"Ah!" said the other, "that's the sort of man you are, then? My girl was wise to throw you over, and your dirty money too. Tokened to you, you liar! I wonder the hand of God don't drive you into the dust for saying it! Tokened to you—when you know so well as I do that, last Sunday week, she told you, once for all, she wasn't going to take you? What d'you think me and she are? A pair of fools to go down afore your brazen voice?"
"You'd better not have me for an enemy, my man. It won't pay you in the long run, I promise you."
"Bluster's a fine weapon—to back a lie; but truth can stand without it. You've told me a string of lies, and well you knew they were."
He lighted his pipe, and Weekes laughed.
"Well, well, you're a smart man, I find. I'll give you that credit. You see pretty far through a millstone—eh? If you won't knock under to me, then we'll start again, and put it on a business footing. I want no misunderstanding with you. This girl thinks she's fond of you for the moment. I'll grant that much. But you'll see, if you really care a button about her, that her prosperity would be a good deal surer with me than with you. You needn't be angry at all. This is a matter of business. I want her. I've known her—long, long before ever you did; and if you hadn't turned up from God knows where, she'd have come to me right and proper when I decided I was ready for her. I am ready for her now. If I'd asked her a month sooner, she'd have come without question, of course; but meanwhile she had seen you, and was taken, like a child, with your size. So it stands. I grant that you've got the whip hand for the minute. You have me in your power up to any reasonable sum. It lies in a nutshell, Daniel Brendon. What's your figure?"
"For chucking her?"
"For leaving her alone to come to her senses. Money's not got every day; a wife can be. If you want the last, there's no better way to get 'em than with the first."
"Yet Sarah Jane put me afore your cash seemingly?"
"Like any foolish girl might in a rash moment. But you're not a fool, or I'm no judge of character. You're a man of ideas and ambitions. I thought you were a common labourer. That's what made me rather savage. I see you're a man as good as myself—every bit. So I'll forgive Sarah that much, and appeal to your sense of justice to give me back my own. And since I know well enough you will be making a great sacrifice, I offer you an equivalent."
Daniel listened.
"A generous chap you are, then?"
"Yes, I am. I don't want to exert force, or trust to my position. I meet you man to man equal. I've long been as good as tokened to her, and it would be a very wicked thing for you to come between us. I'll not say you have no rights, however; I'll not say that a silly woman's passing whim isn't to count. I'll grant everything—everything in reason. I'll allow that you won her fair and square, though she didn't tell you quite the truth, I'm afraid. I'll allow that for the moment she honestly thinks that she loves you better than she loves me. But, beyond all that, there's these two points. I'll offer you good money to drop this, as in justice to me you should do at once; and I'll say that if you want Sarah Jane to be happy and content and prosperous, you must see that I'm the man to make her so—not you."
"That's your side, then?"
"Yes; that's my side—the side of justice and wisdom, if you come to think of it."
"And what's the figure? I'm a poor man, and oughtn't to lose a chance of making good money, Mr. Weekes. 'Tis the opportunity of a lifetime, you see. 'Twill never come again."
"Well, I'm no skinflint. Give her up and I'll let you have ten pounds."
"Ten pounds! That's an awful lot!"
"A lot of money, as you say."
"But not enough for Sarah Jane."
Weekes held the battle as good as won, and now determined to fight for the lowest figure possible. He was rather astonished to succeed so easily, and from great anxiety leapt quickly over to the other extreme of contempt.
"You're greedy, I'm afraid."
"No, no—not greedy, only businesslike. I won her fairly, you see. Us can't all go uphill, like you. Some stands still; some goes down. Here's my chance to go up a little."
"I'll make it fifteen, then."
"'Tis for me to make the figure now, and for you to pay it. I suppose the question is what's Sarah Jane Friend worth to you?"
"Not at all," answered Jarratt. "That's neither here nor there. All I want to know is what money you'll drop her for. And I warn you not to be too greedy, else I may get rusty on my side and take her by force for nothing."
"I see; I must be reasonable?"
"Of course—give and take in business."
"Well, then, suppose we say—a hundred million pounds?"
"Don't be a fool," answered the other testily. "I'm not talking to you for fun."
Then Daniel's temper burst from control.
"God damn you, you ugly, cross-eyed cur! To dare to come to a man and offer ten pounds to him for his woman! You flint-faced wretch!—a withered thing like you to think of her! I——"
"You'd better——" began Weekes; but Brendon roared him down.
"Shut your mouth! 'Tis your turn now to hear me! If you dare to speak again, I'll pull you off your horse and take the skin from your bones! What dirt d'you think I'm made of, to tell this wickedness in my ears? I wonder you ban't struck for it. Ten pounds for Sarah Jane; and you sit there on your horse under Heaven and nothing done against you! But it won't be forgot—remember that. 'Tis a black mark upon your name for evermore. Ten pounds; and you ought to be damned ten times over for every shilling of it! And if ever you come anigh her again, I'll break your neck, God's my judge! A man as she's said 'No' to a dozen times! Go and hang yourself, you grey rat! She wouldn't have you if you was made of gold, and well you know it. To say as I came between you! To say she'd be a happier woman along with you than with me! Happy with you—as reckon she'm worth ten pounds! There—get away after your ponies, and never you look into her face or mine again, or I'll knock your two eyes into one—so now you know!"
He strode on up the hill, panting and raging like a bull, while Weekes looked after him. Jarratt had turned very grey under this torrent of abuse. He was stung by the other's scorn, and felt that he did not deserve it. But he kept his wits, and perceived that Brendon, huge and loutish though he might be, had proved too clever for him in this matter. The lover of Sarah Jane had trapped Mr. Weekes by a pretended greed, and led him into folly. He realized that probably the world in general, and Sarah Jane in particular, would presently hear that he had offered a ten-pound note for her; and then raised the figure reluctantly to fifteen. This was not likely to advance his reputation at Lydford, or elsewhere. He even imagined the schoolboys shouting vulgar remarks after him along the public way.
Now he sat still on his horse for full five minutes. Then he rode after Brendon and overtook him.
"Only one word," he said. "Forget this. I didn't understand you. I'll interfere with you no more. You were right, and I was wrong. As you are victorious, be generous. Don't let my folly go further. We all make mistakes. I have erred, Mr. Brendon, and I regret it."
Brendon regarded Jarratt doubtfully. The giant still panted with his anger, and steam rolled out from his mouth in puffs upon the wet, dark air.
"'Tis human to err; 'tis human to forgive. I was wrong—very wrong. I own it. Who can do more? We've all got our weak places, and money is mine. Let them without sin cast the first stone. Remember what I must feel to lose Sarah Jane."
This last stroke answered its purpose, and Brendon relented very slowly.
"I know well enough what that must be."
"Be generous then to a desperate man. Hide up this that I have told you. The sum is nothing. I knew well enough you wouldn't take ten—or ten thousand. In sober honesty I'm much poorer than folk think, though I pretend to be warm. Anyway, I ask you to pardon me for insulting you, and to keep this talk secret—even from her. No man likes his mistakes blazed out for the people to scoff at. Do as you'd be done by in this—that's all I ask."
He pleaded better than he knew, for the victor already regretted his own coarse language.
"Let it be, then," answered Brendon. "Go your way, and I'll go mine; and not a word of this will pass my lips. We was both wrong—you to think of such a vile thing, and me to curse you. 'Twas all fair, and you had first say to her; but she likes me best, so there's no more to be said."
"I'll abide by that," answered Jarratt Weekes. Then he turned his horse's head and rode away, with Care behind him, and such a load of hatred in his heart that it seemed to poison his blood and choke him physically. He gasped, and the evil words of Daniel Brendon—uttered with passion—were as thistledown to the thoughts that now bred within the brain of his enemy. A violent lust for revenge grew up in the soul of Jarratt Weekes from that hour; but Brendon, for his part, quickly repented of the things that he had said; displayed a victor's magnanimity; felt something of the other's tragic and eternal loss; and found it in his heart to sorrow for him.
Daniel also mourned for himself and his mighty lapse of temper and self-control. That night he prayed to be pardoned; he trembled to consider where his sudden rages might some day lead him; he thanked his Saviour for unutterable blessings, and implored that a greater patience, humility, and gentleness might be added to his character. He called also upon Heaven to sustain Jarratt Weekes under this shattering stroke, and begged that it might presently be put in his power to do the disappointed man some service.
In the struggle between Daniel Brendon and Jarratt Weekes, circumstances combined to strengthen the former's cause at every point. Right, as a matter of fact, was on his side, but what promised to be a greater source of strength, he found in Sarah Jane. The ingenuous and fearless character of his betrothed and her intrepid handling of truth, albeit embarrassing enough at times, made her strong against enemies of the type of Jarratt Weekes. Moreover, the lovers had many friends; the castle-keeper, few. His mother tried to help him; but she was honest and her shifts proved absolutely futile. She could only suggest that Jarratt should see Sarah Jane and argue with her the folly of such action. She herself invited Gregory Friend's daughter to tea, and used what powers of persuasion she possessed to turn the girl. She also saw Mr. Friend, and showed him the advantages of a union with the Weekes family. Her attacks were direct and straightforward; therefore they failed. Neither did Jarratt's more tortuous methods win him any advantage. He worked what little harm he could, but it amounted to nothing. Daniel's record was clean; he had a reputation for sober-mindedness; no man could tax him with wrong-doing. To separate him from Sarah Jane at any cost became the castle-keeper's problem; but, while achieving this deed, it was vital that the woman's regard for Jarratt should be increased rather than lessened; and the double task proved altogether beyond Jarratt's power.
He trusted that Hilary Woodrow might prove an obstacle, and that marriage must at least mean dismissal from Ruddyford; but even here his hopes were disappointed. Matters combined at the farm largely to advance Daniel Brendon's ambition, and a tower of strength appeared in a quarter from which little might have been hoped. Tabitha Prout smiled upon the match, first from kindness of heart, secondly to gain private ends. Another woman at Ruddyford had long been her desire. She sounded Brendon first, then finding that he approved, approached her master. The person most vitally involved in Tabitha's plot was her own brother; but she knew that John would make no difficulties, and therefore left him until the last.
"Does your maiden know anything about milk and butter?" she asked Daniel, on an occasion when they were alone.
"Can't say she does; but there's nothing she couldn't learn in a few months—quick as light at learning she is," he answered.
Then Tabitha proposed that Sarah Jane on her marriage should come to Ruddyford as dairymaid.
"As things go," she explained, "'tis all sixes and sevens; and now the boy milks, and now Tapson do, and there's no proper system to it. But with our cows, few though they be, a dairymaid ought to be kept; and she'd help me here and there—I expect that. And if she comes, we ought to keep three more cows, if not four. I only want to know if you be willing. 'Tis worth your while, for if that was planned, you could bide here after you're married and wouldn't have to look round again."
"Too good to be true, Tabitha Prout; yet none the less a great thought; and I lay you'd find Sarah Jane your right hand if she did come. But where could us bide?"
"That's easy enough. The difficulty is with Mr. Woodrow. However, I'll have a tell with him and put my grey hairs and increasing age as strong as I can. I'm overworked without a doubt. This place has suffered from lack of females for years, and I won't have no more boys, so I've got to do it all—save for the messy, silly help you men give. But there 'tis: with his hate of 'em, I doubt if he'd stand a young woman about the place."
"I wonder. Make a point of the extra cows, Tabitha. That might win him; and as for Sarah Jane, by the time we'm married, I'll promise for her that she knows the whole craft of milk and cream and butter near so well as you do."
But Tabitha would not allow that.
"In time—in time. She won't have my hand to butter in six months, Daniel—perhaps not in six years. Butter-making's born with a woman. But I'll teach her so much as she can learn. Not that anybody ever taught me—save nature and my own wits."
Joe Tapson entered at this moment, knew not of the argument, but heard Tabitha's self-praise and sneered at her. They often wrangled hotly about the relative powers of the sexes; for while Tapson was a cynic touching womankind, Tabitha declared that she had seen too much of men in her life to have any admiration left for them.
"'Tis about Sarah Jane and work," explained Miss Prout.
"Work?" he said. "What about work? Let her do her proper married woman's work and get boys.—plenty of 'em—eh, Daniel?"
Tabitha sniffed scorn upon him.
"Always the way with you vainglorious creatures. 'For us to be mothers and get boys'—the conceit of it! As if there was nothing else for a woman to do beside that!"
"Nothing—except get girls," said Joe bluntly. "There's nought else in the world that men can't do a darned sight better than females. Don't you deceive yourself there. Why, look around—even to cooking and sewing; tailors and men-cooks beat you out of the field, when first-class work has to be done. You work hard enough—too hard even in your way; yet the likes of you—to say it in a perfectly kindly spirit—don't really do much more than cumber the earth. Women be wanted for the next generation—not for this one. Their work lies there; and when you talk about the value in the world of all you frost-bitten virgins, I'm bound to tell you, without feeling, that 'tis only in your own imagination."
"You speak like the withered stump of a married man you are," she answered indignantly. "I blush for you—you to lecture me! 'Tis a good thing you've no finger in the next generation, I'm sure; and I lay the happiest moment in your wife's life was the last."
But Joe had not finished. He smiled at her temper and spoke again.
"Why, my dear soul, after the business of child-bearing's done, you ban't so much use as cows; for they do give us milk; but such as you yield nought but vinegar."
"What things to say!" exclaimed Daniel; "who ever heard the like?"
"Truth's truth; and the sharp truth about women none knows better than me. But all the same——"
"Shut your mouth and get out of my kitchen," cried Tabitha. "What woman could be blamed for treating you harsh? To insult the whole of us—a poisonous, one-eyed rat like you!"
"A one-eyed rat I may be," retorted Joe; "but I can bite, and 'tis easy to see the force of my words by the heat of your temper. You hate men, and I hate women, so all's said."
The question to be answered was Hilary Woodrow's attitude towards the suggestion of Sarah Jane as dairymaid. He had heard that Brendon was going to be married, and supposed that the giant would leave Ruddyford upon that event. But he cared little whether Daniel went or stopped. The problem of labour on a Dartmoor farm was far less acute fifty years ago than at present, and the master knew that Daniel's place might easily be filled. He listened to Tabitha's arguments but withheld judgment until he had consulted his head man. John Prout, however, approved, and himself disposed of the only difficulty attaching to the plan.
"I think very well of it," he said, "and to show how well, I'll help by coming to live here, and letting Brendon have my cottage. That makes all clear. She's a very nice, strong maiden, and Tabitha's right when she says we want another woman about the place. There's too much on her shoulders now. You'll do well to let it be so, master; and then the girl can set about learning her work straight away and be useful from the start."
Thus the matter fell out, to Sarah Jane's delight; and her father was also well pleased, because his daughter would henceforth dwell close to him. The woman asked for no assistance or advice in the conduct of her life henceforth. Her object was swiftly to master the business of the dairy, and to that end, after conversation with Tabitha Prout, she went to Lydford and saw Mrs. Weekes. Whether Hephzibah could be expected to serve her, Sarah Jane never stopped to consider. Nobody knew more about the local dairy-farmers than the wife of Philip Weekes; nobody therefore was better able to help Gregory Friend's daughter, if she chose to do so. But Hephzibah apparently did not choose.
"To have the face to come to me! 'Tis enough to make angels weep tears of blood, Sarah Jane," she said. "You throw over the best men in Lydford and go your own wild, headlong way to misery; and let me waste torrents of advice upon you; and then walk in, as if nothing was the matter in the world, and ax me to get you a larner's place along with cows! What you'll come to, be hid with your Maker, for no human can guess it. Never was such a saucy wench seen or heard of. You'll be asking me for a wedding present next, I suppose."
"Don't see no reason why not," said Sarah Jane. "I can't marry two men, I believe; and I love one and don't care a rush for t'other, so there's an end to it. Because you wanted for me to take Jarratt and I ban't going to—that's no reason why you shouldn't do me a kindness."
"Loramercy! you talk just like a man. If you don't carry a heart under your ribs, I do. You wait till you've got a proper son as hankers after a girl, and she won't have him—then we'll see how 'tis. Don't you never ax me for the price of a shoe-lace to keep you from the union workhouse, Sarah Jane, because you won't get it."
Sarah laughed pleasantly.
"For all you scream out at everybody, like a cat when his tail's trod on, you're my sort, Mrs. Weekes. You say what you think—though you may think wrong as often as anybody."
"You'm an outrageous baggage," said Hephzibah, "and I won't bandy no more words with you. Not a hand—not a finger will I lift to help such a thankless fool of a woman. Go to Mrs. Perkins at Little Lydford, and get out of my sight, else I'll put my ten commandants on your face!"
Thus, despite her ferocity and terrible threats, Mrs. Weekes told Sarah Jane exactly what she wanted to know; and Hephzibah knew that she had done so, and scorned herself in secret for a silly fool. But her nature could not choose but like Sarah Jane. In secret she loved all fearless things. Therefore, while hating the girl because she would not take Jarratt, Mrs. Weekes had to admire her because she was herself.
The work that Sarah Jane wanted was found for her, and during the next three months she disappeared from Amicombe Hill. Sometimes on Sundays, however, she visited her father. She worked as hard as she possibly could, proved an apt pupil, made new friends at her temporary home in Lew Trenchard, and saw Daniel Brendon now and then. She also wrote to him and her father.
Meantime her betrothed planned his future, calculated the cost of new furniture for Mr. Prout's cottage, and made himself very useful to that large-hearted man.
John Prout was quite content to return to the farm and live under the same roof as his master. For some reasons he relished the change, since it would now be easier to devote a little more personal attention to Hilary. He could see no faults in him; he pandered to Woodrow's lethargic nature as far as he was able; he stuck stoutly to it that the farmer was not a robust man and must be considered in every way possible.
The time sped and Winter returned. Then Sarah Jane, her education with regard to milk and butter complete, came home, and Daniel began to clamour for marriage. Mr. Friend finally decided that the season of Spring should be chosen. For himself he had planned to live henceforth in a little building at the peat-works. He held that a few slates and stones, some mortar and a pail of whitewash, would render it habitable. An engineer had paid one of his rare, periodic visits to the works, made some suggestions and departed again. Therefore Gregory was full of new hopes. There had also come increasing demands for Amicombe peat from various sources, and he was very busy with a trolly on the old tram-line. He loaded it from his stores, then steered it down the winding ways of the Moor, discharged his fuel near the railway station, and, with one strong horse to drag the trolly, climbed back again to his boggy fastness behind Great Links.
The banns were called at Lydford, and Sarah Jane and Daniel listened to them. He burnt under his brown skin; she betrayed interest, but no visible embarrassment.
At this season Jarratt Weekes was much occupied by business, into which he plunged somewhat deeply as a distraction. Widow Routleigh passed away, and it was known that her cottage had been purchased by the castle-keeper; but circumstances suspended the operations on the water-leat, and its advent at Lydford became delayed by a year. Therefore the advantages accruing to his new property were not yet patent to every eye, and only Jarratt and his mother knew the real quality of his bargain. In other directions he had obliged his enemy Mr. Churchward with a loan, because an opportunity arose for putting "the Infant," Adam's son, into business. William Churchward joined a bookseller in Tavistock. The occupation, as his father explained, was genteel and intellectual, and might lead to higher things. From William's point of view his work was sedentary and slight, and led to hearty thirst after the shutters were put up. He lived with his senior partner, pursued his efforts at picture-painting, and often came home at the end of the week.
No further meeting to discuss the water-leat celebrations had been called after the postponement was announced. But Mr. Churchward only waited a fitting time to proceed with his plans. The committee was understood to continue to exist, and Mr. Nathaniel Spry still flattered the schoolmaster; Mr. Norseman still went in doubt as to the propriety of the enterprise; Mr. Pearn still talked about his free luncheon; and Mr. Huggins still laboured under the thought of impersonating Moses.
Then came the wedding day and the wedding ceremony. Save for the master, Ruddyford was empty, because all asked and obtained leave to see Daniel married. Dunnagoat cot was not large enough to hold the wedding guests, and its inaccessible position made it impossible in any case. Therefore Mr. Friend, who insisted on straining his resources to the extent of a banquet, borrowed an empty cottage near the church, and with the assistance of Mr. Pearn and his staff, arranged a very handsome entertainment.
There were present the company from Ruddyford; and Mr. Churchward and his daughter also accepted Gregory's hospitality; for Mary Churchward and Sarah Jane were old acquaintance, and Mary, in secret, had liked Sarah Jane the more for refusing Jarratt Weekes. Mr. Huggins, Mr. Norseman and the latter's wife also attended; and five or six other men and women, with their grown-up sons and daughters, completed a throng of about twenty persons. Many more came to the church ceremony, and all frankly agreed that such a splendid man and woman had not within living memory been linked at St. Petrock's. But the house of Weekes was unrepresented, save by Susan. She had taken occasion to run away at dawn; and she thoroughly enjoyed the great event, without any uneasiness as to the future. Her aunt would be far too interested at learning all particulars, to waste time in reproaches and admonishment.
So Daniel Brendon and Sarah Jane Friend were wedded, and, having spent a week in Plymouth and watched the wonder of the sea, they returned to their little home at Ruddyford and joyfully set about the business of life.
Dawn had woven her own texture of pearl into the fabric of the Moor, and the sun, like a great lamp, hung low upon the shoulder of the eastern hills. Silence brooded, save for the murmur of water, and all things were still but the stream, upon whose restless currents morning wrote in letters of pale gold. The world glimmered under sparkling moisture born of a starry night, and every blade of grass and frond of fern lifted its proper jewel to the sun. Peace held the waking hour a while, and living man still slept as soundly as the old stone heroes in their forgotten graves beneath the heather. Then newborn things began to suck the udder, or open little bills for food. Parent birds and beasts were busy tending upon their young. The plovers mewed far off, and swooped and tumbled; curlews cried; herons took the morning upon their wings and swept low and heavily to their hunting grounds.
Young dawn danced golden-footed over the stony hills, fired the greater gorse, lighted each granite pinnacle like a torch, flooded the world with radiance, and drank the dew of the morning. Earth also awoke, and her sleeping garb of pearly mist, still spread upon the river valleys, at length dwindled, and glowed, and burnt away into the ardent air. Then incense of peat-smoke ascended in a transparent veil of blue above Ruddyford, while from the cot hard by came forth a woman.
Sarah Jane had been at her new life a week, and began to know the cows and their characters. They waited for her now, and soon the milk purred into her glittering pails. First the note of the can was sharp and thin; then, as the precious fluid spirted, now right, now left, from the teats under Sarah's firm fingers, the vessel uttered a milder harmony and finally gave out only a dull thud with each addition. The cows waited their turns patiently, licked one another's necks and lowed; as yet no man moved, and the milker amused herself by talking to the kine. She sat with her cheek pressed to a great red flank, and her hair shone cowslip-colour against the russet hide of the beast. Her splendid arms were bare to the elbow. Already something of the past had vanished from her, and in her eyes new thought was added to the old frankness. She thought upon motherhood as she milked these placid mothers; she perceived that the summer world was full of mothers wheeling the air and walking on earth. Wifehood was good to her, and very dearly she loved the man who had led her into it.
Sarah Jane whistled sometimes when she felt unusually cheerful. She whistled now, and her red lips creased up till they resembled the breaking bud of a flower. The sounds she uttered were deep and full, like a blackbird's song, and they made no set tune, but rippled in harmonious, sweet, irregular notes, as an accompaniment to kindred thoughts.
Suddenly feet fell on the stone pavement outside the cow-byres, and a man approached where she sat and milked the last cow. The others, each in turn, her store yielded, had passed through an open gate into the Moor, there to browse and repose and chew the cud until another evening.
Sarah Jane glanced up and saw Hilary Woodrow standing and looking at her. As yet she had but seen him once upon a formal introduction; now he stopped and spoke to her.
"Good morning, Mrs. Brendon. I hope your house is comfortable, and that you are settling down. Let Tabitha know if she can do anything for you."
"Good-morning, sir, and thank you. 'Tis a very snug li'l house, and nothing could be nicer."
He nodded. Then the last cow went off, and Sarah Jane rose, patted it on the flank and stretched her arms. He remarked her height and splendid figure.
"Rather cramping work, I'm afraid," he said.
"'Twas at first, but I like it better now. Cows be nice, cosy creatures an' terrible understanding. Some's so peaceful an' quiet; an' others that masterful they won't take 'no' for an answer, an' push afore the patient ones and get their own way, and will be milked first."
He nodded once more and smiled. Then she washed her hands in a granite trough of sweet water and spoke again.
"You'm moving early," she remarked, in her easy and friendly fashion. "John Prout said you always laid late for health, yet you be up afore the men."
"I slept badly and was glad to get out into this sun."
"You'm over-thin seemingly, and have a hungry look, sir. Here—wait a minute! Bide where you be, and I'll come back afore you can count ten!"
She vanished into Ruddyford, and Hilary, wondering, watched her swift, splendid speed. In a moment she returned with an empty glass. She filled it from the milk-pail and held it to him.
"Drink," she said. "'Tis what you'm calling out for."
"I can't, Mrs. Brendon—raw milk doesn't suit me."
"Don't you believe that! Milk hot out of the cow suits everybody. Take it so, and you'll get rounder and happier in a week. My own father was largely the better for it. Try, sir; do please."
He could not resist her eyes, and took the glass from her hands and thanked her.
"Here's good luck and all prosperity to you and your husband," he said, and emptied the glass.
Her face brightened with pleasure.
"Lick your lips," she begged. "Don't lose a drop of it: 'tis life—milk's the very beginning of life—so my mother used to tell."
"And do you think this cup is the beginning of mine?"
"No—yours beginned fifty year ago by the look of you. But milk will help you. You're just the thin, poor-fed fashion of man as ought to drink it. My Daniel's different. With his huge thews he must have red meat—like a dear old tiger. Milk's no use to him."
"By Jove—d'you think I look fifty, Mrs. Brendon?" he asked.
"To my eye, I should guess you wasn't much under. Beg pardon, I'm sure, if you be."
"I'm thirty-six," he said.
"My stars! Then you ought to take more care of yourself."
"I sleep badly."
"You think too much belike?"
"Yes—there's a lot to think about."
"You did ought to put a bit of wool round your neck when you come out in the morning air, perhaps," she suggested; but he laughed at this.
"Good gracious! I'm not made of sugar. I look a giant of strength beside town folk. 'Tis only in your eye that all of us seem weaklings beside Brendon. To tell you the truth, I'm rather a fool about my health. I said just now I had so much to think about: don't you believe it! I've got nothing to think about—hardly more than the cows. Now, I mustn't waste any more of your time."
He sauntered on towards the Moor.
Daniel Brendon was standing at his entrance as Woodrow approached, and he touched his hat and said—
"Morning, sir!"
"Morning, Dan," the master answered and passed on.
Sarah Jane took her milk-pails to the dairy, and then went home to breakfast. She chattered to her husband, narrated her morning's experience, and explained at length her theories of Hilary Woodrow.
"To think as he be no more than six-and-thirty!" she said.
"How d'you know that?"
"He told me. I forget how it went, but I'd just said I reckoned he was fifty, and he seemed rather troubled."
"Fancy your speaking like that!"
"He don't look much less, all the same. And I gave him a bit of advice too."
"Advise him! Nought stops you," Daniel said with his mouth full.
"Why should it? After you've been married a month—there 'tis—you've got more wisdom and understanding of menfolk than a century of maiden life could bring to 'e. I feel like a mother to these here helpless men a'ready."
"Never was such a large-hearted female as you, Sarah Jane."
"What that man wants is a wife. I couldn't have read him any more than you could a bit ago; now 'tis as plain to my understanding as this cup of tea. A wisht, hangdog, sorrowful face to my eye; yet very good-looking in his thin way. But hungry—awful hungry."
"As to women, he's had enough of them. One treated him shameful. But 'tisn't them: 'tis his terrible vain ideas about religion makes him fretful, I reckon. Well he may be hungry!"
"Don't you believe that," she answered. "Church-going don't put fat on the bones, whatever else it may do. He should have a female after him, to fuss a bit, and coddle him, and see he lets his proper food down. He wants somebody to listen to his talk—somebody to sharpen his wits on."
With startling intuition of truth she spoke; but Daniel did not appreciate her discernment.
"Fewer that listen to his talk, the better," he said. "Ban't likely Mr. Woodrow will be happy so long as he sucks poison out of all sorts of godless books."
"Poison is as poison does," she answered. "Everybody says he's a very good sort of man. The good man can't be godless."
"Because his Maker's stronger than his opinions and ban't sleeping, though Woodrow's conscience may be. In time of trouble I wouldn't give a rush for his way. There's nought to help then but Heaven; and so he'll find it. Not that I judge—only I'm sorry for it."
"He wants a woman after him," repeated Sarah Jane decisively.
Daniel laughed at her.
"You think, because you and me are married, that nobody can be happy otherwise."
"Men and women must come to it for sartain, if they'm to be complete, and shine afore their fellow-creatures. A bachelor's an unfinished thing; and so's a maiden—I don't care who she is. And she knows it at the bottom of her heart, for all she pretends different."
"That's not Christianity," Daniel answered; "and you oughtn't to say it, or think it. You speak in the first flush of being married; and I feel just the same and scorn a single man; but 'tis silly nonsense, and we'm both wrong. The saints and martyrs was mostly single, and the holiest Christians that ever lived haven't found no use for women as a rule. Christ's Self wasn't married for that matter."
She considered this view, then shook her head unconvinced.
"He went to marriages and was kind to the women. He might have found the right maiden Himself, and won joy of her after He'd set the world right, if they hadn't killed Him."
Daniel stared.
"Don't say things like that, Sarah Jane! You don't mean it for profane speaking; but 'tis very near it, and makes me feel awful scared."
"What have I said now, dear heart? I never know what you think 'bout things. You change so. If 'tis holier and better to bide single—but there—what foolishness! Jesus Christ set store by little children anyway; and He knowed you can't have 'em without getting 'em."
Brendon rose up from the table and kissed her neck.
"You'm a darling creature," he said, "and to look at you be to make single life but a frosty thing in a man's eyes, no doubt. Certainly 'twould be false for me to say a word against marriage; only it ban't for all; and the Christian religion shows that there are many can do more useful work out of it than in it."
"Poor things!" she said in her pride. "Let 'em do what they can, then. But I'd be sorry to think that a churchyard stone, getting crookeder every year, was all that was left to remember me by when I went."
"That's your narrowness, Sarah. There's other contrivances beside babbies that a man or a woman can bring into the world. Goodness and proper actions, and setting an example, and such like."
"Parson's work," she said. "What's that to taking your share in the little ones? If I thought us should have no childer, I'd so soon hang myself as not, Dan."
"Your ideas do hurtle about my ears like hail," he said, "And they'm awful wild and silly sometimes."
"I know it. You'll larn me better come presently."
"I hope so," he said. "You're all right at heart—only the pattern of your ideas now and then be a thought too outlandish for a Christian home. You wasn't taught all you've got to larn. I don't say it out of no disrespect to father; but—well—us all have a deal to larn yet—the oldest and youngest—and me most of all."
Daniel heaved a contented sigh upon this platitude, and his day's work began.
The Brendons always went to morning service at Lydford on Sunday. Sometimes Mr. Tapson, who was a churchman, accompanied them; but Agg and Lethbridge belonged to another sect, and their place of worship was at Mary Tavy. Neither John Prout nor his sister ever went. Indeed, Sunday dinner occupied the great part of Tabitha's energies on every seventh day.
Once, being early for service, Daniel and Sarah Jane wandered amid the tombs, and then sat down upon the churchyard wall and looked out over a wooded gorge beneath. Brendon was always very serious and sober on Sunday. It seemed to his wife that he donned a mental habit with his black coat, and in her heart she rejoiced when the day had passed. He looked strictly after her religion from the time of their marriage, and had lengthened her morning and evening prayers considerably with additions from his own. She fell in readily with his wishes, and was obedient as a child; but none the less she knew that the inward and spiritual signs he foretold from her increased religious activity, delayed their appearance. The daily act of faith was not necessary to her mental health, and it proved powerless to alter her natural bent of thought. Sometimes she still shocked him, but less often than of old.
She loved him with a great love; and love taught her to understand his stern soul a little. Not fear, but affection, made her careful. Meantime her own attitude to life and her own frank and joyous spirit were absolutely unchanged. Only, from consideration for him, she hid her thought a little, and often shut her mouth upon an opinion, because she remembered that it might give him pain.
"Do you ever think about the graves?" asked her husband, looking round thoughtfully at the grass-clad hillocks. But she kept her eyes before her and only shook her head.
"No, Dan—can't say as I do. The churchyard's the place for dead men—not living ones. Us shall spend a terrible lot of time here come presently, and I don't want to waste much of it here now."
"'Tis a steadying job to read the verses above all these bones," he said.
"Read 'em, then," she answered. "But don't ax me to. I hate graves, and I hate everything to do with death. With all my might I hate it."
"You shouldn't feel so. 'Tis a part of life, and no more can we have life without it, than we can have a book without a last page. And no one of all these men carried anything into the next world but his record in this. Yet to remember how soon we must give up our clay be a solemn, useful thought."
She did not answer, and he strolled apart and considered the trite warnings, pious hopes, and implicit pathos of dates, where figures often told the saddest tale.
A man came into the churchyard, and, looking round, Daniel, very greatly to his astonishment, saw Jarratt Weekes talking to his wife. Scarcely believing his own eyes, he strode over a row of the silent people and approached.
Neither his wife nor himself had spoken to the castle-keeper since their marriage; yet at last it seemed that the rejected suitor was recovering from his disappointment and about to forget and forgive the past. Weekes shook hands with Brendon, as he had already done with Sarah Jane; then he addressed them both.
"I'm hoping as you'll let bygones be bygones, Brendon. I was hard hit, and—well, 'tis no good going over old ground. I did my best to get you away from Sarah Jane here, and I failed. There's no more to be said."
"Except that you didn't fight fair," answered Daniel calmly. "You tried by very underhand ways to do me out of my own, and I'm sorry for it. All the same, I'm willing enough to forgive you and be friendly henceforth, Mr. Weekes."
"So am I," declared Sarah Jane. "'Twas a very great kindness in you to be so fond of me, and I never shall forget it. But there was but one man in the world for me after I met Daniel here, and so I hope there won't be no more feeling against us."
"Not on my side there won't," answered Jarratt. "I'm glad to let it go. Life's too short to harbour any bitterness like that. I hope you'll be happy all your days, and if ever I can serve you, Brendon, you've only got to tell me so."
Daniel glowed with satisfaction, took the other's hand again and shook it.
"This is an extra good Sunday for me," he answered, "and nothing better could have happened. And I'll say no more, except that I trust it may come into my power to do you good some day, Mr. Weekes. Which I will do, God helping."
"So be it," said the other. "I'll hold you friendly in my mind, henceforward—both of you."
He did not look at Brendon during this conversation, but sometimes cast a side glance into Sarah Jane's face. Now folk began to enter the churchyard, and presently the bells rang.
During service Brendon very heartily thanked Heaven for this happy event, and blessed his Maker, in that He had touched the angry heart of Jarratt Weekes to penitence. But Sarah Jane regarded the incident with a spirit less than prayerful. She was hardly convinced that her old lover meant friendship henceforth. She knew what he had attempted against Daniel; she remembered the things that he had said to her; and this sudden change of mind and expression of contrition found her sceptical.
As for Weekes himself, he had acted upon impulse and the accident of meeting them alone. But his motives were involved. He was not yet done with Sarah Jane. He rather wished to punish her, since he could not possess her. He certainly had not forgiven, and still desired revenge. Therefore he pretended a sudden regret, deceived Brendon, and so ordered his apologies that henceforth he might pose as a friend. He had, however, little thought of what he would do, and revenge was by no means the dominating idea of his mind at present. Much else occupied it, and so busy was he, that he knew quite well nothing practical might ever spring from his secret dislike of the Brendons. Time might even deaden the animosity, before opportunity arose to gratify it; but, on the other hand, with free intercourse once established, anything might fall out. So he left the situation vague for chance to develop. His malignancy was chronic rather than acute. It might leap into activity by the accident of events; or perish, smothered under the press of his affairs.
As they returned home from church, Sarah Jane warned her husband to place no absolute trust in the things that he had heard from Jarratt Weekes; but Daniel blamed her for doubting. He explained that Mr. Weekes was a Christian man and a regular attendant at worship. He felt positive that the other was truly contrite, and out of his own nature accepted these assurances without suspicion. He went further, and blamed his wife for her doubt.
"You mustn't be small like that," he said. "It isn't worthy of you."
"I know him better than you do. He was very much in love with me. He offered me a horse if I'd have him. That was pretty good for such a mean man as him."
"You must always allow for the part that God plays in a person. When anybody says or does a thing outside his character, don't jump to the idea he's lying or playing a part. But just ask yourself if God may not have touched the man and lifted him higher than himself."
"You can't be higher than yourself—so Mr. Woodrow says. I forget what we was telling about, but, coming for his milk one morning, he got very serious and full of religious ideas."
Daniel frowned.
"There's no true foundation to his opinions—always remember that."
"He's just as religious as you, in his own way, all the same," she said. "He told me religion be like clothes. If it fits, well and good; but 'tis no good trying to tinker and patch up the Bible to make it suit your case if it won't. I dimly see what the man means."
"Do you?—well, I don't, and I don't want to; and I won't have him talk to you so; I ban't too pleased at this caper of his, to come out every morning for a glass of warm milk when you'm with the cows."
"And of an evening too, he comes."
"It must be stopped, then. He shall talk no more of his loose opinions to you. 'Tinker and patch the Bible'! What will he say next? Sometimes I feel a doubt if I did ought to bide here at all. I'm not sure if one should be working and taking the money of a man's that not a Christian."
"He's a good man enough. I've heard you say yourself that you never met a better."
"I know it. And that's the mystery. I hope he'll come round and see truth as the years pass by."
"He's the better for the milk, and a kinder creature never walked," said Sarah Jane.
In truth she had seen a good deal of Hilary Woodrow since first he strolled abroad after a sleepless night and drank at her bidding. It pleased him to find her at her work, for she was always the first to be stirring; and now he had fallen into the way of rising early, walking in the air, and talking with the dairymaid while she milked the cows.
Sarah Jane, in some small measure, appeared to have revived his faith and interest in women. Her artless outlook upon life came as a novelty to him. Everything interested her; nothing shocked her. An almost sexless purity of mind characterized her speeches. An idea entering her brain came forth again chastened and sweetened. Her very plainness of speech made for purgation of thought. The things called "doubtful" were disinfected when she spoke about them.
Hilary Woodrow found Daniel's wife not seldom in his head, and as time advanced he grew to anticipate the dawn with pleasure, and looked forward to the fresh milk of her thoughts, rather than that she brought him from the cow.
He protested sometimes at the narrowness of the opinions round about, and told her, with gloomy triumph, that certain local ministers of the church declined to know him.
"Which is best," he asked, "to say that every man is born wicked, as they do, or say that every man is born good, like I do? Why, 'tis to condemn without a trial to say that every man is born wicked."
"Men be born little, dear, dinky babbies," she said—"no more wicked than they blind kittens in the loft."
"Of course not; but that's dogma. They find it in the Bible. It's called the Fall. I can't talk to the men about these things—except Prout. But I wish I could get at your husband a bit, because he's in earnest. The fault with earnest folk so often is, that they never will understand other people are earnest too."
"He knows you'm very good, sir, for all your opinions."
"You see, conscience and the moral sense are two different things; but Brendon would never allow that. He says that conscience comes from God. I say it is what you've been taught, or learned for yourself. If I believed in God—then I'd say the moral sense was what came direct from Him. But I don't, and so I explain it by the laws of Evolution."
She shook her head.
"That's all a rigmarole to me, though I dare say Dan would follow it. You don't believe in no God at all, then?"
"None at all—not the shadow of the shade of a God."
In her blue eyes nothing but the sky was reflected; in his there was much of earth; and his own earth was unrestful as he looked at her morning loveliness.
"Drink your milk afore the warmth be out of it," she said. "'Twould be a terrible curious thing if there was no God, certainly."
"The sun's my God."
"Well, then, there is a God—though we don't see over-much of Him up here."
"But we believe in him, and trust him with the seed, and the lambs; and know that he'll bring back Spring again when Winter is done. So, after all, I'm talking nonsense, because I've got as great faith in my god as your husband has in his."
"To hear you run on! Like a book, I'm sure."
"I can talk like this to you, because you don't look at me as if I was damned and you weren't sorry for it. That's what I get from most people. Have you ever read about Jehovah and the burnt offerings and the sin offerings, and how His altar was to be sprinkled with fresh blood all day long, and how the dumb beasts and birds were to be torn to pieces for a sweet savour before Him? That's the blood-sucking vampire the parsons think made the stars, and the flowers, and—you! I wish I'd lived a hundred years later: then I shouldn't have been fretted with so many fools, Sarah Jane."
"Us ought to live and let live, I suppose."
"Charity—that's all I ask. I only want 'em to practise the first and last thing their Lord begged for, and preached for, and prayed for."
"You'm very charitable, I'm sure—and never name the kind things you do—though John Prout tells about them."
"Does he? No, no, they're in his imagination. Prout spoils me and thinks too well of me. So do you."
"I'm sorry for you, because you've got such a lot of queer opinions, seemingly, and none to let 'em off upon. You must feel like bursting with trouble sometimes, from the look of your eyes."
He laughed at that and abruptly left her. It was his custom now to appear and depart without any formal salute. Sometimes, after absence of days, he would suddenly be at her side after dawn, or at evening. Then he would resume the thread of his last speeches, as though no interval had fallen between.
There was no secrecy in these interviews, and often another, or Brendon himself, might be present at them. But when once Woodrow appealed to Daniel, before his wife, to be larger-minded and more tolerant, the giant shook his head. He held it wickedness to be easy with wrong ideas. To him that man was dishonest, who had not the courage of his own opinions; and disloyal, who could even endure arguments directed against his faith.
After heavy rain the evening cleared awhile and the sky showed palest blue, touched with little clouds that carried the sunset fire. But banks of mist already began to roll up with night, and their vans, as they billowed along the south, were touched with rose. Darkness swiftly followed; the world faded away under a cold fog, that increased in density until all things were hidden and smothered by it. Into the valleys it rolled, swept croft and heath and the channels of the rivers, sank into the deep lanes, searched the woods, spread darker than night upon the lowlands. Outside the Castle Inn it hung like wool, and across it, from the windows of the bar, streamed out radiance of genial light. But this illumination was choked within a dozen yards of its starting point; and, if a door was opened, the fog crept in with the visitor.
Men appeared to take their familiar parts in the drinking and talking of Saturday night, and each made a similar comment on the unusual density of the mist, each rubbed the dewy rime from his hair as he entered.
"If it freezes 'pon this, us shall have a proper sight of ammil in the trees to-morrow," said Mr. Jacob Taverner, who was of the company. "I haven't seen that wonder for ten years now; but well I can mind it. 'Twas a day soon after the beginning of the New Year—even as this might be; and us rose up to find every twig and bough, and stone and fuzz bush coated with pure ice, like glass. The sun played upon the country, and never such a dazzle was seen. 'Twas like a fairy story—all the world turned to gold and precious gems a-glittering. As Huggins said, it might have been the New Jerusalem itself, if it hadn't been so plaguey cold along with. Didn't you, Val?"
"I did say so—I remember them words," answered Mr. Huggins from his corner. "Cold enough to freeze the bird on the bough 'twas. I hope it won't never go so chill again, while I'm spared, for 'twould carry me off without a doubt."
"You'll live to play Moses an' walk along with St. Petrock yet," said Mr. Pearn slily.
Mr. Huggins always became uneasy when Moses was mentioned; and this his friends well knew.
"I wish the water had run to Lydford when 'twas first planned. This putting off for a year be very improper in my opinion," declared Taverner; and Mr. Adam Churchward, from his snug seat behind a leathern screen near the fire, replied:
"We can't honestly throw the blame on anybody, Jacob. You see, they were suddenly confronted with some engineering difficulties in getting the water over the railway cutting. 'Tis not as easy as they thought to do it. And then there was another trouble in that hollow full of springs under the Tavistock road. But I have no hesitation in saying, after my recent conversation with the deputy assistant engineer, that the water will be here definitely by June next, or Autumn at latest."
"Will you call up another committee then?" asked Mr. Huggins.
"Certainly I shall. Spry wrote out the minutes of the last meeting, and will be able to refresh your minds as to what was proposed and seconded all in form and order."
"How's 'the Infant' faring to Tavistock?" asked Mr. Pearn. "I was offered five shilling for that there little picture of the Castle he made a while back, and give me for a bad debt. It hangs over your head, Huggins."
Mr. Churchward was familiar with the sketch, and nodded.
"Yes, he has the artist's instinct. He colours still, I believe, and has sold one or two little trifles at Tavistock. He doesn't take to the book business, I find. If we could but get a patron for him—somebody to send him to London free of expense to develop the possibilities of art. But patrons are things of the past."
"Else you would be in a higher sphere yourself, no doubt, schoolmaster."
"Thank you, Taverner. But I am quite content.Multum in parvo, as we say. I get much into little. I hope the rising generation will show that I have done my duty, if not more than my duty."
"Be they a very on-coming lot, or thick-headed?" inquired Mr. Huggins. "I often think if us old men had had such chances to larn as the boys nowadays, that we should have made a stir in the nation. Anyway, we stood to work in a fashion I never see of late years. Hard as nails we used to be. Now—my stars! you'll see the childer going to school under umbrellas! 'Tis a great sign of weakness in my opinion, and ought to be stopped."
"As to the main question," answered Adam, "my youthful charges may be considered rather under than over the average in their intellects. With the exception of Johnny Williams and his brother Arthur, I should say my present classes will leave the world pretty much as they find it. I need not tell you that I inculcate high moral principles; and in that respect they are as good and honest a lot of boys as Lydford has ever turned out—or any other centre of instruction. But as to book learning—no."
"Too many school treats and holidays, in my opinion," said Jarratt Weekes.
He had just entered, and was shaking himself like a dog that emerges from the water.
"Hold on!" cried Jacob Taverner. "What be about?"
Weekes took off his coat and flung it on a settle.
"The usual," he said to Mr. Pearn, and, while his drink was being poured, turned to the schoolmaster.
"'Tis all of a piece—the softness of the times," he said. "You larn boys to be lazy to school. I don't say it specially of your school. 'Tis the same at all of 'em. Look at your own son."
"You mustn't say that," answered Adam. "I cannot suffer it. You ought to remember that the average of human brain power is exceedingly low. I am always against putting too much strain on the human mind on principle. Our lunatic asylums are the result of putting too much strain—not only on the mind, but on the body. It should be the object of every schoolmaster to feel that, come what may, no pupil of his shall ever be sent to a lunatic asylum or to prison. That has always been my object, at any rate; and without self-praise I may say that I have achieved it, except in the case of Thomas Drury, the Saltash murderer."
"We're a canting lot of humbugs," said Weekes shortly. "We think more of the fools of to-day than the wise men of to-morrow."
"Quite right too," declared Mr. Pearn. "They want it more. The wise men coming will think for themselves; the fools can't."
"Yes; they'll think for themselves, and laugh at us," said Jarratt.
"Let 'em laugh," said Mr. Huggins. "Who cares? We shall be underground, in other Hands than theirs. We shall answer to God A'mighty for our works, not to the unborn."
"The unborn will judge us all the same—Weekes is right there," admitted the schoolmaster. "I always feel the truth of that when I lift my rod. I say to myself, 'this erring child will some day be a father. I am therefore not only teaching him to keep the narrow road, but helping his children and his grandchildren to do so.' As I wield the instrument of correctionin extremis, I often think that I may be moulding the character of some great man, who will not draw his first breath until long after I am dust. This may seem merely the imagination of the scholarly mind, yet so it is. Take your next with me, Weekes. I always like our conversation to be raised to a high pitch; and you always do it."
Of late, to gain some private ends, Mr. Churchward had resolutely ignored the ill-will of the castle-keeper. Jarratt continued to treat him indifferently; but Adam would never allow himself to be annoyed, and always offered the cheek to the smiter. Everybody perceived this change of attitude, and everybody, including Mr. Churchward's daughter, knew the reason.
Mr. Weekes nodded and his glass was filled again.
"I hope your mother be having good trade?" asked Noah Pearn. "I hear that the Christmas markets touched high water this year."
"All we could wish," admitted Jarratt. "She's worked like ten women this winter."
"Very aggravating 'tis to hear it—to me," suddenly declared a sad-looking, silent man, in a corner. "There's my wife might be doing the very same; but rabbit it! she've never got time for nothing now. We've gived up our market stall altogether. I've got to do everything of late days. I never thought she'd have changed like that—else I'd never have took her."
"How many children have you got, Samuel?" asked Mr. Huggins.
"But one," said Samuel gloomily.
"There 'tis!" cried the ancient. "They'm all the same with one—'tis the commonest thing. But wait till she've brought 'e half-a-dozen or more, and she'll have time for everything—market included."
"'Tis strange but true, like other ways of Providence," declared Taverner; "but I've marked it in my own family, that one child be far more trouble than six; an' takes far more time. 'Tis the want of practice, no doubt."
Men came and went. Presently Weekes prepared to depart, and put on his coat again.
"Where's my father to-night?" he asked. "'Tis past his hour. He had rather a dressing down afore mother started this morning. I should have thought he'd have come for an extra glass in consequence."
"He never takes but four half pints of a Saturday night, year in, year out," answered Mr. Pearn. "Sometimes he'll top up with a thimble of sloe gin, if the weather's harsh; but that's his outside allowance."
"Life's a stormy voyage—without no harbour—for him," said Huggins. "I don't speak disrespectfully of Mrs. Weekes—very far from it—she's a born wonder; but one of the sort built for wild weather. She likes it; she'd droop if everything went smooth."
"Everything do go smooth," said Jarratt.
"She is like a stately vessel that casts up foam from its prow," declared the schoolmaster. "Mrs. Weekes is a lesson to Lydford, as I have always maintained, and always shall do."
The husband of the stately vessel appeared at this moment.
"Be blessed if I didn't miss the door," he said. "Never remember such a fog. 'Twill be blind man's buff to-morrow."
He sighed and came to the fire.
"Have a drink, father," said Jarratt, as to an inferior. But Philip shook his head.
"Not yet, Jar, thank 'e. I must get a thought warmer first. I'll smoke my pipe a bit."
"Down on his luck he is to-day," explained the younger Weekes. "Down on his luck—because he don't know his luck—eh, father?"
Philip did not answer; conversation became general, and the castle-keeper departed.
Then, when he had gone, Noah Pearn endeavoured to cheer his customer.
"Us have got some hot ale here wi' a nutmeg and a bit 'o toast in it, my dear," he said. "You sup a drop and 'twill brace your sinews. The cold have touched 'e perhaps."
"Thank you, Noah," said Mr. Weekes, and took the glass. "You're very good, I'm sure. I've had a lot on my mind to-day."
"She'd be a fine woman, if there was a thought less lemon in her," said Taverner soothingly.
"She is a fine woman," answered Mr. Weekes, "—fine enough for anything; but fine weather's no good if you'm bedridden, and a fine woman's no good to her husband if she won't—however, us needn't wash our dirty linen in public. We've all our defects."
"Almost too high-spirited, if I may venture to say so," declared Mr. Churchward. "She has the courage of the masculine gender."
"So have I, if I was let bide," explained Philip. "That's the mischief of it. If I'd been a sort of weak man, ready to go under, and do woman's work, and play second fiddle happily, it wouldn't have mattered; but I ban't at all that sort of man by nature, and it hurts my feelings to be made to do it."
"I'm sure you'm too wise to rebel, however," said Mr. Huggins. "'Twas much the same with me, and often I wish I'd been so sensible as you; but my manly spirit wouldn't brook nothing of that sort. 'I won't have it!' I used to say in my fierce way. But I'm sorry now, because she might have been alive yet if I'd been a thought easier with her."
Noah Pearn winked behind the back of Mr. Huggins at the company generally, for it was well remembered that Valentine's vanished partner had ruled him with a rod of iron.
Mr. Weekes, however, showed no amusement. In his mind he was retracing certain painful recent incidents.
"Take what fell out this very day at morn," he said, "to show how rash and wilful Mrs. Weekes can be of a Saturday. I was down in the garden attending to a thing or two and packing a pair of birds for our own hamper. Suddenly she came out of the house and began. 'Twas all about Mrs. Swain, of course, and how I never can send two birds of the same size, and how my goings-on will ruin our custom and spoil business and fetch us to the poor-house in our old age. She was in full swing, souls, when down comes Susan from the kitchen, running as if the dowl was arter her. 'Oh, Aunt Hepsy!' she begins. Then her aunt cut her short, and told her not to dare open her silly mouth while she was talking. So Susan stood still and the missis went on at me. I was a greedy Gubbins, and a traitor, and a wolf in sheep's clothing, and a lot of other things; I was a reed shaken with the wind, a know-nought gert mumphead, and suchlike. Then, after ten minutes of it, I should think, she turned to Susan, and asked what she'd got to say. The toad of a girl grinned in our faces and said 'twas of no consequence, only a gert strange dog, with a bit of broken rope round his neck, had got into the kitchen and put his paws on the table and growled at her, like a bear, and showed all his teeth at once. Well—there 'twas—you can guess what the room looked like when I runned in. The dog—I know whose dog 'twas well enough!—had done just what he damn pleased. He only made off when he heard me coming, and a muck heap's a neat, orderly place to what that kitchen was after he'd gone. Everything off the table, for he'd got over the crockery to the bacon and swept the tea-pot and things afore him like a river sweeps straws—bread, milk, dripping—everything. Never you seed such a masterpiece! I lost my presence of mind and turned on the missis and said, 'There—that's your work! Let that be a lesson to you, you chattering woman!' I oughtn't to have said it, and I was sorry enough after; but God He knows 'twill be weeks afore I get in a word edgewise again. She had her spasms first; then she come to and let me catch it hot and strong from the shoulder, I promise you. She never stopped. While I drove her to the station, and shut the carriage door on her, and the guard he whistled and the train went, 'twas one shattering volume of speech. However, I needn't trouble other people. We've all got our cares, no doubt."
They expressed sympathy with Philip's difficulties, and Adam Churchward especially dwelt upon the bright side. He reminded Mr. Weekes of the noble character of his son, and explained that we all have the defects of our qualities, and must give and take in a large and understanding spirit, if we are to reach happiness, despite the adverse circumstance of being human creatures.
These kindly words and his third glass of warm beer and nutmeg comforted Philip; while the fourth and last found him resigned even to the verge of renewed cheerfulness.
"Take my advice and say the word in season first minute you see her to-morrow," said Mr. Pearn. "Then, if the market's been good, 'twill come all right."
"I will do so," promised Philip. "That reminds me: I must take a box o' straw to the station, for she was going to fetch home a new tea-pot and a good few other things with her. 'Twill all come right, and I dare say, after all, 'twasn't a bad thing that I forgot myself and put my foot down so resolute. She may think on it after."
"She will," foretold Jacob Taverner. "Be sure she'll think on it, and think none the worse of you for it. They like the manhood to flash out of us now and again—even the most managing sort."
Closing time had come, and with great exclamations at the density of the fog, Mr. Pearn's guests departed to their homes.