“So he be, Nick,” said his faither. “An’ a darned sight better, too, for

that matter. The world will larn ’e that, if nothing else. I’m sorry

ever I sent ’e to school, if they’ve taught ’e such tomfoolery there.

But life will unlarn ’e, I hope. To touch your hat to your betters ban’t

no sign of weakness in you, but a sign of sense: Lord Luscombe hisself

takes off his hat to the King, an’ the King takes off his’n to God

A’mighty. ’Tis the laws of Nature,” said farmer, “an’ if you break the

laws o’ Nature, you’ll damn soon get broke yourself, as everybody finds

out after they’m turned fifty, if not sooner.”

But Yelland died, as I tell ’e, an’ the young man comed to his own. With

all his airs an’ graces, he knowed when he was well off, an’ of course

followed his faither’s footsteps an’ stuck to the land, despite his

mother’s hopes, as planned an’ prayed with her last breath for him to be

a lawyer. Though why a lawyer should be a greater man than a farmer,

you’d have to ax a lawyer to tell ’e. An’ I won’t say that Nicholas was

a bad farmer. He’d got sense, though no broad-mindedness. The

difference between him an’ his faither was showed by a path-field as ran

through Cator Court lands and was very much used by folks coming up from

Widecombe to Postbridge and the farms round about, because it saved

foot-passengers a good mile of walking, an’ it had been there time out of

mind. But there weren’t no right of way with it all the same, an’ farmer

he always used to shut it up one day a year to make good his claim in the

eye of the law. He wouldn’t have turned back the leastest little one

he’d found on the field-path, for ’twas his pride an’ pleasure always to

make life easier for man, woman an’ child when the chance offered. An’

the boys had the filbert nuts an’ the girls had the mushrooms; an’ he

never minded, bless you; he liked ’em to be there.

Well, this here carmudgeon of a young Yelland—first thing he done, out of

pure sourness of disposition, was to shut up the field-path an’ stick up

a lot o’ scowling nonsense ’bout “trespassers would be prosecuted.” So

much for his radical ideas an’ everybody being equal! But it’s always

that sort who talk loudest about the rights of men, be the sharpest about

the rights of property. Belted Earls will throw open their beautiful

parks, but you won’t catch common men doing it. An’ the boys knocked

young Yelland’s boards down with stones, an’ broke his hedges; an’ the

Widecombe people, as didn’t care a snap of the finger for the man, took

their even way as usual. He spent half his time storming up an’ down the

great meadow in the farm-bottom, where Webburn river goes clattering to

meet Dart; but he only turned back women an’ children, for he was a

little chap—thin an’ not overstrong—so men just told him to get out of

their road, else they’d knock him upsy-edgeways into the hedge.

But of course such a state of things couldn’t last. There comed a

terrible day when he turned back Mr. Matthew’s wife—Matthew being the

miller to Widecombe an’ a churchwarden, an’ a man of high renown in

general. Then us had a proper tantara, an’ Matthew he took the opinion

of Lawyer Pearce, an’ Pearce he had a tell with young Yelland, an’ parson

Courtenay of Postbridge, he also done what he could; which was nought.

They might so well have talked to a fuzz-bush as Nicholas. He stuck out

his chin—he was a underhung toad, like a bulldog—and he said that rights

was rights an’ land was land; an’ he turned on parson, like an adder, and

said: “If you’ll open a footpath through your vegetable garden an’ let

all Postbridge walk up an’ down it when your gooseberries be ripe, then

I’ll do the same with my meadow, an’ not sooner.”

But parson, whose heart was in gooseberries, said the cases weren’t

similar; an’ Nicholas held out they were.

Matters was let sink for a bit after that, but the upshot made a story,

an’ people laugh yet when you tell ’em about it.

You must know that young Yelland was courting just then, an’ he’d got his

hands so full with Mary Jane Arscott, the stone-breaker’s darter, that

for lack of leisure—nought else—he didn’t watch his path-field so sharp

as usual. The storm died down a bit, an’ by the time that the matter of

Mary Jane had come to a head, things were fallen back into the old way.

All the notice-boards was knocked down—most of ’em had floated along the

river; an’ the people went to an’ fro on Yelland’s path, just as if his

faither was still alive. He’d only made a lot of enemies by his foolish

conduct, an’ that thought made him so grim as a ghost, an’ poor company

for every living soul.

Well, this Mary Jane was a very fine woman—rather on the big side for a

girl of twenty-two; but the small men always look for a large, helpful

pattern of maiden, an’ Nicholas was as much in love with her as he could

be with any mortal she, despite her humble circumstances. Her liked him

too, up to a certain point; but ’twas the sort of fondness a maiden

naturally gets for any young man who be very well-to-do, an’ have a fine

house an’ land an’ a prosperous business. ’Tis hard to make up your mind

about such a man, specially if he’m a trifle undersized an’ underhung,

an’ not generally well liked by the neighbours. But, for all that, Mary

Jane Arscott kept his beautiful farm in her eye an’ seed her way pretty

clear, if it hadn’t been for a young youth by the name of Benjamin Pearn.

But for him no doubt she’d have said “yes” long ago—perhaps afore

Nicholas had had time to get out his proposal of marriage, for she comed

of very pauper stock, an’ had never known comfort in her life. But this

here Ben Pearn chanced to have just what t’other man lacked—a comely

countenance an’ a fine, manly frame to him. A blue-eyed, sandy-headed

man—hard as nails an’ fairly prosperous for a chap only turned four or

five-an’-twenty. He was a shepherd in springtime; an’ looked after the

common lands; an’ he was verger of the church; an’ he kept bees; an’ he’d

lend a hand at thatching or painting of sign-boards, or harvesting, or

any mortal thing. But his father had been a famous poacher, though of

course I ban’t bringing that up against the man. Yet, with all his

cleverness, he was a fool when he failed in love, as a many afore him.

’Twas love for Mary Jane found out the soft spot in him, an’ showed that

he was a thought weak in his head, for all his business, and could do an

underhand deed, like anybody else in the same fix. For when we’m struck

on a maid, if us can’t see how to fight fair in it, us all fights foul

without a blush. Which shows love ban’t a Bible vartue, but just a

savage strain in the blood, if you come to think of it. Besides, you

can’t forget his father was a poacher.

Between these two men, Ben an’ Nicholas, it rested, an’ Mary Jane took

her time to make up her mind. She was in love with Benjamin’s self an’

Yelland’s farm. That’s how it stood. She didn’t want to miss the farm,

an’ she didn’t want to miss Benjamin; but her couldn’t have both; an’ her

found it a bit difficult to make up her mind, though Lord He knows her

faither an’ mother done their best to make it up for her. They had an

eye on the gert chimney-corners to Cator Court, no doubt.

Then things happened that helped Mary Jane to decide.

The rights of it got out long after, but what took place was this, for I

heard it direct from Nicholas. Whatever else he was, he was a

truth-teller. One fine evening in late summer, when Yelland was walking

down his field-path in a devil of a gale, because he found that folks had

been breaking his hedge again for the hazel-nuts an’ running all about

the meadow after mushrooms, there comed by Ben Pearn, an’ he marked the

trouble an’ spoke.

“’Tis a shame to see what you get for your goodness in letting folks go

up an’ down your field-path, Mr. Yelland,” he says.

But Nick looked at him sideways, for he knowed Ben was his rival, an’

didn’t feel like trusting him a yard.

“They wouldn’t be here if I could help it. But seemingly I can’t,” he

answered back.

Ben nodded.

“The law won’t help ’e? ’Tis a crying shame; but if I was you, I’d help

myself an’ hang the law.”

“I’ve tried often enough, surely. I’ve done every mortal thing that I

can think of. I wish to God us was allowed to use man-traps, like

landowners did in the old time. But the law’s got so weak as water

nowadays. A man mayn’t even shoot a burglar, they tell me. ’Twill be a

penal offence next to ax a housebreaker to leave the family Bible behind

him.”

“Well, there’s man-traps an’ man-traps. The meadow be yours to do what

you please with, ban’t it?” says Ben, very artful like.

“It did ought to be.”

“You can graze sheep in it?”

“Yes.”

“Or cattle?”

“Of course. What’s that to do with the matter?”

“You might even let your great red Devon bull, as takes so many prizes

an’ have got such a douce an’ all of a temper, run loose there, if you

was minded to—eh?”

“By Gor!” said Nick Yelland. “If that ban’t an idea!”

“I judge you wouldn’t have no more trouble then, Nicholas. Better’n

notice-boards. He’d work quicker, too. One sight of him would be enough

for most people.”

“Thank you,” said the farmer. “Thank you very much. You’m a

quick-witted chap, for sartain, an’ I’m greatly obliged to you. I’ll

turn him in this very evening, an’ be damned to everybody.”

An’ so he did, an’ next day that gert bull was wallowing in a pool o’ mud

in the middle of the meadow an’ wondering at his luck.

An’ when young Ben left Yelland he went straight down to see Mary Jane

Arscott. A crooked game he played, sure enough!

They had a bit of love-making by the river, for she lived in a cot down

that way; an’ then Ben arranged to meet her next day an’ go out upon

Bellever Tor an’ pick whortleberries. But he never said no word touching

his talk with Nicholas Yelland.

Well, the girl started pretty early from her mother’s cottage down the

valley and came up as a matter of course over the path-field past Cator

Court; an’ for that matter, Yelland had long since given her special

permission to do so. Her was halfway across the great meadow, with

nothing in her thoughts but mushrooms an’ whortleberries an’ Benjamin

Pearn, when there comed a sound very high-pitched an’ ugly. It got

louder an’ deeper till she heard a proper bellow, an’ there, right ahead,

she seed Nick Yelland’s great red Devon bull, a-pawing an’ a-prancing as

if he was trying to dance the sailor’s hornpipe. If he’d been a thought

farther off, no harm could have come, for the path-way ran nigh the

hedge; but as it was, Mary Jane had a narrow squeak, for she’d roamed a

bit to pick mushrooms, an’ when the old bull went for her, she’d got

fifty yards to get to the hedge, an’ he’d got a bit more than a hundred

to catch her. He was in a good temper, I believe, an’ never really tried

to hurt her; but what’s a joke to a bull may be mighty serious earnest

for a twelve-stone female.

She dropped her basket an’ ran for her life. She weren’t built for

running, but nature will do a great deal, even for the roundest of us, in

a pinch like this, an’ for once her got over the ground in very fine

fashion. She’d reached within ten yards of the hedge, when she heard a

shout, an’ a man came tearing along; but he was too late. Mary Jane went

head first into the hazel hedge, screaming to the Everlasting to spare

her; an’ the bull’s horn just gave her the ghost of a touch—enough to

swear by after—as she went through, all ends up. She weren’t really

hurt, an’ only took a chair a thought gingerly for a day or two; but by

God! her temper didn’t heal so easy, I promise you—not by no means; an’

presently, when the man as had shouted an’ runned to help her took the

poor maiden home, she let him know what she thought about the world in

general an’ Nicholas Yelland in particular, so soon as she had got wind

enough to tell with.

Of course the man was Benjamin Pearn. An’ he knowed really that the

path-field ran nigh the hedge, an’ he’d been dead sure as Mary Jane would

not get into no real danger. Besides, he had planned to be there in

plenty of time, an’ it wasn’t till he actually seed Mary Jane flying an’

the bull a-bellowing after her with his tail up an’ his head down, that

he knowed what he’d done. Then he rushed out from the hedge, where he

was hid, an’ thanked his stars in secret, for everything had happened

just ezacally as he wanted it to—though I don’t suppose he ever wished

for the maiden to have such a narrow shave.

“To think!” gasped Mary Jane. “To think as I might be a lifeless jelly

this moment but for my own legs! As ’tis, that gert beast’s horn have

horched me somewheres, an’ I may die of it yet. An’ if you’m a man,

Benjamin Pearn, you’ll go an’ get your gun an’ shutt him.”

“God’s goodness! you don’t mean Mr. Yelland?” said Ben.

“No, I don’t; you can leave him to me,” the maiden answered; “I won’t

have no living soul come between me an’ Nicholas Yelland now. He’ll be

sorry as he was born afore his dinnertime, if I’ve got a tongue in my

head; an’ he shall have all Postbridge hooting at him in the open

street—an’ Widecombe too—come to-morrow. But ’tis your part to shutt

thicky beastly bull wi’ a gun; an’ if you love me, you’ll do it. He

shan’t take no more prizes, if I can stop him.”

“As to shooting the bull, they’d put me in prison for it,—not that I’d

mind that if you’d have me when I comed out,” said Ben, very eager like.

“But,” he added as an after-thought, “the dashed luck of it is, I haven’t

got a gun.”

Her black eyes flashed an’ her gipsy-dark face growed darker still. She

still panted an’ puffed a bit. But Ben confessed arter that she never

looked so lovely afore or since as she did when he pulled her out of the

brambles in the hedge an’ comforted her.

“You’d best to borrow a gun, then,” she told him. “Anyway, I won’t marry

you while that bull’s alive; an’ if you was a man, you’d never sleep

again till you’d put a bullet through it.”

Same afternoon she went up with her mother to Cator Court an’ gave

Nicholas Yelland the whole law an’ the prophets, by all accounts. I seem

his ears must have tingled to hear her; but he was a pretty cool hand;

an’ when she’d talked herself out of breath an’ falled back on torrents

an’ oceans of tears; an’ when her mother had also said what she comed to

say, which was mere tinkling brass after Mary Jane, Nick popped in a word

or two edgeways.

“If you’ll be so very kind as to hold your noise a minute,—the pair of

you,—I’ll tell you how the bull got in the field,” he said. “’Twasn’t my

idea at all. Ben Pearn put me up to it. So you’ve got to thank him, not

me. I didn’t know as you was coming that way to-day, God’s my Judge, or

I’d have been at the stile to meet you an’ see you over the meadow safe;

but Pearn knowed you was coming, an’ any fool can see that he wanted to

kill you.”

“He axed me to come,” said Mary Jane.

“Did he? Then ’tis him you’ve got to thank, not me. ’Tis only by the

mercy of Heaven he ban’t a murderer.”

“You’d better look after him, then,” said Mary Jane, thoughtful like,

“for I’ve told un to kill your bull.”

“Let un,” answered Nicholas, very cunning. “I’ve a good mind to shoot

the old devil myself for daring to run after you.”

Then Mrs. Arscott struck the iron while it was hot, an’ afore she left

that farm parlour, Mary Jane had named the day!

’Twas rather a funny case of a chap over-reaching himself in a love

affair. You see, Ben Pearn was so blessed soft-headed, that he couldn’t

look on to the end of the game like any cleverer man might. He said to

his silly self, ‘I’ll make her hate the chap, so she’d like to scratch

his eyes out’; but he never seed that the end must be differ’nt; he never

remembered that Nicholas Yelland had a tongue in his head same as other

people.

So Ben was sent off with a flea in his ear, an’ the world laughed at him,

an’ he changed his opinion about marriage an’ growed to be a hard an’

fast bachelor, an’ a very great lover of saving money. But as for Mary

Jane, she did her husband a power of good an’ enlarged his mind every

way. An’ when they got a family, young Yelland’s nature comed very well

through the usual ups an’ downs of life. He fancied hisself less, an’

thought of his little people an’ his good lady first, an’ growed a bit

more like his faither before him. Not, of course, that he was the man

his faither was. But what chap ever be, for that matter? I never see

none.

CROSS WAYS

CHAPTER I

There is a desolation that no natural scene has power to invoke. The

labour of Nature’s thousand forces upon earth’s face may awaken awe

before their enduring record, but can conjure no sense of sorrow; for

high mountains, huge waste places and rivers calling shall make us feel

small enough, not sad; but cast into the vast theatre some stone that

marks a man’s grave, some ruined aboriginal hut or roofless cottage, some

hypæthral meeting-place or arena of deserted human activity, and emotions

rise to accentuate the scene. Henceforth the desert is peopled with

ghosts of men and women; and their hopes and ambitions, their triumphs,

and griefs glimmer out of dream pictures and tune the beholder to a

sentiment of mournfulness.

Such a scene on a scale unusually spacious may be found in the central

waste of Dartmoor, nigh Postbridge. Here, where marshes stretch, all

ribbed with black peat cuttings, between the arms of Dart, where Higher

White Tor rises northward and the jagged summits of lesser peaks slope

southerly to Crockern, there lies a strange congeries of modern buildings

rotting into dust and rust at the song of a stream. Even the lonely

groves that shield these ruins are similarly passing to decay; but many

trees still flourish there, and under the shadows of them, or upon the

banks of the Cherry-brook that winds in the midst and babbles its way to

the mother-river, stand scattered remains of a considerable factory. Now

only a snipe drums or a plover mews plaintively, where some short years

ago was great hum and stir of business and a colony of men engaged upon

most dangerous toil. Rows of whitewashed buildings still peep from the

dark grove or stud those undulating hillocks that tend moorward beyond

it. Tall grey chimneys rise here and there, and between certain

shattered buildings, linking the same together, great water-wheels

appear. These from their deep abodes thrust forth shattered spokes and

crooked limbs and claws. They slumber half in gloom, like fossil

monsters partially revealed. From their dilapidated jaws there glitters

the slime of unclean creatures; moss hides the masses of their putrefied

bones; huge liverworts clothe their decay, and hart’s-tongue ferns loll

from their cracks and clefts, and thrive in the eternal twilight beneath

them. Once twin pairs of grinders turned here, and the last aspect of

these is even more uncouth than that of the water-wheels that drove them.

Their roofs are blown away and the rollers beneath are cased in rust and

moss. Willows and grasses and the flowers of the waste flourish above

their ruins; broom, dock, rush, choke the old watercourses; crowfoot

mantles the stagnant pools that remain; and all is chaos, wreck and

collapse. For here spreads the scene of a human failure, the grave of an

unsuccessful enterprise. Its secret may still be read in dank strips of

old proclamations hanging upon notice-boards within the ruins, and

telling that men made gunpowder here; but those precautions necessary to

establish the factory upon a site remote from any populous district

indirectly achieved its ruin, for profits were swallowed by the cost of

carriage from a situation so inaccessible.

At gloaming of an autumn day one living thing only moved amid the old

powder-mills, and he felt no emotion in presence of that scene, for it

was the playground of his life; his eyes had opened within a few score

yards of it. Young David Daccombe knew every hole and corner of the

various workshops, and had his own different goblin names for the quaint

tools still lumbering many a rotting floor, and the massive machinery,

left as not worth cost of removal. Mystery lurked in countless dark

recesses, and Davey had made secret discoveries too and was lord of

tremendous, treasured wonders hidden within the labyrinths of these

crumbling mills.

But at this moment all things were forgotten before a supreme and new

experience. The boy had just caught his first trout, and a little

fingerling fish now flapped and gasped out its life under his admiring

eyes. Davey was a plain child, with a narrow brow and hard mouth. Now

he smelt the trout, patted it, chuckled over his capture, then casting

down an osier rod, with its hook and a disgorged worm halfway up the gut,

he prepared to rush home and display his triumph to his mother. As he

climbed up from the stream and reached a little bridge that crossed it,

his small face puckered into a fear, for he heard himself called harshly,

knew the voice and felt little love for the speaker.

Out of the deepening gloom under the fir trees a young man appeared with

a gun under his arm.

“Be that you, Davey, an’ did I see a rod? If so, I’ll break it in

pieces, I warn ’e. Fishin’ season ended last Saturday, an’ here’s the

keeper’s awn brother poachin’. A nice thing!”

“Oh, Dick! I’ve catched one! First ever I really catched. Won’t mother

be brave an’ glad to eat un? Ban’t very big, but a real trout. I be

just takin’ it home-along.”

“You’ll do no such thing, you little rascal. Give it to me this instant

moment, or else I’ll make you.”

Richard Daccombe approached and towered over his brother. It was easy to

see that they were near of kin.

“Please, Dick—just this wance—’tis awnly a li’l tiny feesh—first ever I

took, too. An’ I swear I’ll not feesh no more—honour bright. Please—for

mother never won’t believe I ackshually catched one if her doan’t see

it.”

“Give it to me, or I’ll take it, I tell you, you dirty little thief.”

Davey’s lip went down. “’Tis a damn, cruel shame. You’m always against

me. I wish you was dead, I do. I never knawed no chap in all my days

what have got such a beast of a brother as I have.”

“Give up that feesh, else I’ll throw you in the river, you lazy li’l

good-for-nought.”

“You’m a gert bully,” began the boy; then he fell upon a happy thought,

and braced himself to sacrifice his most treasured secret. To let it go

into his brother’s keeping was bad, but anything seemed better than that

his first trout should be lost to him.

“Look ’e here, Richard,” he said, “will ’e let me keep this feesh if I

tell ’e something terrible coorious ’bout these auld mills?”

The keeper laughed sourly. “A lot more you’m likely to knaw ’bout ’em

than I do!”

“Ess fay, I do. ’Tis a wonnerful secret as I found out all to myself,

an’ never yet told to a single soul. It comes in my games—my Robinson

Crusoe game; but I never play that wi’ any other chap—not even they boys

from Postbridge. I be the only living soul as knaws; an’ I’ll tell you

if you’ll let me keep my feesh.”

“What’s this ’mazin’ secret, then?”

“You’ll swear?”

“Ess, if the thing be any good.”

“Good! I should just reckon ’twas good. Come an’ see for yourself—I was

awful ’feared at first. Now I doan’t care nothin’, an’ many a time I’ve

took a gert handful an’ lighted it, an’ seen it go off ‘pouf’!”

He led the way to a low building with a dull red roof. It was

windowless, but had a door that swung at the will of the wind. This

erection was lined inside with matchboarding, and it contained a board of

regulations that prohibited all metal within the shed. Even a nail in a

boot was unlawful.

“’Tis Case House No. 4.—used once for storing powder,” said Richard

Daccombe; “that’s a pile of sulphur in the corner.”

“Ess, but theer’s mor’n you can see, Dick. Look here. Another floor

lies under this, though nobody minded that, I reckon, else they’d have

took what’s theer.”

Davey moved two boards, and beneath them—dry and sound as when there

deposited—he revealed some tons of black blasting powder. His brother

started, swore in sudden concern, hastened from the building, and, taking

his pipe out of his mouth, carefully extinguished it. Then he returned

and accosted Davey.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before, you little fool?”

“Why for should I? ’Twas my gert secret. But you’ll not let it out,

will you, Dick? If chaps comed to hear, they’d steal every atom.”

This Richard knew very well.

“I’ll be dumb, and mind that you are,” he said. “And no more playing

games with gunpowder. You might have blowed the whole countryside to

glory. Keep away in future. If I catch you within a hunderd yards of

this place, I’ll lather you.”

“Finding be keeping,” answered Davey, indignantly.

“Perhaps ’tis; an’ might be right. You’ve heard me. That powder’s mine

henceforth.”

Davey knew his brother pretty well, but such injustice made him gasp.

His small brains worked quickly, and remembering that Richard’s business

on the rabbit warren took him far from the powder-mills, the boy held his

peace.

This silence, however, angered the bully more than words. They moved

homeward together, and the elder spoke again.

“Now you can just fork out that trout, and be quick about it.”

“You promised on your honour!” cried Davey.

“Promises doan’t hold wi’ poachers.”

They were walking from the valley to their home; and the younger, seeing

the farm-house door not two hundred yards distant, made a sudden bolt in

hope to reach his mother and safety before Dick could overtake him. But

he was soon caught and violently flung to the ground.

“Would you, you whelp?”

A blow upon the side of the head dazed the child, and before he could

recover or resist, his brother had thrust a rough hand into Davey’s

pocket, dragged therefrom the little trout, and stamped it to pulp under

his heel.

“There—now you go home-along in front of me, you young dog. I’ll teach

you!”

The boy stood up, muddy, dishevelled, shaking with rage. His eyes shone

redly in the setting sunlight; he clenched his little fists, and his

frame shook.

“Wait!” he said slowly, with passion strong enough for the moment to

arrest his tears. “Wait till I be grawed up. Then ’twill be my turn,

an’ I’ll do ’e all the ill ever I can. You’m a cowardly, cruel devil to

me always, an’ I swear I’ll pay you back first instant I be strong enough

to do it!”

“Get in the house an’ shut your rabbit-mouth, or I’ll give ’e something

to swear for,” answered the keeper.

Then his great loss settled heavily upon Davey’s soul, and he wept and

went home to his mother.

CHAPTER II

Richard Daccombe visited the little bridge over Cherry-brook yet again

after his supper; and in a different mood, beside a different companion,

he sat upon the granite parapet. Darkness, fretted with white moonlight,

was under the fir trees; the Moor stretched dimly to the hills in one wan

featureless waste; an owl cried from the wood, and one shattered chimney

towered ghostly grey over the desolation. Quaint black ruins, like

hump-backed giants, dotted the immediate distance, and the river twinkled

and murmured under the moon, while Dick’s pipe glowed, and a girl’s voice

sounded at his elbow.

“Sweetheart,” she said, “why be you so hard with Davey?”

“Leave that, Jane,” he answered. “’Tis mother has been at you—as if I

didn’t know. Little twoad’s all the better for licking.”

“He’s so small, and you’m so big. He do hate you cruel, an’ your

mother’s sore driven between you.”

“Mother’s soft. The child would grow up a dolt if ’twasn’t for me.”

“Yet you had no brother to wallop you, Dick.”

“Faither was there, wasn’t he? I call to mind his heavy hand, and always

shall. But if you mean I be a dolt, say it.”

“Us all knaw you’m cleverest man this side of Plymouth.”

“Drop it, then, an’ tell of something different.”

Jane Stanberry did as she was bid: her arms went round Dick’s neck, and

her lips were pressed against his face. To the girl he represented her

greatest experience. Orphaned as a tender child, she had come to Cross

Ways farm, in the lonely valley of the powder-mills, and there dwelt

henceforth with her mother’s kinswoman, Mary Daccombe.

The establishment was small, and a larger company had not found means to

subsist upon the hungry new-takes and scanty pasture-lands of Cross Ways.

Jonathan Daccombe and his wife, with two hinds, here pursued the hard

business of living. Richard was in private service as keeper of White

Tor rabbit warren, distant a few miles from his home; and he divided his

time between the farm and a little hut of a single chamber, perched in

the lonely scene of his labour. Of other children the Daccombes had none

living save Davey, though two daughters and another son had entered into

life at Cross Ways, pined through brief years there, and so departed.

The churchyard, as Jonathan Daccombe frankly declared, had been a good

friend to him.

Jane was a deep-breasted, rough-haired girl of eighteen. She possessed

pale blue eyes, a general large-featured comeliness, and a nature that

took life without complaining; and she held herself much blessed in the

affection of her cousin Richard. Talk of marriage for them was in the

air, but it depended upon an increase of wages for Dick, and his master

seemed little disposed to generosity.

The bridge by night was a favourite meeting and parting place for the

lovers, because young Daccombe’s work in late autumn took him much upon

the Moor after dark. The time of trapping was come, and his copper wires

glimmered by the hundred along those faintly marked rabbit runs, familiar

to experienced eyes alone. These he tended from dusk till dawn, and

slept between the intervals of his labour within the little hut already

mentioned.

A topic more entertaining than the child Davey now arose; and Jane, whose

spirit was romantic, with a sort of romance not bred of her wild home,

speculated upon an approaching event that promised some escape from the

daily monotony of life at Cross Ways.

“To-morrow he’ll actually come,” she said. “I’ve put the finishing

touches to his room to-day. What will he be like, Dick?”

“I mind the chap a few years back-along playing foot-ball to Tavistock.

A well-set-up youth, ’bout my size, or maybe bigger in the bone. An’ he

could play foot-ball, no doubt. In fact, a great hand at sporting of all

sorts; but work—not likely! Why for should he? He’ll have oceans of

money when his faither dies.”

“Your mother reckons ’tis all moonshine ’bout his coming to Cross Ways to

learn farming. She says that he’m sent here to keep him out of

mischief—for same reason as powder-mills was sent here. He’ll ride

about, an’ hunt, an’ shoot, for sartain. But he won’t never take

sensible to work—so your mother reckons.”

“Maybe he won’t; but faither be going to get two pound a week by him; so

what he does ban’t no great odds, so long as he bides.”

“Would you call him a gen’leman?”

“Gentle is as gentle does. Us shall see.”

“Wi’ book-larnin’, no doubt?”

“Little enough, I fancy. Nought but a fool goes farmin’ in these days.”

“Yet ’tis our hope, I’m sure,” objected Jane. “Please God, Dick, us will

be able to take a little farm down in the country some day—won’t us?”

“In the country—yes; but not ’pon this wilderness.”

There was silence between them again, while the owl hooted and the river

scattered silver in the rushes and babbled against the granite bridge.

“Wonder what colour the chap’s eyes be, Dick?”

“They’ll be black if I hear much more about him,” he answered shortly.

“For I’ll darken both first day he comes here—just to show how we stand.”

“You’re jealous afore you’ve seed him!”

“An’ you’re a blamed sight too hungry to see him. Best drop him. He

won’t be nought to you, I s’pose?”

“How can you be so sharp, Dick? Ban’t it natural a gal what leads such a

wisht life as me should think twice of a new face—an’ a gen’leman, too?”

“Anthony Maybridge have got one enemy afore he shows his nose here; and

you’re to thank for it.”

Jane laughed. “Then I know what to expect when we’m married, I s’pose.

But no call for you to be afeared! If he was so butivul as Angel Gabriel

he’d be nought to me. Kiss me same as I kissed you just now.”

But Dick was troubled. His clay pipe also drew ill, and he dashed it

into the water. “Damn kissing!” he said; “I’m sick of it. Get home, an’

let me go to work.”

“The young man will like you better than me, when all’s said, dear heart;

for you’ll give him best sport of anybody in these parts.”

He grunted, and left her without more words; while she, familiar with his

sulky moods, showed no particular regret. To the hills he strode away,

and the misty marshes swallowed up sight of him, while he threaded his

road through the bogs, climbed great stony slopes under the hilltop, and

reached his warren. But bad fortune stuck close to Richard that night,

for of two fine rabbits snared since sundown, nothing remained but the

heads.

Foxes, however, are sacred upon Dartmoor, even in the warrens; though, if

evil language could have hurt them, it must have gone ill with a vixen

and five brave cubs, whose home was hard by in the granite bosom of White

Tor.

CHAPTER III

Anthony Maybridge arrived at Cross Ways, and amongst the various items of

his luggage he was only concerned for his gun-case. Mrs. Daccombe

greeted the youth with old-time courtesy, and her husband soon perceived

that the newcomer would be a pupil in little more than name. Anthony,

indeed, made an energetic start, and for the space of a full week

resolutely dogged the farmer’s footsteps; but his enterprise sprang from

a whim rather than a fixed enthusiasm. On the spur of the moment, before

various alternatives, he had decided upon farming; but the impulse toward

that life waned, and in a month the lad found Richard Daccombe’s society

much more congenial than that of his taciturn parent. Good store of

snipe and plover were now upon the Moor, and they drew young Maybridge

more surely than the business of manuring hay lands or getting in the

mangel-wurzel crop. With Dick, indeed, he struck into close fellowship,

founded on the basis of the gun; and with Jane Stanberry he also became

more friendly than anybody but herself was aware. Socially, Maybridge

stood separated from his host by the accident of success alone. Daccombe

and Anthony’s father were old acquaintances, and the latter, a prosperous

nurseryman at Tavistock, sometimes fell in with his friend when the

hounds met at the powder-mills.

The boy found Jane sympathetic, and being possessed of a warm heart but

little sense, he soon revealed to her the true cause of his present life

and temporary banishment from home.

“If you can believe it,” he said, when she met him returning from a day

with the snipe in the bogs,—“if you can believe it, I shall be surprised.

I always thought a man ought to look up to women as the soul of truth and

all that. I was engaged—secretly; and there was another chap I hardly

knew by sight even; and that girl was playing with me—like you play with

a hooked fish; the only difference being she didn’t want to land me. In

fact, I was the bait, if you understand such a blackguard thing, and she

fished with me and caught the other chap. I could mention names, but

what’s the use?”

“How horrid!” said Jane. “I’m sure I’d very much rather not know who

’twas.”

“Well, anyway, the other chap took the bait. And the moment she got him

she threw me over. _After we were engaged_, mind you! And the rum thing

is, looking at it from a mere worldly point of view, that I shall be

worth tons more money than that chap ever will be.”

“She didn’t really care about you, then?”

“I suppose not, though I would have taken my dying oath she did. And

after the frightful blow of being chucked, I tried to hide the effect,

but couldn’t, owing to going right off my feed—especially breakfasts. My

mother spotted that, and taxed me with being ill—a thing I never have

been in my life. So I had to confess to her what a frightful trial I’d

been through, and she told the governor.”

“I’m sure they must have been very sad about it, for your sake.”

“Not half as much as you would have thought; though many chaps have been

utterly smashed up body and soul and gone into a consumption of the lungs

for less. But it came as a bit of a shock to my people, because, you

see, I’d never mentioned it, and—well, the girl was in a tobacconist’s

shop, and my governor hates tobacco; which made it worse, though very

unfair it should. Anyway, it shows what girls are.”

“And shows what fathers are, seemingly.”

“Yes; though how my governor, whose grandfather himself went out working

in other people’s gardens, could object to a girl who had pluck enough to

earn her own living, I don’t know. I had a furious row about it, until

he pointed out that, as she had chucked me, it was not much good

quarrelling with him about her. Which was true. Nobody but you has

really understood what a knock-down thing it was. I’m an atheist

now—simply owing to that woman; I don’t believe in a single thing. I

said all girls were the same till I met you. Still, I feel as bitter as

a lemon when I think much about it. But you’re different, I can see

that.”

“You’ll feel happier come presently.”

“I am happier already—in a way, because I find all women are not like

that. You and Mrs. Daccombe have done me a lot of good, especially you.”

“Sure I be gay and proud to think so,” said Jane.

“To promise and then change! Why, it’s contrary to human nature, I

should think,” declared the ingenuous Anthony. But Jane Stanberry did

not reply; she had reached a point in her own experience of life that

indicated the possibility of such a circumstance.

Young Maybridge was pleasant to see, and, as cynical chance would have

it, his gifts, both physical and mental, were of a sort to shine

conspicuous from the only contrast at hand. Dick Daccombe had a face of

true Celtic cast, that might have been handsome, but was spoiled by an

expression generally surly and always mean. His character became more

distrustful and aggressive as he grew older, and the suspicious nature of

him looked specially ill before Anthony’s frankness and simplicity. The

latter was fair, with open, Saxon type of countenance. His good temper

overcame all Richard’s jealousy from the first, but the keeper envied

Anthony’s extra inch and a half of height and greater weight of shoulder,

though he himself was the closer knit of the two.

For a period of weeks all went well between the young men, and their

increasing intimacy argued ill for Anthony’s progress toward practical

knowledge in agriculture. This Jonathan Daccombe understood, but held it

no concern of his. It happened that the farmer came home one day just in

time to see his son and his pupil departing from Cross Ways together. An

expression of contempt touched with slight amusement lighted his grey

face, and he turned to Jane Stanberry, who stood at the door.

“Like the seed ’pon stony ground,” he said. “Comed up wi’ a fine blade

an’ full o’ nature, then withered away, ’cause there wasn’t no good

holding stuff behind. A farmer! However, there’s no call he should be.

He’m here to learn to forget, not to farm.”

“He is forgetting so fast as he can,” declared the girl. “He’s got

nought to say nowadays ’bout the wickedness of women and such-like; an’

he went to church wi’ mother an’ me ’essterday to Postbridge, an’ singed

the psalms an’ hymns wi’ a fine appetite, I’m sure. His voice be so deep

as a cow when he uplifts it.”

“I reckon he’m getting over his trouble too quick for my liking,”

answered Mr. Daccombe. “My bird will be off some fine mornin’ when

shooting be over and theer’s nought more for him to kill.”

Meantime, while Jane spoke with admiration of Anthony’s good qualities,

and Mrs. Daccombe heard her indignantly, young Maybridge himself was

similarly angering another member of the Daccombe family. Now he stood

with Dick upon the lofty crown of Higher White Tor, and watched a flock

of golden plover newly come to their winter quarters from some northern

home. They flew and cried at a great height above the marshes, wheeled

and warped in the clear blue of a December sky; and when simultaneously

they turned, there was a flash as of a hundred little stars, where the

sunlight touched the plumage of their breasts and under-wings. But they

were bound for a region beyond the range of the sportsmen who watched

them; soon, indeed, the birds dwindled into dots, that made a great >

upon the sky; and as they flew, they constantly renewed that figure.

“Pity,” said Anthony. “Off to the middle of the Moor. Haven’t got a

shot at a golden plover yet. Miss Jane’s favourite bird, too, so she

says.”

“No call for you to trouble about that. If she eats all I’ve shot for

her, she’ll do very well.”

“You’re a lucky devil, Dick.”

“That’s as may be.”

“Always the way with chaps like you, who never had anything to do but ask

and get ‘yes’ for an answer. You don’t know when you’re well off in

these parts.”

Richard laughed without much merriment.

“There’s so good fish in the sea as ever come out of it,” he said. “I’d

not break my heart for any girl.”

“A chap in love to say such a cold-blooded thing!”

“We’re not all froth and splutter, like you.”

“Nor yet ice, like you, I should hope. You’re engaged to the prettiest

girl I’ve ever seen in my life, and the best; and you take it as if it

was your right instead of your frightfully good luck. It’s only because

you don’t know the world that you are so infernally complacent about her,

Richard. If you knew all that I do—”

The other sneered in a tone of levity. “A wonnerful lady’s man you—by

all accounts! But don’t think I’m afeared of you. Might have been

jealous afore you comed—not since.”

Anthony grew red as the dead asphodel foliage under his feet in the bogs.

“That’s as much as to say I’m a fool.”

“Why so? It’s as much as to say you’re honest—that’s all.”

“That wasn’t what you meant when you spoke. You were laughing because

you know you are sharper than I am. You may be, but you’re not sharp

enough to know your luck. You’ve told me pretty plainly what I am; now

I’ll tell you what you are—a good shot and a good sportsman all round,

but no other good that I can see. You think a jolly sight too much of

yourself to make a good husband, anyway. If Jane realised—”

“Mind your awn business!” thundered out the other, “and keep her name off

your tongue henceforward. D’you think I doan’t know her a million times

better than you do? D’you think us wants lessons from you after all

these years, you—”

“I can make you angry, then, though I am a born fool?”

“Yes, you can; an’ you damn soon will if you’m not more careful of your

speech. I doan’t want to take law in my own hands an’ give you a

thrashing; but that’ll I do if you touch this matter again. Who are you,

to tell me my duty to my maiden?”

“As to what you’ll do or won’t do,” answered Maybridge, growing very rosy

again, “there’s two sides to that. I’d have asked you to box weeks ago,

only I’m taller and heavier, and I thought you would think it

unsportsmanlike. But now—when you please. As for Miss Jane, I shall

speak to her, and see her, and go to church with her just as often as

she’ll let me, without asking leave from you or anybody. So now you

know.”

Anthony swung off over the Moor, and Richard, pursuing the way to his hut

on the shoulder of the tor, let the other depart unanswered. This sudden

and unexpected breach rather pleased the keeper. He had always held

Anthony to be a fool, and the fact seemed now proved beyond further

dispute. It was not until he had lived through the loneliness of a long

day and night upon the warren that the young man viewed his situation

differently. Then three harpies—wrath, resentment and a natural

jealousy—sprang full-fledged into being, and drove him home before them.

As for Maybridge, smarting under a sense of insult and a worse sense that

he deserved it, the young man strove to excuse himself to his conscience.

He assured himself many times that Richard Daccombe was unworthy of Jane

Stanberry in every possible respect. And there came a day when he told

her that he thought so.

CHAPTER IV

Mary Daccombe was wont to reserve the problems of the working day until

nightfall; and her husband solved them as best he could during those

brief minutes that intervened between the extinction of the candle and

his first snore. An honest but unsentimental man, love for his offspring

had never particularly marked his mind. He was contented that his sons

should quarrel, and that Dick should thrash Davey when he felt so

disposed, for it saved him the trouble. He held that each did the other

good, and he had neither pity nor particular regard to spare for either.

This cheerless fact now appeared, for on a night soon after Christmas,

Mrs. Daccombe approached her husband upon a matter of sentiment, and won

colder comfort from him than she expected. He gave her an obvious

opportunity to approach the subject, otherwise it is doubtful whether she

would have had the courage to do so. That day, to the farmer’s

astonishment and gratification, Anthony Maybridge had come back from a

brief Christmas vacation. The holiday extended over a fortnight, and

Daccombe fully believed that he had seen the last of his pupil; but

Anthony returned, declared a renewed interest in matters agricultural,

and gave the farmer to understand that he should continue to reside at

Cross Ways for the present.

Now Jonathan laughed as he stretched himself on his bed; he laughed, and

wondered what had brought young Maybridge again to the Moor. Whereupon

his wife read him the riddle.

“Not you, nor yet the work, nor yet the shooting,” she said. “’Tis right

as you should know, however, for trouble’s brewing, if I can see, an’

’tis our awn son will smart for it.”

“Us have all got to smart off an’ on, though how that moon-calf of a boy

be going to hurt Dick or Davey, I can’t tell.”

“Not Davey, though ’twas him as found it out, I reckon. Davey be

venomous against his brother—always was, worse luck. Dick rubs it into

the bwoy, and his brother hurts him with bitter mouth-speech when he can.

’Tis this way: that young gen’leman be getting a deal too fond of Jane

Stanberry by the looks of it. That’s what he’s comed back for, I reckon.

Davey spat it out essterday when Dick clouted his head. Her wasn’t

theer, so the boy up an’ said as Dick’s temper would weary the Dowl, an’

that Jane was looking away from him to a better. Lucky I was by, else

Dick would have done the li’l un a mischief. He growed thunder-black,

yet I could see by his wrath be knowed the tale were more than Davey’s

spite.”

“Them two takes after your family, mother, an’ no mistake. Yet I hope

they won’t turn gaol-birds, or else weak in their intellects.”

The woman felt the tears in her weary eyes. She wiped them away, and

turned in bed.

“They’m as God made ’em, master; please Him they’ll be better friends

come Davey grows up. But what must us do?”

“Do? Nought.”

“Surely you’ve got your son’s good at heart? Think what ’tis for Dick to

see that wicked girl coolin’, coolin’, by inches. Gall for him, poor

dear.”

But the man only laughed sleepily. “Strongest wins in this world. If

Richard ban’t stout enough to keep his woman by his own arts, us can’t

help him.”

“You might send this young chap ’bout his business.”

“An’ fling away two pound a week? No, fay! Girls is easier picked up

than two pound a week. Let Dick do what’s in him. He ban’t ’feard of

that slack-twisted, yellow-haired chap, be he? Let him show the maiden

which is the better man, an’ not come bleating to his mother, like a

hungry lamb to a ewe.”

“He never comed hisself.”

“Well, what’s to hinder him from using his fistes? Nought brings a man

down in a girl’s eyes like a good hiding. Let ’em settle it same way as

the tomcats do.”

“I do b’lieve your heart be made o’ moor stone.”

“Good job if ’twas. Ban’t no use being built o’ putty, nor yet o’ pity,

’pon Dartymoor. Now shut your clack, an’ let me go to sleep.”

The woman sighed, and closed her eyes.

“I’ll tell Dick what you say. Good night, master.”

CHAPTER V

Anthony Maybridge had in truth discovered that everything depends upon

the point of view. What was a deed past understanding in one woman,

appeared to him quite defensible for another. He had grown into a very

steady admiration of Jane Stanberry, and he told himself that her

attachment to the warrener was a serious error. This he firmly believed,

apart from the other question of his personal regard for Jane. He

discussed the matter with a grand impartiality, and felt confident that

her future must be ruined if shared with such a surly and cross-grained

churl as Richard Daccombe.

Presently he expressed the same fear to Jane herself, and she was much

astonished to find no great indignation flame up in her mind before such

a proposition. She confessed the thought had occurred to her, and asked

Anthony how it could have struck him also. Whereupon he declared that

his suspicion was awakened solely from disinterested regard for her

welfare and future happiness. In brief, a situation stale enough

developed, with that brisk growth to be observed in all similar

complications when they are exhibited by primitive natures. Such seeds

grow in virgin and uncultured hearts with a rapidity not manifest where

the subjects are sophisticated and bound about with the etiquette of

their order.

Jane Stanberry observed the radical differences between these men; she

found Dick’s cloudy spirit and gloomy nature grow daily darker by

contrast with the generous and sanguine temperament of Anthony. Indeed,

Richard did grow more morose, as was to be expected, while he watched

such a play develop and apparently stood powerless as any other spectator

to change the plot of it.

But at last his sense of wrong pricked passion, and he stirred himself.

Most firmly he believed all fault lay with Maybridge alone, and he

attributed to that youth a guile and subtlety quite beyond his real

powers of mind. Dick accused his rival of having seduced the love of

Jane against her inner will—a thing obviously not possible; and upon that

judgement he prepared to act.

For her part, the girl let conscience sting until the stab grew dull and

failed to disturb her comfort. Each exhibition of ferocity from Richard

lessened her uneasiness, and justified her in her own eyes. She plotted

to meet the other man in secret; yet still she played a double part, and

outwardly pretended that Dick was all in all to her.

So stood things when Mary Daccombe spoke to her son; and his father’s

advice seemed good to the man, and chimed very harmoniously with personal

desire, for he had reached a point where he itched to bruise and batter

his adversary. Chance helped him in his ambition, and a discovery fired

him to instant force of arms.

Returning home from the Moor upon a night when it was supposed that he

meant to stop in his hut on the warren, Richard came through the ruins,

and was astonished to see a light glimmering from the silent desolation.

It had grown late on a cold, moonlit night in late January, and nothing

could have been more unexpected than the presence of any human being in

the old powder-mills at such a time. Supposing that he had surprised his

brother Davey, Dick crept silently to the spot, and presently discovered

that the brightness gleamed in two bars set at a right angle, and flashed

from behind the door of a ruin. The place was windowless, but the

ill-fitting entrance revealed a flame within. Richard recognised the

building as Case House No. 4, and at once associated the intruder with

his brother. Even as he did so, his heart beat faster at the thought of

danger—not to Davey, but himself. Creeping closer, however, voices

reached him, and he discovered that Anthony Maybridge and Jane Stanberry

were there together.

Tingling with passion, he had some ado to keep from kicking in the door

and bursting upon them; but he desisted, and with an effort crept away to

reflect. Almost immediately upon his departure he heard them following,

so he turned and met them not far from the little bridge.

“A fine night for a walk wi’ another man’s girl,” he said, suddenly

appearing out of darkness and standing in the way of the guilty pair.

“You thought I was out of hearing, no doubt, as you’ve thought often

enough of late, I’ll swear, when I was closer than you reckoned. For two

pins I’d blow your fool’s head off your shoulders.”

Jane shrank back, and Maybridge stammered and stuttered.

“That’s not the way to talk,” he said.

“Talk! God’s truth, I ban’t here to talk—I leave that for you. What be

you doing wi’ my maid these many days? Tell me that!”

“I will. I’m glad of this. I’ve felt an awful brute lately; but you’ll

make me feel better in a minute. I’ve been telling Jane that she’s

making a big mistake to marry you. It’s my honest opinion, and I ought

to have told you.”

“Honest! Wonder the word doan’t choke you, you gert, hulking, lazy

clown! Behind a man’s back to do it! Thief that you be.”

“Not at all. I’ve never hidden from Jane—”

“Shut your mouth, you hookem-snivey fox, or I’ll hammer your white teeth

down your throat! Stand up to me, now this instant moment, an’ us’ll see

who’s the best man. ’Tis time this here woman knowed, an’ I’ll show her

the straw you’m made of, for all your size.”

He flung down his gun and his coat, then turned up his sleeves and

waited.

“We can’t fight before a girl—impossible,” said Anthony.

“Doan’t she want us to? Ban’t she hungry to see us do it? Ban’t she a

female, like the rest of ’em? Come on, or I’ll beat you like a dog.”

“What’s the good of making an exhibition of yourself, Richard? I was

‘runner-up’ in the amateur heavy-weights two years running. I can

smother you, but I don’t want to.”

“Doan’t blow so loud afore you see what ’tis to fight a chap in the

right,” cried Richard, with passion.

So we shift our standpoint at the beck of chance, and call virtue to our

aid when accidentally enrolled under her banner. He stood where he had

lied to his little brother and trampled Davey’s fish into the ground and

laughed at the child’s rage.

“You’d better go,” said Maybridge to Jane. “I’m awfully sorry about

this, but—”

He was cut short, for the other rushed in and struck him a heavy blow on

the side of the face. Anthony shook his head and snorted.

“If you will have it, you shall,” he said; “but I’m sorry, because you’re

right and I’m in the wrong—more or less.”

Jane fled at the first blow, and the battle began. Maybridge quickly

proved the looseness of his great limbs was combined with other gifts

proper to a boxer. He smarted doubly; from the other’s insults and from

the sense that they were deserved. He had ill-used Richard, and his

dislike for him, once loosened, was proportionately bitter.

Stung thus, the young man let his strength and skill have vent. He took

and gave some punishment, but he was a disciplined fighter, and very

easily kept out the heavy rushes of the keeper. Then, at the first

opportunity which Richard offered, Maybridge knocked him squarely off his

legs with a tremendous blow over the heart. He rose slowly, but the edge

of his strength was gone. His anger nearly blinded him before this

reverse, while Anthony, on the other hand, had fought himself into a good

humour. Presently at close quarters he hit rather low, and Dick cursed

him.

“Fight fair, you devil!” he gasped.

“Fair enough,” puffed the other. “Well up on your small ribs you’ll see

the mark in the morning.”

By mutual consent they rested presently; then the battle was renewed,

and, knowing himself beaten at every point of the game, Richard Daccombe

let his temper loose and fell to fighting like a dog rather than a man.

Now it was the other’s turn to cry caution; but the keeper had no ears—he

only lusted to do injury. Once Maybridge might have knocked him out of

time, but he desisted; then, angered by a brutal kick on the calf of the

leg, he got inside Dick’s arms, clenched, gripped the smaller man like a

bear, and with a cross buttock hurled him heavily backward. They had

fought to the river’s bank, and now, luckily for the looser’s neck, he

fell into the water. He struggled to his feet, and stood a moment where

moonlight played upon the foaming stream. Then he crawled to the bank,

and had scarcely strength to climb it. There he lay panting for some

time. Anthony brought him his coat, and offered to give him an arm home;

but Dick declined, and getting on to his feet with difficulty, walked

along beside his conqueror.

“This is the beginning,” he said—“not the end. If you don’t leave Cross

Ways before the week’s out, you never will—not alive.”

“Don’t talk rot like that. I thought you were a good sportsman anyway,

but I see you’re not; and that’s the worst you can say against any man.

I was going—God’s my judge that I’m telling you the truth—I was going

away to-morrow—for a time, at any rate. She wished it. But now—now you

threaten me as if you were a murderer, I shan’t move, not an inch. And

if there’s any blackguardly attempt on your part to do me an injury, I’ll

break your neck, Daccombe; so now you’re warned. Anyway, you have shown

that I was right, for any girl would be a madwoman to marry such a

lunatic.”

“Talk on, now, if you’ve got the wind to do it,” answered Richard, “but

the last word will be mine.”

CHAPTER VI

A black malignity dominated the beaten man after his reverse; and,

inasmuch as Jane Stanberry, now at the cross ways of her life, fell from

honour and played a base part out of fear, her lover continued to believe

that his enemy alone was responsible for Jane’s weakness. He blamed the

girl, but his love did not diminish, and he still supposed that Anthony

Maybridge once removed, she would return to him with eyes that again saw

clearly. He attributed his conqueror’s conduct to a tremendous strength

of purpose, whereas mere feebleness and an amorous nature were

responsible for it. The woman was at least as guilty as the man; and now

an added blame belonged to her, for while Anthony henceforth openly

declared himself the rival of Richard, she held the balance a little

longer between them—chiefly from fear of Mrs. Daccombe. Her decision was

made, yet very carefully she concealed it, and Richard continued in

error.

From his mistaken conclusion, and smarting still with venom bred of the

wounds Anthony had inflicted, the keeper proceeded to a criminal deed.

Such active hatred as he now felt stuck at nothing, and within a

fortnight of his reverse came the evil inspiration that he waited for.

A veiled antagonism reigned between the men after their battle; then

matters seemed to sink into customary course. Richard absented himself

from home more than usual; Anthony abandoned shooting, and took to

hunting instead.

Once more it happened that the warrener saw a light burning in No. 4 Case

House by night, and, passing by, heard Maybridge within, whistling to

pass the time until Jane’s arrival. Richard slunk by awhile, and

presently, like a ghost, Jane flitted past him. A flash of light fell

upon the waste as she opened the door; then all grew dark again. Still

the wronged lover remained within earshot, and accident killed his sudden

gust of passion against the girl, for he heard a sob and listened to a

weak, vain protest from her against the double part she was constrained

to play. She accused Anthony of drawing her to him against all honour

and right feeling; whereupon the listener departed, not desirous to hear

more, and confirmed in his belief.

He visited the old Case House in the middle of the next day, and ground

his teeth at sight of a rough carving—two hearts with familiar initials

beneath them. Then he examined the concealed blasting powder, and

surveyed its position with respect to the main walls of the building.

Satisfied of this, he proceeded into the air, took a heavy clasp knife,

dug down a foot beneath the grass and turf and removed two bricks from

the foundation of the Case House. Within them was a thin layer of

concrete; the matchboarding followed; and then came the gunpowder.

Calculating the exact spot of his excavation, Richard entered the hut and

pursued his work from inside, after carefully moving the powder beyond

reach of any spark that might be struck from his attack on the concrete.

With light, numerous blows he gained his end, and soon had a clean hole

running from beneath the magazine to the ground outside. This he filled

with gunpowder, replaced the mass of the explosive above it, returned the

bricks to their original positions, and covered up the space outside with

turf and dry fern.

A scrap of touchwood and a match would do all the rest.

Richard Daccombe completed his preparations just in time, for as he moved

away to the Moor, he saw his brother Davey in the valley. Thereupon Dick

hid behind a rock to surprise the youngster unpleasantly should his goal

be the Case House. But Davey had either seen his brother, or knew that

he was not far distant. At least, he showed himself too wary to run any

risk, and pursued an innocent matter of climbing a pine tree for a

wood-pigeon’s nest. Nor did he come down again until Richard had gone

upon his way to the warren.

CHAPTER VII

Events by no means conspired to shake the keeper’s evil determination.

Lulled to fancied security and a belief that his indifference indicated a

change of mind toward her, Jane continued her attention to Dick; and he

abstained from upbraiding her, for he took this display to be love, and

felt more than ever assured that, Maybridge once out of the way, the girl

would waken as from a dream to the reality of his regard and worship.

Her conduct, indeed, obscured his own affection, but he came of a class

that takes life and its tender relations callously. The only ardent and

worthy emotion that had ever made his heart throb quicker was this girl.

His love was still alive, nor could anger kill it while he continued

blind to the truth that she no longer cared for him.

A fortnight after his visit to the Case House, Dick descended by night

from his den upon the high moor, and the dim flicker of a flame he had

long desired to see strung his nerves to steel. For fulfilment of his

plan it was necessary that he should come pat on the interval between the

arrival of Anthony Maybridge at this tryst and Jane’s subsequent

approach. Twice he had been too late; to-night he arrived in time, and

his opportunity waited for him. Maybridge was alone. The light burnt in

silence. Then came a solitary footfall on the hollow floor above the

gunpowder.

Daccombe had calculated every action that would combine to complete and

perfect the deed now before him. Nor had he disdained to consider the

result. No witness could rise up against him; his enemy would be blown

out of physical existence, and his own subsequent declaration that some

tons of blasting powder remained forgotten in the old magazine must serve

to explain the rest. A spark from Anthony’s pipe would be a satisfactory

solution.

The man set about his murder swiftly and stealthily. He had already

driven a heavy staple into the door of the Case House, and now, without a

sound, he fastened his victim firmly in, using some lengths of brass

rabbit wire for the purpose. Then he crept down below the level of the

building, scratched away the turf and fern and moved the loosened bricks.

He felt the powder dry under his hand, brought a large lump of rotten

wood from his breast pocket, where he had long carried it, and struck a

match. Soon the touchwood glowed, and he set it down, leapt from his

work and hastened away along the path by which Jane must presently

approach. Thus he designed to intercept her progress, and, upon some

pretence or excuse, draw her from the zone of danger. As to that last

point, however, he was doubtful. The amount of the powder he could not

accurately tell, and the extent of the explosion remained to be seen.

Richard calculated that three minutes, if not a longer period, must

elapse before fire would gnaw up the dead wood and reach the powder; and

now, as he moved hastily away, the seconds lengthened into minutes, and

the minutes most horribly dragged. An infinite abyss of time widened out

between the deed and its effect. He lived his life again; and still he

peered through the darkness with his eyes, and strained upon the silence

with his ears, that he might not let Jane Stanberry pass him and go

ignorantly to destruction.

He was a quarter of a mile from the Case House, when it seemed as though

the heavens were opened and Doomsday suddenly loosed upon the world. An

awful and withering explosion swept the glen like a storm. First there

leapt aloft a pillar of pale fire, that rose and spread as the eruption

of a volcano spreads. The terrific glare painted long miles of the Moor,

and like the hand of lightning, revealed the shaggy crowns of the tors on

many a distant hill; while, long before its livid sheaf of flame had

sunk, came such a crash and bellow of sound as might burst from the

upheaval of a world in earthquake. Upon this appalling detonation a wave

of air swept in sudden tempest. Richard was blown off his feet and

dashed to the ground; and as he fell, the hills echoed back the explosion

in crashing reverberations that rolled out of the darkness, rose and

fell, and rose again, until, after a hundred repetitions flung hither and

thither over the peaks of the land, they sank through a growling

diminuendo into silence. And the silence was terrific by contrast with

the awful clamour it succeeded, even as the darkness was intense that

followed upon such an unwonted and far-flung glare of light.

Richard Daccombe got upon his feet, and the tinkle of broken glass was in

his ears, with the murmur of affrighted voices; for the concussion had

shattered nearly every pane at Cross Ways, and mightily alarmed the

dwellers there.

When he reached home the young keeper found his parents already

out-of-doors, with the whole household assembled about them.

Mary Daccombe praised God at sight of her son uninjured.

“’Tis the end of the world, by the sound of it,” she said. “Where be

Davey to?”

His father questioned Richard, and the man declared his ignorance of all

particulars.

“An explosion at the old powder-mills, or else a bolt from heaven,” he

answered. “I must have passed by the very place, I reckon, not five

minutes before the upstore.”

“A thunder-planet, for sartain,” declared an ancient soul, whose few

teeth chattered between his words. “I can call home when a com-com-comet

was reigning fifty years an’ more agone, an’ ’twas just such open weather

as us have had o’ late.”

Mr. Daccombe felt anxious for his stock in certain byres and cow-houses

that lay to the west of the powder-mills. But first he held up a lantern

and counted the company.

“Be us all here?” he asked.

“Davey’s out somewheers,” answered his wife; “ess, an’ Jane Stanberry

be—” She broke off, and looked at the farmer.

“Down-long, I s’pose,” he said carelessly; then he turned to Richard.

“Us can’t blink these meetings between ’em, Dick. Best man wins where a

maid’s the prize; or which she thinks be the best. Awnly God send her

ban’t in the powder-mills to-night.”

“’Tis most certain she be,” answered Mary Daccombe. “Her didn’t know as

the young man—Mr. Maybridge—was called off sudden to Moreton to serve

’pon a committee for the Hunt Dinner next month. A chap rode out, and he

saddled his mare hisself and galloped off we him directly after he’d ate

his meat.”

“Jane didn’t know?” asked Richard.

“No, she went out counting to find him, I’m afraid.”

“An’ he’m at Moreton?”

The man asked in a voice so strange that none failed to note it, even in

this dark moment of fear and turmoil.

“Her went to wait for him usual place, no doubt,” said Jonathan Daccombe.

“Us had better come an’ look around for her, an’ Davey too—not to name

the things in the long byre by the wood.”

A hideous cry suddenly cut Jonathan short, for a storm had swept the

sinner’s brain upon these words. He saw what he had done, and the shock

overset the balance of his mind.

“Come!” he cried; “I’ve killed her, I’ve ended her days in a scatter of

blood and flesh! Nought to show for the butivul round body of her now.

But her shall have Christian burial, if ’tis awnly a hair of her head

left to put in the churchyard; an’ I’ll mourn for her on my knees, afore

they string me up!”

“God’s goodness! what gabble be this?” asked his father.

“And Maybridge still alive, wi’ no smell of fire about him. I’ll—I’ll—”

He broke off and gazed round him wildly.

“Upon the Moreton road as he comes home-along!” he said. Then the wretch

turned to hurry away. At the first step, however, he stopped and stood

as still as a statue, for he had heard what was hidden from the ears of

the rest. Then they too caught the sound of footsteps and a murmuring in

the night. Richard remained without moving, and his eyes glared into the

dark, and his jaw had fallen. Then, taking shape and coming slowly into

the radius of lantern light, there moved a woman and a boy.

Jane Stanberry approached, holding Davey by the hand; and at sight of her

Richard Daccombe screamed out his shattered senses, and fled as one

possessed of an evil spirit. In vain they made search for him by night

and day, and it was not until more than eight-and-forty hours had passed

that they found him wandering in the great central loneliness insane.

There they ministered to him, and brought him home; and time so dealt

with him that he sank into a harmless and haunted idiocy—a horror for his

father, a knife in his mother’s heart.

Now it happened that Richard’s brother, upon the keeper’s departure from

the Case House on a day already noted, had descended from his pine tree,

made close investigation of the elder’s deed, and guessed that such

preparations were directed against one man. From that day until the time

of the catastrophe, David kept silent watch upon all occasions when Jane

and Anthony Maybridge met there. Hidden within a dry drain some ten

yards distant, he had played sentinel until the night of Richard’s

revenge. Then he had crept from his cover the moment the other’s back

was turned, reached the smouldering touchwood, and with amazing courage

extinguished it. Afterward, releasing the girl as quickly as possible,

and bidding her run for her life to the shelter of a grinding mill two

hundred yards distant, he had once more set the rotten wood on fire and

hastened after Jane.

She, mystified and indignant, was also conscious that the boy must be

obeyed, and so fled as he ordered her. Yet both would have perished but

for their protection behind the stout ruin of the grinding mill. And

now, the fear of death upon their faces, they hurried trembling home, and

Nemesis came with them.

* * *

To-day a black-bearded man, with brown eyes and a mouth always open,

shambles about the blasted heart of the old powder-mill. He babbles to

himself with many a frown and pregnant nod and look askance; sometimes he

watches the trout in the river; sometimes he plucks feverishly at the

blossoms of the broom and spearwort and other yellow flowers. These he

stamps underfoot as one stamps fire. Davey is his brother’s keeper, and

shall be seen always at hand. At his word Richard Daccombe obeys like a

dog—shrinks with fear if the boy is angry, fawns and laughs when the boy

is kind.

JOSEPH

“I do love they stuckit plants,” said Mr. Joseph Hannaford.

He waved his hands toward some lettuces of a fat figure and plump

proportions.

“Doan’t want no work—that’s why,” answered Matthew Smallridge. “The

straggly sort be better, but they axes for tying up an’ trouble.”

“Ezacally so. An’ a man as goes out of his way to sow trouble be a fule,

Matthew,” retorted Joseph, triumphantly.

The gardeners met every day, and every day differed on affairs of

horticulture and life. Joseph was stout, with a red face set in a white

frill of whisker. He had a rabbit mouth, a bald brow and a

constitutional capacity for idleness. He talked much. He had a fine

theory that we do not leave enough to nature in matters of the garden.

Mr. Smallridge, the squire’s gardener, enjoyed a different habit of body

and mind. He was a man who lived for work and loved it; he read the

journals proper to his business; he kept his subordinates to their

labours from morn till eve; and idleness he loathed as the worst sin to

be laid at the door of any agriculturist, great or small. Mr. Hannaford

alleged that the literature of his business was desirable for beginners,

but he declared it to be unnecessary in his case. If asked concerning

his authorities, he would tap his forehead and say, “Books? I don’t want

no books. ’Tis all here.” No man possessed sure proofs that he could

either read or write.

These two were ancient men, yet not old for Dartmoor, where those of

hardy stock, who have weathered the ordeal of infancy, usually advance

far into the vale of years before their taking off. Joseph attributed

his excellent health and spirits to a proper sense of what was due to

himself in the matter of rest; while Matthew, on the other hand, assigned

his physical and mental prosperity to hard work and temperance. Now the

men stood together in Joseph’s little garden and discussed general

questions.

“If us was all your way of thinking, theer’d be no progress, an’ never a

new pea growed an’ never a new potato taken to a show,” said Mr.

Smallridge.

“I hate shows,” answered Joseph. “’Tis flying in the face of nature an’

God Almighty, all this struggling for size. If He’d a’ meant to grow

twenty peas in a pod, an’ all so big as cherries, He’d have done it wi’ a

turn o’ the wrist. He didn’t do it, an’ for us worms to try an’ go awver

the Lord in the matter of garden-stuff be so bad as bad can be. ’Twas

touching that very thing I fell out with the Reverend Truman. ‘I be

gwaine to show grapes, Joseph,’ he said to me last year; an’ I nodded an’

said, ‘Ess, sir,’ an’ went my even way. Us didn’t show. Then ’twas

chrysanths. Weern’t satisfied wi’ a nice, small, stuggy bloom, as nature

meant, but must be pinching, an’ potting, an’ messing with soot an’ dirt,

an’ watering twice a day—ten months’ toil for two months’ pleasure. Then

what? A gert, ramshackly, auld blossom, like a mop dipped in a pail o’

paint. However, I let his reverence do the work, an’ what credit was

about I got myself. Not that I wanted it.”

“As true a Christian your master was as ever walked in a garden,

however,” declared Mr. Smallridge. “I hope the new parson will prove so

gude.”

“I be gwaine to see him this very day,” answered Joseph. “’Tis my hope

he’ll take me on to the vicarage, for the place wouldn’t be the place

without me up theer. I knaw every blade of grass an’ gooseberry bush in

it—a very butivul kitchen-garden ’tis too.”

“An’ well out of sight of the sitting-room windows,” said Matthew

Smallridge, grimly.

“As a kitchen-garden should be,” assented Joseph. “Gude times they was,”

he continued, “an’ I only hopes the Reverend Truman have got such a fine

garden an’ such a’ honest man in it as he had here.”

“But no li’l maid to go round with him, poor soul!”

“A bright child his darter was. Impatient also—like youth ever is.

Her’d bring me plants to coddle, an’ expect me to waste my precious time

looking after her rubbish. Then a thing would be struck for death, along

of want of water or what not, an’ her’d come to me wi’ her li’l face all

clouded. ‘Can’t ’e make it well again, Joseph?’ her’d say; an’ I’d say,

‘No, missy; ’tis all up wi’ thicky geranium,’ or whatever ’twas. ‘’Tis

gwaine home.’ An’ her’d stamp her li’l foot so savage an’ ferocious, an’

say, `But it _mustn’t_ go home! I don’t _want_ it to go home! ’Tis your

business not to let it go home!’ Poor little maiden!”

“An’ now she’ve gone home herself.”

“Ess. She didn’t mean to be rude to an auld man. But of course I

couldn’t be bothered with such trash. As to watering, I always leave it

to Nature. Who be us that we should knaw better what things want than

her do?”

“Nature caan’t water green stuff onder glass, can her?”

“No; then why put it onder glass? All this here talk ’bout glass houses

is vanity an’ flying in the face of Providence. If ’twas meant that

grapes an’ tree-ferns an’ ’zaleas an’ hothouse stuff was to flourish in

England, they’d be here doing of it on every mountain-side. Us takes too

much ’pon ourselves. Same with prayers. What be prayer most times but

trying to get the A’mighty round to our way of thinking? We’m too

busy,—most of us,—an’ that’s the truth.”

“Jimmery!” exclaimed Matthew. “I never did in all my born days hear tell

of the like o’ you! You won’t work an’ you won’t pray—’tis terrible.

All the same, if you don’t get the vicarage again, an’ come as

under-gardener to the squire, as he’ve offered you, I tell you frankly,

friends though we be, that you’ll have to work harder than you’ve worked

for twenty years.”

“I know it very well, Matt,” said Mr. Hannaford. “Your way an’ mine be

different, root an’ branch; an’ I pray God as I may not have to come

under you, for I’d hate it properly, an’ that’s the truth. An’ I do

work, an’ I do pray likewise; an’ I’d back my chance of going up aloft

with my last shirt, if there was any to take the bet. You’m too

self-righteous along of your high wages—”

“Joseph! ’tis time you put on your black,” cried a voice from the cottage

door.

Here grew a feeble honeysuckle that had been nailed up four years before,

and still struggled gamely with a north aspect and neglect.

On the other side of the doorway was a thrush in a cage. It appeared too

spiritless even to mount its wooden perch, but sat on the floor of its

prison and listlessly pecked at nothing.

Mrs. Hannaford had a thin, flat figure, a hard mouth, keen eyes and a

face like a fowl. Tremendous force of character marked her pale visage.

The grey curls that hung there on each side of her narrow forehead looked

like steel shavings.

“Dress,” she said, “an’ be quick about it. Ah, Mr. Smallridge—helping

Joseph to waste his time.”

“Not me, ma’am; that’s about the only job he doesn’t want helping with.

I’ve just been telling your man that if Mr. Budd to the vicarage doan’t

need him, an’ he takes squire’s offer an’ comes to me, theer must be more

work an’ less talk.”

“The new parson will want him,” said Mrs. Hannaford, decidedly. “Who

should stick a spade in that earth after twenty-five years if not

Joseph?”

“Very plants would cry out if anybody else was put awver them,” said Mr.

Hannaford, sentimentally.

“Cry out for joy, I reckon,” murmured Matthew, but not loud enough for

his friend’s wife to overhear him. “Theer’s wan thing you should know,”

he continued, changing the subject. “Parson Budd be a tremendous Church

of Englander, so I heard squire say. He’ve got his knife into all

chapel-people an’ free-thinkers an’ such like.”

“’Tis a free country,” answered Mrs. Hannaford, and her curls almost

appeared to clatter as she shook her head. “He’d better mind his awn

business, which be faith, hope an’ charity, an’ not poke his nose into

other people’s prayers!”

“As for religion,” declared Joseph, “the little as I’ve got time for in

that line be done along with my missis an’ the Plymouth Brethren. But

theer ban’t no smallness in me. Room in the Lard’s mansions for all of

us; an’ if the roads be narrer, theer’s plenty of ’em, an’ plenty of

gates to the Golden Jerusalem.”

Mrs. Hannaford frowned.

“You’m too free with your views, Joseph Hannaford,” she said. “You’d

best call to mind what pastor said to chapel last Sunday, ’bout the camel

an’ the needle’s eye. Many be called an’ few chosen, so theer’s an end

of it. The Brethren’s way be the right way an’ the strait way; an’ ban’t

your business to be breaking gates into heaven for them as do wrong, an’

think wrong, an’ haven’t a spark of charity, an’ be busy about the Dowl’s

work in every other cottage in this village. I know what church folks

be—nobody better.”

Mr. Smallridge, himself of the established religion, retreated before

this outburst.

“Hell of a female that,” he said to himself. “How the man can keep heart

after all these years be a mystery. Yet she sits light upon him,

seemingly.”

Then Joseph, with some groans and grumbles, went to decorate himself,

that the new incumbent might smile upon him and reappoint him to the care

of the vicarage garden. He shaved very carefully, washed, showed Mrs.

Hannaford his finger-nails,—a matter he usually shirked,—donned his best

attire, and finally started beside his wife to appear before Mr. Budd.

“’Tis a grievous choice,” he said; “an’ if the man doan’t take me on,

I’ll have to go to the Hall under Smallridge—a very ill-convenient thing

to think upon.”

“’Tis a matter of form, but better the Hall than any paltering with

what’s right; an’ better be under Smallridge than against your

conscience.”

“My conscience is very well, an’ always have been since I was a bwoy.”

“You’m a deal tu easy, however,” she answered sternly—“a deal tu easy,

an’ you’ll very likely find that out when ’tis tu late. Your conscience

be like proud-flesh, I reckon: don’t hurt ’e ’cause ’tis past feeling. I

wish it pricked you so often as your rheumatics do. ’Twould be a sign of

grace.”

“You’m like poor Parson Truman’s li’l maiden wi’ her flowers, you be,” he

retorted. “Her was always dragging up the things to see how they

prospered, an’ you’m always dragging up your conscience by the roots,

same way, to see how ’tis faring. I let mine bide.”

“You can’t,” snapped back Mrs. Hannaford. “Conscience ban’t built to

bide—no more’n a growing pear upon a tree. It goes from gude to better,

or else from bad to worse. You ban’t so righteous-minded as I could wish

’e, Joseph; but I’ve done a deal for you since we’ve been man an’ wife;

an’ if you’m spared ten year more, I lay I’ll have your conscience to

work so hard as a man saving his own hay.”

“Pity you can’t live an’ let live, my dear,” answered the gardener.

“Even the weeds was made by God for His own ends, as I always told

Truman. You’m a very religious woman; an’ nobody knaws it better’n you;

all the same, if folks’ consciences ax for such a power of watching, ’tis

enough for every human to look after theer own, surely.”

“Why for don’t you do it, then?”

“Here’s the vicarage,” he answered. “Us better not go in warm—might be

against us. I’ll dust my boots, an’ you’d best to cool your face, for

’tis glistening like the moon in the sky.”

Presently they stood before a busy newcomer. He proved a young, plump,

and pleasant man—a man fond of fishing and fox-hunting, a man of rotund

voice and rotund figure. Joseph’s heart grew hopeful. Here was no

dragon of horticulture, but one, like himself, who would live and let

live, and doubtless leave the garden in the hands of its professional

attendant.

“Your servant, sir,” he said. “I hope your honour be very well an’ likes

the church an’ the hunt—also the garden.”

“Mr. Joseph Hannaford, I suppose, and this is Mrs. Hannaford—good

parishioners both, of course? Sit down, Mrs. Hannaford, please.”

“’Tis in a nutshell, sir, an’ we won’t keep a busy gentleman from his

business,” said the old woman, very politely. “Joseph here have been

gardener at the vicarage, man an’ bwoy, for twenty-five years—ever since

theer was a garden at all. He helped to cut out the peat an’ make the

place, as was just a new-take from Dartymoor, though now ’tis so good

stuff as ever growed a cabbage.”

“Ess fay; all rotted manure an’ butivul loam, so sweet as sugar, an’

drains like a sieve,” declared Joseph.

“I want a gardener, of course, and cannot do better than Mr. Hannaford,

though I’m not sure if it isn’t too much for one elderly man.”

“It is!” almost shouted Joseph. “Never a Bible prophet said a truer

word! Too much by half. Not that I’d demean myself to ax for another

man, but a bwoy I should have, an’ I hope your honour will give me a

bwoy, if ’tis only to fetch an’ carry.”

“What wages did you get from Mr. Truman?”

“Pound a week; an’ another shilling would be a godsend, if I may say it

without offence.”

“An’ up to squire’s they only offered him seventeen an’ sixpence, with

all his ripe experience,” said Mrs. Hannaford. “’Twould be a fine lesson

in Christianity to squire, I’m sure, if you seed your way to twenty-one

shilling.”

“Better than a waggon-load of sermons, if I may say so,” continued

Joseph.

“A sight better, seeing squire’s not greatly ’dicted to church-gwaine,

best of times,” chimed in Mrs. Hannaford.

“You’d be under-gardener there, no doubt?”

“Ezacally so, dear sir. Under-gardener beneath Smallridge—a man three

year younger than me. But ban’t for me to tell my parts. All the same,

I wouldn’t work under Smallridge, not for money, if I could help it.

Very rash views he’ve got ’bout broccoli, not to name roots an’

sparrowgrass.”

“Terrible wilful touching fruit, also, they tells me,” added Mrs.

Hannaford.

“Well, you must come, I suppose. I could hardly turn you out of your old

garden; nor is there any need to do so.”

“An’ thank you with all my heart, your honour; an’ you’ll never regret it

so long as I be spared.”

“The extra shilling you shall have. As to a boy, I want a stable-boy,

and he’ll be able to lend you a hand in the summer.”

Mr. Hannaford nodded, touched his forehead, and mentally arranged a full

programme for the boy.

“Enough said, then. On Monday I shall expect you, and will walk round

with you myself and say what I’ve got to say. Good-bye for the present.”

Mr. Budd rose, and the old pair, with many expressions of satisfaction,

were about to depart when their vicar spoke again.

“One more matter I may mention, though doubtless there is no necessity to

do so with two such sensible people. There are more sects and

conventicles here than I like to find in such a very small parish. Of

course you come to church every Sunday, Mr. Hannaford?”

“As to that, your honour—” began Joseph; then his wife silenced him.

“We’m Plymouth Brethren from conscience,” she said. “You ban’t gwaine to

object, surely—you as have come here to preach charity an’ such like?”

Mr. Budd flushed.

“I’ve come to do my duty, ma’am, and don’t need to be told what that is

by my parishioners, I hope. All servants of the vicarage will, as a

matter of course, go to church twice every Sunday, and upon week-days

also, if I express any wish to that effect.”

“Let ’em, then,” answered the old woman, fiercely. “You can bind ’em in

chains of iron, if you will, an’ they’m feeble-hearted enough to let ’e.

But us won’t. Us be what we be, an’ Plymouth Brethren have got somethin’

better to do than go hunting foxes, whether or no. I’m a growed woman,

an’ Joseph’s my husband, an’ he shan’t be in bondage to no man. To

squire’s garden he shall go, an’ save his sawl alive, so now then! Gude

evening, sir.”

“If I may have a tell—” began Joseph, in a tremor of emotion; but his

wife cut him short.

“You may not,” she cried sternly. “You come home. Least said soonest

mended. Awnly I’m sorry to God as a Cæsar of all the Roosias have come

to Postbridge instead of a Christian creature.”

So saying, she clutched Joseph and led him away. But on their silent

journey homeward Mr. Hannaford pondered this tremendous circumstance

deeply. Then, at his cottage gate, he rallied and spoke his mind.

“We’ve done wrong,” he said, “an’ I be gwaine back again to confess to it

afore I sleep this night.”

“We’ve done right. You’ll save your sawl an’ take seventeen shilling an’

sixpence. You’ll be a martyr for conscience, an’ I be proud of ’e.”