With the following spring Fox Tor Farm was habitable, and Mrs. Malherb and her daughter prepared to enter their new home. They had spent the winter in Exeter, for the old farm by Exe passed into other hands at Christmas, but Mr. Malherb himself already lived upon the Moor. In February he had gone into residence with Kekewich, and though the place was still but partially completed, his labourers also began work upon the scene and made shift to dwell there. Good apartments for the people were now finished, and Mr. Malherb's cattle had also arrived to fill the fine yard and comfortable byres erected for their winter uses. Kekewich cried failure from the first, but none laboured more zealously to avert it, none toiled early and late with more strenuous diligence than he.
True to his whim, the master denied Annabel Malherb and Grace one sight of Fox Tor Farm until they actually arrived to dwell there; and even then he so ordered their advent that it fell in darkness. At ten o'clock upon a night in mid-April, mother and daughter passed over the nocturnal Moor, vaguely felt its surrounding immensity, and turned from the unknown earth, where it rolled formless and vast around them, to the familiar moon, whose face they knew.
From Holne, a border village whither they had driven by stage, Mrs. Malherb and her daughter now rode on pillions; while behind them came the tinkle of little bells and the thud of heavy hoofs where six pack-horses followed. Annabel sat behind her husband; while Grace had Harvey Woodman for her escort. Through the silent darkness they passed, and the mother listened to Malherb's hopes, and sometimes kissed the round ear next her while she echoed his sanguine mind. But Grace paid little heed to Woodman, who discoursed without tact upon the complicated miseries of a Dartmoor life, and explained how that his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, had all gone steadily downhill before the insidious Duchy.
A granite cross at length loomed up against the sky on a lofty ridge, and its significance here uplifted upon the confines of her new life sent a throb to Mrs. Malherb's heart.
"This be Ter Hill," said Harvey Woodman to Grace; "an' thicky cross be one of many set up around about by God-fearing men some time since Adam. Now, if you'll look down into the valley, you'll see a light like a Jack o' Lantern. That's your home, Miss."
With mingled feelings the women gazed, where square and ruddy spots, sunk deep in the silver night, outlined the windows of the farm and welcomed them. The pack-horses, with heavily-laden crooks upon their backs, arrived. Then Malherb led the way, and his cavalcade went slowly down the hill.
Only one face from the past welcomed Mrs. Malherb and Grace, where Kekewich stood and lighted them up the steps to the front door. Supper awaited the party; then, aweary, and with the emotions of a stranger in a strange land, the girl retired to her little chamber facing west, and her mother sought the company of Dinah Beer and Mrs. Woodman. She found them amiable, courteous, and kindly. Their outlook upon life was not sanguine, yet a warmth of heart marked them, and the sternness of their days had left no special impress upon their simple natures. Sympathy brightened their eyes—a sentiment that astonished the new mistress, for she had not often met with it from her inferiors. Yet these women appreciated the fact that she was faced with new problems and new difficulties. They had also seen something of Mr. Malherb and learned to appraise his qualities.
"You'll come to it, ma'am," said Dinah Beer, "same as your butivul cows did. They was worritted cruel at first. That gert red 'un, with a white star on her forehead—'Marybud' by name—why, I could a'most swear that her shed tears when first she got here; but now she an' the rest have settled to the Moor an' larned the ways of it like Christians."
"An' master be to the manner born," declared Mary Woodman. "My man says he never seed a gentleman gather knowledge so quick. Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt from Tor Royal was over here last week, an' he said us had all done wonders."
The wife readily gathered up this comfort, and presently, ere she entered into sleep, a gentle satisfaction crowned her spirit, and her thoughts were a prayer, half thankfulness, half petition.
Her daughter, too, from gloom arose into a healthy cheerfulness. She set about ordering her treasures to her liking, and did not retire until midnight. Then, where a sinking moon touched the river mists with light, she gazed, plucked happiness from that wonderful spectacle, and so slept contented and trustful of her destiny.
Early in the morning, hungering for the first glimpse of this new world, Grace hastened to her window and looked out upon Dartmoor. A lark, invisible in the blue above, found her heart in that dawn hour. The day was glorious, and the bird music dimmed her eyes, so that the girl had to blink a little before she could see the outspread world. Beneath her the farm threw its shadow upon reclaimed heath and ploughed land. New grey walls extended round about, and raw pinewood gates marked the enclosures. Beyond stretched out the cup of the mire, and sere rushes still spread a pallor upon it, where ridge after ridge of peat ranged away until detail vanished in the prevailing monochrome. Red sunrise fires touched this waste into genial colour, and threads of gold flashed through its texture where streamlets ran. Majestic size and fundamental simplicity marked the materials of the sunrise pageant. The Swincombe River sang on her way to Dart; Fox Tor's turrets, touched with rose, ascended southward, and beyond, looming darkly against the south, appeared the bosom of Cater's Beam. A spire of blue smoke, miles away in the brown distance, marked Lovey Lee's hut, while northerly rose infant plantations at Tor Royal, and the spring light of larches made a home upon the hill, and spoke of human enterprise.
Grace drank the crystal air and listened to the lark. Then another sight arrested her, and she noted, upon a little mound at the edge of the river, a cross above three broad, shallow steps. It stood upon a square pedestal which had been bevelled by chamfering around the socket, and Grace knew that she saw the historic cenotaph of Childe the Hunter.
The lark, the river, the cross, all spoke their proper message, and kind chance had willed that this first day of the new life should be lovely, heralded by sunshine, unfolded beneath blue skies. Grace Malherb's young spirit swam out through the golden gates of the morning, and she praised her God in wordless thoughts. A leaden day, haunted by low and crawling mists, a welcome of dripping rain, and the plover's melancholy mew, had awakened other emotions; but instead was this embodiment of triumphant spring—a dawn of cloudless glory and the lark's uplifted joy.
Half an hour later Grace was watching Mrs. Beer milk "Marybud." Dinah—a brown-faced woman with neat wrists and ankles, grey eyes, and a face still pretty—looked up from under her sunbonnet, where her cheek was pressed against the cow, and saw a tall, rather thin maiden who had just stopped growing. With loving hand Nature had completed her girl's five feet eight inches, and now she was about to turn the child into a fair woman. This the dairymaid readily perceived.
"Us must keep the best of the cream for 'e, Miss," she said. "You wants for they pretty hands to be plumper, an' your cheeks too."
"How kind to think of such a thing! I can return the compliment, Mrs. Beer."
"Nay; I've had my plump time. I be near five-an'-forty. Yet I was round once, an' so milky as a young filbert nut. Now I be in the middle season, when us does our hard work. But you—I seem Dartymoor will soon bring colour to your cheeks, though it couldn't make they eyes no brighter. Here, take an' drink, will 'e? I love to see young things drinking milk. Milk be the very starting-place of life, come to think of it. I never had no babies, worse luck, though I always felt a gert softness for 'em."
"But I'm not a baby, Mrs. Beer; I'm nearly seventeen!"
Grace laughed and drank. The lustre of her red lips dulled through the milky film. She gasped after her drink, and Dinah saw her small white teeth.
"You'm a bowerly maiden," she said, with extreme frankness. "So lovely as the bud o' the briar in June; an' Dartymoor will make a queen of 'e afore long. Fresh air, an' sweet water, an' miles of heather to ride over. Your eyes be old friends to me, miss—the brown of the leaves in autumn—just like my dead sister's."
"I have my father's eyes," said Grace; but Dinah questioned it.
"His be darker far. There ban't no storm in yours—they don't flash lightning. An', please God, they'll have no cause to rain either. Wealth's a wonderful thing, though what's best worth money ban't purchasable all the same."
Richard Beer had arrived and heard his wife's platitude.
"Money's a power 'pon Dartymoor, however," he said, "an' I'm glad the master 'pears to be made of it, if I may say so without offence, Miss."
"Not at all," declared Grace. "Father isn't made of money, and you mustn't think so. He looks for a return very soon for all his outlay."
Beer touched his hat with great respect before answering.
"As to that, mustn't count on no miracles, Miss Malherb. The master be larning that a'ready. Us can't go no quicker'n Nature's own gait. She won't be pushed because a chap here an' there goes bankrupt. 'Tis only at love-making she works so fast, not at farm-making."
"Her ways do often look slow to a man in a hurry," said Dinah.
"But us have got to wait for 'em to work, all the same," concluded Beer, "an' all the cusses of David never made one blade o' grass sprout so quick as a drop of warm rain."
This apparent allusion to her father's forcible modes of speech saddened Grace.
"'Tis very true," she answered, then turned to the house and went in to breakfast.
Three months after the arrival of Maurice Malherb's family at Fox Tor Farm, a visitor appeared to spend some days with them. Mr. Peter Norcot set out from his home at Chagford and rode across the Moor on a fine morning in July; while before him at dawn a pack-horse with his luggage had started upon the same journey. Leaving certain final directions at the great factory by Teign River, in which he was a partner, the wool-stapler ascended from his home to Dartmoor, climbed a broad common or two, and in little more than an hour after noon he trotted southward over the mighty crest of Hameldon.
Norcot was a handsome, fair man of five-and-thirty. The only ugly feature of his face appeared in an exaggerated chin. For the rest, his countenance showed strength and abundant determination. Any special distinction was lacking from it. He exhibited a breezy and amiable exterior to the world, loved a jest and doted upon an epigram. Frank honesty marked his utterances, and his outlook upon life was generous. He had no enemies, and enjoyed considerable wealth, for despite the wars, his business prospered, and his grievances in connection with it were more apparent than real. A humorous and hearty manner concealed some traits of Peter's character, for tremendous tenacity of purpose hid itself beneath superficial lightness of demeanour. He had a great gift of constancy that rose superior to side issues. His first object in life was to marry Grace Malherb, and now he strove to win his way by careful study of the girl and by every delicate art that he knew. Her father was upon his side, and the end seemed assured; but Peter desired that Grace should come to him of her own free will.
Now misfortune unexpected overtook the lover, for out of fiery sunshine crept a sudden mist, and soon the clouds grew dense and the day changed. The fog in streaks and patches swept down with heavy and increasing density, until man and horse were brushed with its cold fingers. The light waned as evening approached, and the mist thickened steadily into fine dense rain. Norcot's hair dripped, his eyebrows were frosted, and he felt the cold drops running from his hat under his collar. The unexpected change of weather caused him no irritation, for the man was never known to lose his temper, and that fact, in a tempestuous and ill-educated age, won for him wide measure of respect.
Now he murmured scraps from various sacred and profane authors and addressed them aloud to his horse.
"We must keep the weather on our right cheek, nag. Tut, tut! How vast this silence and gloom! It helps us to know our place in nature, albeit we have lost our place in it. Lost, and found by being lost! Ha, ha!
"'Come, man,Hyperbolized Nothing! know thy span,Take thine own measure here: down, down and bowBefore thyself in thine Idea, thouHuge emptiness!
"Crashaw, I thank thee. And I pray that thou wilt help me with Lady Grace. 'All daring dust and ashes,' indeed, to hope in that quarter; but time is on my side. She must yield—eh, Victor?"
The horse pricked his ears at sound of his name and splashed on, leaving a trail behind him where he had brushed the moisture from heath and grass. By Norcot's calculations he should now have been nearing the valley of West Dart, and from thence he hoped to hit the mouth of the Swincombe River, and so reach his destination; but time passed; the faint wind blew now on one cheek, now upon the other, and at length Mr. Norcot realised that he was quite hopelessly lost. The darkness crowded in upon him and elbowed him; not one whisper penetrated it. He pulled up, drank a dram from a little silver spirit flask, and listened for the murmur of running water. But another sound suddenly rewarded him. A shadow flitted across the gloom, and a thin, old voice was heard lifted up in song.
"A ha'penny for a rook;A penny for a jay;A noble for a fox;An' twelvepence for a gray!'"
"Well met, neighbour!" shouted Norcot. "And since you sing, I doubt not you are happy; and since you are happy, you have a home and know the way to it."
"'Ess fay! An' you too, sir. I be Leaman Cloberry, coney-catcher of Dartmeet. An' who be you?"
"One Peter Norcot, from Chagford. This is not my country, and I'm seeking the River Swincombe—have been doing so for many hours in vain. Now 'Light thickens; and the crow Makes wing to the rooky wood.' But where's the river?"
"You be within half a mile of it, your honour."
"Then I came straighter than I knew. That's the reward for always going straight, Mr. Cloberry; when darkness overtakes us, we go straight still. It has become a habit. I want the new farm of Mr. Malherb beneath Cater's Beam. And you shall show me the way thereto."
Leaman Cloberry shifted a small bag that he carried on his shoulder. He was bound in the same direction; but while Norcot might be supposed a friend to Fox Tor Farm, Cloberry crept thither with intentions the reverse of friendly. He had chosen the fog for a dark purpose. Now, however, he hid his designs and spoke.
"I know the place and a good few of the men as works there."
"How do they prosper? Malherb and Dartmoor must be flint and steel. Yet the man will prove tougher than the granite, I hope."
Cloberry stroked a red mark on his cheek.
"Did you hear tell what chanced to Holne Church a week ago?" he asked.
"No, I did not."
"My gentleman from Fox Tor Farm took his ladies there to worship. An' I comed along same time with a vixen fox an' two cubs to hang 'em up in the sight of the nation, so as all men might see I'd earned my money. An' he falled on me like a cat-a-mountain, an' used awfulest language ever let fly in a burying-ground, an' hit me across the face with his whip."
"I'm heartily sorry and ashamed to hear it. Under a sacred fane, too! I grieve for this. It is a lesson to us all. Yet to kill foxes! Tut, tut! 'Volpone, by blood and rank' a gentleman.' I preserve game myself, yet pay tithe unquestioning to reynard."
"'Twas assault and battery, whether or no. An' Squire he took Malherb's part, an' parson was o' my side. An' I said as folks must live, an' Malherb, in his lofty way, sees the force of that, an' flings me half a sovereign. But I let it bide on the ground. You can't batter a man like that on a Sunday morning for money. I'm set against him, and I'll set other folk against him too."
"Think better of it. Half a sovereign is a very convenient embodiment of ten shillings. Take this one for showing me my way. 'I would be friends with you and have your love.' It is my rule of life."
Cloberry accepted the coin thus offered, declared that Peter was a hero, and presently put him upon his road to Fox Tor. But after Mr. Norcot had trotted out of sight, his guide followed in the same direction. The old man skulked under a wall until darkness had fallen upon the moor; then, walking out boldly into a fine piece of meadow-land upon which Maurice Malherb especially prized himself, he opened his sack and took therefrom a box with a pierced top. Gentle squeaking came from inside this receptacle; and now, opening it, Cloberry released a dozen fat and lively moles.
"There, my little velvet-coats!" he said; "go to work an' tear the heart out of him when he sees what you can do. Increase an' multiply, my dears, like the children of Israel; an' presently I'll bring up a dozen more to help 'e!"
The moles crawled about uneasily, but presently began to dig and sink into the earth. The fog had lifted, and the lights of Fox Tor Farm now shone across the night. Leaman Cloberry shook his fist at them.
"That's a beginning," he growled. "An' I'll bring rats for your byres an' stoats for your hen-roosts. I'll plague you; I'll fret your gizzard! An' I wish that I was Moses, for then I'd fetch along all the plagues of Egypt against 'e an' break your stone heart!"
Meanwhile, as the vermin-catcher tramped homeward, and presently so far recovered good temper as to sing his only song, Peter Norcot found a welcome and much sympathy. Malherb now regarded himself as an old Dartmoor man, familiar with every possible freak and manifestation of Nature upon the waste. He explained to Norcot the course proper to be pursued in a fog, and Peter, whose knowledge of the Moor extended from boyhood, listened very gravely, acknowledged his errors, and praised the older man's shrewdness in the matter.
Before dinner Mr. Malherb, in all the splendour of fine black, new pumps, and a frilled shirt-front with a diamond in it, went off to his cellar for those remarkable wines that he assured familiar guests were now no longer in the market; while the lover enjoyed some precious moments with his lady. Grace looked fair to see in her white muslin and blue ribbons. She wore the high waist of the period; her hair towered in a mass on the top of her head, yet little prim curls hung like flowers on either side; white shoes cased her feet, and the elastic of them made a cross between her ankles.
"The Moor suits you nobly, dear Grace," said Mr. Norcot, who was himself resplendent. "I never saw you lovelier."
"Do leave all that," she said. "Let us meet in peace."
"So be it," he answered, and continued—
"'Gracie, I swear by all I ever swore,That from this hour I shall not love thee more,—What! love no more? Oh! why this altered vow?Because I cannot love thee more than now!'"
A gentle look came into his blue eyes as he gazed upon her. It was not natural to them, but he had practised it often before the looking-glass, and could assume it at pleasure.
"Still occupied with other men's jests, Peter. If you only understood me! Do you know why I love Dartmoor? Because it leaves me alone. Because it cares no more for me than for the ant that crawls on the grass-blade. So big, so grand, so stern it is. And it always tells the truth."
"You are quite wrong. The Moor loves with a hopeless passion. It has kissed you. I see the print of its kisses on your cheek. It has kissed your little elbow, for I note a dimple there that is new to me."
Grace frowned and pulled up her mitten. She sat upon the music-stool, struck a note or two, and did not answer. Peter sighed.
"You are cold, you are cold," he said. "What does Wycherley remark? 'Out of Nature's hands they came plain, open, silly, and fit for slaves, as she and heaven intended 'em; but damned Love——' There it is! 'Blessed Love,' if you happened to love me; doubly, trebly 'damned Love,' since your heart is set on somebody else."
"Not at all. I love nobody. I hate the word."
"And you are seventeen to-morrow!"
"'On that auspicious day began the raceOf every virtue joined in one sweet Grace.'"
"What is my birthday to you, Peter?"
"You can ask that! Imustanswer in an epigram. There is only one reply possible. Martial—but I know a beautiful translation:—
"'Believing hear what you deserve to hear:Your birthday as my own to me is dear;But yours gives most; for mine did only lendMe to the world; yours gave to me a friend.'
Only that word 'friend' is too weak."
"I wish you would be content with friendship, and not fret me to death with all this nonsense. Do you know that father has bought me a lovely hunter for a birthday gift?"
"I do. And that horse will want a whip—until he knows your voice; and that whip Peter Norcot has provided. 'Tis almost worthy of you—a pretty toy."
"I don't want your whip," she said.
Mr. Norcot cast about for something fromThe Taming of the Shrew; but he changed his mind. Meantime Grace spoke again.
"I shall be sorry to give up riding my poor little 'Russet.' Still, he's not up to my weight now; and he's growing elderly and lazy, and I'm to hunt next season. Won't it be lovely?"
"Our Dartmoor blades will hunt no more foxes; they'll hunt for smiles from you," said Peter gloomily.
"You shall have some good long gallops with me if you will. I'm mastering the country well, and now with 'Cæsar'—that's my new horse—I shall be able to go twice as far as formerly."
"I rejoice. You must take me upon your favourite rides."
"One has a horrid fascination for me. 'Tis to the top of North Hisworthy Tor above Prince Town. From there you can look straight down into that great War Prison—the saddest sight for any woman's eyes."
Mr. Malherb entered at this moment.
"A tender fool," he said, "and her mother no better. Eight thousand French tigers behind those bars; and these women in their silly way would set 'em loose to-morrow."
"They long for their dens and their cubs, poor fellows," said Grace.
"They fought for their country—that's their only sin," murmured Annabel Malherb.
"They fought against England—that's their sin," retorted her husband hotly. "The lying, slippery rascals! Dartmoor's too good for 'em. Honour! Three broke parole at Ashburton last week!"
"Isn't it wonderful? They play games and hold concerts and have play-acting!" said Grace.
"Their vile French levity," answered her father. "Instead of being on their knees asking God to forgive 'em, they dance and sing."
Mr. Norcot shook his head, as though to imply he echoed Malherb's sentiments. Then he asked a question, but did not guess the storm it would awaken.
"And what about the American prisoners?"
"Curse 'em!" roared the farmer, like a sudden explosion of thunder. "Curse 'em living and dying, and, if I had my way, I'd hang the foul traitors—every man. Our own flesh and blood—a British Colony——"
"I'm afraid 'tis idle to dream that any more. The tea business. Never was such a shattering storm bred in a teacup before," answered Norcot. "A bad day for England——"
"Matricides, murderers, insolent democratical scoundrels!" cried the other. "My blood boils at the name. How is it that the Almighty has not sunk their stolen continent fathoms deep in the sea to cleanse it? Why are they allowed to live? Pirates—slave-driving, slave-hunting, slave-breeding pirates, and lynchers, and blackguards—self-constituted a Nation.A Nation!They make you believe in Hell against your will."
"They have more pluck and originality than the French, I am told," said Peter calmly. "They escape in a wonderful manner; they give the guards ceaseless trouble and anxiety."
"For why? They're bastard English. They've got our blood in their veins. 'Twill take a few generations yet ere it all runs into the sink and leaves nothing but mongrel. A poisoned race—a fallen race. Pride has ruined 'em; as it ruined the Devil, their dam. Hanging, drawing, quartering, I say! No honest man——"
"Come to dinner, Maurice," said Mrs. Malherb. "And don't thus rage before eating. 'Tis very bad for you. They are at least out of mischief now, poor creatures."
"Never," answered her husband. "An American is never out of mischief until he is dead."
"The prison should be a good, handy market for farm produce," ventured Peter.
"It is; but I'd rather starve than touch their vile money," said Malherb.
He gave his arm to his daughter and went to the dining-room, while Mr. Norcot and Mrs. Malherb followed them.
Kekewich always waited upon the family, and not seldom he was addressed during the course of a meal concerning subjects within his wide knowledge. Now the talk turned to trade, and Norcot explained a serious problem of his own business.
"Everything is depressed in these fighting times," he said. "One looks for that and provides for it. But what shall be thought of our principal customers, the East India Company? Wool don't get cheaper, that's very certain, but they are sending down the price of long ells half-a-crown a piece. They say that our woollens are often a drug in the Indian market; and now to remedy the thin web, every piece of long ell in stripes shall weigh twelve pounds. We work web at coarser pitch to meet this want, and, of course, defeat the object of the demand by producing rubbish."
The conversation became profoundly technical, and Malherb, who deemed himself an expert upon wool, as upon most other subjects, uttered great words. Then Kekewich, himself an old wool-comber, became so interested that he forgot his business. At last he could stand it no more, but set down a dish violently and plunged into conversation, much to Norcot's entertainment. He perceived, however, that Kekewich knew far more about the matter than Mr. Malherb, and when the servant was from the room made a jest upon him.
"A wonderful man, and sane too. Sound sense—every word of it.
"'Old Kek doth with his lantern jawsThrow light upon the woollen laws.'"
"And upon most other matters," declared Grace. "And his thoughts are all his own—borrowed from nobody."
"It happens to me," confessed Peter, "that the things I think have always been better worded by others. With becoming modesty, therefore, I borrow."
According to modern ideas of courtesy, Mrs. Malherb and her daughter were somewhat slighted during the progress of dinner; but women listened more and talked less a hundred years ago than now. Annabel saw that Peter's plate and glass were kept full, chatted with her daughter, laughed at her husband's jests, and departed to the drawing-room as soon as the table was cleared. Then Kekewich deposited two silver candlesticks and a pair of silver snuffers within reach of his master, produced a dish of dry walnuts, and tenderly stationed a bottle of port at the elbow of each gentleman.
"I know you're only a one-bottle man, and you are wise at your age," said Malherb. "Indeed, I seldom do more myself, save on rare occasions, and never except during the hunting season."
"I hope you'll account for two bottles upon the day I marry Mistress Grace," answered Peter. "She grows an angel. Never beamed such radiant beauty.
"'Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,Having some business, do intreat her eyesTo twinkle in their spheres till they return.'
But I wish they would twinkle for me."
"To-morrow she is seventeen—God bless her! They are my heart and my soul—she and my son. But she's yours, Norcot, for I've said it. She shall reign over your place at Chagford. Her welfare is my first care in this world. Now leave that. Let our talk be about sheep. I have discovered that Dartmoor is the best sheep-walk in the kingdom. We shall have such wool for you next year as will make you generous against your will. Already I'm treating for certain three-year-old Dartmoor wethers that'll shear nine pounds of unwashed wool a fleece. Think of it! Take one shilling and threepence a pound and five hundred sheep—the result is nearly three hundred pounds of money in one year! Then I design to cross with the new Leicesters. Frankly, I see a large fortune within ten years. It can hardly be avoided."
Mr. Norcot nodded thoughtfully. He knew the farmer's figures were absurdly high, both in wool and money.
"You look so far ahead. I always envy you that gift of foresight. Yet, in sober honesty, you must not count to get more than a shilling a pound. If you could breed Merinos now."
"I've thought of that, too."
"Ah! I'll wager you have," said the merchant, with admiration. "What don't you think of, Mr. Malherb? 'Tis good to know that another man of ideas has come on Dartmoor."
So the talk and the wine sped, and presently they joined the ladies. Annabel was at the piano, and Grace sat beside a peat fire, engaged with her needle. While the music ran, Peter, inspired by dinner and the fair maiden under his eyes, pulled forth a notebook and adventured an original rhyme. He was hurt at the girl's recent allusion, and now determined to reveal powers unsuspected. But the gem he designed would not polish, and Grace herself went to the piano to sing an exceedingly doleful ballad before Mr. Norcot's effort was complete. Then he handed it to her in a book, while Mrs. Malherb spoke aside to Dinah Beer, and the master, who cared little for music, perused an agricultural survey of Devon.
Miss Malherb read, and her lip curled visibly.
"Sweet vestal Gracie's lovely eyes have lightedSuch fires within his breast that Peter's frighted;For now, behold! This man of noble mettleDoth feel his heart boil over like a kettle."
Annabel still talked with her woman, and Grace, after brief cogitation, wrote a few lines under Mr. Norcot's effort, and handed it back again. He saw what she had said, and smiled—
"Though water boils apace and fire be bold,Pour one on t'other, quickly both grow cold.Therefore, good Peter, let thy heart boil over.'Twill ease thee of thy pain; me of my lover."
He tore a scrap from the bottom of the sheet, and concluded the correspondence.
When Grace bade her father and his guest farewell and reached her room, she scanned Mr. Norcot's final comment, and found that it needed no reply. He had merely written—
"The epigrammatist rejoices; but the man weeps."
On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Grace rode forth upon the new hunter, and tenderly touched 'Cæsar's' flank with a whip of dainty workmanship. Peter, on his black horse, accompanied her, and Mr. Malherb stood at the door of Fox Tor Farm and watched them depart.
"A fine couple," he said to his wife. "One sees that Grace has got my skill in horsemanship now that she is properly mounted."
"And he rides well, too."
"So, so. Better than most young men. She's coming to my way of thinking. She laughs with him now and exchanges jests."
His wife shook her head.
"I misdoubt her. She's a Malherb—a jog-trot tradesman will never win her."
"Have done with such nonsense!" he said sharply. "He is no more a tradesman than am I. You should have better feeling than to use the word."
"She won't marry him, nevertheless," said Mrs. Malherb placidly.
"Will she not? If I am her father she will."
He turned and departed, while his wife, with a cloud upon her countenance, watched Mr. Norcot and Grace climb the steep side of Fox Tor and proceed to the heights above it.
Soon afterwards, as they turned their horses' heads toward Prince Town, Peter observed a strange, tall figure proceeding on foot in the same direction. It was as though one of the moorland crosses from the Abbot's Way had come to life and stole over the wilderness upon some superhuman errand.
"Look!" cried Norcot, "a walking scarecrow!"
Grace recognised the being, and laughed.
"A 'scarecrow,' you say. That's the richest woman on Dartmoor!"
"A woman—and a wealthy one? Impossible!"
"'Tis Lovey Lee, an old servant of my grandfather's. By chance she lives here within a few miles of Fox Tor Farm. We shall pass her hovel presently."
"Was it not she whom your father accused of stealing the amphora when Sir Nicholas died?"
"Yes; and he still vows that she has it, for all her oaths to the contrary. She's a weird old woman. Her grandson, John, tells me that she lives upon frogs and herb tea."
They were now abreast of the dame, and Peter inspected her carefully.
"Tut, tut! She does not throw away money upon her apparel," he said.
"No—isn't it horrid? I think she wears old sacks chiefly."
"And reduces them to the minimum. Her naked feet must be made of iron."
"Good morning, Lovey," said Grace. "Have you been to Holne? No; I see that you haven't, for you carry no basket."
"Mornin', maiden; an' to you, my gentleman," she answered very civilly. "No more Holne for me. I've got a better market for my poor goods now; an' nearer."
"The War Prison?"
"Ess fay! Plenty of money there for them that have anything to sell. I can scrape a few pence out of they Americans every week; though how I keep body an' soul together is my daily wonder."
"You would do it easier if you wore more petticoats, granny," said Peter.
"Petticoats!" she answered. "'Tis very well for the likes of you, bursting wi' fatness under your fine linen, to talk o' petticoats. Give me a crown an' I'll buy one—since you'm so anxious about it."
"Why, you're the richest woman on the Moor, Lovey," said Grace. "You know perfectly well that you have a gold mine hidden away somewhere."
The old woman showed her teeth and growled like a dog.
"Don't you tell that trash, or you'll make me your enemy I promise you! A gold mine—some 'crock o' gold' hid at a rainbow's foot or in a dead man's grave—like the fools tell about up here. I wish I knowed where. Do a woman salt down reptiles and make her meal of blind-worms and berries if she have got a gold mine hidden?"
"That's just what father says you would do," answered Grace.
"Tell Malherb to mind his business," she answered sourly, "or 'twill be the worse for him. 'Twill take him all his time to find a gold mine under Fox Tor, anyway, let alone the Lord's hand being against him for stealing the earth from the meek, as was meant to inherit it."
"Nothing of the sort," answered Grace, with great indignation. "She's a horrid old story-teller, Peter."
But Norcot never quarrelled with man or mouse.
"Mrs. Lee is naturally against the Duchy," he said. "The Duchy we all know. But, on the other hand, nobody alive can blame your father for availing himself of its propensities."
"He'll curse himself for a fool yet, however," said the old woman.
"I shall not be friendly with you any more, Lovey Lee," answered Grace frankly. "You're greedier than the Duchy, and you don't tell the truth. You wouldn't be so unpleasant if your conscience didn't hurt you. Henceforth I shall think with my father that you took the amphora."
"You may think what you please. It won't prove nothing but that you've got a Malherb habit of mind and be your faither's daughter."
"Come, Peter!" cried Grace. "I'll hear no more."
She trotted away, and, having dropped a coin behind him, Mr. Norcot followed. It was his sagacious custom never to lose any opportunity of making a friend. He had found possibilities of usefulness in the humblest road-mender; and this woman, with her evident strength and ferocity, attracted him. He perceived that she was one who would do anything within her power for payment.
Lovey picked up the money with a loud blessing on the giver. Then she watched the retreating figures.
"They be coming courting a'ready," she thought, "an' her only a half-growed giglet yet. Well, let the sky fall an' the sun burn blue, a crown be still a crown."
Before the old woman had reached home, Grace and Peter Norcot passed her cabin, and the wool-stapler showed more interest before Lovey's grim abode than at the more striking object close at hand. Siward's Cross was dismissed with a nod, but Mrs. Lee's lair awakened a lively attention.
"There she lives with only a wall of piled peat between her and her cows and donkey. She's got a grandson—a very handsome, courteous young fellow—and he dwells in that stable there. In her kitchen you would find stones for chairs."
"And stones for bread by the look of it. A cheerful soul. I wonder where her hiding-place may be? Did you see her glittering eyes—like two diamonds set in yellow ivory—and the fingers all crooked like a hawk's claws. She's a miser, or I never met one. And yet 'God but little asks where little's given.' Perhaps we wrong her."
"Father never wrongs anybody," answered Grace. "He storms, indeed, and will have his way; but good men always like him, and understand his noble qualities."
"Most true—one in a thousand. I'm thankful beyond measure that he is pleased to think well of me; for he'd never bestow his friendship on an unworthy object."
"One word for father; two for Peter Norcot."
"It is so; I rise above false modesty. If a good man praises me, it is my best advertisement before the world."
"You have a wonderful way with father."
"I was looking into John Guillim's book a day or two since. He is an old-time Pursuivant at Arms. Upon your family name and the three nettle leaves, which you'll see cut in the amethyst at the handle of your riding-whip, you shall find a quaint word or two. Guillim says the nettle is of so tetchie and froward a nature that no man may meddle with it, and he adds that a little girl being once stung thereby, complained to her father that there was such a curst herb in his garden, that it was worse than a dog, for it would bite them of its own house. Her father told her that the herb's nature was a notable impartiality, for friend and foe were alike to it. Then there's a pleasant epigram—
"'Tender-handed stroke a nettle,And it stings you for your pains;Grasp it like a man of mettle,And it soft as silk remains."
Not that that applies to Mr. Malherb."
"No, indeed! Father is no nettle," said Grace sharply.
"Most true. The nettle's flower is plain, not exquisitely beautiful," he answered, looking at her. "Your father has the sturdy characteristics of his house, none of the prickles. A grand singleness of purpose marks his ways."
"He feels too deeply, if anything."
"And too much feeling so often obscures perception. It is unfortunate."
"There's the War Prison," said Grace, changing the subject; "that dreadful thing stretching out down there—a ring within a ring. I always think it is like something in Dante made real."
"Dante, eh? Hell, and so forth. Yes, that's a hell for many a brave, lonely heart. Doubtless there are lovers among 'em. By the way, I thought your dear father was a little hard upon the American prisoners—if I may dare to say so."
"He knows best," said Grace firmly; "and they do give a great deal of trouble. To break away from their mother country over a paltry question of money!"
"It's wonderful how soon matters of money make every question acute—lift it into a serious affair. Men will argue about their Maker, or the chances of Eternity, or the heat of the sun, with irreproachable temper; but let the matter be a sovereign—— As to America—taxes or no taxes—fools in our Parliament or fools in their Congress—it had to come. Look at a map of the world."
"In this war, at any rate, they are utterly mistaken," said Grace. "I know all about it, and facts are facts."
"And facts never contradict each other. That's a blessing."
"No doubt the wrong men are suffering now," she added, looking down upon the prison; "but that is a general rule in war."
"And life. What a beehive it is! 'A dungeon horrible on all sides round.' Hark! you can hear the 'sorrowful sighing of the prisoners.' Or rather you can hear their laughter. In fact, they appear to be playing a game in that far-off corner. It must be prisoners' base, no doubt."
"I pity every one of them, and especially the poor little powder-monkeys we captured in their ships," she said.
The huge circumference of the War Prison stretched beneath them, protected from the West under North Hisworthy Tor; the limbo, at once famous and infamous, lay here in summer sunshine; and never had Time thrown up a mushroom ring more grim, more grey, upon earth's lovely face. In the midst of wild hills and stone-crowned heights, skirted by the waters of a stream, separated from mankind by miles of scattered granite and black bog, the War Prison appeared. Late July ruled the land and brushed the hills with green; the light of the ling was just dawning, and all life rejoiced; but the solemn features of these stony mountains, fold upon fold and range upon range, take no softness to the stranger's eye at any season, and none who has not trodden it in freedom can love its austere face, or understand its chastened glory. Purple cloud-shadows drifted over the prison, and revealed the details of Alexander's sinister masterpiece. Previously they had been hidden by a great dazzle of sunlight.
Some thirty acres were enclosed by two walls, one within the other. The outer circle stood sixteen feet high; and separated from it by a broad military parade, extended the second wall, hung with bells on wires, and having sentry-boxes upon it at regular intervals, to overlook each prison yard. The main area of the gaol was of rounded shape, and contained five enormous rectangular masses of masonry radiating from the centre, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. At one side a segment was cut out of the circle, and this contained the Governor's offices, the turnkey's place, and other official buildings, together with an open space into which the country people were admitted for their daily traffic with the prisoners. Fuel, vegetables, poultry, butter, and other articles were bought and sold in this market, and upon its completion the gangs returned to their own divisions of the gaol. Each of the five main buildings mentioned was constructed to hold fifteen hundred men; all had two floors, and in the roof of every one was an additional great chamber used as a promenade at times of unusually inclement weather. Each block possessed its own wide exercise yard and shelter from snow or rain, its proper supply of sweet water always running, and itscachot, or prison within a prison, for punishment of the refractory and disobedient. A hospital and accommodation for petty officers included the edifices within the walls, while a quarter of a mile distant were barracks for four hundred troops, and various other buildings not all connected with the establishment of the prison. Of these the more conspicuous were a ruined cottage on the slope north-eastward of the outer wall, two new taverns, about which the soldiers swarmed like red ants; bakehouses, slaughter-houses, and private habitations that rapidly grew into a little street. The prisoners themselves were scattered by the thousand over their exercise yards, with red-coats stationed upon the inner wall around them. At one point outside the War Prison a large building arose and, guarded by the soldiery, a crowd of men laboured upon it.
"They are making a church," explained Grace. "The French build and the Americans do the carving and the woodwork inside. 'Tis to be dedicated to St. Michael and All Angels."
"Then you have a personal interest in it. And maybe I too shall have. We might even be married there."
"We might—though not to one another."
"Who knows? Time can work wonders."
"But only God can work miracles."
"Beautiful!" he said, "and comforting too; for I am one who holds that the age of miracles has not yet gone. You shall find the man of parts will make his own miracles."
As they descended into Prince Town Grace proposed to visit the church now growing there. She knew one Lieutenant Mainwaring, a young officer in command at these works; and now, glad enough to be of service and display his little power, the lad himself escorted Miss Malherb and Peter Norcot into a scene of stir and activity.
The Frenchmen chattered and sang to the clink of their trowels; while within, more thoughtful and more silent, a hundred Americans were engaged upon carpentering and carving in wood and stone. The strangers regarded Grace with curiosity. Save for the market folk, it was long since any among them had seen a woman, and this lovely girl awoke invisible emotion. Many a heart quickened, then slowed at the sight of her. She wakened the thought of women in lonely bosoms; she bridged rolling oceans with a sigh. Some cursed as memory probed their helplessness; some sneered; some winked and whistled and kissed their hands; some, sensitively conscious, turned away to hide their rags from these well-clothed and prosperous visitors.
They were soldiers and sailors, and they exhibited a wide variety of spiritual and mental attributes. Many among them crept about like thin ghosts clad in motley; a few looked stout and happy, despite their shameful clothing; some toiled in sulky and wooden silence; others maintained a gay and alert demeanour. They wore yellow roundabout jackets, mostly too small, rough waistcoats and pantaloons, shirts, caps of wool, and shoes made from list and wood, that gaped at every seam. Those amongst them whose shoes had fallen to pieces, cased their feet in strips of blanket, and so limped through the dreary time until authority should refurnish them.
Young Mainwaring was called away at this moment, and before he departed, the lad turned to an elderly American with grey hair and a distinguished bearing, and asked him a favour.
"May I beg you to show Miss Malherb and this gentleman round the works, Commodore Miller?" said Mainwaring; and the prisoner bowed a grave assent. In looking at this man's sad eyes and noble face one forgot the ridiculous rags that covered him.
"Come this way, young lady," he said. "You see our labours prosper. 'Twill be a monument for the generations that follow us. Our dust will mingle with this desert and be forgotten; our handiwork will remain."
Suddenly as they proceeded a cry from overhead made Grace stop, start back, and look upward. The warning saved her life, for six inches in front of her breast an object cut the air, and striking at the girl's feet upon the unpaved aisle, buried itself head first in the earth. It was a heavy chisel that had dropped from a beam and just missed Grace's head by inches. A cry rose on several lips; some shouted a curse at a man aloft on the beam from which the chisel had fallen; and Commodore Miller cried to him—
"Good God, Stark; what have you done?"
"Nothing—nothing at all," said Grace quickly. "I am not touched."
The man responsible for this accident was already half-way to the ground. He descended a rope ladder so swiftly as to endanger his own neck, and a moment later stood white and trembling before Grace Malherb.
"You stupid fellow," said Mr. Norcot; "'twas within a hair's-breadth of her life."
"I know it," answered the man. He was young and very tall, with a clean-shorn face and curling brown hair. "I can only ask you to forgive me. I turned suddenly and my foot struck the chisel."
"There's nothing to forgive," said Grace. "'Twas your voice arrested me. If you hadn't shouted, I should not be here now; so I owe you nothing but gratitude."
She smiled at him, and the youngster's colour came back to his cheek. Young Mainwaring, who had just returned, bustled forward with his sword clanking as the sailor spoke.
"You're good and brave, young mistress; and you understand. 'Twas a noble way to pardon me. A clumsy fool thanks you from his heart."
He was turning away when Grace spoke again, and blushed a little as she did so.
"Is that your chisel, sir?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Will you give it to me? May I keep it?"
Taking it from the hand of Commodore Miller, who had pulled it out of the earth, the girl looked at its two-inch blade and glittering edge.
"I should like to keep it," she repeated. "It ought to make me feel humble and grateful when I look upon it."
"I pray you keep it, then. And I shall thank God every time that I miss it," said the young man quietly.
Norcot was talking to Mainwaring aside, and in the silence that followed these words, his voice, unfortunately for himself, came directly to the American prisoner's ear.
"Surely not. The Devil draws the line somewhere. One would never presume to suggest a deliberate intention to murder an innocent girl."
The words came clear and cold; then, like a thunderbolt, a heavy fist fell between Peter's eyes, and he was on his back half unconscious. From trembling fear, from emotion almost prayerful at the thought of what might have happened, from frank and absolute sorrow for his carelessness, the young American leapt suddenly into ungovernable and blazing wrath. His very body seemed to expand and tower above the men around him. The Commodore leapt forward, but Stark shook him off like a child. "There!" he shouted, so that the naked walls rang with echoes. "Take that, whoever you are! To hint such a foul crime from your foul soul against an American!"
"Who's this lunatic? Arrest him," cried Mainwaring, and several soldiers hastened forward.
"Cecil Stark is his name—a sailor and a leader in Prison No. 4," said a sergeant.
"Yes, Cecil Stark of Vermont," answered the lad passionately. "Your General Burgoyne knew the name. 'Twas my kinsman that made him surrender and so caused Louis of France and the civilised world to acknowledge America free of your bullying, braggart nation. To hint at murder! You scoundrel—if you're a gentleman, you'll meet me; but you're not."
"Candidly," said Mr. Norcot, who was now restored to consciousness and sat on the ground with his hand over his eyes. "Candidly, I don't want to meet you again. You are young, and evidently Dartmoor has not tamed your fiery spirit. Nor has it polished your nautical wits. You strike before you hear—like your great nation. Tut, tut! My nose is broken. I was just declaring on my honour that to credit you with malice was madness. 'Twas this gentleman here who suspected that you dropped the chisel of set purpose."
"You said it!" exclaimed Stark, turning upon Lieutenant Mainwaring.
"I did, and I repeat it; and don't look at me with that insolent expression, or you'll repent it. 'Tis quite likely this was no accident."
The American regarded the little officer with contempt and astonishment.
"You're a knave to think that; and a coward to say it. At least you don't believe him, young mistress? I'd give up all hope of freedom, or heaven either, if I thought that any woman held me so vile."
"No woman, and no man either, would believe it," said Grace calmly, and Mainwaring's face flamed.
"Why, then, I'm content," declared Stark. "As for this red-coated monkey, he's neither one nor t'other and his opinion don't matter."
"Take him to the cachot!" cried the indignant soldier in a fury. "Away with him—insolent hound! We'll see what a few days of bread and water will do for him."
"And 'tis trash like this that they put into power over honest men!" said the prisoner, with great show of scorn. "In America no man can command others until he has learned to command himself."
"And did you use to command, my young hero?" asked Peter, who had now risen to his feet again.
Cecil Stark turned and laughed as he marched off with half a dozen soldiers for an escort.
"No, sir. You'll guess why. I'm a fool. Your nose will tell you that. But I'm learning. I shall be free again some day. Then I'll try to be wise. Meantime I beg you ten thousand pardons that I hit the wrong man. If 'tis ever in my power, I'll make generous amends."
He departed, and among the guard his great stature was revealed, for he towered above them.
"What a stinging sermon against disinterestedness," said Mr. Norcot, still patting his wounded face. "Yet 'tis nothing beside your escape. If you had died—my light would have gone out. Henceforth I should have lived with Petrarch under my pillow: 'To Laura—I mean Gracie—in death.'
"'For I was ever yours; of you bereft,Full little do I reck all other care.'"
"We'd better go back to our horses," she answered. "He's a fine courageous gentleman. Only I very much wish that he had struck Lieutenant Mainwaring instead of you."
"So do I—cordially."
"And yet I'm not quite sorry, either; for you are so kind that you pass it with a jest; that little snappy soldier would have done dreadful deeds. Why do soldiers always bear themselves with such silly pride? Sailors don't."
"Sailors are not so swollen with their own importance, certainly; they've got more intellect as a rule; and don't blush to talk about their profession, like so many of these fatuous warriors. My dismal nose! Tut, tut! I see a mountain uplifting between my eyes. Henceforth there will be another tor on Dartmoor."
"Carry the chisel, please. He had a fine deep voice. He might have been an Englishman. Certainly he was right to be furious. I will never speak to Lieutenant Mainwaring more."
"Cecil Stark of Vermont, eh? He'll be stark enough after a week in a cachot. Let us home. My nose wants its luncheon of brown paper and vinegar."
The Commodore saw them to their horses, and Grace expressed an earnest hope that young Stark would not suffer for his natural anger.
"'Twill make his trouble light enough to know you are sorry for him," said the old sailor gallantly; then he gave the girl a hand into her saddle and soon she and Mr. Norcot were galloping homewards.
Anon Mrs. Malherb uplifted placid thanksgivings for her daughter's escape, and the farmer breathed forth indignation at the adventure of the chisel. He took a dark view of the incident, despite Grace's indignant assurances, and gave it as his opinion that where an American was concerned the worst motives might most justly be attributed. Yet he made far more of the incident than anybody else, yearned towards the girl with emotion hardly concealed, and hastened over his wine after dinner, that he might return to her presence.
"Come you here," he said, "and put your fingers in mine, so I may feel you are alive."
Therefore she sat beside him, and he patted her little hand and exhibited the actions of quickened love. Yet his face was stern the while, and betrayed no spark of the softness that marked his gestures and his words.
Peter's countenance had now taken upon itself the grotesqueness of a gargoyle, but he exhibited neither self-consciousness nor irritation. Indeed, he proved in a placid and didactic vein, moralised the incidents of the day and illuminated them with many quotations from many scribes. Conversation naturally turned upon America, and Norcot declared that the hot-headed and romantic person of Cecil Stark fairly typified his country.
"Most just," allowed Maurice Malherb. "America exhibits defects so glaring that he who runs may read. She is too vainglorious, too boastful, too impatient of control, and too ignorant ever to take commanding rank among the nations."
He mentioned his own failings without an omission.
"We must learn to walk before we can ride," said Mrs. Malherb. "And yet how often does a child try to copy its elders in advanced arts while yet the slow steps to those arts are hidden from it! 'Tis hard to judge the Americans, for they are made of our own flesh and blood."
"They are, in fact, our younger selves broke loose from tradition and control. They are scattered like sheep without a shepherd in the mighty pasture of the New World," said Norcot.
"Not so," returned his host. "England's virtues are just those most notoriously lacking in this upstart, ingrate race. They have broken the golden links of blood and brotherhood. They must abide by the consequences. Doctor Johnson was in the right of it touching America—as indeed always upon every subject."
"What think you, Kek?" asked Grace, that the discussion might be lightened.
The old servant had entered to mend the fire, for a peat or two always glowed upon the drawing-room hearth by night.
"No matter what I think, missy. 'Tis one of the few blessings of a common man that nobody do set a groat's value upon his views," returned Kekewich.
"So much the less need you mind uttering them," said Peter.
"We differ like flint and steel, yet strike some sparks between us—Kek and I," declared Malherb. "He is at once the best, honestest, truest, and most wrong-headed man I ever met in his class of life."
"Then you'll guess what I hold about this," answered Kekewich, who was indifferent alike to praise or censure. "I thinks that a Yankee be only an Englishman turned inside out. They says openly what we thinks in secret; but when it comes to doing—'tis 'devil take the hindmost' an' the weakest to the wall with them—just the same as it be with us. 'Tis a nation too young to deceive—same as a child be too young to deceive till it be growed. We shall hammer 'em this time; an' maybe next time; but the day will come when they've got too big to hammer. Then what? Us'll be 'pon top of our last legs some day. An' then everything will be differ'nt, except human nature. An' a beaten nation have a terrible long memory."
"This is anti-British! I blush for you, Kek," said Grace.
"Nay; the man is in the right," declared Peter. "A hundred years hence the friendship of America will be better worth having than anything in the world. Yet, where there's jealousy, there can be no real friendship. I hope that they will not always be jealous of us."
"You're cowards, both you and Kek," shouted Malherb. "You are worse than infidels, for you leave the Almighty out of your calculations altogether. We make war in the name of Right. We are the supreme example that history furnishes of an absolutely impartial nation. We display justice and mercy to the earth. We conquer by the hand of God. And will He desert us for a cowardice of curs, for a rabble that knows not justice, for a horde of highwaymen who mix the mortar for their dirty towns with negroes' blood?"
"Blare till you bust, Malherb," said Kek stoutly. "You won't alter it. God A'mighty's never seen on the side of the weak, an' so soon as thicky folks over the sea get strong enough to lather us, they'll most likely try to do it."
With this prophecy Mr. Kekewich departed.
"An ancient fool," commented Peter; "yet a witty one. I'm quite of his opinion; but our grandchildren, not we, will see the issue."
"Read 'Lear,'" said Malherb. "'Tis the only thing I ever do read in the way of high poetry. Lear is England—America has taken the vile daughter's part."
"Doubtless they'll allow it—if you'll carry the similitude through."
"Nay—England won't go mad—a little righteous rage—a breath from her nostrils, and these republican wolves will creep back into their dens."
"Yes—to breed there; to suckle the rising generations on——"
"Upon lies!" roared the other. "Upon vile lies against the mother country. To the Father of Lies let 'em go!"
Presently he cooled down, and Mr. Norcot, who had turned to Grace for a while, was wearied to hear Malherb reopen the subject.
"If they would but learn the dignity of manhood; if they would use their brains and read in the books that wise Englishmen have written on the highest duty of man, we might hope for the return of the prodigal son even yet," he said; and Peter answered—
"How true; how generous of you to put it so; how grand! 'The whole duty of man'—so vast, yet so simple—like Dartmoor. A dozen words gives one, a dozen lines from an artist's pencil will convey the vision of the other."
"'Tis all in the best authors, I'm sure," declared Annabel.
"It is, indeed. What does Juvenal say in an inspired moment? 'A sane mind in a sane body. A spirit above the fear of death; a spirit that can endure toil; that counts the labours of Hercules his joys and the joys of a certain goddess her shame; a spirit that can keep its——'" He was going to say "temper," but substituted "self-respect" out of consideration for his host, then made an end. "'Through virtue lies the life of peace! Grasp that fact, and Fortune has no divinity left in her.'"
"All good," admitted Malherb, "except in one particular. A life of peace is not to be prayed for. Peace is rust, and makes against human progress. Now, ladies, it is time that you retired."
Annabel and her daughter rose, and as he bid his girl "good night," the master's thoughts returned to her great escape. Whereupon he kissed her thrice, instead of once, and said, for her ear alone, "Thank God! Thank God!" in an abrupt and brusque but very earnest fashion.
Mr. Norcot found the life at Fox Tor Farm so much to his taste that he prolonged his visit, and sent the young man, Thomas Putt, with a message to his sister Gertrude at Chagford for more clothes. He felt secretly hopeful that each day was strengthening his position, and, indeed, by riding to the War Prison and seeing the Commandant on behalf of Cecil Stark, he won some thanks and a definite expression of gratitude from Grace Malherb.
"They have released him out of the cachot," said Peter. "Once more he labours at the place of worship, 'pride in his port, defiance in his eye.'"
Together the man and maid continued their excursions upon Dartmoor, and Grace enjoyed both to hear and to tell stories and legends of the ancient desert. Its romance found an echo in her youthful spirit and awoke new intellectual interests in her life. She soon learned the story of each lonely circle, uplifted monolith, and empty barrow from the age of stone; of every ruined cot or cross erected in times mediæval. Among these last, perhaps the most famous upon the Moor lay now within Malherb's own borders.
"Childe's Tomb" had met Grace's eyes when first she opened them upon a Dartmoor dawn. By a rivulet at the edge of Fox Tor Mire it stood, and she had gleaned its story and mourned the fate of the ancient hunter who fell there in winter tempest. Mr. Norcot, too, was familiar with the narrative, and since early boyhood he had gloated over its horrid details. Now he pretended but a misty recollection of the tale, so that he might listen to Grace.
The thing was in their eyes at the time, for they started on horseback and rode past it. Beside the cross, Harvey Woodman, his son, Richard Beer, Thomas Putt, and another labourer were collected at a task. They worked upon each side of the little river that ran beside "Childe's Tomb," and levelled the banks to make a ford at a shallow point of the water. Here they talked together when aching backs required rest; and it happened that their master and his guest were the theme of the moment.
"I'll hold for Mister Peter," declared Putt. "He gived me a week's wages for going to Chaggyford; an' he told me just so friendly as you might, when he seed me bringing in trout, that a grasshopper was a killing bait at this time of year. Of course I know as much about grasshoppers as any man living; yet 'twas a very great condescension in him."
Uncle Smallridge made reply. He was now past work, but had walked from his distant cottage for the pleasure of a little conversation with familiars.
"'Tis the human nature in 'un that counts," he said. "You'll find as a general thing the best men ban't the easiest to get on with."
"Malherb's chock full o' human nature," declared Mr. Woodman.
"So full that he bursts wi' it—like a falling thunderbolt, till a man almost calls on the hills to cover him," admitted Putt.
"That's because you catched it for idleness," answered Woodman. "Mr. Narcot be like a machine oiled up to the last cog an' going so smooth an' suent that a child may turn the handle; an' maister's like a drashel[*] in clumsy hands—you don't know where 'twill fall next. But give me our man with all his faults an' fire."
[*]Drashel: A flail.
"I'm afraid he'll try you sorely yet," foretold Smallridge, and little guessed how near the ordeal had come.
"I'll cleave to him so long as it holds with honesty," said Beer. "What mazes me is this: Mr. Peter never does nothing out of the common, nor never lapses from the level way of man with man, nor says a hard word to a fly; an' yet I doan't neighbour with him; an' t'other, despite his rages and crooked words and terrible rash goings on—as will damn your eyes for a look—why, I'd hold out for him against an army."
"'Tis his weakness draws you to him," said Uncle Smallridge. "I know. Us all likes to catch our betters tripping. It levels up the steep gulf that's fixed between master an' man, an' makes us more content with ourselves. You know how extra good t'other children get when one be extra naughty. This here Norcot is above us in his estate, an' that we can forgive, for us can't help it; but we'm never too comfortable or kindly towards them as be much above us in vartues."
"For my part, it don't seem natural," said Harvey Woodman. "I don't believe in these great flights of goodness in man or woman. Here and there a parson will stand out like a beacon on a hill, for 'tis his trade; but not them as lives to make money like Peter Norcot. When what shows in a man be so shining, I always ax myself about what don't show."
"'Tis your jealous spirit," said Putt.