'At Welltown--no one?'
'My nurse. No one else.'
'How lonely in the world you must be!'
'Utterly,' he answered.
Then she brightened up, and, dashing some tears from her eyes, held out
her hands to him laughingly across the glowing hearth. 'There, there,
poor boy! We have been talking of Cornwall. There you may be alone and
unloved, but here, in old Devon, under the shadow of Cosdon, you have a
home, and hearts that care a great deal for you; there is my father,
here am I, then there is Joyce, and lastly my white cat! See! he is up
on your knee this moment. There! never again say that you are solitary
and unloved. It is not true, it is utterly false. Good-night, Cousin
John! sweet sleep, happy dreams, and a glad awaking to you!'
*CHAPTER XLVIII.*
*TWO BEQUESTS.*
Next morning John Herring went early to Upaver. The wheel was up, and
the leat had been cut. But the wall supporting the axle of the wheel
was improperly built, and the leat was improperly levelled. Much that
the contractor had undertaken to do had been left undone, and most that
he had done was done so badly that it had to be done over again.
Herring called for the day-books, and soon saw that the men working for
day wage had taken three days to do what might have been done in one,
and that was work which need not have been done at all.
Ophir had demoralised the entire neighbourhood. The object aimed at
there had been to make a great display of activity, but to produce
nothing. What had been begun at Ophir, the workmen supposed was to
continue at Upaver.
Herring rang the bell of the mine, and called the men together. He
dismissed the foreman on the spot--that civil and intelligent foreman
whom Mr. Battishill esteemed so highly. He told the men that henceforth
he would be their captain; he would be at Upaver every day, and would
set every man his work, and what he set each man he expected him to
execute. A fair day's work for a fair wage, and no payment for idle
hours. Those who disliked his terms might go elsewhere in quest of new
Ophirs. There was one subsidiary matter he wished to speak of. Old
Grizzly Cobbledick was much at the mine, and was treated by the men. He
disapproved of this. He would not have the old man given drink and made
sport of there. If he would work, he should be given work; if he were
determined to get drunk, he must get his drink elsewhere.
Then Herring examined the adit.
Much the same story there as outside. The work had been gone on with
anyhow, the ore thrown out with the cable.
He did not return to West Wyke to dinner in the middle of the day; he
was too busy. He remained in the mine, and made the men dig whilst he
was present. The vein 'bunched,' and the bunch of nearly pure metal was
before him. A rich profit was a certainty.
When the men knocked off work, he turned to go to West Wyke. He was
covered with dirt, but he was in good spirits. He had not been
mistaken. Upaver mine would clear the property of its incumbrances, and
repay every penny that had been sunk in it. Mirelle's money had been
invested in the mortgages, Mirelle's money had been spent on the mine.
Her money was not only safe, it was where it would yield excellent
interest.
As Herring came away, he found Grizzly awaiting the men leaving work, to
beg of them tobacco, a draught of cyder or spirits, or some coppers.
'I want to speak to you,' said Herring. 'Come along with me.'
Grizzly trudged at his side. There had been a rude savagery in the man
when Herring had first known him which was not without its dignity. Old
Cobbledick had then worked on his own land, grown his own potatoes,
lived in his own house, and thrashed his own child. The consciousness
of independence had given him an upright carriage and an open and
haughty look. All this was gone. Ophir had robbed him of the one
redeeming element in his nature. He had found it easier to beg than to
work. He had abandoned all attempt at labour for a livelihood, and with
that had lost independence. Formerly he had been defiant in his sense
of freedom, he was now cringing in his submission. He had been a
temperate man, drinking only water; now he drank whenever he could find
any one to treat him, and whatever was given to him. Association with
men higher than himself in civilisation had lowered, not lifted, him.
It is so with all savages when brought in contact with civilisation;
some seize the moment, and mount, others are cast into deeper
degradation than they knew before. It is so with ourselves when set
within the orbit of higher and nobler forces than we knew before. They
exercise on us a centripetal or a centrifugal energy. Cobbledick was
debased. His rags of old had become him, they now made him repulsive;
he had ceased to be a man, and had become a scarecrow.
'I want to speak to you, Cobbledick,' said Herring, walking on his way,
the old man at his side.
'Your honour! I be all ears. It be the backie sure-ly has a come into
your head.'
'It is the drink, Grizzly; the drink.'
'Oh!' exclaimed Cobbledick, 'to think I lived these scores and scores of
years without a knowing what it were. But now--glory rallaluley!
Praises be! I can get drunk when I meets a real gemman.'
'Grizzly, I have forbidden the men at the mine to give you anything. If
you choose to come there and work, I will find you work that you can do,
but if I discover that the men give you drink, and encourage you in your
idle, vagabond ways, I shall dismiss them, and find others who will obey
me. Mark this, Grizzly, not another drop of anything, in treat or
otherwise, do you get at Upaver. Go back to the Giant's Table, and dig
your fields there like a man, instead of slouching about, picking up
halfpence and sips of gin, a wretched beggar.'
'I ain't to get nothing to Upaver?' asked Cobbledick, incredulously.
'Do you not understand plain words? Not a drop. I will not have Upaver
a curse to you and others, such as Ophir was. If you will work, I will
give you tasks equal to your powers.'
'Ekal to my powers!' roared Grizzly; 'look at my hands. See, they be
two, three times as big as yours. I could break every bone in your body
with mun. I be strong; I reckon, stronger than most of they fellows
down to Upaver.'
'Very well, then, work.'
'I won't work. I ain't forced.'
'No, I am sorry for it. It is a mistake that you are given broken
scraps from West Wyke. That keeps you from famishing, and emancipates
you from the necessity of working.'
'You'd cut me off that next, I reckon.'
'Yes, I would.'
'You would!' repeated the old man malevolently. 'You takes away my
liquor, and my meat, and my daughter as ought to work and keep me in my
old age, and'--he turned and looked up in Herring's face--'you took the
box from under the hearthstone.'
Herring started. The old man observed his advantage and chuckled.
'Grizzly, it is quite true that I took the box. You had no right to it;
you had stolen it from the carriage that was upset. I took it that I
might return it----'
'Oh, in coorse, in coorse, you returned the box at once, and all that
was in it, to the young lady with the white face.'
Herring could not answer. The old man, with his natural shrewdness, saw
that he had gained an advantage. Of the value of the contents of the
box he had no idea. He determined to improve his advantage.
'You took thicky box, as you take to plundering me of everything I has.
I reckon you'd like to take from me the chance of sleeping in the
linney.'
'Yes, I would, Grizzly. Whatever I deprive you of is for your own
advantage. It is not safe for you to lie in the straw of the linney. I
know that you have gone in there more than once, tipsy, and smoking your
pipe.'
'Well, what then?'
'Why, you may be setting fire to the linney, and burn that and the
house, and yourself as well. However, to return to the box. If that
box had been found in your possession by any one but myself, you would
have been sent to prison. The box was not yours. It was stolen. If I
desire now to deprive you of drink, it is because drink is degrading
you. I want to force you to work.'
'I won't work no more,' said Cobbledick, angrily. 'There be the backie,
also. You've never paid me that.'
'What tobacco?'
'Ah! when you was sick, and my Joyce nussed you under the Table, you got
in debt to me a score pounds and one more, that be as many as you've a
got fingers and toes, and your head throwed in to make another. That be
what you've owed me a long while, and never paid yet. There were that
old Tramplara, he owed me scores and scores of backie, but he never paid
me none at all. He went scatt. I did think you were a gemman, and
would serve a poor man better.'
'I do not understand about the tobacco.'
'Loramussy! it be easy enough to understand, sure-ly. You was brought
here in a waggon; well, that waggon had to be paid for, and my Joyce
paid with her work, and then she was a neglecting of me. You were
brought to my house, and I had to clear out and go elsewhere, and after
that Joyce did nothing more for me. You expect me and my Joyce to work
for'y, and you never pay a brass farthing? No gemman be like that. I
call that a proper blaggard trick, I do.'
'Good heavens, Grizzly! If you want to be paid for the use of your
house because it served as my hospital, by all means name the price. I
will pay you in tobacco if you desire it. How much do you require?'
'As many pounds as you've fingers and toes, and your head chucked in.'
'You shall have them.'
'And then,' pursued Grizzly, 'there be Joyce. What hev you gone and
tooked 'er away from me for? Oh! ah! you've not? That be fine. Her
worked peaceable enough for her poor old vaither till you come by and
turn 'er head with your talking and sweethearting----'
'Grizzly!' exclaimed Herring, angrily, 'hold that villanous tongue of
yours at once.'
'Ah, you don't want to be told of all the wrongs you've a done to me.
Oh dear! the deal of pains and expense as her hev a put me to, what with
her rearing, and her feeding, and her clothing, and--that is to be all
for nort. When her be good full growed and able-bodied, and might work
for her old vaither, then you draws 'er away for reasons of your own,
and leaves me without a child. Now her can't think of me, nor work for
me, nor light a fire for me, nor cook a biling of turnips, nor wire a
rabbit--all becos you've a turned her head so as her can think, and
talk, and work only for the young maister, and I'm to bide content with
a score and one of backie. That ain't in reason. That ain't how a
gemman would act. Why, there were a man t'other day to Okehampton
market brought his wife there with a halter round her neck and sold 'er
there for half a crown--not for backie, but for a real half-crown in
silver.[1] Her were oldish, and not like my Joyce. If I be to part wi'
Joyce, I'll take nort but silver for her, and I won't be content wi'
less nor four half-crowns. I've got to make my own fire now, and do
everything myself. Not you, nor Miss Cicely, nor the old Squire shall
stay me. I won't sell 'er not a penny under four half-crowns and
some'ut over to wet the bargain with. If you don't accept my terms I'll
have her back, and if her sez her won't come back I'll do by her as I
did afore--I'll just scatt all the bones she has to her body. Her got
her bones o' me, and I've a right to do what I will wi' my own. I can
scatt mun or I can sell mun. And I won't sell mun a penny under five
half-crowns, that be my figure, and blast me blue if I takes a shilling
off. I'd rather break her bones first and dung my pertaty ground wi'
'em. Feel my hands, how strong they be.'
[1] The author knew the woman thus purchased, and the man who bought
her, and with whom she lived till her death. The transaction took place
about forty years ago, as described.
He suddenly laid hold of Herring's wrists, and his grasp was as an iron
vice. Herring was a strong man, but he was unprepared to meet and
resist such strength as the old savage exhibited.
'Did her give you the shining stones in the box? I reckon it were so,
and her knows what to expeck for doing that, and I'll do it. Did I go
and take the box from the carriage? And can the constable come and carry
me off to gaol for that? Then surely, if I say to un, there be the
young Squire to West Wyke have a been to the Giant's Table and have a
took away my daughter, then if there be justice for one there be justice
for another, and the constable will come and carry you to gaol also.'
Herring walked on quicker. He was alarmed for Joyce. It would be wrong
to send her back to her father. She had risen to a higher level than
he; she could not associate with him longer. Moreover, he was uneasy at
his threats, for the wretched old man, as he knew, would execute them
without compunction.
'Six half-crowns I sed, and if you won't buy her of me for yourself, and
give me the money in silver, I'll fetch her home to the Table, and I'll
scatt every bone in her body, I will, glory rallaluley! You ain't a
going to take everything from me, and give nothing in return.'
'There!' exclaimed Herring, angrily; 'take that.' He drew his purse
from his pocket, and dashed it at the old man. It struck him on the
chest, and Grizzly had his hand on it in a moment.
'I can catch,' said he. 'The men chucks me bits of their pasties, and I
can snap like a dog. I never lets mun drop.'
'Take that and torment Joyce no more. You will find ample in that purse
to supply you with tobacco, and drink too, if you will have it. Take
it, you despicable scoundrel, and leave the poor girl alone.'
'A sale be a sale,' said Grizzly. 'If you've a bought her, you have her
and I've nort more to say to her. I sed seven half-crowns. Dash my
brains out if I sed a penny less.' Cobbledick opened the purse and
peeped in. 'Oh, rallaluley! them be guineas! golden guineas! they be
worth more than eight half-crowns, the price I axed for Joyce, I reckon.
Shan't I only smoke backie and get drunk. Glory! glory!'
'Do as you will. Some men cannot be helped. One must let them go to
the devil their own way. You are one, and the sooner you go the
better.'
'I be going. I be going as fast as I can,' exclaimed the old man,
misunderstanding him.
'Then go, and do not trouble Joyce any more.'
'Oh no. I've a sold her to you. Don't'y come and try to cry off the
bargain, and want your guineas back. This be scores better deal than
that of the man with his wife in Okehampton market. Now, what about the
linney?'
'You may not sleep there, not on any account, if you are bent on getting
drunk and smoking. I'll send you down some straw with which to litter
the Giant's Table.'
'Oh, rallaluley! this be fine games.' And the old savage dashed off
over the moor.
Thus ended Herring's attempt at reformation of Grizzly Cobbledick. He
had gone forth that morning resolved to check the old man in his
downward career by cutting off the occasion of drinking, and he had
supplied the man with the means of drinking himself to death.
However, he went his way, relieved in mind, to West Wyke. He had saved
Joyce from further unpleasantness from her father.
Cicely met him in the porch.
'You have been a long time out,' she said. 'My father has been calling
for you all day. He is very feeble; you will notice how different he is
from what you saw him last night. The excitement of your return
stimulated him, and now has come the relapse. Hark! I hear him
calling.'
Herring went in, with her.
'Papa has only come down this afternoon. I persuaded him to lie in bed
during the morning, but when he thought you would be returning from
Upaver he insisted on being dressed and descending to meet you.'
'John, is that you?' called the old Squire from his chair by the fire.
'Yes, sir. I have been all day at Upaver. I have got news to tell you.
We have come on a bunch of metal which I hope will clear you of all
care.'