use of that if them nearest to her can’t see? Her own husband haven’t
got no patience with her now and again; and, mind you, I don’t blame
him--such a common-sense, hard man as him. And Rhoda the same. ’Tis
their natures to take a practical stand."
"Don’t be downcast," urged the publican. "Drink a dish of your own tea
and look on the bright side. ’Tis rather odd I should say that, seeing
I’ve never been known to look on the bright side myself since my wife
died. David’s a very good chap, and nobody thinks higher of him than
me; but he’s just an everyday man--wise and businesslike and honest.
There’s nought in him would make Margaret a beautifuller character than
she is. Us don’t want for her to be hard and business-like, I’m sure."
"’Tis what her husband wants is the thing, not what we want," explained
Mrs. Stanbury.
"If he wants finer than she, he wants better bread than is made with
wheat," declared the old prize-fighter; "and if he can’t see the shining
vartue and wonder of that woman’s heart, he must be blind as well as
busy."
"All very well; but Margaret’s to blame too," declared the other.
"Never--nowhere. ’Tis always your way to give everybody best but your
own."
"To say ’blame’ is too strong a word, perhaps; but you must think how
’tis from her husband’s point of view. No children. Oh, Shillabeer,
’tis a dreadful thing! Just that might have made all right, and just
that won’t happen. Nought worse could have fallen out--nought worse
than that. A very terrible misfortune every way. To Ditsworthy I know
they take an awful serious view of it. Naturally they would do so. And
when I see that mother of a quiverful coming, I wish I could sink into
the earth! Her eye brims over with reproaches, though never a word she
says."
"This is all silly nonsense you’m talking," declared Mr. Shillabeer,
strapping up his gaiter again. "Never did I hear such foolishness.
Good Lord, han’t there enough childer in the world? Take comfort, I beg
of you."
Bartholomew Stanbury entered at this moment and was glad to see the
publican.
"Heard your fowling-piece banging away up over," he said, "and hoped as
you might perhaps drop in ’pon the road back. Well, here’s Christmas
again, and like to be a soft one after all. The weather’s changing."
"A busy Christmas in the village," said Reuben; "but nothing out of the
common offering to happen, I believe."
"Don’t you be too sure of that, ’Dumpling.’ What would you say to
another fight?"
"No, no, Stanbury. No more fighting. You mean your son Bart and that
chap Mattacott. They be galled against each other without a doubt,
along of a she; but fight--no. Mattacott’s ten year older than your
boy. Bart couldn’t hit a man whose hair be turning grey."
"That’s what I said. Still, they long to be at each other."
"They’ll have to settle their difference some other way. No more
fighting if I can prevent it. You mustn’t suppose I’m what I was--far
from it. I look at life quite different now. All’s vanity, as the
Preacher saith. I may give up ’The Corner House’ afore the world’s much
older, neighbour."
"Good Lord! what’s come to you?" exclaimed the farmer.
"What come to Bendigo," said Mr. Shillabeer solemnly. "I’ve had the
Light, Stanbury. Make no mistake: when the Light does come it shows up
everything in a manner very different to what we’ve seen it before."
"Well," said Bartholomew, "don’t let it turn you out of ’The Corner
House.’ Beer have got to be sold, and there’s nothing in the Law and
the Prophets against keeping an inn and giving good money’s worth, same
as you’ve always been famed to do."
But Shillabeer doubted. Having drunk another cup of tea, he rose,
wished the Stanburys a Merry Christmas in a mournful voice, and
disappeared. Constance shook her head when he was gone and declared
that a great change began to creep over the old man.
"Mark me, he’s breaking up," she said. "He’s casting away all his old
opinions and growing more and more religious-minded and low-spirited.
Nought would surprise me. I’ve seen it happen before. He’ll be a
teetotaller yet, and then he’ll go melancholy mad so like as not."
Her husband protested.
"Such a one you are for looking on the cloudy side! There’s too much
good sense in the man for any such thing as teetotalism to overtake him.
A moderate drinker always, and won’t serve anybody beyond the twinkling
eye stage. Why, he’ve made bitter enemies by withholding liquor where
any other man wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Where’s Margaret
to? She was coming over, wasn’t she?"
"Yes," said his wife. "But ’tis nearly dark. She’ll have changed her
mind or been hindered."
Half an hour later Bart arrived, and he was able to explain his sister’s
absence.
"She’s took ill," he said. "I met Rhoda back by Lowery. Madge have a
cold on the chest--nought to name, but enough to keep her in against
this fog. I’m feared they won’t be able to go up to Ditsworthy for
Christmas now, unless she mends very quick."
At his first word Mrs. Stanbury began to be busy. Under the lofty
mantelshelf before the fire there hung a row of little linen bags, and
in them were various simples culled through vanished spring and summer.
They contained elder-flowers, marjoram, thyme, sorrel, and calamint.
She selected ingredients and took them to the table.
"Us must see to this afore she gets worse," declared Constance; and soon
she was preparing a decoction of herbs.
Her son had further news.
"They’m saying to Sheepstor that Bartley Crocker’s off," he announced
with his mouth full.
"Off where?" asked Mr. Stanbury.
"To foreign parts. ’Twas always thought he might go when his mother
died. They do say he’s cruel sweet on Rhoda Bowden, but I don’t think
she’s of the same mind."
"I’ve heard Madge say that she would much like it to fall out," declared
Mrs. Stanbury; "but, for my part, Rhoda don’t look to be seeking a
husband. She’s different to her kind, and I don’t see her either wife
or mother."
Bart was reminded of another maiden and he sighed, put his hand to his
chin, and looked into vacancy with a very lack-lustre expression.
"Shillabeer was here afore you comed home," said his father; "and he
says you’m too young to stand up to Mattacott. You’d kill the man."
"I may yet," declared Bart gloomily. "Anyway I can’t wait like this
much longer. No more can he. She won’t say which ’tis to be, and the
strain of mind is getting a bit too sharp. Something’s got to go scat
afore long--either him or me--or her."
"She ought to decide, no doubt," admitted his mother. "But I hope you
ban’t hopeful, Bart, for I’m not. T’other’s better off than you and
wiser; and Jane West has found it out, of course."
"He may be wiser, or he may not be," answered Bart. "Anyway I’m too
wise to wait till Doomsday; and so I’ve told her; and she’s going to
decide afore the New Year."
"She’ll take Timothy Mattacott," repeated his mother. "Stanburys ban’t
no good at competing with other people. No more was my family--they
always went under; and now they’ve gone under altogether, for I’m the
last of ’em."
*CHAPTER III*
*THE VOICE FROM THE POOL*
Mr. Billy Screech found himself more than usually busy on the eve of
Christmas Day; but when three o’clock came he abandoned his work and set
off into the Moor. A dismal enterprise lay before him, and bad weather
made the prospect worse; but he had promised, and failure to keep his
promise would upset others and lessen Billy’s credit. Therefore he
went, and presently, ascending above Kingsett Farm, reached Crazywell
where it stared up out of the waste, like a blind eye in a black socket.
Silence and desolation haunted the pool. It seemed an hour indeed when
secret spirits might wake from sleep, rise, strike the leaden face of
the waters, and bring terror to mankind. A heavy and hushed trance held
the pool. But little wind blew; no cloud stirred in the grey vault of
heaven; but beneath at earth level, fog crept leisurely along in streaks
and hung motionless in patches. Even Billy--hardened unbeliever though
he was--felt some slight uneasiness as he sank down into the hollow cup
of Crazywell. The threatening mist made him both glad and fearful. It
would certainly help the dramatic force of the thing to be done; but it
might also increase in density and cause him to lose his way home. He
turned up his coat collar, found a clump of furze near the water’s
brink, and settled there. All had fallen out as Mr. Screech desired,
and presently Jane West and Bart Stanbury would pass that way on the
road to Princetown for some Christmas shopping. Only one fear existed
in the watcher’s mind. If the mists increased in density, Bart might
hesitate to take his sweetheart this way, but prefer to tramp round by
road.
Billy had hidden himself beneath the principal footpath near the pool,
and he knew that the travellers must pass by him. It was certain that
he would not be called upon to wait long. He practised to himself once
or twice, and as he had suffered from a cold in his throat for some
days, the voice of Mr. Screech promised to be sufficiently sepulchral.
But the day grew more dark and more still. A lifeless, listless gloom
haunted the spot, a blank despondency that reached even Billy’s nerves,
dashed his spirit, and made him long heartily to be away. Then came the
crawling tentacles of the fog, and they stole over the brim of Crazywell
and thrust here and there, like some blind, live creature feeling for
food. They poured down into the hollow presently and crept over the
water at the bottom. Half an hour passed and the vapour increased in
density. It hung drops of moisture on the thorns of the furze and
spread a glimmering dew over Billy’s hairy face and ragged eyebrows; it
struck cold; it entered his sore throat and promised to silence his
voice altogether.
"If they ban’t here pretty spry, I shan’t be able to croak no louder
than a frog," thought Mr. Screech.
He determined to give Bart and Jane fifteen minutes more. If they had
not passed by during that time, he would leave the pool. It seemed
pretty certain that the plot had failed. Billy had no watch, but he
began to count slowly up to sixty, and each of these instalments
represented one minute. The gloom increased, and unconsciously he
hastened his counting. And then he heard voices and knew that the man
and woman were passing, high above him in the fog. They shuffled slowly
along and both spoke, but the plotter could not hear their words. He
was quite safe from possibility of observation and so rose and descended
to the sandy shore of the pool. Then he lifted up his voice and
astonished himself, for his words rose and reverberated in the fog with
a strange resonance, quite proper to the supernatural creature that
might be supposed to live in Crazywell.
"Bartholomew Stanbury! Bartholomew Stanbury!" he cried.
Then he heard a woman’s thin shriek up aloft in the grey mist; and a
man’s voice answered:
"By God! who’s down theer?"
But Billy made no reply to the question. He hastened to the further
side of the pit and crawled up on to the Moor; then he ran for a couple
of hundred yards, struck the Kingsett road and so got home, by Lether
Tor Bridge, as swiftly as possible.
Meantime a woman had fainted above Crazywell and a man was stirring
himself wildly to restore her. It was neither Bart Stanbury nor Jane
West who had been shocked at the message from the pool, but Bart’s
mother and father. The young couple were far away, tramping in close
communion along the highroad; but Constance and her husband had been to
see sick Madge and take her and David their Christmas gift and good
wishes. They were returning from Meavy Cot, and it was upon their
ears--where they moved slowly-fog-foundered above Crazywell--that this
mournful doom had fallen from invisible lips beneath.
Mrs. Stanbury sank before the shock. She had just time to make her
husband understand that it was the spirit of Crazywell who thus
addressed them, before she lost consciousness. Bartholomew, too
concerned for her to trouble about his own fate, gathered moisture from
the heath, wetted her forehead and loosened her gown. But it was long
before she recovered. She sat and shivered for half an hour upon a
stone, and only by slow stages and with much assistance was able to
reach her home.
It had grown dark before man and wife returned to Coombeshead and
Bartholomew got his partner to bed. She had suffered a terrific nerve
shock and was incoherent until a late hour. Then she became
intelligent, and her native pessimism thus fortified, broke loose in the
small hours of Christmas morning.
"Never out of my sight shall you go--God’s my judge! You mustn’t seek
to do it, Bartholomew. Your time’s drawn down to within twelve month,
and us must spend it hand-in-hand to the end. Oh, that awful voice! And
for me to hear the name--me of all people! God A’mighty never did a
crueller thing; and if I’d knowed we was going back along by the pool,
I’d rather have walked the soles out of my boots and the flesh off my
feet than do it. Your name of all names, and it might have been any
other man’s. But you are chosen. If they’d only take me--not that I
can bide after you, Bartholomew. Mark me, I shall be after you long
afore you know your way about in the next world."
Mr. Stanbury, albeit a man without superstition, had also suffered not a
little under the tragedy of the day. He had always laughed at the pool
until now; but this was not a laughing matter. He could trust his ears
and it was impossible to deny that a very extraordinary voice, hardly to
be called human, had shouted his name up through the mist from
Crazywell. It struck him also that the words actually ascended from the
face of the water.
"Things look a bit black," he admitted, "and I’m powerful sorry I’ve
scoffed at thicky water; but I ban’t gwaine to throw up the sponge yet,
my old dear, and no more must you. If ’tis the Powers of Darkness live
in the pool, then we must call in the Powers of Light to fight against
’em. God in Heaven’s the only Party who knows when I be going to be
took off, and ’tis a gert question in my mind whether He’d let it out to
this here queer thing that lives in Crazywell--like a toad in a
tree-stump. What do you say, Bart?"
Their son had returned and was in great trouble at this evil news.
"I say that I’d better tell Jane not to come here for her Christmas
dinner," he answered. "Mother won’t be up for any high jinks to-morrow.
She won’t even be good for getting over to worship. She’s white as a
dog’s tooth still. Why, there ban’t hardly a spark of nature left in
her. And as for the voice, I’ve no patience with such things. I’d have
gone down and pulled the spirit’s damned nose if I’d been there, same as
I would any other man’s. I don’t believe a word of it, and faither’s
right: God A’mighty wouldn’t let no vagabond ghosts poke about on
Christmas Eve of all times--just afore the birthday of the Lord--to
frighten God-fearing, respectable people with their nonsense. If ’tis a
spirit, ’tis a bad one; and I wouldn’t care no more for a bad
tankerabogus than I would for a bad man.
"If us can get to church in the morn, I’ll ax parson Merle afterwards,"
said Mr. Stanbury. "For my part, I won’t pretend I like it; but all the
same, I’ve got a right to make a fight for it; and if parson be of your
view, Bart, that I oughtn’t to care a button about it, then I won’t
care."
"What’s the use of telling like that?" asked Mrs. Stanbury fretfully.
"How be twenty parsons going to overrule a voice like what we heard a
bit ago? Oh, my God! my flesh creams to the bones when I call back them
awful sounds."
"’Twas more like a parrot than a human," said Bartholomew.
"And there’ll be some such way to explain it," declared the son. "I’ll
wager that Mr. Merle will laugh the whole story to scorn."
"How’s that going to mend it, even if he do?" asked Constance. "Time
enough to laugh when next year be dead and your father’s still living.
But it can’t be. He’s got to leave us and I want for to know what
becomes of me then?"
She relapsed into a condition of hysterical emotion, and her husband sat
up with her all night.
In the morning Bart went for the doctor and also explained to Jane West
that the hoped-for meeting at dinner could not take place.
A medical man reached the fastness of Coombeshead before midday and
found Mrs. Stanbury suffering from shock. He was interested and
sympathetic. He drove Bart home to his surgery six miles off, and, at
evening, Constance took her physic and soon slept in peace.
Bart and his father were in the habit henceforth of regarding that
occasion as the most mournful Christmas Day within their memories; and
when the adventure began to be known a little later, their friends
deeply sympathised with them and were divided in their opinions. Some
secretly hoped that the solemn tradition of the pool would be upheld,
and felt that it would be better for Mr. Stanbury to pass away than that
the great mystery and glory of Crazywell should vanish. Others flouted
the spirit and agreed with Bart that no sane person should take this
meddlesome hobgoblin seriously.
Elsewhere Christmas Day brought other discomforts. Mr. Screech and his
wife and children spent the anniversary at Ditsworthy; but they went
reluctantly as a substitute for David and Rhoda. This spoilt the
pleasure of Dorcas, and both she and her husband were glad to be home
again. They criticised everybody at the Warren House in an unfriendly
spirit, and Dorcas could find nothing genial to say even of her own
mother. Indeed, none of her own had ever been forgiven for their initial
adverse attitude in the matter of Billy. With her father alone could
Mrs. Screech be said to remain on good terms.
And while the Screech family were able to go to Ditsworthy, owing to the
enforced absence of David and his household, Christmas passed pleasantly
at Meavy Cot. Margaret did not know of her mother’s misfortune, and as
her own health now mended again, she much enjoyed the day. Moreover,
there came a visitor, for David invited the lonely Bartley to share the
feast, and Mr. Crocker, after hesitating between his duty to his Aunt
Susan Saunders and his duty to himself, finally felt the opportunity of
seeing Rhoda must be taken, in justice to his own future plans and
ambitions. He went, therefore, and added to Margaret’s pleasure, but
failed to advance his personal cause.
The dinner was a great success, and Hartley, quite unconscious that
every jest he made was damaging his most cherished hope, excelled
himself in merriment, and kept David and Madge in much laughter.
Rhoda’s amusement, however, was at the best but frosty. She could not
forget the past, and when she looked at Mr. Crocker she did not see an
unstable, good-natured, and kindly spirit, mentally incapable of
sustained sorrow, but a man whose mother had but lately died, and who
found it possible to laugh and utter futile jests before the grass was
grown upon her grave. She allowed for no extenuating circumstances; she
forgot that Nannie Crocker’s end was a release for which to be thankful.
She only saw an orphaned son playing the fool; and that he could do so
now, to the accompaniment of a good dinner, did not surprise her; for
had he not done the same upon the day after his mother’s death? She
remembered what she had seen upon the island above Nosworthy Bridge; and
she hardened her heart against Bartley and his humour. Rhoda had been
influenced in other directions also by that unfortunate incident. To
explain Margaret’s share in it with credit to Margaret was impossible.
Her brother’s wife must have known that Mrs. Crocker had just died;
indeed, the man had doubtless gone to tell her so. And Madge’s apparent
reply was to conduct herself like a silly and irresponsible child. Such
an action frankly disgusted Rhoda, and she was deeply offended and
shocked at it. The emotion waxed with time and even made her uneasy. She
believed that with no man living, other than her husband, might a woman
permit herself such pleasantries. The past looked more and more unseemly
in Rhoda’s eyes. It lessened her respect for Margaret, and
unconsciously she showed it. Yet when Margaret, whose sensitive nature
was lightning-quick to mark such a change of attitude, asked her
sister-in-law how she had offended, Rhoda could not bring herself to
speak. She evaded the question, but made some general allusions, hoping
thereby to remind Madge of her recent folly. She failed, however, for
David’s wife did not see the application of a theory of man’s lightness
to herself or to Mr. Crocker.
And now, at this inauspicious hour, and fired thereto by a successful
dinner and an excellent opportunity, the lover offered himself again.
Chance so to do was deliberately made by Madge. She planned with David
to leave her sister-in-law and the visitor, and, before Rhoda could
avoid the trap, Bartley and she were alone together in the parlour.
"Keep Bartley in good spirits till I come back, Rhoda," said Margaret
suddenly; "I must take my medicine, else doctor will be vexed when he
calls again."
She hurried off, and as David had already gone out, man and maid found
themselves alone.
Rhoda frowned; Bartley pulled himself together and wished he had taken
half-a-pint less of the bottled porter.
Each in secret heart was planning speech, and Rhoda, not guessing that
he had ever again thought of her as a wife, after her definite reply to
his proposal, wondered now if she might reprove Mr. Crocker himself for
his folly on the island. Her object was not the welfare of the man.
She was thinking a little for Margaret and a great deal for David. She
knew surely what David must have said had he crossed the bridge when she
did. But to speak to David about it appeared impossible, for he brooked
no criticism of Margaret even from her; and to approach Madge seemed
equally out of the question in Rhoda’s view. But here was an
opportunity to speak directly to the offender himself; for it could not
but be that Bartley had led Margaret into the lapse of self-respect with
the sandwiches.
Rhoda’s mind swiftly traced this path, and she was preparing to speak
when her companion began to talk. His conversation related to a very
different matter, and for some time the woman found little opportunity.
Mr. Crocker had picked up a photograph album and was gazing at the
picture of the Bowden family taken at Tavistock in their full and
imposing completeness before David’s marriage.
"My word!" he said, "that’s a proper piece of work sure enough. Let’s
see--father and mother--boys of all sizes, your married sister, you and
David, and Dorcas and Joshua. I hope you’ve made it up with Dorcas,
Miss Rhoda?"
She flushed.
"You’ll do well to mind your own business," she said.
He shut the book and put it on the table. It rested upon a red and
yellow wool mat, and he was careful to place it exactly in the middle.
"You’re right," he answered. "When aren’t you right? I oughtn’t to
have said that. It’s not my place to dictate to you--quite the reverse.
I’m sorry."
She did not reply and he spoke again.
"But my own business is different. I can mind that, and it’s time I
thought a bit more about it. Not that ’tis ever out of my thoughts
really; yet life comes between a man and his deepest desires sometimes,
and life--and death--has stood between me and the first business of my
life lately."
"Has it?" she said in an indifferent voice.
"You know it has, Rhoda. You know what I’ve been through. You came to
the graveside of my dear mother at my express wish--"
"’Twas at your aunt’s wish--not yours."
"Anyway you came, and not being blind, you must have known what putting
her into the ground meant to me."
She stared at him coldly, but did not speak. The grief that Bartley had
displayed above his mother’s coffin when it sank to earth was real
enough. He had mourned her then from his heart. But while Rhoda
watched the man weep on that mournful occasion, there had filled her
mind, not sympathy at his present real grief, but sheer amazement at his
past equally real levity. It was quite beyond her mental endowment to
understand how the same man could laugh on the day after his mother’s
death, and weep at the ceremony of her interment.
Her thoughts now hardened her heart. She guessed that he was about to
be personal and prepared to waste no consideration upon him.
"You’ll be gone out of England soon, I suppose. What’s Miss Saunders
going to do?"
"Lord knows. My Aunt Susan’s been rather difficult since mother died.
She wants to go to Canada with me; but--well, my mind’s set on somebody
else."