CHAPTER VII.PLOTS AGAINST AN ORPHANThe departure of Mrs. Libby and its probable effect upon her son became a matter of local interest, because she had toiled with her old bones for him to the end, and he had taken all her service as a matter of course, but would now feel the loss of his home comforts exceedingly."He'll have to get a wife," said the man Pinsent at Sunday supper. All were assembled save Honor, who had now been in her room for three weeks, and still kept it."If 'tis awnly for somebody to cook his victuals, the man must marry," declared Collins. Then with some craft he added, "And the question in Little Silver is who's to be the gal.""He'm a comical tempered chap, to my thinking; an' they do say a man wi' a tie in his speech——" began Pinsent. But he found himself sharply taken to task from the quarter he had secretly aimed at."You'd best to mind your awn business, Samuel!" flamed out Sally, then blushed rose-red to the roots of her hair at the laughter her confession won. Her relations alone did not laugh. Margery bent over her plate and grew white rather than red; and Mr. Cramphorn roundly rated the speaker for such a lapse of manners."'Fore the whole world, would 'e? I blush for 'e—though you can for yourself still, it seems. An' him never so much as opened his lips on it! 'Tis a most unmaidenly thing, an' never to have been looked for in no darter o' mine.""Sorry I drawed it from her, notwithstanding," said Pinsent. "I'm sure I'd rather have bit my tongue out than bring red to any gal's cheeks.""Nobody would hurt her for gold," added Collins.But Sally was now in tears. She left her supper, and withdrew weeping; her sister gave vent to a little hard laugh; while a moment later Cramphorn, in some discomfort, followed his elder daughter. Then, familiar with Jonah's estimate of Libby, and having no desire to breed further storm, Mark Endicott spoke to Ash."What's your opinion of the man, Churdles?""A poor creation, your honour," answered the patriarch promptly. "Not a penn'orth o' nature in un, else he'd have had some gal squeezed to his heart so soon as ever he comed by enough money to marry. He'm cold clay, an' awnly waitin' to see which of Jonah's maids be in highest favour—which is most like to have the cottage left to her. His faither was another most calculating chap. The woman what's just gone had awnly half a score short of a hunderd pound saved when he offered hisself. Married for money, in fact; an' that's a 'mazin' thing to happen except among respectable people.""What d'you say to that, Margery?" asked Myles Stapledon bluntly. He did not like Margery, and her attitude at her sister's discomfiture had not escaped him."Ban't for me to speak against my elders," she answered slowly, with a malignant look at the placid veteran. "Mr. Ash—auld as he is—do find it so hard to mind his awn business as other people seemin'ly. He ban't paid for pokin' his ancient nose into Gregory Libby's consarns, I s'pose. But he'm past larnin' manners now, no doubt."The boyish features of Mr. Ash flushed suddenly and his head shook a little."Theer's a sour speech—an' her so young! Worse'n any vinegar you'll be in the marriage cruet, woman, whoever 'tis that's daft enough to take 'e! Fegs! I pity un; an' I pity the Dowl when it's his turn—as it will be some day. To talk to a auld man so!"Unwonted wrinkles appeared in Mr. Ash's apple-face, and he showed a great disinclination to let the matter drop, though Stapledon bid him be silent. He chattered and growled and demanded an apology, which Margery declined to offer. Then she instantly left the kitchen, so that no argument should rise upon her refusal. She glowered sullenly about her, restrained a strong desire to scream, and then withdrew.Yet Churdles, though he knew it not, and must have much deplored the fact if it had come to his understanding, was responsible for a practical and valuable lesson to Margery. His words, though they angered her, had not fallen upon deaf ears. She sulked away now in the corner of an empty room and set her wits to work. Mr. Libby was in one respect like heaven; he had to be taken by storm, and Churdles Ash unwittingly indicated the direction of attack.Margery indeed loved this shifty youth; she adored his cane-coloured hair cut straight across his low forehead, like a child's fringe, his uncertain eyes, his moustache—with a most "gentleman-like droop to it," as she had discovered. She loved him—not for his money but for himself, and her sister's infatuation was of a similar genuine quality. They were primitive maidens both and had seen little of the other sex, owing to their father's suspicions that every man on the eastern side of Dartmoor would run away with them, given the opportunity. Now passion worthy of a better cause burnt in their young hearts, and each raged against the other—inwardly for the most part. Their weapons were different, and whereas Margery's sarcasms proved wholly wasted on her sister, Sally's anger, when roused, generally took the shape of a swinging box on the ear—a retort contemptible enough, no doubt, yet not easy to be ignored. Margery's waspish tongue was no match for her sister's right arm, therefore open quarrels seldom happened; yet each daily strained every nerve, and since Gregory had come to be a mere womanless, desolate orphan, the efforts of both girls were redoubled. It had, however, been left to the sensation of that evening to quicken their wits; and now each, by ways remote, set about a new and more pressing investment of Mr. Libby's lonely heart.Margery took the word of Mr. Ash to herself, and realised that if her loved one was really waiting to get a hint of Jonah Cramphorn's intentions, her own course must be modified. She knew that her father, despite his surly and overbearing disposition, might be influenced without difficulty; and she possessed the tact and discretion proper to such a task. She had never desired any influence over him until the present, and had indeed thought but little of the future, excepting with reference to herself and Gregory. Now, however, the danger of allowing Sally even an indirect ascendency was made manifest, and Margery determined that her sister must be put out of court at home, by fair means if possible, by foul if necessary.In a most cold-blooded and calculating spirit she approached the problem of making herself so indispensable to her father that he should come to regard her as his better and more deserving child. That situation once established, no doubt Gregory Libby would be the first to perceive it. If he was backward in doing so, then might she delicately aid his perception; indeed she doubted not that this course would be necessary, for the control she now set herself to maintain over her parent must be more real than apparent at first. She hoped that within a month at the latest it would be safe to hint to Gregory that such supremacy existed.And meanwhile, hanging over a gate out of doors, so that her tear-stained cheeks might cool, Sally also meditated some definite action whereby the halting regard of the desired object should grow established and affirmed. To a determination she also came, but it fell far short of her sister's in subtlety. She merely fell back upon the trite conceit of atertium quid, and hoped how, once reminded of the fact that other men also found her pleasant in their eyes, Mr. Libby would awaken into jealousy and so take action. Her father she did not consider, because his opinions had long since ceased to weigh with her, when it was possible to disregard them. Sally approached the future in a sanguine spirit, for within the secret places of her heart there lurked an honest belief that Gregory loved her to desperation. Why he delayed to mention the fact, under these distracting circumstances, was not easy to explain; but now, upon his mother's death, there had come a climax in the young man's life; and Sally felt that in the present forlorn circumstances she ought to be, and probably was, his paramount object of reflection.So she determined to precipitate the imminent declaration by parading another possible husband; and that point established it remained only to decide upon whom this thankless part should fall. Henry Collins naturally offered himself to her mind. His emotions were perfectly familiar to her, though in that he had scrupulously obeyed Jonah and never dared to offer marriage, Sally regarded him with some natural derision. But he loved her very well, and would come when she whistled, and frisk at her side with great content and joy. Whereupon, driven frantic before the spectacle of Collins lifted to this giddy fortune, she doubted not but that Gregory would declare himself and make a definite offer. His words once spoken, she felt no fear for the future. She held herself in some esteem, and was satisfied of her powers to keep Libby, or any other man, to a bargain.Thus both maids, within the space of an hour, had braced their minds to a course of vital action; and it remained for time to show which, if either, was to succeed in the result.CHAPTER VIII.A NECKLACE OF BIRDS' EGGSThere came a Sunday, yet not so soon as Doctor Mathers hoped, when Honor declared herself able and desirous to take the air again. She chose the Moor as the scene of this return to life; and, as Stapledon had departed for the day to see an acquaintance at Okehampton before his wife decided to go forth, her uncle, and not her husband, accompanied her—to the deep chagrin of the latter when he returned home.Through the long hours of a weary and empty convalescence, Honor said little concerning the incident responsible for wreck of hope; but her loss had grown into an abiding grief nevertheless; and while the man was stricken most sorely at first, but had now become resigned, devoting only leisure thought to his private sorrow, the woman took this trial to her heart with increasing bitterness through those lonely hours that followed upon it. There was, moreover, an added element of terror and a superstitious despair bred of her alarm in the woods. This died but slowly, for she would not share the experience with any other; yet, as physical health increased, all lesser emotion dwindled before the ever-present sense of loss. From Myles she hid the heavy misery of it, that his own sorrow might not be increased; but she liked to speak with her uncle of the little flower lost in the bud, and he was patient and never weary of comforting her to the best of his power.It is to be noted, however, that Myles somewhat misunderstood Honor's extreme reticence, and her assumed air of brightness and good hope misled him perhaps more completely than Honor designed. He was secretly surprised that this matter had not left a deeper mark; he did not guess at a scar out of his sight; but he marvelled that his wife could still laugh and even jest upon occasion. Under her tranquillity and humour he failed to probe, but he bade the inner wonder in his mind be dumb. Not until long afterwards did he learn the truth and realise the depth of the sorrow she had masked for love of him.The little open carriage crept up over Scor Hill, then proceeded by a steep way to Charity Grepe's cottage. There Honor left half-a-crown in person, for since certain rumours that poor Cherry must go to the work-house, the mistress of Bear Down had become her active champion. Then the pony was turned, climbed the hill again, and presently stood above Teign valley, at a point on the hillside where a little lakelet reflected the blue sky above it, and shone framed in rushes and verdant sphagnum, in rosy sundews all frosted and agleam, in small scattered flames of the bog asphodel, and in many lesser things that love a marsh.Away on the wide front of Watern, great gloomy tracts, still dark from fire, spread forth over many an acre. There a "swaling" had freed the land of heath and furze, and provided light and air for grass; but the spot seen from this distance was naked as yet."There's a great scar over against us on the hill—black—black against the green and the grey and the blue overhead—all charred and desolate. That's how my heart feels, Uncle Mark—so dreary and forlorn—like an empty nest.""Look again," he said; "look at what seems so black upon the hill, and think as you look, and you'll remember the ash and ruin are all full of young, sweet blades, sprouting strong, brimming with sap to hide the rack of dead char. 'Twill be so with you, my dear; for there's the bend and spring of youth in your heart still. Wait till the heather's out again, and the foxgloves are nodding along the low ridges over the Teign, and the whortle bells be turned to purple berries once more.""How you remember!" she said, "despite all the long years of darkness.""Yes; I remember, thank God. I smell the damp near where you've pulled up; and I see the marsh, down to the little bluebell flower that creeps in the grass, and the spotted leaves of orchis, and the white wisps of the cotton grass in summer, and all the rest, that I never thought upon when I had my eyes. But there's a quiet, unknown mercy that works through the morning hours of a man's life if he lives in the lap of Nature and is true to her. Keen sight stores the memory unbeknown to us; and none can tell how deep that unconscious, unguessed gathering-up may be but those who fall upon blindness. No credit to me at all; yet the pictures come as the seasons come—at bud-break; at the sound of the west wind and the call of the river; at the music of rain on the leaves; at the whirr of the cutter in the hay; at the touch of snow on my face and in my eyebrows. I know—I know it all, for my eyes reaped and my brain garnered at the merciful will of God. Without those mind picture-books I should be blind indeed.""You're so brave. I wish that I had more of you in me. I'm not a true Endicott.""As to that, 'tis only those who won't see are blind. Eyesight's the window of the house, but the ear is the door. A blow-fly on the window-pane is big enough to hide the evening star—if you're content to let it; but shut your eyes and you'll see the star in the blue, with nought between it and your thoughts.""It's so hard to be wise; and words are not warm, live things you can cuddle. Oh, I want something smaller than myself to love! I had lighted such a great fire of love; and now it's all burnt out, and no green hope springing through the ashes.""Be patient. Look forward, my Honor.""There's nothing there—all blank.""You're morbid; and that's the last foolishness I should ever have thought to tax you with. Myles——""No—no; you don't understand. How should you understand?""Moonshine!""It wasn't moonshine. I wish I could think it was. But you must be patient with me. It's so cold to open your eyes every morning with the dull feeling that something sad is waiting for you to remember it. I'm all winter, while the rest of the world is full of spring.""And spring will touch you presently.""I had built such castles in the air—painted such futures. First, my boy was to be a soldier; but I grew frightened of that when I began to fill in details of the picture; and then a farmer, but that did not satisfy me at all. Presently my heart went out to the thought of his being an artist—either in words or pictures, but an artist in deeds at any rate. You don't know what I mean by that. One who thought and felt like an artist—and walked so. He was to magnify the Lord and love the earth, and all green things, and birds especially, and the changeful sky. I did not think of him as loving men and women very much—excepting me. So my silly thoughts sped and I shut my eyes, that nobody should see my hope looking out of them. I was going to be the mother of a great man—and I am only the mother of a great sorrow, after all.""A shared sorrow; don't forget that, my dear. There's three hearts to take each a part of the load. More than that, for, beyond Myles and me, every man's breast and woman's bosom is heavy for you here. A widespread, real regret, though 'tis not their way to make much ado.""They are very good to me—better than I deserve. I shall have more thoughts for them now. Sorrow at least teaches sympathy. But my soul has quite lost heart of late days, and I feel so old."At this moment from the valley there came two persons along the path where Honor's pony carriage stood. One appeared uneasy, the other in a very halcyon halo of delight; for Sally, true to her resolve, had indicated that a little attention from Mr. Collins would not be unwelcome; and now they moved side by side upon a stolen walk. Elsewhere Margery accompanied her parent to see a neighbour, and Sally was supposed to be at the farm.The pair made awkward acknowledgments and were proceeding, when Honor noted an unusual decoration about her milkmaid's neck. In addition to a string of glass pearls, a little necklace of birds' eggs—alternate thrush and blackbird—adorned Sally's plump throat, and the spectacle, suggestive as it was of robbed nests, woke a wave of passing indignation in Honor's heart."What is that round your neck?" she asked with a sudden hardness in her voice; and Sally's hands went up gingerly to the frail adornment, while she looked at Collins, whose gift, snatched from screaming birds, she wore. Seeing explanation was expected from him, Henry stood forward, touched his Sunday hat, and spoke with many stumblings."Beggin' pardon, I'm sure, ma'am, I——""You robbed the birds, Collins?""Ess, I did, but if you call home last cherry-time, ma'am; if I may say so—you see I did as you bid an' shot a braave lot last autumn, as you wanted—them being so bowldacious as to eat your fruit; an' come autumn an' winter, I catched a gude few in traps what I teeled in the garden. Then, come spring, I had a bright thought that if I took the eggs of 'em 'twould mean gert thinning out o' the birds. An' no account neither, if I may say so; 'cause a egg's just life in the raw, waitin' for warmth an' time to quicken it. They never lived like, savin' your presence, so the airth ban't the poorer by a bird's note, 'cause us caan't lose what we never had. 'Tis no more'n a seed spoiled, or a leaf-bud nipped by frost, or a cheel still——"He clapped his hand over his mouth and heard Sally say "Fule!" under her breath; but his mistress nodded and bid him go on his way."You may be right; but take no more eggs from the birds."So Mr. Collins got himself out of sight to the tune of a reprimand from Sally that made his ears tingle."You gert, clumsy-mouthed gawk! To utter such a speech an' tellin' that stuff to her, an' go mumblin' on, like a bumble-bee in a foxglove; an' end up so! Not the sense of a sheep you ain't got!"She tore off his gift and stamped on the blown shells, while he merely stood and rolled his great eyes wretchedly.Elsewhere Endicott spoke to his niece."Strange how a chance word out of a fool's mouth will often come pat. These things—eggs—buds—babies are so little account in the great sum total. Nature's units don't trouble her. The crushed windflower will bud and blow again next year. What is a year to her? The robbed mother-bird screams for an hour, then goes on with the vital business of preserving her own life; and the robbed mother-woman—her heart aches to-day, but the pain soothes off presently as the months and years roll over first memories. We're built to forget; else the world would be a madhouse, or just one great welter of sorrow. 'Tis God's way, I judge, seldom to put upon us more than we can bear. If grief or pain's past bearing—why then the heart or something cracks and there's an end of us. But sorrow alone never killed a healthy being. I'd rather count it the torch that lights to the greatest deeds we're built to do. I hoped that a little child would draw you together—Myles and you—close, close as soil and seed; but 'tis a shared grief must do it—instead of a shared joy. Such a welding, as by fire, may last longest after all."She sighed, touched her pony with the whip, in a sort of thoughtful caress, and turned him homewards."I don't know what Myles thinks about it. Either he hides all he feels to save me—or he is forgetting, as you say. It is natural that he should. No man that ever lived can know how long those nine months are to a woman. But I—I—there it is in the wind—in the rustle of the leaves. I hear it so often—the sound of a rocking cradle. I must wait until the wind sings a different song before I can be wise. Some day I shall wake up strong again—strong to acknowledge all your goodness and everybody's goodness and sympathy. I cannot yet."The old man was moved for her. He put his hand on hers and patted it."I think I understand as much as an ancient bachelor may. But you must do your share and help the powers to help you. There's an effort called for. Hard to make, but you must make it. Take up your life again—the old life that you laid down; an' do it with a single heart.""I cannot yet. I left it behind so gladly. I must go back for it. I do not care about any life just now. I cannot cry or laugh with my heart. It's all pretence—think what that means. I look at everything from the outside—like Christo used to. I'm a dead, withered bough still on the tree; and what is it to me that the next bough is busy about new leaves?""You do yourself a wrong to say so, and I'd not listen to anybody else who spoke so ill of you. You must come back to yourself—your own good self—and the sooner the better. That's a plain duty at least—not to be escaped from. That's a call, whether your heart's sad or merry. 'Tis the honest, everyday duty of a woman to be good, dear heart—same as it's the duty of a Mary lily to be white. Keep your proper colour, as God meant you, and as God taught you. Live as you have lived: with a sense of duty for the sake of those that love you, if no better reason."She sighed again, aweary of the subject."Now we'll go home. We're wasting my first breath of sweet air in words. Better to draw it in silently and not turn it into talk."Mark Endicott laughed."Why, yes, it does the heart more good that way, no doubt. You're a deal wiser than I am, niece, for all my grey hairs and jackdaw chatter."Then slowly down the hill, without more speech, they drove together.CHAPTER IX.AN OLD-TIME PRESCRIPTIONFrom the occasion of her drive upon the Moor, Honor, instead of proceeding towards good health, fell away in that desired progress. What chance had conspired to an effect so unfortunate none knew, but the fact was apparent, and as days passed and summer returned, there stole gradually upon her a listless and inert attitude of spirit—a state of the mind that reflected upon her physical condition and appeared in a most despondent outlook upon life. From time to time some transient gleam of returning health and happiness gladdened those who loved her; but weeks passed and still Honor's temper was of a sort that kept Myles anxious and Doctor Mathers exasperated. For she proved not a good patient and none could prevail upon her to consider the foreign travel and sea voyage that her physician stood out for at every visit. She told them that she was well enough at home; that her health improved; and that they need be under no concern for her. Meanwhile, her life grew narrower and narrower, both in its bounds of thought and performance. Her reflections indeed she kept to herself for the most part, and certainly the event responsible in great measure for her sustained ill-health she imparted to no one; but her actions were obvious, and Myles began to grow care-worn as he watched a life so full of energy and various interest now sink into mere mechanical existence. Her walks dwindled to strolls; Nature brought Honor no particular delight; and the old haunts failed to cheer her. Until midday she rarely stirred from her own room, and sometimes she would keep her bed altogether from sheer indifference toward affairs.This life of ashes, which neither love nor duty seemed capable of rousing into renewed activity and vigour, was beheld in its dreary unfolding by the little population of Bear Down; and that busy hive, both in season and out, discussed this grave crisis in the fortunes of its mistress and offered all manner of suggestions and advice upon it. Some opinions were undoubtedly sensible enough, as when Churdles Ash counselled forcible compliance with the doctor's orders."You'm her lawful lard an' master," he said to Stapledon; "so 'tis your dooty to hale your lady away to furrin paarts, whether her will or no. She'll be fust to thank 'e, dear sawl, come her gets whole again."But Myles knew Honor well enough, or little enough, to believe that such a high-handed course must be futile. Long and anxious were the deliberations he held with his uncle, and there came a time when Mark suggested a visit from some great physician of expert knowledge."Have a London chap," he proposed. "Honor doesn't care a fig for Mathers. But maybe a keen pair of eyes, and a big forehead, and a big voice, and the knowledge it's cost perhaps a hundred pounds to fetch it all down to see her, might bring the woman to some sense.""I proposed it. She wouldn't hear of it.""Very well; don't let her hear of it—till the man is in the house. Get Mathers to tell you of some great wonder whose strong point is all these nerve twists and tangles that Honor's struggling under. For a woman to take to thinking, is as bad as for a man to take to drinking—sometimes. It breeds a wrong habit and interferes with Nature. There's a mystery under all this—ever since that sad mischance—and as she won't tell those that love her maybe a clever doctor, who understands the springs of healthy mental action, will find a way to bring back her peace.""There's a secret, as you say; and I've known it on her tongue; I've felt that it was to be revealed at last. Then there has come a sigh, like the shutting of a door of the mind—a door not to be opened from the outside.""That is so—and it may be a doctor's work to open that door, instead of a husband's. We'll hope I'm right. Fetch such a man along, if it costs the hay harvest. It's all drouthy nothings here with this fever eating the girl alive."While Mark Endicott and his nephew thus debated the question of the hour and sought for one able to storm the dim domain of Honor's neurotic disorders, Mr. Ash, Mr. Cramphorn, and others of Endicott's took counsel among themselves how best the tribulation might be overcome.Ash now regarded the illness as a moonstroke, and was of opinion that doses of lunar radiance alone would restore their mistress."Moon must undo what moon's done," he announced. But Cramphorn knew of no precedent, and therefore scoffed at the idea."Never was I lower in my spirits," the head-man declared; "an' the plague is that gen'lefolks be so exalted in their awn opinions that no word of ours will they heed, though we spoke wi' the tongues of fire. What do they care for organy tea an' such-like herbs of the field? Yet here I stand, a living sawl, as would be dust at this hour, but for that an' other such-like simples. Cherry Grepe's 'pon theer black books, or, if they'd had sense, they'd have thrawed awver that bwoy—that Mathers—an' gived her a chance to shaw her gert gifts. So like as not she've got a cunning remedy for this dark complaint—a mess of some sort as would put our lady right, mind an' body, in a week. Many a time have I seen a wise man or woman by mere force of words, wi'out so much as striking the sickness, charm it that sudden, as wan might a'most say he seed the evil fly from a party's mouth—like a leather-bird,[#] a-screechin' across the dimpsy light."[#] A leather-bird = a bat."Ess; 'tis pity they doan't give Mother Grepe a chance," admitted Churdles Ash; "for wi' all her little ways an' secrets, she do worship the same Saviour in heaven as her betters do—onless she'm a liar.""A white witch for sartain," declared Collins. "An' her charmed a wart for Tommy Bates but last week, an' done it in the name of Jesus Christ, an' awnly axed a threp'ny-bit."So the men discussed Honor's evil case during a dinner interval on the land, then returned to work, regretful that those most involved thus persisted in overlooking a possible means of grace in their hour of tribulation.But while Collins and the rest dismissed this matter before work and those personal interests of life uppermost in all minds, Mr. Cramphorn continued to dwell darkly upon the subject. This cross-grained, surly soul loved his mistress with an affection superior to that commanded by his own flesh and blood. Herein circumstances and even heredity were strong upon him. Sprung from a line that had laboured at Endicott's through many generations, the descendant of men who were born heirs of toil upon this land and looked to the reigning powers as their immediate lords under Providence, a traditionary regard dwelt in the blood of him, and the concerns of those who controlled his destiny became Cramphorn's own concerns. Such a spirit modern education and the spread of knowledge drives quickly forth, for the half-educated class of to-day scorns gratitude as a base survival; but Jonah dated from long before the Board Schools, and their frosty influence was no more in his heart than upon his tongue. Sour, conceited, a very rustic Malvolio, he might be; but the nobler qualities of Malvolio, he also possessed. It was not the least among his vague regrets that the name of Endicott must presently vanish from Bear Down, even as the name of Cramphorn was destined to.And now Jonah thought upon the word of Churdles Ash concerning the wise woman. His own experience of her powers also inclined him in that direction, and finally he decided to visit her again. That Cherry had destroyed Christopher Yeoland he did not doubt; that she might, if she would, cure his mistress, he was assured. He determined that if the thing could be done for half a sovereign, done it must be. And should Cherry's charm prove powerful enough to work without the patient's connivance, so much the better.That same evening he visited the cottage of the sorceress, where it lay behind the low wall, and the row of ox vertebræ, and the torch of the great mullein, that now towered aloft with its first blossoms shining in the gloaming above a woolly spire.Gammer Grepe was at home and in her garden. She stood with her arms folded on the gate, and Cramphorn observed that she smoked a clay pipe with the manner of long experience. He asked civilly for a little conversation and followed the old woman into her cottage."Walk in an' welcome, if there's any money to it," she said bluntly. "'Tis 'bout them gals again, I s'pose. Tu gert a handful for 'e, eh? You'm a fule to fret, for they'll go theer ways wi'out axin' your leave. Be your peas a-come to the farm? Might let 'em knaw as I've got half a quart or so, if Mrs. Stapledon fancies 'em.""Ess, our peas be come, an' it 'idden 'bout my darters I'm here; an' fule or no fule, it takes two to make a weddin'; an' if the proper chap ban't on-coming, us have got to sit down an' wait, like nesseltripe. I be here touching the mistress of Endicott's."Cherry frowned."I've no word against her, as you knaw, but the rest of 'em—that auld blind piece an' her husband—specially him—I doan't set no store by. She'm what a Endicott should be. T'others I'd so soon ill-wish as not—just to larn 'em the things they doan't believe."Her eyes glimmered with anger, and the candlelight played pranks with her aged but not venerable face."Well, 'tis peace rather than war so far as I'm consarned. I know what you can do—who better?""Ess; an' for all theer hard words I'd rather starve than hurt Endicott's. 'Tis his loss, not mine—this furriner she've married. Not but what I might to-morrow——""'Tis the very thing I be come upon," interrupted Jonah eagerly. "Her—the mistress. What do this green youth by name of Mathers knaw? If he'd got the wit of a louse he'd never have let the cheel slip through his fingers. But her—she'll slip through his fingers next.""Ban't no doctor's job now," said Cherry. "The things that could cure her trouble doan't come out of shops. For tearings of heart, an' black night vapours, an' such-like deep ills the very herbs o' the fields are vain. You want sterner food.""'Tis her sawl be sick by all the looks of it," explained Jonah. "An' it tells 'pon the butivul body of her, like a blight 'pon a rose. She've been ill, to an' from, ever since the bearin' of that dead baaby; an' from being a woman of ready spirit she've grawed that down-daunted as you'd a'most say she'd cry or run if a goose hissed at her. An' now, be gormed if she ban't comin' to be a regular bed-lier! Think of her, so peart an' spry as she was, keepin' her room these summer days! Caan't 'e offer for to cure her, Cherry? I lay theer'd be gude money to it an' plenty, whatever hard thoughts some have got against you.""Theer's but wan cure as I knaws for her," said the old woman gloomily; "an ugly, savage cure, an' fallen out of use these many days now. But a sure balm and a thing as eats to the heart like a cancer, rubbed under a woman's left breast.""God's truth, mum!""'Tis as I tell 'e. Like a cancer; but 'stead of being death to the livin', 'tis life to the dyin', or them like to die. A savage cure, an' such latter-day stuff as Myles Stapledon would awnly cock his nose at it; so it won't be done, however. An' her'll die—her'll die for need of oil of man. 'Tis that—a thing in no books—a secret as'll be a dead and buried secret in a few years' time, when me an' the likes of me be dead an' buried.""Oil of man? I've heard Churdles Ash name it.""Ess, he'd be sure to knaw at his age. 'Tis simple enough. Theer's a virtue in all bones—that everybody knaws who's drinked soup, I s'pose.""Surely; an' the better the bone, the better the broth," assented Jonah."That's it! You've hit the point I was comin' to. So it happens that a Christian bone of a human be fuller far of virtue than any saved from a sheep or other beast."Cramphorn felt a cold shiver slide up his spine like a speedy snail, and spread out upon his neck and shoulders."Christ A'mighty! What be tellin' 'bout? Would 'e have folks turn into black cannibals?""Didn't I say 'twas used outwardly, you gaby? Oil of man be rubbed 'pon the heart, or be burnt like a candle. In that shaape 'tis a torch held up for them wanderin' in the world to come home to others as yearns for 'em. Both ways be precious deeds. Theer ban't none wanderin' she wants; so us must rub it 'pon her heart against this fit she'm suffering from.""Wheer's such a thing to be got?""You ax that! As for preparin' the bones, 'tis my work. Gettin' of 'em be a man's."Mr. Cramphorn breathed hard."A sure cure?" he asked."Sure as Scripture. An' a thing knawed for centuries, so my mother used to tell me. She made it a score o' times a'most. Men was braver then.""Just—churchyard—bones," murmured Jonah with an expression like a dog half frightened, half angry."The skull of a man—no more. Bones as have held human brains. I'll do my paart for ten shillin'—same as you gived me when——""Hush, for the Lard's sake! Doan't 'e go back to that."She laughed."You knaw at any rate that I ban't a vain talker. I'll say no more. Awnly if you'm serious set on restorin' Honor Stapledon to her rightful health, 'tis in your power. Mrs. Loveys can rub the stuff in when she's asleep if she won't consent to no other way. An' her'll come to herself again in a fortnight.""Be so mortal light of evenings now, an' never dark all night," said Cramphorn, his mind running ahead."That's your outlook. If you'm man enough to go an' dig——""I be in a maze," he confessed. "Never heard tell of such a fearful balm in my born days.""Very likely. Theer's more hid than you'll ever knaw, in this world or the next.""I must think upon it. 'Tis a onruly, wild, dangerous deed. Might lead to trouble.""'Tis a rightful, high act if you ax me. God'll knaw why for you be theer. Theer's a reward for the salvation of our fellow-creatures in next world if not this; an' I'm sure theer did ought to be, for I've saved enough in my time.""I'll think about it serious," said Cramphorn, who was now desperately anxious to be gone."Just a bone against a woman's life. You think about it as you say.""So I will, then, wi' all my strength."Before he had reached the gate Cherry Grepe called him back."An' look here, I'll do my share for three half-crowns, seein' it's for her. I'm allus awnly tu glad to do gude deeds so cheap as can be, though wi' evil actions 'tis differ'nt. They win high wages all the world awver."Then Jonah retreated with his dreadful idea, yet found that as it became more familiar it began to look less terrible. For all his follies and superstitions, he lacked not physical courage, and once assured by Gammer Grepe that such a sacrilege would be judged by his Maker from the standpoint of its motive, he troubled no further as to the performance of the deed. Thenceforward his mind was busy with details as to how such an enterprise might be safely achieved, and through his head passed the spectacle of many green graves. Even before the familiar memories of those who slept beneath them the dogged Jonah winced not; but presently a new reflection glared in upon his mind—an idea so tremendous that the man stood still and gasped before it, as though petrified by the force of his own imagination. For a moment this aspect peopled the night with whispering phantoms; it even set Jonah running with his heart in his mouth; then the wave of personal fear passed and left him well over the shock his thought had brought with it. But the effect of so much excitement and such unwonted exercise took a longer time to depart; his nerves played him some tricks; he was more than usually taciturn at supper, and retired to rest soon after that meal.Yet, once in bed, Jonah's thoughts kept him such active and unfamiliar company that sleep quite forsook his couch, and it wanted but a little time of the hour for rising when finally he lost consciousness—to do grim deeds in dreamland.CHAPTER X.OIL OF MANConcerning this weird medicament, it is only necessary to state that memory of the nostrum lingers yet in ancient and bucolic minds; while the tradition, now nearly extinct, is nevertheless founded upon matters of fact from a recent past. For your Oil of Man was counted precious medicine through bygone centuries, and in the archives it may be gleaned that Moses Charras, author of a Royal Pharmacopoeia, published two hundred years ago, indicates the nature of its preparation, and declares how that the skulls of healthy men, slain in full flush of their strength by lead or steel, best meet its requirements. One Salmon of London prepared and soldPotestates cranii humaniat the sign of the "Blew Bull," in Shoe Lane, during the sixteenth century;oleum humanumhas within man's memory been a source of advantage to the porters of our medical schools; and, at a date even later than that of which we treat, a physician practising hard by Dartmoor received applications for the magic antidote from one who found herself in private trouble beyond reach of common drugs. She believed that oil of man must still be a medicinal commodity general as rhubarb or syrup of squills.It was not surprising, therefore, that Cherry Grepe remembered the potent force of this remedy, or that Jonah Cramphorn, once satisfied that the decoction alone stood between his mistress and her end, determined to procure it. A great thought kept him waking until the sun was ready to ascend above the remote gorges of Fingle; but when Jonah rose, cold water and daylight finally dwarfed the dim horrors of his project until they grew perfectly plain before him. That the plan was defensible his strenuous spirit had long since decided. But an accomplice seemed necessary to such a design, for the feat was of too great a magnitude and peril to be achieved single-handed. The common operation of two willing workers might, however, make all the difference, and while he regretted a need for assistance, Jonah felt it to be imperative. Upon the subject of punishment in event of detection, he did not waste thought. The prospect from that standpoint was undoubtedly dark—too dark to dwell upon. The power of the law he could only guess at, and in his mind was a tumultuous upheaval of old recollections touching the theme. He remembered Burke, Hare, and others of their trade; but they had killed men; he proposed no action more unlawful than taking of bones long dead.To choose his assistant for a matter so delicate appeared difficult in one aspect, yet simple enough viewed practically. That he must broach such a subject to a sane man offered no embarrassment to Mr. Cramphorn; but to select a kindred soul, of stuff sufficiently stern to help with the actual details, promised a harder problem. Scarcity of choice, however, tended towards elucidation. The field was narrowed to an option between Pinsent and Collins; of whom Jonah quickly decided for the latter. By midday indeed he determined that Henry should participate both in the peril and the privilege of restoring Honor to health.The men met soon after noon near the farmyard, and Cramphorn seized his opportunity."Come in here, an' put home the door behind 'e, Henery Collins," he said; "I've got somethin' mighty serious to say to you. For your ear awnly 'tis; an' you'll be very much dumbfounded to larn as you an' me be chosen by Providence for a gert, far-reachin' deed."In the dim light of a stable Mr. Collins gazed with round, innocent eyes at the speaker; then he began to clean his boots on a spade."Whatever do 'e mean? Providence doan't chose the likes of me for its uses, I reckon.""I stand for Providence in this thing; an' I mean missus. Theer's no nature left in her now, as you must see along wi' the rest. An' why for? 'Cause she'm fadin' away like a cloud. So wisht an' hag wi' her trouble—an' her not quarter of a century auld yet. Dyin'—dyin' afore our eyes; an' theer's awnly one creation as'll save her; an' that's for you an' me to get, my son. 'Tis ordained as we'm the parties.""Sure, I'd go to world's end for her," declared Mr. Collins."No need. No call to go further'n Little Silver buryin' ground.""Then, if 'tis any deed of darkness, you'd best to put it in other hands to wance.""No fay—you an' me. An' a high an' desperate act—I won't deceive you theer—but a act righteous in the eye of God; though, if it got knawed by humans, theer'd be trouble.""I'm tu peaceful in my ways for it then, an' I'll take it very kind if you'll say no more about it to me at all. Ban't in my line.""Tu late; you'm in the plot; an' you ought to be a proud man if you do feel all for missus as I've heard 'e say scores o' times, in drink an' out. Ess, you must do what I ax you; theer ban't no gwaine back now."Mr. Collins reflected. He believed, despite the eggshell necklace, that he still gained ground with Jonah's elder daughter in that she tolerated him at less than a yard's distance by fits and starts; but the necessity for not proposing marriage Henry felt to hamper his movements. That Sally might refuse—perhaps a dozen times—was nothing against the argument, for a rustic love-maker is as patient as Nature's self. But in the heart of Collins, obedience to anybody who ordered him with voice sufficiently loud, was a rooted instinct. He had abided by Jonah's clear utterance during time past; and now he remembered it, and, astonished at his own astuteness, sought to make a bargain."If I help 'e with this thing, will 'e let me offer marriage to your eldest darter?"The other was much astonished, for his views upon the subject of Sally had changed somewhat under Margery's delicate manipulation."Offer! Powers! I thought as you'd axed her years agone. What's to hinder 'e? 'Tis a free country, an' you'm auld enough to knaw your awn minds, ban't 'e?"The younger labourer was hurt, and showed as much."Your memory's grawin' short seemin'ly," he said. "No matter. If you say I may ax her—'tis all I want. Then I'll serve 'e to the best of my power."In less than half an hour Henry Collins departed from the stable a haunted man. His eyes roamed like those of a frightened horse; he would have given the wide world to be a thousand miles from Bear Down; for the deed without a name made him tremble to the foundations of his being and threw him into an icy perspiration each time that its significance crossed his mind. Only the permission to propose to Sally sustained him; and even his love could hardly stand the ordeal of this test, for, to tell truth, he doubted more than once whether the game was worth the candle.How he lived through those moments that separated him from the night Henry never afterwards remembered; but the suspense only endured through some few hours, for Mr. Cramphorn, after revealing his design, perceived that it must be put into immediate execution if the other's help was to be counted upon."Give the fule time and he'll draw back or bolt," reflected Jonah.But the sombre minutes, deep laden each with its own horrid burden of terror and presentment, flapped their bat-wings away into the limbo of time past, and a moment arrived—midnight between two days of late July—when Collins and his leader met by appointment at a spot in the great hayfield of Endicott's, and together proceeded down the hill to Little Silver.Henry carried an unlighted bull's-eye lantern; Cramphorn's pocket bulged, and in his hand he bore a small bag of battered leather. Under their breath they discussed the matter. The night was moonless, and a haze of heat stole abroad upon the land. Pale green light shuddered along the north-eastern horizon, and the faces of umbel-bearing flowers caught it and spoke of it dimly out of the darkness. A dewy peace held the world—a peace only broken by the throb of the field-crickets that pulsed upon the ear infinitely loud in contrast with the alternate silences. Mist enveloped all things in the valleys, and as the men sank towards the churchyard, Collins shivered before cold moisture that brushed his face like a dead hand."'Tis a thing beyond all belief," he said; "an' I be very glad as you didn't give me more'n a day to think, else I should have runned away rather than faace it.""'Tis a ugly thing done for a butivul purpose. 'Tis the best work as ever that brain-pan will have to its credit in this here world.""'Struth! I cream all awver to hear 'e! Such courage as you've got. Did 'e get the keys?""Ess; when Noah Brimblecombe was up to the rectory. I seed un go; then went in the cottage an' waited, an' when his missus had her back turned at the door, I pulled the curtain in the corner, under the cloam images wheer the church keys all hang to. And them I wanted I found. To put 'em back wi'out him knawin' will be a harder job.""An' arter the—the screws, theer'll be a lead case, I s'pose—have 'e thought 'pon that? But I lay you have.""I've got a mall an' cold chisel in my bag. Ban't no harder than openin' a chest of tea," answered the old man grimly.Mr. Collins whined and shivered."To think of it! The mystery of it! If she knawed—the very man she promised to wed. 'Tis tu gashly; I been ever since this marnin' broodin' awver the business.""A gert thought—that's what it was, an' I be proud of it; an' if 'tis ever knawed an' telled about after I'm dead and gone, folks'll say 'tweern't no common man as carried out such a projec'. A fule would have digged in the airth an' be catched so easy as want-catcher kills moles; but theer's brains goes to this item. I minded Christopher Yeoland—him as was taken off in full power an' pride of life by a snake-sting; an' I minded how nought but the twist of a key an' the touch of a turnscrew still lay between him an' the quick.""Twas 'cause you hated un so mortal bad livin' as your thoughts ran upon him dead," ventured Collins uneasily."Not so 'tall. As to hatin' un, I did; but that's neither here nor theer. I'm just a tool in this matter, an' the dead dust of Christopher Yeoland ban't no more to me than the ridge of airth a plough turns. 'Tis a fact this same dust an' me comed to blows in time agone; but all these frettings an' failings be forgotten now, though we weern't no ways jonic—a empty, lecherous man. Still, he've answered for his sins, an' I hates un no more. I awnly wants a bit of the 'natomy of un for a precious balm; then 'tis screws again, an' locks again; an' none wiser 'cept you an' me an' the spiders.""Theer's God A'mighty.""I doan't forget that. The Lard's on our side, or I shouldn't be here. No puzzle for Him. No doubt Judgment Day will find the man all of a piece again to take his deserts.""You'm a wonder—to talk of such a fatal deed as if 'twas no more'n pullin' a turnip.""An' that's how us should look 'pon it. An' if 'twas a turnip axed for, a turnip I'd have got."They now entered the churchyard from its south-western side by a hole in the hedge. Mr. Collins lighted his lantern and passed over the graves like a drunken Will-o'-the-wisp with many a trip and stagger. Then he stood under the skulls of the Yeoland mausoleum, and glanced fearfully up where they grinned, and his light seemed to set red eyeballs rolling in their mossy sockets.Soon both men had entered the sepulchre, and Henry happily burned himself with the lantern as he did so—an accident that served to steady his nerves and shut his mouth upon chattering teeth. Jonah, too, felt the tragedy of the situation, but in a higher spirit, and the peacock part of the man played him true, though only coffins were his audience. He thought how ages unborn might ring with this desperate deed; he even determined that, if the matter leaked out no sooner, he would himself confess it upon his death-bed, when ignoble retaliation would be impossible, and little time left for much save admiration and applause.This he resolved as he lifted the pall of Christopher's coffin and observed how that damp had already begun to paint the brass inscription green.He opened his bag, bade Henry keep the lantern steady and shut his mouth, then calmly removed his coat, turned up his sleeves, and began his work. But the task proved harder than he had anticipated, and his assistant, after one bungling effort to aid, was forced to abandon any second attempt. To hold the lantern proved the limit of his power; and even that bobbed every way, now throwing light among the dim shadows upon the shelves, now blazing into Jonah's eyes, now revolving helplessly over the ceiling of the vault. Presently Cramphorn grew annoyed as well as warm, and, aware that precious time was passing, swore so loudly that a new, material terror overtook his companion."For God's grace, doan't 'e bawl so loud!" he implored. "If p'liceman was ridin' past and catched us!"Though he felt no flicker of fear, Jonah realised the value of this counsel. He looked to see that the door was shut fast, then proceeded with his work in silence. The reluctant screws came out quicker as he acquired increased skill, and from their raw holes issued a faint smell of eucalyptus, for the coffin was built of that wood.At last the men together lifted the lid, and set it in a corner. Then a sterner task awaited them where the lead shell lay bare. Noise of mallet on chisel was now inevitable, and Collins heard himself directed to stand sentry at the churchyard gate, so that if the nightly patrol should pass that way on his uncertain round, silence might fall until he had departed beyond earshot. Probability of any other human visitor there was none, unless the doctor chanced to be abroad.Henry therefore got out into the fresh air very willingly, and before long sat him down at the churchyard gate and listened to muffled activity from Jonah's mallet in the distance. One other sound disturbed the night. Already grey dawn stole along the eastern woods, but the deep, tranced hour before bird-waking was upon all things, and in its loneliness Collins found the lap and chuckle of a stream under the churchyard wall welcome as a companion. It knew action at least, and broke the horrible stillness. Once he heard slow footfall of hoofs, and was about to give an alarm, when, from the shadows, came forth an old white horse that wandered alone through the night. Like a ghost it dragged itself slowly past—perchance waking from pain, perchance wondering, as such aged brutes may wonder, why grass and water are no longer sweet. It hobbled painfully away, and the echo of its passing was swallowed up in the silence, and the apparition of its body vanished under the mist. There only remained the wakeful streamlet, leaping from its dim journey among coffins into the watercress bed, and a hollow reverberation of blows from the mortuary.Presently, however, Mr. Cramphorn's mallet ceased to strike, and finding that the supreme moment had now come, Collins nerved himself to return. From the dawn-grey into gloom he stole to see the picture of Jonah in a round ring of lantern light sharply painted upon darkness. A coffin, with its inner leaden shell torn back, lay at Cramphorn's feet, and Henry instantly observed that some tremendous and unforeseen circumstance had fallen out during his vigil at the churchyard gate. The other man was glaring before him like a lunatic; his short hair bristled; his face dripped. Terrified he was not, yet clearly had become the victim of amazed bewilderment and even horror."For Christ's sake, doan't 'e glaze at me like that!" implored Henry. "What have 'e done? What's happened to 'e? Doan't tell me you'm struck into that shaape for this high-handed job!"The other's mouth was open and his under-jaw hung limp. Apparently he lacked force to speak, for he merely pointed to his work; upon which Collins looked sideways into the coffin with stealthy dread. Instantly his face also became transformed into a display of liveliest astonishment and dismay; but in his case frank terror crowded over him like a storm. And thus three men—two living and one a corpse—each confronted the others, while the marble serenity of this death offered a contrast to the frenzied emotion on the faces of those that lived."God's gudeness! You've brawked into the wrong wan!" gasped Collins.Jonah shook his head, for still he could not answer; yet the suspicion of his companion seemed natural, because not Christopher Yeoland but another lay at their feet.Within the coffin, placid and little disfigured save where the eyes had fallen in and the skin tightened over his high, bald brow, appeared a venerable face—a face almost patriarchal. The dead man's beard gleamed nobly white upon his breast, and his features presented the solemn, peaceful countenance of one indifferent to this rude assault from busy souls still in life."'Tis magic—black, wicked magic—that's what it is. Else he've been took out an' another party put in unbeknawnst," stuttered Collins.Then Cramphorn found his voice, and it came weak and thin with all the vigour strained out of it by shock."Not him at all—an' like as not he never was in. A far-reachin', historic action—that's what we've comed on. Our dark deed's brought to light a darker.""Which us'll have to keep damn quiet about," gasped Henry."'Tis a gert question how our duty do lie. My brains be dancin' out of my eyes in water. Maybe we've found a murder. An' I caan't get the thread of action all in a minute.""'Tis daylight outside, anyway.""Then for God's sake do your share, if you'm a man. Hammer that lead back an' shut up this here ancient person—Methuselah he might be, from the look of un. I be gone that weak in the sinews that a cheel could thraw me. I must get a bite of air, then I'll help.""You ban't gwaine!" cried Henry in terror; but Jonah remained in sight and soon returned. Then, to the younger's great satisfaction, he heard that his partner had quite abandoned the original enterprise and was only desirous to make good their desecration and depart."It caan't surely be as a dead man graws auld quick after he's put away?" asked Collins."A fule's question. 'Tis all a trick an' a strammin' gert lie worked for some person's private ends. An' the bite comes to knaw how we'm gwaine to let it out.""Ess; we'm done for ourselves if we tell.""Doan't talk; work. I must think bimebye when I'm out of this smell o' death."Henry obeyed, and showed considerable energy and despatch."He may be a livin' man still!""Young Yeoland? I'd guess it was so, if I didn't knaw 'bout Cherry Grepe. Please God, mine be the intellects to smooth out this dark deed anyways, so that generations yet to come shall call me blessed. Awnly you keep your mouth shut—that's what you've got to do. Guy Fawkes an' angels, to be faaced wi' such a coil!""It'll want a powerful strong brain to come out of it with any credit to yourself," said Mr. Collins."As to that, such things be sent to those best able to support 'em.""Well, no call to tell me to keep quiet. I'll not make or meddle, I swear to 'e. If theer's any credit due an' any callin' of anybody blessed, you may have the lot. I shall pray to God for my paart to let me forget everythin' 'bout this night. An' seein' the things I do forget, I awnly hope this will go like a breath o' air. Same time 'tis more likely to haunt me to my dyin' day than not.""Doan't drink, that's all. Forget it you won't; but doan't drink 'pon it, else you'll let it out in the wrong ears for sartain. You ban't built to keep in beer an' secrets to wance. An' take care of Ash, as sleeps along wi' you. Have a lie ready if he's wakin' when you go back."In twenty minutes the matter was at an end, an old man's coffin once more in its appointed place, and the family vault of the Yeolands locked and double-locked. Collins and Cramphorn then left the churchyard, but Jonah found himself without physical strength to start uphill immediately; so the men retired to rest awhile within the crumbling walls of Little Silver Castle, close at hand. There they sat, under the great groined arches of the dungeon chamber, and whispered, while the bats squeaked and clustered in their dark nooks and crannies at return of day.Then Cramphorn and his assistant proceeded homewards as they had come—knee-deep through the grass lands—and before three o'clock both were back in their beds again. Yet neither slept, for each, in proportion to his intelligence, was oppressed by the thought of his discovery and by the memory of an ancient face, autumn brown, yet having a great white beard, that rippled over his breast and so passed out of sight beneath the engirding lead.
CHAPTER VII.
PLOTS AGAINST AN ORPHAN
The departure of Mrs. Libby and its probable effect upon her son became a matter of local interest, because she had toiled with her old bones for him to the end, and he had taken all her service as a matter of course, but would now feel the loss of his home comforts exceedingly.
"He'll have to get a wife," said the man Pinsent at Sunday supper. All were assembled save Honor, who had now been in her room for three weeks, and still kept it.
"If 'tis awnly for somebody to cook his victuals, the man must marry," declared Collins. Then with some craft he added, "And the question in Little Silver is who's to be the gal."
"He'm a comical tempered chap, to my thinking; an' they do say a man wi' a tie in his speech——" began Pinsent. But he found himself sharply taken to task from the quarter he had secretly aimed at.
"You'd best to mind your awn business, Samuel!" flamed out Sally, then blushed rose-red to the roots of her hair at the laughter her confession won. Her relations alone did not laugh. Margery bent over her plate and grew white rather than red; and Mr. Cramphorn roundly rated the speaker for such a lapse of manners.
"'Fore the whole world, would 'e? I blush for 'e—though you can for yourself still, it seems. An' him never so much as opened his lips on it! 'Tis a most unmaidenly thing, an' never to have been looked for in no darter o' mine."
"Sorry I drawed it from her, notwithstanding," said Pinsent. "I'm sure I'd rather have bit my tongue out than bring red to any gal's cheeks."
"Nobody would hurt her for gold," added Collins.
But Sally was now in tears. She left her supper, and withdrew weeping; her sister gave vent to a little hard laugh; while a moment later Cramphorn, in some discomfort, followed his elder daughter. Then, familiar with Jonah's estimate of Libby, and having no desire to breed further storm, Mark Endicott spoke to Ash.
"What's your opinion of the man, Churdles?"
"A poor creation, your honour," answered the patriarch promptly. "Not a penn'orth o' nature in un, else he'd have had some gal squeezed to his heart so soon as ever he comed by enough money to marry. He'm cold clay, an' awnly waitin' to see which of Jonah's maids be in highest favour—which is most like to have the cottage left to her. His faither was another most calculating chap. The woman what's just gone had awnly half a score short of a hunderd pound saved when he offered hisself. Married for money, in fact; an' that's a 'mazin' thing to happen except among respectable people."
"What d'you say to that, Margery?" asked Myles Stapledon bluntly. He did not like Margery, and her attitude at her sister's discomfiture had not escaped him.
"Ban't for me to speak against my elders," she answered slowly, with a malignant look at the placid veteran. "Mr. Ash—auld as he is—do find it so hard to mind his awn business as other people seemin'ly. He ban't paid for pokin' his ancient nose into Gregory Libby's consarns, I s'pose. But he'm past larnin' manners now, no doubt."
The boyish features of Mr. Ash flushed suddenly and his head shook a little.
"Theer's a sour speech—an' her so young! Worse'n any vinegar you'll be in the marriage cruet, woman, whoever 'tis that's daft enough to take 'e! Fegs! I pity un; an' I pity the Dowl when it's his turn—as it will be some day. To talk to a auld man so!"
Unwonted wrinkles appeared in Mr. Ash's apple-face, and he showed a great disinclination to let the matter drop, though Stapledon bid him be silent. He chattered and growled and demanded an apology, which Margery declined to offer. Then she instantly left the kitchen, so that no argument should rise upon her refusal. She glowered sullenly about her, restrained a strong desire to scream, and then withdrew.
Yet Churdles, though he knew it not, and must have much deplored the fact if it had come to his understanding, was responsible for a practical and valuable lesson to Margery. His words, though they angered her, had not fallen upon deaf ears. She sulked away now in the corner of an empty room and set her wits to work. Mr. Libby was in one respect like heaven; he had to be taken by storm, and Churdles Ash unwittingly indicated the direction of attack.
Margery indeed loved this shifty youth; she adored his cane-coloured hair cut straight across his low forehead, like a child's fringe, his uncertain eyes, his moustache—with a most "gentleman-like droop to it," as she had discovered. She loved him—not for his money but for himself, and her sister's infatuation was of a similar genuine quality. They were primitive maidens both and had seen little of the other sex, owing to their father's suspicions that every man on the eastern side of Dartmoor would run away with them, given the opportunity. Now passion worthy of a better cause burnt in their young hearts, and each raged against the other—inwardly for the most part. Their weapons were different, and whereas Margery's sarcasms proved wholly wasted on her sister, Sally's anger, when roused, generally took the shape of a swinging box on the ear—a retort contemptible enough, no doubt, yet not easy to be ignored. Margery's waspish tongue was no match for her sister's right arm, therefore open quarrels seldom happened; yet each daily strained every nerve, and since Gregory had come to be a mere womanless, desolate orphan, the efforts of both girls were redoubled. It had, however, been left to the sensation of that evening to quicken their wits; and now each, by ways remote, set about a new and more pressing investment of Mr. Libby's lonely heart.
Margery took the word of Mr. Ash to herself, and realised that if her loved one was really waiting to get a hint of Jonah Cramphorn's intentions, her own course must be modified. She knew that her father, despite his surly and overbearing disposition, might be influenced without difficulty; and she possessed the tact and discretion proper to such a task. She had never desired any influence over him until the present, and had indeed thought but little of the future, excepting with reference to herself and Gregory. Now, however, the danger of allowing Sally even an indirect ascendency was made manifest, and Margery determined that her sister must be put out of court at home, by fair means if possible, by foul if necessary.
In a most cold-blooded and calculating spirit she approached the problem of making herself so indispensable to her father that he should come to regard her as his better and more deserving child. That situation once established, no doubt Gregory Libby would be the first to perceive it. If he was backward in doing so, then might she delicately aid his perception; indeed she doubted not that this course would be necessary, for the control she now set herself to maintain over her parent must be more real than apparent at first. She hoped that within a month at the latest it would be safe to hint to Gregory that such supremacy existed.
And meanwhile, hanging over a gate out of doors, so that her tear-stained cheeks might cool, Sally also meditated some definite action whereby the halting regard of the desired object should grow established and affirmed. To a determination she also came, but it fell far short of her sister's in subtlety. She merely fell back upon the trite conceit of atertium quid, and hoped how, once reminded of the fact that other men also found her pleasant in their eyes, Mr. Libby would awaken into jealousy and so take action. Her father she did not consider, because his opinions had long since ceased to weigh with her, when it was possible to disregard them. Sally approached the future in a sanguine spirit, for within the secret places of her heart there lurked an honest belief that Gregory loved her to desperation. Why he delayed to mention the fact, under these distracting circumstances, was not easy to explain; but now, upon his mother's death, there had come a climax in the young man's life; and Sally felt that in the present forlorn circumstances she ought to be, and probably was, his paramount object of reflection.
So she determined to precipitate the imminent declaration by parading another possible husband; and that point established it remained only to decide upon whom this thankless part should fall. Henry Collins naturally offered himself to her mind. His emotions were perfectly familiar to her, though in that he had scrupulously obeyed Jonah and never dared to offer marriage, Sally regarded him with some natural derision. But he loved her very well, and would come when she whistled, and frisk at her side with great content and joy. Whereupon, driven frantic before the spectacle of Collins lifted to this giddy fortune, she doubted not but that Gregory would declare himself and make a definite offer. His words once spoken, she felt no fear for the future. She held herself in some esteem, and was satisfied of her powers to keep Libby, or any other man, to a bargain.
Thus both maids, within the space of an hour, had braced their minds to a course of vital action; and it remained for time to show which, if either, was to succeed in the result.
CHAPTER VIII.
A NECKLACE OF BIRDS' EGGS
There came a Sunday, yet not so soon as Doctor Mathers hoped, when Honor declared herself able and desirous to take the air again. She chose the Moor as the scene of this return to life; and, as Stapledon had departed for the day to see an acquaintance at Okehampton before his wife decided to go forth, her uncle, and not her husband, accompanied her—to the deep chagrin of the latter when he returned home.
Through the long hours of a weary and empty convalescence, Honor said little concerning the incident responsible for wreck of hope; but her loss had grown into an abiding grief nevertheless; and while the man was stricken most sorely at first, but had now become resigned, devoting only leisure thought to his private sorrow, the woman took this trial to her heart with increasing bitterness through those lonely hours that followed upon it. There was, moreover, an added element of terror and a superstitious despair bred of her alarm in the woods. This died but slowly, for she would not share the experience with any other; yet, as physical health increased, all lesser emotion dwindled before the ever-present sense of loss. From Myles she hid the heavy misery of it, that his own sorrow might not be increased; but she liked to speak with her uncle of the little flower lost in the bud, and he was patient and never weary of comforting her to the best of his power.
It is to be noted, however, that Myles somewhat misunderstood Honor's extreme reticence, and her assumed air of brightness and good hope misled him perhaps more completely than Honor designed. He was secretly surprised that this matter had not left a deeper mark; he did not guess at a scar out of his sight; but he marvelled that his wife could still laugh and even jest upon occasion. Under her tranquillity and humour he failed to probe, but he bade the inner wonder in his mind be dumb. Not until long afterwards did he learn the truth and realise the depth of the sorrow she had masked for love of him.
The little open carriage crept up over Scor Hill, then proceeded by a steep way to Charity Grepe's cottage. There Honor left half-a-crown in person, for since certain rumours that poor Cherry must go to the work-house, the mistress of Bear Down had become her active champion. Then the pony was turned, climbed the hill again, and presently stood above Teign valley, at a point on the hillside where a little lakelet reflected the blue sky above it, and shone framed in rushes and verdant sphagnum, in rosy sundews all frosted and agleam, in small scattered flames of the bog asphodel, and in many lesser things that love a marsh.
Away on the wide front of Watern, great gloomy tracts, still dark from fire, spread forth over many an acre. There a "swaling" had freed the land of heath and furze, and provided light and air for grass; but the spot seen from this distance was naked as yet.
"There's a great scar over against us on the hill—black—black against the green and the grey and the blue overhead—all charred and desolate. That's how my heart feels, Uncle Mark—so dreary and forlorn—like an empty nest."
"Look again," he said; "look at what seems so black upon the hill, and think as you look, and you'll remember the ash and ruin are all full of young, sweet blades, sprouting strong, brimming with sap to hide the rack of dead char. 'Twill be so with you, my dear; for there's the bend and spring of youth in your heart still. Wait till the heather's out again, and the foxgloves are nodding along the low ridges over the Teign, and the whortle bells be turned to purple berries once more."
"How you remember!" she said, "despite all the long years of darkness."
"Yes; I remember, thank God. I smell the damp near where you've pulled up; and I see the marsh, down to the little bluebell flower that creeps in the grass, and the spotted leaves of orchis, and the white wisps of the cotton grass in summer, and all the rest, that I never thought upon when I had my eyes. But there's a quiet, unknown mercy that works through the morning hours of a man's life if he lives in the lap of Nature and is true to her. Keen sight stores the memory unbeknown to us; and none can tell how deep that unconscious, unguessed gathering-up may be but those who fall upon blindness. No credit to me at all; yet the pictures come as the seasons come—at bud-break; at the sound of the west wind and the call of the river; at the music of rain on the leaves; at the whirr of the cutter in the hay; at the touch of snow on my face and in my eyebrows. I know—I know it all, for my eyes reaped and my brain garnered at the merciful will of God. Without those mind picture-books I should be blind indeed."
"You're so brave. I wish that I had more of you in me. I'm not a true Endicott."
"As to that, 'tis only those who won't see are blind. Eyesight's the window of the house, but the ear is the door. A blow-fly on the window-pane is big enough to hide the evening star—if you're content to let it; but shut your eyes and you'll see the star in the blue, with nought between it and your thoughts."
"It's so hard to be wise; and words are not warm, live things you can cuddle. Oh, I want something smaller than myself to love! I had lighted such a great fire of love; and now it's all burnt out, and no green hope springing through the ashes."
"Be patient. Look forward, my Honor."
"There's nothing there—all blank."
"You're morbid; and that's the last foolishness I should ever have thought to tax you with. Myles——"
"No—no; you don't understand. How should you understand?"
"Moonshine!"
"It wasn't moonshine. I wish I could think it was. But you must be patient with me. It's so cold to open your eyes every morning with the dull feeling that something sad is waiting for you to remember it. I'm all winter, while the rest of the world is full of spring."
"And spring will touch you presently."
"I had built such castles in the air—painted such futures. First, my boy was to be a soldier; but I grew frightened of that when I began to fill in details of the picture; and then a farmer, but that did not satisfy me at all. Presently my heart went out to the thought of his being an artist—either in words or pictures, but an artist in deeds at any rate. You don't know what I mean by that. One who thought and felt like an artist—and walked so. He was to magnify the Lord and love the earth, and all green things, and birds especially, and the changeful sky. I did not think of him as loving men and women very much—excepting me. So my silly thoughts sped and I shut my eyes, that nobody should see my hope looking out of them. I was going to be the mother of a great man—and I am only the mother of a great sorrow, after all."
"A shared sorrow; don't forget that, my dear. There's three hearts to take each a part of the load. More than that, for, beyond Myles and me, every man's breast and woman's bosom is heavy for you here. A widespread, real regret, though 'tis not their way to make much ado."
"They are very good to me—better than I deserve. I shall have more thoughts for them now. Sorrow at least teaches sympathy. But my soul has quite lost heart of late days, and I feel so old."
At this moment from the valley there came two persons along the path where Honor's pony carriage stood. One appeared uneasy, the other in a very halcyon halo of delight; for Sally, true to her resolve, had indicated that a little attention from Mr. Collins would not be unwelcome; and now they moved side by side upon a stolen walk. Elsewhere Margery accompanied her parent to see a neighbour, and Sally was supposed to be at the farm.
The pair made awkward acknowledgments and were proceeding, when Honor noted an unusual decoration about her milkmaid's neck. In addition to a string of glass pearls, a little necklace of birds' eggs—alternate thrush and blackbird—adorned Sally's plump throat, and the spectacle, suggestive as it was of robbed nests, woke a wave of passing indignation in Honor's heart.
"What is that round your neck?" she asked with a sudden hardness in her voice; and Sally's hands went up gingerly to the frail adornment, while she looked at Collins, whose gift, snatched from screaming birds, she wore. Seeing explanation was expected from him, Henry stood forward, touched his Sunday hat, and spoke with many stumblings.
"Beggin' pardon, I'm sure, ma'am, I——"
"You robbed the birds, Collins?"
"Ess, I did, but if you call home last cherry-time, ma'am; if I may say so—you see I did as you bid an' shot a braave lot last autumn, as you wanted—them being so bowldacious as to eat your fruit; an' come autumn an' winter, I catched a gude few in traps what I teeled in the garden. Then, come spring, I had a bright thought that if I took the eggs of 'em 'twould mean gert thinning out o' the birds. An' no account neither, if I may say so; 'cause a egg's just life in the raw, waitin' for warmth an' time to quicken it. They never lived like, savin' your presence, so the airth ban't the poorer by a bird's note, 'cause us caan't lose what we never had. 'Tis no more'n a seed spoiled, or a leaf-bud nipped by frost, or a cheel still——"
He clapped his hand over his mouth and heard Sally say "Fule!" under her breath; but his mistress nodded and bid him go on his way.
"You may be right; but take no more eggs from the birds."
So Mr. Collins got himself out of sight to the tune of a reprimand from Sally that made his ears tingle.
"You gert, clumsy-mouthed gawk! To utter such a speech an' tellin' that stuff to her, an' go mumblin' on, like a bumble-bee in a foxglove; an' end up so! Not the sense of a sheep you ain't got!"
She tore off his gift and stamped on the blown shells, while he merely stood and rolled his great eyes wretchedly.
Elsewhere Endicott spoke to his niece.
"Strange how a chance word out of a fool's mouth will often come pat. These things—eggs—buds—babies are so little account in the great sum total. Nature's units don't trouble her. The crushed windflower will bud and blow again next year. What is a year to her? The robbed mother-bird screams for an hour, then goes on with the vital business of preserving her own life; and the robbed mother-woman—her heart aches to-day, but the pain soothes off presently as the months and years roll over first memories. We're built to forget; else the world would be a madhouse, or just one great welter of sorrow. 'Tis God's way, I judge, seldom to put upon us more than we can bear. If grief or pain's past bearing—why then the heart or something cracks and there's an end of us. But sorrow alone never killed a healthy being. I'd rather count it the torch that lights to the greatest deeds we're built to do. I hoped that a little child would draw you together—Myles and you—close, close as soil and seed; but 'tis a shared grief must do it—instead of a shared joy. Such a welding, as by fire, may last longest after all."
She sighed, touched her pony with the whip, in a sort of thoughtful caress, and turned him homewards.
"I don't know what Myles thinks about it. Either he hides all he feels to save me—or he is forgetting, as you say. It is natural that he should. No man that ever lived can know how long those nine months are to a woman. But I—I—there it is in the wind—in the rustle of the leaves. I hear it so often—the sound of a rocking cradle. I must wait until the wind sings a different song before I can be wise. Some day I shall wake up strong again—strong to acknowledge all your goodness and everybody's goodness and sympathy. I cannot yet."
The old man was moved for her. He put his hand on hers and patted it.
"I think I understand as much as an ancient bachelor may. But you must do your share and help the powers to help you. There's an effort called for. Hard to make, but you must make it. Take up your life again—the old life that you laid down; an' do it with a single heart."
"I cannot yet. I left it behind so gladly. I must go back for it. I do not care about any life just now. I cannot cry or laugh with my heart. It's all pretence—think what that means. I look at everything from the outside—like Christo used to. I'm a dead, withered bough still on the tree; and what is it to me that the next bough is busy about new leaves?"
"You do yourself a wrong to say so, and I'd not listen to anybody else who spoke so ill of you. You must come back to yourself—your own good self—and the sooner the better. That's a plain duty at least—not to be escaped from. That's a call, whether your heart's sad or merry. 'Tis the honest, everyday duty of a woman to be good, dear heart—same as it's the duty of a Mary lily to be white. Keep your proper colour, as God meant you, and as God taught you. Live as you have lived: with a sense of duty for the sake of those that love you, if no better reason."
She sighed again, aweary of the subject.
"Now we'll go home. We're wasting my first breath of sweet air in words. Better to draw it in silently and not turn it into talk."
Mark Endicott laughed.
"Why, yes, it does the heart more good that way, no doubt. You're a deal wiser than I am, niece, for all my grey hairs and jackdaw chatter."
Then slowly down the hill, without more speech, they drove together.
CHAPTER IX.
AN OLD-TIME PRESCRIPTION
From the occasion of her drive upon the Moor, Honor, instead of proceeding towards good health, fell away in that desired progress. What chance had conspired to an effect so unfortunate none knew, but the fact was apparent, and as days passed and summer returned, there stole gradually upon her a listless and inert attitude of spirit—a state of the mind that reflected upon her physical condition and appeared in a most despondent outlook upon life. From time to time some transient gleam of returning health and happiness gladdened those who loved her; but weeks passed and still Honor's temper was of a sort that kept Myles anxious and Doctor Mathers exasperated. For she proved not a good patient and none could prevail upon her to consider the foreign travel and sea voyage that her physician stood out for at every visit. She told them that she was well enough at home; that her health improved; and that they need be under no concern for her. Meanwhile, her life grew narrower and narrower, both in its bounds of thought and performance. Her reflections indeed she kept to herself for the most part, and certainly the event responsible in great measure for her sustained ill-health she imparted to no one; but her actions were obvious, and Myles began to grow care-worn as he watched a life so full of energy and various interest now sink into mere mechanical existence. Her walks dwindled to strolls; Nature brought Honor no particular delight; and the old haunts failed to cheer her. Until midday she rarely stirred from her own room, and sometimes she would keep her bed altogether from sheer indifference toward affairs.
This life of ashes, which neither love nor duty seemed capable of rousing into renewed activity and vigour, was beheld in its dreary unfolding by the little population of Bear Down; and that busy hive, both in season and out, discussed this grave crisis in the fortunes of its mistress and offered all manner of suggestions and advice upon it. Some opinions were undoubtedly sensible enough, as when Churdles Ash counselled forcible compliance with the doctor's orders.
"You'm her lawful lard an' master," he said to Stapledon; "so 'tis your dooty to hale your lady away to furrin paarts, whether her will or no. She'll be fust to thank 'e, dear sawl, come her gets whole again."
But Myles knew Honor well enough, or little enough, to believe that such a high-handed course must be futile. Long and anxious were the deliberations he held with his uncle, and there came a time when Mark suggested a visit from some great physician of expert knowledge.
"Have a London chap," he proposed. "Honor doesn't care a fig for Mathers. But maybe a keen pair of eyes, and a big forehead, and a big voice, and the knowledge it's cost perhaps a hundred pounds to fetch it all down to see her, might bring the woman to some sense."
"I proposed it. She wouldn't hear of it."
"Very well; don't let her hear of it—till the man is in the house. Get Mathers to tell you of some great wonder whose strong point is all these nerve twists and tangles that Honor's struggling under. For a woman to take to thinking, is as bad as for a man to take to drinking—sometimes. It breeds a wrong habit and interferes with Nature. There's a mystery under all this—ever since that sad mischance—and as she won't tell those that love her maybe a clever doctor, who understands the springs of healthy mental action, will find a way to bring back her peace."
"There's a secret, as you say; and I've known it on her tongue; I've felt that it was to be revealed at last. Then there has come a sigh, like the shutting of a door of the mind—a door not to be opened from the outside."
"That is so—and it may be a doctor's work to open that door, instead of a husband's. We'll hope I'm right. Fetch such a man along, if it costs the hay harvest. It's all drouthy nothings here with this fever eating the girl alive."
While Mark Endicott and his nephew thus debated the question of the hour and sought for one able to storm the dim domain of Honor's neurotic disorders, Mr. Ash, Mr. Cramphorn, and others of Endicott's took counsel among themselves how best the tribulation might be overcome.
Ash now regarded the illness as a moonstroke, and was of opinion that doses of lunar radiance alone would restore their mistress.
"Moon must undo what moon's done," he announced. But Cramphorn knew of no precedent, and therefore scoffed at the idea.
"Never was I lower in my spirits," the head-man declared; "an' the plague is that gen'lefolks be so exalted in their awn opinions that no word of ours will they heed, though we spoke wi' the tongues of fire. What do they care for organy tea an' such-like herbs of the field? Yet here I stand, a living sawl, as would be dust at this hour, but for that an' other such-like simples. Cherry Grepe's 'pon theer black books, or, if they'd had sense, they'd have thrawed awver that bwoy—that Mathers—an' gived her a chance to shaw her gert gifts. So like as not she've got a cunning remedy for this dark complaint—a mess of some sort as would put our lady right, mind an' body, in a week. Many a time have I seen a wise man or woman by mere force of words, wi'out so much as striking the sickness, charm it that sudden, as wan might a'most say he seed the evil fly from a party's mouth—like a leather-bird,[#] a-screechin' across the dimpsy light."
[#] A leather-bird = a bat.
"Ess; 'tis pity they doan't give Mother Grepe a chance," admitted Churdles Ash; "for wi' all her little ways an' secrets, she do worship the same Saviour in heaven as her betters do—onless she'm a liar."
"A white witch for sartain," declared Collins. "An' her charmed a wart for Tommy Bates but last week, an' done it in the name of Jesus Christ, an' awnly axed a threp'ny-bit."
So the men discussed Honor's evil case during a dinner interval on the land, then returned to work, regretful that those most involved thus persisted in overlooking a possible means of grace in their hour of tribulation.
But while Collins and the rest dismissed this matter before work and those personal interests of life uppermost in all minds, Mr. Cramphorn continued to dwell darkly upon the subject. This cross-grained, surly soul loved his mistress with an affection superior to that commanded by his own flesh and blood. Herein circumstances and even heredity were strong upon him. Sprung from a line that had laboured at Endicott's through many generations, the descendant of men who were born heirs of toil upon this land and looked to the reigning powers as their immediate lords under Providence, a traditionary regard dwelt in the blood of him, and the concerns of those who controlled his destiny became Cramphorn's own concerns. Such a spirit modern education and the spread of knowledge drives quickly forth, for the half-educated class of to-day scorns gratitude as a base survival; but Jonah dated from long before the Board Schools, and their frosty influence was no more in his heart than upon his tongue. Sour, conceited, a very rustic Malvolio, he might be; but the nobler qualities of Malvolio, he also possessed. It was not the least among his vague regrets that the name of Endicott must presently vanish from Bear Down, even as the name of Cramphorn was destined to.
And now Jonah thought upon the word of Churdles Ash concerning the wise woman. His own experience of her powers also inclined him in that direction, and finally he decided to visit her again. That Cherry had destroyed Christopher Yeoland he did not doubt; that she might, if she would, cure his mistress, he was assured. He determined that if the thing could be done for half a sovereign, done it must be. And should Cherry's charm prove powerful enough to work without the patient's connivance, so much the better.
That same evening he visited the cottage of the sorceress, where it lay behind the low wall, and the row of ox vertebræ, and the torch of the great mullein, that now towered aloft with its first blossoms shining in the gloaming above a woolly spire.
Gammer Grepe was at home and in her garden. She stood with her arms folded on the gate, and Cramphorn observed that she smoked a clay pipe with the manner of long experience. He asked civilly for a little conversation and followed the old woman into her cottage.
"Walk in an' welcome, if there's any money to it," she said bluntly. "'Tis 'bout them gals again, I s'pose. Tu gert a handful for 'e, eh? You'm a fule to fret, for they'll go theer ways wi'out axin' your leave. Be your peas a-come to the farm? Might let 'em knaw as I've got half a quart or so, if Mrs. Stapledon fancies 'em."
"Ess, our peas be come, an' it 'idden 'bout my darters I'm here; an' fule or no fule, it takes two to make a weddin'; an' if the proper chap ban't on-coming, us have got to sit down an' wait, like nesseltripe. I be here touching the mistress of Endicott's."
Cherry frowned.
"I've no word against her, as you knaw, but the rest of 'em—that auld blind piece an' her husband—specially him—I doan't set no store by. She'm what a Endicott should be. T'others I'd so soon ill-wish as not—just to larn 'em the things they doan't believe."
Her eyes glimmered with anger, and the candlelight played pranks with her aged but not venerable face.
"Well, 'tis peace rather than war so far as I'm consarned. I know what you can do—who better?"
"Ess; an' for all theer hard words I'd rather starve than hurt Endicott's. 'Tis his loss, not mine—this furriner she've married. Not but what I might to-morrow——"
"'Tis the very thing I be come upon," interrupted Jonah eagerly. "Her—the mistress. What do this green youth by name of Mathers knaw? If he'd got the wit of a louse he'd never have let the cheel slip through his fingers. But her—she'll slip through his fingers next."
"Ban't no doctor's job now," said Cherry. "The things that could cure her trouble doan't come out of shops. For tearings of heart, an' black night vapours, an' such-like deep ills the very herbs o' the fields are vain. You want sterner food."
"'Tis her sawl be sick by all the looks of it," explained Jonah. "An' it tells 'pon the butivul body of her, like a blight 'pon a rose. She've been ill, to an' from, ever since the bearin' of that dead baaby; an' from being a woman of ready spirit she've grawed that down-daunted as you'd a'most say she'd cry or run if a goose hissed at her. An' now, be gormed if she ban't comin' to be a regular bed-lier! Think of her, so peart an' spry as she was, keepin' her room these summer days! Caan't 'e offer for to cure her, Cherry? I lay theer'd be gude money to it an' plenty, whatever hard thoughts some have got against you."
"Theer's but wan cure as I knaws for her," said the old woman gloomily; "an ugly, savage cure, an' fallen out of use these many days now. But a sure balm and a thing as eats to the heart like a cancer, rubbed under a woman's left breast."
"God's truth, mum!"
"'Tis as I tell 'e. Like a cancer; but 'stead of being death to the livin', 'tis life to the dyin', or them like to die. A savage cure, an' such latter-day stuff as Myles Stapledon would awnly cock his nose at it; so it won't be done, however. An' her'll die—her'll die for need of oil of man. 'Tis that—a thing in no books—a secret as'll be a dead and buried secret in a few years' time, when me an' the likes of me be dead an' buried."
"Oil of man? I've heard Churdles Ash name it."
"Ess, he'd be sure to knaw at his age. 'Tis simple enough. Theer's a virtue in all bones—that everybody knaws who's drinked soup, I s'pose."
"Surely; an' the better the bone, the better the broth," assented Jonah.
"That's it! You've hit the point I was comin' to. So it happens that a Christian bone of a human be fuller far of virtue than any saved from a sheep or other beast."
Cramphorn felt a cold shiver slide up his spine like a speedy snail, and spread out upon his neck and shoulders.
"Christ A'mighty! What be tellin' 'bout? Would 'e have folks turn into black cannibals?"
"Didn't I say 'twas used outwardly, you gaby? Oil of man be rubbed 'pon the heart, or be burnt like a candle. In that shaape 'tis a torch held up for them wanderin' in the world to come home to others as yearns for 'em. Both ways be precious deeds. Theer ban't none wanderin' she wants; so us must rub it 'pon her heart against this fit she'm suffering from."
"Wheer's such a thing to be got?"
"You ax that! As for preparin' the bones, 'tis my work. Gettin' of 'em be a man's."
Mr. Cramphorn breathed hard.
"A sure cure?" he asked.
"Sure as Scripture. An' a thing knawed for centuries, so my mother used to tell me. She made it a score o' times a'most. Men was braver then."
"Just—churchyard—bones," murmured Jonah with an expression like a dog half frightened, half angry.
"The skull of a man—no more. Bones as have held human brains. I'll do my paart for ten shillin'—same as you gived me when——"
"Hush, for the Lard's sake! Doan't 'e go back to that."
She laughed.
"You knaw at any rate that I ban't a vain talker. I'll say no more. Awnly if you'm serious set on restorin' Honor Stapledon to her rightful health, 'tis in your power. Mrs. Loveys can rub the stuff in when she's asleep if she won't consent to no other way. An' her'll come to herself again in a fortnight."
"Be so mortal light of evenings now, an' never dark all night," said Cramphorn, his mind running ahead.
"That's your outlook. If you'm man enough to go an' dig——"
"I be in a maze," he confessed. "Never heard tell of such a fearful balm in my born days."
"Very likely. Theer's more hid than you'll ever knaw, in this world or the next."
"I must think upon it. 'Tis a onruly, wild, dangerous deed. Might lead to trouble."
"'Tis a rightful, high act if you ax me. God'll knaw why for you be theer. Theer's a reward for the salvation of our fellow-creatures in next world if not this; an' I'm sure theer did ought to be, for I've saved enough in my time."
"I'll think about it serious," said Cramphorn, who was now desperately anxious to be gone.
"Just a bone against a woman's life. You think about it as you say."
"So I will, then, wi' all my strength."
Before he had reached the gate Cherry Grepe called him back.
"An' look here, I'll do my share for three half-crowns, seein' it's for her. I'm allus awnly tu glad to do gude deeds so cheap as can be, though wi' evil actions 'tis differ'nt. They win high wages all the world awver."
Then Jonah retreated with his dreadful idea, yet found that as it became more familiar it began to look less terrible. For all his follies and superstitions, he lacked not physical courage, and once assured by Gammer Grepe that such a sacrilege would be judged by his Maker from the standpoint of its motive, he troubled no further as to the performance of the deed. Thenceforward his mind was busy with details as to how such an enterprise might be safely achieved, and through his head passed the spectacle of many green graves. Even before the familiar memories of those who slept beneath them the dogged Jonah winced not; but presently a new reflection glared in upon his mind—an idea so tremendous that the man stood still and gasped before it, as though petrified by the force of his own imagination. For a moment this aspect peopled the night with whispering phantoms; it even set Jonah running with his heart in his mouth; then the wave of personal fear passed and left him well over the shock his thought had brought with it. But the effect of so much excitement and such unwonted exercise took a longer time to depart; his nerves played him some tricks; he was more than usually taciturn at supper, and retired to rest soon after that meal.
Yet, once in bed, Jonah's thoughts kept him such active and unfamiliar company that sleep quite forsook his couch, and it wanted but a little time of the hour for rising when finally he lost consciousness—to do grim deeds in dreamland.
CHAPTER X.
OIL OF MAN
Concerning this weird medicament, it is only necessary to state that memory of the nostrum lingers yet in ancient and bucolic minds; while the tradition, now nearly extinct, is nevertheless founded upon matters of fact from a recent past. For your Oil of Man was counted precious medicine through bygone centuries, and in the archives it may be gleaned that Moses Charras, author of a Royal Pharmacopoeia, published two hundred years ago, indicates the nature of its preparation, and declares how that the skulls of healthy men, slain in full flush of their strength by lead or steel, best meet its requirements. One Salmon of London prepared and soldPotestates cranii humaniat the sign of the "Blew Bull," in Shoe Lane, during the sixteenth century;oleum humanumhas within man's memory been a source of advantage to the porters of our medical schools; and, at a date even later than that of which we treat, a physician practising hard by Dartmoor received applications for the magic antidote from one who found herself in private trouble beyond reach of common drugs. She believed that oil of man must still be a medicinal commodity general as rhubarb or syrup of squills.
It was not surprising, therefore, that Cherry Grepe remembered the potent force of this remedy, or that Jonah Cramphorn, once satisfied that the decoction alone stood between his mistress and her end, determined to procure it. A great thought kept him waking until the sun was ready to ascend above the remote gorges of Fingle; but when Jonah rose, cold water and daylight finally dwarfed the dim horrors of his project until they grew perfectly plain before him. That the plan was defensible his strenuous spirit had long since decided. But an accomplice seemed necessary to such a design, for the feat was of too great a magnitude and peril to be achieved single-handed. The common operation of two willing workers might, however, make all the difference, and while he regretted a need for assistance, Jonah felt it to be imperative. Upon the subject of punishment in event of detection, he did not waste thought. The prospect from that standpoint was undoubtedly dark—too dark to dwell upon. The power of the law he could only guess at, and in his mind was a tumultuous upheaval of old recollections touching the theme. He remembered Burke, Hare, and others of their trade; but they had killed men; he proposed no action more unlawful than taking of bones long dead.
To choose his assistant for a matter so delicate appeared difficult in one aspect, yet simple enough viewed practically. That he must broach such a subject to a sane man offered no embarrassment to Mr. Cramphorn; but to select a kindred soul, of stuff sufficiently stern to help with the actual details, promised a harder problem. Scarcity of choice, however, tended towards elucidation. The field was narrowed to an option between Pinsent and Collins; of whom Jonah quickly decided for the latter. By midday indeed he determined that Henry should participate both in the peril and the privilege of restoring Honor to health.
The men met soon after noon near the farmyard, and Cramphorn seized his opportunity.
"Come in here, an' put home the door behind 'e, Henery Collins," he said; "I've got somethin' mighty serious to say to you. For your ear awnly 'tis; an' you'll be very much dumbfounded to larn as you an' me be chosen by Providence for a gert, far-reachin' deed."
In the dim light of a stable Mr. Collins gazed with round, innocent eyes at the speaker; then he began to clean his boots on a spade.
"Whatever do 'e mean? Providence doan't chose the likes of me for its uses, I reckon."
"I stand for Providence in this thing; an' I mean missus. Theer's no nature left in her now, as you must see along wi' the rest. An' why for? 'Cause she'm fadin' away like a cloud. So wisht an' hag wi' her trouble—an' her not quarter of a century auld yet. Dyin'—dyin' afore our eyes; an' theer's awnly one creation as'll save her; an' that's for you an' me to get, my son. 'Tis ordained as we'm the parties."
"Sure, I'd go to world's end for her," declared Mr. Collins.
"No need. No call to go further'n Little Silver buryin' ground."
"Then, if 'tis any deed of darkness, you'd best to put it in other hands to wance."
"No fay—you an' me. An' a high an' desperate act—I won't deceive you theer—but a act righteous in the eye of God; though, if it got knawed by humans, theer'd be trouble."
"I'm tu peaceful in my ways for it then, an' I'll take it very kind if you'll say no more about it to me at all. Ban't in my line."
"Tu late; you'm in the plot; an' you ought to be a proud man if you do feel all for missus as I've heard 'e say scores o' times, in drink an' out. Ess, you must do what I ax you; theer ban't no gwaine back now."
Mr. Collins reflected. He believed, despite the eggshell necklace, that he still gained ground with Jonah's elder daughter in that she tolerated him at less than a yard's distance by fits and starts; but the necessity for not proposing marriage Henry felt to hamper his movements. That Sally might refuse—perhaps a dozen times—was nothing against the argument, for a rustic love-maker is as patient as Nature's self. But in the heart of Collins, obedience to anybody who ordered him with voice sufficiently loud, was a rooted instinct. He had abided by Jonah's clear utterance during time past; and now he remembered it, and, astonished at his own astuteness, sought to make a bargain.
"If I help 'e with this thing, will 'e let me offer marriage to your eldest darter?"
The other was much astonished, for his views upon the subject of Sally had changed somewhat under Margery's delicate manipulation.
"Offer! Powers! I thought as you'd axed her years agone. What's to hinder 'e? 'Tis a free country, an' you'm auld enough to knaw your awn minds, ban't 'e?"
The younger labourer was hurt, and showed as much.
"Your memory's grawin' short seemin'ly," he said. "No matter. If you say I may ax her—'tis all I want. Then I'll serve 'e to the best of my power."
In less than half an hour Henry Collins departed from the stable a haunted man. His eyes roamed like those of a frightened horse; he would have given the wide world to be a thousand miles from Bear Down; for the deed without a name made him tremble to the foundations of his being and threw him into an icy perspiration each time that its significance crossed his mind. Only the permission to propose to Sally sustained him; and even his love could hardly stand the ordeal of this test, for, to tell truth, he doubted more than once whether the game was worth the candle.
How he lived through those moments that separated him from the night Henry never afterwards remembered; but the suspense only endured through some few hours, for Mr. Cramphorn, after revealing his design, perceived that it must be put into immediate execution if the other's help was to be counted upon.
"Give the fule time and he'll draw back or bolt," reflected Jonah.
But the sombre minutes, deep laden each with its own horrid burden of terror and presentment, flapped their bat-wings away into the limbo of time past, and a moment arrived—midnight between two days of late July—when Collins and his leader met by appointment at a spot in the great hayfield of Endicott's, and together proceeded down the hill to Little Silver.
Henry carried an unlighted bull's-eye lantern; Cramphorn's pocket bulged, and in his hand he bore a small bag of battered leather. Under their breath they discussed the matter. The night was moonless, and a haze of heat stole abroad upon the land. Pale green light shuddered along the north-eastern horizon, and the faces of umbel-bearing flowers caught it and spoke of it dimly out of the darkness. A dewy peace held the world—a peace only broken by the throb of the field-crickets that pulsed upon the ear infinitely loud in contrast with the alternate silences. Mist enveloped all things in the valleys, and as the men sank towards the churchyard, Collins shivered before cold moisture that brushed his face like a dead hand.
"'Tis a thing beyond all belief," he said; "an' I be very glad as you didn't give me more'n a day to think, else I should have runned away rather than faace it."
"'Tis a ugly thing done for a butivul purpose. 'Tis the best work as ever that brain-pan will have to its credit in this here world."
"'Struth! I cream all awver to hear 'e! Such courage as you've got. Did 'e get the keys?"
"Ess; when Noah Brimblecombe was up to the rectory. I seed un go; then went in the cottage an' waited, an' when his missus had her back turned at the door, I pulled the curtain in the corner, under the cloam images wheer the church keys all hang to. And them I wanted I found. To put 'em back wi'out him knawin' will be a harder job."
"An' arter the—the screws, theer'll be a lead case, I s'pose—have 'e thought 'pon that? But I lay you have."
"I've got a mall an' cold chisel in my bag. Ban't no harder than openin' a chest of tea," answered the old man grimly.
Mr. Collins whined and shivered.
"To think of it! The mystery of it! If she knawed—the very man she promised to wed. 'Tis tu gashly; I been ever since this marnin' broodin' awver the business."
"A gert thought—that's what it was, an' I be proud of it; an' if 'tis ever knawed an' telled about after I'm dead and gone, folks'll say 'tweern't no common man as carried out such a projec'. A fule would have digged in the airth an' be catched so easy as want-catcher kills moles; but theer's brains goes to this item. I minded Christopher Yeoland—him as was taken off in full power an' pride of life by a snake-sting; an' I minded how nought but the twist of a key an' the touch of a turnscrew still lay between him an' the quick."
"Twas 'cause you hated un so mortal bad livin' as your thoughts ran upon him dead," ventured Collins uneasily.
"Not so 'tall. As to hatin' un, I did; but that's neither here nor theer. I'm just a tool in this matter, an' the dead dust of Christopher Yeoland ban't no more to me than the ridge of airth a plough turns. 'Tis a fact this same dust an' me comed to blows in time agone; but all these frettings an' failings be forgotten now, though we weern't no ways jonic—a empty, lecherous man. Still, he've answered for his sins, an' I hates un no more. I awnly wants a bit of the 'natomy of un for a precious balm; then 'tis screws again, an' locks again; an' none wiser 'cept you an' me an' the spiders."
"Theer's God A'mighty."
"I doan't forget that. The Lard's on our side, or I shouldn't be here. No puzzle for Him. No doubt Judgment Day will find the man all of a piece again to take his deserts."
"You'm a wonder—to talk of such a fatal deed as if 'twas no more'n pullin' a turnip."
"An' that's how us should look 'pon it. An' if 'twas a turnip axed for, a turnip I'd have got."
They now entered the churchyard from its south-western side by a hole in the hedge. Mr. Collins lighted his lantern and passed over the graves like a drunken Will-o'-the-wisp with many a trip and stagger. Then he stood under the skulls of the Yeoland mausoleum, and glanced fearfully up where they grinned, and his light seemed to set red eyeballs rolling in their mossy sockets.
Soon both men had entered the sepulchre, and Henry happily burned himself with the lantern as he did so—an accident that served to steady his nerves and shut his mouth upon chattering teeth. Jonah, too, felt the tragedy of the situation, but in a higher spirit, and the peacock part of the man played him true, though only coffins were his audience. He thought how ages unborn might ring with this desperate deed; he even determined that, if the matter leaked out no sooner, he would himself confess it upon his death-bed, when ignoble retaliation would be impossible, and little time left for much save admiration and applause.
This he resolved as he lifted the pall of Christopher's coffin and observed how that damp had already begun to paint the brass inscription green.
He opened his bag, bade Henry keep the lantern steady and shut his mouth, then calmly removed his coat, turned up his sleeves, and began his work. But the task proved harder than he had anticipated, and his assistant, after one bungling effort to aid, was forced to abandon any second attempt. To hold the lantern proved the limit of his power; and even that bobbed every way, now throwing light among the dim shadows upon the shelves, now blazing into Jonah's eyes, now revolving helplessly over the ceiling of the vault. Presently Cramphorn grew annoyed as well as warm, and, aware that precious time was passing, swore so loudly that a new, material terror overtook his companion.
"For God's grace, doan't 'e bawl so loud!" he implored. "If p'liceman was ridin' past and catched us!"
Though he felt no flicker of fear, Jonah realised the value of this counsel. He looked to see that the door was shut fast, then proceeded with his work in silence. The reluctant screws came out quicker as he acquired increased skill, and from their raw holes issued a faint smell of eucalyptus, for the coffin was built of that wood.
At last the men together lifted the lid, and set it in a corner. Then a sterner task awaited them where the lead shell lay bare. Noise of mallet on chisel was now inevitable, and Collins heard himself directed to stand sentry at the churchyard gate, so that if the nightly patrol should pass that way on his uncertain round, silence might fall until he had departed beyond earshot. Probability of any other human visitor there was none, unless the doctor chanced to be abroad.
Henry therefore got out into the fresh air very willingly, and before long sat him down at the churchyard gate and listened to muffled activity from Jonah's mallet in the distance. One other sound disturbed the night. Already grey dawn stole along the eastern woods, but the deep, tranced hour before bird-waking was upon all things, and in its loneliness Collins found the lap and chuckle of a stream under the churchyard wall welcome as a companion. It knew action at least, and broke the horrible stillness. Once he heard slow footfall of hoofs, and was about to give an alarm, when, from the shadows, came forth an old white horse that wandered alone through the night. Like a ghost it dragged itself slowly past—perchance waking from pain, perchance wondering, as such aged brutes may wonder, why grass and water are no longer sweet. It hobbled painfully away, and the echo of its passing was swallowed up in the silence, and the apparition of its body vanished under the mist. There only remained the wakeful streamlet, leaping from its dim journey among coffins into the watercress bed, and a hollow reverberation of blows from the mortuary.
Presently, however, Mr. Cramphorn's mallet ceased to strike, and finding that the supreme moment had now come, Collins nerved himself to return. From the dawn-grey into gloom he stole to see the picture of Jonah in a round ring of lantern light sharply painted upon darkness. A coffin, with its inner leaden shell torn back, lay at Cramphorn's feet, and Henry instantly observed that some tremendous and unforeseen circumstance had fallen out during his vigil at the churchyard gate. The other man was glaring before him like a lunatic; his short hair bristled; his face dripped. Terrified he was not, yet clearly had become the victim of amazed bewilderment and even horror.
"For Christ's sake, doan't 'e glaze at me like that!" implored Henry. "What have 'e done? What's happened to 'e? Doan't tell me you'm struck into that shaape for this high-handed job!"
The other's mouth was open and his under-jaw hung limp. Apparently he lacked force to speak, for he merely pointed to his work; upon which Collins looked sideways into the coffin with stealthy dread. Instantly his face also became transformed into a display of liveliest astonishment and dismay; but in his case frank terror crowded over him like a storm. And thus three men—two living and one a corpse—each confronted the others, while the marble serenity of this death offered a contrast to the frenzied emotion on the faces of those that lived.
"God's gudeness! You've brawked into the wrong wan!" gasped Collins.
Jonah shook his head, for still he could not answer; yet the suspicion of his companion seemed natural, because not Christopher Yeoland but another lay at their feet.
Within the coffin, placid and little disfigured save where the eyes had fallen in and the skin tightened over his high, bald brow, appeared a venerable face—a face almost patriarchal. The dead man's beard gleamed nobly white upon his breast, and his features presented the solemn, peaceful countenance of one indifferent to this rude assault from busy souls still in life.
"'Tis magic—black, wicked magic—that's what it is. Else he've been took out an' another party put in unbeknawnst," stuttered Collins.
Then Cramphorn found his voice, and it came weak and thin with all the vigour strained out of it by shock.
"Not him at all—an' like as not he never was in. A far-reachin', historic action—that's what we've comed on. Our dark deed's brought to light a darker."
"Which us'll have to keep damn quiet about," gasped Henry.
"'Tis a gert question how our duty do lie. My brains be dancin' out of my eyes in water. Maybe we've found a murder. An' I caan't get the thread of action all in a minute."
"'Tis daylight outside, anyway."
"Then for God's sake do your share, if you'm a man. Hammer that lead back an' shut up this here ancient person—Methuselah he might be, from the look of un. I be gone that weak in the sinews that a cheel could thraw me. I must get a bite of air, then I'll help."
"You ban't gwaine!" cried Henry in terror; but Jonah remained in sight and soon returned. Then, to the younger's great satisfaction, he heard that his partner had quite abandoned the original enterprise and was only desirous to make good their desecration and depart.
"It caan't surely be as a dead man graws auld quick after he's put away?" asked Collins.
"A fule's question. 'Tis all a trick an' a strammin' gert lie worked for some person's private ends. An' the bite comes to knaw how we'm gwaine to let it out."
"Ess; we'm done for ourselves if we tell."
"Doan't talk; work. I must think bimebye when I'm out of this smell o' death."
Henry obeyed, and showed considerable energy and despatch.
"He may be a livin' man still!"
"Young Yeoland? I'd guess it was so, if I didn't knaw 'bout Cherry Grepe. Please God, mine be the intellects to smooth out this dark deed anyways, so that generations yet to come shall call me blessed. Awnly you keep your mouth shut—that's what you've got to do. Guy Fawkes an' angels, to be faaced wi' such a coil!"
"It'll want a powerful strong brain to come out of it with any credit to yourself," said Mr. Collins.
"As to that, such things be sent to those best able to support 'em."
"Well, no call to tell me to keep quiet. I'll not make or meddle, I swear to 'e. If theer's any credit due an' any callin' of anybody blessed, you may have the lot. I shall pray to God for my paart to let me forget everythin' 'bout this night. An' seein' the things I do forget, I awnly hope this will go like a breath o' air. Same time 'tis more likely to haunt me to my dyin' day than not."
"Doan't drink, that's all. Forget it you won't; but doan't drink 'pon it, else you'll let it out in the wrong ears for sartain. You ban't built to keep in beer an' secrets to wance. An' take care of Ash, as sleeps along wi' you. Have a lie ready if he's wakin' when you go back."
In twenty minutes the matter was at an end, an old man's coffin once more in its appointed place, and the family vault of the Yeolands locked and double-locked. Collins and Cramphorn then left the churchyard, but Jonah found himself without physical strength to start uphill immediately; so the men retired to rest awhile within the crumbling walls of Little Silver Castle, close at hand. There they sat, under the great groined arches of the dungeon chamber, and whispered, while the bats squeaked and clustered in their dark nooks and crannies at return of day.
Then Cramphorn and his assistant proceeded homewards as they had come—knee-deep through the grass lands—and before three o'clock both were back in their beds again. Yet neither slept, for each, in proportion to his intelligence, was oppressed by the thought of his discovery and by the memory of an ancient face, autumn brown, yet having a great white beard, that rippled over his breast and so passed out of sight beneath the engirding lead.