quench its flame. One hour of real happiness makes the young soul sing again, as one burst of sunshine purges a haunted house of all its horror. Boodles was down by Tavy side to bathe in the flowers and wash off the past and the beastly origin of things; the black time of winter, the awful loneliness, the windy nights. She was going to meet a friend, a companion, somebody who would frighten the dark hours away. The past was to vanish, not as if it had never been, but because it really never had been. The story was to begin all over again, as the other one had been conceived so badly that nobody could stand it. The once upon a time stage had come again, and the ogres had agreed not to interfere this time. Boodles baptised herself in dew, and rose from the ceremony only a few hours old. The child's name was Flora; no connection of the poor little thing which had been flung out to perish because nobody wanted it except silly old Weevil, who hated to see animals hurt. Weevil belonged to the other story too, the rejected story, and therefore he had never existed. Nobody had wanted Boodles, which was natural enough, as she was merely a wretched illegitimate brat; but every one wanted Flora. The world would be a dreary place without its flowers. Flora could laugh Mr. Bellamie to scorn; for the sun was her father and the warm earth her mother; and nobody would stop to look at the flowers while she was going by with them all upon her face.
At last Boodles looked up. She had been sitting on the warm peat just outside the gate until all Nature struck eleven; and the warmth and fragrance of the wood had made her sleepy. Dreams are the natural accompaniment of sleep, and she was dreaming then; for the expected figure was close to her, the figure in grey flannel and a plain straw hat; not elderly certainly, not much older than herself; and it was true enough she would have liked that figure if it had only been real.
"Go away," she murmured, rather frightened. "Please go away."
There was something dreadfully wrong. It was a nice girl's face that she saw, at least she had often called it so, and it was not black, and the owner of that face was assuredly going to like her very much indeed, although it was hardly a case of love at first sight; for the girl had failed to keep her appointment, the foreign girl with the amazing name was not there, the Persian girl who was to adore the sun and the coals of Lewside Cottage was evidently a deceiver of the baser sort. She had not come, and instead she had sent some one who could not fail to recognise the little girl waiting at the gate of the wood, who was calling her fond names, and actually kissing her, just as if the story was going to end, not in the second best way, but in the most blissful manner possible, with a dance of fairies on Tavy banks and a wedding-march. It was Aubrey who had come to the gate of the wood.
"I wish you wouldn't," said Boodles rather sleepily. "I am waiting here for a girl."
Then something appeared before her eyes which woke her up; the letter which she had written to Devonport; and she heard a voice saying very close to her ear, so close indeed that the lips were touching it—
"I wrote it, darling. I was afraid you would not come unless I deceived you a little. But I signed it with my own name."
"Yerbua Eimalleb—what nonsense!" she sighed.
"It is only Aubrey Bellamie written backwards."
"Oh, you must not. How could you? It made me so happy. I thought at last I should have a friend, to drive the loneliness away—and now, it is all dark again and miserable. You are sending me back to the creeping, crawling shadows."
"I have given up the Navy. I have given up my people, and everything, for the one thing, the best thing, for you," Aubrey said.
Boodles put her head down, as if the wind had snapped her slender neck, and he kissed the hair just as he had done at different periods of her life, when she was a very small girl and the radiance was hanging down, and when she was rather a bigger girl and the radiance was up—and now. It was the best kiss of all, a man's kiss, the kiss which regenerated her and renounced all else.
"You don't know what you are saying. I am an illegitimate child. You must not give up anything for me."
Boodles had forgotten that it was the beginning of a new story. His great act of renunciation staggered her. Everything, birth, name, prospects, respectability, for her. She could not let him, but how was she to resist? She threw the sleep off, and said almost fiercely—
"You must not. The time may come when you will be sorry. I shall be a weight upon you, dragging you down. You might become ashamed of me."
"Darling, I have been true to you all my life. I will be true for the rest of it."
"I promised your parents I would not."
"You promised me, year after year, that you would."
Boodles tried to smile. She would have to be false to some one.
"I have left my father's house, and I am not going back," Aubrey went on.
"It will be terrible for them," she murmured.
"It would be worse for you and for me. They have known nothing but happiness all their lives. It is their turn to have a little trouble. They are bringing it upon themselves. I have told them I shall not go back until they are willing to receive my wife."
"They will never do that. Oh, Aubrey, you must not marry me. I shall spoil your life."
"If I lost you it would be spoilt. I am being selfish after all," he said. "And if you were left alone what would you do?"
Boodles said nothing, but the Tavy went roaring by, answering the question for her.
"I am going to take you away, darling." He was holding her tightly, and she did not resist much, perhaps because she felt she ought to give up a little to him as he was giving up so much for her. "We will be married at once, and live in a tiny home. I have got it already, at Carbis Bay, looking over St. Ives at the sea, a lovely place where the sun shines. We will have our own boat and go fishing—"
"And drown ourselves sometimes," added happy Boodles.
"Not till we quarrel, and that will be never."
"Look, Aubrey!" she cried, lifting herself, pointing between the bars of the gate into the wood. "There is our walk in a blue mist."
The atmosphere of the wood was the colour of bluebells, which stretched in a magic carpet as far as they could see.
"Let us go in," he said.
"Not yet. Not unless I—Oh, Aubrey, if we go in it will be all over. Do I deserve it? Those winter evenings, the loneliness, the winds," she murmured.
"It is all over," he said firmly, with a man's seriousness. "We have to start life now, for I have nobody but you—my little sweetheart, my wife of the radiant head, and the golden skin—"
"And the freckles," she said, looking down, without a smile.
"They have faded. You are so thin, sweet. You have been indoors too much, out of the sun."
"There wasn't any sun; not until to-day," she whispered.
"You see, darling, we are alone together."
"It is what we wanted always, to be alone. Oh, my boy, I must—I must spoil your life, because I have got you in my heart and you won't go out. You never would leave me alone," she said, looking up with the childlike expression which had come back to her.
Aubrey swung the gate open and she went to him. They kissed as they went through, and the gate slammed behind with a pleasant sound. They were inside, surrounded by the blue mist. It seemed to them very warm in there. They went on hand in hand, not speaking just then, not laughing as in the old days; for their eyes were opened, and they understood that life is not a fairy-tale, but a winding path between rocks and cruel furze; and only here and there occurs the Garden of Happiness; only here and there in the whole long path; but the gardens are there, and every one may walk in them if they can only find the way in.
"I think you are such a nice boy, Aubrey," said a small voice in sweet school-girl tones. The little girl was feeling ridiculously young and shy again. It seemed absurd to think that she was going to be a bride so soon.
They were walking upon the magic carpet of bluebells. The work of regeneration was finished at last; and the world was only a few hours old.
THE END