Throughout the week Samson Belworthy, the father of Sarah, swung a sledge
and followed a blacksmith’s calling at Postbridge; upon the day of rest
his labours were of a more delicate sort, for he played the bass viol and
pulled as good a bow as any musician around about the Moor. This man
accepted John as a suitor to his daughter with certain reservations. He
had no mind to dismiss Sally into poverty, and bargained for delay until
Aggett had saved money, obtained regular occupation, instead of his
present casual trade, and arrived at a worldly position in which he could
command a cottage and thus offer his wife a home worthy of her.
From desultory application to the business of his dead father—a sort of
work in which he had never much distinguished himself—John now turned his
face upon the problems of life in earnest, and sought employment under a
responsible master. His ambition was to win a place as gamekeeper or
assistant keeper on the estates of the manor lord; but he lacked the
necessary qualifications in the opinion of those who knew him; being
indeed strong enough, courageous enough, and familiar enough with the
duties of such a calling, but having an uncertain temper, by nature fiery
as his own freckled skin in summer-time. Finally, his physical strength
obtained for him daily work and weekly wage at Farmer Chave’s. Into the
establishment of Believer Barton he entered, and, as cowman, began a new
chapter of his life.
All proceeded prosperously during the autumnal progress of his romance.
John gave every satisfaction, was said to have forgotten his way to the
sign of the “Green Man” at Postbridge, and certainly developed
unsuspected capabilities in the direction of patience and self-control.
He toiled amain, attracted his master’s regard and won the red-hot
friendship of his master’s son.
This youth, by name Timothy, returning from his apprenticeship to a
brewer at Plymouth after futile endeavours to master that profitable
business, decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, much to the
elder’s disappointment. Timothy Chave elected to be a farmer, however,
and coming home a fortnight before Christmas, he devoted his days and
nights to the pleasure of sport as a preliminary to the tremendous
application he promised when the new year should come. He was two years
younger than John Aggett and a youth of higher intelligence and finer
clay; but he found in John an ideal follower by flood and field. There
came a day, one week before the Christmas festival, when for particular
reasons Tim desired a heavy bag. John was therefore begged off his farm
duties, and the young men, rising by starlight, trod the high land and
pressed forward before dawn toward Aggett’s familiar haunts.
Young Chave, a lad of good repute and handsome exterior, had learned his
lessons at Blundell’s School, was accounted a very clever youth, and held
in much esteem as a traveller and a scholar amidst the natives of
Postbridge. His mother spoiled him and fooled him to the top of his
bent; his father had been proud of him until the lad’s recent
determination to soar no higher than the life of a countryman.
This present excursion bore reference to a special event, as has been
said. There were coming from North Devon to Believer Barton, for the
holiday season, sundry poor cousins of the Chaves. On Christmas Eve they
would arrive, and, as a certain pretty damsel of seventeen was to
accompany her elders, Timothy’s generous heart determined that moorland
delicacies must await her, if his right arm, long fowling-piece and
liver-coloured spaniel could secure them. With this excuse he had won
John Aggett away from the cow-byres, and together, as day broke, they
passed southward to Dartmeet, held on by Combestone Tor and presently
tramped into the lonely and desolate fastnesses of Holne Moor. Here,
with cautious passage across half-frozen swamps, the sportsmen sought
their game.
To the progress of that day no part of this narrative need be devoted;
suffice it that we meet the men again coming homeward under an early,
universal twilight and a cold northern wind. In certain marshes,
rumoured to send forth warm springs even at dead of frosty nights, John
Aggett had found good sport, and now from the servant’s waist-girdle a
big bag bulged with two brace of teal, three snipe, two woodcock and a
hare. Through the grey promise of coming snow they pushed homeward where
the wind wailed a sad harmony in the dead heath, and all the ground was
very hard save upon the black bogs that froze not. John was clad as the
Kurds and Mountain Syrians to this day; he wore a sheep’s pelt with the
hair toward his body, the skin turned out. Arms of like material fitted
into this snug vest, and his breeches were similarly fashioned. Timothy,
as he faced the north wind booming over a heather ridge, envied Aggett,
for his own garments, albeit stout enough, lacked the warmth of the
natural skin.
“Colder and colder,” he said, “and the last drop of sloe gin drunk and
five good miles before us yet.”
“’Tis so; but theer’s Gammer Gurney’s cot down along in a lew place under
Yar Tor. If you mind to turn out of the way a bit, ’tis certain she’ll
have gude, heartening liquors hid away, though how she comes by the fiery
stuff, an’ the tobacco her sells in secret, an’ the frill-de-dills o’
precious silks an’ foreign lace-work ban’t my business to knaw.”
“Good! We’ll pay Gammer a visit. My father gets many a gill of brandy
from the old rascal.”
“In league wi’ the Dowl, I doubt.”
“More likely with the smugglers. Plenty of cargoes are run down
Teignmouth way, and when they’ve dodged the gaugers and made a good haul,
the farther they take their wares inland the better. She pays them well,
be sure.”
“She do awften talk ’bout a sailor son, come to think on’t.”
“Ay, many and many a sailor son, I warrant you! My father says her
cognac is drink for the gods; yet if they are pleased to make him a
Justice of the Peace, then he will adopt different measures with Mother
Gurney, for a man’s conscience must be set above his stomach.”
“Her be a baggarin’ auld sarpent for sartain, an’ goeth through the air
on a birch broom or awver the sea in a eggshell, an’ many such-like
devilries. In times past I judge the likes o’ she would burn for such
dark wickednesses; though her did me a gude turn once, I’ll allow.”
While speaking, they had rounded the ragged side of Yar Tor, and then
proceeding, passed to the north by some ancient hut circles of the old
stone men. Following a wall, where the hill sloped, they found
themselves confronted with the bird’s-eye view of a lonely, thatched
cottage. Below it the land sank with abruptness; before the entrance
extended a square patch of garden. No sign of life marked the spot; but
as the men climbed down a pathway through withered fern, they aroused a
bob-tailed, blue-eyed sheep-dog which leapt, gaunt and apelike, to the
limit of its tether and barked wildly at the intruders. A naked
austerity, a transparent innocence and poverty, marked the spot to casual
eyes.
“Down these winding ways, or else out of the woods below, come Mother
Gurney’s ‘sailor sons’ with their packs and barrels hid under innocent
peat and rushes, no doubt,” commented Timothy.
Then John Aggett knocked at the door with a modest tap and young Chave
noted that he spat over his left shoulder before doing so.
“’Tis plaguey hard to be upsides wi’ a witch, I do assure ’e; but she’m a
wonnerful clever woman, as all in these paarts do very well knaw,”
confessed John.