On a day after noon in late January the hand of winter was upon Lydford, and the wet roads ran shining into the village. Utmost sobriety, with a scant splash of colour here and there, marked the time. The hedges were iron-grey, yet they flamed now and again where a copper glow of foliage still clung to some pollarded beech. The great castle scowled down from its blind windows, rain fell drearily; all round about was mire and gloom and low mists, that crept along hill and over fallow. In the meadow-lands grass seemed trodden into mud; the very streets repined, and no life was revealed save where fowls sat in the boughs of a laurel and resigned themselves to sleep and forgetfulness, and where a lonely dog trotted along the main thoroughfare. In an open doorway of a carpenter's shop two men planed coffin planks; and further on came clink of chisel and mallet from a shed where a stonemason was hammering at a granite cross. The only human life visible seemed occupied with death. Each wayside garden was a litter of ragged stalk and stem that cried to be hidden; but the little golden yew, beside the home of Philip Weekes, shone like a candle across the waning day, and rose sprightly and cheerful in the languor and depression of the hour.
Aloft a winged people did not share Lydford's gloom. Starlings much frequented the village at this season, and towards nightfall assembled in many thousands together, where certain elms stood beside the castle. Here, in a living stream, they flowed up from hedgerows and fields, until the naked boughs were black with them. They forced the sense of their presence upon the most abstracted spirit, and raised a merry din that was audible a mile distant. This life dominated dusk until one felt a sojourner in the abode of birds rather than any home of men. If a door slammed or a man shouted, the myriads would simultaneously take wing and launch like a black cloud into the air. Then, uttering a sound as of many waters, they whirled and warped, gyrated, turned, and with a gradual hush of diminishing noise regained their perches, folded their feathers, and resumed their shouting. Only with night did they depart into darkness and silence. Then, one by one, the windows twinkled with fire, and there came a wakening moment when men returned from their labour and the street echoed to slow, splashing boots and human voices lifted in many moods. Children cried to each other and hastened home from school; women, indicated in the dark by the white oblongs of their aprons, flitted between the cottage doors and the shops; suddenly came barking of dogs and a pitter-patter of five hundred little hoofs, where a flock of sheep passed through the village to an open gate beyond. As they went, a fan of light from the post-office window found their fleeces and flashed upon them during their brief transit from darkness back into darkness again.
Behind the sheep came Joe Tapson, and beside him walked Jarratt Weekes. They were discussing Brendon, and the widower talked, while the other listened to him.
"Turned me off, like a worn-out dog, for no reason on God's earth except I was losing my nature and getting old! May the time come when the same happens to him; may I live to see him begging his bread—that's what I pray; and me, now I'm up in years, brought down to do a common drover's work and thankful for a roof to cover me."
"Wanted a younger and spryer man, I suppose," said Jarratt indifferently. "Don't see you've got much call to grumble. 'Tis the curse of all men who have to trust to their bodies for a living and not their brains, that a time comes when they be worn out. I heard from Sarah Jane that Daniel was sorry to be rid of you, only he couldn't help it in justice to the farm. She told me Mr. Woodrow gave you five pounds when you left."
"What's that? 'Tis nothing against the cruelty of flinging me off. They don't fling Prout off, though he's far more useless than me. They don't sack that sour-faced, sour-minded bag of bones, Tabitha."
"They are old servants—retainers. 'Tis quite a different matter. Here's my way. I hope you'll get a fixed job soon. But I can't help you; my luck's out too, and I'm a long way worse off than you for the minute. You've got only your own carcase to think of; I've got a wife and children."
Tapson departed behind the sheep, and Jarratt Weekes dropped in upon his mother. He found her out, but Sarah Jane had also come to see Hephzibah. She was talking to Philip when the huckster's son arrived.
"Can't wait no more, Mr. Weekes. Tell your wife—why, here's Jarratt! Where's your mother got to, Jar?"
"I want her myself," he said. "Down there chattering to the people at Little Lydford, I suppose, and setting the world right in general, no doubt."
"I can't wait no longer, else Daniel will fear for me. 'Twas only about the butter. How be you faring, and how's Mary? Haven't seen her this longful time."
"She thought you'd forgot her, like one or two more of late."
"You say that. Mary never did. She knows me a long sight better than that."
"I'll see you part of your road," said Jarratt. "I want to speak to you; and you want to speak to me."
He referred to a previous conversation.
Sarah Jane nodded, bade Mr. Weekes good-bye, and went out with Jarratt.
"What did he say? But I know. You'd have let me hear before now if the man had any wish to befriend me. Did you ask for Mary's sake? That was the only chance I know."
"I did. I said how she'd been troubled beyond reason of late, and that the money would go far to lessen her load. I asked more than once for her, and he was sorry he couldn't do it. You know him. He doesn't make excuses or anything like that. He just said that if he could have done it, he would have, and gladly. But it's out of his power, so there's an end. Won't anybody else oblige you? Wouldn't Mr. Churchward?"
"He can't. He's got that great, slack, good-for-nought William on his hands again. How he endures the worthless rascal beats me; but so it is. A pity your husband don't see his way—a very great pity indeed."
"I feel the same, I'm sure. I wish there was anything I could do for Mary. Would it rest her if I was to take your eldest boy home along with me for a bit?"
He shook his head.
"No, no; 'tisn't little things like that; 'tis the big thing of having to find three figures and lose money on it. I know right well Brendon could do it. And I'll tell you more than that: he's making a mistake not to."
"'Tis out of his power, I tell you."
"I know better."
"You oughtn't to speak so."
"Oughtn't I? Well, we all do what we oughtn't sometimes—even you and Daniel. Tell him this: that I want the money badly and I make it a very special favour, and I shall be greatly obliged to him, for all our sakes, if he'll manage to find it for me by Ladyday next. Tell him that. And use what influence you've got, Sarah Jane. You know what I felt for you once—well, I'm fond enough of you still—much too fond to bring any trouble on you if I can prevent it. So try with all your might to get Dan to see sense."
He left her no time to answer, but turned away abruptly. She stood still a moment, then, in deep astonishment went on her way; and presently told Daniel of the matter.
"He's desperate seemingly," said her husband. "Even so he talked to me, but dared not go quite so far as he did to you. Threats be the weapons of weak men. He was always fond of talking rather large. Even so Joe Tapson spoke when he had to go. The good I did him was not remembered. He cared nothing for that. As for Weekes, I can't help him, and there's an end of it."
Brendon dismissed the subject from his mind and bade Sarah Jane do the like. He went on his way, and life with its thousand calls soon made him forget the tribulations of Jarratt Weekes. His wife, however, did not overlook them, because, when possible, she visited Mary and heard of the increasing difficulties of her husband.
And Jarratt himself allowed embarrassment to breed ferocity, as happens often with small-minded men. When he left Sarah Jane after uttering his threat, he returned to Lydford and went to drink at the Castle Inn. Full well he knew that Daniel Brendon was not to be moved, and he dared not approach him directly for fear of actual injury to himself. But he had reached striking point; out of his own vexed and troubled heart rose a fierce longing to bring vexation and trouble upon others. He scarcely realized the terrific gravity of any attack on Brendon at this juncture, for the years had dulled his memory, and only one main fact respecting Daniel's wife stuck there. Given prosperity and sustained success, he might never have struck; but now a time had come when misfortune played the lodestone and drew from him an active and avid malignity. He smarted to see the other rise from strength to strength. He did not perceive that even rumours of the truth would bring absolute and utter ruination, or he might have hesitated. All he designed as yet was a drop of gall for Brendon's full cup of sweetness. He thought how to embitter; but he did not desire to poison. He failed, as many a coarse-minded soul fails, to perceive that what for him might be no more than affliction and transitory torment, to a greater spirit must mean everlasting wreck and perdition.
With a mind quite empty he entered the inn, ordered his drink and waited to catch the thread of the conversation before taking his part in it. Taverner was there, and old Huggins. The latter talked, and half-a dozen men in the bar listened to him. Noah Pearn served his customer with liquor and explained the subject.
"Valentine here be running on the past to-day, and he's gone back fifty years in his memory as easy as we go back a month. He often will after a third glass. 'Tis a pity there's none to write down the things he calls home; for they'll all perish with him, and some of 'em be very well worth remembering."
He stopped, and they listened to the ancient.
"Them days of barley bread! But which among you folk ever tasted it? Harsh it was and made us far shorter and sharper than we be nowadays. I've seed a chap buried at cross-roads with a stake drove through his carcase. 'Twas thought he'd killed hisself, and cross-roads was the grave of such people then. By night they buried him; and by night they dug him up again."
"Dug him up, Val!" cried Mr. Pearn. "Surely not. What for did they dig him up again?"
"Because a year later 'twas found that he'd died by lawful murder and never took his life at all! A valiant man, as stopped coaches on the Launceston Road, was catched red-handed, and tried to Exeter, and hanged 'pon Gibbet Hill above Mary Tavy. The last hanging there 'twas—somewhere about the year 1790, I reckon, or may have been later. But I went to see the sight, as a small boy, and afore they turned the bold feller off, he confessed that among other wicked things, he'd put a bullet through the chap we buried, because the chap had seed him stop a coach and marked him. And he'd left a old hoss-pistol by the chap a purpose to make it look as if he'd done it hisself. So they dug him up again and gived his fragments a proper box, and laid him in holy ground, and parson made a whole-hearted speech about it, and forgived everybody, as he hoped to be forgiven."
"The things you've seen!" murmured a young man.
"True for you—few living have seen the like. Ripe old customs, as be gone past recalling. And religion at the back of all we did and thought in them days. Even wassailing the apple-trees be dying out, and charms, and all them high ways we had of reproving lightness and sin, and punishing evil-doers afore the nation. I never seed a human creature whipped at the cart-tail myself, and I'm glad I didn't, for that's a very horrid idea, though 'twas often well enough deserved; but other things I have seen, when the evil-doer has been catched out in his sins and held up in the sight of all men. 'Twas a sign, no doubt, that men were rising in knowledge and understanding when we punished their minds instead of their backs, and made them a sign and a byword without putting a hand upon 'em."
Mr. Huggins paused, quite weary. He had been talking a long time, and before Weekes arrived he had sung an old song to an old tune.
"Wonnerful form he's in," whispered Taverner. "I hope it ban't the last flicker of the candle, and we shall hear presently the cold have took him off. He'd be quite a loss in company."
Weekes nodded. Certain words let drop by the venerable chronicler had fallen upon the hungry soil of his mind and taken root there. Now he desired further speech with Valentine, and presently offered him an arm upon his way.
"I must get you to sing that song to me," he said. "You'm a wonderful old man, Val. To think that you can sing and mind a tune and the words and everything, and you up eighty-three or more."
"'Tis so. Not a note out of place, I believe, though the high ones roll up into my head and miscarry somewhat. Still there 'tis: I've got it; and a many others I've got as was thought pretty singing in my young manhood, but wouldn't be vitty now. The times be altered, and if I singed a thing or two I know right well, you'd think I was a very coarse-minded old chap. Ideas have changed."
"Yes; but human nature hasn't. Did you punish frail folk then? There was skimmitty riding, wasn't there?"
"Certainly there was; and a thing oftener done, because dreadfuller and more solemn-like, was burying. 'Twas a very heart-shaking affair, and the manner of it was this. Suppose a man and woman did wrong, owing to the power of nature upon them, or the husband being away from home, or some other natural cause, then, if 'twas found out against 'em, the people rose up and acted a funeral. Everything was done decently and in order. But you had to do it on private land, else 'twas an unlawful assembling, like a prize-fight or a cock-fight, and might get you into trouble. When the land was chosen, skilled hands made two puppets as much like the parties as their craft could; and they was dressed in grave-clothes, or else common clothes, and put in coffins. Then some man who was up to it, read the service, and the dolls were nailed home into their boxes, and buried underground with all the dignity of real dead people. The service was read, and if a chap had a clever tongue, he'd preach a bit and lash the erring victims all he could. I've knowed cases when a man faced it out and laughed at his own burying, and stood beer to the mourners; and I've known cases when the parties was saved by it, and turned to the Almighty, and was forgiven by all men; and I've known cases where the burial was a mistake and the man and woman were both quite innocent. A choir and undertaker and all, mind you. And, besides such things as that, I've seen witches ducked, and scolds bridled—in fact, 'twould puzzle me to tell you what I haven't seen in my time."
Jarratt, however, kept him to the former matter, and won various other details of the old ceremony before he bade Valentine farewell. His mind was stored with a fantastic medley of ideas and possibilities when he returned to his home; and on the following evening he re-visited Mr. Huggins and learnt more concerning the subject that now so largely interested him.
At the turn of winter John Prout went down to Dawlish, and did not come back. He sent a gloomy letter to Brendon, and explained that their master desired him to remain.
"He's come down to a shadow of himself," wrote John, "and the doctor told me yesterday, when I asked him how things were going with Mr. Hilary, that he'd taken a bad turn of late, and might not weather another year. He coughs something cruel; but he's wonderful cheerful since he comed to believe the old things. A clergyman often sits along with him by the hour and does him good seemingly. I be a large comfort to him, I do think, so I can't leave him no more, unless he takes a turn for the good. He wants to see you all again, and if he doesn't come back, you and Sarah Jane and Tabitha will have to come and see him, for he's set upon that. Never a man faced death braver. Now he thinks like he does, he'll be glad to go, I do believe. But he hasn't lost touch of Ruddyford, as you'll see by the rest of my letter."
There followed a string of directions from Woodrow to Brendon. Some Daniel approved, some he disapproved; but all were very carefully executed. He read Prout's letter to the farm, and wide sorrow and concern greeted it. The women mourned and openly wept together; Daniel went for days silent and abstracted. He spoke to none but his wife. Then Agg and Peter Lethbridge, reduced to considerable doubt concerning their own future, ventured to question Brendon. They explained their uncertainties and he set them at rest.
"What will happen when Mr. Woodrow goes is already determined," he said. "I can't tell you what it is till the time comes; but this I'll say: I can promise you both to bide here on your present money as long as you please me."
At Dawlish, Prout waited upon his fading master, nursed him like a woman, and added to his comfort in every way possible. To please John, Woodrow sent for a consulting physician from Exeter; but the man could give no hope.
Now Hilary had ceased to ride, though he let Prout drive him when the days were fair. Together they went in a little pony-carriage round about the fir-fledged hills of Haldon; and it was given to Hilary once more to see the first glory of spring larches, once more to look into the eyes of the violet and note the little sorrel shake forth her fleeting loveliness. Great peace of mind had now descended upon him, and with reduced activities an interest in the lesser things of nature awakened, and he loved to pluck the flowers, as a child plucks them, yet with the understanding of a man. The smell of the spring earth was good to him. He feared not at all to sink therein and return to Nature the dust that she had lent him. In his heart there reigned sure consciousness that this was not the end; that a higher, fuller life opened beyond the earthly portals; that the prelude and not the play was done when the clod fell and a man's coffin-lid vanished for ever.
To Prout he imparted these opinions, and John, who doubted not of eternity, rejoiced to see the strength and peace that henceforth marked his master's mind.
"How you could bear with me, John! Often, looking back, I marvel at the patience of you and of Brendon. You had all that I lacked; yet you listened to my trash and never did you rise and denounce me for a fool!"
"Not likely. Whatever you was, you wasn't that."
"I did things then, and thought them not wrong that I know now were wicked."
"Thank God for it that you know, master."
"But is it too late, John?"
"Never too late. Never too late."
"I must leave mercy to my wronged Maker. 'Tis well to be a free-thinker in a way—just as 'tis well for a country bred man to go to cities. You don't know what the country really means till you've been mewed up in the town; and you don't know what faith means till you've tried to live without it. So I feel. No freedom of thought will think right into wrong, John Prout."
"God's above all."
"Once I thought, with a wise man who lived before Christ came, that what we men call life is only a poor shadow dragging a corpse, like a prisoner drags his chain. Now I know better. Now the things that seemed good suffer an eclipse, and the things that seemed beautiful stand out in their naked, ugly truth. They were all a mirage—all shadows in a desert of sand. I thought that they quenched thirst and satisfied hunger. That was part of the great blindness, John. Now I know that the sun-dance and glare and dazzle was all a wicked sham. I wove them for myself; I blinded myself; I deluded myself. If I could tell you how base I'd been—what things I did, believing them to be reasonable and not wrong. The folly—the madness! I said to myself, 'Nature does neither right nor wrong; it is only the foolish man who calls her cruel or kind. She rises above these human ideas. And so will I.' Yes, I thought to copy Nature and follow the thing she prompted. I dinned into my own ears that what I did was far above right or wrong. I said to myself, 'Let the fools who like words call their actions "good" or "evil." Do you, for your part, look to it that your actions are "reasonable," and so content your conscience that demands only reason.' What a light has burned in on all that preposterous nonsense since! Crimes—crimes I have committed in the name of nature and reason. O God, Prout, when I think—— And now I know that it will take a forgiving Saviour to save me. Well may Christ have taught us that God is a merciful God! I should go mad if I did not grasp that unutterable truth, John. To His mercy I trust myself—and not only myself."
He prattled on of the dogmas he had now accepted, and behind every thought and pious hope John Prout saw Sarah Jane. Often the sick man spoke directly of her; more often, when declaring his new convictions he used no names; but Prout—from his inner knowledge—perceived which way his master's mind was tending. He gathered that Hilary hoped Sarah Jane would presently come to see with her husband's eyes and abandon a certain large enthusiasm for her own kind in favour of a narrower trust and confidence in the tenets of Christianity alone. Once or twice Prout believed that the other was actually going to confess his action of the past; but Hilary never did so. He told his old servant that the farm had been left to Brendon, but he gave no reason for the step. He was, however, quick enough to be astonished at John's lack of surprise.
"Did he tell you? Did you know it, that you take it so calmly?" he asked.
"To be frank, I did know it," answered John. "Don't blame her. You understand women better'n me; and you'll guess how hard 'twas for her to keep it in. 'Twas a night five year ago and more, when chance throwed us together at Lydford, and she helped me home against a storm. By the same token a rainbow showed over against the moon. Of course I never spoke of it again; more did she."
"You don't blame me?"
"Who be I to blame you? No man on earth have ever had a better master than what you have been to me."
"And no man ever loved a man better than you have loved me, John. Well I know it."
So oftentimes they talked, and when Hilary was unequal to speech he made Prout read to him and rehearse those things that he best liked to hear repeated.
Sometimes, however, the sick man cared for no company other than his thoughts; and then he would bid John depart, and for hours together brood upon the past and survey his vanished deeds in the light of present belief. A fading memory served to dim their details, and what was left faith much distorted. He remembered the glow and glory of the first kiss, and loathed that damnable contact as the beginning of the master-sin of his days; he beheld himself imparadised in those lovely arms; and he shuddered and saw all hell watching with hungry eyes.
Woodrow knew that he would not return to Ruddyford. He had planned to die there; but now he was indifferent, and already pictured his own mound under the shadow of the old church at Dawlish. He was desirous, however, to take leave of his few friends, and invited Prout to plan their visits in such a way that they should not know these meetings must be the last.
Miss Prout first came and spent three days. With her she brought little dishes made with her own hands; and while she remained at Dawlish she spent most of her time in the kitchen, to the concern of the landlady, who resented Tabitha. Hilary cared not much for Prout's sister, and bade her good-bye indifferently. She returned home with a black story of his decline, and foretold that he must soon pass. Next Daniel went down, but the time was full of work, and he stayed a very short while. To speak became increasingly difficult for Woodrow; yet he liked to listen to Daniel, and came to him in some respects as a learner. He invited Brendon to preach to him, and the earnestness and conviction of the big man impressed him. Old instincts awoke to the challenge at these dogmatic utterances, but the sufferer smothered them. He believed them no more than a mere mechanical process of the brain—a reflex action persisting after the death of the habit of thought that was responsible for it. He made himself believe all that Brendon did. And, last of all, he believed in hell, because Christ did.
Hilary was frank with Daniel, and did not hide his approaching end.
"I shall hope to see you once more," he said. "And that will be the last time. I should much wish you to be with me when I die, if that is not a selfish wish. Would you mind?"
"No. I want to be with you then. Do you like the minister here? Is he the right man for you?"
"I value him very much. A gentle, hopeful man."
"Be sure I'll come."
"And I must see Sarah Jane too. Don't tell her that it will be the last time, because that would be a great grief to her, for she's fond of me, I know."
"Yes, she is."
"Let her come next week for a day or two, if you can spare her. But I'll not tell her that it's the last 'good-bye.' All the same, I'm afraid she'll guess it for herself."
"Try to do her good—same as you have me," said Brendon. "You won't speak many more words on human ears now. Let 'em be as the Lord wills. He'll put it into your heart what to say to her. A better, nobler woman than my wife never lived. Fearless and brave and high-minded—I never saw the like of her and never shall. But all the same, from the first—from our courting—there was always something I couldn't understand. Her point of view—not all pure godliness; yet I'd not dare to say she was ungodly in anything. But a sort of high habit of mind that wouldn't bend to the yoke. Always hated and still hates to call herself a miserable sinner afore the footstool of Grace. Yet humble, and gentle, and true to my heart and my hopes here and hereafter, as the moss is true to the stone."
"No man was ever worthy of her, Daniel."
"I know it. Tell her the meek are blessed and inherit the earth."
"And blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I've never known but one woman that I could think of as able to look at God, Daniel, and that's your wife. Don't ask me to dare to teach her—'tis for her to teach me; and teach you too. Why should she be fearful? She can't be. Perfect love casteth out fear. That's her lesson to us."
Brendon considered doubtfully.
"You may be right," he said. "All the same——"
And when the future owner of Ruddyford returned home, his wife made ready. She knew full well without words that this was her last visit to Hilary Woodrow; and she braced her mind for the ordeal and all that it must mean. She had long since ceased to fear that he would speak, and when Sarah Jane and Hilary met for the last time it was not necessary for him to inform her that their secret perished with themselves.
"Leave it to be told in the next world, if it is right that it should be told," he said to her. "Sometimes I think it may be a part of my purgation and proper punishment, in some place of learning and cleansing, that I may yet have to confess this terrible sin before my fellow spirits—even to the spirit of Daniel himself, when his turn comes. That seems justice, Sarah Jane, as man pictures justice in his feeble ignorance. But at any rate I'm convinced, so far as this life goes, that the proper course is silence. We've no right to wreck lives by imparting our knowledge to them, if that knowledge can only bring ceaseless suffering along with it. I've confessed my sin to God a thousand times. But I know that both punishment and absolution belong to the world to come, not to this."
"Like a schoolboy called up afore his master—to learn the best or worst," she said.
"Even like that. Nothing's settled down here; nothing is finished down here. Everything has to wait till the light touches it."
"And even good and evil ban't understood down here. Maybe you'll find in that light you won't cut such a poor figure after all. Ban't your many great, good, generous deeds and kindly thoughts to count? Ban't your last years to count? Be it a small thing that you've fought your way to your God through all that thicket of books?"
"Not a small thing for myself, certainly. All the difference between heaven and hell, Sarah Jane."
"Oh, don't let that last word come on your lips, for God's sake," she begged. "I do hate it, like I hate a snake. Sometimes, for all I'm so glad that you are happy and have got God, I can find it in me to wish you was the same as you used to be without Him. You was a deal braver, when you laughed at hell, than you be now. And I'll laugh at hell for ever and ever—laugh at it still, even if I was to find myself in it."
"Think of me as I am, Sarah Jane, and believe what I say now. Don't remember me as I was, or call back the vile things I uttered then. Do you remember that once I said God was only the shadow of man's self reflected against the background of his own self-consciousness? I thought that a very fine idea when I made it up. Now I know 'twas the Devil that prompted it."
"I reckoned nobody believed in God and hell both—except my own dear Daniel. And now he's got you to think the same. But I hoped 'twould be t'other way round, and you'd make him flout it."
"Christ believed in it."
"An' quenched it for ever, didn't He? So some seem to think, anyhow. Mr. Matherson be shaky about it, I'm sure, for Dan's very unsettled with the Luke Gospellers along of that very thing. He's going to leave 'em. 'Tis a great grief to him to go, but he says that Mr. Matherson's in danger, and that much larning have made him mad here and there. Did you ever hear tell of the Salvation Army?"
"Yes. It's a new thing, but it's growing fast, and my clergyman believes that in time to come it may be a great power for good in the world."
"Dan's very much took by it; but Mr. Matherson be doubtful. My husband's like to join 'em, I believe. He says they work on Bible bed-rock, and seem to him to follow closer on the actual words of the Lord than any of the regulars."
"If 'tis a good thing, God will surely bless it, Sarah Jane."
"'Tis all one to me, so long as Daniel is content."
They made pretence that this was not the last meeting, and that Sarah Jane should come down again in the summer and bring her child. But death was written on the man's face now, and she knew how soon the end must come. The religious atmosphere, with which he surrounded himself, stifled her worse than the physical odours of a sick chamber. When the clergyman came, she was glad to rush away for a time and walk by the sea.
Hilary rarely rose before noon; but on the day that she was to return home he partially dressed and went into a sitting-room. It faced south, and the train, which was to take her away, would pass along in sight of it.
Their actual parting was brief. Prout left them alone and waited outside.
"Good-bye—you—you—the best and bravest of living things that I have ever seen," he said.
"Good-bye, dear Hilary. We shall meet again—somewhere."
"I know it—thank my God I know it."
She went close to him and looked into his haggard face. Then she kissed him.
"I'll wave my handkercher as the train passes."
"And I'll wave mine, Sarah Jane."
Presently, when the train steamed along between Hilary Woodrow and the sea, though Prout waved from the window and Woodrow stood behind him and strained to catch his last glimpse of her, they only marked her hand held out, and the dance of her handkerchief fluttering. She saw nothing, for the blue of her April eyes was dimmed and drowned.
"Jar," said Mrs. Weekes, "you be getting on home to fifty years old, and since I first slapped your breech, when you'd been in the world a matter of six months, you and me have never had no grave difference of opinion."
"What then?" asked the man.
Sarah Jane was spending a soft May evening at the cottage of Mary; but, not desiring to be in her presence, Jarratt left them and went to see his mother. For some time Hephzibah had expressed a desire for private conversation with him, and now Jarratt gave her the opportunity. But quickly he regretted it. Rumour had reached his mother's ears, and she felt very agitated to learn that some strange and most unusual event was pending. Only whispers and hints had reached her, and since such shadowy insinuations were specially offensive to her mind, she commanded her son before her and ordered him to be plain.
"What then?" repeated Jarratt.
"Then 'twould be an everlasting shame and misfortune if we fell out now—you in your prime and me with my white hair and coming to the end of my days. You've never hid much from me that I know of, and nothing that I didn't find out if I wanted to. So don't try now. There's all manner of beastly whisperings in the air; and you be in them. Wherever I go to have a talk, people say, 'What's this here thing Mr. Jarratt be up to?' And when I tell 'em I don't know, they shut their mouths and change the subject."
"So much the better. It don't concern you, anyway."
"You can say that! But it do concern me, and I will know the truth of it. From all I hear it concerns everybody called Weekes; for the credit of a family be of some account, though 'tis only a family of dormice, like your father's family. I was born a Mudge; and that's a lasting blessing to me; and you've got my blood in you and ban't going to demean it, I should hope."
"If old Huggins have been talking—or William Churchward either, I'll wring their necks!"
"Jar," answered his mother. "'Tis an old saying, and true as old, that Satan finds mischief for idle hands. Hard luck you've had of late, and to my cost I know it; but because you've been forced to wait and use patience, and haven't had the usual chances to be busy, that ban't no reason why for you should use your time ill. Guy Fawkes and angels! Isn't the world full of chances to do right? Better bide home and nurse the babbies than go out to do other folks a wrong turn."
"When I'm hit, I hit back."
"I don't know nothing about the parties, and don't want to know. If a man's hurt you, hit him back from the shoulder so hard as you know how. But this—this thing I hear. Even if 'tis true, and some poor unhappy girl have made a slip—good God Almighty!—you ban't a coward to lift your hand to a woman, be you?"
"What d'you know, and what don't you know?" he asked.
"I don't know no names, and 'twasn't Val, nor yet Adam Churchward's son who told me that you'd got a plot afoot. Philip Weekes it was who heard it—your own father; and very properly he put the thing afore me. There's a middle-aged spinster down to Little Lydford, that Bill Churchward be rather silly after, and she've screwed a bit of news out of him seemingly. She's one of them nasty 'have you heard?' sort of women, always with a bit of news on her lips—generally untrue. And she told your father that you and another here and there was caballing and hatching up a cruel joke at the expense of a certain man and woman very well known round these parts. I hope 'tis a lie, and I hope you'll tell me 'tis. Then I'll go early to market next Friday and stop at that female's house, and say a thing or two as'll be worse than a mustard poultice to her mean heart."
"Better mind your own business. There's a bit of fun in the air—that's all. Sometimes a nod's as good as a wink to a blind hoss. There's a few self-righteous, damned fools about that won't be any the worse for hearing a thing or two they don't know."
"I don't like to hear you tell that way, and I wish to God you was busier about your own affairs; then you wouldn't be stirring on other people's. Are you the man to set this wrong right? Ax yourself that afore you go farther."
"Yes, I am."
"For my sake, Jar, think better of it."
"Too late now."
"Tell me about it, then."
"You'll know soon enough. 'Tis only a joke, when all's said. We are going to let the rough truth loose for once, and tell a psalm-smiting fool a thing or two he don't know seemingly. Or, if he do know and have winked at it, for his own ends, then so much the more shame to him. Anyway, he shan't think Lydford be in the dark—not after next Monday night."
"You won't tell me what's doing?"
"Go to that field called 'Thornyside,' what miller Taverner owns up above the gorge, presently after nightfall, if you want to know any more. I'll let you hear when the day is fixed. 'Tis only following out an ancient custom. You like the old ways and you like buryings, so the business will just suit you."
"One of them mock funerals!"
"Just so."
"Then you're going to show up a bit of secret sin as you've found out—is that it?"
"If it is?"
Mrs. Weekes was much concerned.
"For my son to meddle in such work as that!" she gasped.
"'Tis fun, I tell you. Damn it all, be I to live my dreary days without never a joke or a laugh to make life better worth? If you knowed a half or a quarter of the dull dog's life I lead now and the hardships I've had of late, you'd be only too glad for me to amuse myself sometimes."
"Don't think to fool me," she said. "You ban't the sort of man—no better than a savage monkey—who'd do a thing like this for fun. You've got your reasons. You be going to strike an enemy."
"Leave it at that, then, since you're so clever."
"Will he leave it at that? I should judge what you be wanting just now are friends, Jar, not enemies. You are going to hurt a man in a terrible tender place. And if you can't make good this charge—what then?"
"I've thought of that. I'm not attacking any man; I'm punishing a man for attacking me. I want money. I go to a chap who is rolling in it. I beg for a trifling loan, and he refuses, for no reason but unkindness and want of charity. 'Tis he has made me his enemy. And now I'll show him up. He's either a blind fool, or else a knave—and the world shall know it one way or t'other."
Mrs. Weekes partly read the remark.
"He's a husband, then, and you be going to let folk know he's—what? wronged or wronging?"
"Go to Jacob Taverner's field and find out," he answered. "I'll say no more at all upon the subject. 'Twill all be done very decently and in order, I promise you. There be those about who remember the same thing often in the past."
"And so do I," said Hephzibah, "and also what comed of one of those May games. A man had another man's life for it after the funeral was over, and the murderer swung in Exeter gaol, though recommended to mercy. You mind what you're doing—else your childer may be orphans and your wife a widow afore hay harvest."
Philip Weekes appeared at this moment, and Jarratt took himself off. He did not go home, but visited the field of Jacob Taverner already mentioned. It lay upon the southern side of Lyd, and Weekes crossed the river by the bridge over the gorge, then entered the croft, climbed its steep side, and knocked at the door of a cowshed which stood in one corner. It was locked from inside, and light and the sound of voices issued from the chinks of the wooden building.
"Who be that?" cried somebody.
"Me—Weekes," answered Jarratt.
The door opened, and he entered, to find three men. One was busy about a strange task; the other two sat on empty cider-barrels and watched him.
"It's getting out," said Weekes. "One of you fools—or else some of the singing boys—have been chattering. 'Tis you, I believe, William, for my father heard it down to Little Lydford from that old maid you'm so fond of."
William Churchward looked up from his work on the ground. He dropped a bundle of long straw and assured Weekes that he must be mistaken.
"I only just said, in a vague way, that one of them famous funerals of the living was on hand, and advised her to be up at Taverner's field on a night I'd let her know."
Jacob Taverner, another of the company, also spoke.
"All the same, we must let the people hear about it. We want all Lydford there on the night, else the fun's spoiled. The more the merrier, surely. It must be blazed abroad."
"In reason. But there's some won't hold with it, and will try to stop it at the last moment."
"They can't," declared old Huggins. "Take care of your pipe, Jacob, or else you'll set William's straw alight and spoil all. They can't stop you, Jarratt, because you'll be 'pon private land. 'Tis Jacob's field, and nobody in the kingdom—not the Queen of England's self—have the power to say what Jacob shall not do on his own ground. The constable may be allowed in to keep the peace, and that's all."
"When will you have the dolls done, William?" asked Mr. Taverner.
Young Churchward desisted from his labour, rose to his feet, and with an artist's eye regarded two headless dummies upon which he was engaged. They were of full human proportions and represented a male and female. The man's image showed a long and thin figure. It wore brown leggings, riding breeches, and a Norfolk jacket. Spurs were attached to its boots, and from its hand, modelled in putty and painted, there hung a hunting-stock.
"What fashioned tie did the man use to wear?" inquired William.
"Red as often as not," answered Weekes.
"I've nearly done him. The legs loll out too much yet, but when young Prowse have knocked up the coffin, we'll fit him in all natural as life."
Then he pointed to the other puppet.
"That's the very daps ofherround shape," whispered 'the Infant' aside to Weekes, and Jarratt nodded.
"It is," he admitted.
Then he remembered what his mother had said and turned away with a qualm. Anon he fortified his spirit and sneered at himself.
"'Tis a good joke, sure enough. Won't hurt nobody really. But 'twill make a certain psalm-singing fool of a husband come down a peg or two. And well the man deserves it."
For his own comfort Weekes made this remark.
"How if the man breaks your head?" asked Taverner.
"Two can play at that game."
"When be us to know the parties?" piped Mr. Huggins. "I'm all on fire to hear who 'tis."
"You leave that to me," answered William. "When you see their heads stuck on, you'll know who they be well enough. I've had to take Jarratt's word for the man; but the woman everybody in Lydford will swear to, or I'm no painter."
"Be the putty dried out, 'Infant'?" asked Weekes.
"Very nearly. I've got the paints mixed and a fine lot of corded rope the very colour of——"
"Stop! That'll tell 'em!" cautioned the elder.
Then William rose and whispered to the senior conspirator.
"And the very thing for the eyes—a piece of luck. I was wandering along thinking of 'em, when what should I see in a rubbish heap but a broken plate—blue as the sky! I've chipped a pair of eyeballs and put the pupils in."
He showed enthusiasm for his unlovely task, and Weekes encouraged him.
Then Churchward returned to his dummy and filled the nether garments of the male figure with straw.
"Mustn't have too much," he said, "for by all accounts he's a thin man—a mere skeleton of a man."
Mr. Huggins rose.
"I be going, souls," he said. "These here lifeless carpses be getting to make me go goose-flesh along the spine. That true to life—that cruel true they be—that I shall dream bad dreams about 'em if I sit here gloating any more. They be a masterpiece of horror and dreadfuller without their heads than with 'em. I'll ax you to see me up the hill, Jacob, for 'tis a very difficult task for me to breast it alone at my age."
"So I will, then," answered Taverner. "And we'll drop into Noah Pearn's at the top."
"Spirits 'twill be for me, if anything," said Valentine. "I'm a bit down-daunted along of this gashly spectacle, and I'm almost sorry now I called upon my memory to help. 'Twill vex somebody for certain, and at my great age us ought to rise above politics. 'Tis a terrible gift of likeness-making the 'Infant' have got; but for my part I'd sooner be a common man, wi'out any such devilish cleverness."
"Don't you fear," said William. "Nobody will pull your old nose."
The painter, quite oblivious of the grave issues behind this outrage, pursued his operations in a light and cheerful spirit. Once taken in hand, he became exceedingly interested in his bizarre task; and now he had grown enthusiastic. He regarded the dolls as an advertisement of neglected talents, and he was only sorry that so much careful work must presently be buried in the earth. But he hoped it might be possible to dig his masterpieces up again.
At home, under lock and key, he had fashioned two heads of putty. One, albeit still unpainted, indubitably resembled Sarah Jane; the other—a shrunken visage, with eyes made of grey slate and high cheek-bones, represented the farmer, Hilary Woodrow. A mass of bright tow hair fell about the female face; the male puppet wore a round hat. Presently William intended to paint these effigies up to the colour of life. Sarah Jane he had secretly studied when she came to visit his sister. Her pure, bright skin, just beginning to take the kiss of the sun as he warmed the spring again, he already knew. As for the male doll, putty-colour came almost near enough to the cadaverous deterioration of the original.
"How long will it be afore all's ready?" asked Jarratt.
"A matter of three days. I'll bring the heads up in a basket an hour before the show. Taverner's going to look after the torches, and Dicky Prowse fetches up the coffins after dark Sunday."
"I'm only thinking of the man. Monday's the best day for him. He goes into Tavistock often of a Monday, and comes home by Lydford way. The point is to hit on a night when he'll be passing by here just at the proper moment. We must made dead sure of him. If he don't actually come face to face with the funeral, half the fun's out of it."
William Churchward assented to this opinion.
"I'd dearly like to coax her here also; but perhaps that would be a thought too rough," he said.
"Yes, we can't do that. I'm not desirous to hurt her at all. 'Tis him I'm aiming at—just to let the gas out of him a bit and larn him that he ain't under the special care and charge of Providence, but have to share the rough edge of things along with his betters."
William nodded.
"Of course you've got proof positive," he said.
"I have—my own eyes and another pair. Besides that I've got her, come to think of it. You know her fashion. 'Tis true, I reckon, that she never told it; but when 'tis blowed, she won't deny it, whatever the farmer might be tempted to do. Anyway, he's at death's door, so we shan't hurt him."
"If 'twas a thing of yesterday, I should be rather frightened of the job," confessed William. "But seeing the matter's five years old and more—what's the odds to any sensible person?"
"Quite right. If they let it hurt 'em—more fools them. Anyway, the man's no friend to me, or anybody else, for all his cant. He's brought this on himself."
"There—that's about all I can do for this pair of legs," said William. "Now we'll lock up and be gone. Come and see 'Sarah Jane.' You'll want to kiss her when I've painted her!"
For various reasons the event of the mock burial was postponed until a night in late June; and then, through the dewy twilight of evening, numerous persons proceeded from Lydford and outlying hamlets to the field known as Thornyside above the river. Many motives took the company, but not one amongst them knew the facts. Certain folk felt interested in the revival of an ancient use; others were only concerned with the excitement of a new thing; and most attended from morbid desire to know what man and woman were to suffer this public denunciation and rebuke.
The light waned after nine o'clock, and the dots and clusters of spectators decreased upon the roads and thronged into a black mass about the centre of Jacob Taverner's field. In the midst two graves had been dug, and beside them, on trestles, lay two coffins close together. The lids hid their contents. A rope fastened between stakes ran round to prevent spectators from crowding upon performers.
Walter Agg and Peter Lethbridge were among the people. They smoked their pipes, stood at the ring-side, and joked with the men about them.
"When be the covers to be lifted, so as we shall see the parties?" asked Lethbridge.
Mr. Nathaniel Spry was near and answered.
"When the torches are lighted, I believe. The procession comes down from the cowshed over there. It is all to be done in the old way. Mr. Huggins and Mr. Churchward both remember the ceremony in their youth; and they were able to furnish the particulars. Wasn't you, Mr. Churchward?"
"I was," said Adam, who stood close at hand. "In my boyhood's days much was done that has been since forgotten. The common people have a rough sense of poetic justice. So has the human race in general. Jarratt Weekes, my son-in-law, asked me to be the minister on this occasion and read the burial service; but I refused, because it was contrary to the dignity of my age or my calling. Moreover, Jarratt will do it himself."
"He's the leading spirit, then?" asked Agg.
"I am violating no confidence when I answer that he is," replied Adam. "He has an active sense of justice—a thing specially acute in those who are suffering from injustice. I fear we are about to administer a harsh lesson to some erring brother and sister. Yet who shall say it won't be well deserved?"
"Perhaps the parties will," suggested Lethbridge; "bound to come as an ugly shock to them, no doubt."
"You are quite right, my man," declared Nathaniel Spry. "It is a very tragical thought, isn't it, Mr. Churchward? that the very people themselves may at this moment be laughing and joking by these graves, little knowing that their own effigies are lying within a few yards of them in those boxes."
"A very tragical thought indeed," admitted the schoolmaster. "So much so, in fact, that I wish we had three or four more constables here, instead of merely Arthur Routleigh. He is a good man enough for keeping order amid ordinary people; but he might lose his head at a crisis. However, he has the majesty of the Law behind him."
"Jimmery! There's Joe Tapson!" cried Agg suddenly. "What the mischief's that on his head?"
Mr. Tapson, clad in black, with flowing mourning bands fluttering from an old beaver hat, passed hastily and disappeared into the cowshed.
"He's the undertaker," explained Mr. Spry. "Everything is done in the proper way, so that the ceremony may be solemn and awe-striking. They wanted Valentine Huggins to be undertaker, but the old man was frightened to do anything so prominent. Then they asked me, but I had to refuse owing to my official position in Lydford as postmaster under Government."
"There goeth Noah Pearn, with his man and a barrel of beer," said Lethbridge. "He'll broach it under the hedge. Never loses a chance, that chap."
The crowd increased and began to grow impatient. Shouts were directed to the cowshed, which was now illuminated brightly from within. Then Mr. Huggins, in deep black, against which his white beard shone luminously, came out and hobbled to the policeman in charge of the ring.
"Tell 'em the procession moves at ten o'clock sharp, will 'e, Arthur? And mind you have a way cleared through the people to the graveside, so there shan't be nothing onseemly done."
Mr. Routleigh raised his voice and proclaimed the news. Then he drove some boys out of the ring. They had crept in behind him and were trying to peep under the coffin lids.
Not many women were present, though many desired to be. Their men in most cases had forbidden them. Certain wives, however, who were not under dominion, attended the rite; and among these stood Mrs. Philip Weekes. Her daughter-in-law was beside her and, hidden from them, Susan Huggins and her gamekeeper also mingled with the people.
"I don't like it, whoever 'tis," declared Hephzibah. "But since it had to be, I'm here. To bury the living be a very terrible piece of work, and I hope to heaven nothing evil will come of it."
"She deserves it, whoever she be," said Jarratt's wife.
"You mean you don't know who 'tis?"
"Not me, mother."
Mrs. Weekes sniffed.
"It puzzles my spirit to know how a man can keep anything hidden from his wife. If I'd been in your shoes, I'd have got the woman's name, and the man's name too, out of my husband double quick. Guy Fawkes and angels!—who be they, I should like to know, to keep their two-penny-halfpenny thoughts from us? A son's different. Of course I couldn't make Jarratt tell me. I wish they'd get on with it. The dew be going through my shoes and chilling me to the knees."
The church clock presently struck ten and a wave of excitement rippled round the rope. People swept this way and that, as people will. Shouts and laughter rose. The grass, trampled under many feet, emitted its own odour, and from the open earth a faint smell came. The sky was clear and a few stars twinkled. Light still hung westward and the great bulk of Lydford Castle loomed square and black against it.
A dance of many flames suddenly flashed through the grey gloom of summer night. The dew answered, and the earth was streaked and shot with points of fire. Above the smoky effulgence of the torches, the sky appeared to grow very dark. Everything outside this radiance of orange flame disappeared and was lost. Only within the glare the procession appeared and moved forward—a medley of lurid lights and ink black shadows.
"They're coming, they're coming!" cried many voices, and the solitary policeman, opening the rope, struggled to make a way for them. Agg, Lethbridge, and others, seeing his efforts futile, lent their aid, and presently into the ring the performers slowly came with torches waving above them. From the shed which they had left there echoed a hollow reverberation, repeated at intervals of half a minute. This represented the lich bell. A hymn rose as the procession approached, and the shrill treble voices of six boys singing together sounded thin and strange under the night.
The choir, in long white smocks, led the way. Then came six men with torches; and then Mr. Huggins and Mr. Taverner appeared as mourners. More torches followed, and Jarratt Weekes next played his part in a parson's gown with a broad black stole hung over it. On one side of him walked a boy with a book; on the other side a boy carried a tall candle. The huge shape of the 'Infant' in black, with a hat-band streaming behind him, followed; and at his side walked Joe Tapson, similarly attired. The disparity in their sizes created much merriment.
Into the ring they came. The boys took their places between the graves; the men stuck their torches into sconces arranged for them upon poles.
Then attention was paid to the coffins. Jarratt opened the book and the boy with the big candle held it aloft, so that the light fell upon the page. All was done with absolute order and decorum. The spectators, not the performers, threatened to break the peace. A great sheaf of light rose up into the darkness; a babel of voices echoed. Laughter and shouts resounded round the ring, and under the flickering fire the people searched each other's faces and called out greetings. An effect impish and demonian danced upon every countenance. Flame and darkness played at hood-man-blind together, and now features were distorted, and now whole bodies loomed huge or shrank and shrivelled under the light. Mrs. Weekes observed this sinister transformation.
"Never seed such a shocking sight," she said to Philip.
"We'm like a ring of evil apes. 'Tis a flouting of religion to play these tricks with it, and I wish I'd not been such a fool as to come. To see us, you'd think 'twas Bostock's wild beasts, not Lydford, had broke loose. Just look at the awful shape Adam Churchward cuts!"
"He don't look worse than he feels, if 'tis with him as it is with me," answered Philip.
Elsewhere Agg spoke to Lethbridge.
"Can you mark Brendon? He was coming up a thought before ten o'clock from the station, and he promised to look out for us. I'm afraid he'll miss the fun."
"Can't see him; but he may be here," answered Peter. "Look at Jacob Taverner. I'll die of laughing in a minute. The toad's pretending to cry!"
Jarratt Weekes at this moment shouted for peace. Then Joe Tapson and William Churchward approached the coffin-lids, while a very real silence fell as the dolls were revealed. The creator's heart beat fast under his great bosom. He hungered to hear a shout of instant recognition; and indeed this was not long delayed.
With a ghostly semblance of life the effigies stared out, and the feet of the coffins were lowered so that all might see. The throng massed in front of the show, and the ringside behind the performers was left empty.
What the people saw was a long, thin doll in riding breeches, Norfolk jacket, and hard hat. It stared out with sunken, sallow cheeks, and the torchlight played upon its life-size, life-like body. In the other coffin lay the female doll, and her tow hair was drawn back from her forehead and her red lips smiled. The face had been most carefully modelled and painted; therefore its resemblance to Sarah Jane Brendon was clear to all who knew her.
"God's light! what's this?" Lethbridge asked loudly; but Agg did not answer.
A great murmur shook the throng. Names were cried back and forward. A few laughed, some already shouted angrily for the mummery to cease.
"'Tis Sarah Jane and Hilary Woodrow—sure as I'm a sinful man," said Philip Weekes to his wife.
She did not answer, but glared at the figures.
Several voices cried out "Sarah Jane Brendon!" Others remembered the vanished farmer and named him. A spirit decidedly averse from the performers was apparent in the crowd, and Philip Weekes voiced it.
"This is a damned, wicked, wanton shame!" he roared out; "and I say it, though my own son's mixed in it."
"Order—order!" yelled a voice or two.
Mr. Huggins tried to get out of the ring, but was drawn back by the Infant. Mr. Churchward and Mr. Spry among the spectators also showed fear, and the latter, feeling that the sooner he departed from Thornyside the better for his reputation, set out to do so. Adam, in much concern, followed him. Jarratt Weekes, unmoved, proceeded grimly with the service as long as he could be heard. He had seen what none else had as yet; he had marked where the great form of Daniel Brendon suddenly reared itself behind the crowd. His voice shook at the sight, but he proceeded—
"'Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut——'"
Then shouts drowned his voice and a resolute and angry faction got over the rope with intent to stop the proceedings.
Mr. Taverner was appealed to by Jarratt Weekes.
"Stop 'em—stop 'em!—they can't interfere. This is private land!" he shouted.
But Jacob had gone over to the other side.
"If I'd known who it was——" he began, and stripped his mourning band off his hat.
At this sign the ring was broken up; a torch fell here and there and illuminated the open graves; then, like the sudden charge of some great beast, Brendon, who had at last understood, ploughed through the people and cast them to right and left. In another moment his hand was on the collar of Jarratt Weekes. With one sweep of his arm he tore the surplice off; then he dashed the book aside; and then he shook the mummer till Jarratt screamed and an answering scream came from his mother.
"Speak," said Daniel. "Tell me why you've done this; and tell me why I shouldn't let the life out of you for doing it!"
"Let go my neck, then," answered the other. Then he shouted to the people, "Why don't you pull this fool away? D'you want to see me killed?"
"Sarve you right," cried a dozen voices. "We'd do the like if we was the husband!"
"Speak!" repeated Brendon. His eyes burnt redder than the flames of the torch-fires round him.
"Then I will. I've done this thing because it was true. Ask John Prout. True afore the living God; and may He blast me, and strike me with all the curses of hell for all eternity now and for evermore if it ban't true. True!—ask Prout—ask them we've mimicked here—they'll not deny it!"
He pointed to the puppets staring mildly up at their makers.
For a moment Brendon held off and glared round him.
"Don't you believe the filthy liar, Dan!" bellowed Agg from the crowd.
"Let God strike me blind and mad now afore the people if it's not true. Prout saw it—with his own eyes he saw it. Kill me if you like—but it's true—true as the Bible is true—and you'll live to know it," cried Weekes; and his grim earnestness appeared to affect the principal listener.
Ignorant of what was doing, the boy in the shed still struck an old iron bin to imitate a passing bell. The sound acted on the people as a drum on a dervish. Brendon stood irresolute.
"Fling the beastly man into one of them graves and that big, fat fool after him!" shouted a voice.
There was a rush for Weekes and William Churchward. Mud and stones were flung, and a clod struck Jarratt in the mouth.
"Let him go—don't be cowards—let the man take his folly away!" cried Hephzibah shrilly; but none listened. Amid roars and shouts the mob surrounded Weekes and the younger Churchward. Joe Tapson and the choir boys were kicked heartily; Mr. Huggins had escaped in time, and now lurked behind a distant hedge and waited trembling to see what might happen. The people next threw the dolls out of their coffins, trod their putty faces into pulp and played football with their limbs. A man embraced the female figure amid roars of laughter. Then he danced with it.
Half a dozen resolute labourers dragged the Infant into one grave; while others, including a private enemy or two, tied Weekes within an empty coffin and lowered him into the second pit.
The passing bell still boomed on. Then the policeman, whose efforts towards maintaining peace were vain, did a definite thing, rushed up to the cowshed and stopped it.
Elsewhere Noah Pearn suffered. He had been standing rather anxiously beside his beer barrel, until some reckless spirits discovered the drink, and summoned others. Then Pearn was thrust into a ditch without ceremony, and his liquor consumed under the darkness. Many of the men present had come for miles, and those who belonged to the neighbourhood cared nothing for the publican's threats. They drank and presently emptied the barrel. Then a few intoxicated jesters began to throw earth on Weekes and William Churchward, and it was not until the parents of the two sufferers summoned aid and resolutely attacked the reckless party, that Jarratt and the bruised and battered Infant were rescued.
The torches expired and the folk at last departed. They left nothing to mark the event but a torn and trampled field, the dismembered limbs of the puppets, and the shattered timbers of their coffins.
Dawn found these things in their hideousness, and it also rose upon two men deep in conversation together. Agg and Lethbridge, appreciating the gravity of the position, had hurried home that some preparation for Daniel's coming might be made. But he did not come. They waited ready to intercept him and learn his mood and his intentions; then night passed and morning failed to bring him. Therefore they guessed that he must have followed the word of Jarratt Weekes literally, and turned his face to the sea that he might speak with Prout. They scorned the story, and dared not name it at Ruddyford. But at the earliest opportunity they despatched a telegram to Prout from Mary Tavy and warned him that he must stand between Daniel Brendon and the master.
"He'll soon calm the man down, if 'tis false, as it must be," said Agg. "Pray God no note of this gets to Sarah Jane's ears; yet that's a vain hope, for everybody on Dartymoor will be chattering of it inside twelve hours."
"I'm thinking of the man," answered Lethbridge. "If 'tis false, he'll have the hide off Jarratt Weekes for this night's work; and if 'twas true, he wouldn't stop short of——"
"'True'! Who that have ever met that clean, fearless creature would dare say it? Prout will calm the man down; but Lord pity them who get within reach of Brendon's rage when he goes into Lydford again."
"He may have believed it, however, and gone from that field and hanged himself," argued Lethbridge.
"Never! Would he wrong his wife like that—or Mr. Woodrow either? No, he ban't the sort to let a lie change him. This blackguard thing calls to be answered, and these insulted people will answer it."
"Daniel will for 'em, more likely. Master's so good as buried in real earnest and far beyond fighting; and as for Sarah Jane, 'tis her husband's part to make her name and fame sweet afore the nation."
"Which he will do—have no fear of that," answered Walter Agg.
At an early hour they despatched their telegram and Prout received it. Half guessing the truth, he waited in fearful anxiety; but Brendon did not come.