Produced by Al Haines.
THE VIRGIN IN JUDGMENT
BY
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
Author of "The Portreeve," "The Secret Woman,"
"Children of the Mist," etc.
NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1908
Copyright, 1908, BY
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
Published, October, 1908
*CONTENTS*
*BOOK I*
CHAPTER
I. Crepuscule
II. Warren House
III. Harmony in Russet
IV. Coombeshead
V. The Virgin and the Dogs
VI. The Host of ’The Corner House’
VII. Dennycoombe Wood
VIII. In Pixies’ House
IX. The Dogs of War
X. Some Interviews
XI. Mr. Fogo is Shocked
XII. For the Good Cause
XIII. The Fight
*BOOK II*
I. ’Meavy Cot’
II. Bartley Doubtful
III. Preparations
IV. The Wedding
V. Arrival of Rhoda
VI. Repulse
VII. Eylesbarrow
VIII. Triumph of Billy Screech
IX. Common Sense and Beer
X. Crazywell
XI. Reproof
XII. The Courage of Mr. Snell
XIII. Rhoda Passes By
*BOOK III*
I. Mystery
II. A Pessimist
III. The Voice from the Pool
IV. Points of View
V. End of a Romance
VI. Virgo--Libra
VII. A Sharp Tongue
VIII. Under the Trees
IX. Darkness at ’The Corner House’
X. Third Time of Asking
XI. Bad News of Mr. Bowden
XII. Rhoda and Margaret
XIII. The Search
XIV. David and Rhoda
XV. Night Tenebrious
*BOOK I*
*THE VIRGIN IN JUDGMENT*
*CHAPTER I*
*CREPUSCULE*
Night stirred behind the eastern hills and a desert place burnt with
fading splendour in the hour before sunset. The rolling miles of
Ringmoor Down lay clad at this season in a wan integument of dead grass.
Colourless as water, it simulated that element and reflected the tone of
dawn or evening, sky or cloud; now sulked; now shone; now marked the
passage of the wind with waves of light.
Ringmoor extends near the west quarter of Dartmoor Forest like an ocean
of alternate trough and mound, built by the breath of storms. This
region, indeed, shares something with the restless resting-places of the
sea; and one may figure it as finally frozen into its present austerity
by action of western winds that aforetime laboured without ceasing here
on the bosom of a plastic earth. Only the primary forces model with
such splendid economy of design, or present achievements so unadorned,
yet so complete. The marvel of Ringmoor demanded unnumbered centuries
of elemental collaboration before it spread, consummate and
accomplished, under men’s eyes. Rage of solar flame and fury of floods;
the systole and diastole of Earth’s own mighty heart-beat; the blast of
inner fires, the rigour of age-long ice-caps--all have gone to mould
this incarnate simplicity. Nor can Nature’s achievement yet be gauged,
for man himself must ascend to subtler perception before he shall gather
the meaning of this moor.
The expanse is magnificently naked, yet sufficing; it is absolutely
featureless, but never poverty-stricken. To the confines of a river it
extends, and ceases there; yet that sudden wild uplifting of broken
hills beyond; their dark, rocky places full of story; their porphyry
pinnacles and precipices haunted by the legends and the spirits of old
strike not so deeply into human sense as Ringmoor’s vast monochrome
fading slowly at the edge of night; fading as a cloudless sky fades; as
light fades on the eyes of the semi-blind; fading without one stock or
stone or man or beast to break the inexorable tenor of its way.
Upon some souls this huge monotony, thus mingling with the universal at
eventide, casts fear; to others it is a manifestation precious as the
presence of a friend; and for those whose working life brings them here,
the waste’s immensities at noon or night are one; its highways are their
highways, and indifferently they move upon its bosom with the other
ephemeral existences that haunt it. Yet by none of these people is
Ringmoor truly felt or truly seen. Cultured minds weave pathetic
fallacies and so pass by; while for the native this spot is first a
grazing ground and last a recurrent incident of stern spaces to be
compassed and recompassed on his own pilgrimage--to the young a
weariness and to the old a grief.
Now light suffered a change. There was no detail to die, but a general
fleeting radiance failed swiftly to the thick pallor that precedes
darkness. Each perished grass-stem, of many millions that clad the
waste, reflected the sky and paled its little lamp as the heavens paled.
Then sobriety of dusk eliminated even the sweep and billow of the heath,
and reduced all to a spectacle of withered and waning grey, that
stretched formless, vague, vast, toward boundaries unseen.
It was at this stage in the unfolding phenomenon of night that life
moved upon the void; a black, amorphous smudge crawled out of the gloom
and crept tardily along. At length its form, as a double star seen
through a telescope, divided and revealed a brace of animals, one of
which staggered slowly on four legs, while the other went on two. A man
led a horse by a halter; and the horse was old and black, bent,
broken-kneed and worn out; while the man was also bent and ancient of
his kind. Neither could travel very fast, and one was at the end of his
life’s journey, while the other had a small measure of years still
assured.
Death thus moved across Ringmoor and trod a familiar rut in the
wilderness; because, under the darkness eastward, was a bourn for beasts
that had ceased to possess any living value. Through extinction only
they served their masters for the last time and made profitable this
final funeral march. The horse stopped, turned and seemed to ask a
question with his eyes.
"Get on!" said the man. "There ban’t much further for you to go."
The brute dragged towards peace and his hind hoofs struck sometimes and
sounded the dull and dreary note of his own death bell; the old man
sighed because he was very weary. Then from the fringe of night sprang
young life and met this forlorn procession. A tall girl appeared and
three collie dogs galloped and circled about her. Noting the man, they
ran up to him, barked and wagged their tails in greeting.
"Be that anybody from Ditsworthy?" asked the traveller of the female
shadow.
"’Tis I--Rhoda Bowden. I thought as you might be pretty tired and came
to shorten your journey--that is if you’m old Mr. Elford from
Good-a-Meavy."
"I am the man, and never older than to-night."
He stopped and rubbed his leg. The girl stood over him by half a foot.
She was tall and straight, but in the murk one could see no more than
her outlines, her pale sun-bonnet and a pale face under it.
"Have you got the money?" said the man.
"Yes--ten shillings."
She spoke slowly, with a voice uncommon deep for a young woman.
"Not twelve?"
"No."
The ancient made a sound that indicated disappointment and annoyance.
"And the price of the halter?"
"We don’t want that. One of my brothers will bring it back to you next
time they be down-along."
He handed her the rope and took a coin from her. Then he brought a
little leathern purse from his breeches pocket and put the money into
it.
"You’re sure your faither didn’t say twelve?"
"No."
"He’s a hard man. Good-night to you."
"’Tis the right price for a dead horse. Good-night."
The ancient had no farewell word for his beast, and the companions of
twelve years parted for ever. The girl took her way with the old horse;
the man turned in his tracks moodily, chattering to himself.
"Warrener did ought to have give twelve," he said again and again as he
went homewards. By furze banks and waste places and the confines of
woods he passed, and then he stopped where a star twinkled above the
gloomy summits of spruce firs. Beneath them there peered out a thatched
cottage, but no light shone from its face. The patriarch entered with
his frosty news, and almost instantly a female voice, shrill and full of
trouble, struck upon the night.
"It did ought to have been twelve!"
Owls cried to each other across the forest and seemed to echo the
lamentation.
*CHAPTER II*
*WARREN HOUSE*
A river destined to name the greatest port in the west country, makes
humble advent at Plym Head near the Beam of Cater in mid-Dartmoor.
Westward under the Harter Tors and south by the Abbot’s Way to Plym
Steps the streamlet flows; then she gathers volume and melody to enter a
land of vanished men. By the lodges of the old stone people and amid
monuments lifted in a neolithic age; beside the graves of heroes and
under the Hill of Giants, Plym passes and threads the rocky wilderness
with silver. And then, suddenly, a modern dwelling lifts beside her--a
building of stern aspect and most lonely site. Round about for miles
the warrens of Ditsworthy extend, and countless thousands of the coney
folk flourish. The district is tunnelled and tracked by them; the
characteristics of the heath are altered. For the turf, nibbled close
at seasons, shows no death, but spreads in a uniform far-flung cloth of
velvet, always close shorn and always green. Its texture may not be
rivalled by any pasture known, and so fine has it become under this
cropping of centuries that the very grass itself seems to have suffered
dwarfing and reduction to a fairy-like tenuity Of blade. Grey lichens
are woven through the herbage here and there, and sometimes these
silvery filigranes dominate the turf and create fair harmonies with the
rosy ling in summer and the red brake-fern of the fall.
Inflexible Ringmoor approaches Ditsworthy on one side; while beyond it
roll the warrens. Shell Top and Pen Beacon are the highest adjacent
peaks of the Moor; and through the midst runs Plym with the solitary,
stern Warren House lifted upon its northern bank.
A gnarled but lofty ash has defied the upland weather and grown to
maturity above this dwelling. It rises wan in the sombre waste and
towers above the squat homestead beneath it. Granite walls run round
about, and the metropolis of the rabbits, with natural and artificial
burrows, extends to the very confines of the building. A cabbage-plot
and a croft or two complete man’s work here; while at nearer approach
the house, that looked but a spot seen upon such an immense stage, is
found to be of considerable size. And this is well, because, at the
date of these doings, it was called upon to hold a large family.
Fifty years ago Elias Bowden reigned at Ditsworthy, and with his wife,
nine children, and ten dogs, lived an arduous, prosperous existence on
the product of the warrens and other moorland industries. Rabbits were
more valuable then than now, and Mr. Bowden received half a crown a
couple, where his successors to-day can make but tenpence.
Elias and his boys and girls did the whole work of Ditsworthy. All had
their duties, and even the youngest children--twin sons now aged
nine--were taught to make netting and help with the traps. There were
six sons and three daughters in the family; and the males were called
after mighty captains, because Elias loved valour above all virtues.
Such friendships as happen in large families existed among the children,
and the closest and keenest of these associations was that between the
eldest boy and second girl. David Bowden was eight-and-twenty and Rhoda
was twenty-one. A very unusual fraternity obtained between them, and the
man’s welfare meant far more to his sister than any other mundane
interest. After David came Joshua, the master of the trappers, aged
twenty-five; and he and the eldest girl, Sophia--a widow who had
returned childless and moneyless to her home after two years of married
life--were sworn friends. Then, a year younger than Rhoda, appeared
Dorcas--a "sport" as Mr. Bowden called her, for she was the only red
child he had gotten. The two boys, Napoleon and Wellington, aged
thirteen and fifteen, shared the special regard of Dorcas; while the
twins were mutually sufficing. One was called Samson and the other
Richard--after the first English monarch of that name. Mrs. Bowden had
lost three children in infancy, and deplored the fact to this day. When
work at the warren pressed in autumn, and the family scarce found
leisure to sleep, the mother of this flock might frequently be heard
uttering a futile regret.
"If only my son Drake had been spared," she often cried at moments of
stress; and this saying became so familiar among the people round about,
that when a man or woman breathed some utterly vain aspiration, another
would frequently cap it thus and say, "Ah, if only my son Drake had been
spared!"
A distinguishing characteristic of this family was its taciturnity. The
Bowdens wasted few words. Red Dorcas and her father, however, proved an
exception to this rule; for she chattered much; and he enjoyed a joke
and could make and take one. Of his other girls, Rhoda was most silent.
She, too, alone might claim beauty. Sophia was homely. She had a
narrow, fowl-like face inherited from her mother; and Dorcas suffered
from weak eyes; but Rhoda, in addition to her straight and splendid
frame, was well favoured. Her features were large, but very regular;
her contours were round without promise of future fatness; her nose and
mouth were especially beautiful; but her chin was a little heavy.
Rhoda’s hair was pale brown and in tone not specially attractive; but
she possessed a great wealth of it; her feet and hands were large, yet
finely modelled; her eyes had more than enough of virginal chill in
their cool and pale grey depths. David somewhat resembled her. He was
a clean-cut and sturdy man, standing his sister’s height of five feet
nine inches, and having a slow-featured face--handsome after a
conventional type, yet lacking much expression or charm for the
physiognomist. He shared his thoughts with Rhoda, but none else.
Neither parent pretended to know much about him, but both understood
that it would not be long before he left Ditsworthy. David was learned
in sheep and ponies, and he proposed to begin life on his own account as
a breeder of them. At present his work was with his father’s sheep and
cattle, for Elias ran stock on the moor. As for Rhoda, her duties lay
with the dogs, and she usually had two or three galloping after her;
while often she might be seen carrying squeaking, new-born puppies in
her arms, while an anxious bitch, with drooping dugs, gazed up at the
precious burden.
Sober-minded and busy were these folk. Elias had few illusions. In
only one minor particular was he superstitious; he hated to see a white
rabbit on the warrens. Brown and yellow, grey, and sometimes black,
were the inhabitants of the great burrows, but it seldom happened that a
white one was observed. Occasionally they appeared, however, and
occasionally they were caught. Elias never permitted them to be killed.
The master’s lapse from rationality in this matter was respected, and if
anybody ever saw a white rabbit, the incident was kept secret.
Enemies the warren had, and foxes took a generous toll; but the hunt
recompensed Mr. Bowden for this inconvenience, although it was suspected
that his estimates of loss were fanciful. Once the usual fees had been
delayed by oversight, and Sir Guy Flamank, M.F.H. and Lord of the Manor,
was only reminded of his lapse on meeting Elias at "The Corner House,"
Sheepstor.
"Ah!" said the sportsman, "and how’s Mr. Bowden faring? I’ve forgot
Ditsworthy of late."
"Foxes haven’t," was all the warrener replied. And yet a sight of the
honeycombed and tunnelled miles of the burrows might have justified an
opinion that all the foxes of Devonshire could have done no lasting hurt
here. In legions the rabbits lived. They swarmed, leapt from under the
foot, bobbed with twinkling of white scuts through the fern and heather,
sat up, all ears, on every little knap and hillock, drummed with their
pads upon the hollow ground, scurried away in scattered companies and
simultaneously vanished down a hundred holes at sight of dog or man.
This, then, was the place and these were the people, animals and things
that Plym encompassed with her growing volume before she thundered in
many a cataract and shouting waterfall through the declivities beneath
Dewerstone and left Dartmoor. Much beauty she brings to the lowlands;
much beauty she finds there. The hanging woods are very fair; and the
great shining reaches where the salmon lie; and those placid places
where Plym draws down the grey and azure of the firmament and spreads it
among the water-meadows. She flows through Bickleigh Vale and by Cann
Quarry; she passes her own bridge, and anon, entering the waters of
Laira, passes unmarked away to the salt blue sea; but she laves no scene
more pregnant than these plains where the stone men sleep; she passes no
monument heavier weighted with grandeur of eld than that titan menhir of
Thrushelcombe by Ditsworthy, where, deep set in the prehistoric past, it
stands sentinel over a hero’s grave. Great beyond the common folk was
he who won this memorial--a warrior and leader at the least; or
perchance some prophet who wrought men’s deeds into the gaunt beginnings
of art and song, fired his clan to the battle with glorious fury, and
welcomed them again with pæan of joy or dirge of mourning. But one
chooses rather to think that these tumuli held ashes of the men who
fought and conquered; who lifted their lodges to supremacy; who bulked
as large in the eyes of the neoliths as their gravestones bulk in ours.
The saga and the singer both are good; but deeds must first be done.
Of Plym also it may be said that nowhere in all its journey does it
skirt a home of living men more sequestered and distinguished than the
broad, low-roofed and granite-walled Warren House of Ditsworthy.
Notable and spacious mansions rise as the stream flows into
civilisation; abodes, that have entered into history, lift their heads
adjacent to its flood; but none among them is so unique and distinctive;
and none at any period has sheltered a family more eager, strenuous and
full of the strife and joy of living than Elias Bowden and his brood.
*CHAPTER III*
*HARMONY IN RUSSET*
Sheepstor lies beneath the granite hill that names it like a lamb
between a lion’s paws. Chance never played artist to better purpose,
for of the grey roofs and whitewashed walls that make this little
village, there is scarcely one to be wished away. Cots and
farm-buildings, byres and ricks cluster round about the church; a few
conifers thrust dark spire and branch between the houses, and fields
slope upward behind the hamlet to the shaggy fringes of the tor. A
medley of autumnal orange and copper and brown now splashes the hills
everywhere round about; and great beeches, that hem in the churchyard
and bull-ring, echo the splendour of the time and spread one pall of
radiant foliage on all the graves together. Behind the church,
knee-deep in thick-set spinneys, ascends the giant bulk of Sheep’s Tor,
shouldering enormous from leagues of red brake-fern, like a ragged, grey
dragon that lifts suddenly from its lair. The saddle of the hill falls
westerly in a more gentle slope, and sunset paints wonderful pictures
there; while beyond, breaking very blue through the haze of distance,
Lether Tor and Sharp Tor’s misty heights inclose the horizon.
A river runs through the village, and at this noon hour in late November
the brook made all the music to be heard; for not a sound rose but that
of the murmuring water, and not any sight of conscious life was to be
noted. Clear sunshine after rain beat upon the great hill; its ruddy
pelt glowed like fire under the blue sky, and beneath the mass a church
tower, whose ancient crockets burnt with red-gold lichens, sprang
stiffly up. Sheepstor village might now be seen through a lattice of
naked boughs, fair of form in their mingled reticulations and pale as
silvery gauze against the sunlight. Their fretwork was touched to flame
where yellow or scarlet leaves still clung and spattered the branches.
Yet no particular opulence of colour was registered. All the tones
remained delicate and tender. The village seen afar off, seemed painted
with subdued greys, pale yellows and warm duns; but at approach its
deserted street was proved a haunt for sunshine and glittered with
reflected light and moisture.
One cottage near the lich-gate of the churchyard had served to challenge
particular attention. The building was of stone, but little of the
fabric save one chimney-stack appeared, for on the south side a huge
ivy-tod overwhelmed all with shining green; to the north a cotoneaster
of uncommon proportions wrapped the house in a close embrace, covered
the walls and spread over the roof also. Its dense, stiff sprays of
dark foliage were laden with crimson berries; they hung brilliantly over
the white face of the cottage and made heavy brows for the door and
windows. A leafless lilac stuck up pale branches on one side of the
entrance; stacks of dry fern stood on the other; and these hues were
carried to earth and echoed in higher notes by some buff Orpington fowls
upon the roadway, and a red setter asleep at the cottage door. Over all
this genial and spirited colour profound silence reigned; and then the
mystery of the deserted village was solved by sudden drone of organ
music from the church. It happened to be Sunday, and most of those not
engaged at kitchen fires were attending service.
At last, however, a human being appeared and a man came out from the
cottage of cotoneasters with a metal pail in his hand. He wore Sunday
black but had not yet donned his coat, and his shirt-sleeves were rolled
up to his elbows. His fore-arms were somewhat slight, but hard and
brown; and his face had charmed any student of faces by its obvious
kindness of heart and innate merriment of disposition. Bartley Crocker
was thin and tall. He stood about six feet, yet weighed not quite
eleven stone. He was, however, tough and very energetic where it
pleased him so to be. Small black whiskers clung beneath his ears,
while the rest of his face was shorn. His upper lip was short, his
mouth full and rather feeble, his colour clear and pale. His eyes were
small, somewhat sly, and the home of laughter. He was five-and-twenty
and lived with a widowed mother and a maiden aunt under the berried roof
of the cottage. The Crockers kept cows and poultry, and Bartley was a
good son to his mother, though not a good friend to himself. He had a
mind, quick but not deep, and his feelings were keen but transitory. He
belonged to the order of Esau, won wide friendship, yet woke a measure
of impatience among reflecting people, in that he spent his time to such
poor purpose and wasted an unusually good education and a splendid
native gift of nervous energy on the sports of the field. He had, in
fact, become a man without putting away childish things--an achievement
as rare among rustics as it is common under conditions of university
education. Yet nobody but his mother ever blamed him to his face, and
the tone of her voice always robbed her reproaches of the least forceful
quality. She was proud of him; she knew that the men could not quarrel
with him and that the girls were all his friends.
Bartley filled a pail with water from the brook, and then carried it
home. His mother was in church; his Aunt, Susan Saunders, prepared
dinner. The man now completed his costume, put on a collar and a red
tie, donned his coat and a soft felt "wide-awake" hat. He then went into
the churchyard, sat upon a tomb exactly in front of the principal door
and there waited, without self-consciousness, for the congregation to
emerge. Anon the people came--a stream of old men and maidens, women
and children. Ancient beavers shone in the sun, plaid shawls covered
aged shoulders; there was greeting and clatter of tongues in the
vernacular; the young creatures, released from their futile
imprisonment, ran hither and thither, and whooped and shouted--without
apparent merriment, but simply in obedience to a natural call for swift
movement of growing legs and arms and full inflation of lungs. The
lively company streamed away and Bartley gave fifty of the folk
"good-morning." Some chid him for not attending the service. At last
there came his mother. She resembled her son but little, and looked
younger than her years. Nanny Crocker was more black than grey. She
had dark brown eyes, a high-coloured face, a full bosom and a square,
sturdy body, well moulded to display the enormous pattern of a red,
black and blue shawl. Beside her walked Mr. Charles Moses, the vicar’s
churchwarden--a married man with a grey beard and crystallised opinions,
who on week-days pursued the business of a shoemaker.
"Where’s Margaret?" asked young Crocker. But his mother could not
answer him.
"I thought she’d have found me and prayed along with me, in the pew
behind the font, that catches heat from the stove, where I always go
winter time," explained Mrs. Crocker. "She never comed, however.
Haven’t she arrived home?"
"No," said Bartley. "But ’twas a promise to dinner, and since there’s
no message, without doubt she’s on the way. I’ll up over Yellowmead and
meet her."
His mother nodded and went forward, escorted by the shoemaker; people in
knots and strings thinned off by this gate and that; then came forth the
imposing company of the Bowdens, for Sheepstor was their parish, and wet
or fine, hot or cold, they weekly worshipped there. Only on rare
occasions, when some fierce blizzard banked white drifts ten feet deep
between Ditsworthy and the outer world, did Elias abstain and hold long
services in the Warren House kitchen, lighted by the glare of the
snow-blink from without.
To-day he came first, with his widowed daughter Sophia. Then followed
David and Rhoda, Napoleon and Wellington, Samson and Richard, in the
order named. Joshua was not present, as he had gone to spend the day
with friends; and Dorcas kept at home to help her mother with dinner.
The Bowdens were well known to Bartley, and he bade them "good-morning"
in amiable fashion. He shook hands with Sophia and Rhoda, and nodded to
Elias and David. None of the family showed particular pleasure in the
young man’s company, but this did not trouble him. Their way was his
for a while, and therefore he walked beside David and Rhoda and prattled
cheerfully now to one, now to the other.
"How those boys grow!" he said. "A brave couple and so like as a pair
of tabby kittens. They’ll go taller than you, David. You can see it by
their long feet."
"Very like they will," said David.
The other’s ruling instinct was to please. He addressed Rhoda. In
common with most young men he admired her exceedingly; but the emotion
was not returned. Rhoda seldom smiled upon men; yet, on the other hand,
she never scowled at them. Her attitude was one of high indifference,
and none saw much more than that; yet much more existed, and Rhoda’s
aloof posture, instead of concealing normal maiden interest in the
opposite sex, as Bartley and other subtle students suspected, in reality
hid a vague general aversion from it.
"If I may make bold to say so, Miss Rhoda, those feathers in your
beautiful hat beat anything I’ve ever seen," declared Mr. Crocker.
"’Tis a foreign bird what used to be in a case," answered she. "The
mould was getting over it, so I thought I’d use its wings for my hat
afore they went to pieces."
"A very witty idea. And what might the bird be?"
"Couldn’t tell you."
"I wonder, now, supposing I was to shoot a kingfisher, if you’d like him
to put in your hat when this here bird be done for?"
"No, thank you."
"If she wants a kingfisher, I can get her one," said David.
Bartley tried again.
"I hear that yellow-bearded chap, the leat man, Simon Snell, be taking
up with your Dorcas. That’s great news, I do declare, if ’tis true."
A very faint tinge of colour touched Rhoda’s cheeks.
"It isn’t," she said.
"Ah, well--can’t say I’m sorry. He’s rather a dull dog--good as gold,
but as tasteless as an egg without salt."
"Simon Snell can stand to work--that’s something," said David, in his
uncompromising way.
But Mr. Crocker ignored the allusion. He looked at and talked to Rhoda.
The pleasure of seeing her beautiful face and of watching that little
wave of rose-colour wax and wane in her cheeks, was worth her brother’s
snub. He had often been at the greatest difficulty to abstain from
compliments to Rhoda; but there was that in her bearing and consistent
reserve that frightened him and all others from personality. Even to
praise her hat had required courage.
Elias called Rhoda, and Bartley was not sorry to reach the point where
their ways parted. He went to meet a maiden of other clay than this.
Yet Rhoda always excited a very lively emotion in the youth by virtue of
her originality, handsome person and self-sufficing qualities. When any
girl made it clear to Bartley that she took no sort of interest in him,
the remarkable fact woke quite a contrary attitude to her in his own
ardent spirit.
Where a row of stepping-stones crossed Sheepstor brook under avenues
of-beech-trees above the village, Bartley left the Bowdens with a final
proposal of friendliness.
"Hounds meet at Cadworthy Bridge come Monday week. Hope I’ll see you
then, if not sooner, Miss Rhoda."
"Thank you, but I shan’t go. Fox-hunting’s nought to us."
"Well, good-bye, then," answered he. "I’m walking this way to meet
Madge Stanbury from Coombeshead. She’s coming to eat her dinner along
with us."
A silence more than usually formidable followed the announcement, and it
was now not Rhoda but David who appeared to be concerned. He frowned,
and even snorted. Actual anger flashed from his eyes, but he turned
them on his sister, not on Mr. Crocker.
Rhoda it was who spoke after a very lengthy peace.
"If that’s so, there’s no call for you to go over to Coombeshead after
dinner, David. Belike Margaret Stanbury’s forgot."
"I was axed to tea, and I shall go to tea," he answered in a dogged and
sulky voice. "We’ve no right to say she’s forgot."
"That’s true," Rhoda admitted.
Bartley wished them "good-bye" again and left them. He skipped over the
stream and climbed the hill to Sheep’s Tor’s eastern slopes, while they
went up through steep lanes, furze-brakes and stunted trees to the great
tableland of the Moor.
Mr. Crocker once turned a moment; and, as he did so, he marked the
Bowden clan plodding on in evident silence to Ditsworthy.
"Good God! ’tis like a funeral party after they’ve got rid of their
dead," he thought.
Ten minutes later a dark spot on the heath increased, approached swiftly
and turned into a woman. Such haste had she made that her heart
throbbed almost painfully. She pressed her hands to it and could not
speak for a little while. Her face was bright and revealed an eager but
a very sensitive spirit. There was something restless and birdlike
about her, and something unutterably sweet; for this girl’s temper was
woven of pure altruism. Welfare of others, by a sort of fine instinct,
had long since become her welfare.
She was four-and-twenty, of good height and a dark complexion. Perhaps
her boundless energy preserved her from growing stout and kept her as
she was--a fine woman of ripe and flowing figure with a round, beautiful
neck and noble arms. Her hair, parted down the middle in the old
fashion, was black and without natural gloss; her eyebrows were full and
perfect in shape and her eyes shone with the light of a large and
sanguine heart. Her face was well shaped and her mouth very gentle.
Margaret Stanbury possessed a temperament of fire. She made intuition
serve for reason, and instinct take the place of logic. Her capacity
both for joy and grief was unusual in her class.
"Whatever will your people say, Bartley?" she gasped. "They’ll never
forgive me, I’m sure."
"No bad news, I hope?"
"Yes, but there is. Mother scalded herself just as I was starting to
church, so I had to stop and cook the dinner. And, what’s far worse,
I’ve kept you from yours."
"We’ll soon make up for lost time," he answered. "I hope your mother
suffered but little pain and will soon be well."
"She makes nought of it; but of course I couldn’t leave her to mess
about with a lame hand."
"Of course not; of course not. I wish you hadn’t hurried so. You’ve
set yourself all in a twitter."
Nevertheless he much admired the beautiful rise and fall of her tight
Sunday frock. It was as pleasant a circumstance in its way as Rhoda’s
ghostly blush when he had mentioned Simon Snell.
*CHAPTER IV*
*COOMBESHEAD*
The character of Margaret Stanbury affected very diversely those who
came in contact with it. Her never-failing desire to be helping others
was sometimes welcomed, sometimes tolerated and sometimes resented.
Most people have no objection to being spoiled, and mothers of sick
children, old bedridden folk and invalids welcomed Margaret gladly
enough, and accepted her gifts of service or food--sometimes as a
privilege, sometimes, after a few repetitions, as a right. But others
only endured her attentions for the love they bore her, and because they
knew that she joyed to be with the careworn and suffering. A residue of
independent people were indifferent to her. These wished her away, when
she sought to share their tribulations or lessen their labours.
Nanny Crocker and her sister Susan belonged to the last category. They
hated fuss and they mistrusted sympathy. They were complete in
themselves--comfortable, superior, selfish. They liked Margaret
Stanbury so much that they held her worthy of Bartley; and he liked her
as well as a man might who had known her all his life. His mother had
settled with Susan that her son was husband-old, and this visit from
Madge might be said to open the campaign.
The old women took cold stock of her as she ate her dinner. To an
outsider they had suggested two elderly lizards, with wrinkled skins and
large experience, studying a song-thrush on a bough. Madge trilled and
chirruped from the simple goodness of her heart; they, in their deeper
shrewdness, listened; she had much to say of many people and not an
unkind word of any; but unfailingly they qualified her generous estimate
of fellow-creatures.
After the meal Margaret declared that she must start immediately for
home to keep an appointment; and she took with her Bartley Crocker
himself and an elaborate prescription for scalds. Then, when they had
gone, Susan and Nanny discussed the girl without sentiment or
imagination, yet not without common sense.
They differed somewhat, but not in the conclusion. Both felt that though
too prone to let her heart run away with her head, Madge would make a
good wife for their man. The suspicion was that she might not be quite
firm enough with him. That, however, appeared inevitable. Mrs. Crocker
felt that Bartley must certainly be humoured. No woman born would ever
deny him his own way or cloud his spirit with opposition. Susan feared
that the girl had expensive tastes and an instinct which carried
generosity to absurd lengths; but the mother of Bartley believed that,
once married, this lavish benevolence would centre upon Margaret’s
husband and find all necessary scope for its activity in that quarter.
Meantime Bartley’s own attitude had to be considered, and upon that
point his parent and his aunt were satisfied. He had been attentive to
Margaret at dinner and more than usually polite.
"It only remains to see what the girl thinks," said Susan; but her
sister held that problem determined.
"She goes without saying, I should fancy, even if Bartley was different
to what he is. He’s only to drop the handkerchief. The girl’s no fool.
Catch a Stanbury refusing a Crocker!"
"I doubt he’ll ask her afore Christmas."
"May or may not. That’s not our job. ’Tis for us to bid her here now
and again, and I may even get out to Coombeshead presently and pay her
mother a visit. Of course Mrs. Stanbury and her husband will be hot for
it."
Thus, despite their large worldly wisdom and knowledge of their
fellow-folk, these elderly sisters, cheered by Sunday dinner, took a
rosy view of the future and held the things which they desired to happen
as good as accomplished. They even debated upon a new home for Bartley
and wondered where it had better be chosen.
The man meantime was moving at one point of that great trio of tors
known hereabout as "the Triangle." The heights of Sheep’s Tor, Lether
Tor and Down Tor are equidistant, and once upon a time, in the hollowed
midst of them, Nature’s hand held a lake. Then its granite barriers
were swept away and the cup ran empty. Hereafter Meavy river flowed
through the midst of meadows and, at the time of these incidents,
continued to do so. It was not until nearly fifty years later that
thirsty men rebuilt the cup to hold sweet water for their towns.
Across the river went Margaret and Bartley; then they turned and, by a
detour, set their faces towards her home. Their talk was light and
cheerful. It ranged over many subjects, including love, but no note of
any close, personal regard marked the conversation.
"What do you think of Rhoda Bowden?" he asked, and Margaret answered
slowly:
"I think a lot of her. She’s a solemn sort of girl and goeth so
grand-like! She’m different to most of us--so tall and sweeping in her
walk. Maidens mostly mince in their going; but she swingeth along like
a man."
"She’s a jolly fine girl, Madge."
"David be terrible fond of her."
"Yes, he is. I saw that this morning before dinner. And I got actually
a touch of pink into her cheek to-day, if you’ll believe it."
"You’re that bowldacious always--enough to make any girl blush with your
nonsense."
"Not at all. I wouldn’t say anything outright--but I just mentioned
Simon Snell of all men, and I’ll swear Miss Rhoda flickered up!"
"You never know what natures catch heat from each other. I don’t reckon
Rhoda’s fond of men."
"And surely Snell would never dare to be fond of girls."
"And yet, for just that reason, they might be drawn together."
By chance the man of whom they spoke appeared a little farther on their
way. He was a large-boned, ox-eyed labourer, with a baby’s face on
adult shoulders. Not a wrinkle of thought, not a sensual line was ruled
upon his round cheeks or brow. A yellow beard and moustache hid the
lower part of his face. His skin was clear and high-coloured; his nose
was thin; his forehead was high and narrow.
"Give you good-afternoon," said Mr. Snell. He spoke in a thin,
colourless voice and his face revealed no expression but a sort of ovine
placidity.
Bartley winked at Madge.
"And how be all at Ditsworthy Warren House, Simon?" he asked.
"I was there last Thursday. They was all well then. I’m going there now
to drink tea with--"
"With Miss Rhoda--eh? Or is it Miss Dorcas?"
The shadowy ghost of a smile touched Simon’s mild face.
"What a dashing way you have of mentioning the females! I never could
do it, I’m sure. ’Tis about some spaniel pups as I be going up over.
Give you good-afternoon."
He stalked away, calm, solemn, inane.
Mr. Snell was engaged upon the Plymouth water leat. His neighbours
regarded him as a harmless joke. It might have been said of him, as of
the owl, that he was not humourous himself, but the cause of humour in
others.
"I always think there’s a lot of sense hidden in Simon, for all you men
laugh at him," said Margaret.
"Then give up thinking so," answered Bartley, "for you’re wrong. That
baby-eyed creature have just brain-power to keep him out of the lunatic
asylum and no more. His head is as empty as a deaf nut. He’s never
growed up. There’s nought behind that great bush of a beard but a
stupid child. He’s only the image of a man; and you’ll never hear him
say a sensible thing, unless ’tis the echo of somebody else. He don’t
know no more about human creatures than that gate."
"A childlike spirit have its own virtues. He’d never do a bad thing."
"He’d never do anything--good or bad. He’s like a ploughing horse or a
machine. Lord, the times I’ve tried to shock a swear or surprise a
laugh out of that chap! Yet if ever Rhoda Bowden showed me a spark of
herself, ’twas when I said I thought Simon was after her red sister."
"’Twas only because you angered her thinking of such a thing."
"How d’you like David Bowden?" he asked suddenly, and the question
signified much to them both. For Bartley had been not a little
astonished to hear that David was going to drink tea at Coombeshead.
The eldest son of Elias was an unsociable man and little given to
visiting. Yet this visit, as Mr. Crocker had observed after church,
meant a good deal to young Bowden. Now he desired to know what it might
mean to Margaret.
Her merry manner changed and a nervousness, natural to her and never far
from the surface of her character, asserted itself.
"What a chap you are for sudden questions that go off like a rat-trap!
Mr. David is coming to drink tea along with us to-night."
"That’s why you’re in such a hurry."
"Why not?"
"No reason at all. David Bowden’s rather a grim sort of man; but he’s
got all the virtues except a gentle tongue. I speak better of him than
he would of me, however."
"I’m sure not. He’s never said a word against you that I ever heard."
"You’ve heard him pretty often then? Well, he despises me, Madge.
Because I don’t stick to work like he does. Don’t you get too fond of
that man. He’s a kill-joy."
She gasped and changed colour, but he did not notice it. All that
Bartley had needed to turn his attention seriously to this girl was some
spice of rivalry; and now it promised to appear. They walked along to
Nosworthy Bridge, and from that spot Margaret’s distant home was
visible.
Like a picture set between two great masses of fruiting white-horn,
Dennycoombe spread eastward into Dartmoor and climbed upward through
glory of sinking light upon autumnal colour. To the west Sheep’s Tor’s
larch-clad shoulder sloped in pale gold mottled with green, while
northerly Down Tor broke the withered fern. Between them lay a valley
of lemon light washed with blue hazes and stained by great darkness
where the shadows fell. Many a little dingle opened on either hand of
the glen; and here twinkled water, where a brook leapt downward; and
here shone dwindling raiment of beech and oak.
Coombeshead Farm, the home of the Stanburys, stood at the apex of this
gorge and lay under Coombeshead Tor. Still higher against the sky
rolled Eylesbarrow, its enormous and simple outline broken only by the
fangs of an old ruin; while flying clouds, that shone in opposition to
the sunset, crowned all with welter of mingled light and gloom. The
modest farmhouse clung like a grey nest into the tawny harmonies of the
hill, and above it rose blue smoke.
"You’ll come to tea?" said Madge; but Bartley shook his head.
"Two’s company, three’s none," he said.
"But we’re all at home."
"No, no; I’ve had my luck--mustn’t be greedy. One thing I will swear:
David Bowden won’t make you laugh as often at your tea as I did at your
dinner--will he now?"
"We’ve all got our different qualities."
"I tell you he’s a kill-joy," repeated Bartley; but Margaret shook her
head.
"Not to me--never to me," she said frankly.
This fearless confession reduced the man to silence. Then, while he
considered the position and felt that, if he desired Margaret, the time
for serious love-making had come, there approached the sturdy shape of
young Bowden himself.
They were now more than half-way up the valley, and David had seen them
long ago. He advanced to meet them, took no notice of Bartley, but
shook Margaret’s hand and spoke while he did so.
"It was ordained that I should drink a dish of tea along with your
people this afternoon; but if you’ve forgot it, I can go again."
"No fay! Of course ’twasn’t forgotten. Why ever should you think so,
Mr. David?"
"Because Bartley here--however, I’m sorry I spoke, since ’tis as ’tis."
"Not often you say more than be needed in words," remarked Mr. Crocker.
But he spoke mechanically. His observation was entirely bestowed upon
Margaret’s attitude towards Bowden. That she liked him was sufficiently
clear. Her face was the brighter for his coming and she began to talk
to him of certain interests not familiar to Bartley. Then she
remembered herself and turned to the younger man again.
"But what’s this to you, Bartley? Nought, I’m sure."
He had remarked that she addressed David by his Christian name, but with
the affix of ceremony.
"Anything that interests you interests me, Madge," he answered. "But
I’ll leave you here and go back-along through the woods."
"Better come on, now you’re so near, and have tea with us."
"What does David say?"
"Ban’t my business," answered Mr. Bowden.
The men looked at each other straight in the eyes and grasped the
situation. Then Bartley shook hands with Margaret and left them.
Bowden made no comment on Mr. Crocker. Indeed he did not speak at all
until they had almost reached the homestead of Coombeshead. Then,
suddenly, without preliminaries, he dragged a little square-nosed
spaniel puppy out of his pocket, where it had been lying fast asleep.
"’Tis weaned and ready to begin learning," he said. "Your brother Bart
will soon teach it how to behave. But mind you let him. Don’t you try
to bring it up. You’ll only spoil it. No woman I ever knowed, except
Rhoda, could train a dog."
The little thing licked Madge’s face while she kissed its nose.
"A dinky dear! Thank you, thank you, Mr. David. ’Twill be a great
treasure to me."
He set his teeth and asked for a privilege. He had evidently meant to
accompany this gift with a petition.
"And if I may make so bold, I want for you to call me ’David,’ instead
of ’Mr. David.’"
He looked at her almost sternly as he spoke. His voice was slow, deep
and resonant.
"Of course--David."
He nodded and the shadow of a smile passed over his face.
"Thank you kindly," he said.
The pup occupied Margaret’s attention and hid the flush upon her cheek.
Then they entered together, to find the rest of the Stanbury family
sitting very patiently waiting for their tea.
Bartholomew Stanbury and his son, Bartholomew, were men of like
instincts and outlook. Coombeshead Farm had but little land and the
farmer was very poor; but father and son only grumbled in the privacy of
the family circle, and presented a sturdy and indifferent attitude to
the world. They were tall, well-made men, flaxen of colour and scanty
of hair. Their eyes were blue; their expressions were frank; their
intelligence was small and their physical courage great. Save for the
difference represented by thirty years of time, father and son could
hardly have been more alike; but Bartholomew Stanbury, though little
more than fifty was already very bald and round in the shoulders; while
"Bart," as the younger man was always called without addition, stood
straight, and though his face was hairless, save for a thin moustache, a
good sandy crop covered his poll.
Both men rose as Madge and David appeared; both wrinkled their narrow
foreheads and both smiled with precisely the same expression. The
Stanburys had set their hopes on a possible match with the more
prosperous and powerful Bowdens. Bartholomew, indeed, held that his
daughter’s happiness must be assured if she could win such a husband as
David.
"Call your mother, Bart," said Mr. Stanbury, "and we’ll have tea.
Haven’t seen ’e this longful time, David, but I hope all’s well to home
and the rabbits running heavy."
"Never better," answered young Bowden.
"As for us, can’t say it’s been all to the good," declared the farmer.
"Never knowed a fairer or hotter summer, but in August the maggots got
in the sheep’s backs something cruel. Bart here was out after ’em all
his time--wasn’t you, Bart?"
Bart had a habit of patting his chin and nodding when he spoke. He did
so now.
"Yes, I was," said Bart. "A terrible brave show of maggots, sure
enough."
Mrs. Stanbury appeared, and it might be seen that while her son
resembled his father, it was from the mother that Margaret took her dark
skin, dark hair, dark eyes and wistful cast of countenance. She was a
neat, small woman, and to-day, clad in her plum-coloured Sunday gown
with a silver watch-chain and a touch of colour in her black cap, had no
little air of distinction about her. Her face was long and rather sad,
but it had been beautiful before the mouth fell somewhat. Constance
Stanbury was eight years older than her husband and of a credulous
nature, at once vaguely poetical and definitely pessimistic. She
depreciated everything that belonged to herself; even when her children
were praised to her face, she would deprecate enthusiasm with silence or
a shrug. She believed in mysteries, in voices that called by night, in
dreams, in premonitions, in the evil omen and the evil eye. Her brother
had destroyed himself, and she was not the first of her race who had
suffered from a congenital melancholia.