HANGMAN'S HOLLOW
John Lee entertained a very vivid recollection of the spot
where his grandmother had turned on a moonlit night under
Fox Tor, and beat him for daring to follow her. That her
hiding-place was still the same he doubted not; and now he
determined to track the old woman down again, but with more stealth
and skill than had marked his boyish operations.
Seven times he waited on the Moor beneath the hills, only to
find each vigil unbroken save by the familiar shapes and voices of
the night. Then two moons passed and the hunting season
opened in earnest. It now became Lee's duty to ride his master's
second horse, for Mr. Malherb was both a heavy weight and a
hard rider. As for Grace, she approached the sport with all her
father's ardour and quickly proved herself a brave and a brilliant
horsewoman. Oftentimes she made John's heart sink, for she
knew no fear; then Maurice Malherb cautioned her for incurring
of unnecessary risk, and in private John implored her to be more
cautious.
"You are magnificent," he said. "'Tis a grand thing to see
Mr. Malherb's face when he watches you; but you are made of
flesh and blood, not moonbeams; and your horse, fine though he
is, can only do what a horse may."
"'Tis so funny to hear dear father tell all men about his
wonderful system of teaching; while the sober truth is that you
have taught me what I know," she answered. "Father rides well
enough and with the courage of a lion; but you--I love to hear
them talk of it. Sir Thomas and the rest declare that you have
the most perfect style on Dartmoor. Father has to thank you for
much. You nurse his second horse marvellously."
"He is always most generous with his praise--and his
half-guineas. I hate to take them," replied John.
Grace Malherb got her first brush in November. Then came
a day when circumstances so fell out that she went to a meet with
Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt and the house party from Tor Royal. Upon
this occasion Mr. Malherb had business in Exeter and he rode
thither at dawn with John Lee. It was understood that Grace
might spend the night with friends at Holne, some miles from
Fox Tor Farm.
An incident trivial in itself needs this much of elaboration,
since mighty matters sprang from it. Maurice Malherb, his
business of purchasing a new hunter happily completed, set off
homeward in good spirits; while John Lee followed, riding his
own horse and leading the new one.
Upon his return the master found that Grace had not come
home; while John Lee, perceiving the night to be clear and lit by
the moon, determined once again to keep a vigil for Lovey. He
tumbled into bed soon after eight o'clock, slept soundly for three
hours, then, as he had often done of late, arose, dressed in his
thickest attire, left the loft wherein he lived and crept out of the
house. Slipping from a side door, John was startled to hear
footsteps, and, peeping cautiously over a gate that led to the
stable-yard, he saw his master, booted and spurred. A moment later
Maurice Malherb led a saddled horse from the stable, mounted it
and cantered away.
John kept invisible until the other was gone; then, full of
wonder at a circumstance quite beyond his experience, he left the
farm and entered the Moor. The moon shone clearly, and there
was frost in the air. Dew glimmered grey upon the dying herbage;
and below in the valley waters murmured softly from a dense
cloud of silver mist that hid them.
Now the object of Malherb's secret pilgrimage was one which
he would sooner have perished than declare. The man's soft
heart prompted him upon this mission; a simple matter of sentiment,
hidden jealously from every eye, took him forth into the
night. The morning kiss that he gave to Grace was always formal
and cold; and if sometimes he stroked her hair or patted her soft
cheek, he instantly assumed an attitude of indifference or said
some harsh word, as though contemptuous of his own weakness.
Annabel Malherb, affectionate and warm-hearted though she was,
possessed far more common-sense and infinitely more self-possession
in matters of human affection than did her husband. She
showed all that she felt and very properly passed for a gentle and
a tender-hearted woman; he secreted his emotions and banked up
volcanic fires out of sight. Thus he suffered as only those at once
self-conscious and deeply feeling can suffer.
Upon returning from Exeter, Mr. Malherb supped with his wife
and heard how Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt had called upon his homeward
way after hunting and taken a dish of tea and a cordial.
"'Twas a very good run--one hour and twenty minutes. They
killed upon East Dart, near Dury, and my lady Bastard had the
brush."
"What of Grace?"
"Sir Thomas saw her once, well up. Doubtless she returned
with the Fentons to Holne. Her things were sent in good time,
for Dinah Beer went in to market there and took 'em with her."
"Yes, yes, of course," said the farmer, and spoke of other
matters. Yet sleep refused to close his eyes; and while Annabel
slumbered placidly enough, well knowing that her daughter was
safe and happy, the father, equally sure of the fact in his reason,
found a paternal instinct above reason keeping him awake and
restless. He tossed to the right and left; he swore half-sleeping;
then he started into wakefulness and saw his window full of
moonlight. The illumination decided him. With a shamed face he
stole from the side of his wife, and ten minutes later was ready
to take the road. Creeping out of doors, he went to the stable,
saddled a hack and rode off towards Holne village with a sulky
and guilty satisfaction. The thought of any human eye upon him
had driven him into a furious passion at once. He was ashamed
of himself, yet well content to be upon this business.
Malherb trotted the four miles to Holne, fastened up his horse
at the edge of a wood, and proceeded cautiously to the dwelling
of the Fentons. Avoiding the front of the house, he presently
reached the back premises. All was still, and he passed
noiselessly to the window of the stables. The occasional thud of
hoofs and snort of nostrils reached him from here. Moonlight
illuminated the interior, and Malherb without difficulty saw what
he wished to see. His daughter's hunter stood comfortable and
asleep in its stall. For that sight alone the man had come,
because it revealed to him how all was well with Grace. Some
great dog bayed, and leaped to the length of its chain with a
rush and rattle, but before a sleepy voice from above bade it be
silent, Malherb was far away. He hurried back through the
trees to his horse, then returned homewards, happy. Other such
human secrets as this were locked in the casket of his heart, and
now, thinking upon the past, he remembered deeds to his account
as a young husband and father. He growled impatiently and
shook his head, for it vexed him that God's self should know
those things.
Into the thread of the night's incidents Malherb anon returned,
but for the moment it is necessary that we follow John Lee.
Proceeding along the accustomed way, he hid closely where,
beneath the inky blackness of a rock's shadow, it was possible for
him to survey the shining vast, himself unseen. The sky twinkled
with frosty stars to the horizon; the moon sailed high overhead.
Then, almost before he had settled to his vigil, there came a
sound out of the night, a rhythm of feet, that bore a lean
grey figure who seemed woven of light and mist. It crept
towards him; it promised to pass along the sheep-track within five
yards of him; and Lee, with a tremor of boyish fear suddenly
chilling his bones, shrank into the darkness and scarcely dared
to breathe. Then Lovey Lee went past, and the light was in her
eyes where they glimmered out of her white face, like jewels set
in marble. Her breath came a little short, for she was moving
fast. As one in sleep she swept along, staring before her, until
her tall shape was swallowed up again within the pearly dimness
of the Moor. The sound of her footsteps died upon his ear;
the vision of her faded.
John Lee gave his grandmother a few minutes' start before he
followed with extreme caution. For two miles he stalked the
shadow of her, then, perceiving that she must presently enter a
deep gorge known as Hangman's Hollow, where certain ruins of
old mining works and blowing-houses still stood, he made a wide
detour, mended his pace, and got to the neck of the coombe
before her. Here he concealed himself again beside one of the
rotting buildings, formerly used for smelting of tin. He hid
behind a broken wall, and through a chink in it kept watch upon
the ravine down which he had just hastened. Upon his left
yawned a disused gravel-pit, where a labourer had hanged himself
to a rowan tree and so given this sinister name to the spot.
Around about, dying brake-fern spread wanly under the night;
and here and there flashed the white of a rabbit's scut as it
bobbed from its hole to the open and back again. On the
watcher's right hand, deep sunk into the heather-clad earth, the
bulk of an old blowing-house still appeared; but one side had
bulged and broken out, so that the whole stood like a shattered
corpse of some habitation, and shone pallid there in its pall of
grey lichens and rusty moss.
While still he panted after his run, and was vexed to see
his breath steam into the moonlight, there came Lovey Lee
slowly descending. She passed him, and turned the corner of
the ruin where two broken walls rose with a shattered alley-way
between them. Above towered the dome of the blowing-house;
beneath was a wilderness of broken stone.
John heard no sound, so he took off his boots, and, keeping in
the shadow, peeped round the corner that Lovey had turned.
But he saw nothing. The place was a narrow cul-de-sac and no
visible exit offered from it; yet Lovey had quite vanished. Her
grandson rubbed his eyes, then crept forward, and, growing
bolder, searched every nook and cranny of the spot. But not
one evidence of life rewarded him. Beneath, green sward sloped
away at the embouchure of the combe, and a few sleeping
sheep appeared dotted upon it, all misty and silver-grey. No
shadow of his mysterious grandmother was visible. Again
he searched without avail, then turned homeward--in haste
to be gone. There was upon him now a cold and crawling
sensation of dread. Witches and devils, hobgoblins and
werwolves were dancing in his mind; each silent stock and stone
that stared moon-tranced upon him seemed to hide some
nocturnal thing of horror, some ghoul, or cacodemon. Impish
atoms of life twisted and wriggled under his feet; the owl's
cry uttered words of dark meaning to him; the night opened
sudden unexpected eyes, and spirits that he had never known
now jostled and elbowed poor John Lee. Even in his
superstitious dread he felt a wave of shame when he thought of
what Grace must say; yet he could not regain his courage
immediately, for every time that the problem of his grandmother's
disappearance turned uppermost in his mind there came an
unnatural solution to it.
But had John Lee waited patiently with his eyes upon the
ruin, instead of flying so fast away, his fears had been stilled, and
the mystery solved without any superhuman aid. Long before
he reached home again Lovey had already reappeared, and was
tramping back by the way that she had come.
Then the sound of a horse's feet fell suddenly upon her ear,
and knowing that it was no wandering pony, but a mounted
beast, she turned and saw the figure of Maurice Malherb
approaching. The old woman's first instinct was to secrete herself,
but time did not allow of it. The horseman had observed her
and now reached her side. Indeed, annoyance quickly gave
place to curiosity at this extraordinary apparition of him by
night; and he felt no less surprise on meeting the ancient woman
thus alone at such an hour.
"Lord defend us!" she cried. "What ghost be you stealing
here afore cock-crow thus?"
"You know me well enough," he answered. "And you, you
old miser? Going to visit your hoard, I'll wager--or else keeping
an appointment with the Devil."
"Ess; only I've missed my gentleman. He's too busy to meet
me this evening," she said; "but you'll do very well. An' so
you ban't weary o' Dartymoor; but love it so dearly that you
must wander here by night as well as day? Most of your sort
be sick of the place before the moss begins to grow on the silly
walls they build."
"There's no shepherd for sheep like the owner of them," said
Malherb. "A good wether was slaughtered not long since. I'd
pay handsomely to know whose belly bettered by him. There's
a man called Jack Ketch for that work, Lovey Lee."
"You be fond of promising me a halter. See your own cursed
temper don't thrust your head into one afore long. You be all
alike--your brother, an' him as be dead, an' my old skinflint
master--robber that he was. But 'tis idle to cuss the dust."
"You've no call to curse Malherbs--you with twenty thousand
pounds of my money stolen."
"You still think as I've got you're beggaring old pot?"
"I'll swear you had it; and I'd stake half its value that you
have it yet."
"An' if I had? What better way of filling your eyes with
twenty thousand pound all to once?"
"But not your own."
"Bah! If I had it, 'twould be my own, as much as my body
an' bones be my own--mine to make or mar--to cherish or put
under my feet."
"I'll swear your hag's eyes have mirrored it this night!" cried
Malherb. "I see you licking your lips as though you had just
come from a feast."
"If 'twas so, 'tis a feast as I won't ax you to share."
"Nevertheless, I shall share it some day unasked."
"You'm welcome; but the day you see the Malherb amphora
again will be the last day you see anything."
"You've got it then?"
"Why, as to that--since there be no witness here but your
horse--I can speak. Ess, I've got it safe enough. 'Tis my
family to me, my fire, my food, my heaven. I catch heat from
it in the cold; it feeds me when I be hungry; it fires my blood
same as liquor would. I hug it like a lover an' it makes me
young again. But you--you that have lifted walls between my
cattle an' their best grazing ground--you that have cursed me
and promised to hang me--you that be what is worst in every
generation of your race rolled into one--you may ax an' pray to
all the devils of hell for your amphora; an' they'll sooner give it
back to you than ever I shall!"
Malherb preserved a very remarkable restraint under these
insults.
"As usual, my judgment is confirmed," he said. "You hold
my treasure and deny me possession. So be it. But you must
die some day, Lovey Lee. Now let us discuss the future."
"Never--never," she screamed. "Die--who be you talking
to? I ban't built to die. I'm all steel springs and tough as
osiers. Not a sense failing, an' power to do a man's work when
I will. I'll last out you an' your brood, never fear; I'll live to
see your blasted walls in the dust yet an' your body resting on
the Coffin Stone up Dartmeet Hill. Don't fox yourself to think
I'm going to die afore you. An' when that time does come an'
I know that I've got to go, I'll scat your toy to little bits--pound
it to dust an' eat it--eat twenty thousand pounds! I've thought
of that--I, that live on snails an' efts, will make me such a meal
as no human has ever made. You! I'd rather fling the glass
under the hammers at the tin mine afore you should touch it or
see it more."
"A ducking-stool would do you good, you foul-mouthed old
witch," he said. "Be very sure your secret's out now and the
end of you is not far off."
"You're a fool to think so. You'll tell the world I've got your
amphora? And I'll say I have not. You'll say that I confessed
to it, and I'll ax when? You'll say upon the middle of Dartymoor
at a moonshiney midnight! An' the neighbours will reckon
another fool be taking to drink to drown his troubles. Get home
to your wife! Be you faithless to her, too, along of your other
faults? Go; throw over more crosses till the curse of God's ripe
for you! An' do me a hurt at your eternal peril. Your son be
took, but lift one finger against me, an' by the God as made us
both evil, I'll ruin your daughter's life. 'Tis in my power to do
it, so I can hit you harder than you can hit me."
She stood still a moment, then turned her back upon him, and
hastened down a stony place into the darkness. He watched her
climb out upon the other side and fade into night. For a moment
his rage prompted him to gallop after her, but he changed his
mind and turned homeward.
A grand problem filled the foreground of his life from that
moment. Daily his circumstances grew more straitened, and
that morning he had felt shamed in secret to spend fifty guineas
on a new hunter. Yet now twenty thousand pounds seemed
almost within reach again. He doubted not that his amphora
was hidden upon Dartmoor, and felt positive that the historical
jewel of the Malherbs must soon return to his possession.
Already he planned the spending of the money.
In olden times this man would have thought it no sin to
torture the truth out of Lovey Lee by rack or red-hot iron.
Now he concerned himself with other ways of solving the problem.
Stealthily he returned home, stalled his horse and rubbed
it down, then crept back to bed. His mind was occupied with
fair means to recover his amphora. As for the miser's threats,
they were forgotten. He had as yet met no woman capable
of opposing herself successfully to his determination.