just and honourable as all who be called Bowden, and you must hear. I
insist on it, for ’tis almost life or death to me. When I kissed you
and you tore from me like a frightened bird, what did you say? You
forget, but I remember, and I’ll remind you. You pressed your face
against my cheek by accident, and I couldn’t stand it, and I kissed you
and you said: ’You loathsome, Godless wretch! I could tear the skin off
my face. I’d sooner the lightning had struck me.’ Then you fought your
way out and trampled on my hand with your boot till the blood ran. Now,
Rhoda, listen. I’m not loathsome, and I’m not Godless. You touched me
accidentally and I took a terrible fierce fire from it. Why? Not
because I’m a free liver; not because I would do the like from any
maiden’s touch. Not from that--I swear it; but because that touch meant
a great deal more to me than I understood. I did a thing any man may do
under certain circumstances, Rhoda; but the circumstances were hid from
me then, though they came out clear enough after. I loved you in the
Pixies’ House, though I didn’t know it then; but my nature was quicker
than my mind, and my nature took charge and made me do the thing I did.
Not out of insult, but out of honour I did it; and I’ve honoured you
more and more ever since that day. I honoured you when you helped
David; and I knew then, as well as I know that God made me, that if
you’d been in my corner instead of his I’d have beat him. I honoured
you at his wedding--so graceful and lovely and above the rest as you
were; and I honour you now, and I’ve been a better chap since I knew
you. And--and if you’ll marry me, Rhoda, I’ll try with all my strength
to be worthy of such a wife. Oh, Rhoda, don’t say ’no.’"
She only understood a part, and the tone of his voice spoke and soothed
her to patience, though his words left her cold. She perceived that he
was deeply in love with her and had hidden it carefully from her. That
he had hidden it was a grace in him: she thanked him for that. His
excuse for the past did not impress her. All that remained was to refuse
him and leave him as swiftly as possible. She did not feel very
flattered or elated. She did not like him any better for this avowal.
The master-sense in her mind was one of frank discomfort. She felt not
particularly sorry that she had to disappoint him; she experienced only
a desire for haste--to speak and end this unsought scene and get out of
his sight. She wasted no words.
"’Tis kind, no doubt, to offer marriage," she said, "but you’re wrong.
Us wouldn’t suit each other. You’ll find a girl to please you better
than me. Ban’t no use talking about it. I don’t feel--I don’t feel
drawed, Mr. Crocker, and I suppose unless both parties be drawed ’tis no
use hoping for a happy marriage."
"Think of it--take a bit of time. ’Tis mere moonshine the likes of you
going single, Rhoda."
"I’ve seen marriage under my eyes ever since I could mark anything," she
answered. "I’ve seen it and still see it."
She stopped and shook her head, implying that as yet the state offered
no large charm for her.
"Good-bye. Think no more of this--and no more will I."
She left him, and he sat down where a sluice opened off the leat, so
that the overflow in time of torrent might do no hurt to the banks. He
sat and regretted what he believed to be his precipitation. The time
was not ripe. He had sprung this proposal too suddenly upon her. For
her own sake he had not played the lover as a preliminary, and as a
result she failed to recognise the lover in him. He had erred in
tactics. He was not much downcast, but felt that the opening battle was
well ended, with a defeat that he foresaw. He had explained the kiss,
and this interview was thereby justified. It would not be necessary to
retrace that old ground again. And yet he doubted whether Rhoda had
quite understood him.
"If she did understand, she didn’t believe," he told himself.
He was not ill-pleased with the encounter. He had fired the first shot
and engaged her in the first skirmish. He must tell Margaret all that
had happened, and he must hear from Margaret if any results of this
adventure were displayed by Rhoda. He felt pretty certain that none
would be. David she might confide in, but not in Margaret. The
interview as a whole did not dismay him, and it was not until he reached
home and heard an unfavourable report of his mother’s health that he
became gloomy.
Meanwhile the girl, a little fluttered by this occurrence, proceeded on
her way with thoughts not wholly pleasant; and to her came the leat man,
Simon Snell, upon his rounds. His eyes grew large and watered a little
when he caught sight of her in the distance. At first, indeed, he was
minded to dive off the footpath, hasten away and make as though he had
not seen her; but he fortified himself against this pusillanimous
instinct, held on boldly, and presently saluted her in his thin,
somewhat senseless voice.
"Good-day to ’e, Miss Rhoda Bowden. Glad to meet you on the leat path,
I’m sure. Don’t often see you this way."
"Good-morning, Mr. Snell."
"And a very good morning to you. Beautiful spring weather, to be sure.
Beautiful dogs, to be sure. Never see you or David without a fine dog.
And the dog as I had off your farther would have made a very fine,
upstanding dog without a doubt, if her hadn’t have gone and died. Not
your fault--I’m not saying that."
"I was very sorry to hear it."
"Of course you was; and if I’d had enough sense, and put the poor young
dog in a basket and carry ’un up over to you, I’ll lay with your dog
cleverness as you’d have saved ’un. But, instead, I traapsed off to
Walkhampton with him--to Adam Thorpe--and he got the dog underground in
a week."
"Thorpe don’t know much about dogs."
"You’re right there; I quite agree. Would ’e like to see me open a
sluice-gate? ’Tis purty to see the water go down all of a tumble, and
often a rainbow throwed off when the wind be blowing slantwise across
the sun."
"Can’t stop, but I’ll see the thing done some other time, if you
please."
"An’ welcome; and I’m sorry, I’m sure, to have kept ’e with my talk, and
you wild to be on your way, no doubt."
"If you want a puppy, you can have one next month," said Rhoda. "That
yellow collie there, with a bit of Gordon setter in him, be the faither.
They’re very nice-looking creatures."
"And so I will then, and gladly and thankfully," he said.
Simon walked by her and she felt easy and comfortable. His neutral, not
to say neuter, personality met and matched her own. His round, innocent
eyes, smooth face and silly beard put her at ease. He did not thrust
masculinity upon her, but was merely a fellow-creature talking upon
subjects that interested her. What Crocker had of late tried to be in
his attitude towards this woman Mr. Snell really was. The one attempted
a posture other than his own, and failed in it; for no woman could look
into his eyes and not know something about him. The other equally
remained himself, yet even so he satisfied Rhoda, although she came to
him unusually exacting from her recent interview with Mr. Crocker.
Simon’s thoughts, Simon’s humble humour, and Simon’s general attitude to
life, if vague, were quite acceptable to Rhoda. To her his voice did
not sound thin or his opinions childish. She was comfortable in his
company, and she left him presently with a pleasant nod and a ’good-bye’
that was almost genial.
He stood a long time, scratched his beard when she had gone out of sight
and felt that thus to walk and talk beside a maiden was rather an
achievement for him. He admired Rhoda very much, but he thought of her
with chronic rather than acute admiration.
She had certainly been amazingly gracious and kind to him. Could it be
possible that she liked him? The idea brought moisture upon his
forehead, and he sat down and mopped it. He began to fear that he had
been too bold in thus proceeding for more than a hundred yards beside
her. Perhaps she had indicated annoyance and he had failed to observe
it. Then he assured himself that he was a man, like other men, and had
a perfect right to talk to a woman. He decided that he must think about
Rhoda quietly for the next month or two. He asked himself if he should
take her a dish of the fat leat trout that he caught sometimes; but he
felt doubtful whether such a step would not be going too far.
"I might catch ’em, and clean ’em, and start with ’em," he reflected;
"and then, if it comes over me on the way that I’m a bit too dashing, I
can just sneak home again, and none the wiser."
*CHAPTER VII*
*EYLESBARROW*
Margaret Bowden not seldom visited the haunts of her youth, for many
favourite places lay within a walk of her home, and she had a measure of
loneliness in her life which might be filled according to her fancy.
Sometimes she blamed herself that life should offer intervals for
amusement or for rest. David found no such leisure from dawn until
after dark; Rhoda was always busy out of doors, and even when she had
nothing left to do, as happened in the evening, would often sequester
herself afield under the night. But Margaret’s holiday generally
followed the midday meal; and after noon she often went to see her
mother, or sought some holt in Dennycoombe Wood, or beside Crazywell, or
among the heathery hillocks of Eylesbarrow. That great eminence upon
the forest boundary was familiar and pleasant to her. She knew it well,
from its tonsure of stone, piled above a grave, to its steeps and slopes
and water-springs. A pool with rushes round about spread under the
highest elevation and mirrored the sky; while southerly the ling grew
very large, and there were deep scars and embouchures torn by torrents
from the sides of the hill.
Hither came Margaret to keep tryst with Bartley Crocker on a day in
June. She had not seen him save for a moment since his interview with
Rhoda, but meeting a week before at Sheepstor, he made a plan and she
promised to join him on Eylesbarrow and hear what he had to tell her.
The east wind roared over Madge where she sat snug in a little pit; but
the sun was warm and found her there. From time to time she rose and
lifted her head to see if Bartley was coming. Then she sat down again
and fell back upon her own thoughts. She began to apprehend the mixed
nature of marriage and those very various ingredients that complete the
dish. As yet only one cloud hung over her united life with David. But
time might reasonably be trusted to lift it. They were a happy pair,
and if his stronger will lacked ready and swift sympathy on all
occasions, it still served the fine purpose of controlling her
sentimentality. He hurt her sometimes, but she kept the pain to
herself. His sledge-hammer methods were new to her; while he could not
understand her outlook, and, indeed, he made no attempt to do so. But
she never argued; she always gave way and she loved him so dearly that
it was easy to give way. Rhoda, too, she liked better as she knew her
better. She felt sorry for Rhoda and longed to round off her life into
a more complete and perfect thing. It appeared an outrage on nature
that such a girl should remain unmarried. She strove to enlarge Rhoda’s
sexual sympathies and make her more tolerant of men. But she did not
succeed. And so it gradually happened that the future of Rhoda rather
obsessed the young wife’s mind. She was determined to see Bartley and
Rhoda man and wife if she could bring it about. She was here upon that
business now. That he had spoken to Rhoda she did not yet know; but she
suspected it.
Again Margaret looked round about her, while the wind flapped her
sunbonnet till it stung her cheeks. At hand morning and night
alternately swung up over the uttermost eastern desolation that even
Dartmoor offers. By Cater’s Beam and the sources of Plym and Avon, the
solemn, soaking undulations ranged; and they were shunned by every
living thing; but to the north a mighty company of tors thrust up about
the central waste; and westerly stretched the regions of her home. Far
beneath lay Dennycoombe under Coombeshead, and Sheep’s Tor, like a
saurian, extended with a huge flat head and a serrated backbone of
granite. She saw her father’s fields on the hillside and knew them by
their names. In their fret of varied colour under the stone-crowned
hill, they looked like a patchwork coverlet dragged up to some old,
gnarled chin. Men were working there and elsewhere on the land; and in
the stone quarries, far off on Lether Tor, men also worked. She gazed
upon the familiar places, the homesteads and the solitary homes. She
busied her mind with the life histories advancing beneath these
roof-trees; and here she smiled when she marked a dwelling where joy
harboured for a little; here she sighed at sight of one where joy had
ceased to visit: here she wondered at thought of houses where the folk
hid their hearts from the world and stared heavy-eyed and dumb upon
their kind. But she had an art to win secrets, and few denied her
knowledge or declined her sympathy.
One house chained her attention and awoke in Madge personal thoughts
again. She looked at a small cottage near Lowery, far distant on the
opposite side of the river. It stood under a few trees and crouched
meanly a hundred yards from the highway. The roof was of turf, mended
with a piece of corrugated iron kept in its place by heavy stones; the
broken windows were stuffed with clouts. A few fowls pecked about the
threshold, and adjoining the dwelling stood a cow-byre under the same
roof with it. The front gate was rotted away and rusty pieces of an old
iron bedstead had taken its place. These details were hidden from the
distant watcher, but she knew them well, and in her mind’s eye could see
a flat-breasted, long-nosed, hungry-faced woman, with grey hair falling
down her back and dirt grimed into her cheeks and hands. It was Eliza
Screech, widow of a man who had blown himself to pieces with blasting
powder in the adjacent quarry, and mother of William Screech, the
mistrusted admirer of Madge’s sister-in-law, Dorcas. This young fellow
had lately brewed a sort of familiar trouble; and while she thought upon
it, David’s wife considered her own situation and wished that a thing
presently to happen to Dorcas might happen to her instead, and so turn
sorrow into rejoicing. This was the cloud on her horizon. Her mother,
indeed, shared her pessimism but everybody else laughed at Margaret’s
concern and declared it to be ridiculous in one scarcely six months a
wife.
She debated on the ways of nature and the ironies of chance; then
Bartley’s voice was lifted, and she popped up again, and he saw her and
approached.
"Didn’t you hear me sooner?" he asked, flinging himself down near her.
"No, indeed. I was thinking so much about one thing and another, that I
never heard you. Hope you’ve not been seeking for me a long time?"
He did not answer but struck at once into the subject that had brought
him.
"Well," he said, "I’ve started on her. I’ve begun and told her a few
things to clear the way and get her into a better frame of mind. Pity I
hadn’t stopped there and left what I said to soak in a bit; but I had to
go on and give the reason for saying it."
"You told her then?"
"I did, and she took it fairly quiet. Of course she said ’twas out of
the question and never, never could be. I expected that. But I’m not
going to believe it, Madge. The thing is how to go on with it. I want
you to tell me what to do next. You promised you would. Mustn’t worry
her, and at the same time mustn’t let her forget I’m at her
elbow--dogged and determined and fixed in my mind. I want you to be
clever for me, as well you know how, and tell me what line will please
her best. I shall leave talking for a bit, and then I shall offer
again. My only fear is that she’ll see somebody else in the meantime,
and that while I’m planning and holding off and doing nought to fluster
or anger her, some other pattern of fool will blunder in and shock her
into saying ’yes’ before she knows what she’s done. You can often
surprise a woman into relenting who never would relent if you went on
grinding away in a cold-blooded fashion. They’re obstinate themselves,
but they don’t admire obstinacy in us. Would you have a dash at her and
keep on, or would you hold off and busy yourself in other quarters?
Which would bring her to the scratch quickest? You know her; you can
give me a few good hints, surely."
"Do neither of these things, Bartley. She hates anything like courting,
or speech about marriage. And she hates surprises of any sort. She’s
an old woman in the way she likes things to jog steady. If aught falls
out unexpected, it flurries her. And that’s the hard thing you’ve got
afore you, if you are going on with it. Because you’re all for dash and
quickness and surprises, and she’s all against everything of the sort."
"I must keep grinding on in a cold-blooded style, then?"
"Ess fay, and the more cold-blooded, the better like to please her."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Be damned if I think I’ve got patience for it, Madge. I love her well
enough but I can’t bide like a lizard or a spider watching a fly. I
lost you along of taking it too easy--yes, I did, for I swear you’d have
married me if I’d offered myself a year before David came along. And
now, perhaps, I’ll end by losing Rhoda. There’s nobody else in the
field and she’s got no excuse for not taking me; and that’s just what
will make her hard to catch. But I’m determined in reason to have her.
Only I’m not built to wait till we’re both grey-headed."
"Let me begin to help," she said. "You bade me do nought so far, and
I’ve done nought. Not by a word or wish have I let her guess I thought
about you or about her. She don’t know that I’m interested yet. And I
won’t let her know; but I can set to work witty and say the word in
season and help the good cause on. Why not? I want to see her married
just as much as I want to see you married. ’Twould mend you both--yes,
you so well as her."
"That wise you’ve grown since you took David! Though, for that matter,
you was always wise enough for any two girls."
"Not a bit wise--wish I was; far from that, worse luck; but sensible how
things are and sensible how difficult ’tis to get two natures to fit in
sometimes. I be sure as possible that you and she would make a happy
couple and that you’ll never regret it if she takes you, and no more
will she; but the difficulty is to see where your natures be built to
fit together. ’Tis like a child’s puzzle: to fit you and her close."
"There’s not much we’ve got in common except love of roaming by night."
"A pretty useful taste in common for lovers, I should think. But I’ll
find more out than that. I know a lot more about her now than once I
did; and I’ll tell you this: I’m not so much in secret fear of her as
once I was. Yes--fearful I felt at first--so off-handed and stern and
aloof she was. But now I’ve come to see she’s terrible simple really,
and not very different from other girls--except here and there. She’s
interested in all that falls out, and she’s hopeful to-day and cast down
to-morrow like anybody else. She sits of a night thinking--yes, she
thinks. Lord knows what about, but ’tis a sign of a heart in her that
she can pucker up her forehead thinking. Kind, mind you, too. Not
partickler kind to me, or interested in me away from David--I must grant
that. But kind to living things in general."
"But I don’t want her to be kind--to anybody but me. I want her to be
grand and odd and unlike t’others. ’Tis her oddness as much as her
loveliness took my fancy; but if her oddness ends in her being an old
maid, that’ll mean a good deal of my time wasted."
"Don’t think it. A rare good wife’s hid in Rhoda, and, please God,
you’ll be the man to find it out. I’ll set to work, Bartley. Don’t
fear I’ll be clumsy. Too fond of you both for that. We’ll meet again
in a month, if you can wait so long--"
"Which I certainly can not."
"In a fortnight then. Thursday’s always David’s morning for Tavistock;
so this day fortnight we’ll meet again, unless anything falls out to
prevent it. And I won’t be idle. But I mustn’t frighten her; and she’s
easily frighted when men are concerned. Fellows drop in of a night
often to speak to David; but nine times out of ten, if she’s to home,
she’ll pick up her work and pop up to her chamber, or take her hat and
away out of the house by the back door."
"Never was such another, I believe. All the same, I’m a hopeful fashion
of man. I’ll win her yet, with your help."
"I do trust so, Bartley."
Silence fell between them, only broken by the hiss of the wind above
their heads.
"I must get back-along now," she said at length. "How goes on Mrs.
Crocker? Better, I hope?"
He shook his head but did not reply.
"I shall come to see her again next week, if I may."
"Do, and welcome, Madge. Strange how illness breaks down the pride and
shows the naked truth of a man or woman. She’s frightened to think of
dying--her that you might have said was frightened of nothing."
"And still frightened of nothing really. ’Tisn’t this world that
frights her, nor yet the next--only the link snapping between. There’s
a lot like that."
He changed the subject again and followed her eyes that had roamed
across the valley once more.
"You’re looking at Screech’s house," he said. "I hope this thing they
tell about isn’t true?"
"I hope not, Bartley, but I think it is."
"And if it is? However, it don’t become a giddy bachelor to make light
of it. Only you’ll hear such a devil of a lot on the other side, that
perhaps before long you’ll be thankful to find one here and there who
can keep his nerve about it."
"Yes, I shall hear enough about it--and to spare: you’re right there."
He laughed.
"I’m not one of those that can see no good in Billy Screech," he said.
"Too like him myself, I reckon. All the same, I know if the right woman
came along to make it worth while, I could stand to work--for her--as
well as any man. You’ll see some day. I can’t be bothered to work for
myself, Madge, but if ever I get hold of Rhoda, ’twill surprise you to
find what a knack for earning money I shall show. And same with yonder
hairy chap. He’s clever and cunning. He’ll make a very good partner,
if the woman ban’t too hard to please, and don’t worry him with silly
questions."
They parted a few minutes later; but before he went Bartley Crocker
shook Madge’s hand very heartily as he thanked her with great
earnestness for her promises.
"What you’ll do for me I can’t guess," he said; "yet well I know that
what you can do you will."
"Couldn’t name it in words myself," she answered. "But all the same, I
feel as one woman might have a bit of power over another in such a
matter. I put my hope in her common sense. She don’t lack for that,
and, once you win her, her common sense will be a tower of strength for
the both of you."
"That’s good to know, I’m sure; for common sense never was my strong
point and never will be," he confessed.
"And if I’ve promised more than I can perform, you must forgive me," she
said. "I must guard myself against your disappointment, Bartley, for it
may come to that."
"You’ll do what you can," he answered, "for liking of me; and you’ll do
the best you can; and if I lose, ’twill be no blame to you; and if I
win, ’twill be such a feather in your cap as few of the cleverest women
can boast."
*CHAPTER VIII*
*TRIUMPH OF BILLY SCREECH*
On a day in early summer David Bowden met his father by appointment at
Nosworthy Bridge in Meavy valley. It was not Sunday, but both wore
their Sunday clothes. The fact would have led observers to suppose that
a funeral or a wedding must be at hand, but it was not so. They had
before them a serious and, they feared, a difficult duty. Neither knew
that the other proposed to wear black; yet a sort of similar instinct
led to the donning of the colour, and each felt glad, when he saw the
other, that he had been of that mind.
"’Twill be for you to speak, father," said David; "and where I can think
of words to back you up, I shall put them in. If you and me together
ban’t stronger than such a man as Screech, ’tis pity."
"The law be weak, unfortunately," answered Elias, "else I’d never have
gone near the man, but just left justice to take its course. But as it
stands, so lawyer tells me, we can’t make Screech marry Dorcas if he
won’t. The thing is to be as patient with the man as we know how, and
coax him into it if possible."
David nodded.
"It’s a bad business, looked at which way you will. Rhoda’s took it more
to heart than all of us. She won’t never speak to Dorcas or see her
again."
"We mustn’t talk that nonsense. Nature will out, and for my part, to
you, David, though to none else, I’m sorry to God now I said ’nay.’
However, we’ll see if we can fetch him to reason. Here’s the house--a
ragged, hang-dog look it hath."
"And there’s the man," added David.
Billy Screech was digging in a patch of garden beside his cottage, but
at sight of the visitors, he stuck his spade into the earth, cleaned his
boots on it, drew down his shirt-sleeves, donned his coat and came
forward.
"You’m a thought earlier than I expected," he said. "Give you a very
good-morning, Mr. Bowden; and you, David."
Elias took the hairy Screech’s hand; David nodded, but avoided a direct
salute.