politeness of a lover to the mother of his lass.
"Yes, thank you. ’Twas my own silly fault, trying to do two things at
once. ’Tis of no consequence."
"I’ll pour out the tea," said Margaret. "Then you needn’t take your
hand out of the sling, mother."
Mrs. Stanbury’s profound and pathetic distrust and doubt that she could
possess or achieve any good thing, extended from the greatest to the
least interest in life. Now they ate and drank, and David ventured to
praise a fine cake of which he asked for a second slice.
"Glad you like it, I’m sure," she said, "but ’tisn’t much of a cake.
Too stoggy and I forgot the lemon."
"Never want to taste a better," declared David, stoutly. "Our cakes to
Ditsworthy ban’t a patch on it."
Mrs. Stanbury smiled faintly.
"Did your mother catch any good from the organy tea?" she asked.
"Yes," answered David. "A power of good it did her, and I was specially
to say she was greatly obliged for it; and if by lucky chance you’d
saved up a few bunches more organies, she’d like ’em."
"Certainly, an’ t’other herb to go along with it. I dried good store at
the season of the year. Some people say the moon don’t count in the
matter; but there’s a right and wrong in such things, and the moon did
ought to be at the full without a doubt. Who be we to say that the wit
of our grandfathers was of no account?"
The herb "organies," or wild marjoram, was still drunk as tea in Mrs.
Stanbury’s days, and decoctions of it were widely used after local
recipes for local ills.
"This here Chinese tea be a lot nicer to my taste, all the same," said
Bart. "We have it Sundays, and I wouldn’t miss it for money."
"We drink it every day," said David.
"Ah! you rich folk can run to it, no doubt."
"But we don’t brew so strong as what you do," added young Bowden.
"This is far too strong," declared Mrs. Stanbury, instantly. "It have
stood over long, and the bitter be drawed out."
"That’s my fault for being late," answered Margaret. "No fault of
yours, mother."
"I like the bitter," said Bart. "’Tis pretty drinking and proper to
work on. Cider isn’t in it with cold tea."
Dusk gathered, and the firelight flickered in the little whitewashed
kitchen. Then David mentioned a project near his hopes.
"You thought you’d found a fox’s earth ’pon Coombeshead Tor," he said to
Madge.
"I do think so; and if you’ve made an end of eating, us’ll go an’ see
afore ’tis dark."
"I’ve finished, and very much obliged, I’m sure."
David rose, picked up his felt hat and bade the parent Stanburys
"good-evening." Then he and Margaret went out together. Bart prepared
to accompany them, when suddenly, as if shot, he sank down into his
chair again beside his father and put his hand to his chin.
"Why for did ’e kick me, faither?" he asked when the lovers had
disappeared.
"You silly zany! They don’t want you!"
Bart grinned.
"He be after Madge--eh?"
"Wait till you’m daft for something in a petticoat yourself, then you’ll
understand--eh, mother?"
"I suppose so, master. We shall lose ’em both, without a doubt; ’tis
Nature," she said.
Meantime Margaret and David climbed into the gloaming on Coombeshead
Tor, and she talked to him, and for the first time let him know how much
the wonderful granite masses of this hill meant to her.
"I was born on the farm, you know, and this place was my playground ever
since I could run alone. A very lonely little girl, because Bart was
six year older than me, and mother never had none but us. I never had
no toys or nothing of that sort; but these gerstones was my dollies, and
I used to give ’em names, an’ play along with ’em, an’ sleep among ’em
when I was tired. That fond of chattering I was, that I must be talking
if ’twas only to the stones! Never was a cheel cut out for minding
babies like me; and yet I’ve not had a baby to mind in my life!"
He listened and enjoyed her voice, but felt not much emotion at what she
told him.
"So these boulders were my babies; an’ now this one took a cold and
wanted nursing; an’ now this one was tired and I had to sing it to
sleep. And I’d bring ’em flowers an’ teach ’em their lessons, an’ put
’em to bed an’ all the rest of it. They all had their names too, I
warrant you!"
"’Twas a very clever game to think upon," he said.
"Thicky stone, wi’ grass on his head, was called ’Pilgarlic.’ His hair
is green in summer and it turns yellow, like ’tis now, when winter
comes. And yonder rock--its real name is the ’Cuckoo stone,’ because
cuckoo always sits there to cry when he comes to Dennycoombe; that flat
rock was ’Lame Annie’--a poor friend of mine as couldn’t walk."
David laughed.
"Fancy thinking such things all out of your own head!" he exclaimed.
"Ah! here’s the earth! Yes, that’s a fox."
Presently he prepared to go homeward and she offered to walk a little of
the way by a sheep-track under Eylesbarrow.
He agreed and thanked her; but when the turning point was reached, David
declared that it was now too dark for Margaret to see her way home at
all. And so it became necessary for him to turn again and walk beside
her until Coombeshead windows blinked through the night.
Then he left her, and ventured to squeeze her hand rather tightly as he
did so. He went home somewhat slowly and suffered as many sensations of
affection, admiration and uneasiness as his nature would admit. He was
deep in love and felt that possession of Margaret Stanbury represented
the highest good his life could offer.
*CHAPTER V*
*THE VIRGIN AND THE DOGS*
Rhoda Bowden loved the dogs, and her part in the little commonwealth of
Ditsworthy lay with them. Ten were kept, and money was made from Elias
Bowden’s famous breed of spaniels. To see Rhoda, solemn and stately,
with puppies squealing and tumbling before her, or hanging on to her
skirts, was a familiar sight at the warren.
"It takes all sorts to make a world," said Mrs. Bowden, "and I must
allow my Rhoda never neighboured kindly with the babbies--worse than
useless with ’em; but let it be a litter, and she’s all alive and clever
as need be."
Indeed, the girl had extraordinary skill in canine affairs. She loved
and understood the dogs; and they loved her. By a sort of instinct she
learned their needs and aversions, and the brutes paid her with a blind
worship that woke as soon as their eyes opened on the world. Yelping
and screaming, the puppies paddled about after her; the old dogs walked
by her side or galloped before. Sometimes she went to the warren with
them and watched them working. After David they were nearer to her
heart than most of her own species. She seemed to fathom their
particular natures and read their individual characters with a closeness
more intense and a judgment more accurate than she possessed for
mankind.
Perhaps not only dogs woke this singular understanding in her. As a
child she had chosen to be much alone, and in silent reveries, before
the ceaseless puzzles of Ditsworthy, she had sat sequestered amid
natural things and watched the humble-bees in the thyme, the field mice,
the wheat-ears, and the hawks and lizards. She had regarded all these
lives as running parallel with her own. They were fellow mortals and no
doubt possessed their own interests, homes, anxieties and affairs. She
had felt very friendly to them all and had liked to suppose that they
were happy and prosperous. That they lived on each other did not puzzle
her or pain her. It was so. She herself--and David--lived by the
rabbits. Many thousands of the busy brown people passed away through
the winter to make the prosperity of Ditsworthy. That was a part of the
order of things, and she accepted it with indifference. Death, indeed,
she mourned instinctively, but she did not hate it.
She loved the night and often, from childhood, crept forth alone into
darkness or moonlight.
There was no humour in Rhoda. She smiled if David laughed, but even his
weak sense of the laughter in life exceeded hers by much, and she often
failed after serious search to see reason for his amusement. Such
laughter-lovers as Bartley Crocker frankly puzzled her. Indeed, she
felt a contempt for them.
Life had its own pet problems, and most of these she shared with David;
but of late every enigma had sunk before a new and gigantic one. David
was in love with a girl and certainly hoped to marry her. Until now the
great and favourite mystery in Rhoda’s life was the meaning of the old
sundial at Sheepstor church. Above the porch may still be seen a
venerable stone cut to represent a human skull from whose eye-sockets
and bony jaws there spring fresh ears of wheat. Crossbones support the
head of Death, and beneath them stands a winged hour-glass with the
words ’Mors Janua Vitæ.’
This fragment had since her childhood been a fearful joy to Rhoda. It
was still an object of attraction; but now she had ceased to want an
explanation and would have refused to hear one: the mystery sufficed
her. David, too, had shared her emotions in the relic and had often
advanced theories to explain the eternal wonder of the wheat springing
from human bones.
And now all lesser things were fading before the great pending change,
and Rhoda went uneasy and not wholly happy, like an animal that feels
the approach of storm. Margaret Stanbury interested her profoundly and
there lurked no suspicion of jealousy in Rhoda’s attitude; but critical
she was, and terribly jealous for David. Young Bowden’s mother had been
much easier to satisfy than his sister. With careful and not
unsympathetic mind Rhoda summed up Madge; and the estimate, as was
inevitable, found David’s sweetheart wanting.
The irony of chance had cast Madge into a house childless save for her
elder brother; and her instincts had driven her to pet and nurse the
boulders on Coombeshead; while for Rhoda were babies and to spare
provided, but she ever evaded that uncongenial employment and preferred
a puppy to a child.
Rhoda held her own opinions concerning the opposite sex, and they were
contradictory. A vague ideal of man haunted her mind, but it was faint
and indefinite. She required some measure of special consideration for
women from men; but personally she could not be said to offer any charm
of womanhood in exchange. She expected attention of a sort, but she
never acknowledged it in a way to gladden a masculine heart. And yet
her loveliness and her presence made men forget these facts. They began
by being enthusiastic and only cooled off after a nearer approach had
taught them her limitations. In the general opinion Rhoda "wanted
something" to complete her; but here and there were those who did not
mark this shadowy deficiency. Mr. Simon Snell regarded her as the most
complete and admirable woman he had ever seen; and David also knew of no
disability in his sister. It is true that she differed radically from
Margaret; but that was not a fault in his estimation. He hoped that
these two women would soon share his home; he believed that each must
win from the other much worth the winning; and he held each quite
admirable, though with a different sort of perfection.
On a day at edge of winter, the mistress of the dogs sat on a rock and
watched her brothers Napoleon and Wellington, and her sister Dorcas,
engaged with a ferret. The long, pink-eyed, lemon-coloured brute had a
string tied round its neck and was then sent into the burrows. Anon the
boys dug down where the string indicated, and often found two or three
palpitating rabbits cornered at the end of a tunnel. Then they dragged
them out and broke their necks. At Rhoda’s feet four spaniel puppies
fought with a rabbit-skin, while she and their mother watched them
admiringly.
Towards this busy scene there came a woman, and Rhoda, recognising Mrs.
Stanbury, walked to meet her.
"Be your mother at home, my dear?" asked the elder. "’Twas ordained us
should have a bit of a tell about one or two things, and I said a while
ago, when us met Sunday week, that I’d pick a dry day and come across."
"She’s at home, and faither too. We’re making up a big order for
Birmingham and everybody’s to work."
"Such a hive as you be here. Bless them two boys, how they do grow, to
be sure!"
She pointed to the twins, Samson and Richard, who had just joined their
elder brothers.
Rhoda led the way and they approached the house. White pigeons and blue
circled round about the eaves, and sweet peat smoke drifted from the
chimney. A scrap of vegetable garden protected from the east by a high
wall, lay beside the dwelling, and even unexpected flowers--gifts from
the valleys--made shift to live and blossom here. Aubrietias struggled
in the stones by the garden path, and a few Michaelmas daisies, now in
the sere, also prospered there. Sarah Bowden herself, and only she,
looked after the flowers. They were a sort of pleasure to
her--especially the daffodils that speared through the black earth and
hung out their orange and lemon and silver in spring. Walls of piled
peat and stone surrounded the garden, and the grey face of the Warren
House opened upon it. At present the garden and porch were full of
rabbit baskets packed for market. One could only see rows and rows of
little hind pads stained brown by the peat.
Mr. Bowden was doing figures at a high desk in the corner of the
kitchen, and his wife sat by the fire mending clothes. Rhoda left Mrs.
Stanbury with them and went out again to the boys.
Sarah Bowden had grown round-backed with crouching over many babies.
She loved them and everything to do with them. Had Nature permitted it,
she would gladly have begun to bear another family. Now she picked up
her skirt and dusted a chair.
"Don’t, please, demean yourself on my account," said Constance Stanbury.
"I’ve come from master. As you know, my dear, there’s something in the
wind, and Bartholomew thought that perhaps you’d be so kind as to spare
the time and tell me a little how it strikes you and what you feel about
it."
"Fetch out elderberry wine and seedy cake," said Elias. "Mrs. Stanbury
must have bit and sup. She’ve come a rough road."
"No, no. No occasion, I’m sure. Don’t let me put you to no trouble,
Sarah."
"Very pleased," said Mrs. Bowden. "’Tis about David and your maiden you
be here, of course?"
"So it is then. My children ain’t nothing out of the common, you must
know--haven’t got more sense than, please God, they should have. But
all the same Margaret’s a very good, fearless girl, and kind-hearted you
might say, even."
"Kind-hearted! Why, her name’s knowed all up the countryside for
kindness," said Mrs. Bowden. "She’s a proper fairy, and we be very fond
of her, ban’t we, Elias?"
"Yes," said Mr. Bowden. "She’s got every vartue but cash."
"She’m to have twenty-five pounds on her wedding-day, however. Of
course to people like you, with large ideas about money, such a figure
be very small; but her father’s put it by for her year after year, and
she’ll have it."
"Well done, Stanbury!" said Mr. Bowden.
"They ban’t tokened yet, and you might think us a thought too pushing,
which God forbid, I’m sure," said Mrs. Stanbury, crumbling her cake and
not eating it. "But it’s going to be. I know the signs. Your David’s
set on her, and he’s the sort who have their way. That man’s face
wouldn’t take ’no’ for an answer, if I may say so. Not that he’ll get
’no’ for an answer. There’s that in my daughter’s eyes when his name is
named.--So ’tis just so good as done so far as they’re concerned."
Mr. Bowden left his desk and came to the table. He poured out a glass
of elderberry wine for himself and drank it.
"Listen to me," he said. "Wool is worth one shilling and sevenpence a
pound, and David be going to buy fifty sheep. You might ax how? Well,
his Uncle Partridge--Sarah’s late brother--left him five hundred pound
under his will; and when he marries and leaves here, he’ll spend a bit
of that on sheep--old Dartmoor crossed with Devon Long Wool. ’Tis a
brave breed and the wonderfulest wool as you’ll handle in England. The
only care is not to breed out the Dartmoor constitution. I may tell you
an average coat is twelve pounds of wool. So there you are."
Mr. Bowden instantly returned to his stool and his ledger. He appeared
to regard his statement as strictly relative, and, indeed, Mrs. Stanbury
so understood it. In their speech, as in their written communications,
the folk shear off every redundancy of expression until only the bare
bones of ideas remain--sometimes without even necessary connecting
links.
"We never doubted that he was snug. But where be he going, if I might
ask?" said Mrs. Stanbury.
"Wait," answered Elias, twisting round but not dismounting. "We haven’t
come to that. I should mention ponies also. There’ll be ponies so well
as sheep, and in God’s good time, when old Jonathan Dawe’s carried to
the yard, David may become Moorman of the quarter. Nobody’s better
suited to the work. Well--ponies.--With ponies what live be all profit,
and what die be no loss. In fact, if you find the carpses soon enough,
they be a gain too, for the dogs eat ’em. The chap as was up here afore
me twenty-five year ago, was a crooked rogue, and many a pony did he
shoot when they comed squealing to the doors in snowy weather--for his
dogs."
"David be going to build a house," said Mrs. Bowden. "He couldn’t abide
living in no stuffy village after the warren, so he’s going to find a
place--he’ve got his eye on it a’ready, for that matter."
"Not too far away, I hope--if I may venture to say so."
"Not at all far, and closer to you than us. He was full of a place
under Black Tor as he’d found by the river. There’s a ruin of the ’old
men’ there, as only wants building up to make a very vitty cottage."
"And you see no objection and think ’tis a good enough match for your
boy?"
"Just so," said Elias.
"Then I won’t take up no more of your time, for I mark ’tis a rabbit day
with you."
"There’s a thought comes over me, however," said Sarah, "and ’tis about
the young youth, Bartley Crocker. Mind, Constance, I’m not saying
anything against him. But David’s had the man on his mind a bit of
late, and perhaps you know why."
"No doubt I do," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You see, Nanny Crocker have took
up with Madge lately, and I believe she actually thinks as my girl be
almost good enough for her boy. ’Tis a great compliment, but she’ve
begun at the wrong end--curious such a clever woman as her. Margaret
likes Bartley Crocker very well, as all the maidens do for that matter.
A very merry chap, but terrible lazy and terrible light-minded."
"You’ll not often find a young man so solid and steady as our David."
"Never seed the like, Sarah. An old head on young shoulders."
"I’ve said of him before, and I’ll say of him again that nought could
blow David off his own bottom," declared Elias. "As to t’other chap, he
may have a witty mother, but bottom--none; ballast--not a grain. A very
frothy, fair-weather fellow."
"What I say is, with so much open laughter there must be hidden tears.
Nobody can always be in such a good temper--like a schoolboy just runned
out of school," said Mrs. Stanbury.
"Why, ’tis so--ever grinning and gallivanting, that chap," answered the
man. "David’s built of different clay, and though your daughter may not
have much to laugh at, for I’ll grant he’s a bit solemn, yet she’ll have
nought to cry at; and that’s a lot more to the point."
"Her nature do tend to laughter, however; I won’t hide that from you.
Madge will get a bit of fun out of married life. Her very love for
David will make her bright and merry as a dancing star."
"Why not? Why not?" asked Mrs. Bowden.
"No reason," summed up the warrener. "She’ll bring the flummery and
David will bring the pudding. Leave it so. They must do the rest. And
as for laughter, why, I can laugh in the right place myself, as well as
any man."
Mrs. Stanbury rose.
"I may tell master, then, that you’m both willing and agreeable?"
"Certainly you may; and when things is forwarder, David will put his
prospects afore Bartholomew Stanbury all straight and clear."
"’Tis a very great match for any daughter of mine, and I hope she’ll
rise worthy of it."
"Don’t be downcast, my dear," said Sarah. "Margaret’s as good as gold,
and lucky the man that gets her, though my own son."
"You speak too kind, I’m sure--both of ’e," declared Mrs. Stanbury; then
she departed and her neighbours discussed her.
"Never seed the like of that woman for crying ’stinking fish,’" said Mr.
Bowden; and his wife admitted it.
"She do make the worst of herself and her belongings without a doubt;
but a good sort and better far than the puffed-up people."
"Seems to go in fear whether she ought to be alive--eh?"
"Yes, you might say so."
Elias uttered one of his sudden chuckles.
"What be laughing at?" asked his wife.
"Why, I was thinking when that humble-minded creature comes to die,
she’ll tell the angels when they come to fetch her, that she really
ban’t anything like good enough for the Upper Place!"
*CHAPTER VI*
*THE HOST OF ’THE CORNER HOUSE’*
’The Corner House’ stood just outside Sheepstor village, and Mr. Reuben
Shillabeer--a childless widower--was host of it. His wife had been dead
ten years, but he kept her memory green, and so much that happened in
the world appeared to remind him sorrowfully of her, that the folk found
him depressing. Some air of romance from the past hung about Mr.
Shillabeer: he had moved in sporting circles and been a prize-fighter.
Though his own record in the ring was not glorious and consisted of five
battles and one victory, yet Mr. Shillabeer had known as a friend and
equal the giants of the past. In rare moments of cheerfulness he would
open his huge palm before the spectator and explain how that hand had
shaken the unconquerable and terrible ’rights’ of the three immortal
’Toms.’
"I’ve knowed all three--Tom Cribb, Tom Spring and that wonder of the
world, Tom Sayers," Mr. Shillabeer would say; "all Champions of England
and all very friendly to me. And Mr. Spring would have been my second
in my affair with Andy Davison, ’the Rooster,’ but he had other business
on hand. And now," Mr. Shillabeer would sum up mournfully, "now Cribb
be in his grave and Spring in his, and Sayers will fight no more, though
still the glory of the nation. But they always called me the
’Devonshire Dumpling’; and when I had my one and only benefit in the
Fives Court, Mr. Spring showed, God bless him for it, though only a
fortnight after his first mill with Jack Langan."
In person the ’Devonshire Dumpling,’ now a man of sixty, was built on
massive lines. He stood six feet two inches, and weighed sixteen stone.
His large heavy-jowled face was mild and melancholy; his eyes were brown
and calf-like. One nostril had been split and flattened in battle, and
the symmetry of his countenance was thereby spoiled. He shaved clean,
but under his double chin there sprouted and spread a thick fringe or
mat of hair--foxy-grey and red mingled. Tremendous shoulders and arms
belonged to Mr. Shillabeer. Sometimes he would perform feats of strength
for the pleasure of the bar, and he could always be prevailed upon to
discuss two subjects, now both defunct: the prize-ring, and his wife.
Tom Sayers had recently fought John Heenan, and the great records of the
Ring were closed. Jem Mace was now champion, and his prowess perhaps
revived the moribund sport for a few years; but prize-fighting had
passed into the control of dishonest rascals and the fighters were
merely exploited by the lowest and most ruffianly types of sporting men.
The Ring had perished and many a straight, simple-hearted spirit of the
old school regretted the fact, even as Shillabeer did. He was not vain
and never hesitated to give the true reasons for his own undistinguished
career.
There fell an evening in the bar of ’The Corner House’ when Mr.
Shillabeer appeared in a temper unusually brisk and genial. He even
cracked a massive joke with Charles Moses, the shoemaker and vicar’s
warden. There were present also Simon Snell, David Bowden from
Ditsworthy, Ernest Maunder, the village constable, and other persons.
Mr. Moses reproved a certain levity in the leviathan host.
"What’s come to you, ’Dumpling’? A regular three-year-old this evening.
But you’m not built for it, my dear. ’Tis like an elephant from a
doomshow trying to play the monkey’s tricks."
At this criticism Reuben Shillabeer instantly subsided. He drew beer
for Bowden, cast David’s three halfpence into the till and turned to Mr.
Moses.