CHAPTER I

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: Perspective View of the War Prison near

Tor Royal upon Dartmoor.

Designed for the accommodation of 10,000 Men, with Barracks

for 2000 men a Short distance, but not

represented in the Plate]

THE

AMERICAN PRISONER

BY

EDEN PHILLPOTTS

METHUEN & CO.

36 ESSEX STREET W.C.

LONDON

1904

Out of the land whence the 'Mayflower' sailed,

To

Jeannette L. Gilder

With hearty greeting

CONTENTS

BOOK I

FOX TOR FARM

CHAPTER

I. CATER'S BEAM

II. THE MALHERB AMPHORA

III. BESIDE EXE

IV. "THE MARROW OF THE FARM"

V. DAWN

VI. MR. PETER NORCOT

VII. THE WAR PRISON

VIII. A LITTLE ACCIDENT

IX. CHILDE'S TOMB

X. THE FIRSTBORN

XI. MALHERB'S IDEA

BOOK II

THE SEVEN

I. MR. BLAZEY

II. A BRACE OF FOWLS

III. THE GREEN APPLE

IV. A FRIEND IN NEED

V. FOLLY

VI. THE PHILOSOPHY OF MR. NORCOT

VII. THE SEVEN FAIL

VIII. JOHN LEE'S FATHER

IX. GRACE MALHERB HEARS THE NEWS

X. HANGMAN'S HOLLOW

XI. FREE

XII. THE SNOWSTORM

XIII. A GRAVE IN THE HEATHER

XIV. THE OLD AND THE NEW

XV. STARK RIDES AWAY

XVI. GOOD NEWS

BOOK III

UNDER THE EARTH

I. THE TREASURE HOUSE

II. RHYME AND REASON

III. THE OATH

IV. JOHN TAKES HIS ROAD

V. STARS AND STRIPES

VI. UNDER LOCK AND KEY

VII. THE TUNNEL GROWS

VIII. HUE AND CRY

IX. THE FIRST THROUGH THE TUNNEL

X. A GOD OF GLASS

XI. APOCALYPSE

XII. THE VOICE

XIII. PETER TRIUMPHANT

XIV. STRATEGY

XV. THE SALMON IS SPOILED

BOOK IV

THE PEACE

I. HOPE WAKES AND DIES

II. ON CHRISTMAS DAY

III. BURNHAM AS LEADER

IV. OUT OF NIGHT

V. THE LEOPARD CHANGES HER SPOTS

VI. THE BURNING OF BLAZEY

VII. DEATH AT THE GATE

VIII. BEARDING THE LION

IX. A SPECIAL LICENSE

X. EYES IN THE DARK

XI. FAREWELL, LOVEY LEE

XII. MANOR WOODS

XIII. THE PASSING OF JOHN

XIV. NEWS FROM VERMONT

BOOK I

FOX TOR FARM

THE AMERICAN PRISONER

CHAPTER I

CATER'S BEAM

The huge and solitary but featureless elevation of Cater's

Beam on Dartmoor arrests few eyes. Seen from the

central waste, one hog-backed ridge swells along the southern

horizon, and its majestic outline, unfretted by tor or forest,

describes the curve of a projectile discharged at gentle elevation.

No detail relieves the solemn bulk of this hill, and upon it ages

have left but little imprint of their passing. Time rolls over the

mountain like a mist, and the mighty granite arch of the Beam

emerges eternal and unchanged. Its tough integument of peat

and heath and matted herbage answers only to the call of the

seasons, and it bears grass, bloom, berry, as it bore them for

palæolithic man and his flocks. Now, like a leopard, the Beam

crouches black-spotted by the swaling fires of spring; now, in

the late autumn time, its substance is coated with tawny foliage,

scarlet-splashed under the low sun; now, dwarfed by snow, the

great hill takes shape of an arctic bear. With spring the furzes

flame again, and wonderful mosses--purple, gold, and emerald

green--light the marshes or jewel the bank at every rill; and

with summer the ling shines out, the asphodel burns in the

bog, cloud-shadows drop their deep blue mantles upon the

mountain's bosom, and the hot air dances mile on mile. Beneath

Cater's Beam, and dwarfed thereby, arise the twin turrets of Fox

Tor; while not far distant from these most lonely masses and

pinnacles of granite shall be found the work of men's hands.

Beside the desolate morasses and storm-scarred wastes that here

lie like a cup upon Dartmoor, a stone cross lifts its head, and

ruins of a human habitation moulder back to the dust.

In nettles, stereobate deep, stands Fox Tor Farm, and the

plant--sure and faithful follower of man--is significant upon

this sequestered fastness; for hither it came with those who

toiled to reclaim the region in time past, and no other nettles

shall be found for miles. Other evidences of human activity

appear around the perishing dwelling-house, where broken walls,

decaying outbuildings, and tracts of cleared land publish their

testimony to a struggle with the Moor. Great apparent age

marks these remains, and the weathered and shattered entrances,

the lichened drip-stones, the empty joist-holes, point to a

respectable antiquity. Yet one hundred years ago this habitation did

not exist. Its entire life--its erection and desertion, its prosperity

and downfall--are crowded within the duration of a century. In

1800 no stone stood upon another; long ago the brief days

of Fox Tor Farm were numbered, and already for fifty years

it has written human hope, ambition, failure upon the wilderness.

One fragment of wrought granite remains, and the everlasting

nettles beneath shall be found heraldically depicted upon a

shattered doorway. There, where the ghost of a coat-of-arms

may still be deciphered, Time gnaws at the badge of the

Malherbs: Or, chev. gules inter three nettle-leaves vert.

Upon the summit of Cater's Beam, some ninety years ago, a

member of that ancient and noble clan sat mounted, gazed into

the far-spreading valley beneath him and saw that it was good

and green. Thereupon he held his quest accomplished, and

determined here to build himself a sure abode, that his cadet

branch of the Malherb race might win foothold on the earth, and

achieve as many generations of prosperity in the future as history

recorded of his ancestors in the past. Seen a mile distant, sharp

eyes upon that August day had marked a spot creep like a fly

along the crest of Cater's Beam, crawl here and there, sink down

to Fox Tor, and remain stationary upon its stony side for a full

hour. Observed closely, one had watched a man at the crossroads

of life--a man who struggled to mould his own fate and

weave the skein of his days to his own pattern. Here he sat on

a great bay horse and pursued the path of his future, as oblivious

to its inevitable changes and chances as he was to a black

cloud-ridge that now lifted dark fringes against the northern sky and

came frowning over the Moor against the course of the wind.

Maurice Malherb was close on fifty, and he had chosen to plough

the earth for his partage in the world's work. A younger son of

his house, he had turned from the junior's usual portion, and, by

some accident of character, refused a commission and sought the

peaceful occupations of agriculture. He had already wasted

some portion of his patrimony upon land near Exeter; and

he was seeking new outlet for his energies when arose a wide-spread

ardour for cultivation of Dartmoor. The age of enterprise

dawned there; "newtake" tenements sprang up like mushrooms

upon this waste; and a region that had mostly slept since Elizabethan

miners furrowed its breast and streamed its rivers for tin,

awoke. As a grim crown to the Moor, Prince Town and its

gigantic War Prison was created; while round about young

woods budded, homesteads appeared, and wide tracts of the

Royal Forest were rented to the speculative and the sanguine.

Maurice Malherb was among those first attracted by the

prospect. A famous Dartmoor hero had influenced him in this

decision, and he was now spending a week with Sir Thomas

Tyrwhitt, at Tor Royal, and examining the knight's operations in

husbandry. He saw Dartmoor for the first time, and the frank,

stern face of it challenged him. For three days he rode forth

alone; and then he wandered to Cater's Beam and discovered

the dewy cup where rivers rise beneath it. To the right and left

he looked and smiled. His dark eyes drank up the possibilities

of the land. Already he pictured dykes for draining of the

marshes; already he saw crops ripening and slow oxen drawing

the ploughshare in the valley. Of the eternal facts, hard as

granite and stern as nature, that lurked here under the dancing

summer air, he knew nothing. The man was fifteen hundred

feet above the sea, in the playground of the west wind. The

inveterate peat encompassed him--the hungry, limeless peat, that

eats bone like a dog and fattens upon the life-blood of those who try

to tame it. He gazed upon a wilderness where long winters bury

the land in snow or freeze it to the granite core for months--save

where warm springs twinkle in the mosses and shine like wet

eyes out of a white face. Here the wise had observed and passed

upon their way; but Maurice Malherb was not wise. August

ruled the hour; the ling bloomed under the heat; a million

insects murmured and made a pleasant melody. Dartmoor for a

moment smiled, and weary of the tame monotony of green meads,

hedges elm-clad, and fields of ruddy earth, Malherb caught hope

from this crystal air and enormous scene outspread, fell to picturing

a notable future, and found his pulses leap to the great plans

that thronged his mind.

He was of a square and sturdy habit of body. A clean-shorn

countenance, deep-set black eyes beneath black brows, a large

mouth underhung, and a nose very broad but finely moulded, were

the distinguishing attributes of his face. Restlessness was alike

the characteristic of his expression and of his nature. Generosity

and pride dominated him in turn. His failures were the work of

other people; his successes he claimed himself. His wife, his son,

his daughter, the blood in his veins, the wine in his cellar, were all

the best in the world. His demonian temper alone he deplored;

yet in that, also, he found matter for occasional satisfaction; since,

by a freak of atavism, he resembled at every physical and mental

point an ancestor from the spacious times, whose deeds on deep

and unknown seas had won him the admiration and friendship of

Drake.

Malherb already saw a homestead spring upwards upon the

green hill beneath Fox Tor. There would he lift his eyrie; there

should successive generations look back and honour their founder;

there--thunder broke suddenly upon his dreams and the bay

horse shifted his fore-feet nervously beneath him. Whereupon he

lifted his eyes, and found that a great storm was at hand.

Unperceived it had crept out of the north while he stood wrapped in

meditation; and now a ghastly glamour extended beneath it, for

the Moor began to look like a sick thing, huddled here all bathed

with weak yellow light from a fainting sun. Solitary blots and

wisps of cloud darkened the sky and heralded the solid and

purple van of the thunderstorm. All insect music ceased, and a

hush, unbroken by one whisper, fell upon the hills. Cater's

Beam suggested some prodigious, couchant creature, watchful yet

fearless. Thus it awaited the familiar onset of the lightning,

whose daggers had broken in its granite bosom a thousand times

and left no scar.

The wanderer spurred his horse, and regained firm foothold on

the crest of the land; then, bending to a torrent of rain, he galloped

westward where the gaunt wards and barracks of Prince Town

towered above the desolation. But the tempest broke long before

Malherb reached safety; darkness swallowed him and he struggled

storm-foundered among the unfamiliar hills. Then fortune sent

another traveller, and a young man, riding bare-backed upon a

pony, came into view. Sudden lightning showed the youth, and,

waiting for a tremendous volley of thunder that followed upon it,

Malherb shouted aloud. His voice, though deep and sonorous,

sounded thin as the pipe of a bird thus lifted immediately after

the peal.

"Hold there! Where am I, boy? Which is the way to Tor

Royal?"

"You be going right, sir," shouted the lad; "but 'tis a long

road this weather. Best to follow me, if I may make so bold, an

I'll bring 'e to shelter in five minutes."

The offer was good, and Mr. Malherb accepted with a nod.

"Go as fast as you can; I'll keep behind you."

Both horses were moorland bred, for the visitor rode a stout

hackney lent by his host. Yet Malherb had to shake up his steed

to keep the native in sight. Presently the youth dismounted, and

his companion became aware of a low cabin rising like a beehive

before him. It stood at the foot of a gentle hill, within a rough

enclosure of stone. Some few acres of land had been reclaimed

about it, and not far distant, through the murk of the rain, its

granite gleaming azure under the glare of the lightning, stood an

ancient and famous stone.

"Now I know where I stand," said the stranger. "I came this

way three hours since. There rises Siward's Cross--is it not so?"

"Ess, your worship, 'tis so. An' this cot do belong to my

gran'mother. 'Tis a poor hole for quality, but stormtight. You

please to go in that door an' I'll take your hoss after 'e. Us do

all live under the same thatch--folks an' beastes."

The boy took both bridles, then kicked open the door of the

hut, and shouted to his grandmother.

"Here's a gentleman almost drownded. Put on a handful of

sticks an' make a blaze so as he can catch heat, for he be so wet

as a frog!"

A loud, clear voice answered from the inner gloom.

"Sticks! Sticks! Be I made o' money to burn sticks at your

bidding? If peat keeps the warmth in my carcase, 'twill do the

like for him--king or tinker."

Maurice Malherb entered the cabin, then started back with an

oath as an old woman rose and confronted him. She, too,

exhibited the liveliest astonishment.

"Lovey Lee!"

"Ess fay, Lovey Lee it is," she answered slowly; "an' you'm

Maurice Malherb or the living daps of him. To think! Ten

years! An' all your curses haven't come home to roost neither

by the looks of you."

"No," he replied. "They've hit the mark rather--or you are

playing miser still and saving your crusts and tatters and living as

you loved to live."

"I be an old, abused creature," she said. "I starve here wi'

scarce a penny in the world, an' your faither's paltry legacy

growing smaller day by day. I'll outlast it an' die wanting food, an'

laugh at churchyard worms, since there'll be nought of me for 'em

to breed in."

She rose and proclaimed herself a woman of extraordinary

stature--a female colossus of bones. She stood six feet three

inches, and, but for her wild and long grey hair, looked like a man

masquerading.

Lovey Lee was a widow, and had spent most of her life in the

service of the Malherbs. At twenty years of age she married a

gamekeeper, and, twelve months later, her husband lost his life in

a poaching affray. Then Lovey had returned to service. A

posthumous girl was born to her, and the son of that daughter,

now a lad of sixteen, dwelt with his grandmother upon the Moor.

Mrs. Lee was clad in rags, and barely wore enough of them for

decency. Her great gnarled feet were naked; her huge hands

protruded from tattered sleeves; and the round ulnar condyles at

her wrists were as big as pigeon's eggs. Lean, wiry, and as hard

as adamant, the miser lived in this fastness with her cattle and

her daughter's son. Mystery shrouded her doings in the past,

she seldom spoke, and seldom appeared among the moorland

haunts of men. Therefore humble folks feared her for a witch,

and avoided her by day or night. In reality, the passion of her

life and the mainspring of every action was greed; and she

exceeded the vulgar miser in this--that intrinsic worth, not alone

the rude glitter of money, commanded her worship. Value was

the criterion; she rose superior to the chink of gold; she loved

a diamond as well as the coins that represented it; or a piece of

land; or a milch cow. Her education in the house of the

Malherbs lifted her to some breadth of mind; and when the head of

the family had passed away, ten years before the beginning of these

events, a black cloud hung over this woman's behaviour, and

turned her old master's children against her.

Now the man of all others most involved by this dame's doubtful

conduct stood before her eyes and asked an abrupt question.

"What did you do with the Malherb amphora, Lovey Lee?"

CHAPTER II

THE MALHERB AMPHORA

Upon the death of Sir Nicholas Malherb, his second son,

Maurice, found himself in possession of fifteen thousand

pounds and the famous Malherb amphora, an heirloom of the

family. By arrangement with the elder brother, Maurice took the

amphora instead of its equivalent in cash, and thus the succeeding

baronet was richer by twenty thousand pounds, which more

fully answered his purposes than the ancient treasure.

Concerning this gem a word must be spoken. While slightly

inferior to the Portland vase in size, its workmanship equalled that

of the more famous curio, and it was esteemed by connoisseurs as

much superior to the Auldjo vase, or another marvellous example

of similar cameo glass, still the acquisition of Naples. In Maurice

Malherb's amphora, a bygone vitrarius had immortalised his art.

The opaque bubble of white glass was coated with cerulean blue,

and upon this surface another film of white had been spread.

With the gem engraver's tools these strata were sculptured into

a most exquisite design of little Loves playing hide and seek amid

the foliage of the acanthus. Herein genius had accomplished a

masterpiece, and all men capable of appreciating it wished Maurice

Malherb joy of the treasure. To desire the amphora in place of

its value was characteristic of his fine taste and spirit, and also

symbolic of his wayward disposition, since money had been of

far greater service to him in his agricultural pursuits. Then a

catastrophe overtook Malherb, for within a week of his father's

death, the amphora disappeared. The bubble of glass vanished

like a bubble of water. Upon the morning of a certain day

Maurice had moved it from its place in a locked cabinet, displayed

it to relations and put it back again; but, returning to this

receptacle within two hours, he found the amphora was no longer

there. All that man could do men did to recover the treasure;

but not one sign of the amphora nor one shadowy clue as to its

situation rewarded expert search. Then that nine days' wonder

waned, and only the sufferer still smarted under his loss. He

called upon his brother to make good this grave decrement of

fortune, but the heir refused to do so, and a breach in the family

widened from that hour.

Maurice Malherb alone of all those interested in this theft had

suspected the old servant, Lovey Lee; yet knowledge of her

character and peculiar propensities led him most stoutly to

believe that she was the thief of the amphora. His father had

trusted and honoured this gaunt creature. He had admired her

remarkable physical courage, thrift, and common sense; and

while Mrs. Lee always annoyed and disgusted the family, Sir

Nicholas himself professed open respect for her, and found her

secretly useful in ways not published to the world. Yet, upon his

death, Lovey declared herself beyond measure shocked and

disappointed at a legacy of one thousand pounds which the knight

bequeathed to her. She fumed and fretted, spoke of unknown

services, and loudly cried that the dead had inflicted upon her a

cruel wrong.

Presently she vanished unregretted from the home of the

Malherbs; and after her departure Maurice began to associate

the old servant with his loss. The woman was traced and

surprised. She posed as one deeply injured, and proved to

demonstration that she knew nothing of the amphora. Yet its owner

was not convinced, and within a year he himself sought out

Lovey Lee in hope to make a bargain with her and recover his

property by paying a generous sum and promising to take no

step against her. She had, however, forfeited her life if guilty,

for men and women hanged on light accusations a century ago.

But Malherb never found the opportunity he desired, because

Mrs. Lee had quite disappeared when he made search for her.

During ten years he heard nothing of her fate; then chance

threw him into the old woman's company again under this

fury of a Dartmoor storm; and his first thought was the lost

treasure.

In answer to the straight question, Lovey revealed both

power of words and subtlety of mind. Her eyes glittered; each

wrinkle in her face gathered itself together, as though to repulse

an enemy; her sharp nose looked eager to stab him. She showed

her teeth, and Malherb noted that they were white and strong.

"Still harping on that gimcrack; still babbling to the world

that 'twas I stole it! What a fool must you be--an' not the first

Malherb as was that--to think I've got your fortune. Look

around you. Put your nose in that cupboard. You'll find

barley bread an' rancid grease--not the Malherb amphora. Do

'e see thicky wall? 'Tis piled o' peat, an' I live 'pon one side an'

my donkey an' pony an' cows 'pon t'other. They save fuel in

winter; they keep the air warm with their breath. I often go an'

sleep with 'em when 'tis too cold to bear my bones. But they

say that your glass toy was worth twenty thousand pounds. Even

a thief might have got rid of it for thousands. An' should I

be here--should I make a jackass my pillow, an' live on berries

and acorns like a bird, an' stew snails to my broth, if I'd gotten

thousands? One dirty thousand I did have--may your faither

roast for his mean trick--an' this here slack-limbed great boy,

Jack Lee, to keep with it. But----"

"Hear me!" interrupted Malherb. "What you say would be

true enough if it was not Lovey Lee who spoke. D'you think I

don't remember you and your ways--you that sold your good

food and lived on orts; that bartered your clothes and hated

wearing any raiment that was better than a scarecrow's?

Possession of my vase would be the light of your life. Not because

it is lovely; not because the genius of man never devised nor his

hand fashioned a nobler thing in such sort; but because it is

worth twenty thousand pounds, and because to be able to hug

that wealth all at once to your evil heart would be paradise

to you. That is why I believed you were the thief; and still

believe it."

She snarled at him, then made a slow answer.

"Believe as you please. I'll be very happy to hang for it--when

you find it. An' ban't no joy to me to see you under my

roof, for you hate me an' think evil against me, though I served

your parents so faithful as the humble can serve the great, an'

nursed your youngest brother at my own breast."

"'Twas chance, not intention, led me," he answered. "A few

years ago I longed to meet you, and make you an offer. Now

the opportunity has come. I'll be reasonable, as I always am.

You cannot take the amphora with you when you die. At least

see that my son----"

"Go your ways an' trouble me no more!" she cried, and

Malherb flashed into a passion.

"As to that, if this hole is your home, I'm like to trouble

you not a little, you cross-grained hag. See there--where the

heart of the storm is bursting now, at the other side of this great

marsh--there you'll presently find a granite house lifting itself

four-square to the winds. I also have chosen the Moor for a

home. May that knowledge bring you to better wisdom."

The old woman was deeply interested by this intelligence.

"What! You be coming? Then you haven't flourished down

country after all, but must climb up here an' begin again. You're

mad! An' 'tis a wicked thing to steal the Moor acre by acre as

you an' the likes of you be doing now. An' Duchy always ready

with its cursed greedy paws stretched out to take your money."

"I shall be a Moor-man, too, and enjoy rights of Venville," he

said, more to himself than to the woman.

"'Tis a wicked thing and flat robbery," she repeated. "All

the countryside be raw under it; but for what count the rights of

the poor? All the best of the Moor--all the best strolls for

grazing, where the grass be greenest--all the lew spots--all

stolen away one after t'other an' barred against the lawful

commoners; an' not a hand lifted. That hill be where my cows

do graze an' roam. Now you'll drive 'em from their proper lairs,

an' they'll have to bide on the coarse grass, an' I'll be stinted of

milk, as is my poor livelihood."

"You'll still have enough to fill the amphora," said Maurice

Malherb; then he turned to the boy.

"Bring you my horse, lad. The storm is past. I can get on to

Tor Royal now."

"An' tell Tyrwhitt what I tell you," said Lavey, "that him an'

the rest be no better'n a pack of thieves an' cadgers. 'Tis a

hanging matter if us steals the goose from the common; but nobody

says nought when the upper people steal the common from the

goose. There'll come a day of reckoning for Duchy yet--an'

Tyrwhitt too!"

She stood and watched him mount, with her bent head thrust

out of the door, like a gigantic fowl looking out of a pen.

Malherb made no answer, but turned to the boy.

"There's a crown for you, youngster, and I wish you a better

grandmother."

He went his way and the old woman twitched her long nose

and stared after him.

"Born fool--born fool--to waste what he've got left on this

here wilderness. An' so awful nigh to my----" She broke off

and turned to the boy, John.

"What did he give e', Jack? Quick! Out with it!"

As a matter of custom the youth gave up his money.

"A crown! Just the same great silly gawk he always was.

Never knowed anybody with such large notions touching money.

But them notions breed thin purses."

"A very fine gentleman all the same, granny, an' a rides butiful,

an' have a flashing eye, an' a voice as makes you run to do his

bidding. He'm awful proud, but I like him."

"'Like him!' You ungrateful little toad, you ought to cuss

him for speaking so wicked to your grandam."

"There was laughter in his eyes more'n once."

"Go an' pick snails; go an' pick snails! They'll swarm after

the rain. I see the ducks gulching 'em by the quart. My

snail-barrel be running low."

She watched young John start to obey, then spoke to herself.

"'Likes him!' Maybe he does. Blood's thicker'n water."

CHAPTER III

BESIDE EXE

Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt loudly applauded the decision

to which his guest had come, for it was the knight's

conviction that Dartmoor's high places offered health, work, and

reward to all men. Himself a friend of the Prince Regent, he

commanded attention from other personages also, and his own

estates by the new settlement of Prince Town grew rapidly; his

own enterprises awoke a sanguine spirit in others.

Three days after the thunderstorm, Mr. Malherb sat with the

High Bailiff of Dartmoor at the Duchy of Cornwall office; and,

such was his impetuous energy, that within two months the

walls of Fox Tor Farm began to rise. From Lew Trenchard

came the slates (a circumstance that set men wondering, for

reed thatch covered most heads upon the Moor in those days);

and teams of a dozen oxen struggled over the waste, dragging

sledges laden with stone. Roads there were none, and

no wheeled vehicle had ever entered that wild valley. Malherb

took up his temporary residence at an ancient tenement farm

within five miles of his land, and daily he rode to the scene of

action, planned and plotted, ordered and countermanded, now

entered upon passing periods of doubt, now threw aside his

dilemmas and turned to problems more easy of solution.

In the placid homestead beside Exe awoke stir and bustle too,

for the farm on the Moor was now progressing rapidly, and

Annabel Malherb and her daughter Grace had learnt that their

new dwelling was to be ready within a year--a time quite short in

those leisurely days for the transference of a home. Mother and

daughter contemplated the great change brooding over their

existence, with lively hopes and fears. The enterprise loomed

tremendous to their simple minds; but both trusted the master

in their hearts, if at times their heads whispered treachery.

The wife was of an ancient pattern, and set high religious

significance on marriage vows; the child loved her stormy father,

and bravely stood for him in the face of a critical and

unsympathetic world. To Malherb's faults these women blinded

themselves; his virtues they sang at all seasons. From Carew stock

the matron sprang, and her noble blood, her steadfastness of

view, her large trust in the goodness of Divine purpose, was all

her dowry, for wealth she had none. Grace Malherb resembled

her mother in mind and bearing. She was a simple, generous-hearted

maiden, and her life had passed without storm or stress.

She moved in the scented Devon lanes; she gathered the eglantine

and wild roses in spring, at autumn plucked the scarlet corals of

the iris or those glimmering green mosses that made fair vestment

for the red earth. But now her eyes were lifted to Dartmoor,

where its hills rose shadowy across the western sky; and awe and

wonder widened the limits of her mind, and mystery awoke in

dreams and added beauty to her face.

The imperious farmer had a whim to keep his wife and daughter

away from their future home until it should be ready to receive

them; and since they were wholly ignorant of the great table-land,

the contrast between Fox Tor with its adjacencies and the

meadow farm by Exe was destined to come upon both women

with a force almost bewildering. Even to the thin voices of the

labouring men, their chastened outlook upon life and their

estimate of happiness, all was changed.

The attitude of Annabel and Grace Malherb upon this radical

transformation will appear. From agricultural failure and

depression in the valleys they were at least well contented to escape.

On an autumn day they walked and talked together upon a

meadow path by the river. Maurice Malherb was returning from

the Moor for a while to look after his business, and here his wife

and daughter waited for him.

"That your father has built a house is well," declared

Mrs. Malherb, "for, come what may to his many projects, an abiding

place of our own will be a source of peace to me."

"And no more coal bills!" cried Grace. "Father has said

that we shall dig our coal out of the earth within sight of

home."

"'Tis peat he means--a very good form of warmth--yet I

doubt for the cooking."

"Barbara would have made shift with it. Oh, mother, what

shall we do without her?"

"I cannot guess yet."

"To think of all new servants--all new--but that horrid old

Kek!"

Mrs. Malherb smiled.

"Kekewich is a sort of skeleton at life's feast. The sour truth

and nothing but the truth he utters. Yet truth's a tonic, and

your father knows it."

"Truth is often very impertinent--especially as Kek tells it.

If any other man spoke to father as he does, he would soon be

measuring his length on the ground."

"It shows my husband's marvellous judgment that Kekewich

never angers him."

"To me the man is merely a piece of earth animated. Such

stuff would never have grown a good cabbage, so some wicked

fairy took it and made Kek. I'm sure he'll be a wet blanket on

hope, and, according to father, the mists are wet blankets enough

up there."

"Kekewich suffers much pain of body, and it makes him harsh.

He is an honest man, and your father gets good out of him.

That is enough for us. He is at least the soul of common sense."

But Grace shook her head.

"'Tis no more common sense to look always on the dark side

of things than, like dear father, to be over-hopeful."

"The golden mean----" murmured her mother.

"Rainbow gold," answered the girl. "Human nature cannot

find it. What----? But here comes Kek himself. He looks

spry and peart for once. That bodes trouble for somebody."

A gate opened upon the path, and in the red-gold light of

evening a man approached them. The ruddy earth had dyed

his garments to its rich hue, had soaked into his clothes and

body. He seemed incarnate clay. His frame had crooked, his

hair was grizzled. His mouth was like the stamp of a gouge

upon putty, and at first glance a grin appeared to sit upon his

face; but, better seen, one noted that the distortion was

accidental, and that in reality his features were stamped with the

eternal sadness of suffering.

"Three barrow pigs be just drownded," he said. "I seed 'em

fighting in the water; then they went down an' comed up again,

an' squeaked proper till the river chucked 'em. 'Tis always what

I said would happen."

"Where was Bob?" asked Grace, with much concern. "The

blame will fall upon him."

"So it will, but that won't bring the pigs alive again; though

they'll do very well for common people to eat if we can get 'em

ashore inside twenty-four hours."

The sound of a horse's hoofs broke upon the silence that

followed this bad news. Then Maurice Malherb appeared,

dismounted, kissed his wife and daughter, and nodded to the servant.

"All goes forward most prosperously," he said. "Since I

promised the foreman ten pounds if the chimney-pots were on by

Christmas, the place grows like honeycomb in June."

"Why, 'twas to be finished by then in any case, according to

contract, my dear!"

"True; but you know what these people are."

"You be one as would pay for honesty an' make it marketable,

'Tis a wrong way, an' don't do the world no good," grumbled

Kekewich.

"We must oil the wheels of progress, Kek," said his master.

"I want to begin. I want to fight next winter up there."

"Best way to fight Dartmoor winters be to flee from 'em,"

answered the old man.

"Nay, nay--that's a coward's policy. I'm going to do things

on Dartmoor that never have been done yet. I've not farmed

here all these years for nothing."

"No, by Gor! you've not."

Annabel Malherb and Grace now turned homeward, and the

farmer walked slowly beside Kekewich.

"Up aloft they make a great many mistakes. I mean the folk

of the Moor. But to see error is to avoid it with a man of

sense. And I've let the people find out already that they will

have a powerful friend in me. I learn from them what to do, as

well as what not to do. We shall want all kinds to help us. I

believe in a big staff on a farm--especially a grazing farm. The

old, the strong, the young--light work for the men that are three

score and ten, and worn with a life of labour, though useful yet.

And none shall have tail corn, as too often happens up there,

for who can do man's work on pig's food? And my cider shall

be cider, as it always has been--not the vinegar they call cider

on Dartmoor."

"'Ess--you'll make the place a hospital for them past

work--same as this be."

"Not I. But I'll keep self-respect in my people. The women

shall have sixpence a day out of doors. The labourer is worthy

of her hire."

"You'll never learn sense. You comed in the world to waste

money, not to make it, as I've always told 'e. Sixpence a day for

females! What next?"

"'Cast thy bread on the waters.' I'm a working Christian,

and a lesson to you, heathen that you are."

"A working Christian ban't no better for being a fool. What's

the sense of casting your bread 'pon the water while your wife an'

maiden be hungry upon the shore?"

"Hungry! You're mad!"

"'Twill come to hunger. You'd spoil any market--a very

good, open-hearted gentleman, us all knows; but sixpence a day

for outdoor females! 'Tis all summed up in that. There ban't a

outdoor woman in the world worth more'n fourpence."

"Ask their husbands. You're an old bachelor."

"'Ess--thank God!"

"Some sloes there are that even winter will never sweeten; and

you are such a one. How fares the rheumatism?"

"A sleeping dog for the minute. He was gnawing his bone

proper last week though. Maybe Dartymoor will lessen my

pangs."

"I hope so with all my heart. 'Tis the least it can do for you,

seeing how much you are going to do for it. Such men as you

are greatly wanted there."

"Such men as me take blamed good care to bide down in the

country--unless they've got reckless masters," said Kekewich.

Then he took Malherb's horse and departed, while anon the

farmer discoursed very learnedly to his wife concerning

Dartmoor. But his knowledge was borrowed; his enthusiasm was no

substitute for personal experience. Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt loved

the Moor like a mistress. To her faults he was blind; and he

had now inspired his friend with kindred ardour.

"I long to begin looking for men, but 'tis too soon yet,"

Malherb declared. "In a few months, however, I shall have

work for half a dozen."

"And a dairymaid, remember, since you design a complete

change, and will not keep our Annie," said Mrs. Malherb.

"Yes, the women understand calves and cows wonderfully well

up there. Such sheds as I am building--like the cloisters of a

cathedral! But stock on Dartmoor in winter needs snug houses

and generous treatment."

The women caught his mood, and prattled as though they

already saw prosperity beckoning out of the future.

"After the war 'twill all go well, I pray," said Mrs. Malherb.

"All human affairs languish just now; but when the war is ended

and Noel comes home---- Peter Norcot, from the Woollen

Factory at Chagford, was here in doleful dumps yesterday. The

East Indian Company, who is their first customer----"

"Did you see him, Grace?" interrupted Maurice.

The girl blushed and shook her head, whereupon her father's

face grew dark.

"For another year you shall have your way, Miss. Then---- I

have said it. Then comes the pinch, and somebody will have

to learn the duty of a child to its parent."

"I'll not marry with Peter--never," she said quietly. "He's

no man--a mere walking, talking chatterbox--a packman, with

nonsensical rags and tags of rhymes and jests for his

stock-in-trade. He would drive me mad with his borrowed wit."

"We shall see," said Malherb. "His wit may be borrowed;

his wealth is his own. Now go you and get a bottle of the

Burgundy. We'll not argue--we love one another too dearly."

But though he spoke calmly, his mood changed, and the

infernal temper that cursed his life, and lurked in his warm, big

heart like a wasp in a rose, broke forth. He heard the dismal

tale of the drowned pigs, dashed out of doors with his horsewhip,

and roared for the lad Robert. When Grace returned with his

wine, her father had disappeared; her mother, grown white and

careworn suddenly, stood by the window.

Shrieks echoed through the autumn gloaming and rang against

the walls of the farm; while, round a corner, the unfortunate

youth whose errors were responsible for his master's loss lifted

up a bitter voice and yelled for mercy under the lash.

"That'll teach you, you idle scoundrel! If you'd been drowned,

none would have cared a curse. But my pigs--there, and there,

and there; and never show your ugly face to me again, or

I'll----"

Bob fled howling, and through a night of smart and sleeplessness

wriggled in much misery. But only the present suffering of

his back troubled him, for he knew what day would bring as

surely as it brought the sun.

He met his master going the rounds before breakfast, and

touched his hat and fell into a great simulated lameness; whereon

Malherb gave him "Good morning" and threw him a shilling.

"Mind the pigs closer henceforth, you vagabond," he said;

then added to himself as he saw the boy's rueful countenance,

"and I will mind my temper closer, please God."

Kekewich appeared from a barn as the shilling was picked up.

"Ah," he said, when Bob had departed, "usual way. Even

the misfortune of they pigs have cost 'e a coin more'n there was

any call to pay."

CHAPTER IV

"THE MARROW OF THE FARM"

The grievance uttered by Lovey Lee against those who

settled upon Dartmoor and appropriated to particular uses

that ancient domain, was widespread a hundred years ago, and

is alive to-day. Aforetime some five-and-thirty ancient Forest

Tenements were held as customary freeholds, or copyholds, from

the Manor of Lydford independent of the Duchy, and these

venerable homesteads shall be found scattered in the most

secluded and salubrious regions of the Moor. Of these,

however, the Duchy has now secured more than half, and it will

probably acquire the remainder in process of time. But a

different sort of farm sprang up on every side a century since;

"newtake" tenements appeared; and Maurice Malherb now

proposed to create another such in the virgin valley of Fox Tor.

These constant enclosures have been a source of discontent upon

Dartmoor for many generations, and the peasants protest with

reason, for theirs is the unalienable right to this great waste, and

every acre fenced off against their sheep and cattle is a defiance

of ancient charters and a robbery of the poor. The cry was old

before Tudor times, and you shall read in _Henry VI._ (Part 2)

how the Second Peter, representing his fellow-townsmen, petitions

"against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing the commons of

Melford."

And so it happened that Malherb's advent made him more

enemies than friends in the border villages and among the

scattered homesteads of the Moor.

A little knot of grumblers were met together at the "Saracen's

Head," near Prince Town--a modest tavern long since superseded

by the present famous hostelry at Two Bridges. This party now

aired its wrongs, and albeit no man amongst them had ever set

eyes upon Malherb, all spoke an evil word against him, and each

man could report some sinister story gleaned from another. It

appeared certain upon these rumours that the new "squatter"

was a hard and rapacious rascal.

"The place will be finished home to the roof next year," said

a thin, straight man with a long beard and a face so hidden in

hair that little more than his nose and eyes protruded from it.

"Fox Tor Farm 'twill be named, an' Lovey Lee, up to Siward's

Cross, have said as she'll bewitch him from the day he enters the

house."

"Somebody did ought to tell the Prince Regent," murmured

a very old man who sat by the fire. "He don't know about

these here goings on, an' how Duchy fills his pockets with gold

stolen from our pockets. This place was given to us in the early

ages of the earth, an' if the Prince knowed the rights of it, he

wouldn't take the money."

"What be Duchy, Uncle Smallridge?" inquired a weak-eyed

youth with flaxen hair and fluffy, corn-coloured down about his

cheeks and chin. "For my part I can't grasp hold of it. Be it

a live thing as you might say?"

The old man addressed as Uncle Smallridge laughed and spat

into the fire.

"Duchy's alive enough; yet 'tis wasting wind to cuss it an'

breath to talk against it. 'Tis alive, but it can't be hurled; it

have ears, but it be deaf to the likes of us. It laughs at us, but

we never hear the laughter."

"An' it's got a deep pocket," said the hairy man. "What say

you, neighbour Woodman?"

"I say, 'tis a monster," answered another speaker. "'Tis the

invention of the Devil to breed anger an' evil thoughts in us.

Here be I, Harvey Woodman of Huccaby, son of Harvey

Woodman of Huccaby, grandson of Harvey Woodman of

Huccaby, great-grandson of Harvey Woodman of Huccaby;

an' I tell you that the vexations of the Duchy have so lighted

'pon my family from generation to generation, that it has got in

our blood an' we stand to it same as mankind in the Bible do

stand to the seed of the serpent."

"Maybe--with a difference, Harvey," answered Uncle Smallridge.

"Duchy'll bruise your head for you, an' your son's head,

same as it did your forbears, but you won't bruise its heel; for

why? It haven't got no heel to bruise."

"'Tis a wicked whole made up of decent bits," declared the

hairy man, whose name was Richard Beer. "The gents as stand

for Duchy, take 'em one by one, be human men same as us; but

when they meets together, the Devil's in the chair every time.

An' now another two hundred acres gone, an' all that butivul

stroll for cattle beyond Fox Tor Mire walled off against my

heifers an' yours."

"I hate the chap afore I see him. He've got a wicked-sounding

name," said Thomas Putt, the youth with weak eyes.

"If we was men instead of mice, we'd rise up an' show Duchy

that right's right, and that its ways be the ways of a knave," said

Harvey Woodman. Then he shook his bull neck and drank

deep.

"Supposing us all had your great courage, no doubt something

would be done," answered Beer. "What you say be true;

but we spend our indignation in words an' leave none for deeds."

"Where there's smoke there's fire," declared the ancient by

the hearth. "If I was a younger man I'd lead you forth against

Duchy an' be the fust to heave down they walls rising up-along--ay,

an' call upon the God o' Justice to lend His A'mighty Hand."

"Which He wouldn't do; for there ban't no miracles now,

Uncle Smallridge," said Thomas Putt.

"Ban't there? I think there be, else you'd be shut up, Tom,

an' not roaming free."

This allusion made the company laugh, for, despite his slim

shape and peering eyes, Tom Putt was a daring poacher--one of

Izaac Walton's wicked but most skilful disciples. He killed many

a salmon, and he shot many a partridge intended for a nobler

destiny than slaughter at his hand.

A stranger entered the bar of the "Saracen's Head" at this

moment. The man shook the wet from his coat, went to the fire,

and ordered a glass of hot brandy and water.

"Nice plum weather still, your honour," said Uncle Smallridge,

as he made his way from the blaze. "The sun have been drawing

up the autumn rains these many days, but winter's here at last.

The water will all come home again in snow."

"Wet enough," said the other. "I marvel your grass here

doesn't rot in the ground."

"An' so it do in some places," answered Richard Beer; "as

if it wasn't hard enough to get a living for the dumb things

without walling the Moor off against the rightful owners. Come

presently there won't be a bit of sweet grazing us can call our

own. Now here's this Mr. Malherb--a foreigner from down

Exeter way--bitten off a few more hundred acres of the best."

"Who says any ill of him?" asked the stranger.

"'Tis only hearsay," declared Woodman. "There may be good

in him; but I wish he'd bided away."

"Lord knows I wouldn't speak no malice against the gentleman,"

continued Beer, "for I am going to ax him to give me

work. He wants a few understanding chaps, 'tis said. An' I

know the Moor better'n my Bible, more shame to me. You'll

bear me out, neighbours, that I can get what man may from

Dartymoor soil?"

"You'm very witty at it, us all knows," admitted Harvey

Woodman.

"How would you tackle those wet slopes under Fox Tor?"

asked the new-comer.

"Well," answered Beer, "drain, drain, drain an' graze, graze,

graze; an' leave the natural herbage as much as you may. You

won't better it."

The stranger laughed.

"If Maurice Malherb can't improve upon Nature on Dartmoor,

'tis pity," he declared.

But Richard Beer shook his head.

"You've got to follow in these parts, not lead. Nature do know

her own business; an' you can't teach her, for her won't larn.

Farming be a sort of coaxing her to your way o' thinking. There's

two sorts o' stuff the place be made of: peaty moor, as'll yield

good grass; an' swamp, as be useful to nought but a frog. This

here Mr. Malherb must drain, an' pare, an' burn in reason; but

he must not overdo it."

"Mind you, the natural things have their value," put in old

Smallridge. "French furze at four years' growth do fetch a pound

an acre. An' if the land be fatted properly the man might grow

potatoes."

"Potatoes do eat up all afore you eat them," said Beer; "though

the appleing of 'em do keep the earth sweet an' mellow. Then

he'll follow with barley, not wheat."

"As to the chances of corn?" asked the stranger. His wet

coat smoked and sent up a fire-lit steam in the darkening chamber.

"Corn's a ticklish business, master," replied Beer. "Yet 'tis

to be done if you'll bring your soil to a husband-like tilth an' not

spare lime. Burn clean, plough, an' dress as generously as your

pocket will stand. Then spread fresh mould afore the seed earth.

Earth must be fetched, for you've got to remember there's none

there. Then sow your wheat--ten pecks to the acre--harrow in,

strike out the furrows, and pray God for eighteen bushels to the

acre. He can do it an' He's a minded. Next year the man must

refresh his stubble, plough, sow, hack in, an' hope for ten or twelve

bushels. Then turnips must follow--not broadcast like our fathers

sowed 'em--for that's to spread a table for the fly, but the

two-furrow way. Then the land must have three years' fallow; an'

that's the whole law an' the prophets about it, so far as I know

anything."

"In my youth," said Uncle Smallridge, "when the world was

awful backward at farming, us growed nought but rye; an' a fool

here an' there do still cling to his fathers' coat-tails an' go on

growing it. But not one in the forefront of the day, like Dick

Beer."

"All the same," concluded Mr. Beer, "the gentleman's best

stand-by will be beasts, like the rest of us. It don't pay trying to

tame Dartmoor--he'll soon find that out, despite all the talk of

Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt an' such-like great men."

"And you want work?" asked the listener.

"So I do. I'm ready to try an' make a fortune for anybody."

"Why are you out of employment?"

"My last master have gived up," confessed the labourer.

"Did you make his fortune?"

"To be plain, he was very unlucky. I couldn't help him.

Nobody couldn't. He was overlooked, I reckon. The evil eye

was upon him."

"Ah!--Well, Maurice Malherb is not frightened of the evil

eye. What wages do you get?"

"Nought to trumpet about. Seven shilling a week--'tis the

usual wage, but pinching. My wife be good for two shilling.

So us do very well--thanks to God, who didn't send no childer."

"I'll give you ten shillings a week."

"You! Who be you, master?'

"I am Maurice Malherb, of Fox Tor Farm. Work must begin

in a month. I'm looking round me. My head man comes up

presently. But he doesn't know Dartmoor. You appear to do so.

Provided your credentials and character are good, I'll engage you

on trial."

"Aw jimmery! this be great news. Ten shilling a week!"

"My workpeople will be the marrow of my farm. I know that

very well."

"You'd do wise to take his wife along with him, your honour,"

said Uncle Smallridge. "Such a dairymaid ban't often met with.

Fifteen cows she've been known to tackle with no more than help

in the milking. That's three more'n any other woman I've ever

heard about."

"'Tis true, your honour," declared Richard Beer; "though my

own wife, 'tis true. There be some as would rob the hearse an'

chase the driver--such be always crying out for help in their work;

but my Dinah's different. A towser for work; an' her temper

pretty near so sweet as the cream she makes."

"She shall come," answered Mr. Malherb. "My lady has the

usual pin-money," he continued. "The poultry, pigs, and dairy

produce accrue to her; and out of it she keeps the house, save in

bread and green stuff. She will need a good dairymaid who can

go to market."

"An' if there's any more men you want, Woodman here be a

masterpiece at ploughing an' wall-building an' handling stone in

general, ban't you, Harvey?" asked Mr. Beer, solicitous for his

friend.

"Yes, I be," said Mr. Woodman. "Us was somebody in the

land once, but now I've only got a little old cottage left at

Huccaby, though in the past my people owned the farm there an'

scores an' scores of acres. But us have gone down. I'll come

if you want me; an' my son be a very handy lad. I live by

cutting peat an' building walls an' such like; but 'tis a poor

business, an' I'd gladly go over to you, master, if you'll give

me a trial."

"An do, please your honour, find me a job," cried Thomas

Putt. "I wouldn't be so bold an' 'dashus as to ax for a shilling a

day; but, afore God, I'll do great deeds for ninepence!"

"An' what great deeds can you do?" asked Malherb. "You

should go to a physician for your eyes."

"They be only pink-rimmed, your worship," explained the

owner. "They'm diamonds for seeing with--'specially by night."

"Putt be a very good man if he's got a better to watch him,

ban't you, Thomas?" asked Mr. Beer, and the poacher admitted it.

"'Tis so," he confessed frankly. "I can't stand to work if I

know there ban't no eye upon me. 'Tis my nature."

"Not but what you've got your vartues," added Beer kindly.

"An' come his honour wants a salmon, or a woodcock, or a fat

hare, he can't do better than go to you for it."

Mr. Malherb enjoyed this subject.

"I'm a sportsman myself, my lads. I love every bit of

sporting--gun, horse, hound, and rod. You shall have your chance,

Tom; but no poaching, mind, or it's all up with you. Now

I shall want but two more men and one more woman and my

household will be complete."

As he spoke a figure crawled out from a corner. No word had

he spoken either before or since Malherb's arrival, but now this

singular man approached, pulled his hair, and addressed the new

power. He looked almost a dwarf, but his head was of normal

size, and his expression betokened character. The labourer had

seen sixty years. He was quite bald and as wrinkled as an old

russet apple. His costume differed much from that of the company,

for it seemed that he was chiefly clad in the pelts of vermin.

A martin's skin furnished his cap, and at its side glimmered the

sky-blue wing-feathers of a jay; his coat was green corduroy, but

his waistcoat was made of moleskins, and he had a white one on

each side for the pocket-lappet.

"I be Leaman Cloberry, coney-catcher an' mole-catcher," he

said. "No man can teel a trap like me."

"I shan't want a coney-catcher," declared Malherb.

"Not regular, not regular; but off an' on, when the varmints

get too free. There's other things, too. There's grays--or

badgers, as you'd call 'em; there's pole-cats, an' martin-cats, an'

hawks, an' owls, not to name foxes."

"Foxes?" said Malherb, frowning.

"Plenty of 'em; an' I gets six-an'-eightpence for a fox. You'll

always find 'em hanging up on the yew tree in the churchyard, so

that all the parish on its way to worship 'pon Sundays may see

I earn my money."

"Kill foxes?"

"All varmints, your honour--from a hoop[*] to a hedge-pig."

[*] _Hoop_: A bullfinch.

"The man who kills foxes will never earn a shilling from me,"

thundered Malherb. "Out of my sight, you old miscreant! Kill

foxes! What is Tyrwhitt about? I'd hang you to the church

yew yourself if I had my way. Honest foxes to be killed by

a clown!"

Leaman Cloberry regarded the angry settler without flinching.

"If you're that sort, your people be likely to have uneasy

dreams," he said. "As to foxes, there'll be plenty for you an' the

likes of you to run after on horseback--no need to fear that. I've

killed but ten dogs an' two vixens in cub this year. I lay you'll

meet more foxes around your hen-roosts up-along than you'll find

time to hunt. Then you'll be sorry you growed so fiery against

me."

"Get you gone, you mouldy rascal! Go to your vermin and

foul the air no more."

The mole-catcher smiled and put on his hat.

"I'll go," he said, "since you be too great a man to breathe

alongside of me. Good evening to your honour; an' my duty

to you."

Then he made his exit, singing:

"A ha'penny for a rook;

A penny for a jay;

A noble for a fox;

An' twelvepence for a gray!"

It was the tariff of his trade, and he sang the words aloud at

all seasons and in all company.

Nobody spoke after Malherb's explosion; but a moment

afterwards he grew calm again, finished his liquor, and prepared

to depart.

"Come with your papers on Monday week to Tor Royal. And

now drink success to Fox Tor Farm, and when next you hear of

Maurice Malherb, remember that the devil is not so black as he

is painted."

He flung half a crown upon the counter and went his way,

while the men in eager concert cried, "So us will, your honour!"

"Long life an' fortune to your honour!" and "Good luck to Fox

Tor Farm!"

When Malherb was gone they discussed the matter, and no

emotion but a very active interest marked their attitude.

"Dartymoor'll soon larn him not to fling half-crowns about,"

said Uncle Smallridge.

"Ten shilling a week!" mused Richard Beer. "He must be

made of money."

"More likely soft in his head," answered a woman behind the

bar.

CHAPTER V

DAWN

With the following spring Fox Tor Farm was habitable,

and Mrs. Malherb and her daughter prepared to enter

their new home. They had spent the winter in Exeter, for the old

farm by Exe passed into other hands at Christmas, but Mr. Malherb

himself already lived upon the Moor. In February he had gone

into residence with Kekewich, and though the place was still but

partially completed, his labourers also began work upon the scene

and made shift to dwell there. Good apartments for the people

were now finished, and Mr. Malherb's cattle had also arrived to

fill the fine yard and comfortable byres erected for their winter

uses. Kekewich cried failure from the first, but none laboured

more zealously to avert it, none toiled early and late with more

strenuous diligence than he.

True to his whim, the master denied Annabel Malherb and

Grace one sight of Fox Tor Farm until they actually arrived to

dwell there; and even then he so ordered their advent that it fell

in darkness. At ten o'clock upon a night in mid-April, mother

and daughter passed over the nocturnal Moor, vaguely felt its

surrounding immensity, and turned from the unknown earth,

where it rolled formless and vast around them, to the familiar

moon, whose face they knew.

From Holne, a border village whither they had driven by stage,

Mrs. Malherb and her daughter now rode on pillions; while behind

them came the tinkle of little bells and the thud of heavy hoofs

where six pack-horses followed. Annabel sat behind her husband;

while Grace had Harvey Woodman for her escort. Through the

silent darkness they passed, and the mother listened to Malherb's

hopes, and sometimes kissed the round ear next her while she

echoed his sanguine mind. But Grace paid little heed to Woodman,

who discoursed without tact upon the complicated miseries

of a Dartmoor life, and explained how that his father, grandfather,

great-grandfather, had all gone steadily downhill before the

insidious Duchy.

A granite cross at length loomed up against the sky on a lofty

ridge, and its significance here uplifted upon the confines of her

new life sent a throb to Mrs. Malherb's heart.

"This be Ter Hill," said Harvey Woodman to Grace; "an'

thicky cross be one of many set up around about by God-fearing

men some time since Adam. Now, if you'll look down into the

valley, you'll see a light like a Jack o' Lantern. That's your home,

Miss."

With mingled feelings the women gazed, where square and ruddy

spots, sunk deep in the silver night, outlined the windows of the

farm and welcomed them. The pack-horses, with heavily-laden

crooks upon their backs, arrived. Then Malherb led the way,

and his cavalcade went slowly down the hill.

Only one face from the past welcomed Mrs. Malherb and Grace,

where Kekewich stood and lighted them up the steps to the front

door. Supper awaited the party; then, aweary, and with the

emotions of a stranger in a strange land, the girl retired to her

little chamber facing west, and her mother sought the company

of Dinah Beer and Mrs. Woodman. She found them amiable,

courteous, and kindly. Their outlook upon life was not sanguine,

yet a warmth of heart marked them, and the sternness of their

days had left no special impress upon their simple natures.

Sympathy brightened their eyes--a sentiment that astonished

the new mistress, for she had not often met with it from her

inferiors. Yet these women appreciated the fact that she was

faced with new problems and new difficulties. They had also

seen something of Mr. Malherb and learned to appraise his

qualities.

"You'll come to it, ma'am," said Dinah Beer, "same as your

butivul cows did. They was worritted cruel at first. That gert

red 'un, with a white star on her forehead--'Marybud' by name--why,

I could a'most swear that her shed tears when first she got

here; but now she an' the rest have settled to the Moor an' larned

the ways of it like Christians."

"An' master be to the manner born," declared Mary Woodman.

"My man says he never seed a gentleman gather knowledge

so quick. Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt from Tor Royal was over

here last week, an' he said us had all done wonders."

The wife readily gathered up this comfort, and presently, ere

she entered into sleep, a gentle satisfaction crowned her spirit,

and her thoughts were a prayer, half thankfulness, half petition.

Her daughter, too, from gloom arose into a healthy cheerfulness.

She set about ordering her treasures to her liking, and did

not retire until midnight. Then, where a sinking moon touched

the river mists with light, she gazed, plucked happiness from that

wonderful spectacle, and so slept contented and trustful of her

destiny.

Early in the morning, hungering for the first glimpse of this

new world, Grace hastened to her window and looked out upon

Dartmoor. A lark, invisible in the blue above, found her heart

in that dawn hour. The day was glorious, and the bird music

dimmed her eyes, so that the girl had to blink a little before she

could see the outspread world. Beneath her the farm threw its

shadow upon reclaimed heath and ploughed land. New grey

walls extended round about, and raw pinewood gates marked the

enclosures. Beyond stretched out the cup of the mire, and sere

rushes still spread a pallor upon it, where ridge after ridge of peat

ranged away until detail vanished in the prevailing monochrome.

Red sunrise fires touched this waste into genial colour, and

threads of gold flashed through its texture where streamlets ran.

Majestic size and fundamental simplicity marked the materials of

the sunrise pageant. The Swincombe River sang on her way to

Dart; Fox Tor's turrets, touched with rose, ascended southward,

and beyond, looming darkly against the south, appeared the

bosom of Cater's Beam. A spire of blue smoke, miles away in

the brown distance, marked Lovey Lee's hut, while northerly rose

infant plantations at Tor Royal, and the spring light of larches

made a home upon the hill, and spoke of human enterprise.

Grace drank the crystal air and listened to the lark. Then

another sight arrested her, and she noted, upon a little mound at

the edge of the river, a cross above three broad, shallow steps.

It stood upon a square pedestal which had been bevelled by

chamfering around the socket, and Grace knew that she saw the

historic cenotaph of Childe the Hunter.

The lark, the river, the cross, all spoke their proper message,

and kind chance had willed that this first day of the new life

should be lovely, heralded by sunshine, unfolded beneath blue

skies. Grace Malherb's young spirit swam out through the golden

gates of the morning, and she praised her God in wordless

thoughts. A leaden day, haunted by low and crawling mists, a

welcome of dripping rain, and the plover's melancholy mew, had

awakened other emotions; but instead was this embodiment of

triumphant spring--a dawn of cloudless glory and the lark's

uplifted joy.

Half an hour later Grace was watching Mrs. Beer milk

"Marybud." Dinah--a brown-faced woman with neat wrists and ankles,

grey eyes, and a face still pretty--looked up from under her

sunbonnet, where her cheek was pressed against the cow, and

saw a tall, rather thin maiden who had just stopped growing.

With loving hand Nature had completed her girl's five feet eight

inches, and now she was about to turn the child into a fair

woman. This the dairymaid readily perceived.

"Us must keep the best of the cream for 'e, Miss," she said.

"You wants for they pretty hands to be plumper, an' your

cheeks too."

"How kind to think of such a thing! I can return the

compliment, Mrs. Beer."

"Nay; I've had my plump time. I be near five-an'-forty. Yet

I was round once, an' so milky as a young filbert nut. Now I be

in the middle season, when us does our hard work. But you--I

seem Dartymoor will soon bring colour to your cheeks, though

it couldn't make they eyes no brighter. Here, take an' drink,

will 'e? I love to see young things drinking milk. Milk be the

very starting-place of life, come to think of it. I never had no

babies, worse luck, though I always felt a gert softness for 'em."

"But I'm not a baby, Mrs. Beer; I'm nearly seventeen!"

Grace laughed and drank. The lustre of her red lips dulled

through the milky film. She gasped after her drink, and Dinah

saw her small white teeth.

"You'm a bowerly maiden," she said, with extreme frankness.

"So lovely as the bud o' the briar in June; an' Dartymoor will

make a queen of 'e afore long. Fresh air, an' sweet water, an'

miles of heather to ride over. Your eyes be old friends to me,

miss--the brown of the leaves in autumn--just like my dead

sister's."

"I have my father's eyes," said Grace; but Dinah questioned it.

"His be darker far. There ban't no storm in yours--they

don't flash lightning. An', please God, they'll have no cause to

rain either. Wealth's a wonderful thing, though what's best

worth money ban't purchasable all the same."

Richard Beer had arrived and heard his wife's platitude.

"Money's a power 'pon Dartymoor, however," he said, "an'

I'm glad the master 'pears to be made of it, if I may say so

without offence, Miss."

"Not at all," declared Grace. "Father isn't made of money,

and you mustn't think so. He looks for a return very soon for all

his outlay."

Beer touched his hat with great respect before answering.

"As to that, mustn't count on no miracles, Miss Malherb. The

master be larning that a'ready. Us can't go no quicker'n Nature's

own gait. She won't be pushed because a chap here an' there

goes bankrupt. 'Tis only at love-making she works so fast, not

at farm-making."

"Her ways do often look slow to a man in a hurry," said

Dinah.

"But us have got to wait for 'em to work, all the same,"

concluded Beer, "an' all the cusses of David never made one blade

o' grass sprout so quick as a drop of warm rain."

This apparent allusion to her father's forcible modes of speech

saddened Grace.

"'Tis very true," she answered, then turned to the house and

went in to breakfast.

CHAPTER VI

MR. PETER NORCOT

Three months after the arrival of Maurice Malherb's family

at Fox Tor Farm, a visitor appeared to spend some days

with them. Mr. Peter Norcot set out from his home at Chagford

and rode across the Moor on a fine morning in July; while before

him at dawn a pack-horse with his luggage had started upon the

same journey. Leaving certain final directions at the great

factory by Teign River, in which he was a partner, the wool-stapler

ascended from his home to Dartmoor, climbed a broad common

or two, and in little more than an hour after noon he trotted

southward over the mighty crest of Hameldon.

Norcot was a handsome, fair man of five-and-thirty. The only

ugly feature of his face appeared in an exaggerated chin. For

the rest, his countenance showed strength and abundant

determination. Any special distinction was lacking from it. He

exhibited a breezy and amiable exterior to the world, loved a jest

and doted upon an epigram. Frank honesty marked his utterances,

and his outlook upon life was generous. He had no

enemies, and enjoyed considerable wealth, for despite the wars,

his business prospered, and his grievances in connection with it

were more apparent than real. A humorous and hearty manner

concealed some traits of Peter's character, for tremendous tenacity

of purpose hid itself beneath superficial lightness of demeanour.

He had a great gift of constancy that rose superior to side issues.

His first object in life was to marry Grace Malherb, and now he

strove to win his way by careful study of the girl and by every

delicate art that he knew. Her father was upon his side, and the

end seemed assured; but Peter desired that Grace should come

to him of her own free will.

Now misfortune unexpected overtook the lover, for out of fiery

sunshine crept a sudden mist, and soon the clouds grew dense

and the day changed. The fog in streaks and patches swept

down with heavy and increasing density, until man and horse

were brushed with its cold fingers. The light waned as evening

approached, and the mist thickened steadily into fine dense rain.

Norcot's hair dripped, his eyebrows were frosted, and he felt the

cold drops running from his hat under his collar. The

unexpected change of weather caused him no irritation, for the man

was never known to lose his temper, and that fact, in a tempestuous

and ill-educated age, won for him wide measure of respect.

Now he murmured scraps from various sacred and profane

authors and addressed them aloud to his horse.

"We must keep the weather on our right cheek, nag. Tut,

tut! How vast this silence and gloom! It helps us to know our

place in nature, albeit we have lost our place in it. Lost, and

found by being lost! Ha, ha!

"'Come, man,

Hyperbolized Nothing! know thy span,

Take thine own measure here: down, down and bow

Before thyself in thine Idea, thou

Huge emptiness!

"Crashaw, I thank thee. And I pray that thou wilt help me

with Lady Grace. 'All daring dust and ashes,' indeed, to hope

in that quarter; but time is on my side. She must yield--eh,

Victor?"

The horse pricked his ears at sound of his name and splashed

on, leaving a trail behind him where he had brushed the moisture

from heath and grass. By Norcot's calculations he should now

have been nearing the valley of West Dart, and from thence he

hoped to hit the mouth of the Swincombe River, and so reach

his destination; but time passed; the faint wind blew now on

one cheek, now upon the other, and at length Mr. Norcot realised

that he was quite hopelessly lost. The darkness crowded in upon

him and elbowed him; not one whisper penetrated it. He

pulled up, drank a dram from a little silver spirit flask, and

listened for the murmur of running water. But another sound

suddenly rewarded him. A shadow flitted across the gloom, and

a thin, old voice was heard lifted up in song.

"A ha'penny for a rook;

A penny for a jay;

A noble for a fox;

An' twelvepence for a gray!'"

"Well met, neighbour!" shouted Norcot. "And since you

sing, I doubt not you are happy; and since you are happy, you

have a home and know the way to it."

"'Ess fay! An' you too, sir. I be Leaman Cloberry,

coney-catcher of Dartmeet. An' who be you?"

"One Peter Norcot, from Chagford. This is not my country,

and I'm seeking the River Swincombe--have been doing so for

many hours in vain. Now 'Light thickens; and the crow Makes

wing to the rooky wood.' But where's the river?"

"You be within half a mile of it, your honour."

"Then I came straighter than I knew. That's the reward for

always going straight, Mr. Cloberry; when darkness overtakes us,

we go straight still. It has become a habit. I want the new

farm of Mr. Malherb beneath Cater's Beam. And you shall

show me the way thereto."

Leaman Cloberry shifted a small bag that he carried on his

shoulder. He was bound in the same direction; but while

Norcot might be supposed a friend to Fox Tor Farm, Cloberry

crept thither with intentions the reverse of friendly. He had

chosen the fog for a dark purpose. Now, however, he hid his

designs and spoke.

"I know the place and a good few of the men as works there."

"How do they prosper? Malherb and Dartmoor must be

flint and steel. Yet the man will prove tougher than the granite,

I hope."

Cloberry stroked a red mark on his cheek.

"Did you hear tell what chanced to Holne Church a week

ago?" he asked.

"No, I did not."

"My gentleman from Fox Tor Farm took his ladies there to

worship. An' I comed along same time with a vixen fox an' two

cubs to hang 'em up in the sight of the nation, so as all men

might see I'd earned my money. An' he falled on me like a

cat-a-mountain, an' used awfulest language ever let fly in a

burying-ground, an' hit me across the face with his whip."

"I'm heartily sorry and ashamed to hear it. Under a sacred

fane, too! I grieve for this. It is a lesson to us all. Yet to

kill foxes! Tut, tut! 'Volpone, by blood and rank' a

gentleman.' I preserve game myself, yet pay tithe unquestioning to

reynard."

"'Twas assault and battery, whether or no. An' Squire he

took Malherb's part, an' parson was o' my side. An' I said as

folks must live, an' Malherb, in his lofty way, sees the force of

that, an' flings me half a sovereign. But I let it bide on the

ground. You can't batter a man like that on a Sunday morning

for money. I'm set against him, and I'll set other folk against

him too."

"Think better of it. Half a sovereign is a very convenient

embodiment of ten shillings. Take this one for showing me my

way. 'I would be friends with you and have your love.' It is

my rule of life."

Cloberry accepted the coin thus offered, declared that Peter

was a hero, and presently put him upon his road to Fox

Tor. But after Mr. Norcot had trotted out of sight, his guide

followed in the same direction. The old man skulked under a

wall until darkness had fallen upon the moor; then, walking out

boldly into a fine piece of meadow-land upon which Maurice

Malherb especially prized himself, he opened his sack and took

therefrom a box with a pierced top. Gentle squeaking came

from inside this receptacle; and now, opening it, Cloberry

released a dozen fat and lively moles.

"There, my little velvet-coats!" he said; "go to work an' tear

the heart out of him when he sees what you can do. Increase

an' multiply, my dears, like the children of Israel; an' presently

I'll bring up a dozen more to help 'e!"

The moles crawled about uneasily, but presently began to dig

and sink into the earth. The fog had lifted, and the lights of

Fox Tor Farm now shone across the night. Leaman Cloberry

shook his fist at them.

"That's a beginning," he growled. "An' I'll bring rats for

your byres an' stoats for your hen-roosts. I'll plague you; I'll

fret your gizzard! An' I wish that I was Moses, for then I'd

fetch along all the plagues of Egypt against 'e an' break your

stone heart!"

Meanwhile, as the vermin-catcher tramped homeward, and

presently so far recovered good temper as to sing his only

song, Peter Norcot found a welcome and much sympathy.

Malherb now regarded himself as an old Dartmoor man, familiar

with every possible freak and manifestation of Nature upon the

waste. He explained to Norcot the course proper to be pursued

in a fog, and Peter, whose knowledge of the Moor extended from

boyhood, listened very gravely, acknowledged his errors, and

praised the older man's shrewdness in the matter.

Before dinner Mr. Malherb, in all the splendour of fine black,

new pumps, and a frilled shirt-front with a diamond in it, went

off to his cellar for those remarkable wines that he assured

familiar guests were now no longer in the market; while the

lover enjoyed some precious moments with his lady. Grace

looked fair to see in her white muslin and blue ribbons. She

wore the high waist of the period; her hair towered in a mass on

the top of her head, yet little prim curls hung like flowers on

either side; white shoes cased her feet, and the elastic of them

made a cross between her ankles.

"The Moor suits you nobly, dear Grace," said Mr. Norcot,

who was himself resplendent. "I never saw you lovelier."

"Do leave all that," she said. "Let us meet in peace."

"So be it," he answered, and continued--

"'Gracie, I swear by all I ever swore,

That from this hour I shall not love thee more,--

What! love no more? Oh! why this altered vow?

Because I cannot love thee more than now!'"

A gentle look came into his blue eyes as he gazed upon her.

It was not natural to them, but he had practised it often before

the looking-glass, and could assume it at pleasure.

"Still occupied with other men's jests, Peter. If you only

understood me! Do you know why I love Dartmoor? Because

it leaves me alone. Because it cares no more for me than for

the ant that crawls on the grass-blade. So big, so grand, so stern

it is. And it always tells the truth."

"You are quite wrong. The Moor loves with a hopeless

passion. It has kissed you. I see the print of its kisses on your

cheek. It has kissed your little elbow, for I note a dimple there

that is new to me."

Grace frowned and pulled up her mitten. She sat upon the

music-stool, struck a note or two, and did not answer. Peter

sighed.

"You are cold, you are cold," he said. "What does Wycherley

remark? 'Out of Nature's hands they came plain, open, silly,

and fit for slaves, as she and heaven intended 'em; but damned

Love----' There it is! 'Blessed Love,' if you happened to

love me; doubly, trebly 'damned Love,' since your heart is set

on somebody else."

"Not at all. I love nobody. I hate the word."

"And you are seventeen to-morrow!"

"'On that auspicious day began the race

Of every virtue joined in one sweet Grace.'"

"What is my birthday to you, Peter?"

"You can ask that! I _must_ answer in an epigram. There is

only one reply possible. Martial--but I know a beautiful

translation:--

"'Believing hear what you deserve to hear:

Your birthday as my own to me is dear;

But yours gives most; for mine did only lend

Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend.'

Only that word 'friend' is too weak."

"I wish you would be content with friendship, and not fret me

to death with all this nonsense. Do you know that father has

bought me a lovely hunter for a birthday gift?"

"I do. And that horse will want a whip--until he knows your

voice; and that whip Peter Norcot has provided. 'Tis almost

worthy of you--a pretty toy."

"I don't want your whip," she said.

Mr. Norcot cast about for something from _The Taming of

the Shrew_; but he changed his mind. Meantime Grace spoke

again.

"I shall be sorry to give up riding my poor little 'Russet.' Still,

he's not up to my weight now; and he's growing elderly

and lazy, and I'm to hunt next season. Won't it be lovely?"

"Our Dartmoor blades will hunt no more foxes; they'll hunt

for smiles from you," said Peter gloomily.

"You shall have some good long gallops with me if you will.

I'm mastering the country well, and now with 'Cæsar'--that's my

new horse--I shall be able to go twice as far as formerly."

"I rejoice. You must take me upon your favourite rides."

"One has a horrid fascination for me. 'Tis to the top of

North Hisworthy Tor above Prince Town. From there you can

look straight down into that great War Prison--the saddest sight

for any woman's eyes."

Mr. Malherb entered at this moment.

"A tender fool," he said, "and her mother no better. Eight

thousand French tigers behind those bars; and these women in

their silly way would set 'em loose to-morrow."

"They long for their dens and their cubs, poor fellows," said

Grace.

"They fought for their country--that's their only sin," murmured

Annabel Malherb.

"They fought against England--that's their sin," retorted her

husband hotly. "The lying, slippery rascals! Dartmoor's too

good for 'em. Honour! Three broke parole at Ashburton last

week!"

"Isn't it wonderful? They play games and hold concerts and

have play-acting!" said Grace.

"Their vile French levity," answered her father. "Instead of

being on their knees asking God to forgive 'em, they dance and

sing."

Mr. Norcot shook his head, as though to imply he echoed

Malherb's sentiments. Then he asked a question, but did not

guess the storm it would awaken.

"And what about the American prisoners?"

"Curse 'em!" roared the farmer, like a sudden explosion of

thunder. "Curse 'em living and dying, and, if I had my way,

I'd hang the foul traitors--every man. Our own flesh and

blood--a British Colony----"

"I'm afraid 'tis idle to dream that any more. The tea business.

Never was such a shattering storm bred in a teacup before,"

answered Norcot. "A bad day for England----"

"Matricides, murderers, insolent democratical scoundrels!"

cried the other. "My blood boils at the name. How is it that

the Almighty has not sunk their stolen continent fathoms deep in

the sea to cleanse it? Why are they allowed to live?

Pirates--slave-driving, slave-hunting, slave-breeding pirates, and lynchers,

and blackguards--self-constituted a Nation. _A Nation!_ They

make you believe in Hell against your will."

"They have more pluck and originality than the French, I am

told," said Peter calmly. "They escape in a wonderful manner;

they give the guards ceaseless trouble and anxiety."

"For why? They're bastard English. They've got our blood

in their veins. 'Twill take a few generations yet ere it all runs

into the sink and leaves nothing but mongrel. A poisoned race--a

fallen race. Pride has ruined 'em; as it ruined the Devil,

their dam. Hanging, drawing, quartering, I say! No honest

man----"

"Come to dinner, Maurice," said Mrs. Malherb. "And don't

thus rage before eating. 'Tis very bad for you. They are at

least out of mischief now, poor creatures."

"Never," answered her husband. "An American is never out

of mischief until he is dead."

"The prison should be a good, handy market for farm

produce," ventured Peter.

"It is; but I'd rather starve than touch their vile money," said

Malherb.

He gave his arm to his daughter and went to the dining-room,

while Mr. Norcot and Mrs. Malherb followed them.

Kekewich always waited upon the family, and not seldom he

was addressed during the course of a meal concerning subjects

within his wide knowledge. Now the talk turned to trade, and

Norcot explained a serious problem of his own business.

"Everything is depressed in these fighting times," he said.

"One looks for that and provides for it. But what shall be

thought of our principal customers, the East India Company?

Wool don't get cheaper, that's very certain, but they are sending

down the price of long ells half-a-crown a piece. They say that

our woollens are often a drug in the Indian market; and now to

remedy the thin web, every piece of long ell in stripes shall weigh

twelve pounds. We work web at coarser pitch to meet this want,

and, of course, defeat the object of the demand by producing

rubbish."

The conversation became profoundly technical, and Malherb,

who deemed himself an expert upon wool, as upon most other

subjects, uttered great words. Then Kekewich, himself an old

wool-comber, became so interested that he forgot his business.

At last he could stand it no more, but set down a dish violently

and plunged into conversation, much to Norcot's entertainment.

He perceived, however, that Kekewich knew far more about the

matter than Mr. Malherb, and when the servant was from the

room made a jest upon him.

"A wonderful man, and sane too. Sound sense--every word

of it.

"'Old Kek doth with his lantern jaws

Throw light upon the woollen laws.'"

"And upon most other matters," declared Grace. "And his

thoughts are all his own--borrowed from nobody."

"It happens to me," confessed Peter, "that the things I think

have always been better worded by others. With becoming

modesty, therefore, I borrow."

According to modern ideas of courtesy, Mrs. Malherb and her

daughter were somewhat slighted during the progress of dinner;

but women listened more and talked less a hundred years ago

than now. Annabel saw that Peter's plate and glass were kept

full, chatted with her daughter, laughed at her husband's jests, and

departed to the drawing-room as soon as the table was cleared.

Then Kekewich deposited two silver candlesticks and a pair of

silver snuffers within reach of his master, produced a dish of dry

walnuts, and tenderly stationed a bottle of port at the elbow of

each gentleman.

"I know you're only a one-bottle man, and you are wise at

your age," said Malherb. "Indeed, I seldom do more myself,

save on rare occasions, and never except during the hunting

season."

"I hope you'll account for two bottles upon the day I marry

Mistress Grace," answered Peter. "She grows an angel. Never

beamed such radiant beauty.

"'Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do intreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they return.'

But I wish they would twinkle for me."

"To-morrow she is seventeen--God bless her! They are my

heart and my soul--she and my son. But she's yours, Norcot,

for I've said it. She shall reign over your place at Chagford. Her

welfare is my first care in this world. Now leave that. Let our

talk be about sheep. I have discovered that Dartmoor is the best

sheep-walk in the kingdom. We shall have such wool for you

next year as will make you generous against your will. Already

I'm treating for certain three-year-old Dartmoor wethers that'll

shear nine pounds of unwashed wool a fleece. Think of it! Take

one shilling and threepence a pound and five hundred sheep--the

result is nearly three hundred pounds of money in one year!

Then I design to cross with the new Leicesters. Frankly, I see

a large fortune within ten years. It can hardly be avoided."

Mr. Norcot nodded thoughtfully. He knew the farmer's figures

were absurdly high, both in wool and money.

"You look so far ahead. I always envy you that gift of

foresight. Yet, in sober honesty, you must not count to get more

than a shilling a pound. If you could breed Merinos now."

"I've thought of that, too."

"Ah! I'll wager you have," said the merchant, with admiration.

"What don't you think of, Mr. Malherb? 'Tis good to

know that another man of ideas has come on Dartmoor."

So the talk and the wine sped, and presently they joined the

ladies. Annabel was at the piano, and Grace sat beside a peat

fire, engaged with her needle. While the music ran, Peter,

inspired by dinner and the fair maiden under his eyes, pulled

forth a notebook and adventured an original rhyme. He was

hurt at the girl's recent allusion, and now determined to reveal

powers unsuspected. But the gem he designed would not polish,

and Grace herself went to the piano to sing an exceedingly doleful

ballad before Mr. Norcot's effort was complete. Then he

handed it to her in a book, while Mrs. Malherb spoke aside

to Dinah Beer, and the master, who cared little for music,

perused an agricultural survey of Devon.

Miss Malherb read, and her lip curled visibly.

"Sweet vestal Gracie's lovely eyes have lighted

Such fires within his breast that Peter's frighted;

For now, behold! This man of noble mettle

Doth feel his heart boil over like a kettle."

Annabel still talked with her woman, and Grace, after brief

cogitation, wrote a few lines under Mr. Norcot's effort, and

handed it back again. He saw what she had said, and smiled--

"Though water boils apace and fire be bold,

Pour one on t'other, quickly both grow cold.

Therefore, good Peter, let thy heart boil over.

'Twill ease thee of thy pain; me of my lover."

He tore a scrap from the bottom of the sheet, and concluded

the correspondence.

When Grace bade her father and his guest farewell and reached

her room, she scanned Mr. Norcot's final comment, and found

that it needed no reply. He had merely written--

"The epigrammatist rejoices; but the man weeps."

CHAPTER VII

THE WAR PRISON

On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Grace rode

forth upon the new hunter, and tenderly touched 'Cæsar's'

flank with a whip of dainty workmanship. Peter, on his black

horse, accompanied her, and Mr. Malherb stood at the door of

Fox Tor Farm and watched them depart.

"A fine couple," he said to his wife. "One sees that Grace

has got my skill in horsemanship now that she is properly

mounted."

"And he rides well, too."

"So, so. Better than most young men. She's coming to my

way of thinking. She laughs with him now and exchanges jests."

His wife shook her head.

"I misdoubt her. She's a Malherb--a jog-trot tradesman will

never win her."

"Have done with such nonsense!" he said sharply. "He is

no more a tradesman than am I. You should have better feeling

than to use the word."

"She won't marry him, nevertheless," said Mrs. Malherb

placidly.

"Will she not? If I am her father she will."

He turned and departed, while his wife, with a cloud upon her

countenance, watched Mr. Norcot and Grace climb the steep side

of Fox Tor and proceed to the heights above it.

Soon afterwards, as they turned their horses' heads toward

Prince Town, Peter observed a strange, tall figure proceeding on

foot in the same direction. It was as though one of the moorland

crosses from the Abbot's Way had come to life and stole

over the wilderness upon some superhuman errand.

"Look!" cried Norcot, "a walking scarecrow!"

Grace recognised the being, and laughed.

"A 'scarecrow,' you say. That's the richest woman on Dartmoor!"

"A woman--and a wealthy one? Impossible!"

"'Tis Lovey Lee, an old servant of my grandfather's. By

chance she lives here within a few miles of Fox Tor Farm. We

shall pass her hovel presently."

"Was it not she whom your father accused of stealing the

amphora when Sir Nicholas died?"

"Yes; and he still vows that she has it, for all her oaths to the

contrary. She's a weird old woman. Her grandson, John, tells

me that she lives upon frogs and herb tea."

They were now abreast of the dame, and Peter inspected her

carefully.

"Tut, tut! She does not throw away money upon her apparel,"

he said.

"No--isn't it horrid? I think she wears old sacks chiefly."

"And reduces them to the minimum. Her naked feet must

be made of iron."

"Good morning, Lovey," said Grace. "Have you been to

Holne? No; I see that you haven't, for you carry no basket."

"Mornin', maiden; an' to you, my gentleman," she answered

very civilly. "No more Holne for me. I've got a better market

for my poor goods now; an' nearer."

"The War Prison?"

"Ess fay! Plenty of money there for them that have anything

to sell. I can scrape a few pence out of they Americans every

week; though how I keep body an' soul together is my daily

wonder."

"You would do it easier if you wore more petticoats, granny,"

said Peter.

"Petticoats!" she answered. "'Tis very well for the likes of

you, bursting wi' fatness under your fine linen, to talk o'

petticoats. Give me a crown an' I'll buy one--since you'm so anxious

about it."

"Why, you're the richest woman on the Moor, Lovey," said

Grace. "You know perfectly well that you have a gold mine

hidden away somewhere."

The old woman showed her teeth and growled like a dog.

"Don't you tell that trash, or you'll make me your enemy

I promise you! A gold mine--some 'crock o' gold' hid at a

rainbow's foot or in a dead man's grave--like the fools tell about

up here. I wish I knowed where. Do a woman salt down

reptiles and make her meal of blind-worms and berries if she

have got a gold mine hidden?"

"That's just what father says you would do," answered Grace.

"Tell Malherb to mind his business," she answered sourly,

"or 'twill be the worse for him. 'Twill take him all his time to

find a gold mine under Fox Tor, anyway, let alone the Lord's

hand being against him for stealing the earth from the meek,

as was meant to inherit it."

"Nothing of the sort," answered Grace, with great indignation.

"She's a horrid old story-teller, Peter."

But Norcot never quarrelled with man or mouse.

"Mrs. Lee is naturally against the Duchy," he said. "The

Duchy we all know. But, on the other hand, nobody alive can

blame your father for availing himself of its propensities."

"He'll curse himself for a fool yet, however," said the old

woman.

"I shall not be friendly with you any more, Lovey Lee,"

answered Grace frankly. "You're greedier than the Duchy, and

you don't tell the truth. You wouldn't be so unpleasant if your

conscience didn't hurt you. Henceforth I shall think with my

father that you took the amphora."

"You may think what you please. It won't prove nothing but

that you've got a Malherb habit of mind and be your faither's

daughter."

"Come, Peter!" cried Grace. "I'll hear no more."

She trotted away, and, having dropped a coin behind him,

Mr. Norcot followed. It was his sagacious custom never to lose

any opportunity of making a friend. He had found possibilities

of usefulness in the humblest road-mender; and this woman,

with her evident strength and ferocity, attracted him. He

perceived that she was one who would do anything within her

power for payment.

Lovey picked up the money with a loud blessing on the giver.

Then she watched the retreating figures.

"They be coming courting a'ready," she thought, "an' her

only a half-growed giglet yet. Well, let the sky fall an' the sun

burn blue, a crown be still a crown."

Before the old woman had reached home, Grace and Peter

Norcot passed her cabin, and the wool-stapler showed more

interest before Lovey's grim abode than at the more striking

object close at hand. Siward's Cross was dismissed with a nod,

but Mrs. Lee's lair awakened a lively attention.

"There she lives with only a wall of piled peat between her

and her cows and donkey. She's got a grandson--a very handsome,

courteous young fellow--and he dwells in that stable there.

In her kitchen you would find stones for chairs."

"And stones for bread by the look of it. A cheerful soul. I

wonder where her hiding-place may be? Did you see her

glittering eyes--like two diamonds set in yellow ivory--and the

fingers all crooked like a hawk's claws. She's a miser, or I

never met one. And yet 'God but little asks where little's

given.' Perhaps we wrong her."

"Father never wrongs anybody," answered Grace. "He

storms, indeed, and will have his way; but good men always like

him, and understand his noble qualities."

"Most true--one in a thousand. I'm thankful beyond measure

that he is pleased to think well of me; for he'd never bestow his

friendship on an unworthy object."

"One word for father; two for Peter Norcot."

"It is so; I rise above false modesty. If a good man praises

me, it is my best advertisement before the world."

"You have a wonderful way with father."

"I was looking into John Guillim's book a day or two since.

He is an old-time Pursuivant at Arms. Upon your family name

and the three nettle leaves, which you'll see cut in the amethyst

at the handle of your riding-whip, you shall find a quaint word or

two. Guillim says the nettle is of so tetchie and froward a

nature that no man may meddle with it, and he adds that a little

girl being once stung thereby, complained to her father that

there was such a curst herb in his garden, that it was worse than

a dog, for it would bite them of its own house. Her father told

her that the herb's nature was a notable impartiality, for friend

and foe were alike to it. Then there's a pleasant epigram--

"'Tender-handed stroke a nettle,

And it stings you for your pains;

Grasp it like a man of mettle,

And it soft as silk remains."

Not that that applies to Mr. Malherb."

"No, indeed! Father is no nettle," said Grace sharply.

"Most true. The nettle's flower is plain, not exquisitely

beautiful," he answered, looking at her. "Your father has the

sturdy characteristics of his house, none of the prickles. A grand

singleness of purpose marks his ways."

"He feels too deeply, if anything."

"And too much feeling so often obscures perception. It is

unfortunate."

"There's the War Prison," said Grace, changing the subject;

"that dreadful thing stretching out down there--a ring within a

ring. I always think it is like something in Dante made real."

"Dante, eh? Hell, and so forth. Yes, that's a hell for many

a brave, lonely heart. Doubtless there are lovers among 'em.

By the way, I thought your dear father was a little hard upon the

American prisoners--if I may dare to say so."

"He knows best," said Grace firmly; "and they do give a

great deal of trouble. To break away from their mother country

over a paltry question of money!"

"It's wonderful how soon matters of money make every question

acute--lift it into a serious affair. Men will argue about

their Maker, or the chances of Eternity, or the heat of the sun,

with irreproachable temper; but let the matter be a sovereign---- As

to America--taxes or no taxes--fools in our Parliament or fools

in their Congress--it had to come. Look at a map of the world."

"In this war, at any rate, they are utterly mistaken," said Grace.

"I know all about it, and facts are facts."

"And facts never contradict each other. That's a blessing."

"No doubt the wrong men are suffering now," she added,

looking down upon the prison; "but that is a general rule in war."

"And life. What a beehive it is! 'A dungeon horrible on all

sides round.' Hark! you can hear the 'sorrowful sighing of the

prisoners.' Or rather you can hear their laughter. In fact, they

appear to be playing a game in that far-off corner. It must be

prisoners' base, no doubt."

"I pity every one of them, and especially the poor little

powder-monkeys we captured in their ships," she said.

The huge circumference of the War Prison stretched beneath

them, protected from the West under North Hisworthy Tor; the

limbo, at once famous and infamous, lay here in summer sunshine;

and never had Time thrown up a mushroom ring more grim, more

grey, upon earth's lovely face. In the midst of wild hills and

stone-crowned heights, skirted by the waters of a stream, separated

from mankind by miles of scattered granite and black bog, the

War Prison appeared. Late July ruled the land and brushed the

hills with green; the light of the ling was just dawning, and all

life rejoiced; but the solemn features of these stony mountains,

fold upon fold and range upon range, take no softness to the

stranger's eye at any season, and none who has not trodden it in

freedom can love its austere face, or understand its chastened

glory. Purple cloud-shadows drifted over the prison, and revealed

the details of Alexander's sinister masterpiece. Previously

they had been hidden by a great dazzle of sunlight.

Some thirty acres were enclosed by two walls, one within the

other. The outer circle stood sixteen feet high; and separated

from it by a broad military parade, extended the second wall,

hung with bells on wires, and having sentry-boxes upon it at

regular intervals, to overlook each prison yard. The main area

of the gaol was of rounded shape, and contained five enormous

rectangular masses of masonry radiating from the centre, like

spokes from the hub of a wheel. At one side a segment was

cut out of the circle, and this contained the Governor's offices,

the turnkey's place, and other official buildings, together with an

open space into which the country people were admitted for their

daily traffic with the prisoners. Fuel, vegetables, poultry, butter,

and other articles were bought and sold in this market, and upon

its completion the gangs returned to their own divisions of the

gaol. Each of the five main buildings mentioned was constructed

to hold fifteen hundred men; all had two floors, and in the roof

of every one was an additional great chamber used as a promenade

at times of unusually inclement weather. Each block possessed

its own wide exercise yard and shelter from snow or rain, its

proper supply of sweet water always running, and its _cachot_, or

prison within a prison, for punishment of the refractory and

disobedient. A hospital and accommodation for petty officers

included the edifices within the walls, while a quarter of a mile

distant were barracks for four hundred troops, and various other

buildings not all connected with the establishment of the prison.

Of these the more conspicuous were a ruined cottage on the slope

north-eastward of the outer wall, two new taverns, about which

the soldiers swarmed like red ants; bakehouses, slaughter-houses,

and private habitations that rapidly grew into a little street. The

prisoners themselves were scattered by the thousand over their

exercise yards, with red-coats stationed upon the inner wall around

them. At one point outside the War Prison a large building arose

and, guarded by the soldiery, a crowd of men laboured upon it.

"They are making a church," explained Grace. "The French

build and the Americans do the carving and the woodwork inside.

'Tis to be dedicated to St. Michael and All Angels."

"Then you have a personal interest in it. And maybe I too

shall have. We might even be married there."

"We might--though not to one another."

"Who knows? Time can work wonders."

"But only God can work miracles."

"Beautiful!" he said, "and comforting too; for I am one who

holds that the age of miracles has not yet gone. You shall find

the man of parts will make his own miracles."

CHAPTER VIII

A LITTLE ACCIDENT

As they descended into Prince Town Grace proposed to visit

the church now growing there. She knew one Lieutenant

Mainwaring, a young officer in command at these works; and

now, glad enough to be of service and display his little power, the

lad himself escorted Miss Malherb and Peter Norcot into a scene

of stir and activity.

The Frenchmen chattered and sang to the clink of their

trowels; while within, more thoughtful and more silent, a hundred

Americans were engaged upon carpentering and carving in wood

and stone. The strangers regarded Grace with curiosity. Save for

the market folk, it was long since any among them had seen a

woman, and this lovely girl awoke invisible emotion. Many

a heart quickened, then slowed at the sight of her. She wakened

the thought of women in lonely bosoms; she bridged rolling

oceans with a sigh. Some cursed as memory probed their

helplessness; some sneered; some winked and whistled and kissed

their hands; some, sensitively conscious, turned away to hide

their rags from these well-clothed and prosperous visitors.

They were soldiers and sailors, and they exhibited a wide

variety of spiritual and mental attributes. Many among them

crept about like thin ghosts clad in motley; a few looked stout

and happy, despite their shameful clothing; some toiled in sulky

and wooden silence; others maintained a gay and alert demeanour.

They wore yellow roundabout jackets, mostly too small, rough

waistcoats and pantaloons, shirts, caps of wool, and shoes made

from list and wood, that gaped at every seam. Those amongst

them whose shoes had fallen to pieces, cased their feet in strips

of blanket, and so limped through the dreary time until authority

should refurnish them.

Young Mainwaring was called away at this moment, and before

he departed, the lad turned to an elderly American with grey hair

and a distinguished bearing, and asked him a favour.

"May I beg you to show Miss Malherb and this gentleman

round the works, Commodore Miller?" said Mainwaring; and the

prisoner bowed a grave assent. In looking at this man's sad

eyes and noble face one forgot the ridiculous rags that covered

him.

"Come this way, young lady," he said. "You see our labours

prosper. 'Twill be a monument for the generations that follow

us. Our dust will mingle with this desert and be forgotten; our

handiwork will remain."

Suddenly as they proceeded a cry from overhead made Grace

stop, start back, and look upward. The warning saved her life,

for six inches in front of her breast an object cut the air, and

striking at the girl's feet upon the unpaved aisle, buried itself head

first in the earth. It was a heavy chisel that had dropped from a

beam and just missed Grace's head by inches. A cry rose on

several lips; some shouted a curse at a man aloft on the beam

from which the chisel had fallen; and Commodore Miller cried

to him--

"Good God, Stark; what have you done?"

"Nothing--nothing at all," said Grace quickly. "I am not

touched."

The man responsible for this accident was already half-way to

the ground. He descended a rope ladder so swiftly as to

endanger his own neck, and a moment later stood white and

trembling before Grace Malherb.

"You stupid fellow," said Mr. Norcot; "'twas within a

hair's-breadth of her life."

"I know it," answered the man. He was young and very tall,

with a clean-shorn face and curling brown hair. "I can only ask

you to forgive me. I turned suddenly and my foot struck the

chisel."

"There's nothing to forgive," said Grace. "'Twas your voice

arrested me. If you hadn't shouted, I should not be here now;

so I owe you nothing but gratitude."

She smiled at him, and the youngster's colour came back to his

cheek. Young Mainwaring, who had just returned, bustled

forward with his sword clanking as the sailor spoke.

"You're good and brave, young mistress; and you understand.

'Twas a noble way to pardon me. A clumsy fool thanks you

from his heart."

He was turning away when Grace spoke again, and blushed

a little as she did so.

"Is that your chisel, sir?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Will you give it to me? May I keep it?"

Taking it from the hand of Commodore Miller, who had

pulled it out of the earth, the girl looked at its two-inch blade

and glittering edge.

"I should like to keep it," she repeated. "It ought to make

me feel humble and grateful when I look upon it."

"I pray you keep it, then. And I shall thank God every time

that I miss it," said the young man quietly.

Norcot was talking to Mainwaring aside, and in the silence that

followed these words, his voice, unfortunately for himself, came

directly to the American prisoner's ear.

"Surely not. The Devil draws the line somewhere. One

would never presume to suggest a deliberate intention to murder

an innocent girl."

The words came clear and cold; then, like a thunderbolt, a

heavy fist fell between Peter's eyes, and he was on his back half

unconscious. From trembling fear, from emotion almost prayerful

at the thought of what might have happened, from frank and

absolute sorrow for his carelessness, the young American leapt

suddenly into ungovernable and blazing wrath. His very body

seemed to expand and tower above the men around him. The

Commodore leapt forward, but Stark shook him off like a child.

"There!" he shouted, so that the naked walls rang with echoes.

"Take that, whoever you are! To hint such a foul crime from

your foul soul against an American!"

"Who's this lunatic? Arrest him," cried Mainwaring, and

several soldiers hastened forward.

"Cecil Stark is his name--a sailor and a leader in Prison

No. 4," said a sergeant.

"Yes, Cecil Stark of Vermont," answered the lad passionately.

"Your General Burgoyne knew the name. 'Twas my kinsman

that made him surrender and so caused Louis of France and the

civilised world to acknowledge America free of your bullying,

braggart nation. To hint at murder! You scoundrel--if you're

a gentleman, you'll meet me; but you're not."

"Candidly," said Mr. Norcot, who was now restored to

consciousness and sat on the ground with his hand over his eyes.

"Candidly, I don't want to meet you again. You are young, and

evidently Dartmoor has not tamed your fiery spirit. Nor has it

polished your nautical wits. You strike before you hear--like

your great nation. Tut, tut! My nose is broken. I was just

declaring on my honour that to credit you with malice was

madness. 'Twas this gentleman here who suspected that you dropped

the chisel of set purpose."

"You said it!" exclaimed Stark, turning upon Lieutenant Mainwaring.

"I did, and I repeat it; and don't look at me with that insolent

expression, or you'll repent it. 'Tis quite likely this was no

accident."

The American regarded the little officer with contempt and

astonishment.

"You're a knave to think that; and a coward to say it. At

least you don't believe him, young mistress? I'd give up all hope

of freedom, or heaven either, if I thought that any woman held

me so vile."

"No woman, and no man either, would believe it," said Grace

calmly, and Mainwaring's face flamed.

"Why, then, I'm content," declared Stark. "As for this red-coated

monkey, he's neither one nor t'other and his opinion don't

matter."

"Take him to the cachot!" cried the indignant soldier in a

fury. "Away with him--insolent hound! We'll see what a few

days of bread and water will do for him."

"And 'tis trash like this that they put into power over honest

men!" said the prisoner, with great show of scorn. "In America

no man can command others until he has learned to command

himself."

"And did you use to command, my young hero?" asked Peter,

who had now risen to his feet again.

Cecil Stark turned and laughed as he marched off with half a

dozen soldiers for an escort.

"No, sir. You'll guess why. I'm a fool. Your nose will tell

you that. But I'm learning. I shall be free again some day.

Then I'll try to be wise. Meantime I beg you ten thousand

pardons that I hit the wrong man. If 'tis ever in my power,

I'll make generous amends."

He departed, and among the guard his great stature was

revealed, for he towered above them.

"What a stinging sermon against disinterestedness," said

Mr. Norcot, still patting his wounded face. "Yet 'tis nothing beside

your escape. If you had died--my light would have gone out.

Henceforth I should have lived with Petrarch under my pillow:

'To Laura--I mean Gracie--in death.'

"'For I was ever yours; of you bereft,

Full little do I reck all other care.'"

"We'd better go back to our horses," she answered. "He's a

fine courageous gentleman. Only I very much wish that he had

struck Lieutenant Mainwaring instead of you."

"So do I--cordially."

"And yet I'm not quite sorry, either; for you are so kind that

you pass it with a jest; that little snappy soldier would have done

dreadful deeds. Why do soldiers always bear themselves with

such silly pride? Sailors don't."

"Sailors are not so swollen with their own importance, certainly;

they've got more intellect as a rule; and don't blush to talk about

their profession, like so many of these fatuous warriors. My

dismal nose! Tut, tut! I see a mountain uplifting between my

eyes. Henceforth there will be another tor on Dartmoor."

"Carry the chisel, please. He had a fine deep voice. He

might have been an Englishman. Certainly he was right to be

furious. I will never speak to Lieutenant Mainwaring more."

"Cecil Stark of Vermont, eh? He'll be stark enough after a

week in a cachot. Let us home. My nose wants its luncheon

of brown paper and vinegar."

The Commodore saw them to their horses, and Grace expressed

an earnest hope that young Stark would not suffer for his natural

anger.

"'Twill make his trouble light enough to know you are sorry

for him," said the old sailor gallantly; then he gave the girl a

hand into her saddle and soon she and Mr. Norcot were galloping

homewards.

Anon Mrs. Malherb uplifted placid thanksgivings for her

daughter's escape, and the farmer breathed forth indignation

at the adventure of the chisel. He took a dark view of the

incident, despite Grace's indignant assurances, and gave it as his

opinion that where an American was concerned the worst motives

might most justly be attributed. Yet he made far more of the

incident than anybody else, yearned towards the girl with emotion

hardly concealed, and hastened over his wine after dinner, that

he might return to her presence.

"Come you here," he said, "and put your fingers in mine, so

I may feel you are alive."

Therefore she sat beside him, and he patted her little hand

and exhibited the actions of quickened love. Yet his face was

stern the while, and betrayed no spark of the softness that

marked his gestures and his words.

Peter's countenance had now taken upon itself the grotesqueness

of a gargoyle, but he exhibited neither self-consciousness nor

irritation. Indeed, he proved in a placid and didactic vein,

moralised the incidents of the day and illuminated them with

many quotations from many scribes. Conversation naturally

turned upon America, and Norcot declared that the hot-headed

and romantic person of Cecil Stark fairly typified his country.

"Most just," allowed Maurice Malherb. "America exhibits

defects so glaring that he who runs may read. She is too

vainglorious, too boastful, too impatient of control, and too ignorant

ever to take commanding rank among the nations."

He mentioned his own failings without an omission.

"We must learn to walk before we can ride," said Mrs. Malherb.

"And yet how often does a child try to copy its elders

in advanced arts while yet the slow steps to those arts are hidden

from it! 'Tis hard to judge the Americans, for they are made of

our own flesh and blood."

"They are, in fact, our younger selves broke loose from tradition

and control. They are scattered like sheep without a shepherd

in the mighty pasture of the New World," said Norcot.

"Not so," returned his host. "England's virtues are just those

most notoriously lacking in this upstart, ingrate race. They have

broken the golden links of blood and brotherhood. They must

abide by the consequences. Doctor Johnson was in the right of

it touching America--as indeed always upon every subject."

"What think you, Kek?" asked Grace, that the discussion

might be lightened.

The old servant had entered to mend the fire, for a peat or two

always glowed upon the drawing-room hearth by night.

"No matter what I think, missy. 'Tis one of the few blessings

of a common man that nobody do set a groat's value upon his

views," returned Kekewich.

"So much the less need you mind uttering them," said Peter.

"We differ like flint and steel, yet strike some sparks between

us--Kek and I," declared Malherb. "He is at once the best,

honestest, truest, and most wrong-headed man I ever met in his

class of life."

"Then you'll guess what I hold about this," answered Kekewich,

who was indifferent alike to praise or censure. "I thinks

that a Yankee be only an Englishman turned inside out. They

says openly what we thinks in secret; but when it comes to

doing--'tis 'devil take the hindmost' an' the weakest to the wall with

them--just the same as it be with us. 'Tis a nation too young

to deceive--same as a child be too young to deceive till it be

growed. We shall hammer 'em this time; an' maybe next time;

but the day will come when they've got too big to hammer.

Then what? Us'll be 'pon top of our last legs some day. An' then

everything will be differ'nt, except human nature. An' a beaten

nation have a terrible long memory."

"This is anti-British! I blush for you, Kek," said Grace.

"Nay; the man is in the right," declared Peter. "A hundred

years hence the friendship of America will be better worth having

than anything in the world. Yet, where there's jealousy, there

can be no real friendship. I hope that they will not always be

jealous of us."

"You're cowards, both you and Kek," shouted Malherb.

"You are worse than infidels, for you leave the Almighty out of

your calculations altogether. We make war in the name of Right.

We are the supreme example that history furnishes of an

absolutely impartial nation. We display justice and mercy to the

earth. We conquer by the hand of God. And will He desert

us for a cowardice of curs, for a rabble that knows not justice, for

a horde of highwaymen who mix the mortar for their dirty towns

with negroes' blood?"

"Blare till you bust, Malherb," said Kek stoutly. "You won't

alter it. God A'mighty's never seen on the side of the weak, an'

so soon as thicky folks over the sea get strong enough to lather

us, they'll most likely try to do it."

With this prophecy Mr. Kekewich departed.

"An ancient fool," commented Peter; "yet a witty one. I'm

quite of his opinion; but our grandchildren, not we, will see the

issue."

"Read 'Lear,'" said Malherb. "'Tis the only thing I ever do

read in the way of high poetry. Lear is England--America has

taken the vile daughter's part."

"Doubtless they'll allow it--if you'll carry the similitude

through."

"Nay--England won't go mad--a little righteous rage--a breath

from her nostrils, and these republican wolves will creep back into

their dens."

"Yes--to breed there; to suckle the rising generations on----"

"Upon lies!" roared the other. "Upon vile lies against the

mother country. To the Father of Lies let 'em go!"

Presently he cooled down, and Mr. Norcot, who had turned

to Grace for a while, was wearied to hear Malherb reopen the

subject.

"If they would but learn the dignity of manhood; if they

would use their brains and read in the books that wise Englishmen

have written on the highest duty of man, we might hope for

the return of the prodigal son even yet," he said; and Peter

answered--

"How true; how generous of you to put it so; how grand!

'The whole duty of man'--so vast, yet so simple--like Dartmoor.

A dozen words gives one, a dozen lines from an artist's pencil

will convey the vision of the other."

"'Tis all in the best authors, I'm sure," declared Annabel.

"It is, indeed. What does Juvenal say in an inspired moment?

'A sane mind in a sane body. A spirit above the fear of death;

a spirit that can endure toil; that counts the labours of Hercules

his joys and the joys of a certain goddess her shame; a spirit

that can keep its----'" He was going to say "temper," but

substituted "self-respect" out of consideration for his host, then

made an end. "'Through virtue lies the life of peace! Grasp

that fact, and Fortune has no divinity left in her.'"

"All good," admitted Malherb, "except in one particular. A

life of peace is not to be prayed for. Peace is rust, and makes

against human progress. Now, ladies, it is time that you retired."

Annabel and her daughter rose, and as he bid his girl "good

night," the master's thoughts returned to her great escape.

Whereupon he kissed her thrice, instead of once, and said, for her ear

alone, "Thank God! Thank God!" in an abrupt and brusque

but very earnest fashion.

CHAPTER IX

CHILDE'S TOMB

Mr. Norcot found the life at Fox Tor Farm so much

to his taste that he prolonged his visit, and sent the

young man, Thomas Putt, with a message to his sister Gertrude

at Chagford for more clothes. He felt secretly hopeful that each

day was strengthening his position, and, indeed, by riding to the

War Prison and seeing the Commandant on behalf of Cecil Stark,

he won some thanks and a definite expression of gratitude from

Grace Malherb.

"They have released him out of the cachot," said Peter.

"Once more he labours at the place of worship, 'pride in his

port, defiance in his eye.'"

Together the man and maid continued their excursions upon

Dartmoor, and Grace enjoyed both to hear and to tell stories

and legends of the ancient desert. Its romance found an echo

in her youthful spirit and awoke new intellectual interests in her

life. She soon learned the story of each lonely circle, uplifted

monolith, and empty barrow from the age of stone; of every

ruined cot or cross erected in times mediæval. Among these

last, perhaps the most famous upon the Moor lay now within

Malherb's own borders.

"Childe's Tomb" had met Grace's eyes when first she opened

them upon a Dartmoor dawn. By a rivulet at the edge of Fox

Tor Mire it stood, and she had gleaned its story and mourned

the fate of the ancient hunter who fell there in winter tempest.

Mr. Norcot, too, was familiar with the narrative, and since early

boyhood he had gloated over its horrid details. Now he pretended

but a misty recollection of the tale, so that he might listen

to Grace.

The thing was in their eyes at the time, for they started on

horseback and rode past it. Beside the cross, Harvey Woodman,

his son, Richard Beer, Thomas Putt, and another labourer were

collected at a task. They worked upon each side of the little

river that ran beside "Childe's Tomb," and levelled the banks

to make a ford at a shallow point of the water. Here they talked

together when aching backs required rest; and it happened that

their master and his guest were the theme of the moment.

"I'll hold for Mister Peter," declared Putt. "He gived me

a week's wages for going to Chaggyford; an' he told me just so

friendly as you might, when he seed me bringing in trout, that a

grasshopper was a killing bait at this time of year. Of course

I know as much about grasshoppers as any man living; yet 'twas

a very great condescension in him."

Uncle Smallridge made reply. He was now past work, but

had walked from his distant cottage for the pleasure of a little

conversation with familiars.

"'Tis the human nature in 'un that counts," he said. "You'll

find as a general thing the best men ban't the easiest to get on

with."

"Malherb's chock full o' human nature," declared Mr. Woodman.

"So full that he bursts wi' it--like a falling thunderbolt, till

a man almost calls on the hills to cover him," admitted Putt.

"That's because you catched it for idleness," answered Woodman.

"Mr. Narcot be like a machine oiled up to the last cog an'

going so smooth an' suent that a child may turn the handle; an'

maister's like a drashel[*] in clumsy hands--you don't know where

'twill fall next. But give me our man with all his faults an' fire."

[*] _Drashel_: A flail.

"I'm afraid he'll try you sorely yet," foretold Smallridge, and

little guessed how near the ordeal had come.

"I'll cleave to him so long as it holds with honesty," said

Beer. "What mazes me is this: Mr. Peter never does nothing

out of the common, nor never lapses from the level way of man

with man, nor says a hard word to a fly; an' yet I doan't neighbour

with him; an' t'other, despite his rages and crooked words

and terrible rash goings on--as will damn your eyes for a

look--why, I'd hold out for him against an army."

"'Tis his weakness draws you to him," said Uncle Smallridge.

"I know. Us all likes to catch our betters tripping. It levels up

the steep gulf that's fixed between master an' man, an' makes us

more content with ourselves. You know how extra good t'other

children get when one be extra naughty. This here Norcot is

above us in his estate, an' that we can forgive, for us can't help

it; but we'm never too comfortable or kindly towards them as be

much above us in vartues."

"For my part, it don't seem natural," said Harvey Woodman.

"I don't believe in these great flights of goodness in man or

woman. Here and there a parson will stand out like a beacon

on a hill, for 'tis his trade; but not them as lives to make

money like Peter Norcot. When what shows in a man be so

shining, I always ax myself about what don't show."

"'Tis your jealous spirit," said Putt.

"All the same, I don't care for a man as hides behind hisself

like that wool-stapler do. The Devil's got his corner in him,

same as he have in every mother's son of us."

"He may have cast him out, however," ventured Putt.

"Cast him out at five-an'-thirty years of age--an' him a

bachelor! No fey."

"Well, he ban't bound to belittle hisself before the likes of us,"

said Putt.

"Here he be, anyway," added Beer, for Grace and Peter now

approached.

She was finishing the tragic history of Childe as she rode

beside him.

"And so the monks of Tavistock found the poor frozen gentleman

where this cross now stands, and they took him away that he

might be buried in their town, for under his last will and

testament those who buried him were to possess all his estates.

Others sought then to gain the body; but the good monks were

too clever for them, and inherited the lands of Plymstock."

"Ah! 'they must rise betime, or rather not go to bed at all,

that will overreach monks in matters of profit,' as Fuller

observes."

"The people hereabout call it 'Childe's Tomb,' yet it can only

be a cenotaph, if the story is true."

"The whole thing is a legend, be sure. We shall never know

the real use of this cross," answered Peter.

"But might easily find a new one," said Mr. Kekewich, who

walked beside Grace on his way to the workers. "Them

stepstones be just the very thing we're wanting to bridge the river

here."

"Oh, Kek! how can you?" cried Grace.

"Pull down a cross? Tut, tut, iconoclast!" exclaimed Mr. Norcot.

"You may use wicked words, but stone be stone," answered

the head man of Fox Tor Farm sulkily; "an' what was one way

of marking a grave in the old time may very well stand for a

bridge to-day. Look at they fools! What do they think they

be doing?"

Woodman heard the question.

"We'm making a ford, and you'm the fool, not us," he replied

stoutly.

"What did the master say? Tell me that," asked Kekewich.

"He said 'a bridge,' for I heard him," declared Norcot.

"Ess, he did, an' when he sez 'bridge' he don't mean 'ford';

an' when he sez 'steer' he don't mean 'heifer,' do he? A bridge

has got to be builded. So the sooner you fetch gunpowder an'

go 'pon the Moor to blast out a good slab of stone as'll go across

here without a pier, the better."

"He don't always say what he mean, all the same," retorted

Putt, who was in a fighting mood. "Yesterday he told me

I was a pink-eyed rabbit, good for nought, an' this marning

he called it back, an' said he was sorry he'd spoke it. That

shows."

"That shows he can change his own mind; it don't show the

likes of you can change it for him. Here he comes, anyway, an'

what I say, I say: that thicky cross-steps would make a very tidy

bridge, an' save a week's work."

"You'd touch that cross!" gasped Smallridge. "You--a

foreigner from Exeter!"

"Us have a right to it."

"No man have a right to a stone once 'tis fashioned into a

cross; an' if you was a Christian 'stead of a crook-backed heathen,

you'd know it an' if a finger be laid against it, I'd not give a

straw for the future of any man amongst us," cried Uncle

Smallridge, rising to his feet in great agitation.

"Fright childer with your twaddle, not a growed-up soul,"

answered Kekewich. "But no call to shake your jaw an' bristle

up your old mane like that. My word ban't law. Here the

master cometh, an' you'm like to hear more than will be

stomachable when he sees what you've been doing."

"The fault was mine, and I'll take the blame," answered

Richard Beer. "You men bide quiet an' let his anger fall upon

me."

Grace and Norcot, not desiring to see the labourers' discomfiture,

rode away, and a moment later Maurice Malherb arrived

upon the scene. His strong face, scarred with passion

uncontrolled, grew dark again now, and the kindly look vanished from

his eyes as the customary storm-cloud of black eyebrow settled

upon them.

"What are you doing? What means this digging?" he asked.

"'Tis me as done it, your honour," answered Beer. "I thought

as a ford----"

"A ford! What business have you to dare to think? I said

a bridge."

"The stone----"

"Look round you, you lazy rascal! Stone--stone--curse the

stone! Scratch the ground anywhere, and it grins at you with its

granite teeth! Let that bridge be finished by sundown or clear

out, the whole pack of ye! A ford! And had I said 'ford' you

would have built a bridge!"

Mr. Beer grew pale behind his beard, but did not reply, and

Mr. Woodman also kept his temper and addressed his son.

"Go an' harness two bullocks to a truckamuck,"[*] he said, "an'

you, Putt, slip up to the shed an' get some irons as you'll find

there."

[*] _Truckamuck_: A sort of sledge.

Then he turned to his master and spoke again--

"Us'll set to work this instant moment, your honour."

"That's well--by sundown, mind."

Malherb was riding off when old Smallridge addressed him,

and the ancient man precipitated the very accident he feared.

"An' if it please you, your honour's goodness, I do pray as

you won't let no hand touch this here holy tomb. Kekewich, as

be grey enough to know better, have said that the stepstones

would make a very tidy bridge an' save labour; but t'others tell

me you never pay no heed to him, an' I hope your honour won't

now."

The two old men glared at each other, and Malherb answered.

What he heard was nearly true, but that he heard it from Uncle

Smallridge instantly angered him. That the labourers should

have perceived how Kekewich was ignored--that these hirelings

should note their master's indifference to the wisdom of his

servitor--again awoke Malherb's temper.

"They say I don't heed Kekewich? Then they lie. Kek's

little finger holds more sense than all their stupid heads together."

Whereon Mr. Kekewich shone around him as the sun emerging

from a cloud.

"That cross there--good wrought stone wasted," he explained.

"They steps might have been made for the bridge we want. So

I told 'em; an' all they did was to show the whites of their silly

eyes."

The master reflected but a moment; then he issued a command.

He spoke in the name of reason--a favourite expedient

with the unreasonable.

"Good practical sense. Now we'll see if I run counter to

Kekewich. He's right and you're wrong. Here are stones lying

useless on my land, and I want even such for a purpose. Reason

points to them, and I will use them. Pull down that cross and

build my bridge."

"I'd rather take other stones and chance the extra work," said

Richard Beer uneasily.

"Pull down that pile there and build my bridge before nightfall,

or go your way--all of you," repeated Malherb. Then he

departed and left the workers to make decision.

"An' the cross itself, if us knocks off one arm, will be just what

we want for the pigs' house!" cried Kekewich triumphantly.

"For God's love throw down your tools and come away!"

begged Smallridge, his ancient voice rising into a scream. "Turn

your backs upon this place before it's too late."

"Hop off! Hop off an' croak somewhere else, you old raven!"

replied Kek indignantly. "Let these men use their brains without

your bleating. Ban't I old too? 'Tis vain growing old unless

you grow artful with it. If they have got their intellects, they

won't mind you."

"Nor you--you limb of the Devil," groaned Smallridge. "You--with

his pitchfork in your forehead. I wish to God I'd never

heard tell of you."

Kekewich turned from him to Harvey Woodman and the rest.

"'Tis up ten o'clock," he said, "an' you strong men in the

prime of life have got to decide what you'll do about it, not this

tootling old mumphead here. Use your sense an' say whether

you'll look for a new master an' mistress an' seven shilling a week,

or bide here with better money an' corn an' cider an' all the

fatness of the earth. I'll speak no word; only I might remind you,

Beer, an' you, Woodman, that you've got wives--that's all."

"Then 'tis for us to decide," said Woodman solemnly--"us

four: me, Beer, Putt, and you, Mark Bickford. Here us stands.

Now you have your tell first, Thomas Putt, 'cause you'm the

youngest."

"I'm a poor tool for such a job, an' I shan't say nothing,"

answered Putt. "I'll abide by what you men do."

"So much for you then," said Woodman. "Us knows you

haven't got more sense than, please God, you should have, yet

'tis a question whether you did ought to let another man keep

your conscience. Now, Bickford, what's your view?"

Mr. Bickford, a man of colourless mind in the affairs of life,

showed sudden and unexpected strength of purpose.

"I guess I'll bide an' pull the cross down," he said. "Master

do clapper-claw a bit, but he pays me eight shilling a week; an'

where I gets such money as that 'tis my duty to stop. You may

squeak," he added to Uncle Smallridge, who uttered an inarticulate

exclamation of misery at his decision, "but I be keeping

company; an' I also be keeping my old bed-lying mother out o'

the poorhouse. An' I'd pull down fifty crosses afore I'd lose eight

shilling a week. If there's a mischief in it, ban't of my brewing."

"Well, then, 'tis for me an' you, Harvey," proceeded Richard

Beer. "An' since I'm the older man, I'll come last an' wind up

on it when you've spoke your mind."

"A man like me with a wife an' son be in the worse fix of all,"

declared Woodman moodily. "If evil follows, I may be twisting

a scourge for the next generation, whereas you that be childless

can only catch it in your own case an' Dinah's. Still, to go back

to peat-cutting after Fox Tor Farm is a great fall."

"The Devil's tempting you, Harvey!" cried Mr. Smallridge.

"Shut your mouth, or I'll hit 'e on it!" retorted Kekewich

savagely. "Leave 'em to fight it out. They've got to do their

duty, an' I'd like to know whenever the A'mighty punished any

man for doing that?"

"There's my duty to my master an' my duty to my conscience.

'Tis our duty to our master to do what he pays us to do; and us

be paid to work, not to think," argued Woodman.

"If evil's to be hatched, us won't catch it," declared Bickford.

"When a man sets a rick on light, ban't the flint an' steel they

has up for arsony, but the chap hisself. We'm no more than the

flint an' steel in this matter."

"We've got immortal parts, however," argued Beer. "We

may hide our bodies behind another chap; but can us hide our

souls? What I want to know is the nature of the harm we'll do.

What's the name of it?"

"'Tis insulting the Lord of Hosts," said Uncle Smallridge

tremulously.

"Gammon!" answered Kekewich. "'Tis obeying them as

the Lord have set in authority over you. We've got to do with

a dead stone; an' the chap who be buried here found his way to

heaven or hell long afore the Lord, in a weak moment, let your

parents get a fool like you."

"'Tis the shape that shakes us, not the stone," explained

Woodman; "an' I wish you'd decide an' have done with it,

Richard Beer. We are ready to go by you, for 'tis well knowed

that you've a conscience as works so active as your skin in

harvest time."

"Well," replied Beer, "I can't see no flaw in what Bickford

said. My conscience is allowed pretty peart, I believe; an it

don't give me a twinge in this matter; though I'd much rather

not do it all the same."

"Suppose the lightning struck us," suggested Putt, and Beer

scanned the sky.

"Can't without a Bible miracle; an', good or bad, the size of

this job be too small for that. What harm falls will most surely

fall 'pon master, not us."

"If I thought Miss Grace would suffer, I'd see the stone rot

to dust afore I'd touch it," declared Putt.

"Whether or no, we've got to pull down Childe's Tomb, an'

make a bridge; an' my conscience, an' my wages, an' my

common sense all point the same way, so here goes," summed up

Mr. Beer.

"I'm with you," said Bickford.

"An' me too," added Putt; "an' come Judgment Day, if

there's a sharp word said to me, I shall name your name, Dick

Beer."

"An' you, Harvey?"

For answer Mr. Woodman turned to the sledge that his son

had brought up. From this he took a rope and some long irons.

"Come on! Let's get it over. Once the cross be down, our

minds will grow easier. 'Tis the shape, I tell you, as makes us

so weak for a moment."

"God forgive you, souls!" cried Smallridge; "an' mind, when

you'm wading waist-deep in trouble, that it weren't no fault of

mine. Bide till I be out of sight, that's all. Then you an' this

here crooked old Apollyon can go to your wicked work."

He looked at Kekewich, shook his head at the doomed monument,

and hobbled away as fast as his legs would carry him.

"Us had better all spit over our left shoulders for luck," said

Mr. Beer; "then we can begin. An' see that all four of us hang

upon the rope together, so as the work an' the pay be equally

divided."

Harvey Woodman's young son prepared to give assistance,

but his father roughly bade him begone.

"You drop that rope an' get up to the farm to your mother,"

he said. "She'll find you a job. Us don't want you to-day."

CHAPTER X

THE FIRSTBORN

The destruction of Childe's Tomb awoke no protest upon

the county-side, for antiquaries had not yet turned their

attention to the interesting and obscure relics of former ages

scattered over Dartmoor. A few intelligent men mourned that

another mediæval landmark had been sacrificed to the advance

of civilisation; then the matter was forgotten, save at Fox Tor

Farm, where great unrest still reigned among the workers.

The women exhibited chief concern; but while Annabel and

Grace Malherb showed sentimental regret and the master laughed

at them for their folly, Dinah Beer and Mary Woodman took

a far more serious view of the incident, and reduced their

husbands to the extremity of uneasiness. They foretold disaster

upon all concerned; Mr. Kekewich they specially tormented,

and declared that, as arch instigator of the outrage, upon him the

first grief must fall. He cared nothing; but Richard, Harvey,

and others went in growing fear. They longed for weeks and

months to pass that they might be removed by time from the

hour of their evil deed; then, as each uneventful day dwindled

and each night passed by, they drew a little nearer toward peace

of mind. After a month had passed they plucked up spirit and

faced the unseen with steadier gaze.

"Another week gone an' nothing said," whispered Putt one

morning to Harvey Woodman, where they worked at wall-building.

He glanced sideways up to heaven as he spoke with a

gesture of suspicion.

"No--the world goes on very easy. What did Peter Norcot

give 'e for taking the pack-horse with his leather boxes back to

Chaggyford?"

"There again--good luck surely. A crown I got by it; an' I

ate my meat with Mason's mother an' sister who live there.

Mason be Mr. Norcot's man, and his sister is called Tryphena.

An' I be going over again, for she said, when I axed her, that

pinky rims to the eyes didn't stand against a chap in her

judgment. She thought 'twas a beauty, if anything. Her be a few

year older'n me; but that often works very well, an' keeps down

the family."

"You'd best to be careful, all the same," said Woodman.

"The woman as you meets half-way, often makes you go t'other

half afore you think you've started."

"I won't hear no word against that female from you or any

man," declared Thomas Putt, growing very red.

"From me you certainly won't, seeing as I never heard tell of

her afore this minute," replied Woodman calmly. "Only, as

a married man, I say go slow. When a girl tells you such eyes as

yourn be beautiful, she's getting to that state of mind when they

put a home of their own afore truth and common sense an'

everything."

Putt was about to answer rather warmly when Richard Beer

appeared. His beard blew about him; his eyes were sunk into

his head, and dull care stared from them.

"It's come!" he said. "I've held my peace these twenty-four

hours; an' longer I will not. The ill luck have set in! There's

no more doubt about it."

"Have it hit you?" asked Putt, his anger vanishing; "because

if so, us ban't safe neither."

"Not directly. It strikes the farm. There's scores o' dozens

o' moles in the meadow; and the rats have come to the pig-styes

in an army."

"They be natural things," declared Putt. "You might expect

'em. Where there's pigs there's rats."

"Yes, but not like a plague. They've come up in a night,

same as them frogs in Egypt."

"You'm down-daunted about nought," answered Woodman.

"Read what some of they Bible heroes had to suffer. There's

nought like dipping into the prophet Job when you'm out of

heart with your luck. 'Twill make you very contented. My

gran'faither always read Job slap through after he'd had a row wi'

the Duchy."

"As for me, I shall bide wi' the man so long as he can pay

wages," said Putt.

They passed to their work; and elsewhere Maurice Malherb,

not ignorant of the verminous inroad upon fields and styes, was

debating whether he should sink his pride and summon Leaman

Cloberry. But while time passed by and he hesitated, there

came a post and tidings so momentous that the rats and moles

were forgotten.

Now, indeed, did trouble like an armed man break in on Fox

Tor Farm; the light of the Malherbs vanished, and their hope

set in lasting sorrow. Noel Malherb, serving under Sir Rowland

Hill, with the right of Lord Wellington's army in the Peninsula,

had fallen before Vittoria.

Annabel and her daughter took this grief into secrecy, and

were hidden from the world through many weeks; Malherb

fought it down, and concealed his emotion from all eyes. He

laughed not less seldom, he fell into anger more often than of

yore.

"Pharaoh cracked his heart when his first was took," said

Woodman to Kekewich; "but this man----"

"His heart's hid in his breast, not open to your eye," answered

the other. "His heart be cracked all right, though he don't come

to us an' say so. But I know--by the voice of 'un, an' the long,

lonely rides he takes all about nothing, an' his look when he

stares at his darter--a miser's eyes--same as that old mully-grub

Lovey Lee when she claws a bit of money."

"'Childe's Tomb' have done its work--Uncle Smallridge

didn't lie."

"Seeing as this poor young gentleman was shot down and

dust in his grave weeks an' weeks afore we touched the cussed

cross--for I heard master say so--you'll allow you're talking

foolishness."

"The Lord can work backwards so easy as he can work

forwards. Miss Grace will be the next, you mark me."

"Norcot'll have her come presently," said Kekewich. "She've

got to wipe her mother's tears for the present. This here cruel

come-along-of-it have cut ten years off the life of Missis."

The ancient spoke truth, for Annabel Malherb's sufferings

under her great trial proved terrible. They were more objective

than her husband's. The family and the race were nothing to

her; she only knew that a French bullet had taken the life of her

firstborn, and she would never look into his brown eyes again or

put her cheek against his. Even her boy's beloved dust was

buried within the hecatombs of Spain, and her tears would never

fall upon his grave. But Malherb, beside this present misfortune

of his son's sacrifice for the country, had a deeper and more

lasting pang of ambition blighted and hope for ever dead. He had

toiled in vain; he had lifted this stout dwelling as a heritage for

none. Presently his daughter would wed with Norcot, and no

young eyes of his own race would see the larches and Scotch firs

of his planting grow into trees; no heir would note the ebony

and golden lichens write dignity and age upon his roof of slate,

nor see the mosses mellow his granite walls. Aliens must follow

and the name of Malherb would vanish, like the fragrant memory

of last year's fern.

Then, within six weeks of the ill tidings, a great conceit

suddenly flashed upon Malherb; and as the Witch of Endor

called forth that awful shade of Samuel to her own admiration,

so did this man raise the unexpected spirit of a thought.

Suddenly, amidst the mean and familiar imaginings of life,

uprising like a giant from among the dwarfish throng of practical

and common notions, there stalked tremendous an Idea; and he

stood astonished before it, appraised its magnitude and welcomed

it for an inspiration from the Gods.

This fancy came to Malherb as he pursued the prosaic business

of casting figures; and he threw down his pen, picked up his hat,

and hastened into the little walled garden of the farm to find his

wife. He longed to tell of this message that seemed to point to

peace; but his impatience was not set at rest for the space of

hours. Mrs. Malherb had ridden out on a pillion behind

Mr. Beer, and Dinah could say nothing of their destination.

Irritated at the accident, Maurice himself strode on to the

Moor, and proceeded towards Fox Tor, that he might note his

wife returning and reach her as quickly as possible.

His way took him past a favourite haunt of his daughter's, and

when he reached the broken stonework of the tor, Malherb

surprised Grace in serious conversation with a young man.

The girl had gone out alone to pass her summer hours with

mournful thoughts. The horizon of her life was clouded now,

and already sorrow in the present and cares for the future robbed

her young days of their former contentment. Her heart was

warm--a delicious empty chamber that awaiteth one as yet

unknown. Beyond the dark grief of her brother's death, another

now lurked, and Time, that should have dawdled with her in

these rosy hours of youth, while yet her heart had never throbbed

to one loved name, raced fast and pitiless as the east wind.

Down his closing avenues, outlined immediately ahead, stood one

at the horizon of her life, appeared a man as the goal and crown

of her maiden race. There beamed the neat, trim, and amiable

apparition of Mr. Peter Norcot. It was no precocity that forced

poor Grace into thinking so much of love, while yet she knew it

not; but in her esteem, love and marriage embraced the same

idea, and now she marvelled mutely to find not love, but a very

active aversion reigning in her mind against the wool-stapler.

Her father's attitude and repeated assurances that wed with Peter

she must, had thus thrown her thoughts upon the affairs of

womenkind, herself not yet a woman. But love haunted her,

and wonder concerning it. The chance young squire, who visited

Fox Tor Farm, had been fluttered to his green heart's core could

he have seen what was in Grace's mind or behind her drooping

lids. With interest she regarded the better-looking amongst her

father's visitors, wondered who loved them beside their mothers,

speculated as to what would happen if some sudden, invisible

spark flashed from their bosoms and found fuel within her own.

One friend she had, and he was a boy even as she was a girl.

John Lee belonged to the people, yet he revealed a different mien

from them. The common speech was upon his tongue, the common

clothes of earth-colour hid his shapely form; yet he had a

way of speaking the one and wearing the other that set a mark of

distinction upon him. This lad possessed more imagination than

diligence; he knew the Moor with a different knowledge to that

of Beer, or Woodman, or Leaman Cloberry. He had garnered

its legends and its mysteries. He understood something of the

spirit of the eternal hills; he loved

Their colours and their rainbows and their clouds,

And their fierce winds and desolate liberty."

He could read, and owned a book or two hidden in the hay-loft

where he dwelt outside his grandmother's cottage. He called the

plants by their local names, and was skilled in the lore of wild

things and the weather.

Grace found him very agreeable company and, upon first

mentioning at home that she sometimes met and spoke with him,

her father did not take it amiss.

"Get the boy to tell you where that old demon on the hill has

hidden my amphora," he said.

"As if he knew!" murmured Mrs. Malherb, who was a woman

of literal mind.

"The boy doubtless knows nothing," her husband answered;

"but 'tis within the bounds of possibility that he might find out."

Henceforward Grace, holding herself at liberty to do so, often

met John Lee and often made appointments to meet him. He

taught her Dartmoor; he rode his pony by her side and gloried in

the manifold virtues of her new hunter, the great and gallant

'Cæsar.'

While Peter Norcot was at Fox Tor Farm, young John kept

clear of it. Indeed, he had plenty of work when he chose to

work, and toiled by fits and starts at peat-cutting, lichen-gathering,

or attending upon some military sportsman from the War Prison.

But his desire and ambition at eighteen years of age was to win

employment in the kennels of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt. From such

a position, if blessed by good luck, he trusted some day to rise

and become a whipper-in. Of any higher destiny he did not

dream. To be huntsman was a position in life that rose almost

as much above his hopes as to be Master.

Now, some while before Maurice Malherb had entered on to

the Moor, so that he might see and meet his wife returning home,

John Lee, walking near a spot very well known to him as one of

Grace's favourite haunts, found her there where the grass made

pleasant cushions amid the granite boulders upon the southern

slope of Fox Tor; where the music of a little waterfall rose and

fell softly at the pleasure of the wind; and where the Beam's

mighty shoulders basked under the sun and took a tremulousness

of outline in the hot air which arose from off them.

Rising suddenly out of the hollows where the streamlet ran,

John Lee appeared within thirty yards of Grace, and, to his

dismay and concern, discovered that she wept. Some coincidence

of thought with the solemn natural things about her; some

clash or chime of sadness at the spectacle of her future and the

vast and featureless mountain uplifted before her eyes, struck the

emotional chord that loosens tears, and Grace suffered them to

flow and carry away a little of her sorrow in the glittering drops.

She was young, and hope her proper heritage, therefore she grew

happier presently, and when the miser's grandson appeared,

hesitated, and, with a rueful countenance, began to creep away,

she called to him and bade him come.

"I'm only crying, John Lee. Hast never seen a girl cry

before?"

He advanced upon this, and his handsome young face was all

blushes.

"Never, Miss Grace; an' never want to. I would I could take

your trouble on my own shoulders."

"Your grandmother never weeps?"

"Not she. A granite wall sweats more moisture than her eyes

fall tears. But you---- The young gentleman, your brother,

died like a hero. 'Tis a great and noble thing to be a hero."

"How can a word stand for his dear beautiful face and bright

eyes and kind voice? Never a maid had such a brother as Noel.

Hero! Hero!" She lifted her voice bitterly. "An empty-handed,

senseless sound to take the place of a dear brother. Not

one pang does it lessen--no, not even in my father's heart, though

he says the syllables over and over again, like a parrot. Our

hope and our glory gone--that is what his death means."

"I can't say nothing--I wish I could. I'd go and die

to-morrow if 'twould bring him back," declared John earnestly.

"You'll think 'tis easy to tell such things, but God's my Judge, I

mean it."

"You are not unlike him in a way, John. He had your

manner of holding up his neck, and your mouth and your neat

ears."

"I'm an awful fuzz-poll--like they curly-haired coloured men at

the War Prison."

She did not answer for a moment, then spoke again of her

sorrows.

"My heart's an empty nest now--all my plans to live with Noel

for ever and love his children are broken down. And I had a

secret hope that he"--she stopped, then decided to finish the

sentence--"that he might soften my father."

"Your father be stern enough, but not to you--sure never to

you."

He spoke with conviction and Grace did not reply. A

black-and-orange humble bee was working in the wild thyme at her feet.

It tumbled and laboured from cluster to cluster of the flowers,

pulled each tiny purple corolla to itself and dipped into each for

the stores there hidden. It droned hither and thither, full of

business, and at last, lifting itself heavily, flew away with a

cheerful boom of thanksgiving. So near Grace's ear did it go, that she

started, and Lee, though grave enough at heart, laughed.

"He won't hurt 'e. They bumbles have no spears, I believe--anyway

they never use 'em."

"I hate Peter Norcot!" she said aloud, suddenly, and with such

vehemence that John started and stared.

"I hate him--hate--hate--hate him! Hark at the echo. I've

told the echo that many a time. And the echo always answers

very wisely, 'Hate him!'"

"What have you got against him, if I may ax?"

"Nothing; and that's everything. He's perfect."

"An' do love your very shadow, so they say."

"I forgot that. There is reason enough for not liking him."

"Then you'll have to hate every man on the Moor. They all

love you--even I dare to do it."

"Love me?"

"Ess fay! Be it uncivil in me to say so, Miss?"

"I should think it was, indeed!"

"Truth's truth. I can't help it. Never seed nothing like you.

I'd go to the end of the world for you. I wish 'twas my happy

lot to be your servant."

"Would you kill Mr. Norcot for me?"

He was silent; then he nodded.

"Well, John Lee, I had sooner you loved me than Mr. Norcot

should."

"Don't say it even in fun. You don't know what it means to

me. I'm up eighteen year old now--a man. But I hate

Mr. Peter, too, for that matter."

"Because I do?"

"Yes, an' for another reason; because granny likes him. He

gived her money once. She said afterwards that there was that in

his face pleased her fancy, for he'd got a depth in it that would

make rocks and water do his will."

"She's quite wrong there. He's a most superficial man and

amiable to weakness. He is always making feeble jests and

quoting the poets. He is a thing of shreds and patches. He put

your grandmother into an old verse once. I laughed, though I

hate him. He said:--

"'Through regions by wild men and cannibals haunted,

Old Dame Lovey Lee goes alone and undaunted;

But, bless you, the risk's not so great as it's reckoned;

She's too plain for the first and too tough for the second!'"

"He may laugh at her," replied John Lee. "But she don't

laugh at him. When he'd gone that day, she told me that he

was the first man ever she clapped eyes on as could be her master

if he liked; and I shivered to hear her say it."

"He's welcome to be her master; he never shall be mine," said

Grace resolutely; and as she spoke, her father suddenly appeared

before them.

CHAPTER XI

MALHERB'S IDEA

John Lee touched his hat, while Grace rose and welcomed

her father, who, still dominated by his Idea, proved in a very

amiable mood.

"You grow fast--you'll be as tall as your grandmother at this

rate. Not that you are like her," he said to the lad.

John smiled and touched his hat again.

Malherb scanned the finely built youngster, and thought of his

dead son. There was a resemblance, as Grace recently remarked

to John himself, and the father, who had a picture of Noel

Malherb painted lifelike upon memory, now perceived this similitude.

For a moment he stared in silence, then turned to Grace.

"I seek your mother. Has she gone to visit Lady Tyrwhitt?"

"Yes, she is at Tor Royal, father. Indeed, she should be on

her way home again by this time."

"Then we'll walk along to meet her. And you, John Lee, tell

that old witch up there I'm not asleep. I shall have my amphora

yet; and the reckoning, when it does come, will mean a halter for

her."

"Your servant, sir; an' I'll be sure to speak the message."

As they proceeded together, Grace put a petition to her father,

and he was about to decline it, but bethought him. The Idea

entirely turned upon Grace herself, and he had no desire to cross

her will in minor matters, though she still differed from him upon

the great question of her own future.

"Father," she said, "I ought to have a groom."

"Why, that boy we have left is as good as a groom to you."

"In a way. But I feel there should be a little more distinction

about the matter. In truth, John Lee's pony can't live with my

beautiful 'Cæsar' and if he was better mounted he could show

me the country that you and I are going to hunt in the winter.

'Twould be well for me to ride over it, and you are too busy

to take me. Now Lee, if he had a horse and a livery--and how

wonderfully well he rides."

"That's true. I had observed it. Better far than any man I

have seen on the Moor--excepting Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt and

myself. A splendid natural seat."

"Let him be my servant and look after your hacks and the

hunters. But only if you can afford it. I know you have had to

spend a great deal lately."

"Yes, yes; we must spend to get; and Dartmoor wants a good

deal of cash down in advance on a bargain. But I think I generally

get the worth of my money. Well--he shall come. I like a livery

or two about me, and poor Kekewich will never cut much of a

figure in his. The boy is a fine up-standing boy, and civil. You

shall have him. He may help me too--in the direction of the

Malherb amphora."

"Thank you, thank you! Was there ever such a kind father?"

"I've only got you now," he said. "I'm not a talker, and it

is a vile thing to see a man of quality show his feelings; but

between father and daughter affection is natural, and may even

be declared in reason. You're the apple of my eye."

"How well I know it!"

She kissed him and, occupied with his Idea, he took her hand.

Thus they walked along until Mrs. Malherb appeared on her

homeward way from Tor Royal. She sat behind Richard Beer

on a pillion, for she was fearful of horses, and never rode alone.

Annabel described an _émeute_ at the War Prison.

"It seems," she said, "that the poor Americans are the chief

danger there. They were sent up from the hulks at Plymouth,

because they were always escaping from them; and now more

than one has got clean away in a disturbance. They think that

these Desperate men will presently be recaptured, or else lose their

lives in the lonely desert wastes towards Cranmere Pool. They

may, however, by good fortune get into touch with their

fellow-countrymen on parole at Ashburton or Tavistock, and so make to

the coast and escape to France from Dartmouth or Tor Quay."

"If I should meet a runaway!" cried Grace.

"You would ride him down, I should hope, unless he yielded

and followed you," said her father.

Mrs. Malherb nearly dropped Richard's pillion-belt and fell to

the ground.

"La! what sport for a young maid!" she cried.

That night after they had gone to rest, the master placed his

great inspiration before Annabel, and her eyes grew round in the

darkness. The blind was up, for Malherb allowed the daylight

to waken him, and the seasons regulated the hour of his rising.

Now Mrs. Malherb watched a star cross the eastern-facing casement;

but only her eyes perceived that distant sun, for her mind

was occupied with a closer matter.

"I have hit upon a thought which shows how I may still work

to some purpose here and not make a place for strangers to enjoy

when we are gone," he said. "A Malherb shall have all----"

"You cannot mean that you will forgive your nephews!" cried

his wife in amazement.

"'Nephews'! No. Curse the pack of 'em--curs that disgrace

the name. They're not even honest. And 'twas not I that

quarrelled with them, but they with me. I am fifty-one. In

a year I shall be fifty-two, and Grace will be marriageable.

Eighteen's a very proper age. My grand-aunt, Sibella, was a

famous beauty at sixteen, wedded with the Duke of Sampford on

her seventeenth birthday, had a daughter upon her eighteenth,

and was a grandmother when she was thirty-seven. By the time

Grace is nineteen she will be the mother of a son."

"Good gracious, my love, how you run on!"

"Not at all. I'm simply stating the probable course of nature.

A son, I say; and that son comes to us. When the lad is

one-and-twenty I shall be but seventy or so. What is that?

Nowadays, such a man as I am is merely middle-aged at seventy. We

have the lad for our own. He must be given to us. By God, it

shall be a condition of the match! And he shall be called

Malherb, and shall found a line of 'em here instead of my boy,

who is dead and gone. 'Tis but a jump of a generation."

The stars at the window laughed in their courses and tumbled

before Mrs. Malherb's eyes. Her husband abounded in fantastic

projects, but this scheme was egregious even for him. She felt

the futility of it, not the humour. One objection specially beat

upon her mother's heart, and that she uttered--

"You couldn't expect Grace to give up her first baby, my

dear."

"Why not? Why not? Not to me? Not to her own father?

'Slife! Who should be better able than I to make a man of a

young fellow? He would be my personal companion. He would

be brought up from the cradle with this place in his eyes. He

would understand that he was a Malherb and all that that means.

'Tis a very proper idea and, if the girl's not a fool, she'll be the

first to see it. Whether she sees it or not, however, don't matter

a button."

"For God's sake say no such thing to her!"

"Am I likely to? Do credit me with some understanding.

All the same, it will have to be. My heart's on it. The high

traditions of the family--Norcot will assent readily, I have little

doubt. I can twist him round my finger."

"I fear Grace cares less and less for him."

"I know better. Even you will allow me some knowledge

of human nature. Her indifference is assumed. She is deeply

interested in him."

"Deeply interested? Yes; in how to escape him."

"Be that as it may, within six weeks of her eighteenth birthday

she'll be Mrs. Peter Norcot; and her son will be called Maurice

Malherb and come hither as soon as he is weaned. If ever I meant

anything in my life, I mean that."

"The way you order human destinies!"

"It is the province of the strong man so to do," he answered

calmly. "My son cannot fill my shoes, because he has fallen for

his country; but my grandson can and shall. The rest of them

may be Norcot's; the first is mine."

"To count your grandchildren before they are born!" murmured

Mrs. Malherb.

"No such thing at all. Go to sleep, and don't be foolish.

I do not count them. That is Heaven's work. I merely reserve

the eldest to myself. The action may not be usual, but that

weighs very little with me. I speak in a spirit both scientific and

religious; and it shall be so, if the Devil himself said 'No!' so

there's an end on it."

He turned over, and in ten minutes snored; but for long hours

Annabel watched the twinkling sky, and marvelled as to what

manner of planet reigned in heaven and lighted earth at the

moment when her husband first drew breath.

BOOK II

THE SEVEN

CHAPTER I

MR. BLAZEY

At the War Prison, in a crisis now rapidly approaching, it was

destined that the young man, Cecil Stark, should assume

sudden prominence. Thousands of French and American

prisoners were confined at Prince Town during this period;

and with the latter were herded a company of coloured men who

had been captured in the enemy's battleships or privateers.

Bitterly was this circumstance resented by the Americans; but,

worse than their slaves they found the presence of some seven

hundred French, who shared the granite hospitality of Prison

No. 4. These poor tatterdemalions had added to their necessary

griefs by personal folly. They had gamed away their very shoes

and blankets; and they were thrust hither by the hundred,

and kept alive, like cattle, with scarcely a rag to cover their

nakedness.

Many times the Americans protested with indignation against

this wrong, and implored that these forlorn French might be

removed from amongst them. But months elapsed before their

reasonable complaints were heard, and the baser sort of soldier

guards was wont to laugh and ask the Americans wherein their

own fantastic and ridiculous habiliments presented a better

appearance than the Frenchmen's skins.

Stark and certain of his companions were thus challenged on a

day in autumn as they patrolled together along the exercise yard.

Beside him walked Commodore Jonathan Miller, who had commanded

the United States frigate _Marblehead_ when she was taken,

while behind them followed one William Burnham, a junior officer

on the same vessel, and James Knapps, sometime boatswain of

the _Marblehead_. These four men, together with three others

presently to be mentioned, formed a little community of

friendship, and had entered into a compact to share their means, and

make common cause against the hardships that encompassed

them. They were known as "the Seven" and their companions

held them in high esteem, for it happened that Stark was among

the fortunate and obtained regular advances from home. With

his money he did no little good, and not the Seven only, but

many more who suffered from poverty or disease, had found him

a willing friend.

A sentry perched before his box on the prison wall heard Stark

grumble to William Burnham and made a jesting remark.

"Don't the Frenchmen's skins fit 'em as well as your clothes

fit you?" he said.

Whereupon Burnham, a mere lad with red hair and a round

freckled face, made such a fiery retort that the soldier scowled

and fingered his musket.

"You ask that--you coarse-hearted lout? Their skins don't

fit 'em. Count their ribs; look at the bones sticking out of their

elbows and ankles. No prisoner's skin can fit him in this cursed

country, for you starve us; your agents rob us; you strip your

scarecrows to clothe us!"

They passed on, and Commodore Miller spoke.

"The Americans are treated better elsewhere, however," he

remarked. "At Chatham, and at Stapleton too, they receive

more considerate attention. There, at least, they obtain what

the British Government is pleased to give them."

"And the markets shut agin us--that's consarned robbery," said

James Knapps. "'Tis the loss of the market that angers me

most past bearing."

"A very great injustice," answered Miller sadly. "It cannot

be known. The French are permitted to trade with the people

of the country. Farmers and farmers' wives are admitted into

the great court and they barter regularly there. But we can only

get our cheese, or butter, or eggs for our sick folk through the

French, and they charge five-and-twenty per centum above the

market prices."

"So we are robbed every way," said Knapps. He was a

powerful, middle-aged man, of genial aspect and ordinary

appearance; but another American who now approached and walked

beside his friends, discovered a countenance that had called for

second glances in any company. He was tall, extraordinarily thin

and very high-shouldered. His eyes were of the palest grey, his

high cheek-bones seemed nearly thrusting through the skin. He

was almost bald, and his woollen cap came down over his ears.

A flat nose and a fan-shaped tuft of hair upon his chin completed

the man's physiognomy; and much bitterness usually sat upon

these strange features.

"What say you, Leverett?" asked Stark of the new-comer.

David Leverett, who had been a carpenter on the _Marblehead_,

and lost one hand in the engagement which ended that vessel's

career, waved his stump to the sky.

"I say 'tis small wonder that some on us enlist in the King's

service, damn his eyes! It's their dirty, devilish game ter make

us. They torture us and starve us and freeze us, till narry a one

but would Judas his own mother, if 'twas only for the sight of salt

water again."

Cecil Stark nodded.

"That is what they mean, sure enough. Another batch came

up yesterday from the _Hector_ prison ship. Many, they say, have

gone into the King's service."

"'Tis the refinement of cruelty to make a man turn against his

motherland," mused Miller; "yet there were a few good Englishmen

on the _Marblehead_."

"Then there's Blazey," continued Mr. Leverett, who seldom

opened his mouth save to utter a grievance. "Call him an

Agent! One of the carved stone turrets we are going ter fix on

the church tower would be a better agent than him. I wish I

had the handling of the skunk."

"Lordy! Have done with your growling," said Knapps.

"What's the use of it? You only drive other hot-heads into

the enemy's ships. I miss faces every day as it is."

"Many are true enough," replied young Burnham. "There's

Mercer and Troubridge and our messmate, Caleb Carberry. You

miss them because they are all sick in hospital."

"Troubridge is dead," said Cecil Stark shortly; "and Matthew

Mercer is dying. I saw the doctor this morning. He said 'twas

all over with him. He's unconscious."

Leverett lifted his ribs in a deep sigh.

"They are out of it. I most envy 'em. There's no escape

from this cussed bowery except by way of the 'orspital."

None spoke; then upon their gloomy silence a black man

burst, in the very extremity of excitement. He was a big,

full-blooded negro--a splendid specimen of vigour, manhood and

health. Now he waved his arms and rolled his great brown eyes

and advanced upon them with a clumsy saltation.

"Waal, now, look at that black imp!" cried Knapps. "Come

here, Sam Cuffee! What's happened to you? Has anybody left

you a fortune, or a pair of wings?"

"Better dan dat, Jimmy Knapps! Good tings for all ob

us, please de Lord. Him coming, Sars. Ha, ha, ha! Him

coming!"

"Who's coming?" asked Leverett. "The Lord? Don't you

think it, Sam. There's no God nowadays ter keep his weather

eye lifting on the likes of us."

"'Tis vain to whine so, David Leverett," said Stark angrily.

"I'm weary of your eternal grumbling. If you chose fighting for

your business in life, you should expect hard knocks. You went

to be carpenter in a ship of war, and----"

Here a shout from Burnham interrupted the speaker, for

Mr. Cuffee had told his great news to the other officers.

"Yes, Sar--honour bright, Sar. Marse Jones, de turnkey, he

tell me. Marse Blazey--him coming to put all right dis berry

day, so I done run to tell you."

"Then you can call back your words, carpenter," said

Commodore Miller. "There's a God yet--only He takes His own

time--not ours."

"Blazey coming!" cried Knapps. "'Tis most too good to be

true. Some on you gentlemen had best think what to say to

him."

As he spoke, Captain Cottrell, Commandant of the War

Prison, appeared and advanced with a guard into the midst of

the patrol ground. A trumpeter blew a blast to summon the

wandering throngs, and when they had crowded in a dense circle

round him, the Commandant raised his voice and made a statement

from the midst of the bristling bayonets that hemmed him

about.

"I have to inform you, gentlemen, that your Agent, Mr. Blazey,

from Plymouth, will visit Prison No. 4 at three o'clock of

the afternoon to-day. Here in public he will meet you and hear

all your grievances, but there must be no private intercourse."

He departed, and the Americans, with joy upon their faces,

raised a cheer--not for Captain Cottrell, but his news. The

black men, who were grouped together apart, also lifted a shout

of satisfaction.

"One might think that peace was proclaimed rather than that

a paid official is merely about to do his duty," said Cecil Stark

with bitterness.

But Commodore Miller shook his head.

"Do not even assume so much, my lad. This man--well, a

sluggard in duty can never be trusted. If he discharges his task

reluctantly, he may also discharge it ill."

Great stir and bustle marked the next few hours. Light and

air were let into every dark corner; broken hammocks were

patched, and each granite ward was cleansed. Only the prisoners

themselves remained unchanged. No power could instantly alter

their thin, hungry faces or their disgraceful attire.

There came presently to Cecil Stark his friend and superior

officer, the Commodore.

"As one not quite unknown to them, they have called upon

me to be spokesman," he said.

"Of course, sir; you're the first man amongst us. Every

American knows that."

"But I've no gift of words, Stark, and my nerve is not what it

was. I declined the task; whereon they invited me to name a

speaker likely to address this Blazey with force and judgment.

I come to you. I hold it to be your duty. You must not shrink

from it."

Cecil Stark was much taken aback by this proposal.

"Think better of it, sir. Who am I to voice so many older and

wiser men than myself?"

"I wish you to do so. We must say much in little and hold

the Agent's attention. Be off now and collect your thoughts and

set your ideas in order," said the Commodore. "Look to it that

you justify my choice, for I shall bear the blame if you fail."

"'Tis a very great responsibility, but I'll assume it, since you

command, Commodore. Now let me meet the leaders."

After a brief conference with the prominent prisoners, Stark

vanished and, until the important person named Reuben Blazey

arrived at Prince Town, he secluded himself with certain papers

and prison orders, that he might prepare his speech.

Then, towards evening, a trumpet announced the arrival of the

Agent; the captives drew up in a dense double line, and

Mr. Blazey, with his staff and a guard of red-coats, appeared. He

was a short, stout man, clad in plum-colour, with a face of

generous purple that matched his clothes. His little black eyes

shot sharp glances everywhere as he advanced, hat in hand; his

clean-shaven mouth was of a coarse pattern, yet it lacked not

kindliness.

"Great God!" he said to a clerk at his elbow, "this is the

Valley of Bones; and they have come to life. But, indeed, I had

not dreamed there were so many."

"There are some five or six hundred of 'em, I believe,"

answered Lieutenant Mainwaring, who escorted the visitor. Then

he addressed the prisoners.

"Now who is to speak for the rest with Mr. Blazey?"

Stark instantly stepped forward and saluted.

"You!" exclaimed the soldier.

"Yes, my comrades honour me with this grave commission."

"Then be brief, young man," said Blazey, "for I don't want to

ride over Dartmoor in the dark."

"'Be brief!'" echoed Stark, with fire flashing to his eye. "'Be

brief!' Why, you----"

Here with an effort and in response to the murmur of warning

voices behind him, he curbed his temper and made another

answer.

"Our grievances can't be very briefly told, Mr. Reuben Blazey;

but I will set them out in as few words as possible. First and

worst, the scum and offscouring of the French prisons are poured

in upon us to our terrible discomfort. Next we desire to tell you

that our contractors are rogues. For five days in the week the

law directs that we receive one and a half pounds of brown bread,

one half-pound of beef, including bone--of which God knows we

get our share--one-third of an ounce of barley and salt, one-third

of an ounce of onions, and one pound of turnips. The residue

of the week we have one pound of pickled fish and coals enough

to cook it. These things are daily served by the contractors, and

we have watched them scrimp weight cruelly to fill their pockets

out of our starving bellies. Upon beef days we suffer most."

"Go on," said Mr. Blazey. He yawned, scratched under his

wig, and turned to a clerk.

"You are making notes, Mr. Williams?"

"Yes, sir--full notes."

"Next," continued Stark, "the printed regulations delivered to

us by Commandant Cottrell speak explicitly of what your Government

has undertaken to do on our account. We are not criminals,

but honest men. Why do not you understand that? We are

allowed each a hammock, one blanket, one horse-rug, and a bed

containing four pounds of flocks. Every eighteen months we are

to receive one woollen cap for our heads, one yellow roundabout

jacket, one pair of pantaloons, and a waistcoat such as you give

your soldiers. We are further promised one shirt and one pair

of shoes every nine months."

"And 'tis high time your tarnal thieves was delivered of them

shoes. Look at our feet!" burst out a voice from the ranks of

the captives.

"Silence!" cried Stark. Then he turned to Mr. Blazey.

"These things----"

"You have," interrupted the Agent. "Are you not attired in

them, you who speak?"

"Look at me!" answered Stark. "Regard these scarecrows

behind me and say if such a pandemonium of grotesque devils

ever filled human eyes outside a nightmare. Heaven knows that

we are thin enough, yet our yellow jackets might have been made

for skeletons. Look!" He stretched up his arms. "Mine comes

scarce below my elbows."

"You happen to be a giant," objected Blazey.

"Then why, in the name of God, don't you give him a giant's

jacket?" roared Knapps from the rear. He was silenced and

Stark proceeded.

"Our pantaloons you can study for yourself, Mr. Blazey. You

can note the space visible between them and our waistcoats. But

the shoes are still worse. They are made of wood and rotten

yarn, and these granite floors knock them to pieces in a week. I

pray you see to these things. Here surely are caricatures of men

that would make England weep if she could see them."

"Have you done with your facts, sir?" inquired the Agent.

"Very nearly. Now there are certain offices, such as sweeping,

shaving prisoners, cooking and the like, that receive payment;

and those who can execute mechanic arts here may daily earn

sixpence. Why are not our humbler folk allowed to share these

privileges? The French receive all these offices, though the

Americans are quite as deft as they. There is also the vital

matter of the market. The French traffic weekly with the

country people and so add fresh food to their store; we are not

permitted to do so--a cruel embargo. To sum up, I pray for

more food, more clothes, more generosity. We are men against

whom the authorities can find no real fault. Our cachot is always

empty. I was the last that occupied it. Our guards will tell you

that we are courteous, obedient, and patient. Then pray,

Mr. Blazey, help us. You know not the awful battle we have to fight

here--a battle worse ten thousand times than any between man

and man. We endure such cold as you have never endured,

sir; we eat such food as you have never eaten; we suffer from

such prison evils in shape of loathsome diseases as you will never

know. We are very sick and we daily die. How can starving

men battle with the reigning horror of smallpox? How can----"

But at the word "smallpox," Mr. Blazey's countenance assumed

a pallor under its purple and he woke from indifference to extreme

activity. His little eyes wandered wildly over the great sea of

faces before him. Then he screamed to Lieutenant Mainwaring.

"Is this truth that the man utters?"

The young officer took pleasure in Mr. Blazey's terror, and

oblivious of the prisoners or their welfare, made answer--

"True enough. The atmosphere you are breathing is pure

poison. Half these men are infected."

It was a lie, but the Agent believed it, and made an instant bolt

for the entrance.

"Then I should have been told. This is murder--deliberate,

cold-blooded murder, and you shall smart for it! Let me out for

the Lord's sake, before I've gulped any more of their filthy air!"

They made way and opened the gates. Then, before he

vanished, Mr. Blazey turned and bawled a word or two towards

Stark.

"I'll see what can be managed for ye. I'll do my best

endeavours. But I've no power, and no funds neither. Besides,

all exchange of prisoners is stopped for this year. So you'll do

wisely to bide quiet, and trust in God and the Transport Board,

not me."

He vanished, with his clerks and the soldiers after him; and

then for a moment silence, dreadful and solemn, fell upon the

captives. The haggard faces that had strained upon Blazey so

long as he was visible, turned each to gaze into his neighbour's

eyes; the gates fell to, the locks clashed, the sentries on the wall

resumed their eternal tramp. Some men, wrought up to a pitch

of mental excitement beyond their strength to conceal, shed tears

and sneaked in corners to hide them. The boys--powder-monkeys

out of captured ships--broke their ranks and went off whooping

to leap-frog; the negroes chattered and blubbered apart; some

Americans scowled and shook their fists at the blind doors; some

cursed their spokesman for bungling the matter; others walked

away mute, quite frozen by long suffering to a dead indifference.

Many fell to quarrelling among themselves, and their leaders,

including Commodore Miller and Stark, sat together and debated

upon the failure of this--their forlorn hope. In the dark

disappointment of the hour young Burnham lifted his voice against

his motherland.

"They have forgotten us!" he said. "We have lived for the

States, fought and bled for them; and now we are forgot."

"Nay, lad, don't think it," said Miller. "Your heart is low

and time drags into a daily eternity here; but remember that it

flies faster outside these walls than within them. Our country is

busy."

"'Tis that cursed Agent," growled Leverett to Knapps. Then

he scratched the red-grey wedge of hair upon his chin and turned

to Stark.

"I asked Blazey as he came in whether he had got our letters

and he nodded. He's in communication with both Governments.

"Thet 'ere man will hev the devil's toasting-fork in his guts

afore he's much older," prophesied Knapps. "He's a traitor."

"Please Providence smallpox will clutch the swine; then an

honester man may get his billet," said Leverett.

Thus they uttered folly and went stormily to their rest; but

upon the morning of the next day the Seven, strolling together,

listened to reason and formulated a plan of action. Their sick

mate, Caleb Carberry, was this day discharged cured from hospital,

and he listened to Burnham, who narrated the events of the previous

evening.

"We've done what we might by fair means. Now it remains

for us to trust to our wits and our right arms," said Stark.

"The wall men have built, men can climb," declared Burnham.

"What say you, Commodore?"

Miller gazed upward at the mighty ring of the inner

circumvallation, scarlet-dotted with the sentries.

"I'm with you--over--or under. At Chatham eighteen brave

lads escaped from the prison ship, _Crown Prince_, by cutting

through the side of her. Well, oak or granite, 'tis all one."

"If we no fly, we burrow berry nice, gentlemen," declared

Samuel Cuffee.

"Then 'tis our life's work from this hour to get out," said

Carberry. "By hook or crook we'll do it. And with a boss like

Commodore Miller, I lay the way will come clear."

"We don't want a lot o' poppy-cock talk, I reckon," added

Leverett. "'Tis just a secret for the seven of us--though," he

added under his breath to Carberry, "I'm consarned if I like

to work with a slave."

Caleb Carberry was a thin, feeble-looking young man who had

been cook's mate on the _Marblehead_. He glanced at Cuffee, to

whom Leverett referred, and answered aside--

"Sam's all right. No smouch him. Besides, Mister Stark

have had him for a servant ever since we sailed."

But Leverett shook his head.

"I don't trust no black man. I'm fearsome of him. He's

always snooking around; and so like as not he'll end by busting

on the show."

Despite the carpenter's distrust, however, a secret and desperate

determination henceforth actuated every member of the Seven,

Sam Cuffee included. What skill, energy and intrigue could do,

they meant to do. Miller and Stark had personal friends

quartered upon parole at Ashburton, some fifteen miles distant,

and their purpose now was to escape from Prince Town, enter

into communication with these Americans, and so win to the

sea-coast and to France.

"Hunger will break through a stone wall," said the

Commodore. "How much more may love of liberty do it!"