HOW THEY WENT INTO THE COPSE.
When Burrough came into his lonely cottage the first thing that
struck him was the silence. Usually the wind was sighing and moaning;
the water was roaring down the gorge beneath his windows. Inside two
clocks were ticking and chattering like a pair of magpies; and Peter
Grimalkin, Crown Prince of Cats, was purring upon the lounge. But
there was not a sound that evening. There was not even a breeze upon
the moor, not enough to make a moan. There was scarcely any water
coming down the gorge, certainly far too little to raise a roar. The
clocks had stopped, which was only natural, as Burrough had forgotten
to wind them. Peter, generally over-punctual to meals, was absent,
having left the impression of his body upon a cushion as a sort of
hint he would return anon. The silence and loneliness were together
more than Burrough could endure. He went out, leaned against his
favourite rock, and presently began to offer serious advice to that
portion of his personality which was inclined to break out into
revolt. “Now, look here, old chap,” he said, addressing the top of his
boot. “You’ve been making a fool of yourself lately, and you’ve been
knocked out. No more weakness. Sit up straight and take your
punishment like a little man. Beatrice is not for you. She’s been very
kind and nice--I won’t say she hasn’t flirted a bit, but that’s her
way--and she’s given you more happiness than you deserved; and
now--well, now she’s going away, and you’ve got to stop here and make
a living. I warned you right along you had no chance. There’s all the
difference in the world between a gentleman on granite and a gentleman
on clover. You’re on the granite, and always will be, and she’s on the
clover. If you hadn’t been broken up by that shell it would have been
just the same. You were a miserable creature to try and deceive her,
and of course she’s angry, and would naturally hate you, even if you
weren’t more than twice as ugly as wall-eyed Kellaway. You’ll get over
this all right, and settle down the same as ever. It’s only a weak
fool who permits his life to be spoilt by a love affair. You must
remember that love, matrimony, companionship, are merely incidents of
life. What a man does, his work, his actions, his influence--those
make up his life.”
This was very sound philosophy, and suited Burrough’s case admirably.
He went on to assure himself that if Beatrice were to become his they
would soon grow tired of one another; they might even quarrel, and
separate in mutual disgust. Of course he wanted her, but that was not
so much because he loved her, as because she was beyond him. He was so
convinced that Beatrice had not been intended for him in any case,
that he searched for Peter to impart the information to that
indifferent creature. Peter, however, was in none of his usual haunts.
Burrough decided he might feel lonely presently. There was always his
work, which he had neglected for so long. He would devote himself in
earnest to that, now that he had burst all the bubbles of pleasure
within reach. He had finished the frivolous chapter of his life. The
next chapter was to be solid work. There is nothing a man cannot
accomplish by hard work. To-morrow--_Avanti!_ Stones and sermons. The
granite of Dartmoor should yield gold. The primitive structures of the
moor should be dealt with as they had never been before. He would run
up the gamut of stone-age architecture from menhir and dolmen to the
beehive hut. And the answer of a gratified public would be the answer
of the commoner, who was accused of destroying a cromlech to make the
wall of his new-take. “What’s the good of ’en? The Almighty put they
stoanes there for use. So I cracked ’en up and used ’en.” That
commoner was a member of the public. He had no reverence for cromlech
or hut circle. He had the practical side of life to attend to, so he
“cracked ’en up and used ’en.” The public in general have a
sentimental side, but stone-memorials do not enter into it. They would
say of Burrough’s book, more elegantly, perhaps, but none the less
shrewdly, “What’s the good of ’en?”
Burrough felt proud of himself. He was displaying courage,
self-restraint, and determination. He had made up his mind to forget
Beatrice, and had no doubt he would succeed. Still he felt lonely; so
he walked about the furze-bushes and stone-clatters, calling for
Peter; and receiving no answer he went indoors, lighted his stove,
wound up his clocks, and reflected that “making happy” was the literal
meaning of the name Beatrice.
Evening came at last, warm and cloudy. A silvery light above the tors
hinted at the presence of the moon behind the canopy. The heather
ceased to blush, and the bloom of the gorse became misty. A nightjar
down the gorge appeared to imagine itself a blacksmith, and made
horrible noises accordingly. The last cartload of peat had jolted in
from bogland. The stone-yard was silent, and the workers were gathered
together in Eastaway’s bar-room to sing ballads with the moormen.
Burrough heard them singing as he made his way towards Brynamoor.
There was pure white mountain mist hanging along the cleave. The
lonely watcher could see the undulating lines of the high moor on one
side, and on the other portions of the tors like mediæval castles
lying in ruins. It was hard to believe that misty fabric was composed
of immense granite blocks piled one above the other. Those blocks were
faint pencillings upon the sky. The upper part of the moor was a
cloud, a creation of moist air--but a breeze passed, the mist was
shaken out like the folds of a robe, then settled into a filmy sheet,
blending substance with shadow, melting the granite masses into
ghost-clouds. As Burrough walked on, another change occurred. The moon
appeared, and in a moment nothing that was indefinite remained. The
village sycamores cast lace-like shadows. The lines became sharp, the
rugged outlines of ruined tors were clear-cut. There was no sense of
mystery. The mist had been poetical, the silvery glow sentimental; but
there was something cold and pitiless about the moonlight.
Two figures wandered upon Brynamoor. Beatrice had brought her aunt,
for which kindly act the little lady was grateful. She enjoyed being
with her niece. It made her feel young; also it made her feel wicked.
“I shall have to bail you out of the police-court some day,” Beatrice
had said to her relative, during an evening’s diversion in London,
when the little lady, conscious that no one knew her, had announced
her intention “to persevere in dissipation for the rest of the night.”
Beatrice was pale, frightened, unhappy, when she saw Burrough
approaching. She had already forgiven his deceit, which was in a
manner complimentary to her. She admired his courage when she
perceived that he had at last removed his bandage. But one glance at
his terribly disfigured features was sufficient. It was worse even
than she had feared. He made a terrifying spectacle in the moonlight.
That light which idealised her own bizarre face added deformity to
his. She felt the same kind of shrinking dread which the one-legged
fisherman had inspired her with as a child.
“That Mr. Burrough! How shocking!” Miss Pentreath whispered.
Burrough came up and joined them. He saw Beatrice shrink slightly, and
avert her eyes when she greeted him, so he turned the brim of his hat
to conceal his damages, and placed himself at her right hand; while
Miss Pentreath simpered something about the moonlight, and said she
wished very much she could recall some poetry she had learnt in
her--at least a year or so ago.
“Shall we go into the copse?” Beatrice suggested, nodding in the
direction of a gate set within the stone hedge.
“Certainly not. There are snakes, and things that creep, jump, and
bite,” cried Miss Pentreath. “Besides, it’s muddy, and I have on my
thin shoes and lace stockings.”
“I want to go and pick flowers. I like picking them by moonlight,” the
girl went on. “They are all alike by this light; you can only
distinguish them by smell. Don’t you like the smell of wild flowers?”
she asked Burrough, but without looking up at him.
“They smell of the open air,” she cried when he had answered in the
affirmative. “I hate the smell of cultivated flowers; they smell of
disinfectants and hospitals.”
“This girl runs wild when she finds the first primrose,” said Miss
Pentreath.
“It’s the first sign of spring,” Beatrice explained. “Every winter I
have a horrible dread lest by some terrible accident there should be
no spring or summer. When I see the first primrose I know we’re all
right; so I pounce upon it and eat it.”
“Why do you eat it?” asked Burrough in his grave, low voice.
“Primitive instinct, I suppose. It’s my way of expressing supreme
satisfaction. If you will wait here five minutes,” Beatrice went on,
pinching her aunt’s arm slily, “Mr. Burrough and I will go into the
copse, as I must and will have a handful of the white orchids, which,
if gathered by moonlight, are a sure protection against evil-eye,
convulsions, change of weather, and a host of other things--a sort of
pixy patent-medicine, in fact. Sit you here, auntie, and think of your
sins, while I go to secure the means of rendering myself proof against
the spells and enchantments of all the black witches between Tamar and
Sennen Cove.”
“But I don’t like stopping here by myself,” protested the little lady.
“Bogey won’t run away with you,” laughed Beatrice. “I shan’t be gone
more than five minutes--which may mean a quarter of an hour. If you
see or hear anything frightful, light the furze. When I see the glow I
will run.”
“Suppose I’m bitten by a viper?”
“Bite him back, dear,” cried Beatrice, and ran to join Burrough, who
was pacing moodily towards the hedge with its mantle of ferns and
stonecrop.
He swung open the gate. Beatrice slipped through, and, lifting her
short skirts, hurried across the rough ground as though she desired to
escape from him. When he turned from the gate she was a dozen yards in
front. He hurried after her, and, with a laugh, she began to run. She
jumped a water-course and sped on, and was actually gaining upon him,
when she stopped short, made some strange movements, and then began to
hop with one foot off the ground.
“I’m beaten,” she called. “What chance have we who run in skirts? I’ve
been and kicked my foot through the flounce of my petticoat.”
There was a gnarled oak close by, so she hopped thrice, and, leaning
against it, disengaged her foot. Some inches of flimsy white material
fluttered about the grass, and she tried to tear it off, but failed;
so, looking up with a laughing face, she begged for a knife.
As Burrough approached she put out her hands suddenly.
“I must say it at once--I’m sorry, so sorry,” she said, softly. “I
know why you didn’t tell me now. You thought it might turn out better
than it has done. I am so sorry. I can’t think of anything else to
say. But we shouldn’t have blended, perhaps. Here, lend me your knife,
please. It’s all right, isn’t it? I’m not Beatrice--I was only
Beatrice for a little--the evening we went swaling and that night in
the ruin. The rest of the time I was Bill. I wanted to be Bill always,
only you wouldn’t let me. I am Bill now, and you are Jack. We were at
school together, you know. Don’t you remember how we used to cheek the
masters?”
Burrough’s single eye was fixed upon the torn flounce. He did not dare
to look at her lest he should see her shiver again when she saw his
disfigurement. He drew the brim of his hat still more down.
“What are you doing?” cried she. “No, you must not cut it off; you
might forget I am just Bill--your old pal, Billy P. Please let me do
it; you forget. It’s just a silly trick of mine, this masquerading in
frills and flounces. I’m really--yes, a horrid, beery fisherman, and I
chew tobacco, and I swear and beat my wife, and I’ve got a little
fishing-smack at St. Sennen--the ‘Stormy Petrel,’ by Bill
Pentreath--and they call me ‘cap’n’ down there. I wonder you know such
people.”
“It’s all right, Bill; I don’t forget,” said Burrough bravely.
“Gi’e us yer knife then, Jack. I wants to trim these ’ere duds o’
mine,” said Beatrice delightedly.
“She doesn’t care,” he thought. “It is nothing to her.”
“Let me do it, Bill,” he pleaded.
“Ah, well,” said she, with a distinctly feminine sigh.
But when Burrough was upon his knees at those tiny feet, the fragrant
petticoat in his hands, his knuckles against the warm, strong ankle,
he lost, not all, but a part of his self-restraint; and this fact was
communicated to him less through his senses than by means of
Beatrice’s voice saying reproachfully, although more softly than she
had intended--
“Jack, thee’rt a gurt fool!”
“It’s done--it’s off!” he cried, somewhat hoarsely, perhaps, but still
strongly, holding the pretty scented trifle out.
“I’ll get the missis to sew it on,” laughed she; but there were tears
in her eyes had he known it. She admired his courage and his strength
the more; his courage in that he had not been yet weaker, his strength
in conquering what weakness there was. Those kisses were warm upon her
pretty ankle.
“Jack, we mustn’t stop,” she hurried on. “There’s auntie waiting, and
she’s nervous by herself. I thought it would be wise to bring her, and
then--well, you know. You’ve been a good boy, Jack, very good; and
Bill’s proud of you. Now look--look down into the copse!”
Burrough turned slowly and stupidly. He saw hundreds of white spikes
springing from the lush grass below. They were orchid blooms nodding
sleepily in the enchanted moonlight.
“I must have some,” she said, and went down into the lush grass, which
reached her knees, regardless of wet feet and damaged lace; for she
was careless of her pretty clothes, and perhaps she wanted to cool
that burning ankle in the swamp.
“Come and help,” she called. “We must hurry; there are clouds coming
up over the moon, and if it’s dark on Brynamoor auntie will scream.”
Burrough went down and helped, keeping some distance from her. He was
thankful when a gauzy veil was drawn across the moon, making Beatrice
a ghostly figure and concealing his deformity from her. He could
hardly see the white spikes of the orchids; they were confused with
the cotton sedge.
In the meantime the girl was chattering:
“Shine, bright moon, or you’ll break the spell. There are drunkards
here. They ought to have done flowering by now. They are very late
drunkards.” She was referring to a few marsh-marigolds which displayed
their yellow cups at the edge of the swamp. “It is a shame to call
them drunkards, even if they are always drinking. They only drink
water, but perhaps bog-water is rather rich and heady. And here! Are
these ghastly little things forget-me-nots? Yes, they are.”
As she spoke a glow of red light came across the copse. Light clouds
drifted overhead, there was a noisy crackling, and the air became full
of sparks.
“Auntie has fired Brynamoor,” cried Beatrice. “There she sits upon her
rock, singing as she watches the world burning. She thinks the five
minutes are up.”
They came up from the copse. Burrough tried to hang back, because he
felt there was much he would like to say, if he could find the words,
and the courage to utter them; but Beatrice pressed on towards the
gate, obviously anxious to bring the scene to a close.
“Peter has gone,” he exclaimed at last. “I am alone now.”
“Gone!” said Beatrice. “Hoisted Blue Peter? Weighed his little anchor?
Walked his own chalks, without a last paw-shake, or a valedictory
mew?”
“I have not seen him all day. He never came in this evening. He has
always been punctual to his meals.”
“I knew how it would be,” said Beatrice. “A messenger came last night
to tell him that the old king his father had passed away, and that he
was king of all the cats. Of course he would have to go at once, or
some pretender might have seized the crown. He won’t forget you. He’ll
send you the Crown Prince to bring up. Some morning you’ll find a fine
black kitten lost among the heather by your door. You can take him in
and call him Moses.”
“Peter was my only companion,” he went on sadly.
“He will come back,” said Beatrice. “Of course he will. Cats are
fearful profligates. They go away for sprees of a week, then sneak
home like prodigal sons to be fed up and pampered.”
They were at the gate. The stone hedge concealed them from Miss
Pentreath, who was strutting nervously beside the glowing furze.
Burrough stopped with his hand upon the catch, and turned suddenly to
face the girl with a fond whisper of her name.
“Your bad memory,” she laughed. “Not Beatrice, but Bill. Remember me
as Bill. Write to me as Bill--and like me as Bill.”
After that he could do nothing. There was no doubt that was her final
answer. The moon was out again, and he stood revealed; and Miss
Pentreath had sighted her niece and was coming towards them with quite
unreasonable haste.
When Burrough returned to his cottage beside the gorge Peter had not
returned. He went almost immediately to bed, reminding himself again
that love and matrimony, and even the disappearance of a favourite
cat, were merely incidents of life. He consoled himself with the
thought that he would see Beatrice for another two weeks, listen to
her chatter, visit with her their little kingdom by the river, and
feel the enchantment of her presence. During the fourteen days much
might happen. She liked him, and therefore she might accustom herself
to his disfigurement. She might cease to be Bill of the copse, and
become again Beatrice of Blissland, Beatrice of the tiny footprint and
the golden hairpin.
The next morning Willum came up the cleave with gun and dogs and the
letter-bag. He was very late, and his temper was bad. He explained
these facts by informing Burrough, whom he met among the rocks
searching for Peter, that the two ladies had cut short their visit,
and had upset his mother by ordering an early breakfast, and annoyed
himself by sending him out still earlier to order the carriage so that
they might catch the first west-bound train.