"I'll kill 'em after dinner—plenty of time."
"'Plenty of time'! Always your wicked, loafing way. Put off—put off—where's that gal? Go an' sweep the best bedroom, Susan. 'Plenty of time.' You'll come to eternity presently—with nothing to show for it. Then, when they ax what you've been doing with your time, you'll cut a pretty cheap figure, Philip Weekes."
Her husband exhibited a startling indifference to this attack; but it was the indifference that an artilleryman displays to the roar and thunder of ordnance. His wife talked all day long—often half the night also; and her language was invariably hyperbolic and sensational. Nobody ever took her tragic diction seriously, least of all her husband. His position in the home circle was long since defined. He did a great deal of women's work, suffered immense indignities with philosophic indifference, and brightened into some semblance of content and satisfaction once a week. This was upon Saturday nights, when his partner invariably slept at Plymouth. Her husband and she were hucksters; but since, among its other disabilities, Lydford was denied the comfort of a market, they had to seek farther for customers, and it was to Plymouth that they took their produce.
Every Friday Mr. Weekes harnessed his pony and drove a little cart from Lydford into Bridgetstowe, through certain hamlets. He paid a succession of visits, and collected from the folk good store of eggs, butter, rabbits, ducks, honey, apples and other fruit, according to the season. His own contributions to the store were poultry and cream. He had one cow, and kept a strain of large Indian game fowls which were noted amongst the customers of Mrs. Weekes. On Saturday the market woman was driven to Lydford Station with her stores, and after a busy day in Plymouth, she slept with a married niece there, and returned to her home again on the following morning.
This programme had continued for nearly forty years. On rare occasions Philip Weekes himself went to market; but, as his wife declared, "master was not a good salesman," and she never let him take her place at the stall if she could help it.
LYDFORD.LYDFORD.
Hephzibah was a little, lean woman, with white, wild locks sticking out round her head, like a silver aureole that had been drawn through a bramble-bush. She had bright pink cheeks, a long upper lip, a hard mouth with very few teeth left therein, and eyes that feared nothing and dropped before nothing. She was proud of herself and her house. She had a mania for sweeping her carpets; and if at any moment Susan was discovered at rest, her aunt instantly despatched her to the broom. After a good market Hephzibah was busier than ever, and drove her niece and her husband hither and thither before her, like leaves in a gale of wind; if the market had been bad, the strain became terrific, and Susan generally found it necessary, to run away. Mr. Weekes could not thus escape; but he bowed under the tempest, anticipated his wife's commands to the best of his power, and contrived to be much in the company of his Indian game fowls. After each week of tragical clacking and frantic sweeping Saturday came, and the peace of the grave descended upon Mr. Weekes. During Saturday he would not even suffer Susan to open her mouth.
"'Pon Saturdays give me silence," he said. "The ear wants rest, like any other member."
While his wife's shrill tongue echoed about her corner of the market-place and lured customers from far, he sat at home in a profound reverie and soaked in silence. By eventide he felt greatly refreshed, and generally spent an hour or two at the Castle Inn—a practice forbidden to him on other days.
"Go," said Mrs. Weekes; "go this instant moment, afore dinner, an' kill the properest brace you can catch. If you won't work, you shan't eat, and that's common-sense and Bible both. Mrs. Swain said——"
Her husband nodded, felt that his penknife was in his pocket, and went out. The poultry-run stood close at hand at the top of Philip's solitary field. Sacks were nailed along the bottom of the gate, to keep safe the chicks, and a large fowl-house filled one corner. As the master entered, a hundred handsome birds, with shining plumage of cinnamon and ebony, ran and swooped round him in hope. But he had brought death, not dinner. A gallows stood in a corner, and soon two fine fowls hung from it by their long yellow legs and fulfilled destiny. Then Mr. Weekes girt an apron about him, took the corpses into a shed, spread a cloth for the feathers, sat down upon a milking-stool and began to pluck them.
Meantime the other occupant of his home had returned to dinner. Jarratt Weekes, the huckster's son, came back from his morning's work at the castle and called to his mother to hasten the meal.
"There's quite a lot of people about to-day," he said, "and a party of a dozen be coming up at three o'clock to look over the ruin."
"Then you must make hay while the sun shines," declared Mrs. Weekes.
Hephzibah's only child had now reached the age of forty, and the understanding between them was very close and intimate. Reticent to all else, he found his mother so much of his own way of thinking, that from her he had no secrets. She admired his thrift, and held his penuriousness a virtue. Despite her garrulity, Mrs. Weekes could keep close counsel where it suited her to do so; and neither her son's affairs nor her own ever made matter for speech. They enjoyed an inner compact from which even the head of the house was excluded. Jarratt Weekes despised his father, and failed to note the older man's virtues. The castle-keeper himself could boast a personable exterior; but he was mean, and his countenance, though not unhandsome, betrayed it. He loved money for itself, and had saved ever since he was a boy. His clean-shorn, strongly featured face was spoiled by the eyes. They were bright and very keen, but too close together. He looked all his years by reason of a system of netted lines that were stamped over his forehead, upon his cheeks and round the corners of his lips. He lent money, ran sheep upon Dartmoor, and was busy in many small ways that helped his pocket. He paid his mother five shillings a week for board and lodging; and she tried almost every day of her life to make him give seven-and-six, yet secretly admired him for refusing to do so. He was of medium height, and in figure not unlike his father, but still straight in the back and of upright bearing.
Jarratt sat down at the kitchen table, while his mother made ready a meal for him. The room was empty, and overhead sounded the regular stroke of Susan's broom.
"Glad you're alone," he said, "for I wanted to talk a moment. I saw Sarah Jane to Bridgetstowe yesterday. She'd come down with a message from her father. Sunday week she's going to take her dinner with us. Then I shall ax her."
Mrs. Weekes nodded, and for a moment her tongue was silent. She looked at her son, and a shadow of something akin to emotion swept over her high-coloured cheeks and bold eyes.
"What a change 'twill be! I suppose you'll take the house to the corner? Mrs. Routleigh can't hold out over Christmas."
"Yes, I shall take it. But there's Sarah Jane to be managed first."
"Not much trouble there. She ban't a fool. She'll jump at you."
"You're not often wrong; but I'm doubtful. Sarah's not like other girls. She don't care for comfort and luxury."
"Give her the chance! She's young yet. They all like comfort, and they all want a husband. Quite right too."
"She can have her pick of twenty husbands—such a rare piece as her."
"Them pretty ones all think that; an' they often come to grief over it. They put off choosing year after year till suddenly they find 'emselves wrong side of thirty, and the flat chits, that was childern yesterday, grown up into wife-old maidens. Then they run about after the men they used to despise. But the men be looking for something younger by that time. You men—the years betwixt thirty to forty don't hit you; and what you lose in juice an' comeliness, you make up at the bank. But ban't so with us. There's no interest on good looks—all the other way. These things I've told Sarah Jane myself; so be sure she knows 'em. You'm a thought old for her: that's my only fear."
"Would you go at it like a bull at a gate, or wind round it? She knows well enough what I feel. Why, I gived her a brooch that cost five shillings and sixpence come her last birthday."
"Dash at her! She's the sort that must be stormed. Don't dwell over-much on the advantages, because she's too young to prize 'em. Catch fire an' blaze like a young 'un. They like it best that way. Don't take 'no' for an answer. 'Twas a dash that caught me; though you'd never think it to see your father now-a-days."
He listened respectfully.
"I'm not the dashing sort, however."
"No, you ban't. Still, that's the best way with she. Many a woman's been surprised into saying 'yes.' Do anything but write it. Sarah Jane wouldn't stand writing. For that matter, 'tis a question if she can read penmanship. An ignorant girl along of her bringing up."
"Good at figures, however; for Gregory Friend told me so."
"What does he know about figures? Still, 'tis very much in her favour if true."
Mrs. Weekes now went to the window and looked out of it. Down the street stood an ivy-covered cottage where two ways met. Beside it men were working in the road.
"The water-leat will run through your back orchard, won't it?"
"Yes; I'd counted upon that. The new leat goes from one side to t'other. 'Twill be a great source of strength and improve the value of the property."
"The sooner you buy the better then—afore Widow Routleigh understands—eh?"
He hesitated a moment, then confessed.
"I have bought," he said.
"Well done you! Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was going to. But keep silent as the pit about it. Only me, an' her, and her lawyer knows. As a matter of fact, I bought before the leat got near the place. I knowed 'twas coming; they never thought of it."
"You'm a wonder!"
She looked at the house destined for her son and his bride.
"You won't be far off—that's to the good. You an' me must always be close cronies, Jar. Who else have I got?"
"No fear of that."
She went to the oven, put a stew upon the table, and lifted her voice to the accustomed penetrating note.
"Dinner! Dinner! Come, master! Us can't bide about all afternoon for you. Susan, get down house, will 'e, an' let me see the dustpan. I know what your sweeping be like—only too well."
Mr. Weekes received a volume of reproaches as he entered five minutes later, and took his place at the head of the table.
"I've been plucking fowls, an' had to wash," he said.
"Then I hope to God you chose the right ones. Mrs. Swainwillhave 'em the same size to a hair. If they come to table a thought uneven, her pleasure's spoilt. And the best customer I've got in the Three Towns. But what do you care...? Susan, you dirty imp, can't you... Tchut! If your parents don't turn in their graves, it ban't no fault of yours...!"
So she played chorus to the banquet. How Mrs. Weekes ever found time to eat none knew.
When Daniel Brendon stepped out of the world into church, a change came upon his spirit, and he had the power of absorbing himself in religious fervour. He lived under the permanent sense of a divine presence, and when life prospered with him and nothing hurt or angered him, the labourer's mind was cheered by the companionship of his Maker. Only if overtaken by a dark mood, or conscious of wrong-doing, did he feel solitary. The experience was rare, yet he faced it without self-delusion, and assured himself that when God forsook his heart, the fault was his own.
In a temper amiable and at peace he kept the Sunday appointment with Gregory Friend. During morning worship he had heard a sermon that comforted his disquiet, and served for a time to mask from his sight the ambitions proper to his nature. He had been told to do with his might the thing that his hand found to do; he had been warned against casting his desires in too large a mould; he had heard of the dignity of patience.
Brendon's mind was therefore contented, and as he strode through the evening of the year's work and marked the sun turn westward over a mighty pageant of autumn, he felt resignation brooding within him. Nature, for once, chimed with the things of his soul and blazoned a commentary upon the cherished dogmas of his faith.
He stood where the little Rattle leapt to Tavy, flung a last loop of light, and, laughing to the end of her short life, poured her crystal into a greater sister's bosom. Sinuously, by many falls, they glided together under the crags and battlements of the Cleeve; and the September sun beat straight into that nest of rivers, to touch each lesser rill that threaded glittering downward and hung like a silver rope over shelf of stone, or in some channel cut by ancient floods. Their ways were marked by verdure; by sphagnum, in sheets of emerald or rose, orange or palest lemon; by dark rushes, stiffly springing, and by the happiness of secret flowers. Heath and grey, granite shone together; a smooth, green coomb stretched beside water's meet, but beyond it all was confusion of steep hills and stony precipices. Over their bosoms the breath of autumn hung in misty fire, while strange, poised boulders crouched upon them threateningly and sparkled in the sun. Haze of blue brake-fern shimmered here and burnt at points to sudden gold, where death had already touched it. Light streamed down, mingling with the air, until all things were transfigured and the darkest shadows abounded in warm tones. The ling still shone, and its familiar, fleeting mantle of pale amethyst answered the brilliance of the sky with radiant flower-light that refreshed the jewels of the late furze by splendour of contrast. The unclouded firmament lent its proper glory to this vale. Even under the sun's throne air was made visible, and hung like a transparent curtain over the world—a curtain less than cloud and more than clarity. It obscured nothing, yet informed the great hills and distant, sunk horizon with its own azure magic; it transfused the far-off undulations of the earth, and so wrought upon leagues of sun-warmed ether that they washed away material details and particulars. There remained only huge generality of light aloft, and delicate, vague delineation of opal and of pearl in the valleys beneath.
The rivers, spattered with rocks and wholly unshadowed, ran together in a skein of molten gold. Behind the murmuring hills they vanished westerly; and though these waters gleamed with the highest light under the sky, yet even in the dazzling force of sheer sunshine, flung direct upon their liquid mirrors, were degrees of brilliance—from the pure and steady sheen of pools, through splendour of broken waters, up to blinding flashes of foam, where the sun met a million simultaneous bubbles and stamped the tiny, blazing image of himself upon each.
Sunshine indeed poured out upon all created things. It lighted the majesty of the hills and flamed above each granite tower and heather ridge; it brightened the coats of the wandering herds and shone upon little rough calves and foals that crept beside their mothers; it touched the solitary heron's pinion, as he flapped heavily to his haunt; and forgot not the wonder of Vanessa's wings, nor the snake on the stone, nor the lizard in the herbage. Each diurnal life was glorified by the splendour of day; and when there fell presently a cloud-shadow, like a bridge across the Cleeve, it heightened the surrounding brilliance and, passing, made the light more admirable. Upward, like the music from a golden shell, came Tavy's immemorial song; and it echoed most musical on the ear of him who, crowning this vision with conscious intelligence, could dimly apprehend some part of what he saw.
Daniel seated himself on rocks overlooking the Cleeve. His massive body felt the sun's heat strike through it; and now he stared unblinking upward, and now scanned the glen upon his right. That way, round, featureless hills climbed one behind the other, until they rose to a distant gap upon the northern horizon where stood Dunnagoat cot against the sky. Low tors broke out of the hills about it, and upon their summits, like graven images, the cattle stood in motionless groups, according to their wont on days of great heat.
Brendon rose presently, stretched himself, and, seen far off, appeared to be saluting the sun. Then he turned to the hills and passed a little way along them. His eye had marked two specks, a mile distant, and as they approached they grew into a man and woman.
DUNNAGOAT COT.DUNNAGOAT COT.
Gregory Friend, with his daughter, met Daniel beside a green barrow. He shook hands and remarked on the splendour of the hour. The peat-man had put off his enthusiasm with his working clothes. He wore black and appeared somewhat bored and listless, for the week-days only found him worshipping.
"He hates Sabbaths," explained Sarah. "To keep off his business be a great trouble to him; but he says as we must mark the day outwardly as well as inwardly. So he dons his black, an' twiddles his thumbs, an' looks up the valley to the works, but holds away from 'em."
She wore a crude blue dress that chimed with nothing in nature and fitted ill. Brendon, however, admired it exceedingly.
"'Tis very nice 'pon top of Wattern Oke, if you care to come so far," he said.
They returned to the place where Daniel had sat.
"I'll spread my coat for 'e, so as you shan't soil thicky lovely gown," he suggested to Sarah Jane.
"No call to do that, thank you. I'll sit 'pon this stone. I'm glad you like the dress. I put it on for you to see. My word, 'tis summer come back again to-day!"
The labourer was fluttered, but could think of nothing to say. Both men smoked their pipes, and Friend began to thrust his stick into the earth. They spoke of general subjects, then Daniel remembered a remark that the other had made upon their first meeting. He had no desire to hear more concerning peat; but his heart told him that the theme must at least give one of the party pleasure, and therefore he led to it. Moreover, he felt a strong desire to please Gregory, yet scarcely knew his reason.
"You was going to give me a little of your large knowledge 'bout Amicombe Hill, master," he said, after an interval of silence.
Mr. Friend's somewhat lethargic attitude instantly changed. He sat up briskly and his eyes brightened.
"So I was then; and so I will. To think that within eye-shot at this moment there's more'n enough fuel to fill every hearth in England! There's a masterpiece of a thought—eh? If people only realized that.... And Amicombe Hill peat be the very cream and marrow of it all—the fatness of the land's up there—better than granite, or tin, or anything a man may delve in all Dartymoor."
"Not a doubt of it—not a doubt," said the listener; but Sarah Jane shook her head.
"Don't you encourage him, Mr. Brendon, or I'll not have you up the hill no more. Ban't six days a week enough for one subject? Can't us tell about something different Sundays?"
"Plenty of time," answered her father. "Peat's a high matter enough in my opinion. If us knowed all there is to know about it, us should see nearer into the ways of God in the earth, I'm sure. There's things concerning Amicombe peat no man has yet found out, and perhaps no man ever will."
"On week-days he lives up to his eyes in the peat, an' 'pon Sundays he preaches it," said Sarah. "That is when any man's silly enough to let him," she added pointedly.
Her father began to show a little annoyance at these interruptions.
"You'd best to go and walk about, an' leave me an' Brendon to talk," he said.
"So I will, then, my dear," she answered, laughing; "an' when you've done, one of you can stand up on a rock an' wave his handkercher; then I'll come back."
To Daniel's dismay, she rose and strolled off. Friend chattered eagerly; Sarah Jane's blue shape dwindled, and was presently lost to sight.
For half-an-hour the elder kept up a ceaseless discourse; but, since Daniel did nothing more than listen, and scarcely asked a question to help the matter, Gregory Friend began to tire. He stopped, then proceeded. He stopped again, yawned, and relighted his pipe.
"That's just the beginning about peat," he said. "But don't think you know nothing yet. My darter knows more than that—ignorant though she is."
"Not ignorant, I'm sure. But—well, shall I tell her that, just for the present, we've done wi' peat, or would you rather——?"
Gregory felt that Brendon had fairly earned a respite and reward. Moreover, the sunshine was making him sleepy.
"Go an' look after her," he said. "An' come back to me presently. I'll have forty winks. Nought on earth makes me so dog-tired as laziness."
Daniel was gone in a moment, yet, as he strode whence the girl had disappeared, he found time to ask himself what this must mean. He had never looked round after a woman in his life. Women about a place made him uneasy, and acted as a restraint on comfort. He knew nothing whatever concerning them, and was quite content to believe the opinions of John Prout: that, upon the whole, a man might be better single. Yet this woman had interested him from the first moment that he saw her; he had thought of her not seldom since; he had anticipated another meeting with interest that was pleasure.
He crossed Wattern Oke, then looked down where Tavy winds beneath the stony side of Fur Tor. A bright blue spot appeared motionless at the brink of the river. Daniel, feeling surprise to think that she had wandered so far, hastened forward and, in a quarter of an hour, stood beside her. She smiled at him.
"I knowed you'd come for me," she said. "There was that in your face made me feel it. You was sorry when I went off?"
"So I was then."
"I rather wanted to see if you would be. It shows friendship. I like men to be friends with me. I often wish I'd been born a man myself—'stead of a woman. I'm such a big maiden, an' awful strong—not but what I look more than a fly beside you. You could pick me up in they gert arms, I reckon?"
"I suppose I could for that matter. I carried a pig yesterday—lifted un clean up an' got un on my back; but it took two other chaps to move it. 'Twas Agg and Tapson. 'Here, let me get to his carcase,' I said; an' I lifted it clear into the butcher's cart, while they two was wiping their foreheads!"
She nodded with evident approval.
Suddenly his slow mind worked backwards.
"All the same," he said, "I didn't ought to have mentioned your name in the same breath with a pig. 'Twas a hole in my manners, and I hope you'll overlook it."
Sarah Jane laughed.
"What a man! Where was you brought up to? Ban't many so civil in these parts."
"I was teached to be civil by my mother. But I know nought beyond my business—not like Mister Woodrow. He has grammer-school larning, an' London larning, and reads books that I can't understand a word about."
She told him of her own childhood, of her mother, of her few friends.
"Girls don't seem to like me," she said. "I hardly know above half-a-dozen of 'em. There's Minnie Taverner to Lydford, and Mary Churchward—nobody much else. Mary's brother's nearly as big as you be. But t'others I used to know, when I went to school, are all married or gone to service now."
"Very interesting," said Daniel. "I never had but one sister. She's down to Plymouth—a greengrocer's wife there."
They talked freely together, and presently rose and set out to rejoin Mr. Friend. Under their feet Daniel suddenly saw a piece of white ling, and stopped and picked it.
"May I make bold to ax you to take it?" he said. "'Tis an old saying that it brings fortune."
"Then I won't accept of it," she said. "Thank you all the same; but fortune's in the wind for me already; an' I don't want it very much. I'm happy enough where I be along with my father."
"Tell me about the fortune," he said, flinging the heath away.
Thereupon she reminded him that, despite her masculine aspirations and amazing frankness, she was a woman after all.
Her eyes fell, then rose to his face again. A glorious, gentle, gentian blue they were.
"You want to know such a lot, Mr. Brendon," she said.
He was crushed instantly, and poured forth a string of apologies.
"You all do it," she answered. "I don't know what there is about me; but you chaps get so friendly—I feel as if I'd got about fifty brothers among you. But there's things you can't tell even brothers, you know."
"I'm terrible sorry. Just like my impudence to go pushing forward so. I deserve a clip on the side o' the head—same as my mother used to box my ears when I was a little one, an' hungry to ax too many questions."
Mr. Friend was awake and ready to walk homeward. Daniel accepted an invitation to tea, and accompanied them.
They ascended slowly by the steep channels of the Rattle-brook, and presently Gregory rested awhile.
"I can't travel same as once I could," he explained. Then he moralized.
"The world's an up an' down sort of place, like this here fen," he said. "Some holds the good and evil be balanced to a hair, so that every man have his proper share of each; but for my part I can't think it."
"The balance be struck hereafter. That trust a man must cling to—or else he'll get no happiness out of living," answered Daniel; and the other nodded.
"'Tis the only thought as can breed content in the mind; yet for the thousands that profess to believe it, you'll not find tens who really do so."
"I'm sure I do," asserted Brendon.
"At your time of life 'tis easy enough. But wait till you'm threescore and over. Then the spirit gets impatient, and it takes a very large pattern of faith to set such store on the next world that failure in this one don't sting. If I am took from yonder peat works afore their fame be established to the nation, I shall go reluctant, and I own it. There'll be nought so interesting in Heaven—from my point of view—as Amicombe Hill."
"You'll have something better to think of and better to do, master."
"Maybe I shall; but my mind will turn that way, and I shall think it terrible hard if all knowledge touching the future of the place be withholden from me."
"We shall know so much of things down here as be good for our peace of mind, I reckon?" ventured Daniel.
"'Twould be wisht to have all blank," declared Sarah Jane. "Take the mothers an' wives. What's the joy of heaven to them if they don't know things is going well with their children an' husbands?"
"'Tis almost too high a subject for common people, though I could wish for light upon it myself," said her father.
"Of course they know!" cried the woman. "Don't you believe as mother holds us in her thoughts and watches our goings? Such a worrying spirit as hers! Heaven wouldn't be no better than a foreign country, where she couldn't get letters, if you an' me was hidden from her."
Daniel felt uneasy.
"Knowing what she knows now, she would be content to leave it with God," he said.
"Not her," answered Sarah Jane. "A very suspicious nature, where those she loved was concerned."
"True. My wife could believe nought but her own eyes. She was built so. That's why she never would share my great opinions of Amicombe Hill. A very damping woman to a hopeful heart. A great trust in arithmetic she had; but for my part nought chills me like black figures on white paper. You can't draw much comfort from 'em most times."
"I'm like her," said Sarah Jane. "All for saying what I think. Father here's a dreamer."
"Hope's very good to work on, however; I hold with Mr. Friend there."
"Not so good as wages," said Sarah Jane.
"Sometimes in my uplifted moments I've wondered whether truth's made known to my wife now, and whether, looking down 'pon Dartymoor, she knows that I was right touching Amicombe Hill, and she was wrong," mused Gregory.
"Perhaps she knows she was right and you are wrong, my old dear," suggested Sarah Jane.
But her father shook his head.
"I ban't feared of that," he answered.
After a cup of tea, Daniel Brendon made a faltering proposal, and met with a startling reply.
"I wonder now, if you and Miss here would take a walk along o' me next Sunday?" he asked. "I'll meet 'e where you please. And I'm sure I should be terrible proud if you could lend me your company."
"I can't—not next Sunday," declared the girl. "'Tis like this: I'm going to Lydford to spend the day along with the Weekes family. And Jarratt Weekes be going to ax me to marry him."
Dan's eyes grew round.
"Good Lord!" he said, with surprise and reverence mingled.
"That's what the man's going to do, if I know him. 'Tis all planned out in his mind. I could most tell the words he'm going to say it in—knowing him so well as I do."
A natural question leapt to Brendon's lips, but he restrained it. He wanted to ask, "And shall you take him?" but resisted the burning temptation. This news, however, was a source of very active disquiet. He drank his tea, and was glad when Gregory Friend broke the silence.
"And you'll do well to think twice afore you say 'yes,' Sarah Jane. A successful and a church-going man. A good son, I believe, and honest—as honesty goes in towns. But——"
"I'd never get a husband if I waited for you to find one, faither."
"Perhaps not. Good husbands are just as rare as good wives."
"Then—then perhaps Sunday after——?" persisted Brendon, whose mind had not wandered far from the mam proposition.
"Perhaps," answered Sarah Jane. "You'm burning to hear tell what I shall say to the castle-keeper—ban't 'e now?"
"Who wouldn't be—such a fateful thing! But I know my manners better than to ax, I hope."
"I don't know what I'm going to say," declared she. "D'you know Jarratt Weekes?"
"No, I don't."
"Does anybody to Ruddyford?"
"Most of 'em know him."
"What do they say about him?"
Brendon hesitated.
"Can't answer that: wouldn't be fair to the man."
"You have answered it!" she said, and laughed.
A moment later he took his leave and strode slowly over the hills. So absorbed was he, that he did not watch his way, and presently tripped and fell. The accident cleared his mind.
"This be a new thing in me," he thought. "That blessed, lovely she's bewitched me, if I know myself! She'll take the man, no doubt. And yet—why? Such a face as that might look as high as a farmer at the lowest."
A peace of unusual duration brooded over the dwelling of Philip Weekes; for his wife had gone to market on Saturday morning, but instead of returning home, according to her custom, in time for Sunday dinner at Lydford, she continued at Plymouth until the evening.
He basked in silence like a cat in the sun; but a few friends were coming to drink tea, and Susan already made preparations for the event.
Elsewhere, Sarah Jane, who was spending the day at Lydford, sat in a secret place with Jarratt Weekes and heard the things that she expected to hear.
The old castle was not opened to visitors on Sunday, but Jarratt kept the keys, and, after dinner, took Sarah to his fortress and offered her marriage within its mediæval walls. She wore her blue dress; he held himself a grade above those men who habitually don black upon the seventh day, and was attired in a mustard-coloured tweed suit.
"We'll come aloft," he said. "There's a window opens to the west, and I've put a seat there for visitors to sit in and look around. 'Tis out of sight of the street, and will shield you from the east wind that's blowing."
He offered to assist her up the wooden stairway, but she made as though she did not see and followed him easily.
Presently they sat together, and he sighed and twirled his gold watch-chain in a fashion to catch her eye. She noted his well-shaped and strong hand.
"I dare say you think I'm a happy man, Sarah Jane," he began abruptly.
"I don't think anything about you," she answered; "but all the same, you ought to be. Why not? Everything goes well with you, don't it? Mr. Huggins met me in the village as I came along. He says that you've bought Widow Routleigh's beautiful house at the corner, and only wait for her to die to go into it. And the new leat will run right through the orchard."
"So it will. But don't think that was a chance. I worked it all out and knew the water must come that way. I'd bought the ground, at my own price, before the old woman even guessed the water was coming. I say this to show you how far I look ahead."
"Of course you do—like Mrs. Weekes. You've got her great cleverness, no doubt."
"That's true, and I could give you many instances if you wanted them. But, all the same, there's much worth having that money won't buy. Ban't the root of all good, as some think, any more than 'tis the root of all evil, as other fools pretend—chiefly them as lack it. Money's all right, but not all-powerful. You, for instance—I know you well enough to know that money don't count for everything with you."
Sarah Jane plucked a spray of sweet wormwood that grew out of the wall within reach of her hand. She bruised it and passed its pale gold and silver thoughtfully under her nose.
"I'd dearly like to have money," she said.
"You would?"
"Dearly. I'd sooner have a hoss of my own to ride than most anything I can think of."
"A very fine idea, no doubt. And very fine you'd look upon one."
She smelt the wormwood, then flung it through the window and turned to him.
"But I wouldn't sell myself for that. I've never thought out the subject of money, and maybe never shall. Faither's always on about it; but 'tis only a sort of shadowy fancy in his mind, like the next world, or China, or any other place beyond his knowledge. Money's just a big idea to him and me. But I doubt if we had it, whether we should know how ever to manage it."
"Your father's no better than a wild man," said Jarratt impatiently. "So full of foggy hopes and opinions—nought practical about any of 'em. Now I'm nothing if not practical; and more are you. 'Tis that I've felt about you ever since you was wife-old. But what d'you think of me? People have an idea nobody could make much cash in a place the size of Lydford. Let 'em think so. But I tell you, Sarah Jane, that 'tis often the smallest stream holds the biggest trout. And I tell you another thing: I love you with all my heart and soul. There's nobody like you in the world. You're a rare woman, an' pretty as a picture to begin with; but that ban't all. You've got what's more than good looks, and wears better, and helps a busy man on his way. You'd not hinder a husband, but back him up with all your strength. Never was a body with less nonsense about her. In fact, I've been almost frightened sometimes, to think how awful little nonsense there is about your nature—for so young a woman. It comes of living up-along wi' nought but natural things for company. There's no lightness nor laughter up there."
He stopped for breath; but she did not speak. Then he proceeded.
"Not that I blame you for being so plain-spoken. 'Tis often the best way of all, an' saves a deal of precious time. And time's money. You only want a little more experience of the ways of people, to shine like a star among common women, who sail with the wind and always say what they think you'll best like to hear. But that's nought. The thing I want to say is that I love you, Sarah Jane, and there's nothing in life I'd like better than to make a beautiful home for you, with every comfort that my purse can afford in it. And a horse you certainly shall have; an' I'll teach you how to ride him. You're a thought too large for a pony, but a good upstanding cob—and a pleasant sight 'twould be."
"Nobody could say fairer, I'm sure."
"Then will you have me? I'm not good enough, or anywheres near it. Still, as men go, in these parts, you might do worse—eh?"
"A lot worse. What does your mother think about it?"
"She would sooner I married you than anybody—'if I must marry at all.' That was her view."
"Why marry at all, Jarratt Weekes? Ban't you very comfortable as you are?"
"Not a very loverly question," he said, somewhat ruefully. "I'm afraid you don't care much about me, Sarah Jane."
"I don't like your eyes," she answered. "I like the rest of you very well. And, after all's said, you can't help 'em."
"There 'tis!" he exclaimed, half in admiration, half in annoyance. "What girl on God's earth but you would say a thing like that to a man that's offering marriage to her? To quarrel with my eyes be a foolish trick all the same. You might so well blame my hair, or my ears, or my hands."
"Your hand is a fine, strong-shaped sort of hand."
"Take it then," he cried, "and keep it; an' give me yours. Let me run my life for you evermore; and for your good and for your betterment. I'm tired of running it for myself. I never knew how empty a man's life can be—not till I met you; and there's the cottage, crawled over with honeysuckle, and the swallows' nests under the eaves, and the lovely orchard and all! All waiting your good pleasure, Sarah Jane, the moment that old woman drops."
"I don't reckon I could marry you—such a lot goes to it. Still, I'll be fair to you and take a bit of time to think it over."
"You've got two strings to your bow, of course—like all you pretty women?"
"No, I haven't. Yet—well, there's a man I've seen a few times lately. And I do take to him something wonderful. There's that about him I've never felt in no other man. Only, so far as I know, he don't care a button for me. He may be tokened, come to think of it. I never heard him say he wasn't. I never thought of that!"
She sat quite absorbed by this sudden possibility, while Jarratt Weekes stared angrily at her.
"You'll puzzle me to my dying day," he growled. "If any other female could talk such things, we'd say it was terrible unmaidenly in her; but you—naked truth's indecent in most mouths—it seems natural to yours. Not that I like you the better for it."
"He's a huge man, and works at Ruddyford. He's been drawing peat these last few days, and I've had speech with him, an' gived him cider thrice. To see him drink!"
"Damn him and his cider!" said Weekes, irritably. "A common labourer! You really ought to pride yourself a thought higher, Sarah Jane. What would your poor mother have said?"
"She done exactly the same herself. And a prettier woman far than me when she was young. For faither's often told me so. He's raised himself since he was married. So might this chap. All the same, I don't know whether he gives me a thought when I'm out of his sight."
"I think of nought but you—all day long."
"And widows' houses, and a few other things! Of course you do. You haven't got up in the world by wasting your time."
"Say 'yes,' and be done with it, Sarah."
"I'll leave it for a round month, then I'll tell you."
"You'll leave it—just to see what this hulking lout on the Moor may do."
"Yes. But he's not a lout. I'm certainly not going to take you till I know if he cares for me. If he does, I'll have him, for he's made me feel very queer—so queer that it can't be anything but love. And if he don't ax inside six weeks, I'll take you."
"You're the sort to go and tell him to ask you," he said, bitterly.
"No, no! I won't do that. I'm a very modest woman really, though you don't seem to think so. I'll not run after him."
"You're mad to dream of such a thing."
"Very likely; but there 'tis. Now us had better go back-along. I promised Mr. Weekes to pour out tea for him this evening afore I went home."
"I'll walk back with you."
"No need. Father's going to meet me on the old tram-line. He's down to Lake to-day."
They returned to the cottage of Philip Weekes, and found the company assembled.
There were present a very ancient, wrinkled man with a thin, white beard, called Valentine Huggins. As happens sometimes, he had out-lived his Christian name, and an appellation, proper to youth, seemed so ridiculous applied to a veteran of fourscore that nobody ever called him by it but one or two of his own generation, who did not mark the humour. Mr. Huggins was the oldest inhabitant of Lydford, and could count numerous grandchildren, though his own sons and daughters were nearly all dead. Adam Churchward, the schoolmaster, and his daughter Mary completed the gathering. He was large, hairless, ponderous, and flatulent; she nearly approached beauty, but her mouth was thin, and her voice served to diminish the pleasure given by her bright, dark face. The tone of it sounded harsh and rough, and when she spoke two little deep lines at their corners increased the asperity of her lips.
"I suppose we may say, in the words of the harvest hymn, that 'all is safely gathered in,'" remarked Mr. Churchward, as he drank his tea. "A good harvest, the work-folk tell me—or, rather, their children." He lifted his protuberant, short-sighted and rather silly eyes upward, to the conventional angle of piety.
"A very good harvest, I believe," admitted Philip, "and good all round—so the missis brought word from market last week."
"I trust the operations of sale and barter have been all that you could wish," added Mr. Churchward.
"Nothing to grumble at—very good markets," declared Philip, "though my partner never will admit it. Still, figures speak, and though she may pretend to lose her temper, I always know. Her pretences ban't like the real thing."
"No pretence about it when Aunt Hepsy's in a right-down tantara of a rage," said Susan.
"An unusual name—a Scriptural name," remarked the schoolmaster. "Has the significance of the name of 'Hephzibah' ever struck your mind, neighbour? It means, 'my delight is in her.'"
"So I've been told," answered the husband, drily. Indeed, his tone silenced the other, and, perceiving that he had apparently struck a wrong note of suggestiveness, Philip made haste to speak again.
"Nobody ever had a more suitable name, I'm sure. This house wouldn't be this house without her."
Jarratt Weekes and Sarah Jane now returned, and the subject was dropped by implicit understanding.
"I hope your great son, William, be well," said Sarah to the schoolmaster.
"Very well indeed, I thank you," he answered. "I could wish he had a little of his parent's zeal for toil, but he lacks it."
"Why for did he give up his shop work?" she asked.
"To be honest, it was rather undignified. For my son to fill that position was not quite respectful to me. He insisted upon it, but after a time, as I expected, found the duties irksome. I was not sorry when he changed his mind and returned to his painting."
"All the same, he's eating his head off now," said Mary Churchward.
"I shouldn't say that," declared William's father. "He helps me with the elder scholars. I have little doubt that some outlet for his artistic energies may soon be forthcoming. He has even an idea of going abroad."
"Do they still call him the 'Infant'?" asked Mr. Weekes.
"I believe so. How time flies with those who work as we do!Tempus fugit, I'm sure. It seems only yesterday that he was really an infant. In these arms the physician placed him some hours after his birth, with the remark that never had he introduced a fatter boy into the world."
"So I've heard you say," answered the huckster. "Give Mary another cup of tea, please, Sarah Jane."
"Yes," continued Mr. Churchward. "At first I had reason to believe that William would develop very unusual intellects. His childhood was rich in evidences of a precocious mind. But it seemed, in the race between brain and body, that after a struggle the physical being out-distanced the mental spirit. If I am becoming too subtle, stop me. But you may have observed that men above six feet high are seldom brilliantly intelligent."
"I know a chap who is, however," said Sarah Jane. "A young man bigger than your son, Mr. Churchward, but a very great thinker in his way—so my father says."
Mr. Churchward raised his eyebrows incredulously, and at the same moment bowed.
"Bill's sharp enough, and father knows it," said Mary Churchward. "He's horrid lazy; that's all that's the matter with him. If he had to work, 'twould be a very good thing for him."
"The questions that child used to ask me!" continued Adam. "Why, I believe it is allowed that I can reply to most people—am I right, Huggins?"
"Never yet knowed you to be floored," replied Mr. Huggins, in an aged treble. "There's the guts of a whole libr'y of books packed behind your gert yellow forehead, schoolmaster."
"Thank you, Huggins," said Mr. Churchward, with dignity. "Thank you. Truth has always been your guiding star since I have known you, and though your words are homely, they come from the heart. Pass me the sally-lunns, Susan, and I'll tell you a good thing Will said when he was no more than seven years old."
Mr. Churchward selected a cake, nibbled it, then waved it.
"Stop me if I have narrated this narrative before. I was giving the child a lesson in divinity. Indeed, at one time I had thoughts of the calling for him, but his mind took another turn."
"He don't believe in nothing now—nothing at all," said Mary, "except himself."
"You wrong him there. He is a Christian at heart, if I am any student of character. But as a child, he indulged in curious doubts. 'God made all things, I suppose, father?' he asked me on the occasion I speak of. 'Yes, my little man, He did indeed,' I answered. 'He made hell then?' he asked. 'Surely,' I admitted. 'Was it for Mr. Satan and his friends, so that they would all be comfy together?' he asked. 'No doubt that they should be together; but far from "comfy,"' I replied; 'and take good care, my child, that it shall never be said of you that you are one of those friends.' Now is not that a remarkable instance of juvenile penetration?"
"An' very good answers you made the nipper, I'm sure," said Mr. Weekes.
Here Jarratt changed the subject abruptly, and conversation ranged over matters more generally interesting than the schoolmaster's son.
"The water will be into Lydford come June next or a little later, they tell me," said the keeper of the castle. "I was showing the head engineer over the ruin last week—for all the times he'd been here he'd never seen it—and there's no doubt at all that the work will be done by next spring."
"Then I must begin to think of our preparations," answered Adam. "You may be aware that I am responsible for the idea that something of an exceptional nature shall be carried out to mark the arrival of the water. I mentioned it to the vicar two or three months ago, and he—well, if I may say so, he showed a coldness."
"Always is cold unless he thinks of a thing himself," said Jarratt.
"I'm afraid you have hit off his character in a nutshell. However, I am not to be shaken where I think the good of Lydford is concerned. 'It's a year too soon to begin thinking of it,' said the vicar to me; but I explained that these things must be taken in time and carefully thought out. 'Do it yourself then, since you're so set upon it,' he said. 'Then you'll have no objection to my proceeding in the matter, your reverence?' I asked, 'for I should like everythingex cathedrâand in order.' 'Oh, do what you like, only don't let it be anything ridiculous,' he answered, in his unkind, off-hand style. 'I'm not the man to bring ridicule on Lydford or myself, I believe,' I replied, in my haughty way."
"Had him there," chuckled Mr. Huggins.
"And with that I just bowed myself out."
"Us'll do it without troubling him, then," declared Philip Weekes. "The matter's very safe in your hands, neighbour."
"I think it is. Without self-praise—a thing I have never been accused of—I think it is. My own idea is matured, but I am quite prepared to hear that a better one is forthcoming."
"You should call a meeting and have a committee," suggested Jarratt.
"My idea was to have the committee without the meeting. For instance—we here assembled—why can't we elect a committee?"
"'Twill be too hole-and-corner," said Jarratt.
"Not at all, not at all. This is neither a hole nor yet a corner, but the house of one of the burgesses of Lydford. We represent various interests. I standin propriâ personâfor advancement and intellectual attainments, and the arts and sciences, and such-like; Jarratt Weekes is for business and mercantile pursuits and commerce; Mr. Huggins—well, he's the oldest inhabitant. 'Twould be a very right and proper thing to have him on the committee."
"Should like nothing better, souls," declared Mr. Huggins. "Talk I won't, but there must be some to listen."
"We ought to have a few more—seven or eight in all," said the younger Weekes. "Then we'll get through a scheme of some sort and hear what you've got to say, schoolmaster."
"The vicar will be very like to put his spoke in it if your ideas don't meet his views," suggested Philip, and Mr. Churchward's large pendulous cheeks flushed a delicate pink at the idea.
"I'm sorry to hear you say that. I hope you're wrong. He gave me a free hand, remember."
Presently the company separated. Mr. Huggins was going by Sarah Jane's way, and he walked beside her; the Churchwards went to evening worship; Jarratt disappeared with his own anxious heart; and Mr. Weekes, hiding all evidence of inward thought, harnessed his pony and drove off to Lydford, to meet the train which was bringing his wife and her baskets home from Plymouth.
Now Nature thundered the hymn of the autumnal equinox; ancient trees waved their last before it; men told of a cloudburst, at midnight, over the central Moor. Every river roared in freshet; the springs overflowed and rolled down the grassy hills, where, in summer, no water was; cherry-coloured torrents, under banks of yellow spume, tumbled into the valleys; storm followed upon storm, and the fall of the year came in no peaceful guise, but like a ruthless army. Not until the epact did peace brood again, and fiery dawns, pallid noons and frosty nights gave the great waste sleeping into the hand of winter.
Daniel Brendon settled to his work, and personal regrets that his position should be so unimportant were thrust to the back of his mind for the present by a greater matter. He was in love with Sarah Jane Friend, and knew it. To him fell the task of drawing peat with horse and cart from Amicombe Hill, and his journeys offered not a few opportunities of meeting with the woman. Once at her home, once in the peat works, he spoke with her. On the latter occasion she had just taken her father's dinner to him, and after Gregory was settled with the contents of a tin can and a little basket, Sarah proposed to Daniel that she should show him certain secret places in this ruin. The peat works had been her playground as a child, and she knew every hole and corner of them; but since silence and failure had made the place a home, Sarah chose rather to shun it. The very buildings scowled, where they huddled together and cringed to Time to spare them. She noted this, and felt that the place was mean and horrible, but with Dan beside her, ancient interests wakened, and she took him to see her haunts.
"I had a dear little cubby hole here," she said, and showed him a great empty drum, from which one side had fallen.
"This used to be filled with peat and be set spinning, so that the stuff should get broke up and dried," she explained; "but now 'tis as you see. I've often crept in there and gone to sleep by the hour. 'Tis full of dried heather. An old man that used to work with father spread it for me five years ago. He's dead, but the heather's there yet."
There was ample room within the huge drum even for Brendon. They sat together for a while, and ever afterwards in his thought the place was consecrated to Sarah Jane. He believed that she liked him, but her fearless attitude and outspoken methods with men and women made him distrustful. So weeks passed, and he gradually grew to know her better. After the Sunday at Lydford he went in fear and trembling, but she said nothing about the matter, and when he asked Mr. Friend behind her back whether indeed his daughter was engaged, the peat-master told him that it was not so.
"As became her father, I axed her," he said, "an' in her usual style she told me all about it. Jarratt Weekes offered to wed, and set out his high prospects in a very gentlemanlike manner; but she said neither 'yea' nor 'nay' to him. I axed her why not, seeing as she've a great gift of making up her mind most times—more like a man than a woman in that respect. But she said for once that she wasn't sure of herself. She'll see him again in a month or so, and then he'll have his answer."
"Thank you, I'm sure; it's very impertinent of me presuming to ask," said Daniel, "but, to be plain with you, Mr. Weekes, I'm terrible interested."
"So am I," answered the father. "She's a lovely piece—even I see that. But it ban't a case where a parent will do any good. She'll take her own line, and want none to help her decide. If she was to go, I don't think I should bide here."
"Would you tear yourself away from the works?"
"Go from the works! Not likely. But I should leave Dunnagoat Cottage and live up there."
"Good powers! You wouldn't do that?"
"Why for not? Ban't no ghosts there?"
Daniel shrugged his shoulders.
"Your darter won't let you do it," he said.
With a full mind, the labourer pursued his days. How to speak and tell her that he loved her was the problem. He tried to fortify himself by reviewing his own prospects, but they lent no brightness at this moment. He had fifty pounds saved, and was getting five-and-twenty shillings a week—unusually good wages—but the authority he desired seemed no nearer. Strange thoughts passed through his brain, and he referred them to the powers in which he trusted.
"What's God up to with me now, I wonder?" he asked himself. The words were flippant, but the spirit in which he conceived them profoundly reverent. The suspense and tension of the time made him rather poor company for Agg, Lethbridge, and the widowed Joe Tapson. Indeed, between himself and the last there had risen a cloud. Brendon was dictatorial in matters of farm procedure, and by force of character won imperceptibly a little of the control he wanted. His love for work assisted him; not seldom he finished another's labour, simply because he enjoyed the task and knew that he could perform it better than his companion. Agg and Lethbridge were easy men, and Daniel's hunger for toil caused them no anxiety. They let him assume an attitude above them, and often asked him for help and advice; but Tapson, on the other hand, developed a very jealous spirit. He was ignorant and exceedingly obstinate. He had always regarded himself as second in command, under Mr. Prout, and to find this modest responsibility swept from him became a source of great annoyance. Twice he ventured to command Daniel, and once the new man obeyed, because he approved Tapson's idea; but on the second occasion he happened to be in a bad temper, and told Joe to mind his own business and not order his betters about. The rebuff rankled in the elder's bosom, and he puzzled long what course to pursue. Agg and Lethbridge were no comfort to him. Indeed, both laughed at the widower's concern.
"You silly old mumphead," said the genial Walter Agg; "what be you grizzling at? Any man's welcome to order me about, so long as he'll do my work for me."
"That's sound sense, an' my view to a hair," he declared. "The chap's got strength for five men—then let him do the work, since he's so blessed fond of it. He's a very fine man, an' my master any day of the week, though he don't get much better money. For my part I think he ought to, and I told him so; an' he was so blessed pleased to hear me say it, that he shifted two tons of muck, which was my job, while I looked on, like a gentleman, till master come into the yard!"
Agg roared with laughter. His laugh echoed against the stone walls of the farm, and Hilary Woodrow liked to hear it.
"Right you are, fatty! Dan's a very good sort, and long may be bide here."
"You be lazy hounds, and not worth a pin, the pair of you," answered the little man with the goat's beard. "But I'll not stand none of his high-handedness. Next time I orders him about and he pretends he don't hear, I'll have him up afore Mr. Woodrow."
"More fool you, Joe," replied Agg.
But Mr. Tapson's intention was not fulfilled, for the matter took a sensational turn, and when he did carry his tribulations to head-quarters, they were of a colour more grave than he expected.
On a day in late November Tapson was leading a cart piled with giant swedes through one of the lowest meadows of the farm. The mighty roots faded from white to purple, and drooping, glaucous foliage hung about their crowns. Following the cart, or straggling behind it to gnaw the turnips as he scattered them, came fifty breeding ewes. There was a crisp sound of fat roots being munched by the sheep. The air hung heavy, and the day was grey and mild. Looking up, the labourer saw Daniel Brendon approaching.
"Now for it!" thought Mr. Tapson, and his lips framed an order. "I'll tell the man to go and fetch me a fork from the byre."
He was about to do so, when Brendon himself shouted from a distance of fifty yards, and, to Tapson's amazement, he found himself commanded.
"Get down out of thic cart an' lend a hand here, Joe. I want 'e!"
Every line of the widower's brown face wrinkled into wrath. His very beard bristled. He growled to himself, and his solitary eye blazed.
"You want me, do 'e?" he shouted. "You'll be ordering up the Queen of England next, I suppose?"
"Don't be a fool, and come here, quick."
Mr. Tapson permitted himself a vulgar gesture. Then, chattering and snorting like an angry monkey, he continued to throw swedes upon the meadow. Brendon hesitated and approached. As he did so the widower remembered his own intention.
"You go and get me a fork from the byre; that's what I tell you to do—so now then!" he said, as Daniel arrived.
It happened that the big man was not in a good temper. Private anxieties fretted him exceedingly. His way was obscure. He had prayed to be shown a right course with respect to Sarah Jane, yet there dawned no definite idea. He loved her furiously, and half suspected that she liked him, but the miserable uncertainty and suspense of the time weighed upon him, so that his neighbours shook their heads behind his back and deplored his harshness.
"Be you going to do my bidding, or ban't you, Joe Tapson?" inquired Daniel.
"Not me, you overbearing peacock! Who be you, I should like to know, to tell me I'm to stir foot? Prout's the only man above me on this farm."
Brendon considered. He was about to express regret that he had hurt Mr. Tapson's feelings, but Joe spoke again, and the listener changed his mind.
"You'm a gert bully, like all you over-growed men. Good God A'mighty! because I had bad luck with my wife, and was very down-trodden in my youth, and lost an eye among other misfortunes, be that any reason why the first bull of Bashan as comes along should order me about as if I was the dirt under his feet? Never was such a thing heard of! You'm here to work, I believe, not to talk an' give yourself silly airs."
"If that's your opinion us had best go to master," said Daniel.
"This instant moment, and the sooner the better!" answered the other.
He took his horse and cart to the gate, hitched the reins there, and walked beside Brendon into the farmyard. Neither spoke until it happened that Hilary Woodrow met them. He was just going out riding, and Agg stood by with a handsome brown mare.
Daniel and Joe both began to speak together. Then the master of Ruddyford silenced them, sent Agg out of earshot, and bade Joe tell his tale.
"'Tis which he should betwixt me and this man here," began the elder. "Be he to order me about, like a lost dog, or be I set in authority over him? That's all I want to know, your honour. Agg and Lethbridge do let him do it, but I won't; I'll defy him to his face—a wise man, up home sixty year old, like me! 'Tis a disgrace to nature as I should go under him—as have forgot more than this here man ever knowed, for all his vainglorious opinions!"
Woodrow nodded.
"That'll do for you, Joe. Now go about your business. I'll speak to Brendon."
Tapson touched his forehead and withdrew reluctantly. He had hoped to hear his enemy roughly handled; he had trusted to gather from his master's lips a word or two that might be remembered and used with effect on some future occasion. But it was not to be. He returned to the swedes, and only learnt the issue some hours afterwards from Daniel himself.
Unluckily for Brendon, Woodrow also was not in a pleasant mood this morning. He suffered from general debility, for which there was no particular course, and to-day rheumatism had returned, and was giving him some pain in the chest and shoulders. He rode now to see his medical man, and felt in no mood for large sympathy or patience.
"A few words will meet this matter," he said. "When you came here I told you that the sheep-dogs would be expected to obey you, and nobody else."
"Can't we ax each other to——?"
"Be silent till I have spoken. You're too fond of raising your voice and pointing your hand. Do your work with less noise. In this farm Prout's head man, and Tapson comes under him. With sane people there's no question of authority at all. All work together for the good of the place, and all are well paid for their trouble. But, since you seem so anxious to command, let me tell you that I won't have it. You're the last to come, and you're the least among us. You do your work well enough, and I've no personal fault to find; nor yet has Prout; but if you're going to be too big for your shoes, the quicker we part the better for both of us."
Brendon grew hot; then Sarah Jane filled his mind, and he cooled again. He made a mighty effort and controlled his temper. He was not cowed, but spoke civilly and temperately. Woodrow himself had kept perfectly cool, and his example helped the labourer.
"Thank you, sir," said Dan. "I see quite clear now. I should be very sorry indeed to leave you, and I'm very wishful to please you. You shan't have nothing to grumble at again."
"That's a good fellow. Don't think I'm blind, or so wrapt up in my affairs that I don't watch what's doing. You hear Tapson say all sorts of things about me, for he's not very fond of me, though he pretends to be. But trust Prout before the others. He knows me. I'm not a godless man, and all the rest of that rot. Only I mind my own business, and don't wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm ill to-day, or perhaps I should not have spoken so sharply. Still, I take back nothing. Now tell Agg to bring my horse to the uppingstock. Lord knows how I shall mount, for my shoulders are one ache."
"I'll help you, please," said Daniel; and a moment later he assisted Hilary Woodrow into the saddle. The farmer thanked him, groaned, then walked his horse quietly away.
Agg looked after his master.
"Was he short with 'e? Us have to keep our weather eyes lifting when he's sick."
"Not at all," answered Brendon. "He only told me a thing or two I'd forgotten."
"Ban't much you forget, I reckon," answered the red man. Then he went his way, and Brendon returned to his work and his reflections.
He felt no anger at this reprimand. He was surprised with himself to find how placid he remained under it. But he knew the reason. His subordinate position was as nothing weighed against the possibility of leaving Sarah Jane. He quickly came to a conclusion with himself, and determined, at any cost of disappointment, to speak to her and ask her to marry him. If she refused, he would quit Ruddyford; if she accepted him, he would stay there—for the present. His mind became much quieted upon this decision, and he found leisure to reflect concerning his master. Woodrow had been curiously communicative at the recent interview, and his confession concerning himself interested his man. From Daniel's point of view the farmer's life was godless, for he never obeyed any outward regulations, and openly declared himself of no Christian persuasion. Yet his days were well ordered, and he neither openly erred nor offended anybody. Brendon wondered upon what foundation Mr. Woodrow based his scheme of conduct, and whither he looked for help and counsel. That man can trust reason to sustain his footsteps he knew not; and, indeed, at that date, to find one of Woodrow's education and breeding strongly sceptical of mind was a phenomenon. Such, however, had been his bent, and, like many others who turn strongly by instinct from all dogmas, the farmer yet found ethics an attractive subject, and sharpened his intellect daily with such books as upheld reason against faith. He was self-conscious concerning his unorthodox opinions, but secretly felt proud of them. Fifty years ago, to be agnostic was to be without the pale. None trusted Woodrow, and religious-minded folk resented his existence. The local clergymen would not know him. Perhaps only one man, John Prout, stood stoutly for him in the face of all people, and declared that he could do no wrong.
That night Brendon smoked his pipe in a cart-shed and spoke to Mr. Tapson.
"I'm sorry I ordered you to come to me, Joe," he said, "and I'm sorrier still that I didn't get the fork when you told me to do it. Master's made all clear to me. Prout's head man and you're second—so there it stands; and you shan't have no call to find fault again."
"Enough said," answered the other. "Us must all stand up for ourselves in this world, Brendon, because there's nobody else to do it. Therefore I up and spoke. But I'm very desirous to be friends, and I know your good parts."