CHAPTER XIITHE COURAGE OF MR. SNELLThe instinct which drew Simon Snell towards Rhoda Bowden--the instinct which, exemplified in her, suffered the advance without active discomfiture--while slight and subtle, was none the less real. There was that in this simple soul which suited the woman; or if such an expression is too strong, she found him more easily endured than any other man. Most girls fled instinctively from Simon. The dullest found him dull; the least humourous found his beard a jest; the worst educated discovered that they possessed wider knowledge than he. Yet Rhoda, who was not stupid, who was handsome and who enjoyed a measure of sense, could accede something to this egregious man that she denied all others. She did not spurn him and she did not find his companionship a joke or a bore. On the other hand, she did not seek him and made no attempt to better their acquaintance.Simon, for his part, developed similar and even stronger sentiments; and he had wit sufficient to perceive that any increase of friendship must come from him.He debated the matter in his mind with oriental deliberation; and he consumed several months on the great problem of whether he should or should not ask Rhoda to take a walk with him during some Sunday afternoon. His inclinations varied, and occasionally he believed that to walk with her was desirable; but more often he feared that such an action would be too definite and must commit him. Moreover, he felt extremely doubtful as to Rhoda's reply and, thanks to a spark of imagination in his character not to have been suspected, he believed that if she said 'no,' he would feel very uncomfortable.She met him on a day when the first opinion was uppermost, and almost before he knew it, Mr. Snell had succeeded in asking Rhoda if she would take a stroll with him upon the following Sunday afternoon. She replied without emotion that she was engaged to dinner with her parents at Ditsworthy."The next then," faltered Mr. Snell. As he spoke, he determined with himself that in thus pressing himself upon her, he had gone too far, and he prepared to leave her. To his surprise, however, Rhoda agreed."If 'tis a fine afternoon Sunday week, I'll come. But not if 'tis pouring torrents," she said."I'll be to your house at three of the clock," he answered.Then he left her and found himself in great agitation. This was the most audacious thing that he had ever done. He felt proud and alarmed by turns. As the day approached he heartily hoped that it might be wet; but it arrived clear, cold, and fine. Therefore he went forth in his Sunday clothes, reached his destination too soon and waited out of sight behind a stone, until his watch told one minute to the appointed hour.Rhoda was ready for him and they set off together up the valley. From his cottage door David watched them and smiled grimly. His sister had not mentioned her appointment, and both Margaret and her husband were exceedingly surprised."It can't surely be that poor Mr. Snell--?" said Madge."Anything can be," he answered; "but 'tis hard to believe. On the whole--no. It amounts to nought. Look at the way Simon carries his legs--that loose from the thigh--that loose and wandering, as though they belonged to a Guy Fawkes!""'Tis a most amazing thing, David, what different sort of people sometimes have something in 'em that draws them together willy-nilly. But Hartley!""'Tis no good looking that way," he answered with decision. "I sounded her as to the man a bit ago, as I promised. She's got no fancy that way, Madge, and the sooner he knows it the sooner he'll stop wasting his time."Meanwhile Mr. Snell walked beside Rhoda and talked of the amazing number of water rats in the leat. Presently he lifted the theme to poultry, and then, returning to the water, detailed the exact manner of his professional labours. She said little but listened to his statement of facts. His mind was only constituted to assert crude happenings. He had no ideas, no theories, and few opinions."You can see the tower of Princetown church very clear from here," he said; "but if a mist comed over, it would be hidden."She admitted that this was so."A gentleman stopped in our best bedroom and parlour a year back," continued Simon; "and his custom was to paint pickshers. And once I comed this way and he was painting pretty near where we be standing now. And I made so bold as to look, and then I made so bold as to talk, because the gentleman axed me what I thought of it. 'You've left out the church tower,' I says to him. 'Yes,' he says, ''twasn't like I was going to stick such a beastly, ugly thing as that in the middle of they hills.' So he left it out, though to my eye 'twas the most interesting sight to be seen.""Did he make his pickshers for pleasure, or did he get anything by them?" asked Rhoda."He lived by 'em. He said to me once that there were one or two sane men in the world who bought everything he liked to paint. 'Twas a very curious speech to my ear. And to be honest with you, I didn't like his pickshers--messy and half done to my eye--very different to the pickshers you see on grocers' almanacs, where everything, to the hairs on a horse's tail, be worked out to a miracle.""Have 'e seen they pickshers that David got to Tavistock?" she asked.Mr. Snell had seen them; but with a great and sudden access of cunning he replied in the negative. He expected her to invite him home to do so; but she did not.A silence fell until they came to a clapper bridge of rather narrow dimensions."Shall I hand you over, miss, or would you rather go alone?" he inquired.But Rhoda had crossed before he finished the question.The church-tower seemed to draw his eyes like a magnet, and after further silence Mr. Snell began to talk about it again."'Tis a very wonderful and curious thing that the old prisoners made thicky pile," he said. "You might not know it, but so it was in ancient days.""Very sad for them, because they was foreigners," ventured Rhoda."Exactly so. 'Twould be a very sad thing to have a wife and family and be shut away from them.""Yes.""Very sad without a doubt.""Yes."Mr. Snell next ventured on a great generality."I don't think 'tis a very good plan for fighting men to marry," he said."Perhaps not.""Because, if they get the worst of it, and get shot dead or taken prisoners, or any such like misfortune, their children and females have to suffer."Rhoda did not answer."'Tis a deep question, if you come to think of it, miss, who ought to be married and who ought not to be married.""There's a lot married as had better not be," she declared."I quite agree, I quite agree," answered Simon; "and you might even go so far as to say there's a lot might be married who ain't.""There's a lot don't want to be, I believe.""Women, I grant you. I do think here and there you'll find a woman who won't change the single state, along of experience with married sisters, or babies, or cross-grained men, or what not; but us was telling to 'The Corner House' a bit back along, and it seemed the general idea that there comes a time in every manly mind when the chap cries out for a wife. Should you think that might be so?""How should I know?""Beg pardon, I'm sure. Perhaps 'twas a silly question to put to a young woman. No offence, I hope?""Yes, it was a silly question.""Sorry, I'm sure, and I hope you'll overlook it. But, when I ax myself if ever it was so with me--but perhaps it don't interest you?"She considered before answering, then replied:"I don't much care what men think, but if you want to tell me, tell me.""Not at all--far from it, I'm sure. For that matter I couldn't tell you very easy. I haven't been throwed much with the female kind.""So much the better for you very like.""I quite agree--as a general thing; but, however--" he broke off and looked at his watch."My word, only four o'clock! Who'd have thought it?" he exclaimed."In my case I've been throwed a lot with men," said Rhoda."So you have, and no doubt you'll understand 'em pretty well. In fact, you're as brave as most men. I'm sure now you are braver than me.""Ban't you brave then?""I'm brave by fits and starts," said Mr. Snell. "With cattle, yes; with horses, no. When I was a little nipper, not above twelve or thirteen year old, a wicked horse got me down and bit my shoulder to the bone. He'd have killed me in another moment, but the Lord sent a man with a pitchfork and I was saved. But I feared a horse from that day, and if I could show you my shoulder, which, of course, I wouldn't offer for to do, you'd see how I was mangled by the teeth of him.""Some horses be as uncertain as dogs, and they've got terrible long memories--better than ours sometimes.""No doubt you know, so full of learning about four-footed things as you be.""We'll turn now, please.""Certainly. Us have come a longer way than I thought to. But you step out something wonderful.""I like walking.""So do I--nothing better. I go along ten miles of the leat six days a week, winter and summer. You might be surprised to know that I go more than three thousand miles in the year. 'Twas done out in figures by Mr. Mattacott all quite correct."They had turned, and now walked a considerable way in absolute silence. Then a neighbour came in sight, and Mr. Snell grew nervous."There's that clacking creature, Mary Main. She haven't seed us yet. If you'd rather for me to go away afore she does--?""Yes, if you like.""It might be better--unless-- Well, here's good-bye then for the present, and I'm very thankful to you for walking--very thankful and no less.""Us have had a nice walk.""I quite agree, I'm sure; and thank you kindly; if I get over this here wall I can pick up the leat yonder; and to see me by the leat will be an everyday sight for anybody.""Yes, it will."He hurried off, and Mary Main, when she met Rhoda alone as usual, had no idea of her recent great adventure.What impression the walk with Simon left in the girl's mind none ever knew; but Mr. Snell felt mildly elated by the achievement, though he told nobody about it. He was secretive, and his own mother knew nothing of his thoughts. Indeed, she was scarcely aware that he did think. Rhoda, too, confided in none but her brother. She said nothing about her amusement, and when Margaret openly asked her if she had enjoyed it, she did not answer the question, but replied with some other matter. It happened thus."Did you like Mr. Snell's opinions?" asked her sister-in-law, as Rhoda took off her hat and came to the tea-table."They horned sheep have all gone down in a crowd from the high ground, and they want to be driven back, which I'll do after I've had a cup of tea and changed my clothes," said the other.Six weeks later there fell out an unfortunate incident which went far to extinguish the slightly closer understanding that had obtained between these women since Bartley Crocker met David. By ill-fortune Madge annoyed Rhoda exceedingly, and her brother was also implicated. Mr. Snell, however, suffered most in the sequel. With great circumspection he had avoided Rhoda for a month after their walk, then he met her and proposed another."'Twill have to be short, for the evenings close in so," she said."I like the dark so well as you, however," he assured her."I only like the dark alone," she answered."How coorious! I only like it in company," he declared. "But, if you'm willing, I'll be so bold as to call at the cot half after two come Sunday week.""I shall be home that day. I dare say my sister-in-law will come too.""As to her--" began Mr. Snell, then he checked himself. "She's a very nice woman; in fact, you'd have to look a long way further than Sheepstor parish to find her equal," he declared. And then he went his way, dimly conscious that he had chosen his words awkwardly.When he arrived Rhoda was ready, but Margaret had a cold in her face, and the other had not asked her to join the party. Mr. Snell's appearance came as a surprise, and David spoke."Why, here's Simon again! So 'tis him you be prinked up in that new hat for, Rhoda!"Margaret laughed despite herself, and the virgin flushed; but with anger."Look at her roses!" said David, whose Sunday dinner had left him in an easy mood. Then his sister instantly restored him to seriousness."How dare you!" she cried. "How dare you laugh, Margaret, or you say such things, David? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I won't see the man! Never again will I see him! 'Tis you coarse creatures ought to blush--not me!"She left them, went to her room, and refused to descend though Margaret came up and pleaded with her."Tell him to go," was all that Rhoda said.Mr. Snell was placidly regretful to hear that Rhoda had a headache."The headache is a very painful thing; but she'll soon be rids of it," he said. "Us was going for a walk, but 'tis not of any consequence. I can go just as easy alone. Or I needn't go at all, come to think of it."He went to the gate, hesitated, and returned."When she comes down house again, you might give her my respects," he said; "and if 'tis her stomach that is out of order, there's nothing better than a little cold onion broth without salt, taken when the organs all be empty.""I'll tell her," promised Margaret, and Mr. Snell shuffled off.He walked over the exact ground of the former peregrination and recalled the former topics very accurately."I shall leave it now till well on into the new year," he told himself; "then, if my feelings be so fierce and fiery as they seem to be at present, I might offer for to go walking again. There's nought like a walk for helping a male to see into the female mind. 'Twas Crocker, I remember, who said in the bar that if you could get a girl to laugh at your jokes, 'twas a great thing done. But 'twill have to be something out of the common funny to make that woman laugh. And as to making a joke--I don't know I'm sure."CHAPTER XIIIRHODA PASSES BYA great uncertainty prevailed above Margaret Bowden, where she sat on the lofty side of Lether Tor before noon and waited to meet Bartley. The aerial doubt was reflected on earth in shadows and darkness shot with fitful light; an increasing opacity threatened rain; yet, where the vapours crowded most gloomily and massed their hooded cowls, light and wind would break their conclaves and scatter them upon the humid bosom of the Moor. Through this welter, sunshafts fell and flashed over the grey and russet of the wilderness.A sort of mystery belonged to the day seen in its huge encounter between cloud legions and the light of heaven. Strange things might have been happening within the penetralia of the fog-banks, where they drove through the valleys gloomily. There was an air of mighty preparation, of imminent explosion, of forces stealthily taking stand and making ready to declare themselves in elemental encounter between the armies of the sun and the rain. Light and darkness joined battle, and Mother Earth lowered heavily, in mood to welcome the victory of her own innumerable cloud children. The sobriety of the hour increased. The distant details of the land faded; the tors ascended solemn and purple above the grey.Yet, through loopholes in the driving fog, the sun still shot his arrows strongly and, where they fell, there broke forth fire on dene and dingle, and small roof-tree isolated in the loneliness. The watcher marked a sudden shaft sweep the vale of Kingsett with a besom of light, while another radiant gleam broke the clouds, descended upon her old home, and set the far-off whitewash glimmering like a jewel at the throat of Dennycoombe.Now the high lands southerly shone for a moment; now the ragged crest of Sheep's Tor was glorified with a nimbus of light, that revolved in a broad, wet fan, and then shut up again, as the clouds thrust between sun and earth.In process of time, as the war swept hither and thither, there grew a cheerful hope in Madge's mind that the clouds might be beaten. When all seemed lost and new vapours gathered even to her feet, she saw the upper heaven shine with sudden access of glory. It collected in close, dazzling centres; it pierced and riddled the fog beneath with silver that warmed into gold. And then the earth, that had taken service with storm and lifted her dark bosom to welcome rain--the faithless earth paid court to the conqueror and welcomed him with beauty. No longer she sulked; no longer the tors and hog-backed hills answered the dark strata of the sky with greater darkness, and spread beneath the sullen colours of the clouds a face still more sullen. Instead they donned a brighter aspect; while banderoles of blue unfurled aloft in the widening rents of the cloud rack. A great wind gathered strength, scattered the mists, and drove them flying down the hills; there fell warmth on the watcher's cheek; the world smoothed out her granite wrinkles, smiled, and reflected the azure of heaven upon her manifold stony faces, her water-ways and plains. Light conquered and upon the skirts of the defeated fog there burnt cold fires and glimmered the iris.This transformation and overthrow of the day's dark prophecy much heartened Madge. The victory of sunshine lifted her spirits unconsciously. She grew happier with the unfolding serenity of the hour; and she was singing to herself when Bartley Crocker arrived.Of late not seldom they had met unseen in lonely places, far afield. Sometimes she waited for him by the great menhir of Thrushel Coombe; sometimes at Plym Steps; sometimes in spots even more remote, haunted by the heron and the shadows of clouds. But during the past fortnight Margaret had only seen Mr. Crocker on one occasion, when she called to know of his mother's fading health. Then he made the present appointment; and now, as she sang, he climbed up through the wild clitters of Lether Tor to keep it."Go on," he said. "I heard you long afore you saw me. 'Tis pleasant to my ear; for nought be singing just now but the robins.""I was cheered somehow when the sun mastered the fog.""How's Rhoda?""Very well. She'll come this way herself presently, by Nosworthy bridge.""Mr. Snell called again?""Not again. 'Tis a pity you can't see a bit more of Rhoda, however.""My mother wouldn't let me out of her sight at the last.""Well I know it, poor dear. How does she find herself to-day, Bartley?""A bit strange, no doubt; but with my father to show her the new place. She's dead.""Dead! Oh, Bartley!""Yes--thank God. Faded out at four o'clock yesterday morning. Flickered out just the same as a night-light flickers out. Wavers and shakes--then steadies down again--then gets brighter than ever--then grows dim--slowly, slowly, till there's nought but a bead of fire left. And then a flash, and then--gone. And your eyes think it's there still; but it isn't.""Dear Bartley, I'm so sorry for you.""Are you? But I know you are. Not many else will be--not many but me and my Aunt Susan. She's torn to the heart. I couldn't stand no more of it.""I'll see your aunt to-morrow. I'll see her to-day.""She'll thank you. Make it to-morrow. My dear mother wasn't a very much sought after woman--too wise for that, I expect. But you could comfort her sister. Nobody else will trouble about her.""To-night I shall go down.""The funeral's on Tuesday. Would you put her to the west where the big holly tree is, or under the sunny wall where the slates of the Moses family all stand?""She'd have liked to be buried by her husband. She told me so.""I know; but 'tisn't convenient. He lies at Honiton, and 'twould cost a King's ransom to take her there. But I asked her almost the last thing, and she thought and shook her head. Past caring then.""Me and David will be at the funeral--I can promise for myself, and I'm pretty sure he'll go.""D'you think you could get Rhoda to come? D'you think I might go so far as to ask her to come?""I'm sure she'd go if she thought it would give anybody any pleasure.""Not pleasure exactly. You might almost say 'twas business more than pleasure. Don't think I'm hard-hearted and all that sort of thing; but when you're in love like I am--everything--even the funeral of his own mother--is used by a man to his advantage, if it can be. To feel like I feel for Rhoda makes me as hard as a millstone for everything else. I want her at the funeral; because if she sees me there burying my dear mother, it may bring a pinch of softness to her. I've planned to get her there if 'tis possible."Margaret stared at him in wonder."Don't think me daft. I'm suffering enough; but 'tis man's way to look on ahead. And I can't look on ahead into nothing. I've grown to feel to Rhoda that she's got to marry me. And yet 'tis idle to pretend that I've much right to be hopeful. What's the best news about her?""There's no news, unless her long, lonely walks be news. She must think of something when she takes 'em. She can't talk to the dogs all the time. Her mind can't be empty, can it?""Certainly not," Mr. Crocker assured her. "She must be travelling over something in her brain, if 'tis only the joneys on the mantel-shelf in your parlour. But it isn't about me and Canada she thinks, I reckon. Canada, perhaps, but not me.""I will say this: there's no unfriendliness in her. I never hear her speak a word against any man, bar William Screech. And I go in hopes that she'll forgive even him and Dorcas.""She'd forgive 'em right enough if she was married to me. Anyway, when my dear mother's laid to her rest, after a few days are past, I shall ask Rhoda again. The time has come to do it.""I think it has.""Will she be along with you at Christmas?""No," answered Margaret. "'Tis ordained that we all go to Ditsworthy for Christmas dinner. 'Tis a longful time since David was to home, and his mother has planned this.""Well, you must ask me a bit later. Or I'll try to get David to bid me come and eat along with you after New Year. I may tell you this: David wouldn't make any objection.""None--none at all."Bartley began to spare a little thought from himself for Margaret. He had often wondered whether his plain hints to her husband brought any fruit for her. To-day he was in a high-strung and somewhat emotional mood; therefore he did not shirk the subject as usual; but prepared to plunge into it."Let's get down the hill," he said. "We'll go so far as Nosworthy bridge together, if that's not drawing you too much out of your way.""'Twill suit very well," she answered. "I want to meet Rhoda, and she'll be fetching back by the bridge afore long.""You'll be hungry.""No; I've got a bit of bread and cheese in my pocket. You can have half, if you mind to."He shook his head."Can't eat to-day. 'Twill be a fast day in my life for evermore.""Dear Hartley, I don't say much. Who can say anything to the purpose against such a loss? But I do feel for you.""I know it, Madge. Nobody'll feel for me like you. Give me your hand. 'Tis a thought steep here; but it leads to the best road to the bottom."He helped her down the crooked acclivities, and in half an hour they were at the bridge beneath.Here Meavy opens her arms, and shutting them again, creates a little island. The waters join once more below and sing and foam under the ivy-mantled span of one grey arch. To-day naked boughs thrust up from the drooping red mat of the brake-fern, and the leaves of the willows were reduced to a mere yellow sparkle of yellow on the boughs. Only the greater furze laid a heavy green in great masses on the harmony of winter colours.Bartley led the way by mossy stones beside a backwater where dead leaves danced."We'll sit on the island," he said, "while you eat your food. There's an old hurdle there, and I'll put my coat over it for you."A few moments later they were talking about Margaret's self, and she felt her heart flutter somewhat at this sudden and very unexpected change of subject."D'you mind what you told me some time since, Madge?" he asked. "At least it can't be said you told me; but, between the lines of things that you spoke, I somehow pieced together a sort of feeling you wasn't as happy as you'd a right to be.""How can you think so? I'm sure--""Well, anyway, it got into my stupid head, and as luck would have it I fell in with David a bit after I'd left you. You must remember the day, Madge. It's idle to pretend you've forgot.""Yes, I remember. I was down-daunted and silly. You oughtn't to have thought twice about my feeble grumbling.""You didn't grumble. Another person would have marked nothing in what you said; but I know you so well--quick as lightning I am where you are concerned, or any woman I care about. And I talked to David."She started and stared at him."Then I'm very angry indeed with you, Bartley.""Are you? Well, he wasn't. There's few more sensible, clever chaps knocking about than your husband. Like a flash I opened his eyes, and he thanked me for doing it. Thanked me, mind you.""Opened his eyes! Whatever do you mean?""I mean I opened his eyes. He's a terrible busy man and I'm a terrible lazy one. And 'tis no use being lazy if you can't use your time to do the busy folk a good turn. Fools would say 'twas interference; but not a wise man like David.""What did you tell him?""Say you forgive me.""It depends what you said.""It depends on the result of what I said. I told David that I reckoned he was--well--too busy. I said he dropped you out of his life a bit too much and didn't humour you enough. I told him plump out that he wasn't so kind as he might be. Now you're properly angered with me, no doubt; but just think if you've a right to be."She was silent, and her flush faded and her eyes fixed on him and grew puzzled."'Twas only because I knew him so well and his straight, just way that I dared," he continued. "And now you've got to say if that talk did harm or good. And if it did harm, heap hard words on me; but if it did good--"She put out her hand impulsively, but not until a silent minute had sped. During the moments she retraced the past and remembered what had surprised her and made her happier. Then she stretched out her hand and clasped his."Good came of it," she said."If that's so, I've gained something to-day as well as lost something, Madge.""David--it shows what he is, Hartley.""Yes. He's high above anything small or mean."She continued to reflect. It was impossible to say much more on the subject, and, indeed, the brightest that could be said was spoken. The wife, though she knew that her husband had long since resumed his old absorbed attitude and found less and less leisure for amenity and tenderness, could not whisper this outside her own heart."It was good and brave of you," she said. "And dear David belongs to the large-souled sort of men that ban't above learning even on such a sacred, secret business as his wife. But he knew you had known me ever since I was a little girl."Bartley nodded."So long as you can tell me that good came of it, I'm content. Now leave it. Eat your lunch and then I must go. And strive to bring 'em both--Rhoda and David--to the funeral.""All Sheepstor will surely go."She brought her food from her pocket and he watched her eat some little sandwiches made of bread and cheese. Their backs were turned to Nosworthy bridge, but they were quite visible from it."There's more here than I want," she said. "I wish you'd take some."The whimsical child in the man, even on this dark day, broke loose."Feed me," he said. "Don't think I'm a fool for asking; but feed me. I mean it. 'Twill comfort me. I'm cruel miserable, though not to the eye."Of old she remembered his follies and fancies."When you was young you was always like a little, silly, petted bird or puppy," she said, smiling."So I often am still--and especially when I'm down on my luck. There's no dear, silly mother to pet me no more and make me chirrup again. How she would do it! Feed me, Madge."She held a sandwich to his mouth."One more.""Here's four more. Eat 'em quick. And then I must get going."One by one she put the morsels of food to his lips, and laughed at him, in spite of herself, while she did so. Then he thanked her and declared that he was much the better and happier for her charity."Mother's in heaven," he said. "And I'm going to her again some day. If a man believes that really, and doesn't only fool himself to think he believes it, 'tis the greatest comfort of all. And I didn't ought to be miserable to-day, and I'm damned if I will be.""Of course you believe it. So do I--heart and soul--and so do every true, faithful Christian creature.""Of course. Didn't you say you counted to meet Rhoda here?""Yes--'tis time she came by.""I shall pass her going back; and I'll tell her you're at the bridge waiting for her. Good-bye, Madge; and the Lord bless you for the kind things you've said to me.""And thank you, too, Bartley, for--for--""That was nought."He helped her back from the island to the road; then he left her and went his way in expectation of meeting Rhoda at every turn. But he did not meet her, because she had already passed by.She had flitted swiftly over the bridge; but stricken to passivity by a sudden and astounding sight--she had stood a moment upon the farther side. She had then gone forward without disturbing those who astonished her.Therefore Margaret and Mr. Crocker were wholly unaware that Rhoda Bowden had seen her sister-in-law not only putting food into the man's mouth, but also laughing at him while he ridiculously imitated the fluttering action of a fledgling bird.Rhoda gasped and slipped her foot once or twice from sheer absorption of mind as she proceeded homeward. She considered this spectacle in the light of news just gleaned at Sheepstor."And the man's mother not much more than cold in her grave-clothes!" she thought.BOOK IIICHAPTER IMYSTERYThe company at 'The Corner House' had divided into two groups, and each was concerned with a separate subject. Mr. Shillabeer himself, with Bartley Crocker, Mr. Moses, Simon Snell, and Bart Stanbury, discussed a strange phenomenon that had of late startled the dwellers at Sheepstor; while, with their backs to this throng, Ernest Maunder, his friend Timothy Mattacott, and Billy Screech whispered together upon a private problem."The thing can be explained in a word," said Moses; "there be amongst us some high-minded, religious creature that have got hold of this way of advertising the Truth. He have said to himself, 'There's nought like a gate to catch the eye of the passer-by.' And so, where a gate happens to stand by the wayside, he have gone by night and painted up a Bible truth. Farmer Chave found 'Prepare to meet thy God' on his bullock byre yesterday morning, and there's 'Eternity'--just that one solemn word--on every second gate betwixt here and Meavy.""He's come out our way, too, since last week," said Bart Stanbury. "There be a text up over on the moor-gate above our house: 'Now is the accepted time.'"Young Stanbury was courting a girl at Nosworthy Farm, near his home, and this text, staring out of the dawn-lit desert, had come to him with the force of a direct command. But he made no mention of its private significance in his affairs."The party means well enough," declared Hartley. "There's no doubt about that. And it can't be denied that coming upon these solemn things all of a sudden makes men and women think. The puzzle is to know who's doing it.""Some of the people that own the gates don't like it, however," said Simon Snell. "Farmer Bassett, out to Yellowmead, says 'tis a form of trespass and battery to write on a man's gatepost; and it don't bring you any more within the law because you write up Scripture. The man stuck up 'Let there be light' on Mr. Bassett's big gate--the one going into his four-acre field--and Bassett was cruel vexed and said as how he'd let light into the chap himself if ever he caught him.""And he's cleaned his gate with sand-paper," added young Stanbury."'Tis written on again since then," said Mr. Shillabeer. "I was that way not long since, and there's words written there again--namely, 'God is Love.'""Strange thing is that Ernest Maunder on his nightly rounds should have never catched the man," mused Crocker."Not at all," explained Mr. Moses. "The man no doubt knows the way of Ernest's beat as well as Ernest himself do, and avoids him. They were saying yesterday that it might even be parson's self; but of course that's a rash and silly idea. His reverence is as much interested in it as anybody--especially since he found 'The Lord loveth a cheerful giver' on his own back-garden door--the one that leadeth out into the lane. He holds that the man means well; all the same, he wants him catched and stopped.""What could be done to him if they did lay hold on him?" asked Reuben Shillabeer."Why, there you beat me," answered Moses. "I'm sure I don't know. The lord of the manor might talk to him; but I don't think any law has been broken, whereas 'tis certain many people have been made to think about religion in consequence.""My mother for one," asserted Mr. Snell. "She came across 'After death the Judgment' 'pon a broken paling out Yennadon Down way, and it turned her faint on the instant and made her very unwell. But 'twas all to the good, as she herself declared two days afterwards. The man's doing a very proper work, whoever the man is.""With a pot of blacking and letters cut out of tin he does it," said Bartley Crocker. "It ought to be pretty easy to find him out. He must have been round here only a day or two ago. I see he's been busy at the bottom of your paddock, 'Dumpling.'""Yes," admitted Mr. Shillabeer. "He knows a bit about everybody. 'Swear not at all' he put up on my fence, down the bottom end of my cabbage plot. That ought to be a lesson to us in this bar, for, try as I will, the crooked words slip out among you.""I quite agree," said Mr. Snell. "I catched myself saying 'damn' to a young dog only yesternight. And no fault of the dog.""If we was all as careful as you, no great harm would come to the parish," answered Charles Moses. "For my part, swearing never drew me. I found I could be righteously angry without it, and also forcible of speech.""Some fall back upon it as natural as drink," asserted Bartley, "though 'tis certainly no sign of strength to put in swear words.""Yet Sir Guy Flamank, his honourable self, be a great hand with them," argued Snell. "I've heard him in the hunting field use the most terrible parts of speech you can imagine--though not when ladies was out, I admit that.""Take my good friend, David Bowden," said Bartley. "No man ever yet heard him use an oath. And yet, by all accounts, nobody gets his way quicker with smooth words."Mr. Shillabeer nodded."Without a shade of unkindly feeling against the man, I could wish he wasn't quite so own-self, all the same," he said. "That wrapped up heart and soul in work and money-making, that he haven't eyes for anything else in the earth."Mr. Crocker looked round about him."What you say is gospel truth, 'Dumpling.' We're all friends here, I believe--friends to 'em both. Therefore none will think it anything but kindness in us to be sorry about 'em.""I met Margaret a while back," said Mr. Shillabeer. "My wife was terrible fond of her when she was a mere strip of a girl. We had some talk together, and--there 'twas. I'd give my whiskers to make 'em go along a thought happier; and yet when you say the word, she'll have nought of it and tell you there never was a happier, luckier creature.""In a way that's true," declared Bartley, "but in another way 'tis false. What did you say to her, Reuben?""To be plain," answered Mr. Shillabeer, guiltily, "I was full of rather gloomy thoughts along of it being the death-day of the wife. And I said, in my darkness, that self-slaughter might not be all bad, if a man had outlived his value. And she reproved me--yes, she said the word in season.""You oughtn't to think of such things, Shillabeer," declared Mr. Moses."I know it, Charles; yet thoughts will come over the mind unbidden. But leave that.""As to David, he's easier to talk sense to than you might think," added Crocker. "I risked it once, and he took it in a very manly spirit that made me respect him more than ever. But I doubt he's forgotten it all long ago. Why for don't you try, Moses? You're a light among us and carry the weight of the church on your shoulders. Catch the man coming out one Sunday and go a bit of the way back-along with him, and some of us will take Madge and Rhoda out of earshot.""No," answered the shoemaker. "Don't ask me to attempt any such a thing. You can't alter it, and they can't alter it. 'Tis in them: they're built so. Just a pinch of salt makes or mars a stew, and just a pinch of character makes or mars a home. If we even knew exactly what 'twas, we couldn't alter it. You can't pull out a bit of human nature, like a hollow tooth. Just an over-seasoning of pepper in a man, or a pinch of softness in a woman, may spoil all. It takes terrible little to wreck a home, and I've known large tragedies rise up out of nought but a taste.""That's true," declared Bartley. "A man with a failing, or a fancy, as wouldn't count against him in one woman's eyes, may come to eternal smash on it if he happens to wed with another woman. 'Tis the little twists of character that lead to the biggest troubles, as the acorn breeds the oak."Mr. Shillabeer obliged with an instance."I knowed a very good Christian girl who was a moderate drinker and never dreamed of taking a thimble too much afore she married. And she never would have done so afterwards, but for the bad luck of her husband being a furious teetotaller. I've seed that man talk about drink till you'd think he was blind drunk himself! And so he was--drunk with rage at the thought of there being such a thing as drink in the universe. And what come of it? She took to drink, that woman did, driven to it, you might say, out of sheer spite; and the man catched his only son market merry at ten years old; and he dashed him to the earth in his righteous indignation and broke the poor child's arm in two places.""'Tis just the sort of thing that happens every day," declared Charles Moses, mournfully. "But, please God, with the Bowden pair, they are both too sensible to drift apart. 'Tis a terrible sad thing to see husband and wife lost, as it were--each feeling along alone, trying to find the man or the woman they loved and married, and not finding 'em. For why? Because each have gone back to themselves, and put off all that hoodwinking toggery they was hidden in during the courting time. We talk about being disguised in drink, Reuben Shillabeer, but we ought to talk about being disguised in love also. There's nought makes a man act further from his true self than wanting to win a woman.""'Tis supposed to bring out the best of us; but I'm with you there; I don't know that it does," said Bartley.Mr. Snell stared."For my part, though you might say such a man as me hasn't the right to lift his voice afore such a learned person like you, Mr. Moses, yet I do believe in love. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've felt it more than here and there--back and forward, like rheumatism, according to the state of the blood and the season of the year; but when it comes, it makes me more valiant without a doubt; and that's to the good."Mr. Crocker looked at his rival. Then he opened his mouth to speak; and then he shut it again and kept silence.Elsewhere Mattacott, Maunder, and William Screech debated a great matter. They argued now as to whether Mr. Shillabeer should hear the secret, and the policeman advised against it."An honest and an upright man, outside prize-fighting," he said; "but in this you can't expect him to take sides. We are all his customers--Bart Stanbury just as much as Mattacott here; therefore I say, 'keep the thing from him.'""And from everybody," added Mattacott. "If it get's out, all's marred. The fewer hear of it, the better; and I hope you won't tell your wife, Billy."Mr. Screech laughed."That shows how little you know of the world, Timothy. Why, 'twas my wife had the brilliant thought! She knowed Mattacott wanted for to marry Jane West, and I told her how another man was after Jane also, and that she couldn't decide between 'em. Then says Dorcas--quick as a needle, that woman--'Jane believes in all that rummage about Crazywell. So what Mattacott have got to do is to plan to get her that way come next Christmas Eve; and he've got to lie hid; and when he sees her, he've got to shout out the name of t'other chap; and Jane will think 'tis the spirits; and she'll fancy t'other chap is bound to die afore the year's out; so he'll be no good to her whether she likes him or not. Then, of course, she'll take Mattacott.' Those were her very words, as near as I can call 'em home. And when did you hear a cleverer thing?""'Tis terrible clever," confessed Mattacott. "But Jane West wouldn't never go up past the pool alone on Christmas Eve for a hundred pounds; so us must plan somehow for somebody to go along with her. 'Tis a very tricky business to be drawn into a plot.""All be fair in love," said Mr. Maunder; "else, of course, I couldn't countenance any such a plan. But the matter is outside the law and therefore I'm not called to take any steps--especially as I very much want to see Mattacott get the woman. He's the wrong side of forty now, and 'tis more than time he was suited, if it is to be."Mr. Mattacott looked across jealously at the innocent Bart Stanbury."He's too young for her even if she'd have him," he said. "'Tis his sandy hair and his blue, silly eyes have made her think twice about him.""Keep to business," interrupted Billy Screech. "Now it's agreed we get the girl to Crazywell come Christmas Eve next; and that's nearly two months off, so we've got plenty of time to cabal against Bart. The first question is, who shall take her to Crazywell on the day?"They all frowned over this problem; then Screech solved it brilliantly."Why, Bart hisself, to be sure! What better could happen? He hears his doom come up out of the water; and of course, even if they was tokened, he'd have to release her after that. Any man would have to do it."They applauded and Mattacott was especially enthusiastic. But the policeman acknowledged a doubt."It don't strike you as too terrible a thing?" he asked. "For my part, as a tender man, though guardian of law and order, I can't think we should let the fellow hear his own fate. He might believe it and go mad. Stranger things have happened.""Have no fear: he won't believe it," said Mr. Screech. "'Tis her that will believe it, and 'tis her that we want to believe it.""A fine stroke certainly--to make Bart hear it himself," admitted Maunder; "that is, if I've got your word for it the man won't be hurt in his mind by such an adventure.""That's settled then; and now there's the great question of who does the spirit," continued Screech. "Of course, 'tis Mattacott's job--not mine; yet I must point out that his voice is not well suited to the deed.""I wouldn't do it for anything," said Mattacott. "I'm nought at a pinch; and if 'twas thrust upon me to do it, fifty to one but I should go and lose my head and very like shout out the wrong name, or some such foolishness.""'Tis true," said Maunder. "With all your good gifts, Timothy, you're the very man to make a mess of this. Besides, your voice will surely betray you.""I ax this here chap to do it," said Mattacott, turning to Screech himself. "Maunder, no doubt, would do it for me, as my lifelong friend; but he's a government servant and his time is not his own. Therefore I ax Billy; and, if it goes right, I'll pay him down a crown; and if it don't go right, I'll pay half-a-crown; and who can say fairer?""So far so good then," summed up Billy; "and I'm bound to say I think you're right. I can put a hollow sound into my voice and bring it up from my boots, in a way that would make any girl go goose-flesh if she heard me after dark on a common week-day, not to name Christmas Eve at Crazywell. Leave that to me when the time cometh. Now the next thing is, what shall I say?""Nought but the man's name," advised Ernest Maunder; "the less you say the awfuller 'twill be.""Just 'Bart Stanbury! Bart Stanbury!' twice," whispered Mattacott. "You'll be snug hid in a fuzz bush, of course; and once you mark that she's heard you, you can slip off home as quick as need be to prove 'twasn't you, if anything comes to be said about it after."Billy nodded."Just so; but I mustn't say 'Bart' Stanbury," he explained. "You see the man's christening name is 'Bartholomew,' and the spirit wouldn't know as we called him 'Bart' for shortness. The full name must be spoken, and that I shall do. So there 'twill be, and Jane West will believe that the man's booked for death afore another year be out."Mr. Mattacott showed a little emotion on Stanbury's account, but Billy overruled his qualms. The matter was allowed to drop and a diversion threw the two groups together and turned conversation into a former topic.Ellas Bowden came in, cold and rosy, out of the night."Evening, souls!" he said. "On my way up-along and thought I'd give the pony five minutes and myself a drop out of the special bottle. What's the best news?""'Tis for you to tell us what's the latest, master," said Bartley."The latest," answered Mr. Bowden, "is this: that pious blade with his blacking brush and his Bible have been up over! Ess fay; Nap and Wellington runned in with the news after daylight. There's no gates up my way except my own; but he'd fastened 'pon that, and there it was. I heard a dog bark last night, but 'twas dark as pitch and no good looking out the window.""And what might he have chosen for you?" asked Ernest Maunder."The solemn words, 'Jesus wept,'" answered Elias. "A drop more water to this, Shillabeer, if you please. Yes, he'd writ those deep words there. Can't say exactly why he put them in particular; but they drive the love of the Lord into the mind and make a man religious, no doubt. Not that I'm ever anything else, when you come to the bottom of me, I hope.""The thought that the Redeemer of mankind shed tears is a very sad thought, however," declared Mr. Moses. "And yet not all sad, if I make my meaning clear, because it brings Him nearer to us on the human side; and the nearer, the better.""Very well put, Charles," said Reuben Shillabeer. "The nearer the better, I'm sure.""Upon the rocks in the warrens too--so the boys tell me," continued the master of Ditsworthy. "The busy man have set up a good text or two here and there. I doubt he'll take to writing 'em life-size upon the tors next.""That's a great idea, now!" declared Shillabeer. "Then everybody passing by could catch the Word. In fact, none could miss it if the letters was big enough.""For that matter, if I may say so," argued Mr. Moses, "the tors be the word of God a'ready, and nought out of the Bible could make 'em grander than they be. Not that this curious man thinks so. Without a doubt he'd write great Bible news across the moon's self, if he could only find a ladder long enough to reach her; and a brush big enough for the work."
CHAPTER XII
THE COURAGE OF MR. SNELL
The instinct which drew Simon Snell towards Rhoda Bowden--the instinct which, exemplified in her, suffered the advance without active discomfiture--while slight and subtle, was none the less real. There was that in this simple soul which suited the woman; or if such an expression is too strong, she found him more easily endured than any other man. Most girls fled instinctively from Simon. The dullest found him dull; the least humourous found his beard a jest; the worst educated discovered that they possessed wider knowledge than he. Yet Rhoda, who was not stupid, who was handsome and who enjoyed a measure of sense, could accede something to this egregious man that she denied all others. She did not spurn him and she did not find his companionship a joke or a bore. On the other hand, she did not seek him and made no attempt to better their acquaintance.
Simon, for his part, developed similar and even stronger sentiments; and he had wit sufficient to perceive that any increase of friendship must come from him.
He debated the matter in his mind with oriental deliberation; and he consumed several months on the great problem of whether he should or should not ask Rhoda to take a walk with him during some Sunday afternoon. His inclinations varied, and occasionally he believed that to walk with her was desirable; but more often he feared that such an action would be too definite and must commit him. Moreover, he felt extremely doubtful as to Rhoda's reply and, thanks to a spark of imagination in his character not to have been suspected, he believed that if she said 'no,' he would feel very uncomfortable.
She met him on a day when the first opinion was uppermost, and almost before he knew it, Mr. Snell had succeeded in asking Rhoda if she would take a stroll with him upon the following Sunday afternoon. She replied without emotion that she was engaged to dinner with her parents at Ditsworthy.
"The next then," faltered Mr. Snell. As he spoke, he determined with himself that in thus pressing himself upon her, he had gone too far, and he prepared to leave her. To his surprise, however, Rhoda agreed.
"If 'tis a fine afternoon Sunday week, I'll come. But not if 'tis pouring torrents," she said.
"I'll be to your house at three of the clock," he answered.
Then he left her and found himself in great agitation. This was the most audacious thing that he had ever done. He felt proud and alarmed by turns. As the day approached he heartily hoped that it might be wet; but it arrived clear, cold, and fine. Therefore he went forth in his Sunday clothes, reached his destination too soon and waited out of sight behind a stone, until his watch told one minute to the appointed hour.
Rhoda was ready for him and they set off together up the valley. From his cottage door David watched them and smiled grimly. His sister had not mentioned her appointment, and both Margaret and her husband were exceedingly surprised.
"It can't surely be that poor Mr. Snell--?" said Madge.
"Anything can be," he answered; "but 'tis hard to believe. On the whole--no. It amounts to nought. Look at the way Simon carries his legs--that loose from the thigh--that loose and wandering, as though they belonged to a Guy Fawkes!"
"'Tis a most amazing thing, David, what different sort of people sometimes have something in 'em that draws them together willy-nilly. But Hartley!"
"'Tis no good looking that way," he answered with decision. "I sounded her as to the man a bit ago, as I promised. She's got no fancy that way, Madge, and the sooner he knows it the sooner he'll stop wasting his time."
Meanwhile Mr. Snell walked beside Rhoda and talked of the amazing number of water rats in the leat. Presently he lifted the theme to poultry, and then, returning to the water, detailed the exact manner of his professional labours. She said little but listened to his statement of facts. His mind was only constituted to assert crude happenings. He had no ideas, no theories, and few opinions.
"You can see the tower of Princetown church very clear from here," he said; "but if a mist comed over, it would be hidden."
She admitted that this was so.
"A gentleman stopped in our best bedroom and parlour a year back," continued Simon; "and his custom was to paint pickshers. And once I comed this way and he was painting pretty near where we be standing now. And I made so bold as to look, and then I made so bold as to talk, because the gentleman axed me what I thought of it. 'You've left out the church tower,' I says to him. 'Yes,' he says, ''twasn't like I was going to stick such a beastly, ugly thing as that in the middle of they hills.' So he left it out, though to my eye 'twas the most interesting sight to be seen."
"Did he make his pickshers for pleasure, or did he get anything by them?" asked Rhoda.
"He lived by 'em. He said to me once that there were one or two sane men in the world who bought everything he liked to paint. 'Twas a very curious speech to my ear. And to be honest with you, I didn't like his pickshers--messy and half done to my eye--very different to the pickshers you see on grocers' almanacs, where everything, to the hairs on a horse's tail, be worked out to a miracle."
"Have 'e seen they pickshers that David got to Tavistock?" she asked.
Mr. Snell had seen them; but with a great and sudden access of cunning he replied in the negative. He expected her to invite him home to do so; but she did not.
A silence fell until they came to a clapper bridge of rather narrow dimensions.
"Shall I hand you over, miss, or would you rather go alone?" he inquired.
But Rhoda had crossed before he finished the question.
The church-tower seemed to draw his eyes like a magnet, and after further silence Mr. Snell began to talk about it again.
"'Tis a very wonderful and curious thing that the old prisoners made thicky pile," he said. "You might not know it, but so it was in ancient days."
"Very sad for them, because they was foreigners," ventured Rhoda.
"Exactly so. 'Twould be a very sad thing to have a wife and family and be shut away from them."
"Yes."
"Very sad without a doubt."
"Yes."
Mr. Snell next ventured on a great generality.
"I don't think 'tis a very good plan for fighting men to marry," he said.
"Perhaps not."
"Because, if they get the worst of it, and get shot dead or taken prisoners, or any such like misfortune, their children and females have to suffer."
Rhoda did not answer.
"'Tis a deep question, if you come to think of it, miss, who ought to be married and who ought not to be married."
"There's a lot married as had better not be," she declared.
"I quite agree, I quite agree," answered Simon; "and you might even go so far as to say there's a lot might be married who ain't."
"There's a lot don't want to be, I believe."
"Women, I grant you. I do think here and there you'll find a woman who won't change the single state, along of experience with married sisters, or babies, or cross-grained men, or what not; but us was telling to 'The Corner House' a bit back along, and it seemed the general idea that there comes a time in every manly mind when the chap cries out for a wife. Should you think that might be so?"
"How should I know?"
"Beg pardon, I'm sure. Perhaps 'twas a silly question to put to a young woman. No offence, I hope?"
"Yes, it was a silly question."
"Sorry, I'm sure, and I hope you'll overlook it. But, when I ax myself if ever it was so with me--but perhaps it don't interest you?"
She considered before answering, then replied:
"I don't much care what men think, but if you want to tell me, tell me."
"Not at all--far from it, I'm sure. For that matter I couldn't tell you very easy. I haven't been throwed much with the female kind."
"So much the better for you very like."
"I quite agree--as a general thing; but, however--" he broke off and looked at his watch.
"My word, only four o'clock! Who'd have thought it?" he exclaimed.
"In my case I've been throwed a lot with men," said Rhoda.
"So you have, and no doubt you'll understand 'em pretty well. In fact, you're as brave as most men. I'm sure now you are braver than me."
"Ban't you brave then?"
"I'm brave by fits and starts," said Mr. Snell. "With cattle, yes; with horses, no. When I was a little nipper, not above twelve or thirteen year old, a wicked horse got me down and bit my shoulder to the bone. He'd have killed me in another moment, but the Lord sent a man with a pitchfork and I was saved. But I feared a horse from that day, and if I could show you my shoulder, which, of course, I wouldn't offer for to do, you'd see how I was mangled by the teeth of him."
"Some horses be as uncertain as dogs, and they've got terrible long memories--better than ours sometimes."
"No doubt you know, so full of learning about four-footed things as you be."
"We'll turn now, please."
"Certainly. Us have come a longer way than I thought to. But you step out something wonderful."
"I like walking."
"So do I--nothing better. I go along ten miles of the leat six days a week, winter and summer. You might be surprised to know that I go more than three thousand miles in the year. 'Twas done out in figures by Mr. Mattacott all quite correct."
They had turned, and now walked a considerable way in absolute silence. Then a neighbour came in sight, and Mr. Snell grew nervous.
"There's that clacking creature, Mary Main. She haven't seed us yet. If you'd rather for me to go away afore she does--?"
"Yes, if you like."
"It might be better--unless-- Well, here's good-bye then for the present, and I'm very thankful to you for walking--very thankful and no less."
"Us have had a nice walk."
"I quite agree, I'm sure; and thank you kindly; if I get over this here wall I can pick up the leat yonder; and to see me by the leat will be an everyday sight for anybody."
"Yes, it will."
He hurried off, and Mary Main, when she met Rhoda alone as usual, had no idea of her recent great adventure.
What impression the walk with Simon left in the girl's mind none ever knew; but Mr. Snell felt mildly elated by the achievement, though he told nobody about it. He was secretive, and his own mother knew nothing of his thoughts. Indeed, she was scarcely aware that he did think. Rhoda, too, confided in none but her brother. She said nothing about her amusement, and when Margaret openly asked her if she had enjoyed it, she did not answer the question, but replied with some other matter. It happened thus.
"Did you like Mr. Snell's opinions?" asked her sister-in-law, as Rhoda took off her hat and came to the tea-table.
"They horned sheep have all gone down in a crowd from the high ground, and they want to be driven back, which I'll do after I've had a cup of tea and changed my clothes," said the other.
Six weeks later there fell out an unfortunate incident which went far to extinguish the slightly closer understanding that had obtained between these women since Bartley Crocker met David. By ill-fortune Madge annoyed Rhoda exceedingly, and her brother was also implicated. Mr. Snell, however, suffered most in the sequel. With great circumspection he had avoided Rhoda for a month after their walk, then he met her and proposed another.
"'Twill have to be short, for the evenings close in so," she said.
"I like the dark so well as you, however," he assured her.
"I only like the dark alone," she answered.
"How coorious! I only like it in company," he declared. "But, if you'm willing, I'll be so bold as to call at the cot half after two come Sunday week."
"I shall be home that day. I dare say my sister-in-law will come too."
"As to her--" began Mr. Snell, then he checked himself. "She's a very nice woman; in fact, you'd have to look a long way further than Sheepstor parish to find her equal," he declared. And then he went his way, dimly conscious that he had chosen his words awkwardly.
When he arrived Rhoda was ready, but Margaret had a cold in her face, and the other had not asked her to join the party. Mr. Snell's appearance came as a surprise, and David spoke.
"Why, here's Simon again! So 'tis him you be prinked up in that new hat for, Rhoda!"
Margaret laughed despite herself, and the virgin flushed; but with anger.
"Look at her roses!" said David, whose Sunday dinner had left him in an easy mood. Then his sister instantly restored him to seriousness.
"How dare you!" she cried. "How dare you laugh, Margaret, or you say such things, David? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I won't see the man! Never again will I see him! 'Tis you coarse creatures ought to blush--not me!"
She left them, went to her room, and refused to descend though Margaret came up and pleaded with her.
"Tell him to go," was all that Rhoda said.
Mr. Snell was placidly regretful to hear that Rhoda had a headache.
"The headache is a very painful thing; but she'll soon be rids of it," he said. "Us was going for a walk, but 'tis not of any consequence. I can go just as easy alone. Or I needn't go at all, come to think of it."
He went to the gate, hesitated, and returned.
"When she comes down house again, you might give her my respects," he said; "and if 'tis her stomach that is out of order, there's nothing better than a little cold onion broth without salt, taken when the organs all be empty."
"I'll tell her," promised Margaret, and Mr. Snell shuffled off.
He walked over the exact ground of the former peregrination and recalled the former topics very accurately.
"I shall leave it now till well on into the new year," he told himself; "then, if my feelings be so fierce and fiery as they seem to be at present, I might offer for to go walking again. There's nought like a walk for helping a male to see into the female mind. 'Twas Crocker, I remember, who said in the bar that if you could get a girl to laugh at your jokes, 'twas a great thing done. But 'twill have to be something out of the common funny to make that woman laugh. And as to making a joke--I don't know I'm sure."
CHAPTER XIII
RHODA PASSES BY
A great uncertainty prevailed above Margaret Bowden, where she sat on the lofty side of Lether Tor before noon and waited to meet Bartley. The aerial doubt was reflected on earth in shadows and darkness shot with fitful light; an increasing opacity threatened rain; yet, where the vapours crowded most gloomily and massed their hooded cowls, light and wind would break their conclaves and scatter them upon the humid bosom of the Moor. Through this welter, sunshafts fell and flashed over the grey and russet of the wilderness.
A sort of mystery belonged to the day seen in its huge encounter between cloud legions and the light of heaven. Strange things might have been happening within the penetralia of the fog-banks, where they drove through the valleys gloomily. There was an air of mighty preparation, of imminent explosion, of forces stealthily taking stand and making ready to declare themselves in elemental encounter between the armies of the sun and the rain. Light and darkness joined battle, and Mother Earth lowered heavily, in mood to welcome the victory of her own innumerable cloud children. The sobriety of the hour increased. The distant details of the land faded; the tors ascended solemn and purple above the grey.
Yet, through loopholes in the driving fog, the sun still shot his arrows strongly and, where they fell, there broke forth fire on dene and dingle, and small roof-tree isolated in the loneliness. The watcher marked a sudden shaft sweep the vale of Kingsett with a besom of light, while another radiant gleam broke the clouds, descended upon her old home, and set the far-off whitewash glimmering like a jewel at the throat of Dennycoombe.
Now the high lands southerly shone for a moment; now the ragged crest of Sheep's Tor was glorified with a nimbus of light, that revolved in a broad, wet fan, and then shut up again, as the clouds thrust between sun and earth.
In process of time, as the war swept hither and thither, there grew a cheerful hope in Madge's mind that the clouds might be beaten. When all seemed lost and new vapours gathered even to her feet, she saw the upper heaven shine with sudden access of glory. It collected in close, dazzling centres; it pierced and riddled the fog beneath with silver that warmed into gold. And then the earth, that had taken service with storm and lifted her dark bosom to welcome rain--the faithless earth paid court to the conqueror and welcomed him with beauty. No longer she sulked; no longer the tors and hog-backed hills answered the dark strata of the sky with greater darkness, and spread beneath the sullen colours of the clouds a face still more sullen. Instead they donned a brighter aspect; while banderoles of blue unfurled aloft in the widening rents of the cloud rack. A great wind gathered strength, scattered the mists, and drove them flying down the hills; there fell warmth on the watcher's cheek; the world smoothed out her granite wrinkles, smiled, and reflected the azure of heaven upon her manifold stony faces, her water-ways and plains. Light conquered and upon the skirts of the defeated fog there burnt cold fires and glimmered the iris.
This transformation and overthrow of the day's dark prophecy much heartened Madge. The victory of sunshine lifted her spirits unconsciously. She grew happier with the unfolding serenity of the hour; and she was singing to herself when Bartley Crocker arrived.
Of late not seldom they had met unseen in lonely places, far afield. Sometimes she waited for him by the great menhir of Thrushel Coombe; sometimes at Plym Steps; sometimes in spots even more remote, haunted by the heron and the shadows of clouds. But during the past fortnight Margaret had only seen Mr. Crocker on one occasion, when she called to know of his mother's fading health. Then he made the present appointment; and now, as she sang, he climbed up through the wild clitters of Lether Tor to keep it.
"Go on," he said. "I heard you long afore you saw me. 'Tis pleasant to my ear; for nought be singing just now but the robins."
"I was cheered somehow when the sun mastered the fog."
"How's Rhoda?"
"Very well. She'll come this way herself presently, by Nosworthy bridge."
"Mr. Snell called again?"
"Not again. 'Tis a pity you can't see a bit more of Rhoda, however."
"My mother wouldn't let me out of her sight at the last."
"Well I know it, poor dear. How does she find herself to-day, Bartley?"
"A bit strange, no doubt; but with my father to show her the new place. She's dead."
"Dead! Oh, Bartley!"
"Yes--thank God. Faded out at four o'clock yesterday morning. Flickered out just the same as a night-light flickers out. Wavers and shakes--then steadies down again--then gets brighter than ever--then grows dim--slowly, slowly, till there's nought but a bead of fire left. And then a flash, and then--gone. And your eyes think it's there still; but it isn't."
"Dear Bartley, I'm so sorry for you."
"Are you? But I know you are. Not many else will be--not many but me and my Aunt Susan. She's torn to the heart. I couldn't stand no more of it."
"I'll see your aunt to-morrow. I'll see her to-day."
"She'll thank you. Make it to-morrow. My dear mother wasn't a very much sought after woman--too wise for that, I expect. But you could comfort her sister. Nobody else will trouble about her."
"To-night I shall go down."
"The funeral's on Tuesday. Would you put her to the west where the big holly tree is, or under the sunny wall where the slates of the Moses family all stand?"
"She'd have liked to be buried by her husband. She told me so."
"I know; but 'tisn't convenient. He lies at Honiton, and 'twould cost a King's ransom to take her there. But I asked her almost the last thing, and she thought and shook her head. Past caring then."
"Me and David will be at the funeral--I can promise for myself, and I'm pretty sure he'll go."
"D'you think you could get Rhoda to come? D'you think I might go so far as to ask her to come?"
"I'm sure she'd go if she thought it would give anybody any pleasure."
"Not pleasure exactly. You might almost say 'twas business more than pleasure. Don't think I'm hard-hearted and all that sort of thing; but when you're in love like I am--everything--even the funeral of his own mother--is used by a man to his advantage, if it can be. To feel like I feel for Rhoda makes me as hard as a millstone for everything else. I want her at the funeral; because if she sees me there burying my dear mother, it may bring a pinch of softness to her. I've planned to get her there if 'tis possible."
Margaret stared at him in wonder.
"Don't think me daft. I'm suffering enough; but 'tis man's way to look on ahead. And I can't look on ahead into nothing. I've grown to feel to Rhoda that she's got to marry me. And yet 'tis idle to pretend that I've much right to be hopeful. What's the best news about her?"
"There's no news, unless her long, lonely walks be news. She must think of something when she takes 'em. She can't talk to the dogs all the time. Her mind can't be empty, can it?"
"Certainly not," Mr. Crocker assured her. "She must be travelling over something in her brain, if 'tis only the joneys on the mantel-shelf in your parlour. But it isn't about me and Canada she thinks, I reckon. Canada, perhaps, but not me."
"I will say this: there's no unfriendliness in her. I never hear her speak a word against any man, bar William Screech. And I go in hopes that she'll forgive even him and Dorcas."
"She'd forgive 'em right enough if she was married to me. Anyway, when my dear mother's laid to her rest, after a few days are past, I shall ask Rhoda again. The time has come to do it."
"I think it has."
"Will she be along with you at Christmas?"
"No," answered Margaret. "'Tis ordained that we all go to Ditsworthy for Christmas dinner. 'Tis a longful time since David was to home, and his mother has planned this."
"Well, you must ask me a bit later. Or I'll try to get David to bid me come and eat along with you after New Year. I may tell you this: David wouldn't make any objection."
"None--none at all."
Bartley began to spare a little thought from himself for Margaret. He had often wondered whether his plain hints to her husband brought any fruit for her. To-day he was in a high-strung and somewhat emotional mood; therefore he did not shirk the subject as usual; but prepared to plunge into it.
"Let's get down the hill," he said. "We'll go so far as Nosworthy bridge together, if that's not drawing you too much out of your way."
"'Twill suit very well," she answered. "I want to meet Rhoda, and she'll be fetching back by the bridge afore long."
"You'll be hungry."
"No; I've got a bit of bread and cheese in my pocket. You can have half, if you mind to."
He shook his head.
"Can't eat to-day. 'Twill be a fast day in my life for evermore."
"Dear Hartley, I don't say much. Who can say anything to the purpose against such a loss? But I do feel for you."
"I know it, Madge. Nobody'll feel for me like you. Give me your hand. 'Tis a thought steep here; but it leads to the best road to the bottom."
He helped her down the crooked acclivities, and in half an hour they were at the bridge beneath.
Here Meavy opens her arms, and shutting them again, creates a little island. The waters join once more below and sing and foam under the ivy-mantled span of one grey arch. To-day naked boughs thrust up from the drooping red mat of the brake-fern, and the leaves of the willows were reduced to a mere yellow sparkle of yellow on the boughs. Only the greater furze laid a heavy green in great masses on the harmony of winter colours.
Bartley led the way by mossy stones beside a backwater where dead leaves danced.
"We'll sit on the island," he said, "while you eat your food. There's an old hurdle there, and I'll put my coat over it for you."
A few moments later they were talking about Margaret's self, and she felt her heart flutter somewhat at this sudden and very unexpected change of subject.
"D'you mind what you told me some time since, Madge?" he asked. "At least it can't be said you told me; but, between the lines of things that you spoke, I somehow pieced together a sort of feeling you wasn't as happy as you'd a right to be."
"How can you think so? I'm sure--"
"Well, anyway, it got into my stupid head, and as luck would have it I fell in with David a bit after I'd left you. You must remember the day, Madge. It's idle to pretend you've forgot."
"Yes, I remember. I was down-daunted and silly. You oughtn't to have thought twice about my feeble grumbling."
"You didn't grumble. Another person would have marked nothing in what you said; but I know you so well--quick as lightning I am where you are concerned, or any woman I care about. And I talked to David."
She started and stared at him.
"Then I'm very angry indeed with you, Bartley."
"Are you? Well, he wasn't. There's few more sensible, clever chaps knocking about than your husband. Like a flash I opened his eyes, and he thanked me for doing it. Thanked me, mind you."
"Opened his eyes! Whatever do you mean?"
"I mean I opened his eyes. He's a terrible busy man and I'm a terrible lazy one. And 'tis no use being lazy if you can't use your time to do the busy folk a good turn. Fools would say 'twas interference; but not a wise man like David."
"What did you tell him?"
"Say you forgive me."
"It depends what you said."
"It depends on the result of what I said. I told David that I reckoned he was--well--too busy. I said he dropped you out of his life a bit too much and didn't humour you enough. I told him plump out that he wasn't so kind as he might be. Now you're properly angered with me, no doubt; but just think if you've a right to be."
She was silent, and her flush faded and her eyes fixed on him and grew puzzled.
"'Twas only because I knew him so well and his straight, just way that I dared," he continued. "And now you've got to say if that talk did harm or good. And if it did harm, heap hard words on me; but if it did good--"
She put out her hand impulsively, but not until a silent minute had sped. During the moments she retraced the past and remembered what had surprised her and made her happier. Then she stretched out her hand and clasped his.
"Good came of it," she said.
"If that's so, I've gained something to-day as well as lost something, Madge."
"David--it shows what he is, Hartley."
"Yes. He's high above anything small or mean."
She continued to reflect. It was impossible to say much more on the subject, and, indeed, the brightest that could be said was spoken. The wife, though she knew that her husband had long since resumed his old absorbed attitude and found less and less leisure for amenity and tenderness, could not whisper this outside her own heart.
"It was good and brave of you," she said. "And dear David belongs to the large-souled sort of men that ban't above learning even on such a sacred, secret business as his wife. But he knew you had known me ever since I was a little girl."
Bartley nodded.
"So long as you can tell me that good came of it, I'm content. Now leave it. Eat your lunch and then I must go. And strive to bring 'em both--Rhoda and David--to the funeral."
"All Sheepstor will surely go."
She brought her food from her pocket and he watched her eat some little sandwiches made of bread and cheese. Their backs were turned to Nosworthy bridge, but they were quite visible from it.
"There's more here than I want," she said. "I wish you'd take some."
The whimsical child in the man, even on this dark day, broke loose.
"Feed me," he said. "Don't think I'm a fool for asking; but feed me. I mean it. 'Twill comfort me. I'm cruel miserable, though not to the eye."
Of old she remembered his follies and fancies.
"When you was young you was always like a little, silly, petted bird or puppy," she said, smiling.
"So I often am still--and especially when I'm down on my luck. There's no dear, silly mother to pet me no more and make me chirrup again. How she would do it! Feed me, Madge."
She held a sandwich to his mouth.
"One more."
"Here's four more. Eat 'em quick. And then I must get going."
One by one she put the morsels of food to his lips, and laughed at him, in spite of herself, while she did so. Then he thanked her and declared that he was much the better and happier for her charity.
"Mother's in heaven," he said. "And I'm going to her again some day. If a man believes that really, and doesn't only fool himself to think he believes it, 'tis the greatest comfort of all. And I didn't ought to be miserable to-day, and I'm damned if I will be."
"Of course you believe it. So do I--heart and soul--and so do every true, faithful Christian creature."
"Of course. Didn't you say you counted to meet Rhoda here?"
"Yes--'tis time she came by."
"I shall pass her going back; and I'll tell her you're at the bridge waiting for her. Good-bye, Madge; and the Lord bless you for the kind things you've said to me."
"And thank you, too, Bartley, for--for--"
"That was nought."
He helped her back from the island to the road; then he left her and went his way in expectation of meeting Rhoda at every turn. But he did not meet her, because she had already passed by.
She had flitted swiftly over the bridge; but stricken to passivity by a sudden and astounding sight--she had stood a moment upon the farther side. She had then gone forward without disturbing those who astonished her.
Therefore Margaret and Mr. Crocker were wholly unaware that Rhoda Bowden had seen her sister-in-law not only putting food into the man's mouth, but also laughing at him while he ridiculously imitated the fluttering action of a fledgling bird.
Rhoda gasped and slipped her foot once or twice from sheer absorption of mind as she proceeded homeward. She considered this spectacle in the light of news just gleaned at Sheepstor.
"And the man's mother not much more than cold in her grave-clothes!" she thought.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
MYSTERY
The company at 'The Corner House' had divided into two groups, and each was concerned with a separate subject. Mr. Shillabeer himself, with Bartley Crocker, Mr. Moses, Simon Snell, and Bart Stanbury, discussed a strange phenomenon that had of late startled the dwellers at Sheepstor; while, with their backs to this throng, Ernest Maunder, his friend Timothy Mattacott, and Billy Screech whispered together upon a private problem.
"The thing can be explained in a word," said Moses; "there be amongst us some high-minded, religious creature that have got hold of this way of advertising the Truth. He have said to himself, 'There's nought like a gate to catch the eye of the passer-by.' And so, where a gate happens to stand by the wayside, he have gone by night and painted up a Bible truth. Farmer Chave found 'Prepare to meet thy God' on his bullock byre yesterday morning, and there's 'Eternity'--just that one solemn word--on every second gate betwixt here and Meavy."
"He's come out our way, too, since last week," said Bart Stanbury. "There be a text up over on the moor-gate above our house: 'Now is the accepted time.'"
Young Stanbury was courting a girl at Nosworthy Farm, near his home, and this text, staring out of the dawn-lit desert, had come to him with the force of a direct command. But he made no mention of its private significance in his affairs.
"The party means well enough," declared Hartley. "There's no doubt about that. And it can't be denied that coming upon these solemn things all of a sudden makes men and women think. The puzzle is to know who's doing it."
"Some of the people that own the gates don't like it, however," said Simon Snell. "Farmer Bassett, out to Yellowmead, says 'tis a form of trespass and battery to write on a man's gatepost; and it don't bring you any more within the law because you write up Scripture. The man stuck up 'Let there be light' on Mr. Bassett's big gate--the one going into his four-acre field--and Bassett was cruel vexed and said as how he'd let light into the chap himself if ever he caught him."
"And he's cleaned his gate with sand-paper," added young Stanbury.
"'Tis written on again since then," said Mr. Shillabeer. "I was that way not long since, and there's words written there again--namely, 'God is Love.'"
"Strange thing is that Ernest Maunder on his nightly rounds should have never catched the man," mused Crocker.
"Not at all," explained Mr. Moses. "The man no doubt knows the way of Ernest's beat as well as Ernest himself do, and avoids him. They were saying yesterday that it might even be parson's self; but of course that's a rash and silly idea. His reverence is as much interested in it as anybody--especially since he found 'The Lord loveth a cheerful giver' on his own back-garden door--the one that leadeth out into the lane. He holds that the man means well; all the same, he wants him catched and stopped."
"What could be done to him if they did lay hold on him?" asked Reuben Shillabeer.
"Why, there you beat me," answered Moses. "I'm sure I don't know. The lord of the manor might talk to him; but I don't think any law has been broken, whereas 'tis certain many people have been made to think about religion in consequence."
"My mother for one," asserted Mr. Snell. "She came across 'After death the Judgment' 'pon a broken paling out Yennadon Down way, and it turned her faint on the instant and made her very unwell. But 'twas all to the good, as she herself declared two days afterwards. The man's doing a very proper work, whoever the man is."
"With a pot of blacking and letters cut out of tin he does it," said Bartley Crocker. "It ought to be pretty easy to find him out. He must have been round here only a day or two ago. I see he's been busy at the bottom of your paddock, 'Dumpling.'"
"Yes," admitted Mr. Shillabeer. "He knows a bit about everybody. 'Swear not at all' he put up on my fence, down the bottom end of my cabbage plot. That ought to be a lesson to us in this bar, for, try as I will, the crooked words slip out among you."
"I quite agree," said Mr. Snell. "I catched myself saying 'damn' to a young dog only yesternight. And no fault of the dog."
"If we was all as careful as you, no great harm would come to the parish," answered Charles Moses. "For my part, swearing never drew me. I found I could be righteously angry without it, and also forcible of speech."
"Some fall back upon it as natural as drink," asserted Bartley, "though 'tis certainly no sign of strength to put in swear words."
"Yet Sir Guy Flamank, his honourable self, be a great hand with them," argued Snell. "I've heard him in the hunting field use the most terrible parts of speech you can imagine--though not when ladies was out, I admit that."
"Take my good friend, David Bowden," said Bartley. "No man ever yet heard him use an oath. And yet, by all accounts, nobody gets his way quicker with smooth words."
Mr. Shillabeer nodded.
"Without a shade of unkindly feeling against the man, I could wish he wasn't quite so own-self, all the same," he said. "That wrapped up heart and soul in work and money-making, that he haven't eyes for anything else in the earth."
Mr. Crocker looked round about him.
"What you say is gospel truth, 'Dumpling.' We're all friends here, I believe--friends to 'em both. Therefore none will think it anything but kindness in us to be sorry about 'em."
"I met Margaret a while back," said Mr. Shillabeer. "My wife was terrible fond of her when she was a mere strip of a girl. We had some talk together, and--there 'twas. I'd give my whiskers to make 'em go along a thought happier; and yet when you say the word, she'll have nought of it and tell you there never was a happier, luckier creature."
"In a way that's true," declared Bartley, "but in another way 'tis false. What did you say to her, Reuben?"
"To be plain," answered Mr. Shillabeer, guiltily, "I was full of rather gloomy thoughts along of it being the death-day of the wife. And I said, in my darkness, that self-slaughter might not be all bad, if a man had outlived his value. And she reproved me--yes, she said the word in season."
"You oughtn't to think of such things, Shillabeer," declared Mr. Moses.
"I know it, Charles; yet thoughts will come over the mind unbidden. But leave that."
"As to David, he's easier to talk sense to than you might think," added Crocker. "I risked it once, and he took it in a very manly spirit that made me respect him more than ever. But I doubt he's forgotten it all long ago. Why for don't you try, Moses? You're a light among us and carry the weight of the church on your shoulders. Catch the man coming out one Sunday and go a bit of the way back-along with him, and some of us will take Madge and Rhoda out of earshot."
"No," answered the shoemaker. "Don't ask me to attempt any such a thing. You can't alter it, and they can't alter it. 'Tis in them: they're built so. Just a pinch of salt makes or mars a stew, and just a pinch of character makes or mars a home. If we even knew exactly what 'twas, we couldn't alter it. You can't pull out a bit of human nature, like a hollow tooth. Just an over-seasoning of pepper in a man, or a pinch of softness in a woman, may spoil all. It takes terrible little to wreck a home, and I've known large tragedies rise up out of nought but a taste."
"That's true," declared Bartley. "A man with a failing, or a fancy, as wouldn't count against him in one woman's eyes, may come to eternal smash on it if he happens to wed with another woman. 'Tis the little twists of character that lead to the biggest troubles, as the acorn breeds the oak."
Mr. Shillabeer obliged with an instance.
"I knowed a very good Christian girl who was a moderate drinker and never dreamed of taking a thimble too much afore she married. And she never would have done so afterwards, but for the bad luck of her husband being a furious teetotaller. I've seed that man talk about drink till you'd think he was blind drunk himself! And so he was--drunk with rage at the thought of there being such a thing as drink in the universe. And what come of it? She took to drink, that woman did, driven to it, you might say, out of sheer spite; and the man catched his only son market merry at ten years old; and he dashed him to the earth in his righteous indignation and broke the poor child's arm in two places."
"'Tis just the sort of thing that happens every day," declared Charles Moses, mournfully. "But, please God, with the Bowden pair, they are both too sensible to drift apart. 'Tis a terrible sad thing to see husband and wife lost, as it were--each feeling along alone, trying to find the man or the woman they loved and married, and not finding 'em. For why? Because each have gone back to themselves, and put off all that hoodwinking toggery they was hidden in during the courting time. We talk about being disguised in drink, Reuben Shillabeer, but we ought to talk about being disguised in love also. There's nought makes a man act further from his true self than wanting to win a woman."
"'Tis supposed to bring out the best of us; but I'm with you there; I don't know that it does," said Bartley.
Mr. Snell stared.
"For my part, though you might say such a man as me hasn't the right to lift his voice afore such a learned person like you, Mr. Moses, yet I do believe in love. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've felt it more than here and there--back and forward, like rheumatism, according to the state of the blood and the season of the year; but when it comes, it makes me more valiant without a doubt; and that's to the good."
Mr. Crocker looked at his rival. Then he opened his mouth to speak; and then he shut it again and kept silence.
Elsewhere Mattacott, Maunder, and William Screech debated a great matter. They argued now as to whether Mr. Shillabeer should hear the secret, and the policeman advised against it.
"An honest and an upright man, outside prize-fighting," he said; "but in this you can't expect him to take sides. We are all his customers--Bart Stanbury just as much as Mattacott here; therefore I say, 'keep the thing from him.'"
"And from everybody," added Mattacott. "If it get's out, all's marred. The fewer hear of it, the better; and I hope you won't tell your wife, Billy."
Mr. Screech laughed.
"That shows how little you know of the world, Timothy. Why, 'twas my wife had the brilliant thought! She knowed Mattacott wanted for to marry Jane West, and I told her how another man was after Jane also, and that she couldn't decide between 'em. Then says Dorcas--quick as a needle, that woman--'Jane believes in all that rummage about Crazywell. So what Mattacott have got to do is to plan to get her that way come next Christmas Eve; and he've got to lie hid; and when he sees her, he've got to shout out the name of t'other chap; and Jane will think 'tis the spirits; and she'll fancy t'other chap is bound to die afore the year's out; so he'll be no good to her whether she likes him or not. Then, of course, she'll take Mattacott.' Those were her very words, as near as I can call 'em home. And when did you hear a cleverer thing?"
"'Tis terrible clever," confessed Mattacott. "But Jane West wouldn't never go up past the pool alone on Christmas Eve for a hundred pounds; so us must plan somehow for somebody to go along with her. 'Tis a very tricky business to be drawn into a plot."
"All be fair in love," said Mr. Maunder; "else, of course, I couldn't countenance any such a plan. But the matter is outside the law and therefore I'm not called to take any steps--especially as I very much want to see Mattacott get the woman. He's the wrong side of forty now, and 'tis more than time he was suited, if it is to be."
Mr. Mattacott looked across jealously at the innocent Bart Stanbury.
"He's too young for her even if she'd have him," he said. "'Tis his sandy hair and his blue, silly eyes have made her think twice about him."
"Keep to business," interrupted Billy Screech. "Now it's agreed we get the girl to Crazywell come Christmas Eve next; and that's nearly two months off, so we've got plenty of time to cabal against Bart. The first question is, who shall take her to Crazywell on the day?"
They all frowned over this problem; then Screech solved it brilliantly.
"Why, Bart hisself, to be sure! What better could happen? He hears his doom come up out of the water; and of course, even if they was tokened, he'd have to release her after that. Any man would have to do it."
They applauded and Mattacott was especially enthusiastic. But the policeman acknowledged a doubt.
"It don't strike you as too terrible a thing?" he asked. "For my part, as a tender man, though guardian of law and order, I can't think we should let the fellow hear his own fate. He might believe it and go mad. Stranger things have happened."
"Have no fear: he won't believe it," said Mr. Screech. "'Tis her that will believe it, and 'tis her that we want to believe it."
"A fine stroke certainly--to make Bart hear it himself," admitted Maunder; "that is, if I've got your word for it the man won't be hurt in his mind by such an adventure."
"That's settled then; and now there's the great question of who does the spirit," continued Screech. "Of course, 'tis Mattacott's job--not mine; yet I must point out that his voice is not well suited to the deed."
"I wouldn't do it for anything," said Mattacott. "I'm nought at a pinch; and if 'twas thrust upon me to do it, fifty to one but I should go and lose my head and very like shout out the wrong name, or some such foolishness."
"'Tis true," said Maunder. "With all your good gifts, Timothy, you're the very man to make a mess of this. Besides, your voice will surely betray you."
"I ax this here chap to do it," said Mattacott, turning to Screech himself. "Maunder, no doubt, would do it for me, as my lifelong friend; but he's a government servant and his time is not his own. Therefore I ax Billy; and, if it goes right, I'll pay him down a crown; and if it don't go right, I'll pay half-a-crown; and who can say fairer?"
"So far so good then," summed up Billy; "and I'm bound to say I think you're right. I can put a hollow sound into my voice and bring it up from my boots, in a way that would make any girl go goose-flesh if she heard me after dark on a common week-day, not to name Christmas Eve at Crazywell. Leave that to me when the time cometh. Now the next thing is, what shall I say?"
"Nought but the man's name," advised Ernest Maunder; "the less you say the awfuller 'twill be."
"Just 'Bart Stanbury! Bart Stanbury!' twice," whispered Mattacott. "You'll be snug hid in a fuzz bush, of course; and once you mark that she's heard you, you can slip off home as quick as need be to prove 'twasn't you, if anything comes to be said about it after."
Billy nodded.
"Just so; but I mustn't say 'Bart' Stanbury," he explained. "You see the man's christening name is 'Bartholomew,' and the spirit wouldn't know as we called him 'Bart' for shortness. The full name must be spoken, and that I shall do. So there 'twill be, and Jane West will believe that the man's booked for death afore another year be out."
Mr. Mattacott showed a little emotion on Stanbury's account, but Billy overruled his qualms. The matter was allowed to drop and a diversion threw the two groups together and turned conversation into a former topic.
Ellas Bowden came in, cold and rosy, out of the night.
"Evening, souls!" he said. "On my way up-along and thought I'd give the pony five minutes and myself a drop out of the special bottle. What's the best news?"
"'Tis for you to tell us what's the latest, master," said Bartley.
"The latest," answered Mr. Bowden, "is this: that pious blade with his blacking brush and his Bible have been up over! Ess fay; Nap and Wellington runned in with the news after daylight. There's no gates up my way except my own; but he'd fastened 'pon that, and there it was. I heard a dog bark last night, but 'twas dark as pitch and no good looking out the window."
"And what might he have chosen for you?" asked Ernest Maunder.
"The solemn words, 'Jesus wept,'" answered Elias. "A drop more water to this, Shillabeer, if you please. Yes, he'd writ those deep words there. Can't say exactly why he put them in particular; but they drive the love of the Lord into the mind and make a man religious, no doubt. Not that I'm ever anything else, when you come to the bottom of me, I hope."
"The thought that the Redeemer of mankind shed tears is a very sad thought, however," declared Mr. Moses. "And yet not all sad, if I make my meaning clear, because it brings Him nearer to us on the human side; and the nearer, the better."
"Very well put, Charles," said Reuben Shillabeer. "The nearer the better, I'm sure."
"Upon the rocks in the warrens too--so the boys tell me," continued the master of Ditsworthy. "The busy man have set up a good text or two here and there. I doubt he'll take to writing 'em life-size upon the tors next."
"That's a great idea, now!" declared Shillabeer. "Then everybody passing by could catch the Word. In fact, none could miss it if the letters was big enough."
"For that matter, if I may say so," argued Mr. Moses, "the tors be the word of God a'ready, and nought out of the Bible could make 'em grander than they be. Not that this curious man thinks so. Without a doubt he'd write great Bible news across the moon's self, if he could only find a ladder long enough to reach her; and a brush big enough for the work."