CHAPTER XI

A small boy, playing truant from his dame’s school, discovered the nature

of John Aggett’s final action. The lad, seeking for those elements of

mystery and adventure never absent from a wood, found both readily

enough, where a great beech stood at the precincts of the pine forest.

First a bundle in a red handkerchief with a stout stick lying beside it

made the explorer peep fearfully about for the owner. Then he found him;

and the small boy’s eyes grew round, his hair rose under his cap and his

jaw fell. Lifted but a few inches above his head, and hanging by the

neck from a great limb of the beech, was a man weary of waiting for a

woman who could not keep her word.

In the earth they laid John Aggett, at the junction of cross-roads not

far from his mother’s home; and they handled his clay roughly and,

cutting a blackthorn stake from the tree by his cottage door, buried the

man with old-time indignities and set no mark upon his grave.

For two years Sarah and Timothy were strangers after that night; then

Farmer Chave passed to his ancestors and Tim found himself lord of

Bellever Barton and a free man. In course of time he won the girl

back—indeed little effort was needed to do so. Their wedded life is not

recorded and may be supposed to have passed peacefully away. A son’s son

now reigns in the place of his yeoman fathers; and his grandparents lie

together under the grass of Widecombe churchyard. There, for fifty years

an antique monument has risen above them, and a fat cherub puffed at a

posthorn; but to-day gold lichens threaten to obliterate the manifold

virtues of Timothy Chave and his lady as set forth on slanting stone.

And the other man rests lonely under the sloe tree; for its green wood

grew and flourished to the amazement of those who set it there. Yet the

purple harvest of that haggard and time-fretted thorn men still bid their

children leave upon the bough; for the roots of it wind in the dust of

the unholy dead, and to gather the flower or pluck the fruit would be to

beckon sorrow.

‘CORBAN’

“’Tis a question which to drown,” said Mr. Sage.

He smoked his churchwarden and looked down between his knees where a

mother cat was gazing up at him with green eyes. She purred, rolled half

on her back and opened and contracted her forepaws with pleasure, while

she suckled two kittens.

Mr. Sage’s daughter—a maiden of twelve—begged him to spare both squeaking

dabs of life.

“They’m so like as two peas, faither—braave li’l chets both. Doan’t ’e

drown wan of ’em,” she said.

“Thicky cat’s been very generous of chets in her time,” declared Mr.

Sage. “If such things had ghostesses, you might see a whole regiment of

’em—black an’ white, tabby an’ tortoiseshell—down-along by the river come

dark.”

“Even I shouldn’t be feared of a chet’s ghostie,” declared little Milly

Sage.

But she had her way. One kitten, when it could face the world alone, was

given to a friend who dwelt some miles distant at Princetown; the other

grew into a noble tom of bold tabby design and genial disposition. His

mother, feeling him to be her masterpiece, passed gently out of life soon

after her son reached cat’s estate. She had done her duty to the feline

community, and Milly mourned for her a whole week. But Mr. Sage did not

mourn. He much preferred the young tom, and between the cat and the old

man, as years passed by, there waxed a friendship of remarkable

character.

“I call un ‘Corban,’” said Mr. Sage, “’cause he was a gift—a gift from my

little girl when she was a little ’un. ’Twas her own ram cat, you mind,

but as the creature growed up, it took that tender to me that Milly said

as it must be mine; an’ mine ’tis; an’ what he’d do wi’out me, or what

I’d do wi’out he, be blessed if I know.”

He spoke to his next-door neighbour and personal crony, Amos Oldreive, a

gamekeeper and river-watcher for many years. Now this man was honourably

retired, with a small pension and a great rheumatism, the reward of many

a damp night on behalf of the salmon in Dart’s ancient stream.

At Postbridge these old people dwelt—a hamlet in the heart of Dartmoor—a

cluster of straggling cots beside the name-river of that region, where

its eastern branch comes tumbling through the shaggy fens beneath Cut

Hill. Here an elderly, disused, packhorse bridge crosses Dart, but the

main road spans its stream upon a modern arch hard by. The lives of Sage

and Oldreive had passed within twenty miles of this spot. The keeper

knew every tor of the waste, together with the phases of the seasons, and

the natural history of each bird and beast and fish sacred to sporting.

His friend’s days were also spent in this desolate region, and both

ancients, when necessity or occasion drove them into towns, felt the

houses pressing upon their eyes and crushing their foreheads and the air

choking them. At such times they did their business with all speed, and

so returned in thankfulness to the beech-tree grove, the cottages and

those meadowlands of Postbridge by Dart, all circled and cradled in the

hills.

Noah Sage and his next-door neighbour quarrelled thrice daily, and once

daily made up their differences over a glass of spirit and water,

sometimes consumed in one cottage, sometimes in the other. Their

conditions were very similar. Noah had an only daughter; Amos, an only

son; and each old man, though both had married late in life, was a

widower.

The lad and lass, thus thrown together, came naturally to courtship, and

it was a matter understood and accepted that they should marry when young

Ted Oldreive could show a pound a week. The course of true love

progressed uneventfully. Milly was plain, if good health, good temper

and happy, honest eyes can be plain; while Ted, a sand-coloured and

steady youth of a humble nature, leaning naturally upon distinction of

classes for his peace of mind, had not a rival or an enemy in the world.

Mr. Sage held him a promising husband for Milly, and Ted’s master,

appreciating the man’s steadfast qualities, gave promise of the desired

number of shillings weekly when Ted should have laboured for another six

months at the Vitifer tin mines near his home.

Little of a sort to set down concerning these admirable folks had arisen

but for the circumstance of the cat ‘Corban.’ Yet, when that beast had

reached the ripe age of eight years and was still a thing of beauty and a

cat of mark at Postbridge, he sowed the seeds of strife, wrecked two

homes, and threatened seriously to interfere with the foundation of a

third.

It happened thus: gaffer Oldreive, by reason of increasing infirmities,

found it necessary to abandon those tramps on the high Moor that he

loved, and to occupy his time and energies nearer home. Therefore he

started the rearing of young pheasants upon half an acre of land

pertaining to his lease-hold cottage. The old man built his own coops

and bred his own hens, as he proudly declared. Good money was to be made

by one who knew how to solve the difficulties of the business, and with

greatly revived interest in life, Amos bought pheasants’ eggs and

henceforth spent his time among his coops and foster mothers. The

occupation rendered him egotistical, and his friend secretly regretted

it; nor would he do likewise when urged to make a similar experiment.

“Doan’t want no birds my side the wall,” he said. “I’ve got a brave pig

or two as’ll goody into near so much money as your pheysants; an’ theer’s

‘Corban,’ he’d make short work of any such things as chicks.”

Oldreive nodded over the party wall and glanced, not without suspicion,

at ‘Corban,’ who chanced to be present.

“Let ’em taste game an’ it grows ’pon ’em like drink ’pon a human,” he

said.

‘Corban’ stretched his thighs, cleaned his claws on a block of firewood,

and feigned indifference. As a matter of fact, this big tabby tom knew

all about the young pheasants; and Mr. Oldreive knew that he knew.

Sage, on the other hand, with an experience of the beast extending from

infancy, through green youth to ripe prime, took it upon him to say that

this cat was trustworthy, high-minded and actuated by motives he had

never seen equalled for loftiness, even in a dog.

The old keeper snorted from his side of the wall.

“A dog! You wouldn’t compare thicky, green-eyed snake wi’ a dog, would

’e?”

“Not me,” answered the other. “No dog ever I knawed was worthy to wash

his face for un. An’ he’m no more a green-eyed snake than your spaniel,

though a good deal more of a gen’leman.”

“Us won’t argue it then, for I never knawed any use for cats myself but

to plant at the root of a fruit-bearin’ tree,” said Mr. Oldreive,

cynically.

“An’ I never seed no use for dogs, ’cept to keep gen’lefolks out of

mischief,” answered Sage, who was a radical and no sportsman. He puffed,

and grew a little red as he spoke.

Here, and thus, arose a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand. Noah Sage

stumped indoors to his daughter, while ‘Corban’ followed with pensive

step and a general air as though one should say, “I forgive, but I can’t

forget.”

Three days later Mr. Oldreive looked over the wall, and his neighbour saw

him, and put a hasty foot on some feathers.

“Marnin’, Sage. Look here—what I wants to knaw be, whether your blasted

cat have took wan o’ my phaysants, or whether he haven’t?”

“Might have, might not, Amos. Better ax un. Here he be.”

Green-eyed innocence marked the fat round face of ‘Corban.’ He leapt

upon the wall and saluted the breeder of pheasants with open-hearted

friendship.

“What be onder your heel, neighbour?”

“Why—a bit of rabbit’s flax ’twas, I think. My sight ban’t so good as of

old nowadays.”.

“Rabbit’s flax! ’Tis a phaysant’s feathers! Get away, you hookem-snivey

Judas, or I’ll hit ’e over the chops!”

This last threat concerned ‘Corban,’ who was rubbing his whiskers against

Mr. Oldreive’s waistcoat.

The ancient Sage puffed out his cheeks and grew as red as a rose.

“Ban’t the way to speak to any respectable, well-thought-upon domestic

animal, an’ you knaw it, Amos.”

“Domestic!” echoed Mr. Oldreive, bitterly. “About so domestic as a auld

red fox I sent off wi’ a flea in his ear two nights since. Domestic! He

pretends to be to gain his private ends. Just a savage, cruel, awnself

{119} beast of prey, an’ no better. Can’t shutt foxes, ’cause they’m the

backbone of England; but I can shutt cats an’—an’—”

“Stop theer!” roared the other ancient. He trembled with passion; his

under jaw chattered; he lifted his legs up and down and cracked the

joints of his fingers.

“To think I’ve knawed ’e all these years an’ never seed through to the

devilish nature of ’e! ’Tis sporting as makes men all the same—no

better’n heathen savages.”

The other kept calm before this shattering criticism.

“Whether or no, I doan’t breed these here phaysants for fun, nor yet for

your cat’s eatin’. No call to quarrel, I should hope. But keep un his

own side the wall if you please, else he’s like to have an onrestful

time. I give ’e fair warning.”

“Perhaps you’d wish for me to chain un up?”

“Might be better—for him if you did.”

“I doan’t want you in my house to-night,” said the owner of ‘Corban’

suddenly. “You’ve shook me. You’ve shook a friendship of more’n fifty

year standing, Amos Oldreive, an’ I can’t abear to look upon your face

again to-day.”

“More shame to you, Noah Sage! If you reckon your mangy cat be more to

you than a gude Christian neighbour, say so. But I ban’t gwaine to fall

down an’ worship thicky varmint—no, not for twenty men, so now you knaw.”

“So much for friendship then,” answered Noah Sage, wagging his head.

“So much for a silly auld fool,” replied Amos Oldreive, rather rudely;

and they left it at that, and each turned his back upon his neighbour.

Not a word was exchanged between them for three days; then the keeper

sent in a message by Milly, who trembled before her parent as she

delivered it.

“Mr. Oldreive sez that ‘Corban’ have killed two more of his li’l

game-birds, faither. An’ he sez that if so be as he goes for to catch

puss in theer again, he’ll shutt un! Doan’t ’e look so grievous gallied,

dear faither! I’m sure he never could do it after bein’ your friend

fifty year, though certainly he was cleanin’ his gun when he spoke to

me.”

“Shutt the cat! If he do, the world shall ring with it, God’s my judge!

Shutt my cat—red-handed, blood-sucking ruffian! Shutt my cat; an’ then

think to marry his ginger-headed son to my darter! Never! the bald

pelican. You tell him that if a hair o’ my cat be singed by his beastly

fowling-piece, I’ll blaze it from here to Moretonhampstead—ess fay, I

will, an’ lock him up, an’ you shan’t marry his Ted neither. Shutt

my—Lord! to think as that man have been trusted by me for half a century!

I cream all down my spine to picture his black heart. Guy Fawkes be a

Christian gen’leman to un. Here! ‘Corban’! ‘Corban’! ‘Corban’! Wheer

be you to, cat? Come here, caan’t ’e, my purty auld dear?”

He stormed off, and Milly, her small eyes grown troubled and her lips

drawn down somewhat, hastened to tell Ted Oldreive the nature of this

dreadful discourse.

“He took it very unkid,” she said. “Caan’t deny as poor faither was

strung up to a high pitch by it. Such obstinate, saucy auld sillies as

both be. An’ if faither’s cat do come to harm, worse will follow, for he

swears I shan’t have ’e if Mr. Oldreive does anything short an’ sharp wi’

‘Corban.’”

Ted scratched his sandy locks as a way to let in light upon slow brains.

“’Tis very ill-convenient as your cat will eat faither’s game-birds,” he

said; “but knawin’ the store your auld man sets by the gert hulkin’

tabby, I’m sure my auld man never would ackshually go for to shutt un.”

“If he does, ’tis all off betwixt you an’ me—gospel truth. Faither’s a

man as stands to his word through thunder,” declared Milly. “An’ I ban’t

of age yet, so he can keep me from you, an’ he will if Mr. Oldreive kills

‘Corban.’”

“Tu late for that,” answered Ted, very positively. “The banns was up

last Sunday, as your faither well knaws. An’ who be he to stand against

an anointed clergyman in the house of the Lard? Us was axed out to

Princetown for the first time last Sunday; an’ I get my pound a week

after midsummer, as I’ve told your faither. Then us’ll take that cottage

’pon top of Merripit Hill, an’ auld men must fight theer awn battles, an’

us shall be out o’ earshot, thank God.”

“Us be meeting trouble halfway, I hope,” she answered. “I’m sure I’ll

keep a eye ’pon ‘Corban’ day an’ night so far as I can; but you knaw what

a cat is. They’ve got theer own ideas an’ theer own affairs to look

arter. Why, if you set p’liceman ’pon ’em, they’d only laugh at un.

‘Corban’s’ a cat as be that independent in his ways. He’ll brook no

meddlin’ with—’specially of a night.”

“Well caution un, for he’ve got a ’mazin’ deal of sense. I hope he won’t

be overbold for his skin’s sake, ’cause my faither’s every bit so much a

man of his word as Mr. Sage; an’ what he says he’ll stick to. He’ve had

to shutt a gude few score o’ cats in his business; an’ he’ll add your

tabby to the reckoning, sure as Judgement, if any more of his phaysants

be stolen.”

Thus, with common gloom of mind, the lovers separated and the clouds

thickened around them. Their parents were no longer upon speaking terms,

and tragedy hung heavy on the air. Then, in the deep and dewy silence of

a June night, with Dart murmuring under the moon and the new-born foliage

of the beech trees whispering their silky song, there burst upon the

nocturnal peace vile uproar of gunpowder. Somebody had fired a gun, and

the noise of it woke a thousand echoes and leapt with reverberations

thrice repeated along the stone crowns of Hartland and Stannon and huge

Broad Down.

Gaffer Sage rushed to his window, but could see nothing more than a puff

of white smoke rising lazily under the moon. Trembling with dark

misgivings, he crept back to bed, but slept no more. ‘Corban’ usually

came to the old man’s chamber at dawn, when Milly opened the house; but

though she was stirring before five o’clock on the following morning, no

‘Corban’ bolted into the cottage when she unbarred the door; no familiar

friend padded and purred “Good morning” to Mr. Sage; neither did ‘Corban’

appear at breakfast—a course very unusual with him.

Noah could not eat his meal for anxiety. He pushed away his tea, rose

and walked into the garden. Upon the other side of the wall Amos

Oldreive was casting grain to his young pheasants.

“Where’s my cat to?” asked Noah Sage, bluntly. “I heard your gun explode

last night. Did you shutt un? I’ve a right to knaw.”

Mr. Oldreive was clearly nervous and ill at ease, his sallow face needing

wiping before he replied. But his eyes shone defiance; he pointed at the

pheasants ere he answered.

“A month ago there was four dozen of ’em,” he said; “now theer be

ezacally three dozen an’ two. An’ as for your cat, maybe I have shutt

un, an’ maybe I have not, so now.”

“You ought to be stringed up for it, you grizzly, auld, crook-back

coward! I knaw very well you done it; an’ you’ll awnly be sorry once,

and that’s for ever. Doan’t suppose you’ve heard the last of this. But

I must take thought afore I gets upsides with you.”

He turned, went into the house and spoke to Milly. The man had aged

strangely in five minutes, his voice grew squeaky and unsteady.

“He’ve—he’ve shutt un. He’ve shutt my cat!”

Then Mr. Sage took his stick an’ walked out upon the Moor to reflect and

to consider what his life would be without his treasure. He wept a

little, for he was not a man of strong intellect. Then his painful tears

were scorched up, and he breathed threatenings and slaughter.

He tramped back to Postbridge with a mind made up, and bawled his

determination over the party-wall at Amos Oldreive’s back.

“Your son shan’t have my darter now—not if he travels on his naked knees

from here to Exeter for her. No darter of mine shall marry the child of

a dirty murderer! That’s what you be; an’ all men shall knaw it; an’ I

pray God your birds’ll get the pip to the last one among ’em, an’ come

they grows, I pray God they’ll choke the man as eats ’em; an’ if I

weern’t so auld an’ so weak in the loins, be gormed if I wouldn’t come

over the wall this minute an’ wring your skinny neck, you cruel, unlawful

beast!”

Mr. Oldreive looked round and cast one glance at a spot ten yards’

distant, where the black earth looked as though newly upturned, near an

apple tree. But he said not a word, only spat on his hands and proceeded

with his digging.

A dreadful week passed, and Mr. Sage’s mingled emotions and misfortunes

resulted in an attack of gout. He remained singularly silent under this

trial, but once broke into activity and his usual vigour of speech when

his old friend sent him a dozen good trout from Dart, and a hope that his

neighbour would let bygones be bygones. These excellent fish, despite

his foot, Mr. Sage flung one by one through his bedroom window into Amos

Oldreive’s front garden; for what were trout to him with no ‘Corban’ to

share them?

Behind the scenes of this tragedy Ted and Milly dwelt dismally on their

own future. He clung to it that if the banns could but be asked a third

time without interference, Mr. Sage was powerless; Milly, however,

believed that she knew better.

“I be only eighteen,” she explained, “an’ faither’s my guardian to do as

he will with me until I come of age.”

So they were troubled in secret until a sudden and amazing solution to

the great problem came within a week of ‘Corban’s’ exit. The only

apparent way to be Ted’s wife was opened through lying, and Milly rose to

the necessary heights of untruth without a pang. She felt that good must

come of her evil conduct—good not only to herself, but to her unhappy

father. His bereavement had cost him dear. He still preserved a great,

tragical silence, but from time to time hinted of far-reaching deeds when

his foot should be strong enough to bear him up.

There came a day when Milly walked to Princetown, and, entering into the

house of certain friends there, rubbed her eyes and stood astounded and

open-mouthed before the spectacle of ‘Corban.’ It was no feline

apparition that she saw, but a live cat, with bold tabby markings of

alternate rabbit-brown and black—a cat with strong, flat nose, cold and

healthy; four good, well-defined tiers of whisker on either side of his

countenance; green eyes, that twinkled like the twin lamps of a little

train when seen by night, and a tail of just proportion and brave

carriage.

“Lard save us!” cried Milly; “however did ’e come by this here cat, Mrs.

Veale? I had Mr. Oldreive’s own sacred word as he’d shutt un dead an’

buried un onder his apple tree.”

“That’s our butivul puss; an’ you should knaw how us come by it if

anybody do, my dear, for you bringed it here in a basket from Postbridge

when you was a li’l maid six year agone.”

Milly’s active mind was working too rapidly to allow of any reply for

some moments. Then she told Mrs. Veale of the recent tribulation at

home, and in ten minutes an obvious plot was hatched between them.

“’Tis a peace-loving cat, an’ if you butter its paws an’ treat it a bit

generous in the matter of food, ’twill very likely settle down along with

you. Of course, you shall have un for such a Christian purpose as to

bring them two dear auld men together again. An’ the more cheese you can

spare un, the more like he is to bide with you.”

So Mrs. Veale; and Milly answered:—

“‘Corban’ was fond o’ cheese, tu, an’ his mother afore him! ’Twas a

family failing, no doubt.”

She scanned the cat narrowly and it mistook her attention for admiration,

and purred in a soft, guttural, elderly way, and bent itself into a bow

against her knee and showed much natural goodness.

“So like t’other as two peas!” declared Milly, not remembering that she

had made exactly the same remark when this cat and its late brother were

born. “Faither’s sight ban’t strong enough to part ’em if awnly this one

behaves well,” she added.

It was decided that the girl should come early on Sunday morning for her

tabby peacemaker, and meantime Mr. Oldreive and his son were to be

acquainted with the plot. As for Amos, he was an easy man, and had not

slain his neighbour’s poaching cat excepting under grave provocation.

Ever since the deed he had regretted it, but he had never confessed to

the actual crime excepting in the ears of Milly and Ted. Nobody had

officially announced the death of his cat to Mr. Sage. Therefore, Milly

hoped he would accept the stranger as his own, and suffer peace to return

amongst them. The Oldreives, much cowed by Noah’s attitude and

frightened by his illness, gladly promised to do all they might for his

daughter, and when Sunday came, she started for Princetown after an early

breakfast and left her father behind her. He was in better health again,

and she noticed, as an unusual circumstance, that he appeared very full

of his own affairs upon that morning, and clearly desired her room more

than her company.

With a heavy basket she set off homeward by nine o’clock. Inside the

wickerwork a new ‘Corban,’ after protesting once or twice at the

narrowness of its quarters, curled round nose to tail, abandoned itself

to the freaks of chance and digested an ample breakfast.

But midway between Princetown and Postbridge, where the road traversed

the high Moor and stretched like a white thread between granite hills and

glimmering marsh-lands, from whence the breeding plover called, Milly

nearly dropped her basket. For along the way, in a borrowed market-cart

behind his own brown pony, came her father.

“Why, where on airth be you drivin’ to, my auld dear?” she asked; and Mr.

Sage, puffing and growing very red, made answer:—

“I be gwaine up-long to Princetown to holy worship.”

Now this was an action absolutely unparalleled. “To church! What for?”

“If you must knaw, ’tis that I may forbid your banns wi’ Ted Oldreive.

No use to fret nor cry. I be firm as a rock ’pon it; an’ I be gwaine to

deny them banns afore the face of the Lord an’ the people.”

“Why ever should ’e do such a cruel thing, dear faither?”

“Because no blood o’ mine be gwaine to mix wi’ that murdering villain’s.”

“He never told you he shot ‘Corban.’”

“D’you doubt it? Don’t the whole of Dartmoor know it?”

“Let me get up in the cart an’ sit beside you,” said Milly. “I want for

you to look in this here basket.”

She leapt from the step to the driving-seat beside her father; then

opened the basket. Grateful for this sudden light and air, her burden

gazed out, yawned, showed perfect teeth, black lips, and a pink mouth;

then jumping boldly on to Mr. Sage’s scanty lap, rubbed against him and

purred deeply, while its upright tail brushed his chin.

“God’s goodness!” cried the old man, and nearly fell out into the road.

“Somebody must have took un to Princetown,” said Milly, outwardly calm

though her heart beat hard. “Theer I found un none the worse, poor

twoad. Now he’s twice ‘Corban,’ dear faither, an’ twice my gift to ’e.”

The old man was entirely deceived, as anybody even of keen sight might

well have been. The curious friendship of the cat also aided his

delusion. He stroked it, and it stood up and put its front paws upon his

necktie and rubbed noses.

“Glory be! Now us’ll go home-along,” said Mr. Sage.

His dim eyes were dimmer for tears; but he could not take them off the

creature. His hands also held it close. Milly picked up the reins and

turned the brown pony homeward, much to his surprise and joy.

And ‘Corban’ II., as though ’specially directed by Providence, played its

part nobly, and maintained the imposition. Mr. Sage begged Amos

Oldreive’s pardon, and Amos, for his part, calmed his conscience by

assuring Noah that henceforth his cat was more than welcome to a young

pheasant whenever it had a mind to one. A little strangeness on the part

of the returned wanderer seemed natural in Mr. Sage’s opinion. That he

had apparently developed one or two new habits was also reasonable in a

cat with as much new experience of the world. And meantime the wedding

preparations were pushed on.

At the end of the week Ted Oldreive came home from Vitifer for Sunday;

and he expressed joy at the sight of ‘Corban,’ once more the glory of his

old haunts.

But the young man’s face changed when Noah and the cat had departed in

company, and a look of frank alarm made Milly tremble before danger.

“Why, what’s amiss, sweetheart?” she asked, nervously. “All danger be

past now, an’ the creature’s settled down as homely an’ pleasant as need

be.”

“Matter enough,” said Ted; “’tis a ewe cat!”

“A ewe cat! Oh, Ted, doan’t say that!”

“’Tis so; an’ God send her doan’t have chets ’fore we’m married, else

Postbridge won’t hold your dear faither—nor Dartymoor neither.”

“A PICKAXE, AND A SPADE, A SPADE”

CHAPTER I

Nearly two hundred years ago, when Miser Merle departed from life, his

little corner of earth took heart and breathed again. Not that he had

raised any very mighty mound of gold to stand between himself and the

sunshine, but, according to his power, he had followed the traditional

road of those similarly cursed, and though the circumstances of his life,

as innkeeper of a small hostelry at Two Bridges by Dart on the Devon

moors, made any huge accumulation impossible, none the less he was a

right miser in grain, and died without a tear to balance his two thousand

pounds of money. Some heartily cursed him on his unknown way; not one

pretended to mourn his passing.

His wife was long dead—starved with cold on a winter night, so certain

gossips loved to tell; his son the miser had driven out of England, and

subsequent rumours of the young man’s death troubled him not at all.

So it came about that, when the “Ring o’ Bells” was masterless, an

obscure maiden, who had dwelt there since Mrs. Merle’s demise, found

herself possessor of all the money, for Miser Merle left no will. Minnie

Merle was his orphaned niece, and when the old man’s unhappy partner

shuffled off, he bethought him of this girl. As a relation, lacking

friends or position, she would come without wages. So, from the position

of domestic servant in a Plymouth tradesman’s family at three pounds a

year, Minnie was exalted to be the handmaid of Miser Merle without

remuneration of any kind.

“A man’s own flesh and blood,” he said, when first she came, “will

understand, but I don’t want to poison your regard for me with money, or

reduce you to the level of a hireling. You are my niece; you and

Nicholas Merle, in the North Country, are all the kindred left to me now

that my wife has been taken.”

So Minnie settled at the “Ring o’ Bells,” and, being young and healthy,

survived conditions that had thrust her aunt untimely into the grave.

The old man never trusted his niece again after a day upon which he

caught her helping two hungry tramps to bread and cheese, because

Minnie’s idea of a pennyworth was far more liberal than Mr. Merle’s; but

she stayed at the inn, encouraged to the dreary necessity by local

friends, who hinted to her, behind her uncle’s back, that such

self-denial must in the long run find itself rewarded.

Then the Miser, who would not put on a pair of new boots while an old

pair hung together, went through a long day wet-footed, and so received

his death-blow. His last conscious utterance was a frantic petition to

the medical man from Plymouth, when that worthy told him how all hope was

vain.

“Then you did ought to take half fees,” he gasped. “As an honest man, so

you did; an’ God’s my witness that, if you don’t, I’ll never give you no

peace after I’m took!”

But the physician had a material soul, feared nothing, and held out for

his bond after the patient’s departure. Minnie Merle, now a young woman

of three-and-twenty, reigned at the “Ring o’ Bells,” and, with sense

scarcely to have been expected from one of such youth and peculiar

experience, she did wisely as maiden hostess of the little tavern.

Albeit not lavish, she gave better value for money than Mr. Merle had

given; the inn grew in popularity with the moor-men; and romance of an

exciting nature hung about the place, because many husbands were in the

air for Minnie, and as yet she had given no sign that the happy man was

chosen. To discuss the subject with the woman herself was not possible

for men, but Tibby Trout, an ancient gammer who cooked at the “Ring o’

Bells,” enjoyed the complete confidence of her mistress, and all that

Minnie desired to publish she merely murmured into Tibby’s ear. The

intelligencer had seventy years of experience behind her, and was

considered even more artful than old.

Tibby enjoyed to serve in the bar, as a change from the kitchen; and at

such times, when her mistress was not by, she would discourse, mete

praise and blame, waken hope here, here chasten a mind grown too

confident.

“Be it true, Aaron French, as you told a chap to Moreton that you knawed

how the cat would jump?” she asked, on a night when the bar was full.

Aaron, a sand-coloured and a sanguine man, grew hot and laughed.

“Why,” he said, “a chap may put wan an’ wan together without any harm.”

“No harm except to hisself. The wan an’ wan you’m putting together in

your foolish head—well, her may have named your name thoughtful-like now

an’ again, but not these many days now. In fact, you’d best to say

nought about her to anybody, for you’m awnly like to look a fule come

presently if you do. That man at your elbow might explain if he would.”

Aaron French turned upon the labourer whom Tibby indicated, and sudden

anger shook his high-pitched voice into a squeak.

“This be your work, then, Elias Bassett,” he said, furiously. “You to

dare! You—the most penniless chap ’pon Dartymoor!”

The young man addressed regarded Aaron without emotion. Elias stood a

head taller than his rival, was ten years younger, and very much poorer;

but he had a handsome face, a sturdy body, and a stout right arm.

“You’m a silly poult,” he said contemptuously. “As if a sandy-headed

little monkey like you would take any maiden onless he wanted her money.

An’ Mistress Merle have got two pounds for every one of yours. As for

me, I doan’t care a cuss for the stuff, and wish to God ’twas all

drownded in Dart. All men know that I kept company with her afore her

uncle died, never knowin’ as she was gwaine to have his ill-got money;

an’ I wish her never had got it; for then her might have looked at me

very like. But when it comed out her was up to her neck in gold, so to

say, I knowed it must stand between us, and that a gamekeeper weren’t no

husband for her.”

“You seed yourself as others seed you—an’ that’s a very rare thing,” said

another man.

“All the same, you’re a zany for your pains,” declared the old woman, who

had learned what she desired to learn. “You kept company with missus—you

say so. Then ’twas her place, not yours, to say what was to be done

after she was lifted up in the land. I doan’t mean for a moment that

she’d look at a velveteen coat, so you needn’t fox yourself as you’ve got

any chance at all with her—yet her did, careless-like, name your name to

me among other chaps as didn’t ’pear to have learnt any manners in their

bearin’ toward women.”

A strong pulse stirred Elias Bassett’s slow nature and made him stare at

the withered old woman.

“No call to glaze like a gert bull wi’ your eyes so round as pennies,”

she said. “An’ what’s more, you needn’t take no comfort from what I’ve

told ’e. I reckon her ban’t for no Dartymoor market. Wi’ her mort o’

money an’ dearth o’ years, her can very well wait awhile wi’out jumping

at the first clodpole among ’e as offers.”

At this moment a strange man came among them and the subject was dropped

for that time, before the interesting spectacle of a face unfamiliar to

all present.

The new arrival carried himself as one superior to his company. He was

booted and spurred, held in one hand a pair of holsters, in the other a

riding-whip. He gave no general salute to those present, neither did he

order refreshment, but casting one quick glance about him, addressed

himself to Gammer Trout and asked to see the mistress of the inn.

Nicholas Merle was a big, clean-shorn man, with bright eyes, quick

movements, and the assertive manner of one accustomed to have his way.

There was no contempt in his attitude to the folk assembled, but he took

it for granted that he exceeded them in importance, even as his interests

rose above their own; and not one among them questioned the assumption.

“Acquaint Mistress Merle that I am come—her cousin Nicholas from

Yorkshire.”

Tibby curtseyed and went to do his bidding, while the new arrival

out-stared each man present in turn, then went to the peat fire and

kicked it.

“Give ’e gude day,” said Elias Bassett, in a friendly tone. “I daresay

now this here lonesome auld Moor do seem but a wisht, pixy-ridden place

to a gen’leman like you be.”

“It is very well, my good fellow—a little contracted, that is all. The

wolds are more spacious, but a gentleman might make a living here if

others would but let him. Does anybody with a fat purse ride this way?”

Elias and his companions stared, and the lower jaw of Mr. French fell

until he appeared imbecile. Yet the stranger’s cynical hint brought up

his listeners a little more on to a level with him. Their virtue owed it

to itself to stand as high as his confessed or pretended rascality.

“That sort of talk leads to a hemp collar, mister,” murmured Bassett; but

Merle shook his head.

“Mere talk leads nowhere,” he answered. “It is the fashion of you clowns

to take a jest in earnest. But have no fear. I am not come among you

with any such purpose as the road. To-day I have ridden from Exeter and,

since leaving Moretonhampstead, saw nought but carrion crows and a fox or

two. This place tempts no man to dishonesty. I can see upon your faces

that you scarce know the meaning of the word.”

Gammer Tibby returned, and Merle, nodding in a friendly way to all

present, followed her through the bar to the private chambers behind it.

Then, hardly had the horseman clanked from sight, when Ostler Joe Mudge

appeared with his mouth full of news.

“Wheer be the gen’leman to? Not here? Then I can speak. Aw jimmery,

what a hoss—if ’tis a hoss! Never seed the like in all my years! Come

an’ catch sight for yourselves, sawls, for you’ll never believe me. Eyes

like a human, an’ a body all so bright as brimstone, to the last hair in

the tail of un!”

While the loafers inspected a big horse of unusual colour, Nicholas Merle

introduced himself to his cousin. They had never met before, and a deep

interest and instant friendship wakened in Minnie’s breast for the only

relation she possessed in the world. He was a tall, resolute man of

thirty-five, with strange oaths and fatherly manner. He declared that

chance alone brought him so far south, and that being at Exeter he had

determined with himself to see his relations.

“Not until I reached Moreton did I hear of our uncle’s death; then I

should have come no farther, but I knew of your existence, and thought I

would at least get a memory of you. And a very pleasant memory it will

be, Cousin, for you’re the queen of the Dartmoors, I hear, and so you

should be. I never want to see a prettier maid.”

But these statements, despite the speaker’s convincing utterance and

bluff manner of discourse, were by no means true. Nicholas Merle,

chancing upon a journal nearly a year old, had read therein of his miser

uncle’s passing; and he knew that only one life stood between him and the

dead man’s fortune. So he forsook his usual haunts, to the satisfaction

of better men, and galloped westward to look into the matter for himself.

CHAPTER II

Within less than a week of the young man’s arrival at the “Ring o’

Bells,” Minnie was heartily grieved that she had commissioned Mrs. Trout

to hint a hope in Elias Bassett’s ear. She and the gamekeeper had indeed

been close friends before her uncle’s death, and it troubled her that

after the change in her fortunes Elias avoided the old intimacy and

feared to be with her alone. Yet she admired him still, and more than

ever, contrasted him with those who hummed about her like hungry wasps,

since her prosperity. Now, however, to her secret shame, Minnie Merle

began to see that she had dropped the handkerchief too soon. Upon the

very day—within the actual hour—that Bassett received his polite hint, a

greater than Bassett burst upon the vision of Minnie, and soon she hung

on her cousin’s words, quite dazzled by the dashing manners of him,

reduced to daily blushes by his gallant address and courtly fashion of

love-making.

These things, however, Elias did not perceive; nor did the newcomer

dazzle him. When the coach from Exeter to Plymouth left a box for Mr.

Merle, and he blossomed forth next Sunday in russet and plum-colour,

Bassett called him a popin-jay; and the keeper killed Minnie’s old

friendship at a breath by telling her in round terms, with the forceful

periods of that time, that her cousin was either less than he proclaimed

himself, or more.

“Not a plain-dealer, an’ you’ll live to know it. Ban’t natural to bring

chapter an’ verse to everything a man speaks, same as he does. No honest

man wants a cloud of witnesses to his least act or word. He goes in fear

for all his noise.”

“His way may not be ours, Mr. Bassett, but we’re a good deal behind the

times, and it does not become you or any other man to call my cousin in

question. He is very superior and genteel, I’m sure, and as for honesty,

I never met a more honest man.”

“Ess fay, an’ you have; an’ you’ll find it out after you’m married to un,

if not afore,” said Elias, bluntly.

Minnie flamed and frowned angrily upon the speaker.

“That’s a very rude speech, and I never expected to hear you say such a

thing.”

“Wish to God I could say different. I’d tell a lot more against your

cousin if I didn’t love you wi’ all my heart an’ soul; but, being so set

upon you, I can’t speak with a free mind, so I’ll speak nought. Doan’t

’e be vexed wi’ me, my dear woman. You know right well as I’d go ’pon my

naked knees from here to Lunnon town to do your pleasure. Awnly I ban’t

blind, an’ I see how this dashing chap’s bold front have cowed us all

round about. Love of you would keep a man true an’ honest if ’twas in

the nature of un so to be, an’ I doan’t say but Nicholas Merle be right

at root; but I mislike un, ’cause I’m very jealous for you, Minnie Merle,

an’ I pray you’ll take your time an’ not jump into his arms fust moment

he axes you to marry him, as he surely means to do come presently.”

The girl grew a little soothed before this soft answer.

“I’m sure you mean very well, Elias Bassett, an’ I’ll remember what you

say, for it’s a foolish softness toward me that makes you say it. We’m

auld friends ever since I came to Two Bridges, an’ I doan’t think no

worse of you for speaking your mind. But you’m quite out o’ bias. Such

a dashing man as my cousin do carry himself civil an’ polite to all,

because he can’t help it. ’Tis his smooth custom. He wouldn’t think of

me as a wife. Why should he—a maiden so rough of speech an’ manner? An’

li’l enough to look at, I’m sure, to an eye as have often been filled by

town-bred girls. Doan’t ’e fret, theer’s a gude man. He’m awnly biding

along wi’ us because he likes the strong air an’ the Devonshire cream an’

honey. He’ll be off as he came—all of a sudden some fine day, no doubt.”

But Bassett shook his head, and, indeed, facts presently proved that he

was right, the girl mistaken. Nicholas made no haste to depart from the

Moor. He took mighty rides over it upon his brimstone-coloured horse; he

endeavoured to win the friendship of all men, and nearly succeeded, for

he was generous and a good sportsman—sure credentials to the regard of

the folk. Only Bassett and another here and there maintained a stubborn

and doglike mistrust. Nor were the sceptics free of reasons for their

attitude. Elias was laughed at as a man ousted from hope by a

better-equipped rival, and the fact that his undue bitterness was

naturally set to the account of defeated love, chastened his tongue; but

in truth Mr. Bassett’s regard for Minnie had little to do with his

emotion. He was an honest man, and not prejudiced overmuch against young

Merle by their relations. Nevertheless he had a lodged loathing against

him, read craft into his apparent candour, secret policy into his

open-handedness, simulation into his great affectation of being

fellow-well-met with all. A lad of no imagination, Bassett none the less

went heavily in this matter, and was oppressed with the sense of evil at

hand. A dull premonition, to which he lent himself reluctantly, spread

events in their sequence before him ere they fell out.

Then accident presented him with a solid fact, and that fact, as is the

nature of such things, opened the door to many problems. But some weeks

before the day that his acquired knowledge set young Bassett’s brains

upon the whirl, there had happened the foreseen, and Minnie was engaged

to be married to her cousin. Liquor ran free on the evening of the great

news, and few were those who left the “Ring o’ Bells” in silence and

sobriety. Elias at least was not among them, for, faced with the

engagement, he abandoned his antagonism in a sort of despair, told

himself that it was idle to fight fate, single-handed, and so drank

Minnie’s health far into the night and went home to his mother’s cottage

as drunk as any man need desire or deplore to be.

The time was then late summer, and the wedding was fixed to take place at

Widecombe in November. This matter determined, life pursued its level

way, and Nicholas Merle, who appeared to have no business or affairs that

called him elsewhere, dwelt on at the “Ring o’ Bells,” enjoyed the best

that the inn could furnish him, and spent his time between courting his

cousin, in a manner much to her taste, and riding far afield over the

land. Sometimes she accompanied him on her Dartmoor pony, sometimes he

went alone.

There came a day in the bar when Gammer Trout was able to furnish the

company with a morsel of news.

“Master Merle got a packet by the mail essterday,” she said. “Fust as

ever he’ve had since he comed; an’ not to his taste neither. ’Twill call

him off, for he set his teeth and frowned when he read it, an’ said as he

must be gone in a week an’ wouldn’t be back much afore the wedding.”

“Who might the packet have come from?” enquired Aaron French; but Tibby

could not tell. She believed in her future master and gave the man a

short answer.

“That’s his business. Us all have our troubles.”

“I be the last to speak anything but praise of the gen’leman,” declared

Aaron. “Yet he is a man of mystery, an’ his goings an’ comings work upon

no rule that a plain head can figure out to itself.”

“Done a purpose,” declared Joe Mudge; “nought goes home to a maiden’s

heart like mystery. ’Tis meat an’ drink to a fansical female. A fellow

do bulk large in the innocent eyes of women folk if they think he’ve got

a hidden side to un—a side as nought but the moon do know.”

They returned to the subject of the packet; and then it fell out that,

within half an hour of that time, the great fact already alluded to faced

Elias Bassett, and an accident thrust the fortunes of a man and a woman

into his hands.

As he left the “Ring o’ Bells” a little later, his mind upon the packet,

Nicholas Merle himself set out on horseback, and galloped away in a

direction that the keeper pursued more slowly on foot. And as he viewed

the receding figure, a speck of white suddenly fluttered into the air

behind it and fell upon the moor-path. Ignorant of his loss, the rider

went forward, and Bassett, convinced that he had seen the identical

object of recent discussion, marched along his way. His purpose, arrived

at hastily, was to pick up the letter, conceal it, and give it to Minnie

with the frank advice that she would do well to read it; but in the event

he did no such thing, for as he stooped to gather up the paper, a thud of

hoofs came to his ear and he saw that Nicholas Merle had discovered his

loss and was returning to make it good if possible.

He dropped the writing unseen, a flash of wisdom leading to that course;

but he did not do so until two words had chanced to fall upon his

eyes—two words of such tremendous significance that they quite dazed the

mind of Elias.

“_Dear husband_—”

He read that much, then moved quickly away from the letter and pretended

to be picking and eating blackberries a hundred yards distant, as Merle

rode past him with his eyes straining to right and left of the way. The

rider banished his care and cracked a jest with Bassett; then, looking

backward, without appearing to do so, Elias saw Merle dismount and clutch

up his letter. A moment later he resumed his ride, and went whistling

along upon his great, bright horse.

CHAPTER III

The first inclination of Elias Bassett was to meet his rival, man to man,

and settle this outrage by force of arms; but after four-and-twenty-hours

with himself he decided against that course. To do the best for Minnie

without afterthought for his own gain was now the keeper’s duty. He put

himself resolutely out of the question, and even debated whether he

should impart his discovery to another, and so stand aloof from the

necessary deed; but his nature would not go so far along with him. He

was a man faced with a rascal and an enemy, and that rascal must be

unmasked by him, not another. The work before him was in itself so

congenial that to delay proved difficult. Therefore Elias quickly

planned his course of action, and the hour for it. Yet he was

disappointed, for on the morning of a day that he had fixed to confront

Merle and break the evil news to Minnie, Nicholas himself departed

unexpectedly. He was to be absent until the time of the wedding.

Upon this circumstance Bassett pondered through another day, then

suddenly strange matters hurried his decision and anger opened his lips.

Returning by night to the hamlet of Two Bridges over the high Moor, Elias

met Minnie Merle alone walking quickly toward the lonely gorges of West

Dart, where the river roars and echoes under Wistman’s primeval wood of

oaks. Darkness was already come, but a moon hidden under low clouds made

all clear. Only the river, full after a freshet, filled the silence with

ebb and flow of watery music, that waxed and waned upon the wind. The

lonely wood, shunned even by day and held a haunted region by night,

huddled there like a concourse of misshapen goblins. Huge planes of

shattered granite sank from the hills to the river valley, and the red

fox and shining adder alone found a home in this fantastic forest of

humped, twisted and shrivelled trees. But to Minnie the desolate spot

was good. She associated it with her lover; there, when the sunlight

shone and little blue butterflies danced above the briars, Nicholas had

asked her to marry him; and now, under gathering night, it was upon a

secret errand connected with her cousin that she stole along when the

keeper met her, to their common surprise.

“A strange hour for a walk, sure enough!” he said. “What wonnerful

secret be taking you on the Moor at this time of night?”

“It be a secret,” she answered, “so ax me no more about it, an’ go on

your way.”

“I’ll tell you another secret for yours, Minnie Merle. Wheer be you

gwaine so quick?”

“To Wistman’s Wood—that much I’ll let you know—no more. Now go your way,

Elias, like a gude man.”

“Ban’t you feared?”

“Not of Wistman’s Wood. ’Tis nought but a cluster of honest old trees.”

“Well, I’ll come along with you.”

“An’ I won’t let you. Three’s no company.” Elias stared and shifted his

walking-stick from one hand to the other.

“Gwaine to meet somebody?”

“Why not?”

“What would your young man say?”

Minnie laughed.

“Since you ax, I think I may answer that he’d say I was in the right.

Now you know enough—tu much. Leave me—I won’t have you go another yard

with me.”

“I do know tu much for my peace,” he said; “but ’tis you who don’t know

enough. I’ve waited a longful time to speak, but now I’ll do it, though

I break your heart. Better that than ruination. This man—Nicholas

Merle—he’m married, an’ that packet he got—’twas from his ill-served

wife.”

“You coward; you liar; you wicked, venomous snake!” cried out Minnie.

“To stand theer afore your Maker an’ hatch that lie for the ear of a

loving woman! Oh! I wish I was a man; I’d tear—but he shall—he shall—he

shall know it this night!”

Her passion revealed her secret. She saw what she had done, grew a

little calmer and explained.

“This is the last time I’ll ever foul my breath with your name, Elias

Bassett; but since you’ve surprised this out of me, I must say more. If

you’ve a shadow of honour, you’ll keep a secret I swore not to reveal to

a soul, yet have now revealed in anger to you. The fault was yours.

When my true love went away, he told me that I might find to-day a letter

in a secret spot known to both of us far away upon the Moreton road. I

went there—rode my pony out this morning—and a letter waited me. I tell

you these things that you shall breed no more lies against him or me. In

that note he told me that he should be at Wistman’s Wood to-night at a

familiar spot I wot very well. And he is to let me into gert news.

Wonnerful things have happened to him. But he is supposed to be far

away, and that he is tarrying here is my secret. And now you have

surprised it out of me. At least I can trust you not to breathe of this

to any living soul if ever you loved me.”

“I shall keep silent, be sure, since you find it in your heart to give me

the lie and call me ‘snake.’”

“I saw the letter that you pretend to have seen. He showed it to me.

Not that I asked to see it. I would trust Nicholas before the sun. You

are dreaming, or else very wicked. The packet was from a scrivener. It

concerned money. ‘A wife’! This is jealous madness. He never looked at

any woman before he met me.”

“If I be wrong, I’ll beg his pardon on my knees.”

“You be most wickedly wrong. He is the soul of honour.”

“Then let me come now with you.”

“Not for the world. He would never forgive me if anybody heard of this

meeting. It is vital to his interests that it should be supposed he is

far away.”

“Cannot you see there is danger for you in this?”

“Danger with him? How little you know what love means for all your talk,

Elias!”

“It is because I know what love means that I care so much. Let me be

somewhere near—out of sight and earshot of speech, but not too far off

for a cry to reach me if you wanted help.”

“Each word you say makes me hate you worse, Elias Bassett.”

“At least let me stop here an’ see you home again afterward.”

“Never! I’ve done with you. You ban’t a good man. Besides, you would

have to wait for hours. I be very early for our meeting. Nicholas will

not be there afore eleven o’clock.”

“And if you never come home again, Minnie Merle?”

“Then you may tell all men what you have heard to-night, an’ go an’ seek

for me. If Nicholas knowed you were his enemy, he would shoot you like a

dog. So be warned.”

“And yet you cannot see that if he is married already, you are his worst

enemy! He can’t marry you and get the money that way, so—”

She turned and ran from him without another word, and he watched her sink

into grey moonlight until the Moor swallowed her up. A dim spot a mile

away on the night marked Wistman’s Wood; and from it, through the fitful

noise of the river, an owl’s cry came faintly, like the sound of a

wailing child.

CHAPTER IV

Elias sat upon a rock and so remained a long while with his head between

his hands. Then he got up and walked slowly homeward; while Minnie

Merle, despite the fact that she was far too early for her appointment,

proceeded steadily toward Wistman’s Wood. Presently, with a light, sure

foot, she entered the old forest and passed where auburn autumn foliage

rustled under the wan light. The wind sighed here and there in the

stunted timber, then died off and left the place breathless, awake,

watching as it seemed.

There was a familiar tree whose boughs, heavily draped with grey lichen

and metallic-coloured mosses, made amongst them a comfortable sort of

couch. The low branches scarcely sprung above the rocky earth, and many

a deep cleft and cranny lay beneath the withered boles. Here the

wood-rush flourished, and the briar, and the little corydalis shared

sunny corners with the snake on summer days. Where Minnie now climbed,

that her head might rise above the low crowns of the wood, ivy and

whortleberry grew, and polypody ferns extended along the limbs of the

tree. About each dwarf, bleared and hoary, moved festoons of

ash-coloured lichen, like ghostly dryads grown old. The arms of the

trees were bedded with centuries of decayed vegetation, their trunks were

twisted into the shape of fossil beasts; yet life was strong in them;

yearly they broke their amber buds; yearly they blossomed and bore fruit.

Gazing about her and wondering from whence her mysterious lover would

appear, Minnie was suddenly startled to see a huge creature moving in the

night. It came toward her, magnified by the moon. Supposing it some

wandering ox from the herds of half-wild cattle that roamed the Moor, she

was glad of her elevated security; but the object proved a horse, and on

it a man sat—the man she loved best in the world. Nicholas was also very

early, and, well pleased to find it so, his sweetheart prepared to leap

out of her refuge and run to him, when something made her hesitate and

she waited a moment and watched her lover dismount.

He carried a curious long parcel under his arm, and the girl wondered

what manner of gift this might be. Then, within twenty yards of her

hiding-place, Nicholas Merle, having consulted a big watch, proceeded to

a curious occupation that first puzzled the watcher, then froze her young

limbs with an awful chill not born of cold.

First, tethering his horse on the high ground above the wood, the man

lighted a lantern, set his pistols at his elbow on a stone, and turned to

the long parcel he had brought with him. From this he unwound some rope

and produced a spade and a short, heavy pick. He took off his coat,

rolled up his sleeves and sought a place for digging. Presently a hollow

between two great slabs of granite met his view, and carefully thrusting

away the briars, ferns and honeysuckle that draped this spot, he set to

work and began deepening it with his tools. A mound quickly grew at

hand, and a long, narrow hole began to yawn between the shelves of stone.

He toiled with all his might and feared not to sing at his labour. Then,

as he lifted his voice, the words he uttered told his deed to the girl

who, above in the ancient oak, looked down through a screen of red

leaves. She shook so that the dry foliage rustled all about her, but

Nicholas Merle’s own melody filled his ear and he sang the historic song

of another he once had watched mimicking the same business that now

engaged him in earnest:—

“A pickaxe, and a spade, a spade,

For and a shrouding sheet:

O! a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.”

Then the girl in the tree grasped the friendly limbs and cowered close

and set her teeth to save herself from fainting and falling, for she knew

that she watched the digging of her own grave. She struggled with

herself to think what she should do; but to solve that problem was easy

enough. Her life depended upon the sheltering tree. The pistol that

glittered at Merle’s elbow was waiting for her young heart.

Half an hour before their appointed time of meeting Merle finished his

labours, hid his tools, trailed the weeds over his work and then, putting

on his coat, blew out the lantern and sat down to wait his cousin’s

arrival. And presently, while Minnie watched and wondered how long his

patience would keep him in Wistman’s Wood, and how long her strength

would bear the ordeal of this terror under nightly cold, she saw another

shape, and a tall man’s form suddenly heaved up out of the darkness.

He approached the other, and spoke. Then the girl felt her fears almost

at an end, for it was Elias Bassett. He had indeed turned his face

homeward, but could not find it in his heart to obey Minnie.

“Late work and strange work, neighbour,” said the keeper. “I’ve bided

hidden an’ watched you this hour, an’ yet I be so much in the dark as

when I comed. Who are you, and what do you here?”

“I mind my business, and do you the like, if you are a wise man!”

“Why! ’Tis Nicholas Merle! I thought you had gone home to your wife.”

The other rose and Elias saw his teeth flash white under the moon.

“You rash fool, are you so weary of living that you come here to hunt for

your death? Yes, Nick Merle—a name that if you were a northern clown

instead of a Westerner, would make you shake in your shoes. You know too

much, my good clod. You had been wiser to leave this wood alone

to-night, for leave it again you never will.”

“Yet that grave was not dug for me, I suppose?”

“No, since you are curious. But I can find room for two in it.”

He snatched up a pistol and fired point-blank. Bassett felt a fiery stab

in his shoulder; then he dashed in and closed. The men rolled together

upon the ground, but handicapped by his wound, the keeper had little

chance. His grip relaxed, his head fell back, and the other, who knew

that he had hit him, supposed the man was dead. Merle dragged his foe to

the grave, and rolled him in without ceremony; then, seeing that Elias

moved, hearing that he moaned, the rascal turned to get his second pistol

and make an end of the matter. But the pistol was in another hand.

Minnie had seen her old suitor slain, as she supposed, and a great grief

for the moment banished personal fear. In that moment she acted, leapt

quickly to the boulders beneath her hiding-place, crept near the battle

unseen, and, as her cousin returned and stood erect, she confronted him

with his own weapon raised and cocked.

“Brave heart!” he cried. “You had come to my rescue, dear Minnie, but,

thank Heaven, I was one too many for this blackguardly footpad myself.

He had traced me, how I know not, and wanted my watch. But he’ll need

the time no more. He sleeps, and no stroke but the stroke of doom will

waken him again. Give me my pistol, dear heroine!”

“Nay,” she said. “I am not deceived. I know my life is in my hand, and

I am not going to put it into yours. Come an inch nearer and I will

shoot you, for you are a murderer, and worse than a murderer.”

The man fell back. He had himself taught Minnie to shoot with small

arms, and he knew that she was a good pupil.

“Sit down and let us talk,” he said.

“With that poor man groaning his life out there—for me? Go—go now. If I

was not a weak fool, I would shoot you in cold blood.”

He reflected rapidly, then so acted that he might deceive her into his

reach, and surprise the weapon from her before she could use it.

“You will live to regret this dreadful error, Minnie Merle. No man or

woman wrongs me without suffering for it. There is some treachery here;

but I will be even with my enemies. I always am.”

He went slowly toward his horse and she hung back and let him lead the

way.

“Little did I think when I taught you how to use that toy that you would

one night turn it against your faithful lover,” he said with deep sorrow

in his voice.

“I have seen you dig my grave,” she answered. “You are not worthy to

live. Go, because I have loved you.”

He slowly mounted into his saddle, very slowly gathered his heavy

hunting-crop that hung hitched to the holster; then, as quick as

lightning, he hit out with the heavy handle, trusting to strike the girl

on the head and bring her down before she could fire.

Minnie started backward, and, to her horror, the jerk of her movement,

although it saved her life from the blow, exploded the pistol. Now,

defenceless, she prepared to fly, but the man’s laugh of triumph was

broken by a horrid scream of pain from his horse. The ball had struck it

high on the neck and the great brute reared up and became unmanageable.

So sudden was the action that Merle came off. A second more and he would

have rolled into safety; but, at the moment of his collapse, even as he

fell, the frantic creature kicked out and a steel-plated hoof, with the

strength of a flying chain-shot, crashed into his head behind the ear and

cut away half his skull. Under the moon oozed forth the brains that had

plotted Minnie’s death, and she turned shuddering, while the great horse,

with a cry almost human, galloped into the night.

Bassett lived, as Minnie soon discovered. His wound still bled, but she

tore her linen, stanched the flow and supported him upon the way until

his strength gave out again and he sank down upon the Moor, while she

fled forward for succour.

* * *

The name of Bassett warms Devon hearts to-day, and it was the generation

that followed Elias that wrote their worthy patronymic large upon the

earth and blazoned it in history. Yet the sons of Minnie, and her

grandsons and great-grandsons, loved best in their annals that tragedy of

the highwayman, their mother’s cousin—Young Nick, as he is called—and the

story of his efforts to prevent them from coming into the world by

sending their mother out of it. They have waxed high in the land, and

men have blessed them; yet their joy in Sir Elias Bassett, Lord Moreton,

is not greater than that they take in plain Elias, the statesman’s

grandfather. Men made a riddle about Minnie Merle and her grave—a jest

that sets three generations laughing; but of late this joke has hidden

within the pages of old, curious journals. There, indeed, many such-like

strange matters shall be met with. Long they lie forgotten, buried in an

ancient chronicle, tombed for centuries under the lumber of a muniment

chest, until bidden to rise and live again.

JONAS AND DINAH {167}

CHAPTER I

“I publish the banns of marriage between Jonas Lethbridge, bachelor, and

Dinah Mary Hannaford, spinster, both of this parish. If any of you know

cause, or just impediment, why these two persons should not be joined

together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is for the first

time of asking.”

A pleasant rustle ran through the little congregation—an amiable and

friendly sound. Jonas and Dinah sat together through the ordeal of the

banns, and, out of sight, he squeezed her hand to support her.

“The maiden went so red as a rose, an’ the man pale as a dog’s tooth.

Did ’e note it?” asked Blacksmith Chugg of Sexton Lethbridge, after

service was at an end and the village folk had vanished.

“I noted that, and more than that. Old as I am, and so round in the back

as a beetle with a lifetime o’ burying, yet my eyes be gimlets o’

sharpness still, thank God! ’Tis a trick my son Jonas have gotten from

his mother. The red never comed in her cheek at high moments—blood all

rushed to her heart, an’ her growed so white you might have thought as

her was going to die on the spot. When I axed her to marry me, she went

fainty-like, an’ her lips turned blue. But a good wife she was as ever a

man lost an’ mourned. They wondered how I could find nature enough in me

to dig her pit myself. The fools! To think that a grave-digger like me

could have rested easy in my bed if another had done it!”

“I hope as Dinah Hannaford will be such a wife an’ mother as your missis

an’ mine,” said the blacksmith. “But why for did tenor bell—that chap,

Amos Thorn, the woodman—get up an’ leave the church when they was axed

out? A very unseasonable think to do.”

“I marked it,” answered Mr. Lethbridge. “Jonas says that Dinah kept

company two years back with Thorn. But they falled out, because he have

such a surly habit of mind an’ her couldn’t put up with his tantrums no

more. If her so much as looked at another man or gived a chap

‘good-day,’ Thorn would go crazy; an’ as life promised to be a burdensome

business wi’ such a touchy fashion o’ man, she took courage to break

off.”

“A very sensible maid, they say.”

“So she is, then; never seed any young woman with more sense. They be

coming to live along wi’ me. Then my old sister, as does for me now, can

go off comfortable into that empty almshouse offered her to Tavistock.”

Elsewhere the lovers walked and talked in a Devon lane. Her arm rested

upon his, and grim exultation marked his features. Stern and hard was

his countenance, yet his eyes glowed kindly and flashed with love as he

looked down at her face. Ferns in all the glory of new green hung fronds

about the way; seeding grasses softened the verdant banks, and flowers

brightened them with red and purple. Field-roses and dog-roses trailed

their beauty above, and in the air was scent of eglantine and song of

bird. Speedwells and cinquefoil made blue-and-gold lace-work in the

vernal walls of the lane; hawthorn turned to roseal harmonies in death,

and the last bluebells faded.

“You’ll love me for ever, my own dear?” she said.

“Till my heart be done wi’ beating, Dinah,” he answered. “No trouble as

was ever hatched by man or the devil will come betwixt you an’ me.”

CHAPTER II

“I publish the banns of marriage between Amos Thorn, bachelor, and Dinah

Mary Hannaford, spinster, both of this parish. If any of you know cause,

or just impediment, why these two persons should not be joined together

in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is for the first time of

asking.”

Again there followed a rustle of many curious folk; but a different

emotion animated it, a different sound infused it. Human nature woke up

and buzzed. This was more than merely pleasant; it was interesting. Mr.

Thorn and Dinah Hannaford were not in the little church to face two

hundred pairs of eyes. Jonas Lethbridge accompanied his father, and

while the ancient grave-digger’s head drooped and his mouth trembled,

where it fell in over naked gums, the young man gazed unflinchingly

before him, and no quiver marked his strong, hard face and dark eyes. He

kept them fixed unblinking on a stained glass window that represented

Christ bidding the waves be still.

Again the old-time neighbour of Sexton Lethbridge stumped along beside

him under spring leaves; but Jonas had disappeared as soon as the service

was ended.

“Very sorry for your son, my dear soul; for I lay the fire in his eye was

burning out of his heart if us could have but seen it,” said Mr. Chugg,

the blacksmith. “What a courage he’ve got to come to worship!”

“’Tis a very dreadful thing for all of us, Chugg.”

Mr. Lethbridge spoke wearily. Of late his natural forces were abated,

and Jonas did much of the work of the churchyard.

“Every maiden in the village be sorry for him,” said the blacksmith.

“An’ well they might be.”

“Thorn hadn’t the brass to be there hisself, I see. A chap from

Princetown ringed tenor bell to-day.”

“God won’t never prosper such treachery, you mark me,” said Mr.

Lethbridge.

“If ’tis God’s business to put down treachery, He’m a thought behind His

work—to say it respectful. My experience is that the ungodly do very

well ’pon Dartymoor. Be your sister going to bide with you?”

“Yes; she’m stopping. Her wouldn’t go in the almshouse when the wedding

fell through. But it won’t be for long. I’m getting ripe an’ ready for

the grave myself now.”

“The women of this generation ban’t no better than reptile toads. But

your young chap will find a good wife come presently, please God.

There’s a tidy maid here an’ there yet.”

“Not him. He’ll bide a bachelor for evermore. He’m so bitter as gall to

the roots of his being since she wrote that letter. It have turned him

away from the Almighty’s Self.”

“Chucked him over with a letter, did her?”

“Ess—an’ a very nice fashion of penmanship. Yet all written wi’ needles,

so to say, as stabbed the poor young youth cruel. He gasped when he read

it, as if he’d swallowed his meat wrong way. Then he handed it to me.

She just said as she’d been wickedly deceived in him, and that she’d

rather have trusted the sun not to shine than believe he could have acted

so bad to her. An’ she also hoped the Lord would forgive him for

treating a poor maiden so crooked.”

“That weern’t enough for Jonas Lethbridge, was it?”

“No, by Gor! He went straight to her, an’ there was fiery words; but the

truth, or what she thought was truth, he never knowed. Her love had

turned to hate in a single night. He pressed for reasons; and she said

that to ax for reasons was the worst insult of all, seeing she knowed the

whole secret truth about him. Not a word more could he get, though he

tried, and was patient as Job for an hour of talk. Then, having his

spark o’ passion like any other man, he called her a wanton, wicked jilt

an’ left her. An’ no girl ever deserved hard names more than she.”

“’Tis a dark story, to be sure. That’s why us never heard the third

axing of the banns, then?”

“It happened last spring, afore the last axing. Then, come winter, Dinah

Hannaford’s mother died, an’ next thing us heard was that she’d got on

wi’ Amos Thorn again.”

“A very womanly piece of work.”

“I don’t know whether ’tis woman or man be at the bottom. I’d throw

blame on Thorn if I dared wi’out running danger of violence; but I be old

an’ weak, an’ ’tis no good saying things you can’t enforce wi’ your right

arm. Still, I do think he kindiddled her away from my boy.”

“’Tis no libel to think it, anyway,” said Mr. Chugg, and the sexton

nodded.

“There’s parties as ought to be punished wheether or no,” he said, “and I

hope the A’mighty won’t let it pass, an’ that I’ll live to see the wicked

come by their deserts.”

* * * * *

A mile away Amos Thorn and Dinah walked together where immortal flowers

bloomed about them at the dawn of June.

“Oh, but you’ll be true to me, dear heart—I can trust you?” she asked

with a pleading voice.

The big blond man turned and hugged her to himself and kissed her.

“For ever an’ ever, Amen, my pretty!” he said.

CHAPTER III

“Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take

unto Himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore

commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to

dust; in sure and certain hope—”

The clods fell; the familiar rite ended. There was a smell of earth and

bruised grass. Dinah Thorn looked down into her husband’s grave; and her

child of three, clutching tight his mother’s black-gloved hand, peeped

fearfully into the abyss that had swallowed his father. Suddenly the

infant appeared to realize his loss, and howled with all his little

heart.

Anon every man went to his own house, while Mr. Lethbridge began to fill

the grave. His friend the blacksmith had been one of the bearers. He,

too, stayed behind; and now Chugg lighted his pipe, and sat upon a tomb,

and watched the sexton. Once more they played the part of chorus.

“’Tis a wonder to see you with the spade again.”

“As to that, I’m past it—have been these three year—but this particular

job—well, somehow, Jonas had got a feeling that he’d cussed the chap so

often in life that he couldn’t dig his pit decent; an’ I be clever yet

for such an old blid, so I comed out o’ my well-earned rest. Can’t say

as it hurt my mind to dig, though my rheumatics will smart for it come

to-morrow.”

The earth dropped from the shovel, and the coffin beneath rumbled to the

thud.

Old Lethbridge worked slowly, and stopped often to talk.

“’Twas always said he’d got a careless way of throwing elms. An’ now an

elm have throwed him. A great tree in Widecombe Park falled when he was

looking t’other way, an’ a bough scat his brains out. An’ now he’m

coffined in elm, an’ never good wood held a worse man.”

The blacksmith smoked and shook his head.

“Yet the Church feels no doubts of him. Have ’e ever marked the

cocksureness of the parsons? ’Tis that I marvels at! ‘Sure and sartain

hope’ be the words. When they buried Sam Pridham, the poacher—him as

beat his wife and drinked the boots an’ shoes off his children’s

feet—parson was just so dead positive ’bout it as when he put away my old

woman, who was a holy saint o’ God, bar her temper. How can us know that

it have pleased the A’mighty to take to Hisself the soul of this here

Amos Thorn?”

“We can’t be sure, and for my part I ban’t,” said the other. “We know

mighty little of any man except this: that king and tinker breed the same

fashion o’ worms come they die. The chap down there was a liar, an’ he

won Dinah Hannaford from my son by a wicked trick. He told her

falsehoods—’twas this dust I’m covering with honest earth that made dust

of my son’s life; an’, old as I am, I be glad to bury him. If ’tis

wicked, then ’tis wicked; but, any way, ’tis true.”

“Don’t puff an’ fret, my dear. He’m gone now, an’ ’tis very bad for you

to be so hot at your age. He’ll get his proper payment. For that

matter, he have got it.”

“I say us have no right to believe that God have took this man’s soul to

Hisself. It ban’t justice, an’ I won’t stomach it. Nice company for the

bettermost in heaven! The like of Amos Thorn—! Tchut! I can’t

onderstand it.”

“’Tis a very difficult question, and best left alone,” said the

blacksmith, uneasily. “It be quite enough to know there is such a place.

I never much like to think about it.”

“Us have more right to commit his soul to the Dowl, an’ a lot more

reason, too,” said the angry ancient. “Do ’e think I’ve read an’

pondered the Scriptures fifty years for nothing? The wages of sin be

death; that’s a cast-iron, black-an’-white fact; and I’ll back the Bible

against the Prayer-book any day of the week for money. If Bible’s true,

he’m lost.”

“The punishment do fall on his wife an’ child, come to think of it. He

was cut off so sudden, an’ left no provision for ’em at all.”

“That’s the law and the prophets,” declared Mr. Lethbridge. “Sins of the

fathers be visited on the children—also pretty often on the widows,

though they ban’t named by name.”

“Where’s the justice of that, then? Got you there!” cried the

blacksmith, triumphantly.

“If you’ve got anybody, you’ve got the Old Testament,” answered the

other, grimly, “an’ I’d advise you to call home your words again, an’ not

flout the Book o’ Life in a graveyard. ’Twon’t be for your good. An’

such things will turn the scale at Judgement. The man was cut off, an’

’tis the quality of punishment not to stop at the sinner, but to catch

the innocent folk all around him—like measles or a fever do.”

“As a husband, it be generally granted he was a very good an’ proper

man,” ventured Mr. Chugg.

“You can’t be a good husband and a bad man.”

“You’m so quick at words, there’s no being even with ye!”

Then the blacksmith went his way, and his friend shouted after him:—

“Justice be justice; an’ for my part I’ll always tell the truth, as I

always have, whether it be to a man’s face or his coffin-lid.”

CHAPTER IV

There came a day after long years, and June smiled as of yore, and the

scythe of Jonas Lethbridge smoothed the grassy graveyard, even as the

scythe of Time filled it. He took a gloomy pride in the place; and while

his father, who now slept beneath, had been content to dig deep and bury

well, this silent man passed his abstracted days among the graves, and

made the face of the little churchyard fair to see.

Few problems troubled him; yet upon this hour in young summer he was

faced with a difficulty. He paused, looked with down-drawn brows at a

faint path worn in the grass between certain tombs. It was a way trodden

there by a woman’s feet, and it led—not to the grave of Amos Thorn, but

to a little mound near it, where the woodman’s son slept beside him.

“Haven’t spoke a word to her since her flinged me over, an’ never thought

to; but ’tis my duty,” the sexton reflected, “an’ my duty I must do. I

could set sticks across, but she’d only think I was ’feared of her. For

that matter, so I be.”

Opportunity offered within the hour. The man mowed, and the blackbirds

sang. From an ancient tomb, long sunk out of straightness, came a

tapping where a thrush broke a snail and feasted upon it. The air

danced, and the scythe’s strokes rose and fell regularly, like the deep

breath of a sleeper.

Then came a woman, and her feet pressed the grasses where Lethbridge had

too often marked their passing. His face grew white, his brows frowned,

and he put down his scythe and came forward. Dinah saw him, and

hesitated and stood still. A little bunch of purple columbines fell out

of her hand, and she bent and picked them up.

“Mrs. Thorn,” said the man, “I must ax you to go around t’other way to

your graves in future. I won’t have ’e trapsing about here. You’m

wearing the young grass away. See how bad it do look. An’ if you’d only

let your child’s grave alone, the turves would jine suent and smooth; but

you’m always putting in jam-jars wi’ flowers in ’em, an’ planting things

that die, an’ worrying the place so cruel that no grass can grow. I

don’t want to say nought to hurt your mother’s heart, but the grave will

never look seemly the way you treat it; and I shall be blamed.”

She stood in a dream to hear his voice again. “If tears could make it

grow—”

“Tears! ’Tis a poor, feeble sorrow tears will drown.”

“Men an’ women be different. Tears do soften the cutting edge to us

females. But I’ll go round t’other way henceforth, Mr. Lethbridge, an’

I’m very sorry I hurt the grass and troubled you about it.”

He looked hard at her, and the mists of memory rose a little from off his

spirit. Life had left him petrified, while for the woman the years were

full, mostly of sorrow. Her husband and child were both dead, and she

lived alone.

Now the man’s cold heart felt a throb.

“’Tis strange to hear your voice,” he said. “Do ’e ever think ’bout the

old days, ma’am, or do they hurt ’e?”

“Both,” she said. “I think an’ I suffer. But I’ve lived a lifetime

since then.”

“Yet you ban’t very old now?”

“Twenty-six, Mr. Lethbridge.”

“I know that well enough—twenty-six come tenth o’ next month—July.”

“I was very sorry for ’e when your old faither died.”

“So was I.”

“He never would speak to me after—”

“Faither was a very great man for justice. An Old Testament man, you

might say. ’Twas he as digged your husband’s grave, Mrs. Thorn. I

couldn’t do it.”

“Amos Thorn wronged you more’n ever a man wronged a man—God rest his

soul.”

“An’ he wronged you?”

“I’ve forgived him,” she said.

“He told you as I had a woman an’ a child hidden down to Newton Abbot.”

“I’ve forgived him.”

“An’ you could believe it?”

“I’ve never forgived myself, nor never shall.”

There was a silence.

“Well, if you’ll keep off this here place an’ go round by the old stones

there, I’ll thank you. I take a pride in the burying-ground, as be well

known. The graves be wife and children to me. If you’ll look around at

other churchyards, you’ll see there ban’t one this side of Plymouth

that’s so trim and tidy as this.”

“It’s well known; people comes from long ways off to see it. I’ll be

careful in future not to do harm.”

She turned, and followed the road that he pointed out. Then she put

fresh water in a jam-pot, and arranged the columbines upon a little mound

of sickly turf. Hard by his scythe began its measured rhythm in the

heart of the green grass.

CHAPTER V

The light took a golden tincture before dusk, and nature rested. Mellow

sunshine cast long shadows, interspersed with a tender radiance; the

cottages and house-places were still; and peace brooded over hamlet and

homestead, for the day’s work was done.

The 10th of July sank to lovely close, and through a blue dusk one window

glimmered on the confines of the village.

Toward it walked a man, and in his pocket he carried a little parcel.

Once he hesitated, and seemed disposed to hurl his gift into the hedge

and return whence he came. But he held on, and presently reached the

cottage door and knocked at it.

“Might I come in an’ have a tell, Mrs. Thorn?” he asked in a deep voice.

There was a moment of silence, then a fluttered uprising.

“Yes, if you’m in a mind to, Mr. Lethbridge.”

BENJAMIN’S MESS

When Farmer Yelland died, everybody in Postbridge village was sorry—for

theirselves, but not for him, mind you. Because if ever a good man went

straight to glory ’twas Michael Yelland. He’d had his ups an’ downs like

the best an’ worst of us; but though the poor old gentleman weern’t

overblessed in his life,—nor yet his only son for that matter,—yet ’twas

made up to him in a manner of speaking, for never a farm in Dartymoor did

better. His things were always the first to be ready for market; his

grass was always ready to cut a week ahead of his neighbours, an’ he

always had fine weather to cut it in; while as for his corn an’

roots—why, at the Agricultural Show to Ashburton, it comed to be a joke

all over the countryside, for first prize always went to Yelland as a

regular thing. The Lord looks after His own, you see, in His own

partickler way. An’ such a patient, large-hearted man as he was! When

Sarah Yelland, his wife, was took off, after clacking nonsense for fifty

year, us all thanked God in our hearts for her good man. For ’tweern’t a

happy marriage, an’ he’d had more to put up with unbeknownst in his home

circle than falls to the lot of many of us. But not an unkind word did

he ever say either afore or after she died. Never would grumble about

it, but kept his thoughts to hisself. I mind I met him in the churchyard

six months after he’d buried his wife, an’ he was smoking his old clay

pipe an’ seeing about a granite gravestone for the tomb.

“So there her lies at peace,” I said in my civil way.

An’ farmer takes his pipe out of his mouth an’ spits ’pon the grave, but

not with any rude meaning.

“Yes, John,” he says to me. “There Sarah lies, poor old dear—at peace, I

hope, I’m sure. Anyway, if she’s so peaceful as I be since her’s gone,

she’ll do very well.”

Two year after that he was in the pit beside her, an’ the space left ’pon

the stone was filled up with his vartues.

Then Nicholas Yelland—his son—a lad five-an’-twenty years old an’ a bit

cross in the grain—found hisself master of Cator Court, as the place was

called. We shook our heads, for he was known to us as a chap pretty near

spoilt by over-educating. Old Yelland had got his patience an’ sense

from the land, an’ his wisdom an’ sweetness of disposition out of no

other book than the Bible; but his missis had great notions for her one

an’ only child, an’ she wanted more than the Bible could teach him;

which, in my judgement, is to cry out for better bread than can be made

of wheat. Farmering weern’t a grand enough trade for him, she thought;

so she kept nagging an’ nagging by day an’ night, till, in self-defence,

the old man sent his lad to Tavistock Grammar School—a very great seat of

larning in them days, by all accounts. Yet what they didn’t teach him

was worth knowing too, for manners he never larned, nor yet his duty to

his neighbour. He comed home at seventeen with some Latin, ’twas said,

though ’twas only rumoured like, an’ a very pretty way of reading the

lessons to church on Sundays; but when he returned, the first thing as he

told his faither was, “I be a Radical in politics evermore, an’ I ban’t

going to touch my hat again to nobody living. One man’s so good as

another.”