CHAPTER IIA PESSIMISTThree days before Christmas and an hour before dusk, Mr. Shillabeer, gun in hand, called at Coombeshead Farm, and Constance Stanbury opened the door for him."I'm that finger-cold," he said, "that I thought as I might make so free as to drop in and warm myself a bit afore going back.""And welcome. Come in; come in. My husband will be home in a few minutes, so you'll have a bit of male company. We women be that chuckle-headed.""No, no! Won't hear you run yourself down," said the 'Dumpling,' gallantly. "There's no better company in these parts than your company, and very few women be in it for sense alongside of you.""Tea or cider?" she asked."A drop of tea, if 'tis making. And I'll leave a bird, if you'll please to accept it. The plovers are on the Moor very plenty. A hard winter's in store.""Each be harder than the last nowadays," she answered. "And thank you, I'm sure. A plover's pretty eating, but too good for the likes of us.""Don't you say that. You'm like me--take yourself too humble; but 'tis a mistake. People in the world always pull us a peg lower than our own conceit of ourselves. So we should screw up a peg higher--to be ready for 'em. How's Margaret? You'll never hear no two opinions about her--such an angel as she be.""Yes," admitted Constance; "and I'm much feared that she's got more in common with the angels than us could wish. 'Tis coming over me worse and worse; and over her, too, poor lamb.""What ever do you mean?" he asked. Then he walked to the fire, removed his right gaiter and rubbed his huge leg where the strap had pressed too hardly upon it."My Madge is not like every girl you meet," said Mrs. Stanbury."Wish there was more of the same pattern.""And I'm terrible jealous for her--I'll fight the world for her, like a hen with one chick; because her vartues are her own, and her faults she got from me.""Faults!--who ever heard tell of her faults?""I take no credit in her beautiful goodness," continued the mother. "But I take shame in her softness. Too soft and gentle and yielding she is for this world, and the people in it. And, as her parent, I'm savage--savage as a wild cat, down in my secret heart--when I see people don't understand. 'Tis me they ought to blame, not she."Mr. Shillabeer stared. His fingers were spread and a saucer of tea smoked upon them."You do amaze me; but I'll make bold to say you'm all wrong for once. 'Tis her softness that people take joy in. Always wanting to do for others--always putting herself on one side.""A few may see her goodness," admitted Mrs. Stanbury; "but what's the use of that if them nearest to her can't see? Her own husband haven't got no patience with her now and again; and, mind you, I don't blame him--such a common-sense, hard man as him. And Rhoda the same. 'Tis their natures to take a practical stand.""Don't be downcast," urged the publican. "Drink a dish of your own tea and look on the bright side. 'Tis rather odd I should say that, seeing I've never been known to look on the bright side myself since my wife died. David's a very good chap, and nobody thinks higher of him than me; but he's just an everyday man--wise and businesslike and honest. There's nought in him would make Margaret a beautifuller character than she is. Us don't want for her to be hard and business-like, I'm sure.""'Tis what her husband wants is the thing, not what we want," explained Mrs. Stanbury."If he wants finer than she, he wants better bread than is made with wheat," declared the old prize-fighter; "and if he can't see the shining vartue and wonder of that woman's heart, he must be blind as well as busy.""All very well; but Margaret's to blame too," declared the other."Never--nowhere. 'Tis always your way to give everybody best but your own.""To say 'blame' is too strong a word, perhaps; but you must think how 'tis from her husband's point of view. No children. Oh, Shillabeer, 'tis a dreadful thing! Just that might have made all right, and just that won't happen. Nought worse could have fallen out--nought worse than that. A very terrible misfortune every way. To Ditsworthy I know they take an awful serious view of it. Naturally they would do so. And when I see that mother of a quiverful coming, I wish I could sink into the earth! Her eye brims over with reproaches, though never a word she says.""This is all silly nonsense you'm talking," declared Mr. Shillabeer, strapping up his gaiter again. "Never did I hear such foolishness. Good Lord, han't there enough childer in the world? Take comfort, I beg of you."Bartholomew Stanbury entered at this moment and was glad to see the publican."Heard your fowling-piece banging away up over," he said, "and hoped as you might perhaps drop in 'pon the road back. Well, here's Christmas again, and like to be a soft one after all. The weather's changing.""A busy Christmas in the village," said Reuben; "but nothing out of the common offering to happen, I believe.""Don't you be too sure of that, 'Dumpling.' What would you say to another fight?""No, no, Stanbury. No more fighting. You mean your son Bart and that chap Mattacott. They be galled against each other without a doubt, along of a she; but fight--no. Mattacott's ten year older than your boy. Bart couldn't hit a man whose hair be turning grey.""That's what I said. Still, they long to be at each other.""They'll have to settle their difference some other way. No more fighting if I can prevent it. You mustn't suppose I'm what I was--far from it. I look at life quite different now. All's vanity, as the Preacher saith. I may give up 'The Corner House' afore the world's much older, neighbour.""Good Lord! what's come to you?" exclaimed the farmer."What come to Bendigo," said Mr. Shillabeer solemnly. "I've had the Light, Stanbury. Make no mistake: when the Light does come it shows up everything in a manner very different to what we've seen it before.""Well," said Bartholomew, "don't let it turn you out of 'The Corner House.' Beer have got to be sold, and there's nothing in the Law and the Prophets against keeping an inn and giving good money's worth, same as you've always been famed to do."But Shillabeer doubted. Having drunk another cup of tea, he rose, wished the Stanburys a Merry Christmas in a mournful voice, and disappeared. Constance shook her head when he was gone and declared that a great change began to creep over the old man."Mark me, he's breaking up," she said. "He's casting away all his old opinions and growing more and more religious-minded and low-spirited. Nought would surprise me. I've seen it happen before. He'll be a teetotaller yet, and then he'll go melancholy mad so like as not."Her husband protested."Such a one you are for looking on the cloudy side! There's too much good sense in the man for any such thing as teetotalism to overtake him. A moderate drinker always, and won't serve anybody beyond the twinkling eye stage. Why, he've made bitter enemies by withholding liquor where any other man wouldn't have thought twice about it. Where's Margaret to? She was coming over, wasn't she?""Yes," said his wife. "But 'tis nearly dark. She'll have changed her mind or been hindered."Half an hour later Bart arrived, and he was able to explain his sister's absence."She's took ill," he said. "I met Rhoda back by Lowery. Madge have a cold on the chest--nought to name, but enough to keep her in against this fog. I'm feared they won't be able to go up to Ditsworthy for Christmas now, unless she mends very quick."At his first word Mrs. Stanbury began to be busy. Under the lofty mantelshelf before the fire there hung a row of little linen bags, and in them were various simples culled through vanished spring and summer. They contained elder-flowers, marjoram, thyme, sorrel, and calamint. She selected ingredients and took them to the table."Us must see to this afore she gets worse," declared Constance; and soon she was preparing a decoction of herbs.Her son had further news."They'm saying to Sheepstor that Bartley Crocker's off," he announced with his mouth full."Off where?" asked Mr. Stanbury."To foreign parts. 'Twas always thought he might go when his mother died. They do say he's cruel sweet on Rhoda Bowden, but I don't think she's of the same mind.""I've heard Madge say that she would much like it to fall out," declared Mrs. Stanbury; "but, for my part, Rhoda don't look to be seeking a husband. She's different to her kind, and I don't see her either wife or mother."Bart was reminded of another maiden and he sighed, put his hand to his chin, and looked into vacancy with a very lack-lustre expression."Shillabeer was here afore you comed home," said his father; "and he says you'm too young to stand up to Mattacott. You'd kill the man.""I may yet," declared Bart gloomily. "Anyway I can't wait like this much longer. No more can he. She won't say which 'tis to be, and the strain of mind is getting a bit too sharp. Something's got to go scat afore long--either him or me--or her.""She ought to decide, no doubt," admitted his mother. "But I hope you ban't hopeful, Bart, for I'm not. T'other's better off than you and wiser; and Jane West has found it out, of course.""He may be wiser, or he may not be," answered Bart. "Anyway I'm too wise to wait till Doomsday; and so I've told her; and she's going to decide afore the New Year.""She'll take Timothy Mattacott," repeated his mother. "Stanburys ban't no good at competing with other people. No more was my family--they always went under; and now they've gone under altogether, for I'm the last of 'em."CHAPTER IIITHE VOICE FROM THE POOLMr. Billy Screech found himself more than usually busy on the eve of Christmas Day; but when three o'clock came he abandoned his work and set off into the Moor. A dismal enterprise lay before him, and bad weather made the prospect worse; but he had promised, and failure to keep his promise would upset others and lessen Billy's credit. Therefore he went, and presently, ascending above Kingsett Farm, reached Crazywell where it stared up out of the waste, like a blind eye in a black socket. Silence and desolation haunted the pool. It seemed an hour indeed when secret spirits might wake from sleep, rise, strike the leaden face of the waters, and bring terror to mankind. A heavy and hushed trance held the pool. But little wind blew; no cloud stirred in the grey vault of heaven; but beneath at earth level, fog crept leisurely along in streaks and hung motionless in patches. Even Billy--hardened unbeliever though he was--felt some slight uneasiness as he sank down into the hollow cup of Crazywell. The threatening mist made him both glad and fearful. It would certainly help the dramatic force of the thing to be done; but it might also increase in density and cause him to lose his way home. He turned up his coat collar, found a clump of furze near the water's brink, and settled there. All had fallen out as Mr. Screech desired, and presently Jane West and Bart Stanbury would pass that way on the road to Princetown for some Christmas shopping. Only one fear existed in the watcher's mind. If the mists increased in density, Bart might hesitate to take his sweetheart this way, but prefer to tramp round by road.Billy had hidden himself beneath the principal footpath near the pool, and he knew that the travellers must pass by him. It was certain that he would not be called upon to wait long. He practised to himself once or twice, and as he had suffered from a cold in his throat for some days, the voice of Mr. Screech promised to be sufficiently sepulchral.But the day grew more dark and more still. A lifeless, listless gloom haunted the spot, a blank despondency that reached even Billy's nerves, dashed his spirit, and made him long heartily to be away. Then came the crawling tentacles of the fog, and they stole over the brim of Crazywell and thrust here and there, like some blind, live creature feeling for food. They poured down into the hollow presently and crept over the water at the bottom. Half an hour passed and the vapour increased in density. It hung drops of moisture on the thorns of the furze and spread a glimmering dew over Billy's hairy face and ragged eyebrows; it struck cold; it entered his sore throat and promised to silence his voice altogether."If they ban't here pretty spry, I shan't be able to croak no louder than a frog," thought Mr. Screech.He determined to give Bart and Jane fifteen minutes more. If they had not passed by during that time, he would leave the pool. It seemed pretty certain that the plot had failed. Billy had no watch, but he began to count slowly up to sixty, and each of these instalments represented one minute. The gloom increased, and unconsciously he hastened his counting. And then he heard voices and knew that the man and woman were passing, high above him in the fog. They shuffled slowly along and both spoke, but the plotter could not hear their words. He was quite safe from possibility of observation and so rose and descended to the sandy shore of the pool. Then he lifted up his voice and astonished himself, for his words rose and reverberated in the fog with a strange resonance, quite proper to the supernatural creature that might be supposed to live in Crazywell."Bartholomew Stanbury! Bartholomew Stanbury!" he cried.Then he heard a woman's thin shriek up aloft in the grey mist; and a man's voice answered:"By God! who's down theer?"But Billy made no reply to the question. He hastened to the further side of the pit and crawled up on to the Moor; then he ran for a couple of hundred yards, struck the Kingsett road and so got home, by Lether Tor Bridge, as swiftly as possible.Meantime a woman had fainted above Crazywell and a man was stirring himself wildly to restore her. It was neither Bart Stanbury nor Jane West who had been shocked at the message from the pool, but Bart's mother and father. The young couple were far away, tramping in close communion along the highroad; but Constance and her husband had been to see sick Madge and take her and David their Christmas gift and good wishes. They were returning from Meavy Cot, and it was upon their ears--where they moved slowly-fog-foundered above Crazywell--that this mournful doom had fallen from invisible lips beneath.Mrs. Stanbury sank before the shock. She had just time to make her husband understand that it was the spirit of Crazywell who thus addressed them, before she lost consciousness. Bartholomew, too concerned for her to trouble about his own fate, gathered moisture from the heath, wetted her forehead and loosened her gown. But it was long before she recovered. She sat and shivered for half an hour upon a stone, and only by slow stages and with much assistance was able to reach her home.It had grown dark before man and wife returned to Coombeshead and Bartholomew got his partner to bed. She had suffered a terrific nerve shock and was incoherent until a late hour. Then she became intelligent, and her native pessimism thus fortified, broke loose in the small hours of Christmas morning."Never out of my sight shall you go--God's my judge! You mustn't seek to do it, Bartholomew. Your time's drawn down to within twelve month, and us must spend it hand-in-hand to the end. Oh, that awful voice! And for me to hear the name--me of all people! God A'mighty never did a crueller thing; and if I'd knowed we was going back along by the pool, I'd rather have walked the soles out of my boots and the flesh off my feet than do it. Your name of all names, and it might have been any other man's. But you are chosen. If they'd only take me--not that I can bide after you, Bartholomew. Mark me, I shall be after you long afore you know your way about in the next world."Mr. Stanbury, albeit a man without superstition, had also suffered not a little under the tragedy of the day. He had always laughed at the pool until now; but this was not a laughing matter. He could trust his ears and it was impossible to deny that a very extraordinary voice, hardly to be called human, had shouted his name up through the mist from Crazywell. It struck him also that the words actually ascended from the face of the water."Things look a bit black," he admitted, "and I'm powerful sorry I've scoffed at thicky water; but I ban't gwaine to throw up the sponge yet, my old dear, and no more must you. If 'tis the Powers of Darkness live in the pool, then we must call in the Powers of Light to fight against 'em. God in Heaven's the only Party who knows when I be going to be took off, and 'tis a gert question in my mind whether He'd let it out to this here queer thing that lives in Crazywell--like a toad in a tree-stump. What do you say, Bart?"Their son had returned and was in great trouble at this evil news."I say that I'd better tell Jane not to come here for her Christmas dinner," he answered. "Mother won't be up for any high jinks to-morrow. She won't even be good for getting over to worship. She's white as a dog's tooth still. Why, there ban't hardly a spark of nature left in her. And as for the voice, I've no patience with such things. I'd have gone down and pulled the spirit's damned nose if I'd been there, same as I would any other man's. I don't believe a word of it, and faither's right: God A'mighty wouldn't let no vagabond ghosts poke about on Christmas Eve of all times--just afore the birthday of the Lord--to frighten God-fearing, respectable people with their nonsense. If 'tis a spirit, 'tis a bad one; and I wouldn't care no more for a bad tankerabogus than I would for a bad man."If us can get to church in the morn, I'll ax parson Merle afterwards," said Mr. Stanbury. "For my part, I won't pretend I like it; but all the same, I've got a right to make a fight for it; and if parson be of your view, Bart, that I oughtn't to care a button about it, then I won't care.""What's the use of telling like that?" asked Mrs. Stanbury fretfully. "How be twenty parsons going to overrule a voice like what we heard a bit ago? Oh, my God! my flesh creams to the bones when I call back them awful sounds.""'Twas more like a parrot than a human," said Bartholomew."And there'll be some such way to explain it," declared the son. "I'll wager that Mr. Merle will laugh the whole story to scorn.""How's that going to mend it, even if he do?" asked Constance. "Time enough to laugh when next year be dead and your father's still living. But it can't be. He's got to leave us and I want for to know what becomes of me then?"She relapsed into a condition of hysterical emotion, and her husband sat up with her all night.In the morning Bart went for the doctor and also explained to Jane West that the hoped-for meeting at dinner could not take place.A medical man reached the fastness of Coombeshead before midday and found Mrs. Stanbury suffering from shock. He was interested and sympathetic. He drove Bart home to his surgery six miles off, and, at evening, Constance took her physic and soon slept in peace.Bart and his father were in the habit henceforth of regarding that occasion as the most mournful Christmas Day within their memories; and when the adventure began to be known a little later, their friends deeply sympathised with them and were divided in their opinions. Some secretly hoped that the solemn tradition of the pool would be upheld, and felt that it would be better for Mr. Stanbury to pass away than that the great mystery and glory of Crazywell should vanish. Others flouted the spirit and agreed with Bart that no sane person should take this meddlesome hobgoblin seriously.Elsewhere Christmas Day brought other discomforts. Mr. Screech and his wife and children spent the anniversary at Ditsworthy; but they went reluctantly as a substitute for David and Rhoda. This spoilt the pleasure of Dorcas, and both she and her husband were glad to be home again. They criticised everybody at the Warren House in an unfriendly spirit, and Dorcas could find nothing genial to say even of her own mother. Indeed, none of her own had ever been forgiven for their initial adverse attitude in the matter of Billy. With her father alone could Mrs. Screech be said to remain on good terms.And while the Screech family were able to go to Ditsworthy, owing to the enforced absence of David and his household, Christmas passed pleasantly at Meavy Cot. Margaret did not know of her mother's misfortune, and as her own health now mended again, she much enjoyed the day. Moreover, there came a visitor, for David invited the lonely Bartley to share the feast, and Mr. Crocker, after hesitating between his duty to his Aunt Susan Saunders and his duty to himself, finally felt the opportunity of seeing Rhoda must be taken, in justice to his own future plans and ambitions. He went, therefore, and added to Margaret's pleasure, but failed to advance his personal cause.The dinner was a great success, and Hartley, quite unconscious that every jest he made was damaging his most cherished hope, excelled himself in merriment, and kept David and Madge in much laughter. Rhoda's amusement, however, was at the best but frosty. She could not forget the past, and when she looked at Mr. Crocker she did not see an unstable, good-natured, and kindly spirit, mentally incapable of sustained sorrow, but a man whose mother had but lately died, and who found it possible to laugh and utter futile jests before the grass was grown upon her grave. She allowed for no extenuating circumstances; she forgot that Nannie Crocker's end was a release for which to be thankful. She only saw an orphaned son playing the fool; and that he could do so now, to the accompaniment of a good dinner, did not surprise her; for had he not done the same upon the day after his mother's death? She remembered what she had seen upon the island above Nosworthy Bridge; and she hardened her heart against Bartley and his humour. Rhoda had been influenced in other directions also by that unfortunate incident. To explain Margaret's share in it with credit to Margaret was impossible. Her brother's wife must have known that Mrs. Crocker had just died; indeed, the man had doubtless gone to tell her so. And Madge's apparent reply was to conduct herself like a silly and irresponsible child. Such an action frankly disgusted Rhoda, and she was deeply offended and shocked at it. The emotion waxed with time and even made her uneasy. She believed that with no man living, other than her husband, might a woman permit herself such pleasantries. The past looked more and more unseemly in Rhoda's eyes. It lessened her respect for Margaret, and unconsciously she showed it. Yet when Margaret, whose sensitive nature was lightning-quick to mark such a change of attitude, asked her sister-in-law how she had offended, Rhoda could not bring herself to speak. She evaded the question, but made some general allusions, hoping thereby to remind Madge of her recent folly. She failed, however, for David's wife did not see the application of a theory of man's lightness to herself or to Mr. Crocker.And now, at this inauspicious hour, and fired thereto by a successful dinner and an excellent opportunity, the lover offered himself again. Chance so to do was deliberately made by Madge. She planned with David to leave her sister-in-law and the visitor, and, before Rhoda could avoid the trap, Bartley and she were alone together in the parlour."Keep Bartley in good spirits till I come back, Rhoda," said Margaret suddenly; "I must take my medicine, else doctor will be vexed when he calls again."She hurried off, and as David had already gone out, man and maid found themselves alone.Rhoda frowned; Bartley pulled himself together and wished he had taken half-a-pint less of the bottled porter.Each in secret heart was planning speech, and Rhoda, not guessing that he had ever again thought of her as a wife, after her definite reply to his proposal, wondered now if she might reprove Mr. Crocker himself for his folly on the island. Her object was not the welfare of the man. She was thinking a little for Margaret and a great deal for David. She knew surely what David must have said had he crossed the bridge when she did. But to speak to David about it appeared impossible, for he brooked no criticism of Margaret even from her; and to approach Madge seemed equally out of the question in Rhoda's view. But here was an opportunity to speak directly to the offender himself; for it could not but be that Bartley had led Margaret into the lapse of self-respect with the sandwiches.Rhoda's mind swiftly traced this path, and she was preparing to speak when her companion began to talk. His conversation related to a very different matter, and for some time the woman found little opportunity.Mr. Crocker had picked up a photograph album and was gazing at the picture of the Bowden family taken at Tavistock in their full and imposing completeness before David's marriage."My word!" he said, "that's a proper piece of work sure enough. Let's see--father and mother--boys of all sizes, your married sister, you and David, and Dorcas and Joshua. I hope you've made it up with Dorcas, Miss Rhoda?"She flushed."You'll do well to mind your own business," she said.He shut the book and put it on the table. It rested upon a red and yellow wool mat, and he was careful to place it exactly in the middle."You're right," he answered. "When aren't you right? I oughtn't to have said that. It's not my place to dictate to you--quite the reverse. I'm sorry."She did not reply and he spoke again."But my own business is different. I can mind that, and it's time I thought a bit more about it. Not that 'tis ever out of my thoughts really; yet life comes between a man and his deepest desires sometimes, and life--and death--has stood between me and the first business of my life lately.""Has it?" she said in an indifferent voice."You know it has, Rhoda. You know what I've been through. You came to the graveside of my dear mother at my express wish--""'Twas at your aunt's wish--not yours.""Anyway you came, and not being blind, you must have known what putting her into the ground meant to me."She stared at him coldly, but did not speak. The grief that Bartley had displayed above his mother's coffin when it sank to earth was real enough. He had mourned her then from his heart. But while Rhoda watched the man weep on that mournful occasion, there had filled her mind, not sympathy at his present real grief, but sheer amazement at his past equally real levity. It was quite beyond her mental endowment to understand how the same man could laugh on the day after his mother's death, and weep at the ceremony of her interment.Her thoughts now hardened her heart. She guessed that he was about to be personal and prepared to waste no consideration upon him."You'll be gone out of England soon, I suppose. What's Miss Saunders going to do?""Lord knows. My Aunt Susan's been rather difficult since mother died. She wants to go to Canada with me; but--well, my mind's set on somebody else.""You'll never find anybody to care for you like she will.""Shan't I? That's bad news," he said. "And, what's more, I'll make so bold as to question it. Why should I waste time and beat about the bush? Look back a bit--to that day on the leat path, Rhoda. Well, a lot's happened since then; but nothing has happened to my great love of you except it's grown stronger and stronger. And you, Rhoda? Don't say that you never thought of it again. Perhaps you blame me for holding off so long; but you see how I was placed. Couldn't go on with it and mother fading out day by day."In the light of her knowledge she believed that this statement was untrue. At best the hypocrisy of it offended her. The man who played with Madge on the island was surely not the man to let his mother's last illness interfere with love-making.But she did not comment upon this side of the question. She did not comment at all, but waited for him to make an end."And now, though you might think I was too near her still, yet I know it isn't so. And I ask you to remember what I said before, and answer me different. You're more to me than all the rest of the world put together, and I'm sure that I could make you a happy woman. I've watched you, like a cat watches a mouse, these many months. I've followed your ways and learned your fancies. David's self don't know so much about you as I do--all I know of your beautiful, brave nature and likes and dislikes--down to the walks by night with nought but the moonbeams and your own thoughts for company. And you--can't you feel a bit too, and picture your life along with me away over the water? Can't you see yourself mistress of such a place as you've heard me tell about to David? Can't you let me love you and make you my dear wife, Rhoda? For God's sake think about it, and don't say 'no' again. I'll wait your pleasure; I'll not hurry you. Take a year to say 'good-bye' to Dartmoor if you like; or stop on Dartmoor if you like; and I'll gladly stop too, if you say the word; but oh, Rhoda Bowden, do marry me and find what it is to have a husband who worships your shadow!"He stood over her as he spoke, while she sat motionless and looked out of the window. Now she saw David returning and was glad. But her quick ears heard Margaret stop him outside, and husband and wife went into the kitchen together."Say 'yes' and have done with it," begged Bartley.She was thinking, but not of him. It occurred to her that Margaret had planned the entire incident. Her thoughts retraced many past events, and she wondered how much more Margaret might have planned. Then she asked herself the reason.Her sustained silence made the lover speak again; but she was so interested in side views of the situation that the central fact seemed unimportant. To him, however, nothing else mattered; and her answer to one who had just asked her to marry him, struck the man as extraordinary."Don't be dumb, unless silence is to give consent," he said; then she came to herself, looked at him blankly, and shook her head."Good God! Is that all your answer?" he asked."That's all," she replied."Why--why--why? What's between us? I'm frank to you; be frank with me, Rhoda. It's now or never. Say everything in your mind to say. Leave nothing unsaid. What is it between us? What's the bar? Can it be got over or broken down? Where do I fail? Can I mend it? Can I change anything--every thing to please you better? Don't fear to hurt me. Anything is better than refusal.""You're too light-minded," she said. "And, even if you wasn't, I shouldn't care about you. You're not the sort of man that I like.""What sort do you like then? Tell me, and I'll try to be that sort."She did not answer the question, but reproved him for the past. It occurred to her again that by protesting now against the incident on the island she might prevent any such folly in the future. She was only considering David--not Margaret, and not the man before her."Too light-minded," she repeated, "and I'll tell you for why I say it. On the day after your mother died, you met my sister-in-law and it chanced that I saw you together. She don't know it and needn't. But you'd better know. The man who could play child's tricks at such a time wouldn't be trusted by any woman, I should think."He wrinkled his forehead and endeavoured to remember."Whatever did you see that shocked you so much?"She told him and he shrugged his shoulders."I'm afraid I can't expect to make you understand that. Perhaps no woman that ever I met but Madge would understand it. Don't let that come between us. Be just. Moods and whims and silliness after a long cruel strain may happen to men as well as women.""Well, I despise the men, or women either, who could sink to such things.""You were at my mother's funeral. You know if I felt her loss or not.""Things are as they are," she answered calmly. "'Tis no good us telling any more. My brother and his wife want to come in the parlour, and we're keeping 'em out."Bartley rose."I'll be off then. And mark this: you'll have to listen to me once more yet before I go. No man worth the name would take 'no' for an answer under thrice.""Better save your time. You'll never make me feel different to you. We're not built to look alike or feel alike at any point. The sooner you know that the better.""Bid 'em good-bye for me and try to think different."He offered his hand and she took it."I'll never think different so long as I can think at all," she said.He departed, and Margaret and David saw him go and knew that he had failed.Madge sighed for him; her husband showed no emotion."Come what may come, 'twill be best," he declared. "Rhoda knows her own mind; and that's more than half the maidens do nowadays."They returned to her and found her sweeping the hearth."Mr. Crocker have gone," she said. "I was to bid you good-bye from him."Elsewhere the baffled suitor tramped through Dartmoor under conditions of setting sunlight and approaching darkness. Strong winds had scattered the fog of the preceding evening and now a gale shouted along the heath and drove the clouds before it. Flashes of light broke through the west and, like golden birds, floated upward over the dark bosoms of the hills. They reached the ragged summits of the land, revealed the granite there, then seemed to take wing into the sky.CHAPTER IVPOINTS OF VIEWThe folk were coming to church, and some walked by road; some drove from distant hamlets; some tramped by sheep-tracks and rough pathways over wide spaces of heath and stone. Down through outlying farms that stretch tentative fields into the Moor; down past gorse-clad banks and great avenues of beeches; down past Kit Tin Mine--busy then, but empty and silent now; down into the valley bottom, drawn by the thin bell music from the tower above the trees, came the family of the Bowdens. It was smaller than of old. But the boys were growing; Napoleon and Wellington had become responsible persons in the scheme of life at Ditsworthy, and even the twins could be trusted to work without a ruling eye upon them. Mr. Bowden and his wife came to pray upon this early summer noon. Of women there were only two left at Ditsworthy; therefore Sarah and her daughter Sophia had to take Sunday at church alternately; and to-day the widow stopped at home to cook the dinner. With the Bowdens came other of the people. Susan Saunders appeared beside her nephew; but he saw her to the entrance only; there he stopped and talked with a knot of men. Among them was David Bowden. He, however, stayed not long outside and soon joined his family and Rhoda. She was already seated between Joshua and her father in the Bowden pew. Charles Moses was finding seats for chance visitors; Reuben Shillabeer, who never missed Sunday service, sat in his corner, having just handed four collecting dishes to those who would presently carry them through the congregation. He was a sidesman now, and Mr. Merle held the old prize-fighter in high esteem as a valuable example to the young men.Mr. Screech arrived with his elder child. Mattacott met him and they talked apart. Their conversation concerned Timothy himself. Jane West had ceased to smile on Mattacott since the winter; yet there was no report of any engagement between her and Bart Stanbury. The appearance of Timothy's rival cut this conversation short. He came with his father and mother. The men entered and Mrs. Stanbury spoke to Mr. Crocker."Be Margaret gone in?" she asked."No," he said. "She's home to-day. David and Rhoda are here. Madge hasn't come."Mrs. Stanbury sighed with dismay."There! And I want particular for to see her. Now whatever shall I do?""Come and see her," suggested Bartley. "I'll be very pleased to walk along with you. I'm not going in. The weather's too fine to miss two hours of it, and I shan't taste another English June for many a long day--perhaps never."Constance considered, and then, the matter being of some urgency, consented."I'll just go into the church and tell master I'm stepping over to see Margaret. And I shall have to get my dinner there. Everything's locked up at Coombeshead till evening. We was all going to take our meat along with Mr. Moses to-day; but my men can do so, and I'll ask Madge for a bit."So it fell out, and Hartley, quite to his satisfaction, escorted Mrs. Stanbury to 'Meavy Cot.'First he chattered about his own hopes and disappointments; then he interested himself in his companion's affairs."Yes, I must be gone. No good staying here in sight of that girl--only makes me savage and good for nothing.""A pity she won't take you; but she'll never take anybody. She's cut out for the single state," declared Constance."How can you say that? Was ever a finer woman seen in Sheepstor?""Womanhood's a matter of heart, not body, my dear. To the eye she's female, to the mind she's male--that, or neither one nor t'other. I know all about her through my daughter. Not that I don't wish with all my heart you could have her, and take her long ways off. Not a word of unkindness do I mean; but 'twould be better every way, and better for Madge if she lived somewhere else.""Yes--I understand that," he said. "David never can be everything to Madge while he thinks such a deuce of a lot of Rhoda. They're all good friends, however.""Good friends enough. But 'tisn't the home it might be. You don't see, and strangers don't see; but I see, because my mother's eyes can't be blinded.""I see too--I know very well what you mean.""If you do, then say nought," she answered; "for 'tisn't for you--nor me neither--to stand between a man and his wife. D'you know what Madge said to me last week? I grant she was down when she said it; but she's down too often now. She said, 'Life was sunshine with only a little cloud three year agone; now it's cloud with only a little sunshine, mother.' Not a very nice thing for me to hear. But it didn't astonish me. We're an unlucky race, I must tell you. Whether luck comes through the blood, or through some dark powers outside us, I don't know yet; 'tis a very real thing, and some has it from the cradle and some never gets a pinch of it. Stanburys don't."But Crocker was thinking of Margaret Bowden."I'm terrible sorry to hear you tell this about her. She keeps such a stiff upper lip before the world and looks out with such cheerful eyes, that I never guessed 'twas quite as bad. Yet now you say it, I mind the signs.""Keep out of it, however, and go away. You can't do no good if Rhoda won't have you.""Don't be sure of that. I was a lot of use once. I might again."Mrs. Stanbury was mildly surprised."Seeing David's good sense and patience, I won't say 'tis impossible to do anything. But David be David, and even if he had the will to alter, how can he do it, more'n the leopard his spots? There's nothing you can put your hand upon and say 'there's the evil'; and yet 'tis clear enough. They've drifted apart through having no family. 'Tis all said in that word."Mr. Crocker sighed and felt a moment of real sorrow."If she'd married me," he said, "'twould have saved us both a lot of bother."The other did not answer and they proceeded some distance silently.Then he turned the conversation to Mrs. Stanbury herself."This is telling on you too. You're not all you might be, I'm sure. I wish it was in my power to do you a good turn.""Like you to say it. Many have to thank you for a good turn. But 'tis outside human strength to help me. I've run against the Powers of Darkness; I've heard Crazywell tell how my husband is to go inside the year.""Does he believe it?""I don't know. He won't talk about it. He's very careful of hisself, and he gets a bit short if I run on about it; so we've agreed to let the matter drop. All the same it's aged him, and God knows how many years it has took off my life."Mr. Crocker was interested."I only heard about it from David. There may be some sort of explanation.""How can there be? 'Tis like a thunderbolt hung over us. Bart's the only one who takes no account of it.""It might be him just so likely as his father," said the man. "Why are you so positive 'twas your husband the voice meant? They're both called 'Bartholomew.'"Mrs. Stanbury stood still, stared at him, and then sank down suddenly in the hedge."But--but that can't surely be? The one's 'Bart' always," she gasped out."To other people; but if this was some magic thing from another world, you couldn't expect it to care about nicknames.""Oh, my God! where do we all stand now?" cried out Mrs. Stanbury. "Nobody ever thought of that afore!""One person did, if not others; and that person's Jane West," he answered. "I saw her a bit ago and asked her--out of kindness to Bart--why she held off and didn't take him. I know only too well what 'tis to be hanging about with your heart telling you not to take 'no' for an answer and your head telling you that you're a fool. And Jane said that, so far as it went, she'd decided between Mattacott and Stanbury. 'But,' she said, 'though I'm addicted to Bart and like him very well, 'tis no use taking the man if he'm going to die afore next Christmas.' 'Twas only by the merest chance she and Bart didn't hear the voice themselves, for they went up to Princetown shopping that very afternoon, and nothing but the fog made 'em go round by road."But Mrs. Stanbury heard none of these words. She had never connected this catastrophe with her son; neither had Bart himself done so. Jane West, however, inspired thereto by Mr. Mattacott, perceived the real significance of the situation, and she proposed to wait until time showed whether father or son was to fall. Now Mrs. Stanbury was herself faced with this hideous complication, and it struck her almost as harshly as the original blow had done. Her weak mind whirled; she became incoherent and spoke without sense."Leave it, for God's sake," urged the man. "You'll go mad at this gait. One thing be just as absurd as t'other. Some innocent fool saw your husband through the fog and shouted to him--perhaps just wished him a merry season or some such thing--and then went on his way and thought no more of it. Be sure you'll hear the truth soon or late, and you'll live to see your men as well and hearty next January as they are now.""You mean kindly to say these things," she answered. "But 'tis vain, and you'll know it afore the year's gone.""Well, give God Almighty a chance," he urged. "'Tis you will be dead, not them, if you go on so."They reached 'Meavy Cot' and found Margaret. Her mother sat down, took off her bonnet and rested, while Madge stood a few minutes at the gate with Mr. Crocker before he started homeward."Try and cheer her up," he said. "'Tis that damned nonsense about the voice at Crazywell. She'll fret herself into her grave over it if this goes on."They discussed the matter for a while; then Madge spoke of Bartley himself."Don't know what to be at," he said. "My life's stuck for the minute. I can't ask her again yet, and I'm not going till I have. Just once more. But the thing is to know what to be doing meantime--how to get a bit forwarder. How is she?""She's all right--silenter than ever to me, though. Sometimes I think she's judging me rather hardly and don't reckon I'm a very good wife for David.""I'm sure that can't be. She's a long way too sensible to imagine any such nonsense.""She may be right, all the same. I don't know what it is; I wouldn't even name it to anybody but you and mother; but sometimes I feel as if there was a door between me and David, and sometimes he tries to open it, and I'm sure I'm always trying to, but it keeps shut.""Stuff!" he repeated. "You're such a parcel of nerves, Madge--like poor Mrs. Stanbury. You mustn't let yourself think such things. David's wrapped up heart and soul in you, and if 'tisn't his way to show all he feels, that's only to say he's a Bowden. They are built on that fashion. You must try and look at life more with his eyes. He's a rare man and I envy him his tremendous power of sticking to a thing till he's got through with it. His ideas are big, not little; I can see that, and you ought to see it. You and me are a bit too much alike there, and 'tis our luck not to be rated at our real value in consequence. But we mustn't repay in the same coin. Because David don't quite understand you, and Rhoda don't understand me, we, who are nimbler-witted than them, mustn't be cross. They may not see the truth of us and all the virtues that we've got--and we've both got a rare lot in my opinion--but we do see the truth of them, and so we must be patient with their characters."It was a new light to the woman, and she perceived the wisdom under his jesting manner."If he'd only let me into his secrets!" she said."You must be content with mine," he answered. "David lets you into his good fortune and tells you when he's drawn a prize. But the bother and battle he keeps to himself.""He doesn't," she answered. "I'd forgive that. But he tells Rhoda. Again and again I've known them to break off a subject when I came along--as if I was a baby.""Try to think 'tis out of their kindness they do it.""I have tried; but I know different. David don't believe in me--that's the bitterness of my life in a word, Hartley. He don't trust me like he trusts Rhoda.""Then tell him so. Let him see what he's losing by keeping you out. And I believe, come to think of it, that might be good advice to myself too. With Rhoda I mean. How would it be if I took a bit of counsel with her, Madge--asked her advice, like David does, and treated her like a man instead of a girl? Would that work?"She considered."It would work, no doubt, as far as her being civil went. If you asked her questions, she'd answer 'em; and if you asked her opinion she'd give it. Whether 'twould lead to anything further, I can't tell. We've drifted apart a bit of late, and I see it clear enough without seeing the reason for it. However, I daresay I'm to blame too. No doubt I don't look at life from their point of view all I might. But I wish--I wish to God she'd take you--as much for my sake as her own."The woman's unusual bitterness impressed him."Follow my advice and have a good talk with David. Thresh it out and open his eyes a bit. If you see from his point of view, as you will now, then 'tis but fair he should see from yours; and if he can't see your side single-handed, then you must help him. We'll meet again afore long and I'll tell you what comes of my new idea. Perhaps we shall both be lucky!"He left her and she returned to her mother.Mrs. Stanbury was absorbed in the dreadful new problems raised by Bartley Crocker's theory of the voice. She explained these complications to Margaret, and her daughter strove to comfort her without success.
CHAPTER II
A PESSIMIST
Three days before Christmas and an hour before dusk, Mr. Shillabeer, gun in hand, called at Coombeshead Farm, and Constance Stanbury opened the door for him.
"I'm that finger-cold," he said, "that I thought as I might make so free as to drop in and warm myself a bit afore going back."
"And welcome. Come in; come in. My husband will be home in a few minutes, so you'll have a bit of male company. We women be that chuckle-headed."
"No, no! Won't hear you run yourself down," said the 'Dumpling,' gallantly. "There's no better company in these parts than your company, and very few women be in it for sense alongside of you."
"Tea or cider?" she asked.
"A drop of tea, if 'tis making. And I'll leave a bird, if you'll please to accept it. The plovers are on the Moor very plenty. A hard winter's in store."
"Each be harder than the last nowadays," she answered. "And thank you, I'm sure. A plover's pretty eating, but too good for the likes of us."
"Don't you say that. You'm like me--take yourself too humble; but 'tis a mistake. People in the world always pull us a peg lower than our own conceit of ourselves. So we should screw up a peg higher--to be ready for 'em. How's Margaret? You'll never hear no two opinions about her--such an angel as she be."
"Yes," admitted Constance; "and I'm much feared that she's got more in common with the angels than us could wish. 'Tis coming over me worse and worse; and over her, too, poor lamb."
"What ever do you mean?" he asked. Then he walked to the fire, removed his right gaiter and rubbed his huge leg where the strap had pressed too hardly upon it.
"My Madge is not like every girl you meet," said Mrs. Stanbury.
"Wish there was more of the same pattern."
"And I'm terrible jealous for her--I'll fight the world for her, like a hen with one chick; because her vartues are her own, and her faults she got from me."
"Faults!--who ever heard tell of her faults?"
"I take no credit in her beautiful goodness," continued the mother. "But I take shame in her softness. Too soft and gentle and yielding she is for this world, and the people in it. And, as her parent, I'm savage--savage as a wild cat, down in my secret heart--when I see people don't understand. 'Tis me they ought to blame, not she."
Mr. Shillabeer stared. His fingers were spread and a saucer of tea smoked upon them.
"You do amaze me; but I'll make bold to say you'm all wrong for once. 'Tis her softness that people take joy in. Always wanting to do for others--always putting herself on one side."
"A few may see her goodness," admitted Mrs. Stanbury; "but what's the use of that if them nearest to her can't see? Her own husband haven't got no patience with her now and again; and, mind you, I don't blame him--such a common-sense, hard man as him. And Rhoda the same. 'Tis their natures to take a practical stand."
"Don't be downcast," urged the publican. "Drink a dish of your own tea and look on the bright side. 'Tis rather odd I should say that, seeing I've never been known to look on the bright side myself since my wife died. David's a very good chap, and nobody thinks higher of him than me; but he's just an everyday man--wise and businesslike and honest. There's nought in him would make Margaret a beautifuller character than she is. Us don't want for her to be hard and business-like, I'm sure."
"'Tis what her husband wants is the thing, not what we want," explained Mrs. Stanbury.
"If he wants finer than she, he wants better bread than is made with wheat," declared the old prize-fighter; "and if he can't see the shining vartue and wonder of that woman's heart, he must be blind as well as busy."
"All very well; but Margaret's to blame too," declared the other.
"Never--nowhere. 'Tis always your way to give everybody best but your own."
"To say 'blame' is too strong a word, perhaps; but you must think how 'tis from her husband's point of view. No children. Oh, Shillabeer, 'tis a dreadful thing! Just that might have made all right, and just that won't happen. Nought worse could have fallen out--nought worse than that. A very terrible misfortune every way. To Ditsworthy I know they take an awful serious view of it. Naturally they would do so. And when I see that mother of a quiverful coming, I wish I could sink into the earth! Her eye brims over with reproaches, though never a word she says."
"This is all silly nonsense you'm talking," declared Mr. Shillabeer, strapping up his gaiter again. "Never did I hear such foolishness. Good Lord, han't there enough childer in the world? Take comfort, I beg of you."
Bartholomew Stanbury entered at this moment and was glad to see the publican.
"Heard your fowling-piece banging away up over," he said, "and hoped as you might perhaps drop in 'pon the road back. Well, here's Christmas again, and like to be a soft one after all. The weather's changing."
"A busy Christmas in the village," said Reuben; "but nothing out of the common offering to happen, I believe."
"Don't you be too sure of that, 'Dumpling.' What would you say to another fight?"
"No, no, Stanbury. No more fighting. You mean your son Bart and that chap Mattacott. They be galled against each other without a doubt, along of a she; but fight--no. Mattacott's ten year older than your boy. Bart couldn't hit a man whose hair be turning grey."
"That's what I said. Still, they long to be at each other."
"They'll have to settle their difference some other way. No more fighting if I can prevent it. You mustn't suppose I'm what I was--far from it. I look at life quite different now. All's vanity, as the Preacher saith. I may give up 'The Corner House' afore the world's much older, neighbour."
"Good Lord! what's come to you?" exclaimed the farmer.
"What come to Bendigo," said Mr. Shillabeer solemnly. "I've had the Light, Stanbury. Make no mistake: when the Light does come it shows up everything in a manner very different to what we've seen it before."
"Well," said Bartholomew, "don't let it turn you out of 'The Corner House.' Beer have got to be sold, and there's nothing in the Law and the Prophets against keeping an inn and giving good money's worth, same as you've always been famed to do."
But Shillabeer doubted. Having drunk another cup of tea, he rose, wished the Stanburys a Merry Christmas in a mournful voice, and disappeared. Constance shook her head when he was gone and declared that a great change began to creep over the old man.
"Mark me, he's breaking up," she said. "He's casting away all his old opinions and growing more and more religious-minded and low-spirited. Nought would surprise me. I've seen it happen before. He'll be a teetotaller yet, and then he'll go melancholy mad so like as not."
Her husband protested.
"Such a one you are for looking on the cloudy side! There's too much good sense in the man for any such thing as teetotalism to overtake him. A moderate drinker always, and won't serve anybody beyond the twinkling eye stage. Why, he've made bitter enemies by withholding liquor where any other man wouldn't have thought twice about it. Where's Margaret to? She was coming over, wasn't she?"
"Yes," said his wife. "But 'tis nearly dark. She'll have changed her mind or been hindered."
Half an hour later Bart arrived, and he was able to explain his sister's absence.
"She's took ill," he said. "I met Rhoda back by Lowery. Madge have a cold on the chest--nought to name, but enough to keep her in against this fog. I'm feared they won't be able to go up to Ditsworthy for Christmas now, unless she mends very quick."
At his first word Mrs. Stanbury began to be busy. Under the lofty mantelshelf before the fire there hung a row of little linen bags, and in them were various simples culled through vanished spring and summer. They contained elder-flowers, marjoram, thyme, sorrel, and calamint. She selected ingredients and took them to the table.
"Us must see to this afore she gets worse," declared Constance; and soon she was preparing a decoction of herbs.
Her son had further news.
"They'm saying to Sheepstor that Bartley Crocker's off," he announced with his mouth full.
"Off where?" asked Mr. Stanbury.
"To foreign parts. 'Twas always thought he might go when his mother died. They do say he's cruel sweet on Rhoda Bowden, but I don't think she's of the same mind."
"I've heard Madge say that she would much like it to fall out," declared Mrs. Stanbury; "but, for my part, Rhoda don't look to be seeking a husband. She's different to her kind, and I don't see her either wife or mother."
Bart was reminded of another maiden and he sighed, put his hand to his chin, and looked into vacancy with a very lack-lustre expression.
"Shillabeer was here afore you comed home," said his father; "and he says you'm too young to stand up to Mattacott. You'd kill the man."
"I may yet," declared Bart gloomily. "Anyway I can't wait like this much longer. No more can he. She won't say which 'tis to be, and the strain of mind is getting a bit too sharp. Something's got to go scat afore long--either him or me--or her."
"She ought to decide, no doubt," admitted his mother. "But I hope you ban't hopeful, Bart, for I'm not. T'other's better off than you and wiser; and Jane West has found it out, of course."
"He may be wiser, or he may not be," answered Bart. "Anyway I'm too wise to wait till Doomsday; and so I've told her; and she's going to decide afore the New Year."
"She'll take Timothy Mattacott," repeated his mother. "Stanburys ban't no good at competing with other people. No more was my family--they always went under; and now they've gone under altogether, for I'm the last of 'em."
CHAPTER III
THE VOICE FROM THE POOL
Mr. Billy Screech found himself more than usually busy on the eve of Christmas Day; but when three o'clock came he abandoned his work and set off into the Moor. A dismal enterprise lay before him, and bad weather made the prospect worse; but he had promised, and failure to keep his promise would upset others and lessen Billy's credit. Therefore he went, and presently, ascending above Kingsett Farm, reached Crazywell where it stared up out of the waste, like a blind eye in a black socket. Silence and desolation haunted the pool. It seemed an hour indeed when secret spirits might wake from sleep, rise, strike the leaden face of the waters, and bring terror to mankind. A heavy and hushed trance held the pool. But little wind blew; no cloud stirred in the grey vault of heaven; but beneath at earth level, fog crept leisurely along in streaks and hung motionless in patches. Even Billy--hardened unbeliever though he was--felt some slight uneasiness as he sank down into the hollow cup of Crazywell. The threatening mist made him both glad and fearful. It would certainly help the dramatic force of the thing to be done; but it might also increase in density and cause him to lose his way home. He turned up his coat collar, found a clump of furze near the water's brink, and settled there. All had fallen out as Mr. Screech desired, and presently Jane West and Bart Stanbury would pass that way on the road to Princetown for some Christmas shopping. Only one fear existed in the watcher's mind. If the mists increased in density, Bart might hesitate to take his sweetheart this way, but prefer to tramp round by road.
Billy had hidden himself beneath the principal footpath near the pool, and he knew that the travellers must pass by him. It was certain that he would not be called upon to wait long. He practised to himself once or twice, and as he had suffered from a cold in his throat for some days, the voice of Mr. Screech promised to be sufficiently sepulchral.
But the day grew more dark and more still. A lifeless, listless gloom haunted the spot, a blank despondency that reached even Billy's nerves, dashed his spirit, and made him long heartily to be away. Then came the crawling tentacles of the fog, and they stole over the brim of Crazywell and thrust here and there, like some blind, live creature feeling for food. They poured down into the hollow presently and crept over the water at the bottom. Half an hour passed and the vapour increased in density. It hung drops of moisture on the thorns of the furze and spread a glimmering dew over Billy's hairy face and ragged eyebrows; it struck cold; it entered his sore throat and promised to silence his voice altogether.
"If they ban't here pretty spry, I shan't be able to croak no louder than a frog," thought Mr. Screech.
He determined to give Bart and Jane fifteen minutes more. If they had not passed by during that time, he would leave the pool. It seemed pretty certain that the plot had failed. Billy had no watch, but he began to count slowly up to sixty, and each of these instalments represented one minute. The gloom increased, and unconsciously he hastened his counting. And then he heard voices and knew that the man and woman were passing, high above him in the fog. They shuffled slowly along and both spoke, but the plotter could not hear their words. He was quite safe from possibility of observation and so rose and descended to the sandy shore of the pool. Then he lifted up his voice and astonished himself, for his words rose and reverberated in the fog with a strange resonance, quite proper to the supernatural creature that might be supposed to live in Crazywell.
"Bartholomew Stanbury! Bartholomew Stanbury!" he cried.
Then he heard a woman's thin shriek up aloft in the grey mist; and a man's voice answered:
"By God! who's down theer?"
But Billy made no reply to the question. He hastened to the further side of the pit and crawled up on to the Moor; then he ran for a couple of hundred yards, struck the Kingsett road and so got home, by Lether Tor Bridge, as swiftly as possible.
Meantime a woman had fainted above Crazywell and a man was stirring himself wildly to restore her. It was neither Bart Stanbury nor Jane West who had been shocked at the message from the pool, but Bart's mother and father. The young couple were far away, tramping in close communion along the highroad; but Constance and her husband had been to see sick Madge and take her and David their Christmas gift and good wishes. They were returning from Meavy Cot, and it was upon their ears--where they moved slowly-fog-foundered above Crazywell--that this mournful doom had fallen from invisible lips beneath.
Mrs. Stanbury sank before the shock. She had just time to make her husband understand that it was the spirit of Crazywell who thus addressed them, before she lost consciousness. Bartholomew, too concerned for her to trouble about his own fate, gathered moisture from the heath, wetted her forehead and loosened her gown. But it was long before she recovered. She sat and shivered for half an hour upon a stone, and only by slow stages and with much assistance was able to reach her home.
It had grown dark before man and wife returned to Coombeshead and Bartholomew got his partner to bed. She had suffered a terrific nerve shock and was incoherent until a late hour. Then she became intelligent, and her native pessimism thus fortified, broke loose in the small hours of Christmas morning.
"Never out of my sight shall you go--God's my judge! You mustn't seek to do it, Bartholomew. Your time's drawn down to within twelve month, and us must spend it hand-in-hand to the end. Oh, that awful voice! And for me to hear the name--me of all people! God A'mighty never did a crueller thing; and if I'd knowed we was going back along by the pool, I'd rather have walked the soles out of my boots and the flesh off my feet than do it. Your name of all names, and it might have been any other man's. But you are chosen. If they'd only take me--not that I can bide after you, Bartholomew. Mark me, I shall be after you long afore you know your way about in the next world."
Mr. Stanbury, albeit a man without superstition, had also suffered not a little under the tragedy of the day. He had always laughed at the pool until now; but this was not a laughing matter. He could trust his ears and it was impossible to deny that a very extraordinary voice, hardly to be called human, had shouted his name up through the mist from Crazywell. It struck him also that the words actually ascended from the face of the water.
"Things look a bit black," he admitted, "and I'm powerful sorry I've scoffed at thicky water; but I ban't gwaine to throw up the sponge yet, my old dear, and no more must you. If 'tis the Powers of Darkness live in the pool, then we must call in the Powers of Light to fight against 'em. God in Heaven's the only Party who knows when I be going to be took off, and 'tis a gert question in my mind whether He'd let it out to this here queer thing that lives in Crazywell--like a toad in a tree-stump. What do you say, Bart?"
Their son had returned and was in great trouble at this evil news.
"I say that I'd better tell Jane not to come here for her Christmas dinner," he answered. "Mother won't be up for any high jinks to-morrow. She won't even be good for getting over to worship. She's white as a dog's tooth still. Why, there ban't hardly a spark of nature left in her. And as for the voice, I've no patience with such things. I'd have gone down and pulled the spirit's damned nose if I'd been there, same as I would any other man's. I don't believe a word of it, and faither's right: God A'mighty wouldn't let no vagabond ghosts poke about on Christmas Eve of all times--just afore the birthday of the Lord--to frighten God-fearing, respectable people with their nonsense. If 'tis a spirit, 'tis a bad one; and I wouldn't care no more for a bad tankerabogus than I would for a bad man.
"If us can get to church in the morn, I'll ax parson Merle afterwards," said Mr. Stanbury. "For my part, I won't pretend I like it; but all the same, I've got a right to make a fight for it; and if parson be of your view, Bart, that I oughtn't to care a button about it, then I won't care."
"What's the use of telling like that?" asked Mrs. Stanbury fretfully. "How be twenty parsons going to overrule a voice like what we heard a bit ago? Oh, my God! my flesh creams to the bones when I call back them awful sounds."
"'Twas more like a parrot than a human," said Bartholomew.
"And there'll be some such way to explain it," declared the son. "I'll wager that Mr. Merle will laugh the whole story to scorn."
"How's that going to mend it, even if he do?" asked Constance. "Time enough to laugh when next year be dead and your father's still living. But it can't be. He's got to leave us and I want for to know what becomes of me then?"
She relapsed into a condition of hysterical emotion, and her husband sat up with her all night.
In the morning Bart went for the doctor and also explained to Jane West that the hoped-for meeting at dinner could not take place.
A medical man reached the fastness of Coombeshead before midday and found Mrs. Stanbury suffering from shock. He was interested and sympathetic. He drove Bart home to his surgery six miles off, and, at evening, Constance took her physic and soon slept in peace.
Bart and his father were in the habit henceforth of regarding that occasion as the most mournful Christmas Day within their memories; and when the adventure began to be known a little later, their friends deeply sympathised with them and were divided in their opinions. Some secretly hoped that the solemn tradition of the pool would be upheld, and felt that it would be better for Mr. Stanbury to pass away than that the great mystery and glory of Crazywell should vanish. Others flouted the spirit and agreed with Bart that no sane person should take this meddlesome hobgoblin seriously.
Elsewhere Christmas Day brought other discomforts. Mr. Screech and his wife and children spent the anniversary at Ditsworthy; but they went reluctantly as a substitute for David and Rhoda. This spoilt the pleasure of Dorcas, and both she and her husband were glad to be home again. They criticised everybody at the Warren House in an unfriendly spirit, and Dorcas could find nothing genial to say even of her own mother. Indeed, none of her own had ever been forgiven for their initial adverse attitude in the matter of Billy. With her father alone could Mrs. Screech be said to remain on good terms.
And while the Screech family were able to go to Ditsworthy, owing to the enforced absence of David and his household, Christmas passed pleasantly at Meavy Cot. Margaret did not know of her mother's misfortune, and as her own health now mended again, she much enjoyed the day. Moreover, there came a visitor, for David invited the lonely Bartley to share the feast, and Mr. Crocker, after hesitating between his duty to his Aunt Susan Saunders and his duty to himself, finally felt the opportunity of seeing Rhoda must be taken, in justice to his own future plans and ambitions. He went, therefore, and added to Margaret's pleasure, but failed to advance his personal cause.
The dinner was a great success, and Hartley, quite unconscious that every jest he made was damaging his most cherished hope, excelled himself in merriment, and kept David and Madge in much laughter. Rhoda's amusement, however, was at the best but frosty. She could not forget the past, and when she looked at Mr. Crocker she did not see an unstable, good-natured, and kindly spirit, mentally incapable of sustained sorrow, but a man whose mother had but lately died, and who found it possible to laugh and utter futile jests before the grass was grown upon her grave. She allowed for no extenuating circumstances; she forgot that Nannie Crocker's end was a release for which to be thankful. She only saw an orphaned son playing the fool; and that he could do so now, to the accompaniment of a good dinner, did not surprise her; for had he not done the same upon the day after his mother's death? She remembered what she had seen upon the island above Nosworthy Bridge; and she hardened her heart against Bartley and his humour. Rhoda had been influenced in other directions also by that unfortunate incident. To explain Margaret's share in it with credit to Margaret was impossible. Her brother's wife must have known that Mrs. Crocker had just died; indeed, the man had doubtless gone to tell her so. And Madge's apparent reply was to conduct herself like a silly and irresponsible child. Such an action frankly disgusted Rhoda, and she was deeply offended and shocked at it. The emotion waxed with time and even made her uneasy. She believed that with no man living, other than her husband, might a woman permit herself such pleasantries. The past looked more and more unseemly in Rhoda's eyes. It lessened her respect for Margaret, and unconsciously she showed it. Yet when Margaret, whose sensitive nature was lightning-quick to mark such a change of attitude, asked her sister-in-law how she had offended, Rhoda could not bring herself to speak. She evaded the question, but made some general allusions, hoping thereby to remind Madge of her recent folly. She failed, however, for David's wife did not see the application of a theory of man's lightness to herself or to Mr. Crocker.
And now, at this inauspicious hour, and fired thereto by a successful dinner and an excellent opportunity, the lover offered himself again. Chance so to do was deliberately made by Madge. She planned with David to leave her sister-in-law and the visitor, and, before Rhoda could avoid the trap, Bartley and she were alone together in the parlour.
"Keep Bartley in good spirits till I come back, Rhoda," said Margaret suddenly; "I must take my medicine, else doctor will be vexed when he calls again."
She hurried off, and as David had already gone out, man and maid found themselves alone.
Rhoda frowned; Bartley pulled himself together and wished he had taken half-a-pint less of the bottled porter.
Each in secret heart was planning speech, and Rhoda, not guessing that he had ever again thought of her as a wife, after her definite reply to his proposal, wondered now if she might reprove Mr. Crocker himself for his folly on the island. Her object was not the welfare of the man. She was thinking a little for Margaret and a great deal for David. She knew surely what David must have said had he crossed the bridge when she did. But to speak to David about it appeared impossible, for he brooked no criticism of Margaret even from her; and to approach Madge seemed equally out of the question in Rhoda's view. But here was an opportunity to speak directly to the offender himself; for it could not but be that Bartley had led Margaret into the lapse of self-respect with the sandwiches.
Rhoda's mind swiftly traced this path, and she was preparing to speak when her companion began to talk. His conversation related to a very different matter, and for some time the woman found little opportunity.
Mr. Crocker had picked up a photograph album and was gazing at the picture of the Bowden family taken at Tavistock in their full and imposing completeness before David's marriage.
"My word!" he said, "that's a proper piece of work sure enough. Let's see--father and mother--boys of all sizes, your married sister, you and David, and Dorcas and Joshua. I hope you've made it up with Dorcas, Miss Rhoda?"
She flushed.
"You'll do well to mind your own business," she said.
He shut the book and put it on the table. It rested upon a red and yellow wool mat, and he was careful to place it exactly in the middle.
"You're right," he answered. "When aren't you right? I oughtn't to have said that. It's not my place to dictate to you--quite the reverse. I'm sorry."
She did not reply and he spoke again.
"But my own business is different. I can mind that, and it's time I thought a bit more about it. Not that 'tis ever out of my thoughts really; yet life comes between a man and his deepest desires sometimes, and life--and death--has stood between me and the first business of my life lately."
"Has it?" she said in an indifferent voice.
"You know it has, Rhoda. You know what I've been through. You came to the graveside of my dear mother at my express wish--"
"'Twas at your aunt's wish--not yours."
"Anyway you came, and not being blind, you must have known what putting her into the ground meant to me."
She stared at him coldly, but did not speak. The grief that Bartley had displayed above his mother's coffin when it sank to earth was real enough. He had mourned her then from his heart. But while Rhoda watched the man weep on that mournful occasion, there had filled her mind, not sympathy at his present real grief, but sheer amazement at his past equally real levity. It was quite beyond her mental endowment to understand how the same man could laugh on the day after his mother's death, and weep at the ceremony of her interment.
Her thoughts now hardened her heart. She guessed that he was about to be personal and prepared to waste no consideration upon him.
"You'll be gone out of England soon, I suppose. What's Miss Saunders going to do?"
"Lord knows. My Aunt Susan's been rather difficult since mother died. She wants to go to Canada with me; but--well, my mind's set on somebody else."
"You'll never find anybody to care for you like she will."
"Shan't I? That's bad news," he said. "And, what's more, I'll make so bold as to question it. Why should I waste time and beat about the bush? Look back a bit--to that day on the leat path, Rhoda. Well, a lot's happened since then; but nothing has happened to my great love of you except it's grown stronger and stronger. And you, Rhoda? Don't say that you never thought of it again. Perhaps you blame me for holding off so long; but you see how I was placed. Couldn't go on with it and mother fading out day by day."
In the light of her knowledge she believed that this statement was untrue. At best the hypocrisy of it offended her. The man who played with Madge on the island was surely not the man to let his mother's last illness interfere with love-making.
But she did not comment upon this side of the question. She did not comment at all, but waited for him to make an end.
"And now, though you might think I was too near her still, yet I know it isn't so. And I ask you to remember what I said before, and answer me different. You're more to me than all the rest of the world put together, and I'm sure that I could make you a happy woman. I've watched you, like a cat watches a mouse, these many months. I've followed your ways and learned your fancies. David's self don't know so much about you as I do--all I know of your beautiful, brave nature and likes and dislikes--down to the walks by night with nought but the moonbeams and your own thoughts for company. And you--can't you feel a bit too, and picture your life along with me away over the water? Can't you see yourself mistress of such a place as you've heard me tell about to David? Can't you let me love you and make you my dear wife, Rhoda? For God's sake think about it, and don't say 'no' again. I'll wait your pleasure; I'll not hurry you. Take a year to say 'good-bye' to Dartmoor if you like; or stop on Dartmoor if you like; and I'll gladly stop too, if you say the word; but oh, Rhoda Bowden, do marry me and find what it is to have a husband who worships your shadow!"
He stood over her as he spoke, while she sat motionless and looked out of the window. Now she saw David returning and was glad. But her quick ears heard Margaret stop him outside, and husband and wife went into the kitchen together.
"Say 'yes' and have done with it," begged Bartley.
She was thinking, but not of him. It occurred to her that Margaret had planned the entire incident. Her thoughts retraced many past events, and she wondered how much more Margaret might have planned. Then she asked herself the reason.
Her sustained silence made the lover speak again; but she was so interested in side views of the situation that the central fact seemed unimportant. To him, however, nothing else mattered; and her answer to one who had just asked her to marry him, struck the man as extraordinary.
"Don't be dumb, unless silence is to give consent," he said; then she came to herself, looked at him blankly, and shook her head.
"Good God! Is that all your answer?" he asked.
"That's all," she replied.
"Why--why--why? What's between us? I'm frank to you; be frank with me, Rhoda. It's now or never. Say everything in your mind to say. Leave nothing unsaid. What is it between us? What's the bar? Can it be got over or broken down? Where do I fail? Can I mend it? Can I change anything--every thing to please you better? Don't fear to hurt me. Anything is better than refusal."
"You're too light-minded," she said. "And, even if you wasn't, I shouldn't care about you. You're not the sort of man that I like."
"What sort do you like then? Tell me, and I'll try to be that sort."
She did not answer the question, but reproved him for the past. It occurred to her again that by protesting now against the incident on the island she might prevent any such folly in the future. She was only considering David--not Margaret, and not the man before her.
"Too light-minded," she repeated, "and I'll tell you for why I say it. On the day after your mother died, you met my sister-in-law and it chanced that I saw you together. She don't know it and needn't. But you'd better know. The man who could play child's tricks at such a time wouldn't be trusted by any woman, I should think."
He wrinkled his forehead and endeavoured to remember.
"Whatever did you see that shocked you so much?"
She told him and he shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm afraid I can't expect to make you understand that. Perhaps no woman that ever I met but Madge would understand it. Don't let that come between us. Be just. Moods and whims and silliness after a long cruel strain may happen to men as well as women."
"Well, I despise the men, or women either, who could sink to such things."
"You were at my mother's funeral. You know if I felt her loss or not."
"Things are as they are," she answered calmly. "'Tis no good us telling any more. My brother and his wife want to come in the parlour, and we're keeping 'em out."
Bartley rose.
"I'll be off then. And mark this: you'll have to listen to me once more yet before I go. No man worth the name would take 'no' for an answer under thrice."
"Better save your time. You'll never make me feel different to you. We're not built to look alike or feel alike at any point. The sooner you know that the better."
"Bid 'em good-bye for me and try to think different."
He offered his hand and she took it.
"I'll never think different so long as I can think at all," she said.
He departed, and Margaret and David saw him go and knew that he had failed.
Madge sighed for him; her husband showed no emotion.
"Come what may come, 'twill be best," he declared. "Rhoda knows her own mind; and that's more than half the maidens do nowadays."
They returned to her and found her sweeping the hearth.
"Mr. Crocker have gone," she said. "I was to bid you good-bye from him."
Elsewhere the baffled suitor tramped through Dartmoor under conditions of setting sunlight and approaching darkness. Strong winds had scattered the fog of the preceding evening and now a gale shouted along the heath and drove the clouds before it. Flashes of light broke through the west and, like golden birds, floated upward over the dark bosoms of the hills. They reached the ragged summits of the land, revealed the granite there, then seemed to take wing into the sky.
CHAPTER IV
POINTS OF VIEW
The folk were coming to church, and some walked by road; some drove from distant hamlets; some tramped by sheep-tracks and rough pathways over wide spaces of heath and stone. Down through outlying farms that stretch tentative fields into the Moor; down past gorse-clad banks and great avenues of beeches; down past Kit Tin Mine--busy then, but empty and silent now; down into the valley bottom, drawn by the thin bell music from the tower above the trees, came the family of the Bowdens. It was smaller than of old. But the boys were growing; Napoleon and Wellington had become responsible persons in the scheme of life at Ditsworthy, and even the twins could be trusted to work without a ruling eye upon them. Mr. Bowden and his wife came to pray upon this early summer noon. Of women there were only two left at Ditsworthy; therefore Sarah and her daughter Sophia had to take Sunday at church alternately; and to-day the widow stopped at home to cook the dinner. With the Bowdens came other of the people. Susan Saunders appeared beside her nephew; but he saw her to the entrance only; there he stopped and talked with a knot of men. Among them was David Bowden. He, however, stayed not long outside and soon joined his family and Rhoda. She was already seated between Joshua and her father in the Bowden pew. Charles Moses was finding seats for chance visitors; Reuben Shillabeer, who never missed Sunday service, sat in his corner, having just handed four collecting dishes to those who would presently carry them through the congregation. He was a sidesman now, and Mr. Merle held the old prize-fighter in high esteem as a valuable example to the young men.
Mr. Screech arrived with his elder child. Mattacott met him and they talked apart. Their conversation concerned Timothy himself. Jane West had ceased to smile on Mattacott since the winter; yet there was no report of any engagement between her and Bart Stanbury. The appearance of Timothy's rival cut this conversation short. He came with his father and mother. The men entered and Mrs. Stanbury spoke to Mr. Crocker.
"Be Margaret gone in?" she asked.
"No," he said. "She's home to-day. David and Rhoda are here. Madge hasn't come."
Mrs. Stanbury sighed with dismay.
"There! And I want particular for to see her. Now whatever shall I do?"
"Come and see her," suggested Bartley. "I'll be very pleased to walk along with you. I'm not going in. The weather's too fine to miss two hours of it, and I shan't taste another English June for many a long day--perhaps never."
Constance considered, and then, the matter being of some urgency, consented.
"I'll just go into the church and tell master I'm stepping over to see Margaret. And I shall have to get my dinner there. Everything's locked up at Coombeshead till evening. We was all going to take our meat along with Mr. Moses to-day; but my men can do so, and I'll ask Madge for a bit."
So it fell out, and Hartley, quite to his satisfaction, escorted Mrs. Stanbury to 'Meavy Cot.'
First he chattered about his own hopes and disappointments; then he interested himself in his companion's affairs.
"Yes, I must be gone. No good staying here in sight of that girl--only makes me savage and good for nothing."
"A pity she won't take you; but she'll never take anybody. She's cut out for the single state," declared Constance.
"How can you say that? Was ever a finer woman seen in Sheepstor?"
"Womanhood's a matter of heart, not body, my dear. To the eye she's female, to the mind she's male--that, or neither one nor t'other. I know all about her through my daughter. Not that I don't wish with all my heart you could have her, and take her long ways off. Not a word of unkindness do I mean; but 'twould be better every way, and better for Madge if she lived somewhere else."
"Yes--I understand that," he said. "David never can be everything to Madge while he thinks such a deuce of a lot of Rhoda. They're all good friends, however."
"Good friends enough. But 'tisn't the home it might be. You don't see, and strangers don't see; but I see, because my mother's eyes can't be blinded."
"I see too--I know very well what you mean."
"If you do, then say nought," she answered; "for 'tisn't for you--nor me neither--to stand between a man and his wife. D'you know what Madge said to me last week? I grant she was down when she said it; but she's down too often now. She said, 'Life was sunshine with only a little cloud three year agone; now it's cloud with only a little sunshine, mother.' Not a very nice thing for me to hear. But it didn't astonish me. We're an unlucky race, I must tell you. Whether luck comes through the blood, or through some dark powers outside us, I don't know yet; 'tis a very real thing, and some has it from the cradle and some never gets a pinch of it. Stanburys don't."
But Crocker was thinking of Margaret Bowden.
"I'm terrible sorry to hear you tell this about her. She keeps such a stiff upper lip before the world and looks out with such cheerful eyes, that I never guessed 'twas quite as bad. Yet now you say it, I mind the signs."
"Keep out of it, however, and go away. You can't do no good if Rhoda won't have you."
"Don't be sure of that. I was a lot of use once. I might again."
Mrs. Stanbury was mildly surprised.
"Seeing David's good sense and patience, I won't say 'tis impossible to do anything. But David be David, and even if he had the will to alter, how can he do it, more'n the leopard his spots? There's nothing you can put your hand upon and say 'there's the evil'; and yet 'tis clear enough. They've drifted apart through having no family. 'Tis all said in that word."
Mr. Crocker sighed and felt a moment of real sorrow.
"If she'd married me," he said, "'twould have saved us both a lot of bother."
The other did not answer and they proceeded some distance silently.
Then he turned the conversation to Mrs. Stanbury herself.
"This is telling on you too. You're not all you might be, I'm sure. I wish it was in my power to do you a good turn."
"Like you to say it. Many have to thank you for a good turn. But 'tis outside human strength to help me. I've run against the Powers of Darkness; I've heard Crazywell tell how my husband is to go inside the year."
"Does he believe it?"
"I don't know. He won't talk about it. He's very careful of hisself, and he gets a bit short if I run on about it; so we've agreed to let the matter drop. All the same it's aged him, and God knows how many years it has took off my life."
Mr. Crocker was interested.
"I only heard about it from David. There may be some sort of explanation."
"How can there be? 'Tis like a thunderbolt hung over us. Bart's the only one who takes no account of it."
"It might be him just so likely as his father," said the man. "Why are you so positive 'twas your husband the voice meant? They're both called 'Bartholomew.'"
Mrs. Stanbury stood still, stared at him, and then sank down suddenly in the hedge.
"But--but that can't surely be? The one's 'Bart' always," she gasped out.
"To other people; but if this was some magic thing from another world, you couldn't expect it to care about nicknames."
"Oh, my God! where do we all stand now?" cried out Mrs. Stanbury. "Nobody ever thought of that afore!"
"One person did, if not others; and that person's Jane West," he answered. "I saw her a bit ago and asked her--out of kindness to Bart--why she held off and didn't take him. I know only too well what 'tis to be hanging about with your heart telling you not to take 'no' for an answer and your head telling you that you're a fool. And Jane said that, so far as it went, she'd decided between Mattacott and Stanbury. 'But,' she said, 'though I'm addicted to Bart and like him very well, 'tis no use taking the man if he'm going to die afore next Christmas.' 'Twas only by the merest chance she and Bart didn't hear the voice themselves, for they went up to Princetown shopping that very afternoon, and nothing but the fog made 'em go round by road."
But Mrs. Stanbury heard none of these words. She had never connected this catastrophe with her son; neither had Bart himself done so. Jane West, however, inspired thereto by Mr. Mattacott, perceived the real significance of the situation, and she proposed to wait until time showed whether father or son was to fall. Now Mrs. Stanbury was herself faced with this hideous complication, and it struck her almost as harshly as the original blow had done. Her weak mind whirled; she became incoherent and spoke without sense.
"Leave it, for God's sake," urged the man. "You'll go mad at this gait. One thing be just as absurd as t'other. Some innocent fool saw your husband through the fog and shouted to him--perhaps just wished him a merry season or some such thing--and then went on his way and thought no more of it. Be sure you'll hear the truth soon or late, and you'll live to see your men as well and hearty next January as they are now."
"You mean kindly to say these things," she answered. "But 'tis vain, and you'll know it afore the year's gone."
"Well, give God Almighty a chance," he urged. "'Tis you will be dead, not them, if you go on so."
They reached 'Meavy Cot' and found Margaret. Her mother sat down, took off her bonnet and rested, while Madge stood a few minutes at the gate with Mr. Crocker before he started homeward.
"Try and cheer her up," he said. "'Tis that damned nonsense about the voice at Crazywell. She'll fret herself into her grave over it if this goes on."
They discussed the matter for a while; then Madge spoke of Bartley himself.
"Don't know what to be at," he said. "My life's stuck for the minute. I can't ask her again yet, and I'm not going till I have. Just once more. But the thing is to know what to be doing meantime--how to get a bit forwarder. How is she?"
"She's all right--silenter than ever to me, though. Sometimes I think she's judging me rather hardly and don't reckon I'm a very good wife for David."
"I'm sure that can't be. She's a long way too sensible to imagine any such nonsense."
"She may be right, all the same. I don't know what it is; I wouldn't even name it to anybody but you and mother; but sometimes I feel as if there was a door between me and David, and sometimes he tries to open it, and I'm sure I'm always trying to, but it keeps shut."
"Stuff!" he repeated. "You're such a parcel of nerves, Madge--like poor Mrs. Stanbury. You mustn't let yourself think such things. David's wrapped up heart and soul in you, and if 'tisn't his way to show all he feels, that's only to say he's a Bowden. They are built on that fashion. You must try and look at life more with his eyes. He's a rare man and I envy him his tremendous power of sticking to a thing till he's got through with it. His ideas are big, not little; I can see that, and you ought to see it. You and me are a bit too much alike there, and 'tis our luck not to be rated at our real value in consequence. But we mustn't repay in the same coin. Because David don't quite understand you, and Rhoda don't understand me, we, who are nimbler-witted than them, mustn't be cross. They may not see the truth of us and all the virtues that we've got--and we've both got a rare lot in my opinion--but we do see the truth of them, and so we must be patient with their characters."
It was a new light to the woman, and she perceived the wisdom under his jesting manner.
"If he'd only let me into his secrets!" she said.
"You must be content with mine," he answered. "David lets you into his good fortune and tells you when he's drawn a prize. But the bother and battle he keeps to himself."
"He doesn't," she answered. "I'd forgive that. But he tells Rhoda. Again and again I've known them to break off a subject when I came along--as if I was a baby."
"Try to think 'tis out of their kindness they do it."
"I have tried; but I know different. David don't believe in me--that's the bitterness of my life in a word, Hartley. He don't trust me like he trusts Rhoda."
"Then tell him so. Let him see what he's losing by keeping you out. And I believe, come to think of it, that might be good advice to myself too. With Rhoda I mean. How would it be if I took a bit of counsel with her, Madge--asked her advice, like David does, and treated her like a man instead of a girl? Would that work?"
She considered.
"It would work, no doubt, as far as her being civil went. If you asked her questions, she'd answer 'em; and if you asked her opinion she'd give it. Whether 'twould lead to anything further, I can't tell. We've drifted apart a bit of late, and I see it clear enough without seeing the reason for it. However, I daresay I'm to blame too. No doubt I don't look at life from their point of view all I might. But I wish--I wish to God she'd take you--as much for my sake as her own."
The woman's unusual bitterness impressed him.
"Follow my advice and have a good talk with David. Thresh it out and open his eyes a bit. If you see from his point of view, as you will now, then 'tis but fair he should see from yours; and if he can't see your side single-handed, then you must help him. We'll meet again afore long and I'll tell you what comes of my new idea. Perhaps we shall both be lucky!"
He left her and she returned to her mother.
Mrs. Stanbury was absorbed in the dreadful new problems raised by Bartley Crocker's theory of the voice. She explained these complications to Margaret, and her daughter strove to comfort her without success.