husband. What now can it be that she likes in poor Simon? I wish I
knew, for I’d try to copy it."
"I’ve oft wondered. ’Tis something in the air of him that makes her
feel easy and friendly."
"I wish he’d got the wit to tell me how he does it."
"He doesn’t know--no more does she. But there ’tis. She can suffer him;
she can even talk about him."
"Try and see what the trick is, Madge. Ask Simon to tea and watch ’em
together. What do they speak about?"
"I’ll do what I can. She was a bit ruffed with Simon last week,
however."
"Angered with him! That’s a bad sign, if she could be interested enough
in such a shadow as Simon as to be cross with him. She’ve never been
cross with me--not since we made it up."
"She was angry because Mr. Snell has got rather friendly of late with
Billy and Dorcas Screech. Their house is near his work and he drops in
sometimes, I believe. He told Rhoda that the baby was very like its
grandmother to Ditsworthy Warren, and Rhoda flared up and answered that
she’d thank him never to name it to her again."
"Another mystery in her. If I ever have any luck with her, the first
thing will be to make her a bit kinder to women, Madge."
"She’s kind enough; but to say it without feeling, she’s narrow and she
hates the mother business. She never will be fond of childer, I’m
afraid, Bartley."
"Then we shall be of one mind there anyway. I don’t like ’em
either--never did and never shall."
"Wait and see. You’ll change from all that nonsense."
Suddenly Bartley started.
"Talk of--there goeth Rhoda by the footpath yonder."
"So she is! Fancy that. I’ll call her. She’s on her way to Ditsworthy
till evening. But I thought she’d gone long ago."
Bartley whistled and a solitary fox-terrier, who was the woman’s
companion, rushed over to see what was doing. He recognised Margaret
and stopped; then he turned, held up a paw and waited to see whether
Rhoda was coming after him.
Madge called and Rhoda came to them. Mr. Crocker greeted her with
friendship and Margaret asked where she had been.
"I fell in with your brother," she said. "Bart was up over rounding up
some ponies. Him and your father have got ten ponies for Princetown
fair and they hope great things from them. But they’ll not do so well
as David’s--they ain’t so forward as our three."
"A lucky chance this," declared Bartley. "I’m just going up to
Ditsworthy myself to see Mrs. Bowden. My dear mother’s weaker and she
wants to have a talk with her old friends before ’tis too late."
"I’ll tell mother for you," said Rhoda. "Only last Sunday she was
wondering if Mrs. Crocker would care for to see her."
"I must tell her myself and carry back her message to my mother,"
answered the crafty lover. His parent had expressed no desire whatever
to see Sarah Bowden; but the excuse came as an inspiration to the man.
Rhoda said nothing and he spoke again.
"Perhaps if you are going that way, you won’t be offended if I walk
along with you?"
She shook her head, implying that he was welcome.
"I’ve gathered a bit more about the backwoods and the life out in the
Dominion of Canada, you must know. And I was wondering if, among all
your brothers, there might not be one, or perhaps two, as would like to
make their fortunes there. ’Tis a pity for all to bide on the Moor."
"So I think," said she. "For men to be cooped up, like chickens on a
run, is a vain thing. I’d much wish for to see them go out in the world
a bit--same as other young men."
"If your brother Drake had been spared, I’m sure he’d have gone," said
Crocker, with a twinkle of the eye.
Madge saw the jest, but Rhoda quite failed to do so.
"That’s so silly as mother," she said. "But I should like to see Nap
and Wellington under articles to some trustworthy farmer in them parts.
’Twould make men of ’em. The whole family can’t be rabbit-catchers."
This common sense impressed Bartley not a little. It was another side of
Rhoda, familiar enough to Margaret, but not to him.
They departed now together and Margaret heard Rhoda laugh as they went.
Such an exceedingly rare sound cheered her not a little. It rang like a
hopeful augury, and she rejoiced for Bartley’s sake and went home happy.
*CHAPTER XI*
*REPROOF*
Life is an unconscious effort on the part of the individual to get the
world to see him at his own valuation; and some by force of will
partially achieve it; and some by preciousness of attributes are justly
appraised above their own self-estimate. David Bowden was respected and
counted a man of weight--a rising man, a man whose honesty, industry,
and sense achieved increasing prosperity, and whose justice and goodness
of heart robbed his success of bitterness to all save base minds. But
Margaret’s character, so largely different, won open love. The folk
nodded appreciation when her name was mentioned and old eyes brightened
at it. Sympathy from her own brimming cup poured over; and the people,
perceiving this couple from the outer standpoint, declared that no such
happy diversity of qualities ever before mingled to make a perfect
union.
But it was not quite the union of the moss and the stone; where the hard
is made lovely by the soft and, in return, establishes a sure, enduring
foothold for it. There were permanent disparities in the texture of
their characters that neither could alter and neither could suffer
without pain. David frequently failed to see Madge’s point of view: she
was constitutionally unable to harden her nature that she might accept
his attitude. Out of this disability grew hunger and dearth in the
woman’s spirit, discomfort on the part of the man. He tried, as far as
his nature would let him, to bridge the gulf; and she came to the other
side and held out her hands to him. Sometimes they touched for a glad
moment, but only thus briefly; and despite his deep affection and her
passionate worship, these vital constituents of character stood between
them, deep-rooted in attributes beyond the power of love to overthrow.
Unconsciously he bruised her; unconsciously she aggravated him. His
native spirit held the wider outlook of her charity and lenity as
weakness. Sin and the sinner were closely allied in his judgment;
therefore her tolerance, her magic ingenuity of excuse for error, her
clemency and her patience with folly puzzled him. She had a genius for
identifying herself with those the world forgot or shunned. She was a
champion of failures; and her attitude to the sick, the wretched, and
the outcast sometimes troubled David.
On one occasion she caught an evil from a house full of sickness and
brought it home, so that David, too, fell ill and was from his work for
three days. When the doctor came and bade him keep within doors, he
turned on his wife, and for the first time she saw him angry with her.
The incident passed; the sting lasted a long while. Her attitude to
Dorcas won a milder reprimand; but here she was obstinate and asserted
her own liberty of action. She visited Dorcas; rejoiced in her
happiness and content, and congratulated her on the reformation she had
achieved in her husband. But David held off and waited to see Billy
Screech return to his irregular ways; while Rhoda kept her word and saw
her sister no more.
It happened that David found his wife on an afternoon in autumn going to
the house of Mr. Screech with a basket on her arm. She never openly
irritated him by visiting his sister under his eyes, though her
friendship with Dorcas was not hidden; but now it chanced that husband
and wife unexpectedly met. She was on foot and he rode. She smiled and
stopped. He nodded and asked where she was going with a full basket.
"Not to they Fosters, Madge? There’s some bad catching sickness there,
and I won’t have it. I can’t afford no more of that nonsense."
"I’m going to see Dorcas."
"What for?"
"Because her li’l chap’s queer. Nothing at all, David--only a bit of a
tissick on the chest. And I’ve made up some cautcheries[#] after a
recipe of mother’s for him. And this here’s a bit of that big,
blue-vinnied cheese as you said we never should be able to eat. ’Tis a
pity to waste it."
[#] Physic.
"Anything else?"
"No--except a pint of whortleberries what I gathered yesterday; and a
couple of they pigs’ trotters for your sister."
"Can’t they pick their own whortleberries?"
"Dorcas be a thought poorly herself. There’s another little one coming
a’ready."
He frowned and sat still on his horse, looking straight between its
ears.
"Always swarm where they ban’t wanted--like bees," he said. Then he
turned to Margaret.
"Give me that food. Let Screech buy his own cheese. I’m going up over
to see my mother. I’ll carry it to her."
He held out his hand and she took the cheese from her basket and gave it
to him.
"And no more of this, my dear. I’m not going to keep other people’s
children--because I haven’t got none of my own. And don’t you never
think so, Madge; because if you do, you’ll think wrong. Good-bye for
the present. Don’t think ’tis hard: ’tis only sense."
He put the food in his pocket and rode on; she stood and watched him;
then her lips parted a little and as she pressed them together tears
started from her eyes. There was none to see and she made no effort to
restrain her sorrow. Her face was still tear-stained when two men
overtook her and Bartley Crocker, with Billy Screech, bade her good-day.
Billy was in a hurry and had to call at his home on the way elsewhere.
He dearly liked Margaret and now, hearing that she was on the way to see
Dorcas, took her basket for her. Mr. Screech rapidly passed out of sight
and she was left alone with Bartley.
He spoke at once.
"What’s amiss?" he said. "You’ve been crying."
"Nonsense!"
"I daresay it was. Still, you have. And if ’twas nonsense, you can
tell me so much the easier."
"Some silly trifle. You oughtn’t to have taken any note of it."
"I’ve just met David--going up to Ditsworthy. He must have passed you.
Well, well--no business of mine, Madge. I’ll say nought and ask you to
forgive me for being so bold as to see. Only I’m different to other
people. We’ve got such a lot of secrets--you and me."
Instantly she confided in him.
"I know ’tis nought but your soft, silly heart, Bartley. We’m too much
alike here and there, you and me. But David’s always right, and I do vex
him with my foolish ways--too well I know it. I can’t be so firm and
just as him. God knows I try; but my mind ban’t built in his manly
pattern. I’m all for forgiving everybody and being friendly with
everybody. He says I’m no better than a spaniel to fawn, but--"
"Don’t," said Mr. Crocker. "Don’t tell me no more, Madge. I quite
understand. ’Tis the man’s nature to be firm and stern, same as it is
yours to be soft and gentle. You’ve got to meet one another. He must
try and be soft, and you must try and be hard. I don’t suppose either
of you can succeed; but if you try--and yet what silly rummage I be
talking!"
"I vexed him rather sharp a moment ago."
"Look here!" he exclaimed. "In a bit of a cloud like this, Rhoda ought
to be the very one living creature of all others to put everything
right. Don’t you see that with her sort of nature--as firm as David and
yet a woman--she ought to be able to see both sides and just speak the
very word and do the very thing to make all go smooth and happy?"
"I’m sure she would if she could," answered Margaret at once. "Rhoda
and me are capital friends nine days out of ten. But of course she’s
more like David than me."
"I heard Screech say she was David in petticoats; but that’s only rude,
foolish nonsense. She’s a woman, and she must have a woman’s softness
and gentleness and understanding for women hidden away in her--a clever,
beautiful creature like her."
The lover spoke and Margaret did not contradict him. Bartley, though he
could arrive at fairly accurate estimates of character as a rule, proved
blind where Rhoda Bowden was concerned. He had judged her better in the
past; but now he only loved her and erred accordingly.
"Trust to her; tell her," he advised. "She can do anything with David."
And Margaret, knowing perfectly well that Billy Screech’s opinion of her
sister-in-law was the more correct, yet took some heart of hope from Mr.
Crocker’s advice and promised him to do as he suggested.
"But what am I to waste your time?" she asked. "Such a happy woman as I
be. To see such a foreign thing as a tear on my cheek! No wonder you
was surprised. ’Twas all about nothing really and I’m ashamed of
myself. Now let’s talk of you. When be you coming up again to tell us
more about Canada?"
"I’ve forgot all about it," he answered. "The question is, when am I
going to ask Rhoda to go there with me? I feel ’twill be do or die next
time. But I can’t wait much longer. Then there’s my mother. She’ll be
gone by October, they say. ’Tis curious how she hankers after that man,
Charles Moses, now. And I’m sure he’s terrible kind. Comes in when he
can and reads the Bible to her by the hour. Mr. Merle’s very good too.
But she’d rather have Moses than anybody."
"There’s you."
"Yes--me first, poor dear. I’ve scraped the skin off my throat, as you
can hear. I was reading to her till three o’clock this morning. Then,
thank God, she got off to sleep."
They had reached the home of Dorcas and there parted. Margaret went in
and Mr. Crocker, with a resolution recently made and carefully concealed
from her, proceeded towards Sheepstor.
He had decided to speak to David, and since, knowing himself tolerably
well, he guessed that time might very easily destroy this intention,
Bartley proceeded then and there to the way by which Bowden would return
to his home. In a dingle not very far from Dennycoombe he waited, and
after two lonely hours, during which he considered the probable futility
of his intention, David came along.
He was in good spirits and asked his old adversary to return home with
him for a cup of tea.
"I know you’ll need no second bidding," he said, "for my wife have told
me about your fancy for Rhoda, and though I can’t further it, I’ll not
stand in the way if ’tis to be. You’d better come and tell her some
more about foreign parts: she likes that better than courting. If any
man ever wins her, ’twill have to be a wild man of the woods, I reckon."
Crocker, pleased that David was in a mood so easy, nerved himself to a
dangerous task. He had decided to do no less than try and light
Bowden’s imagination. This on any subject had been a difficult feat; but
since the man’s own wife was the matter, Bartley felt that he could
hardly have attempted anything less likely to succeed or more likely to
end in tribulation. Indeed, as soon as his mouth was open he regretted
his unwisdom; but it was then too late to draw back and he proceeded.
Chance inspired him to make an excellent case and speak with very
genuine discretion; but David was a long time silent and the other
feared that he had done more harm than good.
"’Tis well we met," he began, "for I want to speak to you, David. And
’tis a kicklish subject at first glance; but not at second. I mean
Margaret. You know very well I wanted to marry her once, and you know
she loved you better far and you won her. But though she never would
have taken me for a husband, yet I’ve been close as a brother to her all
my life, and she’s fond of me too in her way."
"I know it," said Bowden. "And why not? Fond she is, else she wouldn’t
take so much trouble to try and get Rhoda to have you."
"Exactly so. And now I’m coming to the tricky place in our talk. I met
Margaret a bit agone--mind, I’m talking like her brother might--and she
was crying. Just after leaving you it was, David. I asked her what was
amiss, and she told me ’twas all her weak nonsense. Then it come out--as
a sister to a brother. She’d vexed you and she was cut to the heart
about it. She loves the ground you walk on, David; and when she don’t
hit it off with you--when you look black at her--’tis like holding back
water from a flower. By God, she droops!"
"Crying, you say?"
"Had been, and couldn’t hide it. You’d never have known it; but I said
to myself, ’that man don’t guess what he is to her, or that a cold word
frets her like a wound.’ Be angry with me if you like, Bowden, and tell
me to mind my own business. I’ll take it now--now that I’ve told you."
David stopped and got off his horse.
"I’m not angry," he said. "The question is, what have you told me?
I’ll thank you to say it again; and don’t fear to use clear words. I
like ’em best."
"The point is that, busy as you are and up to the eyes in affairs and
beasts and money-making in general, you’ve missed a lot in Madge that’s
worth finding out. And you must find it out if you want her to be a
happy woman."
"What don’t I know?"
"You don’t know how to humour her."
"A sane, grown-up woman don’t want humouring, surely?"
"Every woman that ever was born wants humouring. Think now. Don’t you
humour Rhoda? Don’t even Rhoda do and say things you can’t fathom now
and again? Don’t you give in to her against your own better knowledge
now and then--for the sake of pleasing her and so that she may the
quicker do as you want her to do next time? Be honest--don’t you?"
Bowden looked at the other with surprise and nodded.
"Lord! How you know the ins and outs of ’em!"
"Not me. No man ever can. We just glimpse a bit here and there. But
this I know; patience is the first virtue with women. Patient, as a
spider, we’ve got to be when the fly is a female. Now Margaret feeds on
one thing, and if you hold it back you starve her. That’s sympathy,
Bowden--just a natural, tender sort of feeling such as you don’t hold
back even from a cow that’s just dropped a dead calf and had her trouble
for nought. I’ll say it in a word and trust your large sense and
justice not to be angered. You’re not so kind as you might be to
Margaret. ’Tis summed up in that, and I ask you to forgive me for
saying it. I’ve nought to gain, and everything to lose by losing your
friendship. I wouldn’t have spoken such a strong thing for any less
serious reason than her happiness. And now you can tell me to go about
my business if you please, and I’ll gladly go."
"Wait a bit and hear me," answered the other. "I can see, fixed up as
you are, and hoping what you hope, that it wasn’t all fun for you to say
this to me. You’re not the sort of man as ever goes across the road to
teach other people or meddle with them. And that’s why I’ve listened so
patient to you. Some--most men--I’d have stopped at the first word;
because most men be very fond of giving advice and lifting themselves
above their neighbours; and that sort I very soon put in their place if
they talk to me. But you don’t offer your opinions unasked as a rule,
and you’ve knowed my wife since she was a baby, and you’m a thought like
her here and there--a softness there is in your nature. ’Twas pointed
out after our fight."
"I said that very word to her to-day," answered Bartley. "’Tis because
I’m rather the same pattern as she that I can feel so sharp about this
as even to risk your friendship by speaking. She’d die for you; but
would you die for her, David? Well, yes, without doubt you would; but
do what’s harder. Try to do the little, twopenny-halfpenny, every-day
sort of things for her that’ll show her she’s never out of your
thought."
The other had retired into his own mind and failed to hear this
admonition. His intellect moved much more slowly than Crocker’s, and he
was now retracing an incident.
"To show you the softness of her," he said, "I may tell you that when
you was coming to see us, she begged me to take down the
fight-colours--the two handkerchers you might have seen hanging in shiny
wood frames one on each side of the parlour looking-glass in my house.
She said that it would hurt your feelings cruel to see the signs of the
battle there, and I think even Rhoda looked a sort of question with her
eyes at me. ’But no,’ I said. ’He’s not a fool. ’Twill be no pain to
him to see ’em.’ And I wouldn’t take ’em down. Rhoda saw it my way; but
Margaret kept on to the end that ’twas not a proper thing--’specially as
you came at my invitation to tea. Yet, of course you didn’t mind seeing
your fogle there?"
"Not a bit in the world. A very natural and proper place for it. But
don’t it show what stuff she’s made of--Margaret, I mean?"
"It do," admitted David. "I thank you for saying these things to me.
I’m not above learning from any man or woman either."
"Learn from her then. You can’t learn from a better. Be out of bias
with her no more."
"I’ll have a tell with Rhoda about it. ’Tis the little silly things, as
you say, that please women. I do big things when I can, you must know.
There was another twenty pound put out at interest for her last month.
But she didn’t take much delight seemingly in a valuable matter like
that. She thanked me loving enough, but not as though she knowed what
it means to earn and to save twenty pounds."
"She’d sooner you took her back a bunch of they wild strawberries out of
the hedge than all the money in Tavistock," declared Bartley. "Foolish,
if you like, but take my word for it, David. She’s built in that
particular way. Try it."
Bowden laughed.
"If any man had told me that I should ever listen to such a lot of sense
from you, I’d have judged him mad," he answered. "Yet here it has come
about, and I thank you, honest, for trying to do me a good turn. And
succeeding too. I’ll see how a little silliness will work. Perhaps a
holiday come the next revel. Good-bye--unless you’ll drop in for a
bite."
"Next week, perhaps. But there’s a lot of trouble afore me just now.
My mother--"
"You’re welcome when you please to come," concluded Bowden, and
re-mounted, full of his own thoughts. It was characteristic that when
the other mentioned his dying parent, he said nothing. He had heard,
but the ready word made no effort to leave his lips. He was for the
moment quite occupied with his own business. Crocker left his old
antagonist very full of thought and, when the younger was out of sight,
Bowden, at a sudden whim, took his advice literally, dismounted again
and tethered his horse. Then he ranged about and gathered a great bunch
of wood-strawberries that clustered in a dewy hedge and shone ruby-red
in the level sunset light along the lane.
They would have been a very real and deep joy to Margaret; she must have
been the nearer to his heart that night by the tie of that simple
thought; but such an act was foreign to his nature. He fell to thinking
how really and practically to please her, and in the light of definite
and weighty deeds, this piece of sentiment looked in his eyes so
exceedingly foolish, that he flung the berries away impatiently long
before he reached home.
What would anybody have said, he asked himself, had they seen the busy
and prosperous David Bowden carrying along rubbish from the hedge-row,
like a child playing truant from Sunday school?
That night, after Margaret had gone to bed, he talked with Rhoda
concerning her, and Rhoda was deeply interested and anxious to fall in
with his purposes. David mentioned the source of his inspiration, and
finding that he showed no anger against Bartley Crocker, his sister took
the same attitude. They strove very steadily henceforth to please
Madge, and to understand the things that were good to her. They tried
hard, and in a measure succeeded; for Margaret was quick to mark their
efforts and gather happiness from them. Yet the attempt could not
largely avail; because sympathy, without imagination to light its way,
can only grope in the dark and, groping, perish.
*CHAPTER XII*
*THE COURAGE OF MR. SNELL*
The instinct which drew Simon Snell towards Rhoda Bowden--the instinct
which, exemplified in her, suffered the advance without active
discomfiture--while slight and subtle, was none the less real. There
was that in this simple soul which suited the woman; or if such an
expression is too strong, she found him more easily endured than any
other man. Most girls fled instinctively from Simon. The dullest found
him dull; the least humourous found his beard a jest; the worst educated
discovered that they possessed wider knowledge than he. Yet Rhoda, who
was not stupid, who was handsome and who enjoyed a measure of sense,
could accede something to this egregious man that she denied all others.
She did not spurn him and she did not find his companionship a joke or a
bore. On the other hand, she did not seek him and made no attempt to
better their acquaintance.
Simon, for his part, developed similar and even stronger sentiments; and
he had wit sufficient to perceive that any increase of friendship must
come from him.