THE LONELY ALTARS
Before noon on the day after Hilary Woodrow's death two men advanced
towards Ruddyford farm. One went slowly on foot; the other rode as
hard as his horse could carry him. While Brendon climbed White Hill
and stopped for several minutes beside the cairns upon its summit,
Jarratt Weekes leapt off his horse at the farmyard gate and hurried
into the house.
He had learnt that Brendon was returning home from Lydford station,
and he had instantly set out to go before him and give Sarah Jane
warning. Not, however, until his arrival at Ruddyford did he realize
the whole truth or appreciate the effects of his recent action.
It was Sarah Jane herself who told him, and his terror at the recital
contrasted forcibly with her calmness.
"Agg broke all to me yesterday," she said. "My husband went to
Dawlish to kill Woodrow. I want no words with you, nor any other man
now. You can't alter what's got to be."
"For God's sake let me save you!" he implored. "'Tis murder on my
soul for ever if he does you any hurt."
"See you to that," she said; then she turned to Tabitha Prout. "I
know my way clear enough. The man's on the road. When he comes, you
can tell him that I be gone up-along to the peat works, and have
taken the boy with me. He'll understand."
She left them and went to her own cottage. There she took a pencil
and wrote a few words on a piece of paper. The brief letter she
folded up, put into an envelope, and addressed to Daniel. Next she
called her child.
"Us be going up to the peat works, Gregory. Come along quick, my
pretty."
"Hurrah!" said he; and as soon as Sarah Jane had put on her
sun-bonnet, they started over the Moor for Great Links. Her letter
was in her pocket. She knew that her husband must presently appear
on the summit of White Hill; and from that point he could not fail to
see her. She understood why he had come, and what he would do. No
shadow of fear for herself clouded her understanding now. She
perceived very fully what this terrific discovery must mean to
Brendon, and unutterable grief for him was at her heart. Hilary had
escaped, and she was thankful, both for Daniel and the dead. Now she
went up through the unspeakable glories of a cloudless June day; and
sometimes her hand tightened on the hand of her child.
Below, Agg, Weekes, and Lethbridge held earnest converse. The terror
of Jarratt made the others contemptuous. "Give over shouting out to
your God, you dirty cur," said Walter Agg. "Well may you shake in
your shoes. If yonder man, as be coming now, was sane and not mad,
'tis you that he'd put out of the way, and I could hope that he will
do so yet. To betray her--you blasted rogue! You'll be damned afore
any of us for it--that's one comfort."
"'Twas never meant to turn to this--God's my judge, I didn't foresee
any such thing."
"Get out of honest men's eyes and hang yourself, like the Judas you
be. I would break your head this moment and rejoice in it, if I
hadn't to keep my strength for yonder man."
"I can do no more," said Weekes. "I call you to witness that I comed
here afore him to warn her. She might have escaped him if she chose
to do it."
"Where be she now?" asked Lethbridge, and Tabitha Prout spoke.
"She went to her own house, so soon as she heard Daniel was on the
way."
Weekes returned into the yard, where his horse stood. Then he
pointed to the hill.
"He cometh!"
On the cairn, motionless, stood Brendon. They watched him, and
presently he began to descend. Jarratt Weekes rode away. Agg took
off his coat and tightened his belt.
"Be you going to help me withstand that man, Peter?" he asked calmly;
but Lethbridge refused.
"No, I ban't," he answered. "I'll die in my bed a few years hence
for choice. This be none of my business. You know him. The man of
common strength that stands between him and her now will be broken
for it. She might have been saved, but she wouldn't be, an' there's
an end."
The great moment in Walter Agg's life had come.
"Broken, or not broken, I'll do what I can," he said.
They looked up the hill again to see that Daniel Brendon no longer
approached them. He had caught sight of Sarah Jane far away, and
already near the summit of Great Links. Instantly he changed his
course, and proceeded directly over the Moor toward her.
Seeking the reason of his action, Agg and Lethbridge also marked
Sarah Jane, now above a mile away on the heights.
"God Almighty, she's run for it--too late!" cried Lethbridge; but Agg
had already left him. He knew that he could cut off Brendon, and
started to do so. They met far below Great Links, and by the time
that they did so Sarah Jane had already reached the summit. She sat
there for a space, took her farewell of the world, drank her last
draught of the glory of the summer sun and the splendour of the
summer earth.
Like a dream picture painted in milk and gold, rich with magic light
even in the pearly shadows, overflowing with the lustre and fervour
of June, Devon spread before her feet and rolled in sunlit leagues to
the horizons of the sea. There lacked no gracious beauty proper to
that scene. It rose beyond perfection to sublimity, lifted her
watching spirit higher than any praise; begot the serene, still
sadness that reigns above all joy.
The mundane matter of Brendon's meeting with Agg interested her but
little. Like the struggle of two ants it seemed in the midst of that
huge loneliness. She saw the figures run together and turn and twist
a moment. Then the lesser was shot violently away and fell
sprawling. The prone atom writhed for a second and was still; the
other came on.
"Poor Walter!" thought Sarah Jane.
Her heart throbbed farewell to the only world she had known; and,
gazing upward, she was glad that the sky shone blue over her death.
As Daniel Brendon stood and gazed upon Ruddyford from the barrows of
White Hill, he had suddenly recollected two former occasions when the
distant farm spread before him with special significance. His first
vision of it in storm came to his mind, and he remembered how that he
had descended, and entered into the life of the place, and toiled
mightily to advance the welfare of the farm and its master. Then
came the moment when, fresh from reading Hilary Woodrow's will, he
had gazed upon the land of promise and, by slow stages, grasped the
tremendous truth that all he saw within these boundaries would
presently be his own. Vividly he remembered that occasion, and how,
lifted by the actual spectacle of Ruddyford, he had turned back again
to the giver and renewed his gratitude. And now he looked upon his
own, and called on his God to shatter it with lightning, to burn it
with fire, to bury it and blot it out, like the cities of the plain.
He hungered to be at the work, to tear its foundations from their
granite roots, to blast the bed it lay on, to leave no trace upon
earth by which man might remember it.
He moved a little way onward; then suddenly saw the woman and child.
He stopped, shielded his eyes from the light and recognized them.
The man felt glad that she understood why he had come. It was better
to make an end up aloft on the lonely altars, than within the cursed
confines of the farm. He knew that she was going to the peat-works;
that she understood his coming. His mind was calm now and
steadfastly settled to destroy her. He changed his course and
proceeded leisurely towards Great Links. Already he said to himself
that Sarah Jane should sleep beside her father and die where he died.
Then ran Walter Agg and stood against him and tried to stay him. The
battle between them was not of long duration, and to the weaker man
happened what Lethbridge foretold. He was flung down with terrific
violence; he fell upon a rock and his leg was broken. Brendon left
him there without any word and went on to the great hill. Presently
he stopped, looked upward to the grey forehead of the tor, and he
noted that his wife was sitting quietly there, watching him. Only
then his soul sickened, and he found it in his heart to call upon God
to spare her. For she sat very near the spot where first they had
loved and worshipped each other. He hesitated, but strode on again;
and presently she rose and disappeared.
A track over the heavy fens between the tor and the peat-works was
known to Sarah Jane, and now she followed it, while her child ran on
before.
Soon they entered the familiar ruin and took their way to the great
drum. There, in dead heath and fern, little Gregory rested awhile;
then he called for his favourite toy.
"Not yet, my dicky-bird," she said. "You've got something to do for
mother first. Look over there--down to the end of the path--who be
that coming after us?"
The child uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.
"Daddy! Daddy back home again!" he said.
"So it is, then. And I've got a letter here that you must take to
him. Such a man you be now! Here 'tis--you run down along with it
and tell him mother's sent it. Quick! How fast he's walking!"
She gave her child the letter and a long kiss. After that he trotted
off to meet his father.
Sarah Jane watched him; then turned and took his toy from its
hiding-place. It was the famous old knife which she had seen so
often in her father's hand. The blade was blunt, but that mattered
not, for her Roman spirit turned to the point.
"'Tis my heart did wrong," she said; "'tis my heart----"
The child ran to Brendon and jumped into his arms, as he was wont to
do.
"A letter from mother, daddy," he cried; "I've carried it safe for
'e."
Deep soul movements had swept Daniel as he climbed to the crowns of
the land. He began to ask himself questions; his heart shook and
bled within him; he prayed to his God; he humbly implored his God;
but no answer came. Therefore he went onward--since the Almighty's
mind was unshaken. Then came the child, and he took the letter and
doubted not that the Father of Mercy had, even at this last hour,
dictated it to her who sent it. Now he was to learn what he must do.
While he opened it he walked on, until he had reached within fifty
yards of the ruin.
After he had read it, he stood still a moment and considered. He
doubted not that his wife's eyes were upon him.
The letter was very short:--
"_My dear, they say you have come. I know. I'll spare you
that.--Your true love._"
The man lifted his voice at last.
"I can't do it--God forgive me, I can't--I can't. Make your peace
with Him, as I shall. Live out your life on your knees for ever, as
I shall. I'm going. You shall never see me no more."
Then he spoke to the child.
"Get to your mother," he said.
Gregory, frightened at his face and voice, ran back as fast as he
could go, and Brendon departed. But a moment later, when shrill
shriek upon shriek cut his ears, he stopped, turned again, and went
to his child; because he knew that the little thing was alone.