CHAPTER VIIEYLESBARROWMargaret Bowden not seldom visited the haunts of her youth, for many favourite places lay within a walk of her home, and she had a measure of loneliness in her life which might be filled according to her fancy. Sometimes she blamed herself that life should offer intervals for amusement or for rest. David found no such leisure from dawn until after dark; Rhoda was always busy out of doors, and even when she had nothing left to do, as happened in the evening, would often sequester herself afield under the night. But Margaret's holiday generally followed the midday meal; and after noon she often went to see her mother, or sought some holt in Dennycoombe Wood, or beside Crazywell, or among the heathery hillocks of Eylesbarrow. That great eminence upon the forest boundary was familiar and pleasant to her. She knew it well, from its tonsure of stone, piled above a grave, to its steeps and slopes and water-springs. A pool with rushes round about spread under the highest elevation and mirrored the sky; while southerly the ling grew very large, and there were deep scars and embouchures torn by torrents from the sides of the hill.Hither came Margaret to keep tryst with Bartley Crocker on a day in June. She had not seen him save for a moment since his interview with Rhoda, but meeting a week before at Sheepstor, he made a plan and she promised to join him on Eylesbarrow and hear what he had to tell her. The east wind roared over Madge where she sat snug in a little pit; but the sun was warm and found her there. From time to time she rose and lifted her head to see if Bartley was coming. Then she sat down again and fell back upon her own thoughts. She began to apprehend the mixed nature of marriage and those very various ingredients that complete the dish. As yet only one cloud hung over her united life with David. But time might reasonably be trusted to lift it. They were a happy pair, and if his stronger will lacked ready and swift sympathy on all occasions, it still served the fine purpose of controlling her sentimentality. He hurt her sometimes, but she kept the pain to herself. His sledge-hammer methods were new to her; while he could not understand her outlook, and, indeed, he made no attempt to do so. But she never argued; she always gave way and she loved him so dearly that it was easy to give way. Rhoda, too, she liked better as she knew her better. She felt sorry for Rhoda and longed to round off her life into a more complete and perfect thing. It appeared an outrage on nature that such a girl should remain unmarried. She strove to enlarge Rhoda's sexual sympathies and make her more tolerant of men. But she did not succeed. And so it gradually happened that the future of Rhoda rather obsessed the young wife's mind. She was determined to see Bartley and Rhoda man and wife if she could bring it about. She was here upon that business now. That he had spoken to Rhoda she did not yet know; but she suspected it.Again Margaret looked round about her, while the wind flapped her sunbonnet till it stung her cheeks. At hand morning and night alternately swung up over the uttermost eastern desolation that even Dartmoor offers. By Cater's Beam and the sources of Plym and Avon, the solemn, soaking undulations ranged; and they were shunned by every living thing; but to the north a mighty company of tors thrust up about the central waste; and westerly stretched the regions of her home. Far beneath lay Dennycoombe under Coombeshead, and Sheep's Tor, like a saurian, extended with a huge flat head and a serrated backbone of granite. She saw her father's fields on the hillside and knew them by their names. In their fret of varied colour under the stone-crowned hill, they looked like a patchwork coverlet dragged up to some old, gnarled chin. Men were working there and elsewhere on the land; and in the stone quarries, far off on Lether Tor, men also worked. She gazed upon the familiar places, the homesteads and the solitary homes. She busied her mind with the life histories advancing beneath these roof-trees; and here she smiled when she marked a dwelling where joy harboured for a little; here she sighed at sight of one where joy had ceased to visit: here she wondered at thought of houses where the folk hid their hearts from the world and stared heavy-eyed and dumb upon their kind. But she had an art to win secrets, and few denied her knowledge or declined her sympathy.One house chained her attention and awoke in Madge personal thoughts again. She looked at a small cottage near Lowery, far distant on the opposite side of the river. It stood under a few trees and crouched meanly a hundred yards from the highway. The roof was of turf, mended with a piece of corrugated iron kept in its place by heavy stones; the broken windows were stuffed with clouts. A few fowls pecked about the threshold, and adjoining the dwelling stood a cow-byre under the same roof with it. The front gate was rotted away and rusty pieces of an old iron bedstead had taken its place. These details were hidden from the distant watcher, but she knew them well, and in her mind's eye could see a flat-breasted, long-nosed, hungry-faced woman, with grey hair falling down her back and dirt grimed into her cheeks and hands. It was Eliza Screech, widow of a man who had blown himself to pieces with blasting powder in the adjacent quarry, and mother of William Screech, the mistrusted admirer of Madge's sister-in-law, Dorcas. This young fellow had lately brewed a sort of familiar trouble; and while she thought upon it, David's wife considered her own situation and wished that a thing presently to happen to Dorcas might happen to her instead, and so turn sorrow into rejoicing. This was the cloud on her horizon. Her mother, indeed, shared her pessimism but everybody else laughed at Margaret's concern and declared it to be ridiculous in one scarcely six months a wife.She debated on the ways of nature and the ironies of chance; then Bartley's voice was lifted, and she popped up again, and he saw her and approached."Didn't you hear me sooner?" he asked, flinging himself down near her."No, indeed. I was thinking so much about one thing and another, that I never heard you. Hope you've not been seeking for me a long time?"He did not answer but struck at once into the subject that had brought him."Well," he said, "I've started on her. I've begun and told her a few things to clear the way and get her into a better frame of mind. Pity I hadn't stopped there and left what I said to soak in a bit; but I had to go on and give the reason for saying it.""You told her then?""I did, and she took it fairly quiet. Of course she said 'twas out of the question and never, never could be. I expected that. But I'm not going to believe it, Madge. The thing is how to go on with it. I want you to tell me what to do next. You promised you would. Mustn't worry her, and at the same time mustn't let her forget I'm at her elbow--dogged and determined and fixed in my mind. I want you to be clever for me, as well you know how, and tell me what line will please her best. I shall leave talking for a bit, and then I shall offer again. My only fear is that she'll see somebody else in the meantime, and that while I'm planning and holding off and doing nought to fluster or anger her, some other pattern of fool will blunder in and shock her into saying 'yes' before she knows what she's done. You can often surprise a woman into relenting who never would relent if you went on grinding away in a cold-blooded fashion. They're obstinate themselves, but they don't admire obstinacy in us. Would you have a dash at her and keep on, or would you hold off and busy yourself in other quarters? Which would bring her to the scratch quickest? You know her; you can give me a few good hints, surely.""Do neither of these things, Bartley. She hates anything like courting, or speech about marriage. And she hates surprises of any sort. She's an old woman in the way she likes things to jog steady. If aught falls out unexpected, it flurries her. And that's the hard thing you've got afore you, if you are going on with it. Because you're all for dash and quickness and surprises, and she's all against everything of the sort.""I must keep grinding on in a cold-blooded style, then?""Ess fay, and the more cold-blooded, the better like to please her."He shrugged his shoulders."Be damned if I think I've got patience for it, Madge. I love her well enough but I can't bide like a lizard or a spider watching a fly. I lost you along of taking it too easy--yes, I did, for I swear you'd have married me if I'd offered myself a year before David came along. And now, perhaps, I'll end by losing Rhoda. There's nobody else in the field and she's got no excuse for not taking me; and that's just what will make her hard to catch. But I'm determined in reason to have her. Only I'm not built to wait till we're both grey-headed.""Let me begin to help," she said. "You bade me do nought so far, and I've done nought. Not by a word or wish have I let her guess I thought about you or about her. She don't know that I'm interested yet. And I won't let her know; but I can set to work witty and say the word in season and help the good cause on. Why not? I want to see her married just as much as I want to see you married. 'Twould mend you both--yes, you so well as her.""That wise you've grown since you took David! Though, for that matter, you was always wise enough for any two girls.""Not a bit wise--wish I was; far from that, worse luck; but sensible how things are and sensible how difficult 'tis to get two natures to fit in sometimes. I be sure as possible that you and she would make a happy couple and that you'll never regret it if she takes you, and no more will she; but the difficulty is to see where your natures be built to fit together. 'Tis like a child's puzzle: to fit you and her close.""There's not much we've got in common except love of roaming by night.""A pretty useful taste in common for lovers, I should think. But I'll find more out than that. I know a lot more about her now than once I did; and I'll tell you this: I'm not so much in secret fear of her as once I was. Yes--fearful I felt at first--so off-handed and stern and aloof she was. But now I've come to see she's terrible simple really, and not very different from other girls--except here and there. She's interested in all that falls out, and she's hopeful to-day and cast down to-morrow like anybody else. She sits of a night thinking--yes, she thinks. Lord knows what about, but 'tis a sign of a heart in her that she can pucker up her forehead thinking. Kind, mind you, too. Not partickler kind to me, or interested in me away from David--I must grant that. But kind to living things in general.""But I don't want her to be kind--to anybody but me. I want her to be grand and odd and unlike t'others. 'Tis her oddness as much as her loveliness took my fancy; but if her oddness ends in her being an old maid, that'll mean a good deal of my time wasted.""Don't think it. A rare good wife's hid in Rhoda, and, please God, you'll be the man to find it out. I'll set to work, Bartley. Don't fear I'll be clumsy. Too fond of you both for that. We'll meet again in a month, if you can wait so long--""Which I certainly can not.""In a fortnight then. Thursday's always David's morning for Tavistock; so this day fortnight we'll meet again, unless anything falls out to prevent it. And I won't be idle. But I mustn't frighten her; and she's easily frighted when men are concerned. Fellows drop in of a night often to speak to David; but nine times out of ten, if she's to home, she'll pick up her work and pop up to her chamber, or take her hat and away out of the house by the back door.""Never was such another, I believe. All the same, I'm a hopeful fashion of man. I'll win her yet, with your help.""I do trust so, Bartley."Silence fell between them, only broken by the hiss of the wind above their heads."I must get back-along now," she said at length. "How goes on Mrs. Crocker? Better, I hope?"He shook his head but did not reply."I shall come to see her again next week, if I may.""Do, and welcome, Madge. Strange how illness breaks down the pride and shows the naked truth of a man or woman. She's frightened to think of dying--her that you might have said was frightened of nothing.""And still frightened of nothing really. 'Tisn't this world that frights her, nor yet the next--only the link snapping between. There's a lot like that."He changed the subject again and followed her eyes that had roamed across the valley once more."You're looking at Screech's house," he said. "I hope this thing they tell about isn't true?""I hope not, Bartley, but I think it is.""And if it is? However, it don't become a giddy bachelor to make light of it. Only you'll hear such a devil of a lot on the other side, that perhaps before long you'll be thankful to find one here and there who can keep his nerve about it.""Yes, I shall hear enough about it--and to spare: you're right there."He laughed."I'm not one of those that can see no good in Billy Screech," he said. "Too like him myself, I reckon. All the same, I know if the right woman came along to make it worth while, I could stand to work--for her--as well as any man. You'll see some day. I can't be bothered to work for myself, Madge, but if ever I get hold of Rhoda, 'twill surprise you to find what a knack for earning money I shall show. And same with yonder hairy chap. He's clever and cunning. He'll make a very good partner, if the woman ban't too hard to please, and don't worry him with silly questions."They parted a few minutes later; but before he went Bartley Crocker shook Madge's hand very heartily as he thanked her with great earnestness for her promises."What you'll do for me I can't guess," he said; "yet well I know that what you can do you will.""Couldn't name it in words myself," she answered. "But all the same, I feel as one woman might have a bit of power over another in such a matter. I put my hope in her common sense. She don't lack for that, and, once you win her, her common sense will be a tower of strength for the both of you.""That's good to know, I'm sure; for common sense never was my strong point and never will be," he confessed."And if I've promised more than I can perform, you must forgive me," she said. "I must guard myself against your disappointment, Bartley, for it may come to that.""You'll do what you can," he answered, "for liking of me; and you'll do the best you can; and if I lose, 'twill be no blame to you; and if I win, 'twill be such a feather in your cap as few of the cleverest women can boast."CHAPTER VIIITRIUMPH OF BILLY SCREECHOn a day in early summer David Bowden met his father by appointment at Nosworthy Bridge in Meavy valley. It was not Sunday, but both wore their Sunday clothes. The fact would have led observers to suppose that a funeral or a wedding must be at hand, but it was not so. They had before them a serious and, they feared, a difficult duty. Neither knew that the other proposed to wear black; yet a sort of similar instinct led to the donning of the colour, and each felt glad, when he saw the other, that he had been of that mind."'Twill be for you to speak, father," said David; "and where I can think of words to back you up, I shall put them in. If you and me together ban't stronger than such a man as Screech, 'tis pity.""The law be weak, unfortunately," answered Elias, "else I'd never have gone near the man, but just left justice to take its course. But as it stands, so lawyer tells me, we can't make Screech marry Dorcas if he won't. The thing is to be as patient with the man as we know how, and coax him into it if possible."David nodded."It's a bad business, looked at which way you will. Rhoda's took it more to heart than all of us. She won't never speak to Dorcas or see her again.""We mustn't talk that nonsense. Nature will out, and for my part, to you, David, though to none else, I'm sorry to God now I said 'nay.' However, we'll see if we can fetch him to reason. Here's the house--a ragged, hang-dog look it hath.""And there's the man," added David.Billy Screech was digging in a patch of garden beside his cottage, but at sight of the visitors, he stuck his spade into the earth, cleaned his boots on it, drew down his shirt-sleeves, donned his coat and came forward."You'm a thought earlier than I expected," he said. "Give you a very good-morning, Mr. Bowden; and you, David."Elias took the hairy Screech's hand; David nodded, but avoided a direct salute."In your black, I see--a black business, no doubt," said Billy. "And if you'll give me a matter of minutes, I'll polish up a bit and put on mine. Perhaps you didn't know as I've got some good broadcloth for my back; but I have."He called to his mother and went upstairs. Then, while he was absent, the thin and slatternly woman known as Eliza Screech shuffled in and put chairs for the Bowdens. She stood and rubbed her hands over each other and listened to the noise her son made overhead. By certain sounds she knew how his change of attire advanced."I hope you are on our side in this matter, ma'am," began Elias, solemnly."Yes, I am, and always have been since I heard about it," she said. "I've been at him night and day till he threatened to take the wood-chopper to me. I can't say what he thinks about it, for not a word will he utter. He's always chuckling to hisself, however. 'Tis a very shameless thing to have happened, though very common. I'm sorry about it."She spoke kindly but indifferently."My girl is the same as him," declared Mr. Bowden. "'Shameless' is the only word to be used against her--a hardened giglet as keeps her own secrets and did keep 'em till they would out. And, instead of going in tears and sackcloth, she's as gay as a lark and don't care a button for our long faces. Even to church she'll come, if you can believe it. And not a word of sorrow."Mrs. Screech heard her son putting on his boots."Well, I hope that your way of saying things will catch hold on William," she answered. "He's a thoughtless man; but he was never fond of the girls till he met your Dorcas, and 'twas a very great blow to him he couldn't take her.""He must take her: that's what we've come about," declared David.Mrs. Screech shrugged her shoulders."There's room here," she said, "and though us be a little down in the world, I daresay for a pound or two we could mend up the glass and make things vitty for Dorcas. I'm very fond of her, I may tell you. Here's William coming down, so I'll go."She left them, and a moment later Mr. Screech entered transformed. He wore excellent black. He had brushed his hair and beard; he had washed his hands and put on a pair of tidy boots."Now," he said, "perhaps you'll let me know what I can do for you, Mr. Bowden. Not long since there was a thing as you might have done for me; but I got a very sour answer, if I remember right. However, you'll find me more reasonable if you come in reason.""In reason and in right I come, William Screech. And well you know why for I'm here," said the master of Ditsworthy. "You've seduced my daughter Dorcas, and you cannot deny it.""Yes, I can," answered Mr. Screech. "I can deny it and I can take my Bible oath of it. I never seduced her, and I never even offered to. I'll swear she never told you that I seduced her.""She'll tell me nought.""Then why d'you charge it against me?""Don't fiddle with words," broke in David. "The question be simple, and the answer be 'yes' or 'no.' Do you deny that you are the father of the child she'm going to bear?""Certainly not. I am the parent; and a very proud man I shall be on the day.""Then why d'you say you didn't seduce her?" cried David.Mr. Screech looked at him in a pitying and highly superior manner."Better let your father talk," he said. "You childless men be rather narrow in your opinions. He's more sensible and more patient. Because a maiden changes her state and starts out to bud, it don't follow nobody's seduced her. If anybody was seduced, 'tis me, standing here afore you."He grinned genially at the humour of the situation. David uttered an inarticulate sound of anger; Mr. Bowden settled himself in his chair."Explain yourself, William," he said."Well, I will. Perhaps you may remember when you forbade the match, that your daughter was a bit savage about it.""She was. I allowed for that.""You didn't allow enough. You didn't know what a clever girl Dorcas was; and you didn't know how well she understood me. None ever understood me like her. I was merely a sort of a mongrel man--good for nought--in your opinion. You didn't know how witty I could be if I chose; or what a lot of brains there was in my head. But she knowed and she trusted me. Pluck! Talk about this here prizefighter's pluck and your Rhoda's pluck--Good Lord! there's more valour in Dorcas than the whole pack of you! She's a marvel, she is. This be her work, master, not mine. After her big sister catched her with me and boxed her ears, she soon knowed what to do. And she done it; and I was very pleased to help. And here we are."Mr. Bowden gasped."Do you mean to say a daughter of mine axed you to get her in the family way?" he asked."That's the English of it," answered Mr. Screech. "There was nothing else she could do. 'Anything to oblige you, Dorcas,' I said, and my bosom swelled with rejoicing to think the maiden I loved best in the world could trust me like that. ''Twill larn my father and that self-righteous David and Rhoda to mind their own business in future,' said Dorcas to me; and I'm sure I hope it will. You must all try to be sensibler without a doubt."David felt an inclination to crush and smite the hairy and insolent Screech; but nothing could be gained by such an act."And how do we stand now, please?" inquired Mr. Bowden, very humbly."In a very awkward fix, of course," answered Billy. "Here's my dear Dorcas going to have a babby, and me wrapped up in her, and my mother cruel fond of her, and her own people all shocked out of their skins at her; and yet I ban't allowed to make an honest woman of her; because you've sworn afore witnesses that you'd sooner see her dead than Mrs. William Screech. It do seem a pity; but of course we all know the man you are--never known to call back an opinion. Dorcas and me be halves of a flail--one nought without t'other; but you've spoken. I shall be very pleased to help with the child, however; and I hope you'll bring it up well to the Warren House."This was too much for David."If you give us any more of your cheek, I'll smash you where you sit," he said.Billy shrugged his shoulders."Where's the cheek? What a silly man you are! Ax your father if I've said a syllable more than the truth. I'm only sorry about it. Of course the likes of me, with my skilled inventions and general cleverness, ban't worthy to be your brother-in-law--you with your great ideas and your five hundred pounds--left to you by somebody else. But, maybe, your father may feel different. A father can understand a father. 'Tis for him to speak now, not you, and say what he thinks had better be done about his child--and mine.""There's only one thing to be done, and that afore the month is out," said Mr. Bowden. "And you know what, for all your sly jokes, Billy. The pair of you have bested me. Well, I know when I'm beat. And the sooner the wedding be held, the better for everybody's credit."Billy pretended immense surprise."You mean as you'll call home all them high words, master?""Every one of 'em," answered Elias, calmly. "If I'd been a bit sharper, I might have guessed as you and her would find a way. You have found it--'tis vain to deny that. So there's nothing to do but wed; and I hope you'll live to make good your promises; and so soon as you do, I'll be the first to up and own I misjudged you.""That's fair and sportsmanlike, master, and I'll be as good as you; and if my new rabbit trap don't make you proud of me for a son-in-law, Elias Bowden, you ban't the honest man I think.""It's settled then," said David, rising, and eager to be away."On one condition," answered the other; "that me and Dorcas have a proper show wedding, same as David here had. Us won't have no hole and corner sort of job; and there's no reason why we should. Only us and you know about it.""She shall have a perfectly right and proper wedding, Billy," declared Mr. Bowden."Very good," answered the other; "and the day after we'm married and my Dorcas comes here to live, I'll show you the trap, and save you twenty pounds a year if a penny."Mr. Screech rose and indicated that the interview was ended."The banns go up on Sunday," he said. "Have no fear of me. I'm in quite so much of a hurry as anybody."Mrs. Screech, who had heard everything from behind the door, crept off, and the Bowdens departed, while Billy went as far as the gate with them."Please give Dorcas my respects, and tell her I'll be up over to tea on Sunday, if agreeable to all parties," he said."I will, William," answered Elias, mildly; "and 'twill be quite agreeable, I assure you."The victory was complete and time proved Mr. Screech a just and even magnanimous conqueror. But for the moment the friction set up by his methods of approaching matrimony caused not a few persons a little uneasiness. While David had writhed before Billy's satirical humours, Rhoda Bowden also suffered; but she took herself off and thus escaped direct contact with the cause of it. It happened that Dorcas was restless after her father had set forth to see Mr. Screech. She had wandered towards Coombeshead and finally--moved as many others were moved--determined to seek Madge, and so win comfort, and wait with her at 'Meavy Cot' until David returned. Of the issue Dorcas felt no manner of doubt. Mr. Screech longed to marry her, and his single-hearted devotion was the finest element in a rather mean character. Marriage Dorcas felt to be a certainty; but she was none the less eager to learn how the great interview had fallen out and to what extent Billy had punished his future brother-in-law. Mr. Screech especially despised the Puritanical views of David; and Dorcas suspected that he might have taken pleasure on this occasion in wounding rather deeply her brother's susceptibilities. She went to see Margaret, therefore, and felt sorry to find Rhoda also at home. Her sister was in the garden; but Rhoda saw the visitor some way off and departed leisurely without any interchange of words. The red girl flushed and set her teeth in a sneer; the other passed quickly into the Moor.Then Dorcas entered and found Madge making a pudding. She sat down, took off her sunbonnet, and nibbled a piece of raw rhubarb."Did you see Rhoda go off?" she asked."Never mind, 'twill come right. You know how she feels things.""Feel! Don't you think she feels, Madge. She's hard as them stone statues of women in church--a dead-alive, frozen beast! Feel! I wish somebody would make her feel. Don't you look like that. You've lived with her now half a year and more. You know what she is.""Be fair, Dorcas. She takes this a bit to heart; but that's only what all of us do.""You don't, and you needn't pretend it--not like her, anyway. You'd have done the same if your father had said you wasn't to have David. You'd have trusted David, same as I trusted Billy. Things like her--Rhoda, I mean--why, good Lord! they're not women; they ban't built to bring dear li'l, cuddling, cooing babbies into the world, like you and me. All for yowling dogs and walking in the moonlight--by herself! Pretty frosty sport that for a female creature with blood in her veins!""It's throwed her into a great trouble, and 'tis no good to deny it," said Margaret. "Of course the man will marry you, as you've told me in secret, and no doubt David will come back presently in a good temper about it; but Rhoda's different. She's rather terrible if a girl slips. I've heard her say frightful things long before this--this business of yours. 'Tis the point of view, Dorcas. You'm so good as a married woman now, and me and you can talk; but Rhoda's awful different--as the maidens often be till they'm tokened. Then they begin to soften and understand men-folk a bit better.""Fool!" said Dorcas."She'll take a bit of time to recover; but she'll be at your wedding with the best of us, if I know her.""Not her! Mark me! She'll never come inside my house or put a finger to my childer. And God knows I don't want her to.""She will--she will. You're too hard. She'll grow wiser and more understanding. She's a very kindly, sensible girl in a lot of ways. Only she's made of sterner stuff than me and you. I wish I was so noble-minded as her and so brave, I'm sure. She's as plucky as David, Dorcas. Nought on four legs can frighten her.""Four legs!" said Dorcas. "I want for a man on two legs to frighten her--ay, and master her and make her run about and do his will. But no man will ever look at her. They want something to put their arms around--not the sour, stand-offish likes of she. 'Tis no better than facing the east wind to be along with her.""Not at all, Dorcas. You'll soon see different. She have a sort of queer feeling in her that 'tis an awful horrid thing to give yourself over to a man. I do believe she feels almost the same if a woman marries. You'd think the whole race of women had received a blow in the face when one takes a husband. She can't talk of 'em with patience. But us will get her a husband come presently. Then her eyes will open.""Never--never!" foretold the other. "She'll go single to her grave--and a good riddance when it happens.""Here's David coming up the path," said Margaret, and both women went out to meet him.But Madge's prophecy was only partly fulfilled. He brought, indeed, the news that Mr. Screech was prepared to wed with Dorcas at the earliest opportunity; but he showed no joy at the fact, and was indeed in an exceedingly bad temper."What are you doing here?" he said to Dorcas, sternly. But she never had been and never was likely to be brow-beaten by a man."Come to see Madge, seemingly, and hearing that you was gone with father to have a tell with my William, I thought I'd wait and see what came of it.""Your William!" he said. "I wonder you don't blush for yourself, Dorcas Bowden.""Ah! you must see a lot of things that make you wonder," she answered insolently. "Not for myself did I ever blush; but for father, as forbid me to marry the only chap that ever loved me, or was ever likely to. What do I care? I suppose you and father, in your righteous wisdom, have decided that we may be married now, anyway; and if you haven't 'tis no odds, because parson will mighty soon shout out the banns when we ax him to do it.""You're a bad woman," said her brother, shortly, "and this is a very brazen, shameless piece of work.""That for you," she answered, flicking her fingers in his face. "I'm as straight and honest and true as your wife, or Rhoda either. 'Tis her that's nasty and shameful, with her prudish ways, not me. And if I've done anything to think twice about, 'tis father's fault--and yours."David was angry and turned to his wife."The less you hear of this sort of talk the better," he said. "I'll have no trollop here, fouling your ears with her lewd speeches.""Call yourself a man!" sneered Dorcas. "Call yourself a man, to speak of me like that. You know I loved the chap as faithful and true as a bird its mate, and I was his wife just as much as Madge be yours in everything but the jargon and the ring. And you turn round and call me 'lewd,' because I did the only thing I could do to force father to say 'yes.' 'Tis you that are lewd--you and yonder creature, who won't see me nor touch me no more; and so much the better for me." She pointed to Rhoda, who was sitting a little way off calmly waiting for Dorcas to depart."Larn from your wife to be larger-minded," she began again; then David silenced her."Stop!" he thundered out. "Who are the likes of you--a common, fallen woman--to preach to me? You get going out of this! I don't want you here no more, and I won't have you here no more.""Bah!" she answered. "You're jealous of my William--that's what you are! Because you can't do what he's done!""Begone before I come back," he answered, "or I'll wring your neck, you foul-thinking slut! And look to it you treat her as I do, Margaret, or there may come trouble between us."He glanced at his wife darkly, then, in most unusual anger, left the threshold and walked across to Rhoda."A pair of 'em," commented Dorcas. "And, please Heaven, they'll both be childless to their dying day. I hate the ground they walk on!""Don't! don't, for God's sake, curse like that," cried the other, and Dorcas, divining what she had done, was instantly contrite. Indeed, she began to cry."I'm--I'm that savage; but not with you, Madge--never with you. Forgive me for saying that. Of course you'll have plenty of children--plenty--more'n you want, for that matter. Never think you won't--such a lover of the little creatures as you be. You'll make up for lost time when you do start. And I hope you'll love mine as well as your own, for, barring me and Billy and Billy's mother, there won't be many to love 'em."Her words had turned Margaret's thoughts upon herself and made her sad."Sometimes there comes an awful fear over me, Dorcas, that I shall have none," she confessed. "'Tis all folly and weakness, yet you'd be astonished how oft I dream I'm to have none. And if it fell out so, I doubt David would break his heart.""Don't think such nonsense. Dreams never come true, and 'twill be all right," declared Dorcas. "But now I'll clear out, else he'll bully you for talking to me so long after what he threatened. And, David or no David, you've got to be our friend, Madge; because there never was such a dear, sweet creature afore, and never will be. And if 'tis a girl, Billy have promised me I may call it 'Madge'; and I shall do."Dorcas dried her eyes and prepared to depart, but the other bade her wait a moment."A drop of milk you must have; and--and--I know 'twill be a dinky darling, and I shall love it only less than you and your husband will," Margaret said.Then Dorcas drank and set off homeward, fearing further trouble; but with her father she had no painful scene, for by the time that Elias returned to the warren, the humorous side of that day's encounter had struck him. He kept this to himself most firmly however; but, as a result, he indulged in no anger. Instead he merely informed Dorcas that Mr. Screech would marry her at the earliest possible moment on one condition: the bridegroom insisted upon a wedding of ceremony and importance.CHAPTER IXCOMMON SENSE AND BEERCertain persons of local note had gathered together for evening drinking in the bar of 'The Corner House.'Charles Moses, Bartley Crocker, Mattacott, and Ernest Maunder were there; but interest chiefly centred in one just entered upon the state of matrimony. The truth concerning his marriage was known to none present but Mr. Crocker, and he kept the secret.Mr. Moses chaffed Billy Screech, and Billy, whose wit was nimbler than the shoemaker's, answered jest for jest."As for cleverness, we well know you're clever," declared Mr. Moses. "You've got a clever face, Screech--a clever nose, if I may say so--'tis sharp as one of my awls.""My nose has a point, I allow," said Mr. Screech, "and your awl's got a point; but I'm damned if there's much point to the things you say, Moses. All the cleverness in your family was used up afore you come into it, I reckon.""I knowed the cleverest man that ever was seen in Sheepstor," said Timothy Mattacott, slowly. "So does Maunder here. So clever he was that he tried to walk faster than his own shadow, and he sowed a barrow-load o' bricks once, thinking as they'd grow up into a house.""And what became of him?" asked Crocker."They put him away," said Mattacott. "He was afore the times. He's up along with the Exeter pauper lunatics to this hour, I believe.""Samuel Edge was cleverer than that," declared Bartley. "And I'll tell you why: he weren't content with anything as it stood, but must be altering and changing and pulling down and building up.""A foreigner from Bristol way," said Mr. Moses."Yes, and the great cleverness of the man undid him. There was an egg-bottomed well to his house, you remember, 'Dumpling'?""I do remember," admitted Mr. Shillabeer. "One of they egg-bottomed wells the man had.""And though it ran out more than enough water for all his needs, nothing would do but he must cut his egg-bottomed well into a bell-bottomed well. A pushing, clever chap."Reuben took up the narrative."He went down hisself to do the work; and the sides fell in when he'd under-cut a bit; and they didn't get the carpse out for three days," he said, gloomily."Yet an amazing clever man was Edge," concluded Bartley."Better he'd left well alone, however," ventured Mr. Screech. His jest was greeted with a stare and an uncertain sort of laugh. The folk treat a pun like a conjuring trick: they are dimly conscious that something unusual has happened in conversation, but they cannot say what, and they have no idea how it was done."If Edge was the cleverest man, which, for my part, I won't allow," proceeded Moses, "then who was the cleverest woman, I wonder?""My wife," declared Mr. Shillabeer, instantly. "You must be just to the dead, Charles, for they can't defend their characters. But I say that my wife was both the largest and best and cleverest woman that ever comed here; and if anybody doubts it, let 'em give chapter and verse.""Nobody does doubt it, 'Dumpling,'" said Bartley, in a soothing voice. "There may be a smart female here and there yet, and there may be a clever maiden or two coming on also; but never did any such grand creature as Mrs. Shillabeer appear among us. Mr. Fogo used to tell about her, and how you won her from a regular army of other men.""True as gospel. There was a good few fighters after her besides me--heavy weights too. She'd never have looked twice at anything less than a fourteen stone man. In fact, to see any male short of thirteen to fourteen stone beside her was a thing to laugh at. 'Twas when I was in training for my fight with the old Tipton--years younger than me he was all the same, that I won her. I was at a little crib out Uxbridge way, and her father had me in hand, and she come out from Saturday to Monday, and us went walking over fields. Then a bull runned at us, and my girl weren't built for running, but I got her over a stile somehow by the skin of the teeth, and the bull helped me after her from the rear. Horched me in the buttock, and I bled like a pig after. In fact, I saved her life. And she knowed it; and when I offered myself 'twas 'Dumpling' first and the rest nowhere, like the race-horse."Mr. Maunder spoke."A faithful man to her memory. No doubt if the widow-men could all look back on such partners, there'd be less marrying a second than we see around us.""In my case," declared the host, "I can't forget her enough to think of a second. Her great largeness of character was the peculiar trick of her; and she took such delight in everyday things, owing to being town-bred, that when I look at a sow with young, or a pony and foal, or the reds in the sky at evening, or a fall of snow, they all put me in mind of her. For whether 'twas a budding tree, or a fish in a pool, or one of they bumbling bees in a bit of clover, everything made that woman happier. Never wanted to go back to London, took to the country like a duck to water. So I can't forget her so long as the lambs bleat and the clouds gather for rain and the bud breaks on the bough. I say, 'Ah! how my wife would have liked to see that fox slip off that stone;' or 'how my dear woman would have clapped her hands to look at this grey-bird's nest with the eggs in it.'"The old man heaved a sigh; the rest nodded."Mr. Fogo was different," declared Simon Snell, who had recently arrived. "He'd got terrible tired of Sheepstor afore he left it; for he told me so."Reuben admitted this, and his gloom increased."He'll never come no more, I'm afraid. 'Twas only the mill that kept him so long. He must have London booming round him. He's been in hospital since he was here, for the doctors to cut a lump of flesh out of his neck. But he's very well again now; and busy about a coming turn up between Tom King and an unknown.""How do it feel to be among the race of married men, Billy?" asked Simon Snell."'Tis a very proper feeling, Simon," answered the other. "In fact, I'll go so far as to say a man don't know he's born until he's married. You chaps--Bartley here and suchlike--talk of freedom. But 'tis all stuff and nonsense. You ban't free till you'm married; you be a poor, unfinished thing without your own woman, and I should advise dashing blades like you, Simon, and you, Timothy, to look around before the grey hairs begin to thrust in. Thirty to thirty-five is the accepted time. I'm thirty-three myself.""There's outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace I see, too," said Mr. Moses. "I was by your house a bit ago, and I was terrible pleased to mark all the windows mended and a bit of paint on the woodwork of 'em, and a new swing gate where you used to have nought but a pole across and a piece of old sacking to keep the chickens in. The place is a changed place and so smart as any bride could wish for.""'Tis all that and more," declared Mr. Screech. "And if you'd gone in--and you'll always be welcome, Moses--you'd have found my wife fresh as paint herself in her new print, and, what's still more wonderful, my mother with her hair all twisted tidy and her clothes neat as ninepence. I would have it, you must know. 'Us must pull ourselves together,' I said to mother. 'Dorcas comes from a terrible tidy family,--too tidy, you might say, and I'm not pretending I mind the fowls in the kitchen myself, or the dogs on the beds; but there 'tis--with a bride we must meet her halfway; and she's as clean and trim herself as a hen hedge-sparrow.' My mother made no objection--took to her second-best dress without a murmur, and bought a new one for the Lord's Day.""You're a reformed character, in fact," declared Maunder. "And I for one rejoice at it, for I've often feared you and me might some day meet in an unfriendly way when I stood for the law.""Don't fear it," answered the other. "I'm all right and full of contrivances for making a bit of money in a straight and proper manner.""David tells me your rabbit trap is the wonderfullest thing in that line he've met with, and good for ten pounds to sell," put in Bartley."More like twenty," answered Screech. "'Tis a masterpiece of a trap, and I've had a good offer or two already, but not enough.""We get more greedy after money when we'm married, I suppose," ventured Snell. "Of course we want more then.""We ought to have more. We're worth more," answered Billy. "The moment a man takes a serious hand in the next generation, he becomes a more dignified object and ought to fetch better money, for the sake of the wife and family. A married man ought to have better wages and be rewarded according to his breeding powers.""And the women too. 'Tis a great fault in the State that our women don't make a penny by getting children," declared Moses."Unless they bring forth three at a birth," said Mr. Shillabeer. "Then 'tis well known that the Queen's Majesty sends three pounds out of her own money, to show that 'tis a glorious feat, in her gracious opinion.""Well, we single men had better waste no more time, if Billy is right," said Mattacott. "For my part I've been looking round cautious for two years now; but I haven't found the right party. 'Tis the married girls I always feel I could have falled in love with, not the maidens.""Just t'other way with me," declared Bartley. "I like the unexpected things the girls say and do. The ways of a woman are like the ways of the mist: past all finding out.""True," declared Mr. Screech. "I know a bit about 'em; and shall know more come presently. But like the mist you'll find 'em.""Now here, now away again," continued Bartley. "Now lying as still and as white as washing on the hill, now scampering off, hell for leather, without rhyme or reason. And so with them: they never do the expected thing.""True," said Mr. Moses, "you've hit 'em there. As soon as a girl answers me the direct opposite of what I expect, then I know that girl's a child no more. She's grown up, and 'tis time for her to put up her hair and let down her dress.""Never the expected thing," repeated Crocker, meditatively. "They cry when they ought to laugh; they cuss when they ought to cherish; they fondle when they ought to whip. They forgive the wrong sins; they punish the wrong men; they break the wrong hearts.""And when they've done their bitter worst," added Charles Moses; "when they've set a man against Heaven, and life in general, and made him pretty well hungry to creep into his grave and get out of it; when they've driven him to the edge of madness and forced him to damn and blast 'em to the pit--then what do the long-haired humans do?""Why, they jump into his lap," declared Mr. Crocker, "and kiss his eyes, and press their soft carcases against him, all purring and cooing--half cats and half pigeons that they be!""And the men give way," summed up Mr. Moses. "Leastways the manly, large-minded sort, like 'Dumpling' and me and Crocker. We can't stand against 'em--not for a moment.""We take, when our turn comes, in fear and trembling," continued Bartley, "and we hope we'll be one of the lucky ones.""The fear and trembling comes afterwards, as you'll find some day, Bartley, and as Screech here may find any day," foretold Moses. "Every man backs his own judgment and will lay you any odds he's drawn a prize.""'Tis always the other people be fools in this world," declared Screech. "It holds of life in general. 'Tis said the world be full of fools, yet no man will ever allow he is one."Mr. Snell spoke."I'm sure you hear of happy marriages here and there," he said doubtfully."So you do, Simon. You hear of 'em--same as you hear of pixies. But you don't see 'em. Leastways I don't," answered Bartley."Present company excepted, I hope," said Screech."You forget Mrs. Shillabeer also," murmured Mattacott. "I'm sure nobody here knows more about marriage than what the 'Dumpling' do. He's seen a happy marriage.""In a way, yes," admitted the host; "and also in a way, no. You can't be right down happy with a woman--not if you love her as well as I loved the wife.""'Perfect love casteth out fear,' however," quoted Mr. Moses, vaguely."Just what it don't do, Charles; and the man that said it, saint or sinner, didn't know what it was to love," answered the old prize-fighter. "If you love a female right down from the crown of her head to the tip of her toes, and through and through likewise, you fear for her something cruel. I was built so soft where that woman was concerned, that I hated for her to go for a drive in a trap, and couldn't be easy--for thinking of the springs--till I seed her safe again. And when illness overtook her--why, 'fear' wasn't the name for it. I crawled about like a beaten dog and cringed to God A'mighty for her in season and out. But she had to go, and I had to be left. And she took twenty year of my life underground with her."They sympathised with him; then Mr. Snell returned to the main theme."They'm quicker than us, however," he asserted. "I'm sure their brains work faster than what ours do. There's many a thing a woman can't make clear to a male mind, try as she will."Mr. Crocker laughed."Yes," he admitted. "Such things as two and two make five--when they want 'em to make five. And they try and they try to make us see it; but we can't. And yet they are always ready to believe that our two and two be five, God bless 'em!""I wonder," said Mr. Snell."'Tis so; but you must be masterful, Simon. You must make 'em feel you're in earnest and have no shadow of doubt," said Billy Screech. "They love to see you strong, and they'd sooner see you wrong and sticking to it than be blowed from your purpose by another man. Nought on God's earth be more hateful to a brave woman than to see her husband bested. And if a man bests you--whether 'tis at business or in any other way--don't you tell her if you can help it. Love you as she will, you'll drop in her mind and be so much the less if she hears about it."The clock struck; mugs were drained."Closing time, souls," said Mr. Shillabeer; and five minutes later the company had separated and the bar was empty. The 'Dumpling' mused on the things that his guests had uttered."'Tis summed up in that word 'unexpected' without a doubt," he thought. "Never the expected thing. And if we grant so much, then us never ought to expect the expected thing. They be all of a piece; and because my wife looked like living for ever, I ought to have knowed she'd die. I ought to have known it, and prepared for it, and laid in wait for it. Yet nobody was more surprised than me, and nobody less so than her when it leaked out of the doctor. She knowed it herself well enough; but hadn't the heart to tell me."
CHAPTER VII
EYLESBARROW
Margaret Bowden not seldom visited the haunts of her youth, for many favourite places lay within a walk of her home, and she had a measure of loneliness in her life which might be filled according to her fancy. Sometimes she blamed herself that life should offer intervals for amusement or for rest. David found no such leisure from dawn until after dark; Rhoda was always busy out of doors, and even when she had nothing left to do, as happened in the evening, would often sequester herself afield under the night. But Margaret's holiday generally followed the midday meal; and after noon she often went to see her mother, or sought some holt in Dennycoombe Wood, or beside Crazywell, or among the heathery hillocks of Eylesbarrow. That great eminence upon the forest boundary was familiar and pleasant to her. She knew it well, from its tonsure of stone, piled above a grave, to its steeps and slopes and water-springs. A pool with rushes round about spread under the highest elevation and mirrored the sky; while southerly the ling grew very large, and there were deep scars and embouchures torn by torrents from the sides of the hill.
Hither came Margaret to keep tryst with Bartley Crocker on a day in June. She had not seen him save for a moment since his interview with Rhoda, but meeting a week before at Sheepstor, he made a plan and she promised to join him on Eylesbarrow and hear what he had to tell her. The east wind roared over Madge where she sat snug in a little pit; but the sun was warm and found her there. From time to time she rose and lifted her head to see if Bartley was coming. Then she sat down again and fell back upon her own thoughts. She began to apprehend the mixed nature of marriage and those very various ingredients that complete the dish. As yet only one cloud hung over her united life with David. But time might reasonably be trusted to lift it. They were a happy pair, and if his stronger will lacked ready and swift sympathy on all occasions, it still served the fine purpose of controlling her sentimentality. He hurt her sometimes, but she kept the pain to herself. His sledge-hammer methods were new to her; while he could not understand her outlook, and, indeed, he made no attempt to do so. But she never argued; she always gave way and she loved him so dearly that it was easy to give way. Rhoda, too, she liked better as she knew her better. She felt sorry for Rhoda and longed to round off her life into a more complete and perfect thing. It appeared an outrage on nature that such a girl should remain unmarried. She strove to enlarge Rhoda's sexual sympathies and make her more tolerant of men. But she did not succeed. And so it gradually happened that the future of Rhoda rather obsessed the young wife's mind. She was determined to see Bartley and Rhoda man and wife if she could bring it about. She was here upon that business now. That he had spoken to Rhoda she did not yet know; but she suspected it.
Again Margaret looked round about her, while the wind flapped her sunbonnet till it stung her cheeks. At hand morning and night alternately swung up over the uttermost eastern desolation that even Dartmoor offers. By Cater's Beam and the sources of Plym and Avon, the solemn, soaking undulations ranged; and they were shunned by every living thing; but to the north a mighty company of tors thrust up about the central waste; and westerly stretched the regions of her home. Far beneath lay Dennycoombe under Coombeshead, and Sheep's Tor, like a saurian, extended with a huge flat head and a serrated backbone of granite. She saw her father's fields on the hillside and knew them by their names. In their fret of varied colour under the stone-crowned hill, they looked like a patchwork coverlet dragged up to some old, gnarled chin. Men were working there and elsewhere on the land; and in the stone quarries, far off on Lether Tor, men also worked. She gazed upon the familiar places, the homesteads and the solitary homes. She busied her mind with the life histories advancing beneath these roof-trees; and here she smiled when she marked a dwelling where joy harboured for a little; here she sighed at sight of one where joy had ceased to visit: here she wondered at thought of houses where the folk hid their hearts from the world and stared heavy-eyed and dumb upon their kind. But she had an art to win secrets, and few denied her knowledge or declined her sympathy.
One house chained her attention and awoke in Madge personal thoughts again. She looked at a small cottage near Lowery, far distant on the opposite side of the river. It stood under a few trees and crouched meanly a hundred yards from the highway. The roof was of turf, mended with a piece of corrugated iron kept in its place by heavy stones; the broken windows were stuffed with clouts. A few fowls pecked about the threshold, and adjoining the dwelling stood a cow-byre under the same roof with it. The front gate was rotted away and rusty pieces of an old iron bedstead had taken its place. These details were hidden from the distant watcher, but she knew them well, and in her mind's eye could see a flat-breasted, long-nosed, hungry-faced woman, with grey hair falling down her back and dirt grimed into her cheeks and hands. It was Eliza Screech, widow of a man who had blown himself to pieces with blasting powder in the adjacent quarry, and mother of William Screech, the mistrusted admirer of Madge's sister-in-law, Dorcas. This young fellow had lately brewed a sort of familiar trouble; and while she thought upon it, David's wife considered her own situation and wished that a thing presently to happen to Dorcas might happen to her instead, and so turn sorrow into rejoicing. This was the cloud on her horizon. Her mother, indeed, shared her pessimism but everybody else laughed at Margaret's concern and declared it to be ridiculous in one scarcely six months a wife.
She debated on the ways of nature and the ironies of chance; then Bartley's voice was lifted, and she popped up again, and he saw her and approached.
"Didn't you hear me sooner?" he asked, flinging himself down near her.
"No, indeed. I was thinking so much about one thing and another, that I never heard you. Hope you've not been seeking for me a long time?"
He did not answer but struck at once into the subject that had brought him.
"Well," he said, "I've started on her. I've begun and told her a few things to clear the way and get her into a better frame of mind. Pity I hadn't stopped there and left what I said to soak in a bit; but I had to go on and give the reason for saying it."
"You told her then?"
"I did, and she took it fairly quiet. Of course she said 'twas out of the question and never, never could be. I expected that. But I'm not going to believe it, Madge. The thing is how to go on with it. I want you to tell me what to do next. You promised you would. Mustn't worry her, and at the same time mustn't let her forget I'm at her elbow--dogged and determined and fixed in my mind. I want you to be clever for me, as well you know how, and tell me what line will please her best. I shall leave talking for a bit, and then I shall offer again. My only fear is that she'll see somebody else in the meantime, and that while I'm planning and holding off and doing nought to fluster or anger her, some other pattern of fool will blunder in and shock her into saying 'yes' before she knows what she's done. You can often surprise a woman into relenting who never would relent if you went on grinding away in a cold-blooded fashion. They're obstinate themselves, but they don't admire obstinacy in us. Would you have a dash at her and keep on, or would you hold off and busy yourself in other quarters? Which would bring her to the scratch quickest? You know her; you can give me a few good hints, surely."
"Do neither of these things, Bartley. She hates anything like courting, or speech about marriage. And she hates surprises of any sort. She's an old woman in the way she likes things to jog steady. If aught falls out unexpected, it flurries her. And that's the hard thing you've got afore you, if you are going on with it. Because you're all for dash and quickness and surprises, and she's all against everything of the sort."
"I must keep grinding on in a cold-blooded style, then?"
"Ess fay, and the more cold-blooded, the better like to please her."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Be damned if I think I've got patience for it, Madge. I love her well enough but I can't bide like a lizard or a spider watching a fly. I lost you along of taking it too easy--yes, I did, for I swear you'd have married me if I'd offered myself a year before David came along. And now, perhaps, I'll end by losing Rhoda. There's nobody else in the field and she's got no excuse for not taking me; and that's just what will make her hard to catch. But I'm determined in reason to have her. Only I'm not built to wait till we're both grey-headed."
"Let me begin to help," she said. "You bade me do nought so far, and I've done nought. Not by a word or wish have I let her guess I thought about you or about her. She don't know that I'm interested yet. And I won't let her know; but I can set to work witty and say the word in season and help the good cause on. Why not? I want to see her married just as much as I want to see you married. 'Twould mend you both--yes, you so well as her."
"That wise you've grown since you took David! Though, for that matter, you was always wise enough for any two girls."
"Not a bit wise--wish I was; far from that, worse luck; but sensible how things are and sensible how difficult 'tis to get two natures to fit in sometimes. I be sure as possible that you and she would make a happy couple and that you'll never regret it if she takes you, and no more will she; but the difficulty is to see where your natures be built to fit together. 'Tis like a child's puzzle: to fit you and her close."
"There's not much we've got in common except love of roaming by night."
"A pretty useful taste in common for lovers, I should think. But I'll find more out than that. I know a lot more about her now than once I did; and I'll tell you this: I'm not so much in secret fear of her as once I was. Yes--fearful I felt at first--so off-handed and stern and aloof she was. But now I've come to see she's terrible simple really, and not very different from other girls--except here and there. She's interested in all that falls out, and she's hopeful to-day and cast down to-morrow like anybody else. She sits of a night thinking--yes, she thinks. Lord knows what about, but 'tis a sign of a heart in her that she can pucker up her forehead thinking. Kind, mind you, too. Not partickler kind to me, or interested in me away from David--I must grant that. But kind to living things in general."
"But I don't want her to be kind--to anybody but me. I want her to be grand and odd and unlike t'others. 'Tis her oddness as much as her loveliness took my fancy; but if her oddness ends in her being an old maid, that'll mean a good deal of my time wasted."
"Don't think it. A rare good wife's hid in Rhoda, and, please God, you'll be the man to find it out. I'll set to work, Bartley. Don't fear I'll be clumsy. Too fond of you both for that. We'll meet again in a month, if you can wait so long--"
"Which I certainly can not."
"In a fortnight then. Thursday's always David's morning for Tavistock; so this day fortnight we'll meet again, unless anything falls out to prevent it. And I won't be idle. But I mustn't frighten her; and she's easily frighted when men are concerned. Fellows drop in of a night often to speak to David; but nine times out of ten, if she's to home, she'll pick up her work and pop up to her chamber, or take her hat and away out of the house by the back door."
"Never was such another, I believe. All the same, I'm a hopeful fashion of man. I'll win her yet, with your help."
"I do trust so, Bartley."
Silence fell between them, only broken by the hiss of the wind above their heads.
"I must get back-along now," she said at length. "How goes on Mrs. Crocker? Better, I hope?"
He shook his head but did not reply.
"I shall come to see her again next week, if I may."
"Do, and welcome, Madge. Strange how illness breaks down the pride and shows the naked truth of a man or woman. She's frightened to think of dying--her that you might have said was frightened of nothing."
"And still frightened of nothing really. 'Tisn't this world that frights her, nor yet the next--only the link snapping between. There's a lot like that."
He changed the subject again and followed her eyes that had roamed across the valley once more.
"You're looking at Screech's house," he said. "I hope this thing they tell about isn't true?"
"I hope not, Bartley, but I think it is."
"And if it is? However, it don't become a giddy bachelor to make light of it. Only you'll hear such a devil of a lot on the other side, that perhaps before long you'll be thankful to find one here and there who can keep his nerve about it."
"Yes, I shall hear enough about it--and to spare: you're right there."
He laughed.
"I'm not one of those that can see no good in Billy Screech," he said. "Too like him myself, I reckon. All the same, I know if the right woman came along to make it worth while, I could stand to work--for her--as well as any man. You'll see some day. I can't be bothered to work for myself, Madge, but if ever I get hold of Rhoda, 'twill surprise you to find what a knack for earning money I shall show. And same with yonder hairy chap. He's clever and cunning. He'll make a very good partner, if the woman ban't too hard to please, and don't worry him with silly questions."
They parted a few minutes later; but before he went Bartley Crocker shook Madge's hand very heartily as he thanked her with great earnestness for her promises.
"What you'll do for me I can't guess," he said; "yet well I know that what you can do you will."
"Couldn't name it in words myself," she answered. "But all the same, I feel as one woman might have a bit of power over another in such a matter. I put my hope in her common sense. She don't lack for that, and, once you win her, her common sense will be a tower of strength for the both of you."
"That's good to know, I'm sure; for common sense never was my strong point and never will be," he confessed.
"And if I've promised more than I can perform, you must forgive me," she said. "I must guard myself against your disappointment, Bartley, for it may come to that."
"You'll do what you can," he answered, "for liking of me; and you'll do the best you can; and if I lose, 'twill be no blame to you; and if I win, 'twill be such a feather in your cap as few of the cleverest women can boast."
CHAPTER VIII
TRIUMPH OF BILLY SCREECH
On a day in early summer David Bowden met his father by appointment at Nosworthy Bridge in Meavy valley. It was not Sunday, but both wore their Sunday clothes. The fact would have led observers to suppose that a funeral or a wedding must be at hand, but it was not so. They had before them a serious and, they feared, a difficult duty. Neither knew that the other proposed to wear black; yet a sort of similar instinct led to the donning of the colour, and each felt glad, when he saw the other, that he had been of that mind.
"'Twill be for you to speak, father," said David; "and where I can think of words to back you up, I shall put them in. If you and me together ban't stronger than such a man as Screech, 'tis pity."
"The law be weak, unfortunately," answered Elias, "else I'd never have gone near the man, but just left justice to take its course. But as it stands, so lawyer tells me, we can't make Screech marry Dorcas if he won't. The thing is to be as patient with the man as we know how, and coax him into it if possible."
David nodded.
"It's a bad business, looked at which way you will. Rhoda's took it more to heart than all of us. She won't never speak to Dorcas or see her again."
"We mustn't talk that nonsense. Nature will out, and for my part, to you, David, though to none else, I'm sorry to God now I said 'nay.' However, we'll see if we can fetch him to reason. Here's the house--a ragged, hang-dog look it hath."
"And there's the man," added David.
Billy Screech was digging in a patch of garden beside his cottage, but at sight of the visitors, he stuck his spade into the earth, cleaned his boots on it, drew down his shirt-sleeves, donned his coat and came forward.
"You'm a thought earlier than I expected," he said. "Give you a very good-morning, Mr. Bowden; and you, David."
Elias took the hairy Screech's hand; David nodded, but avoided a direct salute.
"In your black, I see--a black business, no doubt," said Billy. "And if you'll give me a matter of minutes, I'll polish up a bit and put on mine. Perhaps you didn't know as I've got some good broadcloth for my back; but I have."
He called to his mother and went upstairs. Then, while he was absent, the thin and slatternly woman known as Eliza Screech shuffled in and put chairs for the Bowdens. She stood and rubbed her hands over each other and listened to the noise her son made overhead. By certain sounds she knew how his change of attire advanced.
"I hope you are on our side in this matter, ma'am," began Elias, solemnly.
"Yes, I am, and always have been since I heard about it," she said. "I've been at him night and day till he threatened to take the wood-chopper to me. I can't say what he thinks about it, for not a word will he utter. He's always chuckling to hisself, however. 'Tis a very shameless thing to have happened, though very common. I'm sorry about it."
She spoke kindly but indifferently.
"My girl is the same as him," declared Mr. Bowden. "'Shameless' is the only word to be used against her--a hardened giglet as keeps her own secrets and did keep 'em till they would out. And, instead of going in tears and sackcloth, she's as gay as a lark and don't care a button for our long faces. Even to church she'll come, if you can believe it. And not a word of sorrow."
Mrs. Screech heard her son putting on his boots.
"Well, I hope that your way of saying things will catch hold on William," she answered. "He's a thoughtless man; but he was never fond of the girls till he met your Dorcas, and 'twas a very great blow to him he couldn't take her."
"He must take her: that's what we've come about," declared David.
Mrs. Screech shrugged her shoulders.
"There's room here," she said, "and though us be a little down in the world, I daresay for a pound or two we could mend up the glass and make things vitty for Dorcas. I'm very fond of her, I may tell you. Here's William coming down, so I'll go."
She left them, and a moment later Mr. Screech entered transformed. He wore excellent black. He had brushed his hair and beard; he had washed his hands and put on a pair of tidy boots.
"Now," he said, "perhaps you'll let me know what I can do for you, Mr. Bowden. Not long since there was a thing as you might have done for me; but I got a very sour answer, if I remember right. However, you'll find me more reasonable if you come in reason."
"In reason and in right I come, William Screech. And well you know why for I'm here," said the master of Ditsworthy. "You've seduced my daughter Dorcas, and you cannot deny it."
"Yes, I can," answered Mr. Screech. "I can deny it and I can take my Bible oath of it. I never seduced her, and I never even offered to. I'll swear she never told you that I seduced her."
"She'll tell me nought."
"Then why d'you charge it against me?"
"Don't fiddle with words," broke in David. "The question be simple, and the answer be 'yes' or 'no.' Do you deny that you are the father of the child she'm going to bear?"
"Certainly not. I am the parent; and a very proud man I shall be on the day."
"Then why d'you say you didn't seduce her?" cried David.
Mr. Screech looked at him in a pitying and highly superior manner.
"Better let your father talk," he said. "You childless men be rather narrow in your opinions. He's more sensible and more patient. Because a maiden changes her state and starts out to bud, it don't follow nobody's seduced her. If anybody was seduced, 'tis me, standing here afore you."
He grinned genially at the humour of the situation. David uttered an inarticulate sound of anger; Mr. Bowden settled himself in his chair.
"Explain yourself, William," he said.
"Well, I will. Perhaps you may remember when you forbade the match, that your daughter was a bit savage about it."
"She was. I allowed for that."
"You didn't allow enough. You didn't know what a clever girl Dorcas was; and you didn't know how well she understood me. None ever understood me like her. I was merely a sort of a mongrel man--good for nought--in your opinion. You didn't know how witty I could be if I chose; or what a lot of brains there was in my head. But she knowed and she trusted me. Pluck! Talk about this here prizefighter's pluck and your Rhoda's pluck--Good Lord! there's more valour in Dorcas than the whole pack of you! She's a marvel, she is. This be her work, master, not mine. After her big sister catched her with me and boxed her ears, she soon knowed what to do. And she done it; and I was very pleased to help. And here we are."
Mr. Bowden gasped.
"Do you mean to say a daughter of mine axed you to get her in the family way?" he asked.
"That's the English of it," answered Mr. Screech. "There was nothing else she could do. 'Anything to oblige you, Dorcas,' I said, and my bosom swelled with rejoicing to think the maiden I loved best in the world could trust me like that. ''Twill larn my father and that self-righteous David and Rhoda to mind their own business in future,' said Dorcas to me; and I'm sure I hope it will. You must all try to be sensibler without a doubt."
David felt an inclination to crush and smite the hairy and insolent Screech; but nothing could be gained by such an act.
"And how do we stand now, please?" inquired Mr. Bowden, very humbly.
"In a very awkward fix, of course," answered Billy. "Here's my dear Dorcas going to have a babby, and me wrapped up in her, and my mother cruel fond of her, and her own people all shocked out of their skins at her; and yet I ban't allowed to make an honest woman of her; because you've sworn afore witnesses that you'd sooner see her dead than Mrs. William Screech. It do seem a pity; but of course we all know the man you are--never known to call back an opinion. Dorcas and me be halves of a flail--one nought without t'other; but you've spoken. I shall be very pleased to help with the child, however; and I hope you'll bring it up well to the Warren House."
This was too much for David.
"If you give us any more of your cheek, I'll smash you where you sit," he said.
Billy shrugged his shoulders.
"Where's the cheek? What a silly man you are! Ax your father if I've said a syllable more than the truth. I'm only sorry about it. Of course the likes of me, with my skilled inventions and general cleverness, ban't worthy to be your brother-in-law--you with your great ideas and your five hundred pounds--left to you by somebody else. But, maybe, your father may feel different. A father can understand a father. 'Tis for him to speak now, not you, and say what he thinks had better be done about his child--and mine."
"There's only one thing to be done, and that afore the month is out," said Mr. Bowden. "And you know what, for all your sly jokes, Billy. The pair of you have bested me. Well, I know when I'm beat. And the sooner the wedding be held, the better for everybody's credit."
Billy pretended immense surprise.
"You mean as you'll call home all them high words, master?"
"Every one of 'em," answered Elias, calmly. "If I'd been a bit sharper, I might have guessed as you and her would find a way. You have found it--'tis vain to deny that. So there's nothing to do but wed; and I hope you'll live to make good your promises; and so soon as you do, I'll be the first to up and own I misjudged you."
"That's fair and sportsmanlike, master, and I'll be as good as you; and if my new rabbit trap don't make you proud of me for a son-in-law, Elias Bowden, you ban't the honest man I think."
"It's settled then," said David, rising, and eager to be away.
"On one condition," answered the other; "that me and Dorcas have a proper show wedding, same as David here had. Us won't have no hole and corner sort of job; and there's no reason why we should. Only us and you know about it."
"She shall have a perfectly right and proper wedding, Billy," declared Mr. Bowden.
"Very good," answered the other; "and the day after we'm married and my Dorcas comes here to live, I'll show you the trap, and save you twenty pounds a year if a penny."
Mr. Screech rose and indicated that the interview was ended.
"The banns go up on Sunday," he said. "Have no fear of me. I'm in quite so much of a hurry as anybody."
Mrs. Screech, who had heard everything from behind the door, crept off, and the Bowdens departed, while Billy went as far as the gate with them.
"Please give Dorcas my respects, and tell her I'll be up over to tea on Sunday, if agreeable to all parties," he said.
"I will, William," answered Elias, mildly; "and 'twill be quite agreeable, I assure you."
The victory was complete and time proved Mr. Screech a just and even magnanimous conqueror. But for the moment the friction set up by his methods of approaching matrimony caused not a few persons a little uneasiness. While David had writhed before Billy's satirical humours, Rhoda Bowden also suffered; but she took herself off and thus escaped direct contact with the cause of it. It happened that Dorcas was restless after her father had set forth to see Mr. Screech. She had wandered towards Coombeshead and finally--moved as many others were moved--determined to seek Madge, and so win comfort, and wait with her at 'Meavy Cot' until David returned. Of the issue Dorcas felt no manner of doubt. Mr. Screech longed to marry her, and his single-hearted devotion was the finest element in a rather mean character. Marriage Dorcas felt to be a certainty; but she was none the less eager to learn how the great interview had fallen out and to what extent Billy had punished his future brother-in-law. Mr. Screech especially despised the Puritanical views of David; and Dorcas suspected that he might have taken pleasure on this occasion in wounding rather deeply her brother's susceptibilities. She went to see Margaret, therefore, and felt sorry to find Rhoda also at home. Her sister was in the garden; but Rhoda saw the visitor some way off and departed leisurely without any interchange of words. The red girl flushed and set her teeth in a sneer; the other passed quickly into the Moor.
Then Dorcas entered and found Madge making a pudding. She sat down, took off her sunbonnet, and nibbled a piece of raw rhubarb.
"Did you see Rhoda go off?" she asked.
"Never mind, 'twill come right. You know how she feels things."
"Feel! Don't you think she feels, Madge. She's hard as them stone statues of women in church--a dead-alive, frozen beast! Feel! I wish somebody would make her feel. Don't you look like that. You've lived with her now half a year and more. You know what she is."
"Be fair, Dorcas. She takes this a bit to heart; but that's only what all of us do."
"You don't, and you needn't pretend it--not like her, anyway. You'd have done the same if your father had said you wasn't to have David. You'd have trusted David, same as I trusted Billy. Things like her--Rhoda, I mean--why, good Lord! they're not women; they ban't built to bring dear li'l, cuddling, cooing babbies into the world, like you and me. All for yowling dogs and walking in the moonlight--by herself! Pretty frosty sport that for a female creature with blood in her veins!"
"It's throwed her into a great trouble, and 'tis no good to deny it," said Margaret. "Of course the man will marry you, as you've told me in secret, and no doubt David will come back presently in a good temper about it; but Rhoda's different. She's rather terrible if a girl slips. I've heard her say frightful things long before this--this business of yours. 'Tis the point of view, Dorcas. You'm so good as a married woman now, and me and you can talk; but Rhoda's awful different--as the maidens often be till they'm tokened. Then they begin to soften and understand men-folk a bit better."
"Fool!" said Dorcas.
"She'll take a bit of time to recover; but she'll be at your wedding with the best of us, if I know her."
"Not her! Mark me! She'll never come inside my house or put a finger to my childer. And God knows I don't want her to."
"She will--she will. You're too hard. She'll grow wiser and more understanding. She's a very kindly, sensible girl in a lot of ways. Only she's made of sterner stuff than me and you. I wish I was so noble-minded as her and so brave, I'm sure. She's as plucky as David, Dorcas. Nought on four legs can frighten her."
"Four legs!" said Dorcas. "I want for a man on two legs to frighten her--ay, and master her and make her run about and do his will. But no man will ever look at her. They want something to put their arms around--not the sour, stand-offish likes of she. 'Tis no better than facing the east wind to be along with her."
"Not at all, Dorcas. You'll soon see different. She have a sort of queer feeling in her that 'tis an awful horrid thing to give yourself over to a man. I do believe she feels almost the same if a woman marries. You'd think the whole race of women had received a blow in the face when one takes a husband. She can't talk of 'em with patience. But us will get her a husband come presently. Then her eyes will open."
"Never--never!" foretold the other. "She'll go single to her grave--and a good riddance when it happens."
"Here's David coming up the path," said Margaret, and both women went out to meet him.
But Madge's prophecy was only partly fulfilled. He brought, indeed, the news that Mr. Screech was prepared to wed with Dorcas at the earliest opportunity; but he showed no joy at the fact, and was indeed in an exceedingly bad temper.
"What are you doing here?" he said to Dorcas, sternly. But she never had been and never was likely to be brow-beaten by a man.
"Come to see Madge, seemingly, and hearing that you was gone with father to have a tell with my William, I thought I'd wait and see what came of it."
"Your William!" he said. "I wonder you don't blush for yourself, Dorcas Bowden."
"Ah! you must see a lot of things that make you wonder," she answered insolently. "Not for myself did I ever blush; but for father, as forbid me to marry the only chap that ever loved me, or was ever likely to. What do I care? I suppose you and father, in your righteous wisdom, have decided that we may be married now, anyway; and if you haven't 'tis no odds, because parson will mighty soon shout out the banns when we ax him to do it."
"You're a bad woman," said her brother, shortly, "and this is a very brazen, shameless piece of work."
"That for you," she answered, flicking her fingers in his face. "I'm as straight and honest and true as your wife, or Rhoda either. 'Tis her that's nasty and shameful, with her prudish ways, not me. And if I've done anything to think twice about, 'tis father's fault--and yours."
David was angry and turned to his wife.
"The less you hear of this sort of talk the better," he said. "I'll have no trollop here, fouling your ears with her lewd speeches."
"Call yourself a man!" sneered Dorcas. "Call yourself a man, to speak of me like that. You know I loved the chap as faithful and true as a bird its mate, and I was his wife just as much as Madge be yours in everything but the jargon and the ring. And you turn round and call me 'lewd,' because I did the only thing I could do to force father to say 'yes.' 'Tis you that are lewd--you and yonder creature, who won't see me nor touch me no more; and so much the better for me." She pointed to Rhoda, who was sitting a little way off calmly waiting for Dorcas to depart.
"Larn from your wife to be larger-minded," she began again; then David silenced her.
"Stop!" he thundered out. "Who are the likes of you--a common, fallen woman--to preach to me? You get going out of this! I don't want you here no more, and I won't have you here no more."
"Bah!" she answered. "You're jealous of my William--that's what you are! Because you can't do what he's done!"
"Begone before I come back," he answered, "or I'll wring your neck, you foul-thinking slut! And look to it you treat her as I do, Margaret, or there may come trouble between us."
He glanced at his wife darkly, then, in most unusual anger, left the threshold and walked across to Rhoda.
"A pair of 'em," commented Dorcas. "And, please Heaven, they'll both be childless to their dying day. I hate the ground they walk on!"
"Don't! don't, for God's sake, curse like that," cried the other, and Dorcas, divining what she had done, was instantly contrite. Indeed, she began to cry.
"I'm--I'm that savage; but not with you, Madge--never with you. Forgive me for saying that. Of course you'll have plenty of children--plenty--more'n you want, for that matter. Never think you won't--such a lover of the little creatures as you be. You'll make up for lost time when you do start. And I hope you'll love mine as well as your own, for, barring me and Billy and Billy's mother, there won't be many to love 'em."
Her words had turned Margaret's thoughts upon herself and made her sad.
"Sometimes there comes an awful fear over me, Dorcas, that I shall have none," she confessed. "'Tis all folly and weakness, yet you'd be astonished how oft I dream I'm to have none. And if it fell out so, I doubt David would break his heart."
"Don't think such nonsense. Dreams never come true, and 'twill be all right," declared Dorcas. "But now I'll clear out, else he'll bully you for talking to me so long after what he threatened. And, David or no David, you've got to be our friend, Madge; because there never was such a dear, sweet creature afore, and never will be. And if 'tis a girl, Billy have promised me I may call it 'Madge'; and I shall do."
Dorcas dried her eyes and prepared to depart, but the other bade her wait a moment.
"A drop of milk you must have; and--and--I know 'twill be a dinky darling, and I shall love it only less than you and your husband will," Margaret said.
Then Dorcas drank and set off homeward, fearing further trouble; but with her father she had no painful scene, for by the time that Elias returned to the warren, the humorous side of that day's encounter had struck him. He kept this to himself most firmly however; but, as a result, he indulged in no anger. Instead he merely informed Dorcas that Mr. Screech would marry her at the earliest possible moment on one condition: the bridegroom insisted upon a wedding of ceremony and importance.
CHAPTER IX
COMMON SENSE AND BEER
Certain persons of local note had gathered together for evening drinking in the bar of 'The Corner House.'
Charles Moses, Bartley Crocker, Mattacott, and Ernest Maunder were there; but interest chiefly centred in one just entered upon the state of matrimony. The truth concerning his marriage was known to none present but Mr. Crocker, and he kept the secret.
Mr. Moses chaffed Billy Screech, and Billy, whose wit was nimbler than the shoemaker's, answered jest for jest.
"As for cleverness, we well know you're clever," declared Mr. Moses. "You've got a clever face, Screech--a clever nose, if I may say so--'tis sharp as one of my awls."
"My nose has a point, I allow," said Mr. Screech, "and your awl's got a point; but I'm damned if there's much point to the things you say, Moses. All the cleverness in your family was used up afore you come into it, I reckon."
"I knowed the cleverest man that ever was seen in Sheepstor," said Timothy Mattacott, slowly. "So does Maunder here. So clever he was that he tried to walk faster than his own shadow, and he sowed a barrow-load o' bricks once, thinking as they'd grow up into a house."
"And what became of him?" asked Crocker.
"They put him away," said Mattacott. "He was afore the times. He's up along with the Exeter pauper lunatics to this hour, I believe."
"Samuel Edge was cleverer than that," declared Bartley. "And I'll tell you why: he weren't content with anything as it stood, but must be altering and changing and pulling down and building up."
"A foreigner from Bristol way," said Mr. Moses.
"Yes, and the great cleverness of the man undid him. There was an egg-bottomed well to his house, you remember, 'Dumpling'?"
"I do remember," admitted Mr. Shillabeer. "One of they egg-bottomed wells the man had."
"And though it ran out more than enough water for all his needs, nothing would do but he must cut his egg-bottomed well into a bell-bottomed well. A pushing, clever chap."
Reuben took up the narrative.
"He went down hisself to do the work; and the sides fell in when he'd under-cut a bit; and they didn't get the carpse out for three days," he said, gloomily.
"Yet an amazing clever man was Edge," concluded Bartley.
"Better he'd left well alone, however," ventured Mr. Screech. His jest was greeted with a stare and an uncertain sort of laugh. The folk treat a pun like a conjuring trick: they are dimly conscious that something unusual has happened in conversation, but they cannot say what, and they have no idea how it was done.
"If Edge was the cleverest man, which, for my part, I won't allow," proceeded Moses, "then who was the cleverest woman, I wonder?"
"My wife," declared Mr. Shillabeer, instantly. "You must be just to the dead, Charles, for they can't defend their characters. But I say that my wife was both the largest and best and cleverest woman that ever comed here; and if anybody doubts it, let 'em give chapter and verse."
"Nobody does doubt it, 'Dumpling,'" said Bartley, in a soothing voice. "There may be a smart female here and there yet, and there may be a clever maiden or two coming on also; but never did any such grand creature as Mrs. Shillabeer appear among us. Mr. Fogo used to tell about her, and how you won her from a regular army of other men."
"True as gospel. There was a good few fighters after her besides me--heavy weights too. She'd never have looked twice at anything less than a fourteen stone man. In fact, to see any male short of thirteen to fourteen stone beside her was a thing to laugh at. 'Twas when I was in training for my fight with the old Tipton--years younger than me he was all the same, that I won her. I was at a little crib out Uxbridge way, and her father had me in hand, and she come out from Saturday to Monday, and us went walking over fields. Then a bull runned at us, and my girl weren't built for running, but I got her over a stile somehow by the skin of the teeth, and the bull helped me after her from the rear. Horched me in the buttock, and I bled like a pig after. In fact, I saved her life. And she knowed it; and when I offered myself 'twas 'Dumpling' first and the rest nowhere, like the race-horse."
Mr. Maunder spoke.
"A faithful man to her memory. No doubt if the widow-men could all look back on such partners, there'd be less marrying a second than we see around us."
"In my case," declared the host, "I can't forget her enough to think of a second. Her great largeness of character was the peculiar trick of her; and she took such delight in everyday things, owing to being town-bred, that when I look at a sow with young, or a pony and foal, or the reds in the sky at evening, or a fall of snow, they all put me in mind of her. For whether 'twas a budding tree, or a fish in a pool, or one of they bumbling bees in a bit of clover, everything made that woman happier. Never wanted to go back to London, took to the country like a duck to water. So I can't forget her so long as the lambs bleat and the clouds gather for rain and the bud breaks on the bough. I say, 'Ah! how my wife would have liked to see that fox slip off that stone;' or 'how my dear woman would have clapped her hands to look at this grey-bird's nest with the eggs in it.'"
The old man heaved a sigh; the rest nodded.
"Mr. Fogo was different," declared Simon Snell, who had recently arrived. "He'd got terrible tired of Sheepstor afore he left it; for he told me so."
Reuben admitted this, and his gloom increased.
"He'll never come no more, I'm afraid. 'Twas only the mill that kept him so long. He must have London booming round him. He's been in hospital since he was here, for the doctors to cut a lump of flesh out of his neck. But he's very well again now; and busy about a coming turn up between Tom King and an unknown."
"How do it feel to be among the race of married men, Billy?" asked Simon Snell.
"'Tis a very proper feeling, Simon," answered the other. "In fact, I'll go so far as to say a man don't know he's born until he's married. You chaps--Bartley here and suchlike--talk of freedom. But 'tis all stuff and nonsense. You ban't free till you'm married; you be a poor, unfinished thing without your own woman, and I should advise dashing blades like you, Simon, and you, Timothy, to look around before the grey hairs begin to thrust in. Thirty to thirty-five is the accepted time. I'm thirty-three myself."
"There's outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace I see, too," said Mr. Moses. "I was by your house a bit ago, and I was terrible pleased to mark all the windows mended and a bit of paint on the woodwork of 'em, and a new swing gate where you used to have nought but a pole across and a piece of old sacking to keep the chickens in. The place is a changed place and so smart as any bride could wish for."
"'Tis all that and more," declared Mr. Screech. "And if you'd gone in--and you'll always be welcome, Moses--you'd have found my wife fresh as paint herself in her new print, and, what's still more wonderful, my mother with her hair all twisted tidy and her clothes neat as ninepence. I would have it, you must know. 'Us must pull ourselves together,' I said to mother. 'Dorcas comes from a terrible tidy family,--too tidy, you might say, and I'm not pretending I mind the fowls in the kitchen myself, or the dogs on the beds; but there 'tis--with a bride we must meet her halfway; and she's as clean and trim herself as a hen hedge-sparrow.' My mother made no objection--took to her second-best dress without a murmur, and bought a new one for the Lord's Day."
"You're a reformed character, in fact," declared Maunder. "And I for one rejoice at it, for I've often feared you and me might some day meet in an unfriendly way when I stood for the law."
"Don't fear it," answered the other. "I'm all right and full of contrivances for making a bit of money in a straight and proper manner."
"David tells me your rabbit trap is the wonderfullest thing in that line he've met with, and good for ten pounds to sell," put in Bartley.
"More like twenty," answered Screech. "'Tis a masterpiece of a trap, and I've had a good offer or two already, but not enough."
"We get more greedy after money when we'm married, I suppose," ventured Snell. "Of course we want more then."
"We ought to have more. We're worth more," answered Billy. "The moment a man takes a serious hand in the next generation, he becomes a more dignified object and ought to fetch better money, for the sake of the wife and family. A married man ought to have better wages and be rewarded according to his breeding powers."
"And the women too. 'Tis a great fault in the State that our women don't make a penny by getting children," declared Moses.
"Unless they bring forth three at a birth," said Mr. Shillabeer. "Then 'tis well known that the Queen's Majesty sends three pounds out of her own money, to show that 'tis a glorious feat, in her gracious opinion."
"Well, we single men had better waste no more time, if Billy is right," said Mattacott. "For my part I've been looking round cautious for two years now; but I haven't found the right party. 'Tis the married girls I always feel I could have falled in love with, not the maidens."
"Just t'other way with me," declared Bartley. "I like the unexpected things the girls say and do. The ways of a woman are like the ways of the mist: past all finding out."
"True," declared Mr. Screech. "I know a bit about 'em; and shall know more come presently. But like the mist you'll find 'em."
"Now here, now away again," continued Bartley. "Now lying as still and as white as washing on the hill, now scampering off, hell for leather, without rhyme or reason. And so with them: they never do the expected thing."
"True," said Mr. Moses, "you've hit 'em there. As soon as a girl answers me the direct opposite of what I expect, then I know that girl's a child no more. She's grown up, and 'tis time for her to put up her hair and let down her dress."
"Never the expected thing," repeated Crocker, meditatively. "They cry when they ought to laugh; they cuss when they ought to cherish; they fondle when they ought to whip. They forgive the wrong sins; they punish the wrong men; they break the wrong hearts."
"And when they've done their bitter worst," added Charles Moses; "when they've set a man against Heaven, and life in general, and made him pretty well hungry to creep into his grave and get out of it; when they've driven him to the edge of madness and forced him to damn and blast 'em to the pit--then what do the long-haired humans do?"
"Why, they jump into his lap," declared Mr. Crocker, "and kiss his eyes, and press their soft carcases against him, all purring and cooing--half cats and half pigeons that they be!"
"And the men give way," summed up Mr. Moses. "Leastways the manly, large-minded sort, like 'Dumpling' and me and Crocker. We can't stand against 'em--not for a moment."
"We take, when our turn comes, in fear and trembling," continued Bartley, "and we hope we'll be one of the lucky ones."
"The fear and trembling comes afterwards, as you'll find some day, Bartley, and as Screech here may find any day," foretold Moses. "Every man backs his own judgment and will lay you any odds he's drawn a prize."
"'Tis always the other people be fools in this world," declared Screech. "It holds of life in general. 'Tis said the world be full of fools, yet no man will ever allow he is one."
Mr. Snell spoke.
"I'm sure you hear of happy marriages here and there," he said doubtfully.
"So you do, Simon. You hear of 'em--same as you hear of pixies. But you don't see 'em. Leastways I don't," answered Bartley.
"Present company excepted, I hope," said Screech.
"You forget Mrs. Shillabeer also," murmured Mattacott. "I'm sure nobody here knows more about marriage than what the 'Dumpling' do. He's seen a happy marriage."
"In a way, yes," admitted the host; "and also in a way, no. You can't be right down happy with a woman--not if you love her as well as I loved the wife."
"'Perfect love casteth out fear,' however," quoted Mr. Moses, vaguely.
"Just what it don't do, Charles; and the man that said it, saint or sinner, didn't know what it was to love," answered the old prize-fighter. "If you love a female right down from the crown of her head to the tip of her toes, and through and through likewise, you fear for her something cruel. I was built so soft where that woman was concerned, that I hated for her to go for a drive in a trap, and couldn't be easy--for thinking of the springs--till I seed her safe again. And when illness overtook her--why, 'fear' wasn't the name for it. I crawled about like a beaten dog and cringed to God A'mighty for her in season and out. But she had to go, and I had to be left. And she took twenty year of my life underground with her."
They sympathised with him; then Mr. Snell returned to the main theme.
"They'm quicker than us, however," he asserted. "I'm sure their brains work faster than what ours do. There's many a thing a woman can't make clear to a male mind, try as she will."
Mr. Crocker laughed.
"Yes," he admitted. "Such things as two and two make five--when they want 'em to make five. And they try and they try to make us see it; but we can't. And yet they are always ready to believe that our two and two be five, God bless 'em!"
"I wonder," said Mr. Snell.
"'Tis so; but you must be masterful, Simon. You must make 'em feel you're in earnest and have no shadow of doubt," said Billy Screech. "They love to see you strong, and they'd sooner see you wrong and sticking to it than be blowed from your purpose by another man. Nought on God's earth be more hateful to a brave woman than to see her husband bested. And if a man bests you--whether 'tis at business or in any other way--don't you tell her if you can help it. Love you as she will, you'll drop in her mind and be so much the less if she hears about it."
The clock struck; mugs were drained.
"Closing time, souls," said Mr. Shillabeer; and five minutes later the company had separated and the bar was empty. The 'Dumpling' mused on the things that his guests had uttered.
"'Tis summed up in that word 'unexpected' without a doubt," he thought. "Never the expected thing. And if we grant so much, then us never ought to expect the expected thing. They be all of a piece; and because my wife looked like living for ever, I ought to have knowed she'd die. I ought to have known it, and prepared for it, and laid in wait for it. Yet nobody was more surprised than me, and nobody less so than her when it leaked out of the doctor. She knowed it herself well enough; but hadn't the heart to tell me."