edge, and scarce a man farther off than Tavistock knew ought about us.
But my forbears and others like ’em rose up in our midst and toiled and
laboured for the good of the town, and each did his appointed part,
until--well--all I say is, look at us now! Sheepstor stands as high as
any other place of note that ever I heard about in the kingdom, and we
be carrying on the good work in the good old way."
With the recollections of Mr. Moses, which were much protracted, light
began to wane, and certain prominent members of the party prepared to
wend homewards, while yet their wild roads might be seen. All rose, and
there began great hand-shaking and well-wishing, together with some
laughter and some shedding of tears. Reuben broached a bottle of whisky
for the men and tea was brought in for the women. All the young people
had long since departed, because the entertainment from their standpoint
ended with the eating. Now nearly a score of pipes began to glow, and
the wedding guests set out on many roads. The adult Bowdens departed
homewards, and Elias carried his wife on his arm and strove to cheer
her. Her son, Drake, had unhappily intruded himself largely upon these
final emotional moments, and she refused to be comforted. With a
quintessential distillation of pessimism worthy of Mrs. Stanbury’s self,
Sarah declared that somehow during Mr. Shillabeer’s speech it had been
borne in upon her that Margaret’s firstborn would prove a failure.
"Stuff and nonsense--silly woman! ’Tis your digestion," said the master
of the Warren House. "I very well knowed how ’twould be when I seed you
taking that sour purple muck they call claret atop of the good
old-fashioned sherry. No stomach could be expected to endure one on top
of t’other, and you’re fairly paid out for it."
Mrs. Stanbury was very silent on the way home, but Bart and his father
did the talking. Both assured Constance that the entertainment might be
considered absolutely and brilliantly successful from first to last.
She, however, expressed a multiplicity of doubts.
"The loin of pork was done to rags, and the stuffing tasted of nought,"
she said. "’Tis things like that are remembered months after all that
went right be quite forgotten. And I hope to God they’ve got the
cottage walls dry, and that leak over the ope-way made good. When I was
up there a fortnight agone to see the wall-papers, you’d never have said
mortals could live in the place inside two weeks."
"Madge vowed ’twas all right when I drove her over with her boxes a bit
ago," declared Bart. "The house will be very vitty after they’ve lived
in it a week or two."
Of course, the first to leave Sheepstor were bride and bridegroom. In a
trap hired from ’The Corner House’ David carried Margaret off to her
home. Their possessions were already stored at ’Meavy Cot.’ Fires had
been burning for a week and everything was made ready for the married
pair.
David’s last words were addressed to Rhoda.
"Mind," he said, "a fortnight from to-day us shall be ready; and I’ll
come up to Ditsworthy in my new cart for you and your box. But we all
shall meet afore then, no doubt."
He drove his wife away under a wild evening sky, amid blessings and
cheers and cries of "Godspeed." Some of the voices were shrill and
tearful, some merry, some deep and gruff. The trap trundled along;
Madge flashed a white handkerchief; then she and her husband were
swallowed up by the roaming, red light that misted under the sunset.
"A happy omen, souls," said Mr. Stanbury. "For the sun have been
shining ever since it rose. A cloudless marriage day is all to the
good, I believe; and though the sky may offer for rain afore midnight,
nought of the day can be marred now."
*CHAPTER V*
*ARRIVAL OF RHODA*
A fortnight after her marriage there came a day when Madge roamed
restlessly and rather nervously about her little house. She was very
happy, yet with a clouded happiness, because this ideal bliss of
dwelling with David alone drew to its close. Real life had yet to begin
at ’Meavy Cot,’ and real life included Rhoda Bowden. On this day David
started early to fetch his sister. Among his other possessions was a
horse and a light cart; and with these he set out in the chill
half-light of six o’clock on a November morning for the Warren House.
Now Margaret’s preparations were complete. A dish of cakes kept hot
upon the hearth; and aloft in Rhoda’s room the severe simplicity of the
rosy-washed walls, low roof and little iron bedstead seemed to echo
Rhoda’s maiden mind. But her sister-in-law was not content with the
unadorned chamber. She had nailed an illuminated text or two upon the
walls; she had hung there also an old grocer’s almanac with a picture of
a deerhound’s head upon it, because she thought this portrait of a dog
would please Rhoda; and she had made a little bouquet of wild berries
and set it with a sprig of ivy in a vase on the chest-of-drawers. A few
of Rhoda’s own possessions had already arrived. On the floor of the
room lay no carpet; but the white deal boarding was broken by some
skins--black, brindled and tawny. These memorials were all that remained
of certain defunct dogs who had owned Rhoda as mistress during their
bustling and eventful lives. She was wont to preserve the pelt of any
special favourite; and her nature received a placid satisfaction in
possession and use of these remains. The rough coats that had
often-times received caress or chastisement as occasion demanded, now
felt only her naked feet at morn and evening.
Margaret began to fear for the tea, but David was a punctual man, and at
five minutes past the appointed time a light flashed in the outer
darkness, a cart creaked and jolted over the rough way, a dog barked and
Rhoda’s deep tones answered it. She was soon beside Margaret, and they
shook hands and kissed affectionately.
"Come and see your room," said Madge, "while David puts up the horse and
cart. I’m afraid you was jolted a bit at the finish. The new road
round the hill be terrible rough travelling for wheels."
Rhoda was not cheerful and had little to say. She produced some parcels
and one from Mrs. Bowden; but it seemed that some trouble sat upon her.
She brightened up, however, on reaching her room and much admired it.
"Like your kind heart to think of all these things," she said.
"You’ll see the sun of a fine morning rise ’twixt Hessary and Cramber,"
explained Margaret. "And I’m afraid the noise of the waterfall may keep
you waking a bit till you’m used to it. ’Tis quiet to-night, but after
heavy rain Meavy comes down like thunder."
"Nought keeps me awake," declared Rhoda. She altered the position of
the fragments on the floor. "That was the best collie ever I had," she
said, drawing a black and orange skin to her bedside; "a terrible fine
dog, and only in his prime when he died. Father said he was going mad,
though I never thought it. However, he was queer and snapped at the
childer in a way very unlike himself, and father would not risk it, but
put a charge of shot into his head when I was out of the way. You’d
hardly believe it, Madge, but I cried! On my honour I cried--and a girl
of near eighteen at the time."
Rhoda had brought a few of her special treasures and Margaret now helped
her to arrange them to advantage. Her library was trifling and included
a Bible and prayer-book, an anthology of verses, which Madge saw for the
first time and felt astonishment at seeing, and a work on canine
diseases.
"You can have they rhymes if you’ve got any use for them," said Rhoda.
"They was given me by my gossip, old Martha Moon, when I was confirmed,
but I don’t understand poetry, though you may."
Then Rhoda admired the dog almanac, and she was still doing so when
David’s voice below brought the women down together.
He was thirsty and wanted his tea.
Rhoda produced one of the famous Bowden cakes, famed alike for size and
wealth of ingredients; but the meal, while lacking nothing of goodness,
warmth and variety, awoke no answering glow in the master’s mind. He was
clearly troubled, and Rhoda’s passing brightness also gave place to a
taciturn demeanour before her brother’s concern. Margaret thereupon
rated David and he explained his annoyance.
"What ever has come over you?" she asked. "So glumpy and glowry as you
are! What’s amiss with him, Rhoda? But I’ll wager I know. It all
looked so cosy and homelike at the Warren House that David felt homesick
and didn’t want to came back to me!"
David was bound to laugh at this absurd theory.
"Homesick!" he said. "I’m only homesick when I’m out of the sight of
our brave chimney; and well you know it."
"’Tis Dorcas," explained Rhoda. "She’s giving mother and father a lot
of trouble for the minute. She’ll see sense come presently, we’ll hope."
"Billy Screech?"
Rhoda nodded.
"She’ll come round; but for some cause us common folk can’t fathom,
she’s in love with the man. So she says, anyhow, though ’tis hard to
believe it."
"As to that," declared Margaret, "Billy ban’t particular ugly. He’ve
got a long, sharp nose, I grant you--"
"Yes," interrupted David, "and he’ve been told to keep that nose away
from the Warren House; and the mischief is he won’t obey father’s
commands. Two nights agone the moon was full, and Rhoda went out for to
breathe the air and see if there was a fox down by the fowl-house. And
a fox there was--long nose and all, and his name was Billy Screech."
He looked at his sister and she continued the narrative.
"I hate spying," she said, "and God, He knows I didn’t go afield to seek
that man, or any other man. And I thought Dorcas was to bed, for she’d
gone off after supper with a faceache. But travelling quick and silent,
as my way is, over the close surf of the warrens, I came round a rock
right on top of ’em. And--" Rhoda grew hot at the unpleasant
recollection and broke off.
"And he was sitting on a stone, and she was sitting on his lap," said
David, who spared his sister the details. "Little red-headed fool! I
wish I’d found ’em, for I’d have thrashed the man to jelly afore her
eyes, and cured her that way."
"What did you do, Rhoda?" asked Margaret.
"I made her come in. As her elder sister I had the right. She wasn’t
in the least ashamed of herself seemingly. I boxed her ears, when the
man had gone, and she forgot herself and tried to bite my hand."
"She’s like a rat in a trap over this business," said David. "Never
would you have guessed or dreamed ’twas in her to show her teeth so."
"All laughter and silly jokes till this miserable man came after her,"
continued his sister. "And now--I blush for her. ’Tis very horrid and
shameful to think that any girl can demean herself so."
David here left the room and Madge continued to Rhoda.
"She feels ’tis her great chance for a home of her own, I expect. Us
all gets that hope sometimes, so why not Dorcas?"
But the other did not sympathise with this theory.
"Us don’t all feel it," she declared. "A many women never do. And if
all of us was to marry, the work of the world would stand still.
There’s a great deal for free women to do that nobody else can do so
well as them; and it seems to me that the first thing a female does,
after she’s brought childer into the world, be to look about and try to
find an unmarried woman to help her do her work. There’s scores of
spinsters spending their lives messing about with their sisters’
babbies."
"Babbies ban’t everything, I grant that," said Margaret; but she said it
doubtfully. In her heart children certainly took the first place.
Indeed, Madge felt a little guilty of being untrue to herself in the
last sentiment. Therefore she modified it.
"All the same, they mean a lot to most women, and I long for ’em cruel
and ban’t ashamed to say it."
"The likes of you would; and so do David; and when they come, you’ll
want for me to look after some young things beside puppies," said Rhoda.
She smiled, but did not laugh. There was a saying at Warren House that
none had ever heard her laugh.
"As to that," answered her sister-in-law, boldly, "you talk like an old
maid a’ready, and you but a few and twenty. We’ll soon larn you
different! When you see what ’tis to have a li’l home of your very own,
and a man of your very own, I’m sure you’ll begin to find that marriage
is good. Now come and look at my parlour and tell me if there’s not
something there that you’d wish away."
She lighted a candle and exhibited the glory of her best room to Rhoda’s
gaze.
"’Tis everything it should be, and you’ve arranged it beautiful, I’m
sure," declared Rhoda; "and the presents do look better far than they
did afore. This here, that me and Sophia bought for you"--she indicated
a little looking-glass in an ornate gold frame--"why, it’s ever so much
finer than ever I thought it in the shop at Tavistock where we bought
it; and father’s sideboard do look splendid."
"You must see the pictures by daylight," said Madge. "They be proper
painted pictures that David picked up in a sale. He got the four for
seven shillings, and the auctioneer said the frames were worth the
money."
Rhoda admired very heartily and again congratulated Margaret on her
skill and taste.
"What should I wish away?" she asked. "I can’t sec nothing that isn’t
just where it should be, I’m sure."
"Look round again."
But the other, after a further scrutiny, only shook her head.
"Why, those two handkerchiefs in the glass frames hanging each side of
your lovely looking-glass. There’s poor Bartley’s purple and yellow and
David’s blue and white spots. Now surely, surely, Rhoda, it ban’t a
seemly thing to hang ’em up there to remind everybody of that horrid
fight? And besides, as ’tis only of a Sunday the parlour’s likely to be
used, that makes it worse, for who wants to think of such a business on
the seventh day, of all days?"
Rhoda was looking at the colours, but showed only interest.
"They come out very nice," she said, "and of course they ought to be
here. If I was you, I should be prouder of them two things and the
great, valiant battle they stand for, than anything else belonging to
David. And if you’d been there, Madge, as I was, and had seen David,
despite all that he went through, come out top and smash in t’other
man’s face with his last strength afore he went blind--if you’d seen it,
you wouldn’t wish the colours away. ’Twas I hitched ’em off the post
when everybody else had forgot ’em."
"There’s the other man to think of, however."
"Why?" asked Rhoda. "I’m sure that Bartley Crocker, who be pretty
large-minded with all his faults, wouldn’t think none the worse of David
for hanging up the handkerchers like this. He’d have done the same
quick enough--or his mother would have done it for him. The men be good
friends, and so they ought to be. But that’s no reason against it."
Margaret admitted the justice of the argument.
"If you think it can’t hurt anybody’s feelings, no doubt there’s no real
harm," she said.
"Of course not. Men be men, and not so tender and touchy as the likes
of you. Why, what did Mr. Crocker say at your wedding? Nothing but
what was friendly and kindly, I’m sure."
"No, indeed--a beautiful speech; and ’twas as much for that reason as
any other that I thought perhaps, if ever he came to see us and caught
sight of the colours--"
"He’ll be the first to say they look very fine," prophesied Rhoda. "All
the same, I hope I shan’t be here when he calls--if he does call--for--"
She stopped and Margaret answered.
"Don’t say that. I’m sure, after what he spoke about you in his speech,
you ought to let bygones be bygones and feel friendly."
"That’s all past and forgiven," said Rhoda; "but I won’t pretend I feel
to him like I do to other men."
"I hope you don’t," replied Madge, laughing. "That’s just what I want to
hear, Rhoda."
The younger was puzzled and her sister-in-law, unconscious of the
fateful moment, made the first move in a game that was to determine
three destinies.
"I hope you don’t. I hope you feel that Bartley Crocker be worth a
little more thought than most men. At any rate, don’t set your mind
against him. That wouldn’t be fair--to yourself, Rhoda."
"My mind’s neither for nor against any human creature outside my own
people. Why should it be?"
"There’s no reason at all. You’re young and you’re terrible pretty, and
not a soul that’s ever set eyes upon you feels anything but kind
thoughts of you."
Rhoda did not answer for a few moments; then a bewildered expression
faded from her face.
"I’ll go out and see the kennel now."
"Leave that till the morning and unpack your things. ’Twill be dark as
a wolf’s mouth over there."
"I’ve brought my own lantern," said Rhoda; "I’ll go over now, if you’ll
show me the way."
The horn lantern was lighted and Madge led Rhoda where her husband had
planted a row of flat stepping-stones across the river. The kennel and
a byre stood there together, and four dogs whined a welcome to their new
mistress. In the light of the flame their shining noses and lustrous
eyes flashed out of the gloom, and they leapt about the women. David
appeared; then Madge went in to wash up and prepare supper, while Rhoda
stayed beside her brother.
"’Tis good to be back-along with you," she said, "and I do think, all
ways, it must be better. Joshua be coming out wonderful and surprising
father every day since you went; and Sophia will take my place; and Nap
and Wellington, between them, will look after Joshua’s work with the
traps. ’Tis all right but for Dorcas. There’s nobody left to keep her
in order now I’m gone--hateful little toad! I axed father to set parson
on her; but he wouldn’t. Something will have to be done, but I don’t
know what."
"I’ll see father later," replied David. "Dorcas be the first Bowden
that’s a fool, and we must treat her according."
They all supped together presently, and David planned the nature of the
life before his sister. The course of laborious days did not spare her
and left little margin for idleness; but Rhoda neither knew nor wished
to know the meaning of leisure. She appeared well content with David’s
plans and nodded from time to time, but said little.
*CHAPTER VI*
*REPULSE*
At noon in early May, when the willow’s golden flowers ran up the still
naked stems like fire; when the clouds in the sky were large and fleecy
and the birds sang again from dawn till even, Bartley, walking beside
the leat, where it wound like a silver ribbon between Lowery Tor and
Lowery Farm, met Rhoda Bowden. Neither expected to see the other in that
spot. She explained that she had been far afield with a message for her
brother; he admitted that he walked there with no special object but to
kill an hour.
"How’s your mother?" she asked.
"No better. I’m only here now till I know the doctor’s been. As soon
as I see his gig drive up the hill, I shall go down across the river
home. She vows ’tis nothing; but I think she’s worse than we know."
"Summer may get up her nature again."
"I’m sure I hope so too. And ’tis more than kind of you to cheer me
up."
He walked beside her.
"May I give your dogs a sandwich?" he asked. "My aunt cut me a bit of
bread and meat to fetch along with me; but I don’t want it."
She nodded and Bartley divided his food between a fox-terrier and a
collie. In a twinkling his luncheon vanished.
They kept silence for a long time and she, astonished that he could be
mute, addressed him.
"David be going to show sheep at Tavistock this year."
"Good luck to them then," he answered, wakening from his reverie.
"Those horned creatures he has got look very fine and carry an amazing
deal of wool--anybody can see that. I’m very much inclined to try a few
myself. Must ask him all about them if he’ll be so kind as to tell me."
"No doubt he would. He’s doing a bit of Moorman’s work now in the
quarter, and looking after a good few things besides his own."
"The Moorman, old Jonathan Dawe, is past his work, I doubt?"
"Far past it. But he and David understand each other, and David does
very well out of it. He’ll be Moorman for certain come Mr. Dawe dies,
unless something better turns up."
"Why doesn’t the old chap retire?"
"David have often axed him the same question. He says the race of Dawe
never retires. He means to die in harness--unless Duchy won’t lease the
quarter to him no more."
Bartley nodded and silence again fell. He had seen not a little of
Rhoda during the past few months, and he knew now that he longed to
marry her and none else. Madge had promised to use her wits in the good
cause, and she did her best for him, but Crocker perceived that his
wooing must take place upon no very conventional lines. Rhoda Bowden
was not to be taken by storm but by strategy. So, at least, he
believed, and he had devoted much time to the problem of her capture and
displayed a patience and pertinacity alike very remarkable in him. He
paid no regular and obvious court, for fear of being warned off by David
before he had given Rhoda a fair opportunity to change her mind
concerning him. He merely considered her when the chance offered; spoke
well and enthusiastically about her behind her back, and seized every
incident and event that could serve to bring her into his company, or
take him into hers. Margaret helped, but not as she would have liked to
help. Bartley held himself cleverer than she in this matter and
expressly forbade her either to ask him at present to ’Meavy Cot,’ or
take any other step which must result in a meeting between him and
Rhoda. She did just what she was told, watched his cautious progress
and felt absolutely certain that he was mistaken. Her way had been
quite different from his, and, as she came to know Rhoda better, she
felt that Bartley’s elaborate plans would miscarry and leave her
sister-in-law absolutely indifferent.
"You can try your plan and I’ll look on," she said to him; "and, after
you’ve proved you’re all wrong, then you will have to try mine. Mind, I
don’t say my wits will be much more use than your own; but they may be."
And now the time was ripe, in Crocker’s opinion, to put his experiment
to the proof and see whether his unostentatious but steady siege had in
reality shaken the fortress at any point. He felt tolerably certain
that Rhoda would refuse him; but he intended to ask the great question.
He was, indeed, prepared to put it many times before taking ’no’ for an
answer.
At a stile their ways parted. She would follow the leat, which leapt
Meavy at an aqueduct not a quarter of a mile from her home; and he would
plunge into the valley, cross the river and return to Sheepstor.
"Well, good-morning to you," she said. "I hope that Mrs. Crocker will
mend afore long."
"Wait," he answered. "I won’t keep you, Rhoda, but ’tis a pretty place
and hour for speech. May I ask you something?"
"I’m a thought late for dinner as it is. But ask and welcome."
"’Welcome’! I wonder? ’Twould be a very welcome thing to think I was
welcome. But I’m not vain enough to think it. I only hope it."
His personality and the masculine look and voice of him troubled her. A
man who was obviously alive to sex and alert before women made her
uncomfortable. The deep-eyed sly man--the man who was servile to women,
who rushed to set chairs for them, who bowed to them and strove to catch
their eye in public--these men she hated. Bartley was such a man, but
he had long since perceived her dislike of gallantry and had given her
no second cause to resent his attentions in that sort. His sustained
reserve and apparent indifference had satisfied her and modified her
former detestation; but it had not advanced him one span in her regard.
She did not answer him now, and he continued--
"You see, Rhoda, very queer things happen--things that are deeper than
we can explain or understand. And, before I speak, I want to go back a
bit, because what I’m going to say may seem pleasanter in your ears if I
remind you of a thing that happened long since. When I kissed you in the
Pixies’ House you were terrible angered with me, and ’twas as natural
for you to be so as ’twas for me to kiss you."
"I don’t want to hear no more of that, and I won’t," she said fiercely.