Jarratt rode away, leaving in the old man's mind a deep uneasiness, somewhat similar in quality to that he had just awakened in the soul of Daniel Brendon's wife.
Hilary Woodrow returned home during the latter part of May, and Ruddyford rejoiced to see him. But despite his assurances, all found him a little changed. He was tolerably active and cheerful, yet thinner than of yore, and his love of the saddle had decreased. He rode abroad less than formerly, and he read more; but he showed no indifference to the minor questions of the passing hour. Of old, nothing was too small for him to bestow thought upon it; and he still liked to be consulted as to the affairs of his farm.
Yet in certain particulars it seemed that he had slightly changed his attitude to most things.
"'Tis more like a visitor in the house, somehow, than the master," said Peter Lethbridge to Daniel; and the other admitted it.
"Too easy for a master now," he answered. "'Tis a very bad sign in my opinion, and I shall have a tell with him about it."
He was as good as his word, and explained his uneasiness in very clear language.
"I feel I'm largely the cause of this," he declared while once they walked together homeward from the railway station of Lydford. "It hurts me terrible—'tis as though you felt Ruddyford was gone already. I wish to God you'd burn them papers, and put dying out of your mind. If I may say so, you'm a man running to meet the end of life. And you, please Heaven, with thirty years of usefulness before you."
"I like you to say these things, Dan; because it shows you're the same always. You don't change. I wish we were all as steadfast. But to be honest with you, I'm come to a time when the rest of the road can be seen pretty clear. The things that make life worth living shrink very small as soon as life ceases to be worth living."
"Life's worth living while we've got the power left to think a good thought."
Woodrow did not answer for some time. Then he said:
"I want you to go to Bristol for me next month. Don't think I've lost interest in my farm and my stock. There's a sale there of pedigree stuff, and I've ideas. I'll buy three beasts—a bull and two heifers."
"They'll cost a mint of money."
"Why not?"
Brendon rejoiced.
"A pity there ban't more with your great ideas on Dartymoor. The place is the best grazing ground in England, yet who knows its worth? I'll go, and gladly. You must put a limit on the purchases if 'tis an auction."
"I'll tell you to-night, if you'll come in for an hour. How's little Gregory this morning?"
Daniel's animation waned somewhat.
"Not all us could wish—fretful seemingly, and off his food. Sarah Jane be going to have doctor to him if he ban't better next week."
"Don't put it off."
"He's growing that fast."
"A very good lad—more like you than his mother. You'll make a farmer of him, Daniel?"
"I mean to. 'Twas my hope us should have had another boy to grow up with him—but——"
"Plenty of time."
A month later Brendon started for Bristol. It was a great incident, and his wife and he felt much excited about it. She had so far seen but little of Hilary since his return; now, during the three days' absence of Daniel, it became possible to spend some hours in the master's company.
By appointment they met in the old peat-works, but the relation between them was different from of old. Woodrow's fever had departed with possession; his appetence had quite faded. Now he loved her, with all his soul rather than with all his heart. The words were his own, and she questioned them.
"'Tis a higher thing, no doubt, and I'm thankful you feel so," she said. "'Twill surely grow up so great in you that all else will be forgot. I wish I could see more of you, and look to your comfort closer. Tabitha's a kind woman, but hard at the edges."
They sat in the great empty drum at the peat-works. It was dry and littered with sweet fresh fern, for Sarah Jane sometimes climbed thither to reflect and think upon the dead, when leisure served. She brought the child with her to play in the peat, and liked to see him at his games, because she knew that his grandfather would have loved the sight. On these occasions he was allowed to play with the famous knife. Then Sarah Jane hid it safely until their next visit.
Where now they sat, she could see the little figure busy with rusty tools that a man had used in earnest, though in vain. Upon Gregory Friend's death the last spark of human life departed from Amicombe Hill, and now only Nature worked there.
Woodrow reclined beside Sarah Jane, and stroked her hand. From time to time came the thud of a hoof, where his horse was tethered close by.
"And yet," she said, "to hear you put your soul afore your heart be a wonder, Hilary, for 'twas only a little time agone that you'd have none of the word. I be glad and sorry both to hear you say it. Glad because it makes you a thought happier."
"Why sorry?" he asked.
"I don't know—down deep in me I be. Can't find a word for it. 'Tis giving up something in my feeling to put anything afore our bodies When I think of father, I see his round shoulders and beard and shining eyes. I'm so small-minded, I can't fancy them I love save in their dear flesh."
"You beautiful thing! Well may you say it—such a queen of the flesh as you are! But for me 'tis different. A pain-stricken wretch, sinking away back to the dust so fast."
"Don't say that. 'Tis only your hands be thinner, because you never use 'em save for turning the pages of books. I do wish you'd be on your horse more."
"I know—I know. Man cannot live by books alone. I'll do everything. But think—what a great, precious thought—to believe there's a time after! Aren't you glad I've got to believe that?"
"Do you believe it?"
"I do."
"I'll say no hard thing against your books no more then. Somehow—after what fell out—I wanted to be the same as you. I was torn in half between Dan and you; and sometimes I thought heaven would be good, and oftener I couldn't see how. Then I felt as if the sleep without end and without dreams that you trusted to was best. But if you and Daniel both think for sure that there's a time coming will find us alive for ever, and no growing old in it—then I'll believe it too—I must."
"Believe it," he said. "'Tis worth anything. We call death endless sleep and all the rest of it, to make it sound less terrible; but that is only playing with words. Death is dust if it is the end. I prayed to God—the God I didn't believe in—to make me believe. Such vain things will a sad heart do. Not vain either, for He heard and answered. The sea it was that fetched the answer. Miles and miles I tramped along lonely shores and watched the waves. They brought the idea of endlessness so near to me. My watch in my pocket ticked time; but the great, sad-coloured waves beat out eternity. I want to walk on that beach with you and see the water-scythes sweep round and mow the sand. And when the sand sighs I feel it is the sigh of the weary earth, that knows no rest from the unwearying sea. The sea's a better lover than I was. Twice a day he worships the shore."
"I might come maybe when autumn's back. A change would do the child good belike."
"Well thought. What more natural? Somehow I want you there—just to walk over the sand and hear the long sob and hopeless sigh of sea against stone. It will force you to believe in your soul, Sarah Jane."
"Do it make you glad—this new feeling?"
"Yes, it does. It opens out so many doors to hope. It teaches so much. I told you once that if there was another world, there was a God. It is so."
"Do it make right and wrong plainer?"
"In time—in time it will. I've flung over a lot of old opinions already. 'Tis like parting with the very stuff of your brain; for my thoughts were my life—till you came into it. But you—you've taught me such a lot too. You taught me that truth was beyond our reach—that was a great piece of learning. Once hold that and comfort grows out of it—a sort of desolate comfort to a hungry heart—still comfort. Truth's got to be softened behind a veil for things with no more intellect than we have. The stark, naked light would blind us for ever and make us mad. God knows that. Truth is God's face, Sarah Jane."
She was secretly amazed at this great mental change in him. For his sake she was glad, because he had evidently welcomed the possibility of a new belief that was strong to throw hope over the present desert of his mind. With weakened physical circumstances, reason had also weakened; but Woodrow believed otherwise and told himself that unimpaired intellectual powers, working unceasingly on the problem he conceived to be paramount, had at last purged his understanding and lifted him into a purer belief. He was, moreover, proud that he had attained to this triumph by the exercise of what he believed to be pure reason. He doubted not that such faith as he had now attained was the only faith worthy of mankind.
But in the woman's heart lurked something akin to regret. She could not name the emotion; she lacked words to analyze it; but she knew that it was there; and while her nature leapt to gladness—because Hilary was glad—behind the joy persisted something of disquiet and even distrust.
"I'll be well pleased to think like you do, then," she said; "but—but, oh, Hilary, for God's sake don't you grow to think like Daniel do—else—else——"
He shook his head.
"Never fear that—that would be to go down the hill—not up it. It's cost the life-work of my brains to get where I have got, dear heart. I shan't go backward now."
Presently she left Woodrow and went to her child. Then Gregory and his mother set off homeward.
The farmer watched them sink—a large spot and a little one—into the waste. Presently he rose and mounted his horse. He thought long upon Sarah Jane and that last note of fear—so foreign to her fearless voice. He reflected, too, upon his own altered attitude and sublimated affection for her. He supposed that belief in immortality must be a force very elevating to the human mind; he doubted not that it lifted glorious flowers when once the root struck down and flourished. He considered the great matter from divers points of view, but not from one. He did not know that decaying physical circumstances frequently open the door to superstition and make a fading intellect succumb before what, in full vigour of intellectual life, it scorned.
The day chimed with his mood, and he told himself very honestly that none could gaze upon this outspread world and believe that it represented but a display of natural laws, a casual compact of heat and light and substance, a chance conglobation of matter whirling beautifully about the sun's throne at the moment of summer solstice.
The light of noon shone over the world. Cloud shadows flew along the silvery planes of the earth's surface, and life teemed in a myriad shapes even to the pinnacles of the land. Day herself scarcely died now, and night was a shadow rather than a darkness. Even in the midnight watches, light, like a ghost, stole under the stars and behind the northern hills until day returned. So spirits might haunt the nether gloom, he fancied, ere they vanished again at the glorious advent of day.
To Woodrow, gazing upon the June world, it seemed that he was the only faulty thing in the visible universe; and he longed to cast his slough and also be without fault.
Matters fell out much as Hilary Woodrow desired. He returned to Dawlish in October, and soon afterwards Brendon brought his wife and child to the sea.
His master and he took long walks together among the Haldon hills, and Daniel learnt with enormous satisfaction that the other had of late experienced great changes of spirit. The big man gloried in this fact from a personal point of view, because it appeared to justify his immense faith in prayer. He had petitioned Heaven for Hilary Woodrow; and here dawned the answer. Daniel doubted not that this was the beginning of a larger and deeper conversion. He urged Woodrow to go farther.
"There's no standing still," he said. "There's no standing still for you now—no more than the light stands still when the sun rises. Brighter and brighter surely it must grow, till the full light of the Gospel of the Son of God warms your heart. Man! what's deeper than that, what shows all clearer than that—or throws a darker shadow—the shadow of our sins?"
"What a preacher you are!"
"'Tis the good tidings of what you say. They make even my slow mind move quick. 'Ye believe in God, believe also in Me'; 'tis that I'm thinking."
"Ah, Dan, that's a very different matter."
"God'll show you 'tis the same."
Thus oftentimes they talked; then work called Brendon, and he went home again. But his wife and child stopped for some weeks longer beside the sea; because little Gregory gained benefit from the change, and Sarah Jane was anxious to remain for his sake.
The old-time fires were now banked deep in Daniel's mind under the changes and chances of his life. Jealous he was, since a large power of jealousy pertained to his nature; but for Woodrow he had long since failed to feel anything but the staunch devotion of a brother. Apart from this emotion, awakened by the circumstance of the farmer's personal goodness to him, another far deeper, begot of natural instinct, told him that Hilary was harmless now. Whatever his attitude towards Sarah Jane had been, the very openness of their friendship and the close intimacy of their conversation under his own eyes and before his own ears, had convinced the husband that no shadow of danger existed in their relations. The past in truth was dead enough, and Brendon, a man of clean mind, despite jealousy, made the mistake of supposing that it had never been. He went further and, looking backward, blamed himself for an unseemly attitude, and confessed his sin to his Maker.
The past was dead, and neither Hilary nor Sarah Jane, as they walked together at the edge of the winter sea, sought or thought upon its grave. Far otherwise, she found that in the light of his new opinions he could now bitterly mourn the past. On a grey day, when a slight shore wind smoothed the water and the sea was almost of the same colour as the gulls that floated upon it, the man and woman sat under shelter of a red cliff, talked together, and watched Sarah Jane's child gathering cowry shells upon the beach.
"How your husband rejoices in his God! Have you marked it, Sarah Jane? Such a trust and such a great, live gratitude underlying his scrupulous obedience."
"Well he may be grateful."
"I'm only a child in knowledge of the divine idea. He's got far beyond that. And yet—sometimes—I wonder what would happen to his religion—and to us—if he knew."
"I don't wonder. I know what would happen. He might be sorry after—when 'twas too late—but while the storm was raging in his heart, God's self wouldn't hold him."
"I understand."
"And I wouldn't blame him neither. Think—the solid earth giving way under his feet. 'Twould be no less to him."
"It's very awful—considered in that manner. I hope you're wrong."
"The sea would be weak and the rocks would be soft compared to him."
"You've never felt he ought to know?"
She gasped and stared.
"My God! No, I haven't."
"Sometimes I have, Sarah Jane."
Her eyes rested on him in profound and horrified amazement.
"You can say that! Believing in God has brought you to that! Then I wish you'd never come to it, Hilary Woodrow."
"I have almost felt that if I lived very much longer, I might tell him."
"You won't live much longer afterwards, if you do. He's said to me in naked words, that 'tis no sin to kill them as have done what we have done. His Bible is behind him."
"Nevertheless, if you were dead, I should tell Brendon."
"I'm not dead, and I don't want to die. You—you to say this awful thing to me! I feel as if I was going mad. I can't believe it. I won't believe 'tis you talking. You—knowing all you know!"
Something akin to indignation trembled in her voice; and he marked it and felt shame.
"The thought came to me in a dream," he declared. "Of course it's unthinkable awake. But I wanted to hear how it would sound."
She was much moved.
"It sounds like a bell tolling," she said. "You grow to be such an own-self man now—along of finding God, I suppose. You think to tell Brendon would ease your soul, no doubt. But what about his? You've come to reckon that you did wrong—that I did wrong—but can't you see what might be rest to your mind is hell for his? Don't you know him well enough to know what it would mean to him? I can see the things that would happen—like a row of awful——there, you've made my brain whirl; you've throwed me into a maze of terror for that man."
The other noticed that not a thought of fear for herself influenced Sarah Jane. Neither did she concern her mind with him after his confession. Her husband filled her heart.
Hilary pacified her and quite agreed with her; he laughed at her fervour and declared that his God and her husband's were as different as love from hate; that his God was hers, not Daniel's. She made no answer; but the reflection that even from the fantasies of a dream he could pluck such an idea and utter it in her ears, transformed her feeling towards him from that hour for ever. The shock of this experience aged the spirit within her. She returned home at the appointed time; and was glad to be home. But her mental life had changed.
Philip Weekes considered that all men might be divided into two classes: those who knew their own minds, and those who did not. His wife and son both belonged to the smaller category; himself he numbered with the majority and confessed that there were occasions when he found himself not in two minds, but twenty.
With winter, Fate passing through Lydford, perceived the amazing prosperity of all who bore the famous local name of Weekes, and from her bitter lemon squeezed a little verjuice. Jarratt experienced some bad fortune and lost more than he could afford to lose in a copper mine on the east side of the Moor; while Philip himself fell ill. It was the attitude of Mrs. Weekes at the time of this latter unparalleled misfortune that served so greatly to bewilder the huckster. He had fought against his indisposition valiantly and only retired upon medical compulsion; but it was quite as much fear of the consequences, if he went to bed, as a valiant indifference to physical misery that kept him on his legs until the last moment.
He drove Mrs. Weekes to Lydford station as usual on a market day, and then returned home, feeling exceedingly unwell. A doctor called twice weekly at the village, and fortunately he might be seen at his surgery upon Saturdays. When Hephzibah came back her son Jarratt was waiting with the pony-trap, and she learnt the amazing news that the master was ill in bed.
"Guy Fawkes and good angels!" cried Mrs. Weekes. "Philip down! Push the pony along for the love of the Lord, Jar. Who's with him?"
"Mary runs in and out, and Susan, and Mrs. Taverner have been very kind."
"Poor lamb! poor helpless lamb!" said the wife.
Ever in extremes, she now poured forth a torrent of praise and extolled the immense virtues of Philip. She also dwelt on his practical value and her own imperishable affection and admiration for him.
"Such men go down to the grave with nobody but God Almighty and their wives to mark them," she said.
"'Twill be a case of 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant' if he goes. But it mustn't be. It shan't be!"
"He's not in the least danger, mother."
"Danger!—how can you dare to use the word? Oh, my God, to think of the staff and prop of my life tottering—and me not there! 'Danger'!—you ought to be a better son than to say it. Why for wasn't a telegram sent off? What do Mary know of sickness?"
Jarratt grunted.
"If she don't, she's a fool then. Another child coming and the first always got something wrong with it."
"There—to think—that poor martyr! I knowed there was something wrong—felt it in my bones all yesterday. 'God send Mary's all right,' I said again and again to myself in market. But little did I think of master. I fancied 'twas no more than just a running at the nose—and all the time he was suffering agonies, no doubt. The bravery of the man! Lash the pony, can't 'e, or I'll get out and go afoot. How long are we to take? I'm itching to be at him!"
Mrs. Weekes soon reached home, and swiftly swept the neighbours out of the house.
"He'm asking for you, Aunt Hepsy," said Susan. "He'm very peaceful, with his medicine, an' a Bible, an' the kettle 'pon the fire; and blacksmith have made a proper long spout for the kettle as the doctor ordained, so the steam can get to him."
"You go off, you chattering magpie," began Mrs. Weekes; then she hastened up to the head of the house, and found him pretty comfortable, but very crestfallen and full of the humblest apologies.
"Awful sorry," he croaked. "I blush for myself, I'm sure."
"Don't you talk—not a word. I'll do the talking for once, you poor fallen creature! It do tear me to pieces to see you thrust into your bed, in the full vigour of manhood, like this. And never a groan—you valiant boy! But now I be back, us shall soon have 'e on your feet again. You trust to me! Be you easy? Where's the pain? I'd sooner fight evils above the navel than below it, as I have always maintained. Don't say 'tis the stomach—don't say that. But your poor cracked voice tells me all I want to know."
"'Tis the breathing parts, my dear."
"And you brave as an army about it, and never told me, and let me desert you without a thought. You wonderful man! I wish to God there was more like you. Let me look in your face. Good! Don't you fear any harm, Philip. While the white of your eye be so clear, there's no danger. You'll come through all right."
"No danger, I'm sure. I can drink soup as easy as anything. But 'tis the ill-convenience of upsetting the bedroom so."
"Like your big mind to think of it; but what's a bedroom to me? I don't want no bedroom while you'm stricken down. Not a wink of sleep shall I have, till doctor says you can rise up again. And to think I never guessed, so quiet you kept it! When Jar showed hisself at the station—even then I didn't seem to know what had kept you. 'Where's that beetle of a man, Philip Weekes?' I asked, in my brisk, cheerful way. 'Struck down,' says Jarratt; and you could have flung me into the air. I was blowed out with sudden terror, like a balloon."
"I did ought to have a bowl of something to lap at about mid-day, according to doctor's orders—not that I want it if 'twill be troubling you," said Mr. Weekes.
"So you shall, then; an' the fat of the land shall you have, as becomes such a man; an' wine, if I've got to sell my shoes for it—good, black port wine—as good as Noah Pearn have got in the house—you shall drink—bottles and bottles—till your very blood be wine! There's nought makes blood like what port does."
She set to work from that moment and toiled unceasingly until Mr. Weekes had passed the crisis of his illness, and was pronounced convalescent. Then she nearly fed him to death, praised God for His mercies, and wearied the whole street of Lydford with nursing details, with symptoms and their treatment, with the particulars of diet, with enthusiastic comments on the majestic attitude of mind preserved by Philip throughout his sufferings.
Presently neighbours called, and were allowed to have speech with the invalid. Philip's eyes had been giving him some trouble, and during his illness the doctor had prescribed a pair of glasses. These were now made, and Mr. Weekes was proud of them, and pleased with the appearance of himself in them. Adam Churchward visited him, and admired his spectacles.
"It brings out the natural thoughtful bent of your countenance, if I may say so. You'll find them a great comfort and support without a doubt. For my part, strange though it may seem, I have to put on my glasses now—not only to see with, but to think with. My mind refuses to move freely until I feel them on the bridge of my nose."
"It clears print something wonderful," explained Philip, "and of late, for want of power to do anything useful, I've sunk down to reading the newspaper, and found it very interesting. I've had a good dash at the Word too; and 'tis curious to see that fighting was just as bloody a job in Old Testament days as it be now. The only difference is that then they always knowed which side the Lord was, afore they went to war; and now we never know till afterwards. If the Almighty took the same pleasure in England as He done in Israel, we should just walk over the earth."
"A very wise remark," declared Mr. Churchward; "I can see the glasses are steadying your mind already."
"He be so vain of 'em as a turkey-cock," said Mrs. Weekes, who sat beside her husband's bed. Why, it minds me of the time Jarratt was born. Then the airs and graces this man give himself! 'Twas every minute, 'Where's my son? Where's my boy Jarratt to?' And now 'tis 'Where's my glasses?' 'Here, let me get on my glasses!'
"I like a middle-aged face to look wise," declared Mr. Churchward. "There's no more shameful thing in nature than an elderly fool. Yet one meets them—people over whose heads life has passed and not brought a single thoughtful line. Poor, smooth-faced souls! Why, the very beasts that perish as doth the grass of the field look wiser, and undoubtedly are wiser, as they grow older."
"No good growing old if you don't grow artful, for certain," said Mrs. Weekes. "And another thing is that they fools are far more harmful than the knaves. A knave makes clean work, but a fool botches all. Everybody knows that. Why, you men—Lord bless you!—I see through the pack of you, like windows!"
"You do your best, as I do, to inculcate wisdom," answered the schoolmaster. "For my part I may say that I leave no stone unturned to implant it in the rising generation. Sow enough seed and some will undoubtedly germinate in a satisfactory manner. We never know how great a matter may be kindled by a flash of sense bursting in upon the youthful mind. And, in your case, you don't deny your immense fund of common sense to the humblest who asks for it. I suppose that nobody in Lydford gives more good advice in the course of a twelvemonth than you do, Mrs. Weekes. Nathaniel Spry is sound also."
"Him!" returned Hephzibah with contempt. "What does he know, more than how many penny stamps make twelve, or how to weigh a parcel, or write a gun license? How can he know anything, living out his life behind the counter in that stuffy little post-office?"
"I was going to admit that his experience of the world is rather limited; but he is a great reader, and has nourished his intellect on the learning of wiser men than himself. His advice generally comes out of a good book, and is therefore pretty well to be relied upon."
"As to advice," she answered. "'Tis taking it, not giving it that matters. If a man or woman agrees with you, and falls in with every word, and thanks you over and over again—then you may feel perfectly sure they won't follow a syllable and have only come to waste your time. 'Tis them that argue, and wrangle, and sulk, and ax your reasons, and go away in a temper with you—'tis them that be most likely to profit by what you've said."
A voice cried from below stairs.
"Can Valentine come up to see father?"
"He can," answered Mr. Weekes; and a moment later old Huggins creaked upstairs, followed by Jarratt.
"You'd better go, schoolmaster. You've had your turn," said Hephzibah. "Philip mustn't see too much company all at once."
Adam, therefore, withdrew, and Mr. Huggins took his place.
"I heard the joyful news as you was your own man again, and soon to come down house," said the patriarch; "therefore nothing would do but what I must walk up and have a look at you. Not changed a hair, thank God."
"He's fatter," said Mrs. Weekes. "The idleness have put flesh on him—round as a tub he have grown. You'm inches deep in lard, ban't you, my old dear?"
"I believe I am," answered Philip. "But I'll work it off again so soon as I get on my legs. It shows how little us be wanted, Val, that though we may be struck down, the world goes on just the same. Now I've often thought, in my vainglorious way, what would become of all my Indian game birds if anything happened to me. Yet they was never better, and be laying as free as Nature can make 'em, so missis tells me."
"'Tis this here wonderful woman," said Huggins. "You'm one of the fortunates, you are. 'Be dashed if Hephzibah Weekes don't know how to be in two places to once!' I said not long since to Noah Pearn. And he answered 'twas the cleverest thing he'd ever heard me say."
"Philip's going to be let out of bed to-morrow," said Mrs. Weekes. "And he'll come down house the day after."
"The spring weather will soon set him up."
"Spring be here without a doubt," she answered. "That dear angel boy of Sarah Jane's comed in along with his father yester-eve; and he fetched as fine a bunch of primrosen as you could wish to see. But the darling had picked 'em without stalks, as childer will, so they was flinged away so soon as his li'l back was turned."
"A very promising start to the year, I do think," said Mr. Huggins. "A good deal of prosperity in the country, and very great promise of hay—so John Prout tells me."
"What was the news of Mr. Woodrow?"
"I named him. He've wintered pretty well—ban't worse nor better. Daniel Brendon be going down to him for a few days, and 'tis hoped he'll come home first week in June."
"Good luck all round, then."
"You forget me," said Jarratt, who had been standing with his hands in his pockets, looking out of the window. "But one man's ill-fortune don't matter, I suppose."
"I heard as Wheal Cosdon was looking up again," answered Mr. Huggins.
"You heard wrong. 'Tis as like as not 'twill be knacked in autumn. 'Twas a damned swindle; but they promoters be on the windy side o' the law, as usual, and us, who put in our hard-earned savings, get nought."
"Can't you have the law of nobody about it?" asked his father.
"No, I can't. The rogues be safe enough. The law's their side."
"I'd like to poison the traitors with the arsenic they've digged out of the place," cried Hephzibah. "To steal the bread from the mouths of men and women and children; and eat it themselves—the anointed robbers! 'Tis a shameful thing to think in a Christian land the laws should all be made with an eye to the comfort of the rich."
"Can't be otherwise—so long as the rich make 'em," ventured Philip.
"With all your natural needs and requirements in the big life you lead, it must be a terrible crash to have to put down your servant, as they tell me you think of doing," said Huggins to Jarratt Weekes.
"I must face it. I like ease and comfort as well as anybody—especially since I earned it by my own hard work. But we must cut the coat as the cloth allows. Ban't no good thirsting for half a pint, if you haven't got three-halfpence."
Valentine, however, doubted the philosophy of this sentiment.
"Don't say so. You'm leaving out of your reckoning all the Good Samaritans that be about the world, and the beauty of human nature in general."
"Human nature's all rot. Anyway, it isn't the thirsty folks that human nature asks to drink."
"Yet I've had scores and scores gratis and for nothing in my time," declared Mr. Huggins. "Eighty year old am I, and if I could tell 'em up, I make no doubt that I should find I'd had barrels over one counter and another—all out of the goodness of my fellow-creatures, without a thought of any return. Not but what I haven't stood oceans of drink in my time too. But gratitude's the thing—an' rarer even than generosity. I'm exceedingly grateful for all the free beer I've had, and I won't hear you tell that human nature's rot, just because you are a bit under the weather. Your luck will come uppermost presently—then you'll think different."
"Good sense, Val. Cheer him up if you can," said Mrs. Weekes. "And now you men had best to get off, for Philip must have his dinner."
With another summer Hilary Woodrow again returned to his home, and time passed as during previous years. But the passage of the last winter had left its mark upon him, and the least observant noticed a change. Physically he had grown thinner. His cheek-bones thrust out, and there were hollows beneath them. He still rode, and he still read; but his books belonged now to a different plane of thought, and a man by glancing at them might have calculated with pretty close accuracy the nature of his bent, and the slow but sure victory of faith over reason.
In some respects he looked younger, for a colour that means health in infancy and death at adolescence, lighted his fallen cheek. His eyes were bright; his manner continued courteous and kind as of yore; his energies were not yet much decreased, save in certain directions. From predisposition he had gradually passed into actual disease; and as the bodily fires waned and cooled, his interest in the superhuman waxed and dominated every waking hour. He believed in a life beyond the grave; he had infected the domain of reason by deep reading of irrational authors; and these created an atmosphere through which he groped his way back to the faith of his fathers.
Sarah Jane held secret speech with him, at oncoming of another autumn, and the great matter arose upon his lips. This happened towards the end of his stay at home, when already it became necessary to think of leaving the Moor. First he treated of his health, and confessed, to her grief, that he was not so well; then he discussed the superstitions now supremely precious to him.
"What will you say when I tell you that I have followed in the path of many and many a greater man than myself, and changed my opinions?" he asked.
"I know it," she answered. "You told me nine months agone at Dawlish. You believe in God and heaven; and so do I with all my heart."
"But I've gone beyond that—higher—higher. We must believe in that, when our eyes are opened to read the meaning of the world—or even a glimpse of the meaning. Looking back, I tremble to see what a dreadful, lonely thing I was—walking here in my pride. But God's too great a thought for the mind of man to grasp single-handed. I've come to see there must be something between—something within reach of human intellect—something that man's mind can understand and even love—something that will bring the divine light to us, yet soften its wonder and terror, so that we can gaze upon it. Without Christ, the idea of God dazzles and blinds and bewilders. With Christ, the thought can be received and taken home into our hearts. The only possible God for man is made clear to us by the Son of God. Therefore I am a Christian, Sarah Jane."
Frank but fleeting anxiety filled her eyes as they opened widely to regard him. Great excitement was manifested by Hilary. An expression she had never seen there shone in his countenance as he spoke. It was the same light that she knew as a familiar beacon upon her husband's face; but there it glowed steady and flameless; here it shot up and played like fire.
"You believe all that my Dan believes?"
"All. Oh, Sarah Jane, the grief of it is greater than the joy; for who, when the light comes, but must look back as well as forward? If I could only look forward! But a man in my case sees the past clear enough—clearer and clearer as the sun sets upon it. My sun-setting will be stormy now. I should have died happy enough with the glorious thought of you and the past; but now 'tis just that thought that will darken all."
"Can't you forget? The years and years it was ago! The scores and scores of things that have happened since."
"I can't forget. I lament it—I lament for it with my whole heart and soul. I mourn it waking and moan for it sleeping. I'd die a hundred deaths if the time could come again."
"This be Christianity?"
"Yes; it shows that I have not deceived myself. I am a Christian—therefore this thing that I have done torments me."
"How it festers in your mind! I've forgot it—very near. Many a dream that I dream seems more real to me than that."
"It's the only reality left in my life."
"Then I wish you'd die quick and be at peace," she said fiercely. "I love you so dear that I can wish that for you!"
"I'm dying fast enough—yet not fast enough. I'm impatient now to see what mercy means—mercy and forgiveness. I shall know soon. How clear the stages are, Sarah Jane! I wonder if they are so clear with you? First joy and pride in what I'd done; then content and a blessed memory to look back upon; then, as disease got hold of me, and I had to begin to fight for life, clouds came between me and the past. Then the first sharp twinge of regret, as my soul began to waken; then sorrow; then frantic, undying grief and a vain agony of longing that I'd not sinned so damnably against those I loved best in the world. Have you felt so, Sarah Jane?"
"Never," she said. "I wept fire for a week after; I was half raving for joy and half raving for misery—mad like. Then I put it all behind me. Things stronger than me—or you—worked that deed. I'll pay the price, if I must. I didn't do it for myself—you know that."
"Can't you feel for my sufferings?"
At the bottom of her heart flashed a passing scorn; but she expelled it and blamed only his unhappy physical decay.
"'Twill all be made up if what you think is right. Your Christ will be so pleased with you for being sorry, that He'll forgive you everything—and me too. We sinners are His sort. The just persons go into heaven without any fuss, by all accounts. 'Tis such as we are—weak, wicked, good-for-noughts—that the angels will blow their trumpets for."
Hilary was astonished at her attitude and its satire—the more terrible because quite unconscious.
"What would Daniel say to that?" he asked.
"I don't know," she answered. "And I don't care."
Then her outlook utterly changed at a breath.
"Yet that's folly, if justice be anything," she continued. "And I do care—care with all my might. 'Tis the like of Daniel—pure in heart and soul, the faithful servant of his God, that must go in first. And so he should. If heaven's waiting, 'tis Dan and my dear, dear father, and such as them—not me and you—will be put first. 'Tis for their sakes I ever think or care about it, or want to go there. For their sakes. But for them and my little boy, I'd sooner go nowhere. I've had nearly enough of living anywhere—beautiful though 'tis to be alive. I don't want much more of it—not now you've said this to me."
"May you live long—very, very long—long enough to forgive me."
"You needn't say things like that," she answered. "The more you heap all this misery on your own head, the less I'm likely to blame you. I never did—not even in thought, 'Twould have been a coward's part. 'Twas no more than a bitter bargain, when all's said."
"How can you have the heart to speak so?"
"Because I ban't the religious creature you are, I suppose. Let the dead past be—or you'll fret yourself to death afore your time."
"Daniel is never out of my thoughts. Sometimes I feel almost as though I could fling myself on the ground at his feet and, for my peace of mind, tell all."
"So you said last year, and made my heart stand still. Yet 'tis a cruel, selfish wish—even for a full-blown new Christian, I should reckon. I loathed you for it at the time, and my thoughts choked me to think as a man who—to think such a wish could come to you. But now I'm changed too. 'Tis all one to me what you do, so far as I'm concerned, and I'd tell Dan myself, if he was anything but what he is. Not for fear of him do I keep dumb—God He knows that—but for love of him. For great love of his dear self I want the past to be dead and buried. If it would better Dan to tell it, I'd tell it; if my death would help his life and his power of goodness, and fix him any stronger and surer with heaven, I'd die laughing. But what would hap to him if he knew? Would it bring him nearer to his God? No—worse luck: I'd be casting down his God and leaving him stripped of everything he cares for and clings to. You know what he'd do—if you have spared a thought from yourself for him."
The man winced.
"I deserve that," he said. "You're right enough. I shall die with this on my conscience. I shall die, and trust Christ to do the rest—for you and him—and even for me."
He left her then, and passed down from the high ground on which they had walked and talked. Her little boy picked whortleberries and filled a can with them not far off. Woodrow was on foot, and now he sank into the valley. She rose and stood perched on the stone crown of a hill—stood with fluttering skirt and lifting bosom, to drink in the great wind that panted overhead from its strife with the Atlantic. Mist swept here and there, and Hilary Woodrow was presently obliterated by grey vapours that drove against the hills, and broke along them, like waves upon a shore.
All that was most precious of this man had already died to Sarah Jane. What remained went ghostly, shadowy as the grey vapour winding at her feet. He had slain himself before her eyes, and she mourned for him, and dumbly wondered at the dreadful change. Was it only the evil-doer who trembled? So did not Dan face his destiny. But Dan's heart and hands were clean. She asked herself what she believed; and she waived the subject as a thing altogether indifferent. Her soul was centred upon her husband and his good. She knew now that she wished Hilary to die. She looked straight and fearless upon her own desire, and did not flinch from it. Death would end his tribulations and bring him peace; and his death must prevent the haunting possibility of the past from ever falling upon her husband's ear.
She went home presently, and was heartened on the way by little Gregory's prattle and happiness. His berries were to make a pudding for dear Aunt Tab, and nobody else was to eat of that pudding.
Presently Tabitha Prout received the gift with immense gratitude, and promised faithfully that she would make a pudding and eat every bit of it herself. The child grew more and more like his father. He was spoiled by all but Daniel, and his little tyrannies brought merriment to Ruddyford, where life did not stand still.
Brendon without question now took command and stood in his master's stead. What he held good to do was done. The old order changed steadily. Further land had been taken from the wilderness; larger flocks and herds roamed the summer Moor; new cattle-byres rose; success attended the homestead, and content dwelt therein. Prout's work was now as much or little as he cared to make it, and when Woodrow abode at Dawlish, the old man spent a good deal of time there and insisted on being his body-servant. Another labourer had been engaged at the farm, and the rest of the men remained, save Joe Tapson. Him Daniel reluctantly dismissed, since rheumatism in the shoulder had spoiled his usefulness. He left in a bitter mood, and though Brendon found him work, showed hate rather than gratitude. Sarah Jane was still dairymaid; Tabitha still controlled the internal economy of the farm.
Much speculation was rife as to the real relations of Woodrow and Daniel Brendon. Those interested guessed at a bargain, and foresaw that the latter would ere long take over Ruddyford; but the truth none knew, save only John Prout, the Brendons, and Hilary himself.
Prout was indifferent, and troubled little about his own old age. That he trusted to Daniel, as he had trusted it to his master. Indeed, he made no leisure for more than grief. He knew now that Woodrow must presently die, and the fact darkened his days, for he greatly loved him.
As for small Gregory, his attractive behaviour continued to appeal to Mrs. Weekes, who hesitated not to set him up above her own grandchild. The circumstance annoyed her son a good deal; but now had come an addition to Jarratt's family, so interesting, that he expected Hephzibah would forget Brendon's child before the wonder of the new arrivals. For, succeeding upon some further bad fortune, the man's wife bore twin boys, and the parents and grandparents found themselves uncertain whether to welcome or deplore such a sudden increase of responsibility. Finally the grandparents rejoiced, but the father and mother resented their cheerful and sanguine view, and thought themselves ill-used.
The matter formed subject for a serious debate at the Castle Inn on a Saturday night, and several of those personally interested contributed to the discussion.
"'Tis very well for you to be so gay," said Jarratt to his father, who was much pleased with the twins. "You're like t'other man in the corner there." He pointed to Mr. Churchward. "To hear you two old fools, one would think you'd both been left a legacy. If you're so jolly pleased with 'em, you'd better each take one. You're welcome."
He pulled at his beer gloomily.
"You oughtn't to speak so," answered the miller, Jacob Taverner. "You'd be sorry presently if the Lord took them. Then you'd look back at such bitter words in a very different spirit."
"That I certainly should not. The Lord's welcome to 'em, I assure you. Time was when I wouldn't have minded; but now I do. Everybody knows the sort of luck I've had of late."
"This may be good luck in disguise," returned Taverner.
"Who knows but what these infants be born to set you on your legs again? They may have the very cleverness of their grandfather Churchward or their grandmother Weekes."
In a corner Mr. Huggins and Philip Weekes sat together. They were not discussing the twins; but it happened that one of the huckster's fits of depression was upon him, and he hinted at a few personal sorrows to the aged man. Valentine's mind moved slowly, and demanded great length of time to grasp any change. Many months had passed since his friend's illness, yet Mr. Huggins only now began to appreciate the fact that he was restored to health. He continued to inquire as to Philip's condition.
"'Tis a great blessing to know that you'm fully returned to the use of all your parts, I'm sure. It encourages us old chaps to hear of such recoveries. Do you call yourself perfectly well again yet?"
"Well as ever I was. 'Twasn't doctor, but the missis told me when I'd recovered. One day, without any warning, as I comed in from the fowls for my drop of beef tea, which I'd got rather to rely upon, she said there wasn't none, and she went on to add that I was 'a dare-devil old Gubbins, and would eat us all out of hearth and home, if she'd let me.' So then I knowed I was cured."
"A great female, Phil."
"She is; yet here and there, to say it without any bad meaning, I often wish she wanted more sleep. I'm a hog for sleep—'tis my nature to be so. I like ten hours when I can get it; but she—she don't cry out for more sleep than a bird takes in summer. I've knowed her talk till light scores an' scores of times. And she stops gradual, not sudden. She'll drop remarks, on and on and on—like a bell tolling for death, or a cock crowing. She don't snore, thank God—which shows how one evil be balanced against another, come to think of it."
"The human snore cuts to the ear-drum almost afore any other sound," declared Mr. Huggins. "For my part I can go on through thunder or the elements like a new-born child; but my wife was a great midnight trumpeter. Cotton-wool's a good thing against it."
"What be you going to call your brace o' boys, Weekes, Junior?" asked Mr. Pearn. He had just returned home, and now appeared behind his bar and renewed a subject that was already exhausted.
"Damn my brace of boys," retorted Weekes brutally. "I don't want to hear no more about my brace of boys for the present. Give me a drop of whisky."
Noah Pearn obeyed and laughed.
"Dare say you wish they was a brace of birds instead of boys—then you could eat 'em and have done with them."
"Pearn!" said Mr. Churchward. "I'll thank you to be more careful. A jest is a jest, and I believe I am considered as quick to laugh at a piece of wholesome fun, within the limits of propriety, as any man; but it ill becomes the head of a family, like you, to say such a thing. That is not a gentlemanly joke, but simple coarseness, and you ought to know a great deal better."
"Sorry," answered Mr. Pearn. "I stand corrected."
"Their names are already decided upon," continued the schoolmaster. "Very much to my gratification one tender bud is going to be called 'Adam'—after me, rather than the original father of the human race; and the other will be called 'Jarratt,' after his father. So much is settled. They will each bear a second Christian name, but these have not yet been decided upon. I may mention that I was the only member of the family who was not astonished at this circumstance."
"Why not?" asked Jacob Taverner.
"For the simple reason that the thing has frequently happened before in the Churchward race," answered Adam. "I myself was one of two at a birth, though who would think it?"
"It runs in families—like drink and other disasters," said Mr. Huggins. "Did your twin die early or late, schoolmaster?"
"Almost immediately. In fact, my dear parents had to have her christened before she was two days old. Otherwise she would have passed away outside the pale of Christianity. I also seemed likely to perish; and they were so hurried that they had no leisure to think out our names. So they called us after our first parents. Poor Eve died soon after the sacred ceremony had been consummated. And I was spared by the inscrutable intelligence of Heaven. Still it was a case ofarcades ambo, as we say."
Dartmoor has been chosen by Nature for a theatre of worship and of work—a hypæthral temple, wherein she ministers before the throne of the sun, nurtures life, ripens her harvest, and buries her uncounted dead. Each year springtime breaks the bud joyfully and lifts the little lark into the blue; each year the summer builds and the autumn gleans; each year, when the sun's lamp is lowered, when the curtain of cloud is drawn, sleep and death pass by together along the winter silences. Thus the punctual rite and round are accomplished century after century, and, at each year's end, arise immemorial threnodies of many waters and fierce winds. Rivers roar a requiem; and their inevitable dirge is neither joyful nor mournful, but only glorious. The singers also are mortal; the wind and the wave are creatures, even as the perishing heath, crumbling stone, and falling foliage; they too rise and set, triumph and expire; they too are a part of the only miracle of the universe: the miracle of matter made manifest in pomp and wonder, in beauty and mystery, where Nature rolls her endless frieze along the entablature of Time.
Beneath December sunlight Dartmoor stretched in sleep—a sleep that lay hidden under death. Rack and ruin of many fair things were scattered upon the bosom of the wilderness, and all pursued their appointed way to dissolution. The conventional idea of man's mind was reversed, as usual, by this wide natural process; for death lay exposed league upon league under the operation of air and light, frost, and water; while life was buried and invisibly received back its proper payment for the year's work accomplished. But mortality so exhibited revealed nothing unseemly or sad, for much beauty belonged to it. The land rose stark to its tors, and the shattered summits of the range rolling south-west from Great Links, towered dark against the low slant of the winter sun. Some fleeting mist, like a vapour of silver, swept around the highest turrets and shone very dazzling by contrast with the gloomy northern faces of the hills; while far below, huddled, as it were, beneath the reach of the horizontal light, there hung a leaden and visible heaviness of air. On the shoulders of the Moor drowsed pallid sunshine, but little warmth was yielded thereby. Dartmoor soaked up this illumination like a sponge, and did not waken at its tepid touch. The wilderness slept at noon; and in its sleep it frowned. Over all spread the mighty, mottled patchwork of the hour—the immeasurable, ancient, outworn habit flung down by Nature when she disrobed for sleep. The summer green had vanished, the autumn fire was cold; where heath had wakened into amethyst, swart patches and tracts of darkness now scattered upon the livid pelt of dead grass, like the ebony pattern on the coat of a leopard. But while the ling was sad-coloured and sombre, the heather had taken a cheerful green. Under humid sunshine this huge design was apparent; then the west darkened and the pale gold of the sky became blurred by veils of rain. They swept up slowly and cast gloom over the light. The Moor colours all changed beneath their shadow and ran together. Only within stone's-throw from a man's eyes might detail and distinction still be marked. There persisted the shades and half shades of the dead, grey bloom-bells of the ling; there shone manifold minute, bright vegetation on scattered boulders; and there the wet brake-fern, that scattered these slopes with fallen filigree of deepest auburn, uttered its last expression of beauty.
Caught in the heavy rain, a man who walked upon the side of Great Links ran for the summit, and dived into a familiar cavern, where rocks fell together and made shelter. To his surprise the first wayfarer found a second already taking refuge against this sudden storm; and thus met Jarratt Weekes and Daniel Brendon on a day near Christmas.
This accident inspired the elder man. He had long contemplated certain propositions with regard to Daniel, and now opportunity was thrust upon him and he prepared to take advantage of it.
They tendered friendly welcomes, asked each for the other's good news, and together deplored the weather. There had been a wet, cold summer that denied the prophecy of spring, and many a moorman faced the approaching season with fear.
"Rain—rain—rain—curse the rain!" said Weekes. "Rain driving deep enough to drown the dead in their graves."
"There's not much to be said for this autumn's work, truly. We must hope for a good year coming. We shan't have such another for certain. Not that it matters so much to us, since we depend on beasts."
"'Twill mean buying a lot of hay, surely?"
"Not for us. We had a bit of luck. I saved a fortnight before my neighbours, and catched a spell of dry weather. They laughed to see me cutting so early. 'Let 'em laugh,' said Prout. 'They laugh best who laugh last.' And so it fell out."
"Most of the Lydford hay was ruined."
"And the corn on top. 'Twas beaten down, just too late for it to get up again. There'll be trouble this winter, I'm much afeared."
"There is trouble—everywhere already. And for my part I haven't got to look further than my own roof to find it."
"Very sorry to hear you say so, I'm sure. What was the end of that mine business? Somebody said they was going to try again; but that's to fling good money after bad, I should judge."
"Damn the mine: I've done with it anyhow. My wife had a hundred pound from her father when she came to me; and now 'tis gone in that swindle, along with another hundred of my own."
BENEATH GREAT LINKS.BENEATH GREAT LINKS.
"They'm tricky things to put money in. I wonder you risked it."
"There wasn't no risk on paper. Their figures would have convinced any man. But they lied, and did it under the law, so that they be safe. I'm in a very tight place indeed, to be frank with you. I've got a few stiff bills to meet this quarter, and there's only two ways of doing it now. One is to sell out of a little investment or two that is paying well; and that's a cruel thing to do for a man with a wife and an expensive family. And t'other is to find a friend that'll prove a real friend, and raise a bit of money to tide over till spring."
"You ought to be able to do it."
"I can, no doubt; but I'm proud. 'Tisn't everybody I'd go to—even for a trifle like a hundred pound. I've got to show security, and nobody likes opening out their private affairs to other men. I'd thought about it, however, for it must be done. And it may astonish you to hear I'd nearly settled who I was going to."
Brendon nodded.
"You'll have no difficulty," he repeated.
"That's for you to say; for 'tis you I intended to ask."
"Me!"
"Why not? We all know you're a snug man nowadays. You ban't bringing Ruddyford into the front rank of Dartymoor farms for nothing. You're not doing all those big things down there, and taking in land, and doubling your sheep, and buying pedigree cattle and all the rest of it, for nothing. You're putting hundreds into Woodrow's pocket; and, as a sane man, I suppose you look to it that a bit sticks in your own."
"That's right enough, though it's the future rather than the present I think for."
"So we all do. It's the future that's troubling me. I've got a policy of life insurance to be paid next week, and it's got to be paid. The only question is how. There's that and fifty pounds for other things, besides ten I owe my mother. So the long and short is I want a hundred, and I shall be a good bit obliged to you if you'll lend it to me for six months."
Brendon did not answer immediately. Then he spoke.
"If ten or even fifteen—I've done a little this year, to tell you privately. I've helped my married sister to Plymouth, whose husband is very much under the weather, and I've gived Joe Tapson a trifle too. He's left us. I had to make a change. Then there's the monument to Mr. Friend. Altogether you've asked at a very awkward moment."
Jarratt sneered.
"It's always an awkward moment when a man asks a fellow-man to do him a kindness. And them as talk about the decent things they do—you'll find they don't do many as a rule. Ban't a habit, else they'd not think 'em worth naming."
Daniel's face hardened.
"Why d'you say that? Can't you see I had to give you a reason for refusing? And don't you know me well enough to know that I'd give the true reason or none? 'Twas out of consideration for your feelings I said so much. Ban't pleasant to beg, and ban't pleasant to refuse."
"I'm not begging. And you should not use the word. I'm wanting to raise a loan at proper interest—four per cent., if you like. That's not begging. That's offering anybody with any sense a good investment for money."
"I shouldn't want no interest at all. I'm in your debt to the extent of losing my temper and striking you years ago, and I've not forgot it; and I'd be glad to do you a service. I've always looked out for the chance."
"You needn't mention that. I remember very well. There's a white mark across the bridge of my nose, Brendon, that reminds me of what you did every time I look in the glass, and always will."
"You'll forget it before I do. But I can't lend you a hundred, nor yet fifty. I'll lend you—twenty the day after to-morrow. That's the very best I can offer."
"Useless. I want a hundred."
"Then I'm sorry, but I can't find it."
Weekes reflected. He was in a position considerably more straitened than he had confessed to Brendon. He had overreached himself from cupidity, and now stood in debt to several people, including his lawyer. In this last quarter Jarratt's relations were strained, and the man of business refused to wait longer. A natural darkness of disposition had increased as a result of these troubles. He had quarrelled with his mother, with his wife, and with his wife's father. He had lost his self-respect somewhat, and as that lessened he grew the riper for mischief. Now he became a little hot, and permitted himself to remember the secret past. At Brendon's refusal, events long gone by rose up in the other's mind, and he spoke.
"Better think twice. You never know who you are helping. This hundred, even if it pinched you a thought for the moment, might be a very good investment, though you don't get interest for it."
Brendon stared at him.
"Come out," he said. "The rain's done. Perhaps I shall understand a speech like that better in the open. And yet—how? To my ear that sounds a bit curious. Perhaps you'll explain it."
"No, I shan't—though I might, I dare say. 'Tis for you to decide. I want to be friends."
"Why not, I should like to know?"
"No reason at all—if you'll lend me the money."
"And I tell you I can't."
"You mean that you won't."
"Take it as you please, if you're such a fool."
"No fool me—not by long chalks. Perhaps the boot's on the other leg. Not that I threaten anything."
"'Threaten'! Good God A'mighty—who be you to threaten? Best be off—or I'll threaten—and do more than threaten!"
"Strange, such a trumpet of the Lord as you are, that you never can keep your temper five minutes together with me. And yet I'm civil enough. Your education's to blame, I suppose. Well, I only ask you if you'll lend me a hundred pounds, and I only say you won't regret it if you do; but may possibly regret it if you don't. That's all."
"If I could, I wouldn't—not now. You have said that I shall regret it if I don't. And I say 'Explain that, if you want to remain my friend.'"
"I certainly shan't explain that. Only remember that those who think they stand, had sometimes better be careful lest they fall. And, as to friendship, I'm quite indifferent. If you refuse this loan you're not my friend, of course. Friendship is as friendship does. This is my way. I'll wish you good-bye and a good investment for your savings."
"Better talk this out," said Brendon; but Jarratt Weekes was already on his way. He did not answer, and did not look back. Instead, he twirled his stick, whistled, and assumed a cheerful and careless air as he departed.
Brendon stood still a long time, in some concern at this unexpected incident. He puzzled himself to know what it might mean, retraced the course of his relations with Weekes during the last few years, and could see no light. It struck him that Sarah Jane might be able to find some explanation. Animosity clearly lurked in the man's temper; but on what foundation it rested Daniel could not imagine. The threat he dismissed without thought, as a futile utterance of disappointment.