FIRE BEACON HILL
Free horizons stretched about the grassy summit of Fire Beacon, a
culminating ridge above Dart.
It ascended from a glorious ambit of hill and valley, moor and sea;
and on this silvery noon of early summer, light rained out of the
zenith and echoed in the scattered cloud argosies that sailed from
the north to seaward. Under them spread a mosaic of multicoloured
fields netted with hedges and knotted with copses or spinneys, grey
hamlets and little thorpes. The million breasts of Artemis Devonia
undulated beneath the shining patchwork and faded into distance over
many leagues of sunkissed weald and wold, until they rippled dimly
to the foothills and forest edges of Dartmoor, where the high lands
were flung hugely out from east to west. To-day the Moor shone full of
delicate colour under the sun. It rose and fell in a lustrous opaline
sky line of gentle salients; it melted at the magic of the universal
light and seemed no more than a delicate veil of grey and azure
imposed transparently upon the brighter blue above it. From Hey Tor to
Rippon it rolled, to Buckland and Holne Moor, with shadowy glimpses of
Hameldon and remote Cosdon; to Dean Moor and Harford, by Eastern Beacon
and Western Beacon, Lee Moor and Shell Top and far border heights that
brooded through the milky hazes of the west.
Beneath Fire Beacon lay the clustered dwellings of East Cornworthy,
and beyond them, deep in the heart of the land, shone Dart where there
bent away Bow Creek above Stoke Gabriel. The river wound argent through
a dimple of the bending hills, while easterly, by broad passages of
woodland and fallow, opened the ways to the sea. Tor Bay stretched
there with white Torquay glittering pearly under her triple hills;
and far beyond them, touched through the haze by a falling sunshaft,
glimmered the headlands eastward, cliff beyond cliff, where the red
sandstone of Devon gave to the golden oolites of Dorset. Then ranged
the sea-line and rolled wide waters soaked with light, whereon the
clouds not only flung down their shadows, but poured their reflections
also, so that the sea was radiant as the land.
Fire Beacon bore hay, and as the wind rippled the distant waters, so
here, through ripening grass, over sparkling white daisies and russet
sorrel, it ran and swept and sent a lustre, that danced upon the hill
and stroked the herbage with fitful waves of light. A cuckoo called
from an elm top and overhead wheeled the gulls to link earth and sea
together.
Hither climbed a party of four holiday makers, of whom two were
middle-aged and two were young. The more youthful pair walked some
hundred yards ahead and bore between them a hamper; their elders
breasted the great hill more leisurely and stopped sometimes upon the
way. Once, where a grassy dip in the hedge bank invited them to do so,
they sat down to rest for a while.
Ned and Medora reached the crown of Fire Beacon and sought a place for
their picnic under the nearest hedge. They found it presently, but
waited until Lydia and Philander should arrive and approve.
Perfect understanding appeared to obtain between the husband and wife.
Medora was attired in a pre-Kellock gown, which Mr. Dingle had always
admired. Indeed she had given the garments that came from London
to Daisy Finch. She had been highly ingenious in returning to the
old régime at every minute particular, and in banishing to the void
any evidence of the inter-regnum. She came back to Ned sufficiently
contrite and sufficiently grateful and thankful. Her tact had been
sharpened by tribulation, and remembering very well what was good
to her husband, she wasted not much time on tears of repentance or
promises of future well doing. She let her luck take the form of
joyousness—which suited Dingle best. Her gratitude assumed the most
agreeable shape from his point of view, for she exhibited such delight
in her home and such radiant happiness in his company that he found
himself content. Nor, for once, was there any simulation on Medora’s
part. She felt the satisfaction she expressed. She appreciated the
extent of her remarkable good fortune and desired nothing more than a
return to the life she had under-valued. They were for the moment not
talking of themselves, but Medora’s mother.
“Poor dear! You may say that Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom pretty well
cast her out,” said Mrs. Dingle. “A proper shame I call it, and a
proper lesson not to work your fingers to the bone for other people’s
children. You’d think mother was a traitor to ’em, instead of the best
friend they ever had, or will have—selfish creatures.”
“Well, you’ve done her a very good turn by getting her out of that
house. Knox will know how to value such a fine woman, though it’s
contrary to nature that two old blades like them should feel all
younger people feel, I suppose.”
“He feels enough not to let mother work in the Mill any more,” said
Medora.
“And you know you need not, if you don’t want.”
“I do, you dear. But I’m only too jolly thankful to be back there
and that’s the truth. I’d sooner be there than anywhere, because I’m
nearer to you all day, and we can eat our dinner together. But mother’s
different and Mr. Knox has very dignified ideas how she should live at
her age.”
“You say ‘at her age,’ but be blessed if this racket hasn’t knocked
years off her,” said Ned. “I can quite imagine a man of half a century
old might think her good-looking.”
By a curious coincidence Philander was stating the same opinion half
a mile down the hill. Indeed Lydia’s face seemed a palimpsest to Mr.
Knox, and through more recent writings, to her countenance there
would still come a twinkle from the past and a flash and flush, that
penetrated thirty years of Time’s caligraphy and seemed to recreate her
features, even to a little curl at the corner of her under-lip, that
belonged to youth and had been delicious then.
Mr. Knox perceived these things.
“Dammy, you’re growing younger under my very eyes, Lydia,” he said.
She laughed.
“Tom didn’t think so,” she answered. “He said that for an aged woman—”
“Get him out of your mind,” said Mr. Knox. “The forties are often very
unmerciful to the fifties—a trick of human nature I can’t explain.”
“I know I’m younger; and it’s largely along of you, Philander, but not
all. You can understand how the thought of them two up there have made
me younger. I never dreamed they could come together again—not in my
most hopeful moments.”
“That’s because you didn’t know how short a distance they’d really
fallen apart.”
“’Tis too good to be true. I’m frightened of it.”
“Not you,” he said. “You never was frightened of anything and never
will be.”
“For that matter there is a dark side,” explained Lydia, “and I’m
almost glad there is in a way, because if there wasn’t, the whole story
would be contrary to nature and would tumble down like a pack of cards.”
“There’s no dark side, and I won’t have you say there is, Lyddy. Why
shouldn’t the Lord hatch a piece of happiness for four humans once in
a way, if He’s got a mind to do it?”
“It ain’t the Almighty; it’s my people at Priory Farm. I heard some
bitter things there I do assure you.”
“I’ll bet you did,” said Mr. Knox. “I can see ’em at you. And I can
also very well guess what they said about me.”
“Especially Mary. I never heard her use such language, and I never
saw her so properly awake before. But I was glad after, because when
she called you a crafty old limb of the Dowl, that got my fighting
spirit up and they heard a home truth or two. I thought they were very
different stuff.”
“If you take people as you find ’em, you’ll make friends,” answered
Mr. Knox; “but if you take people as you fancy ’em, you will not. No
doubt folk are very flattered at first to find our opinion of ’em is as
high as their opinion of themselves. But that don’t last. We can’t for
long think of any fellow creature as highly as he thinks of himself.
The strain’s too great, and so, presently, we come down to the truth
about our friend; and he sees we know it and can’t forgive us. So the
friendship fades out, because it was built on fancy and not on reality.
That’s what happens to most friendships in the long run.”
“I suppose I never got quite a true picture of my brother’s wife,”
admitted Lydia.
“You did not. And what’s hurting her so sharp for the minute and making
her so beastly rude is—not so much your going, as your knowing the
truth about her. But don’t you fret. They’ll cringe presently. I dare
say they’ll be at our wedding yet.”
“I wish I could think so,” she answered. “But it ought to come right,
for, after all, I’m a mother too, and what choice had I when Ned got me
in a corner like that?”
“Not an earthly,” declared Mr. Knox.
They joined Ned and Medora presently. The view was nothing to any
of them, but the elders welcomed the breeze at hill top. Their talk
concerned the wedding.
“A very Christian spirit in the air,” Philander asserted. “Even
Nicholas Pinhey has forgiven me, thanks to your mother, Medora. He
dropped in on Saturday, and he said, ‘You called me a caterpillar, not
so very many weeks ago, Mr. Knox,’ and I answered, ‘I’m afraid you’re
right.’ And he said, ‘Yes; and when you done so, I thought it was a
case of “Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he sayeth.”— And I
wish you to understand that I forgive it and forget it also, out of
respect for Mrs. Trivett. The man that Mrs. Trivett thinks good enough
to marry must have some virtues hidden from common eyes,’ said Nicholas
to me.”
“And Mercy Life’s forgiven me,” said Medora. “I wouldn’t let her have
any peace till she did. And Alice Barefoot passes the time of day even!
That’s thanks to mother of course.”
“They’re getting up a fine wedding present for mother in the rag
house,” announced Ned. “It’s a secret, but Henry Barefoot told me. It’s
going to take the shape of a tea service, I believe.”
“I can’t see myself away from the rag house,” murmured Mrs. Trivett.
“You couldn’t see yourself away from Priory Farm, mother,” said Medora.
“’Tis a want of imagination in you, Lydia,” declared Mr. Knox. “You’ll
say you can’t see yourself married to me next. But that you certainly
will see inside a month from Sunday.”
They spoke of various matters that interested them; then Mr. Knox
mentioned Kellock.
“Strange that a man born and bred under the apple trees of Ashprington
should show these gifts. A great paper maker; and as if that was not
enough, a power of talk and a talent for politics. Not that he’ll ever
be half as good in his new line as he was in his old. A man can’t rise
to be first class at two crafts.”
“The Labour Party will swallow him up, and we shan’t hear no more about
him, I expect,” said Lydia.
“That’s it. He hadn’t the very highest gifts to deal with his fellow
men—not the touch of genius—too deadly serious and narrow. You feel
about that sort a very proper respect; but you’d a long sight sooner
live with their statues than themselves. ’Tis always uncomfortable
living with heroes—even little tin ones—but when time has took ’em
and just kneaded what good they’ve done into the common wealth of human
progress—then we can feel kindly to their memories.”
“Ope the hamper, Ned,” said Lydia.
THE END
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.