A GRAVE IN THE HEATHER
For two days the great blizzard continued, and Cecil Stark
remained more or less unconscious. Sometimes he recovered
sufficiently to speak, and his friend's name was upon his
tongue when he did so; but the sick man could neither frame a
coherent sentence, nor make his desires understood to any listener.
At length, however, he began to mend, and Maurice Malherb,
who held himself something of a physician, pronounced that the
lad was out of danger. For this happy circumstance he took all
credit to himself, but Grace declared that she it was who had
saved the wanderer's life. As yet she had not seen him. Her
mother and Dinah Beer ministered to him during his unconsciousness,
obeyed the master in every particular, and, with most
assiduous care, steadily nursed Cecil Stark back into life after he
had said farewell to it.
The American prisoner's return to intelligent speech brought
no small annoyance for his host. Stark's clothes were bought
from a Jew pedlar, and had not betrayed him; but he made
all clear as soon as he was able to do so; and Mr. Malherb,
stamping into the parlour after his first conversation with the
invalid, announced a discovery with considerable wrath. As yet
no news of the outer world had reached Fox Tor Farm. It lay
separated from all things by impenetrable barriers and drifts of
snow.
"An American! A wretched prisoner who broke out of Prince
Town on the night of the storm. One Cecil Stark, by a vile
coincidence. Doubtless that rascal who came so near to braining
Grace in the summer. Himself and other blackguards climbed
over the walls, for our sentries had been moved and wrapped in
cotton wool, I suppose, to keep the weakly fools from freezing!
Once in the teeth of the storm, three of the six prisoners turned
tail and went back as fast as their legs would carry them. Three
held on. One--a common sailor--was soon lost; two--this lad
and another officer--struggled to within a hundred yards of my
mansion. Then the elder fell to rise no more, and the boy, with a
last effort, reached us. The rest you know. Thanks to Grace
and to me, he will regain his worthless life, and not lose a finger."
"But the other poor souls--how monstrous sad to think that
one perished almost at our doorstep! I pray you despatch
Beer, Woodman, and the rest instantly, dear Maurice," cried
Mrs. Malherb.
"Am I a stone?" he answered. "Already the men and dogs
are seeking this unfortunate creature. But he is far beyond all
help. It may be that we shall not find him before the melting of
the snows."
Mr. Malherb hastened off, and Annabel, taking Grace with her,
went to see their guest. Young Lee had been appointed night
nurse to the sufferer, and now John met Grace and her mother as
they arrived.
"Mr. Stark is sitting up," he said. "He finds himself too
weak to rise, but he awaits you very eagerly. I hear him
mumbling a speech that shall express his deep regret for all the
care he has given here."
"He shall say no such things," declared Mrs. Malherb; yet,
before she could prevent it, Stark began upon the theme at his
heart.
"Forgive me, madam, for this terrible trouble that I have
brought into your home. I had better far have died outside it.
Yet I bless you that I still live. To sharp ears and generous
courage and wonderful skill I owe my salvation, and 'tis beyond
human power ever to thank you for such goodness. Samaritans
indeed have you been to me. You have given me back my life."
"Then I pray you to set a better value on it, Master Stark,"
said Annabel, "for truly you rated it but low to venture it on such
a hazard."
"It shall be precious henceforth. When I grow desperate I
will consider the price of skill and trouble with which you and
your husband have redeemed it."
"And my daughter, sir; your best thanks are due to her, for
'twas she who heard your cry in the night."
Grace, gazing down, saw a strong, young face, with wild black
hair, a powerful neck, square jaw, and clean, firm mouth. Stark's
countenance was very thin, and the grey eyes that burnt out of it
appeared dim and weary. Their lids kept falling upon them. But
now into his face came a flush. He had not yet looked at Grace
Malherb, nor did he do so now.
"God bless your daughter, madam. And have they found
him--my friend--the Commodore? 'Twas to him I shouted, and
forgot that the cry might reach any other listener."
"I fear you must not hope----"
"No, no. I only trust that he may be found--his dust. Oh,
God of Mystery! to think that I led my friend directly to your
very gates and lost him then because my senses were sealed up.
Mayhap one word had saved him! And such a sailor as any
nation might take glory in! He lies there, frozen to death;
while I bide here alive, with angels to tend my good-for-nothing
body."
"He's gone to greater and better work, young sir," said
Annabel.
"There's no greater or better work on earth or in Heaven,
madam, than to fight for one's country," he answered wearily.
"And is not Heaven the Country of us all? What nobler task
than to fight for that? You shall find there--not Frenchmen,
nor Englishmen, nor Americans--but only happy souls at rest."
"Your land has killed a great man," he said.
"Alas, sir! Of what nation on earth can less be confessed?
The conqueror's path is often over noble corpses. You are young
and our terrible solitudes have not yet tamed you. We shall see
you again to-morrow. Meantime John Lee and Mrs. Beer are at
your beck and call by night and day. And accept my earnest
and prayerful thanksgiving that you are spared to do worthy work
in the world."
"And mine too, Mr. Stark," said Grace.
Then, for the first time, he lifted his eyes to her face and
recognised her. Thereupon his slight colour faded away, and he
seemed like to faint. Instead, he braced himself, sat up, regarded
her with deep emotion and spoke.
"I remember you! You have paid me good for evil, indeed.
I----"
But here his fortitude failed him, his spirit was shaken in
its present feeble state, and he turned his face away to the wall.
Annabel hastened her daughter out of the room and followed her
immediately.
"The poor young man is reduced to the utmost weakness,"
she presently told her husband. "He must have all the strong
and sustaining fare that we can bestow upon him to restore his
masculine serenity. 'Twas he whose chisel nearly destroyed dear
Gracie, and when he saw her and thought upon it, he hid his
face to weep. 'Twas a pitiful sight--happily only seen by
women."
"Death came so nigh that it robbed him of manhood--if
Americans have manhood--yet just missed to grasp at his life.
We must restore him to health and to prison as quickly as
may be. There is wine in my cellar--an elixir beyond reach of
any now, for none remains in the market. He shall be free of it.
Yet I hate to think that even in the name of humanity we have
suffered an American to cross this threshold."
"Our country's enemy, father, not ours," said Grace.
"And since when were my country's enemies not mine, chit?"
he asked.
"Yet you praised Monsieur Marliac, who is on parole at
Ashburton, for his riding in that noble run before the ill
weather."
"His riding, yes; not him. He happens to be a marvellous
fine horseman with British resource and courage. Some Englishman
doubtless taught him. Have done with that. When this
boy returned to consciousness, my first demand upon him was
that he should give me his parole. Needless to say, he instantly
agreed to do so."
The baying of a hound, the shrill barking of two terriers, and
the murmur of men's voices came through the window. Other
sounds there were not, for the snow had long muffled up the
earth and made its frozen surface dumb. Glancing out of the
casement, Malherb saw the sight that he awaited, bade Grace
and her mother retire, then solemnly went forth uncovered to
meet the dead.
An hour before, Thomas Putt, with Beer, Harvey Woodman
and Mark Bickford, had tramped out of doors to seek the body
of Cecil Stark's companion. The snow no longer fell; the sky
was clear, yet lacked colour; the wind, sunk from its sustained
fury, now uttered gigantic but irregular sighs and slept between
them. When it blew, snow-wreaths puffed aloft in little spirals,
and deep white snow-banks slipped and cracked. Like streams
of ink the rivers wound beneath, and every rush and briar beside
them bent under its proper weight of snow. The glare of the
earth upthrown made Mr. Putt's eyes smart. A bitter, steely
cold still held the Moor, and every man was wrapped up in such
thick garments as he possessed. Mr. Beer wore one of his wife's
shawls wrapped round his ears, while each labourer had fashioned
himself haybands to protect his legs. They held their task vain,
but hoped that the dogs might do what they could not. The
hound--a mastiff--rejoicing in its liberation, bellowed and
plunged dewlap deep in the snow, while the terriers tumbled
and rollicked after it until only their wagging tail-stumps were
visible.
Richard Beer growled at the evil times and speculated where
the farm field-walls might lie under this universal carpet.
"Us might so soon seek a storm-foundered sheep or steer as a
man," declared Putt. "I'll be tissicked up wi' brownkitty again
to-night, an' nobody to care a cuss whether my breathing be hard
or easy."
"Never seed any man wi' so poor a spirit as you," answered
Bickford. "Once you get cold to the bone an' you haven't the
pluck of a louse."
"I'm a poor tool when I'm cold, an' I know it," admitted
Putt. "Now us be all getting our death for nought. If there
was a live party lost 'twould be differ'nt--even though he was an
enemy of the nation. But this here chap's been food for foxes
these many days."
"'Twas a great sign of the love o' freedom said to be born in
'em, that they Yankees would rather take to the open on such
a night than bide any more pent in that den of Frenchmen and
prison evil," mused Beer.
"I'm the last to blame 'em," declared Woodman.
"They'm too blown up as a nation, however," added Beer.
"'Twas a very unhandsome thing to get in holds with us just
when we had our hands full wi' Boney."
"I reckon these chaps had to do what they were told, like us,"
declared Mark Bickford. "They'm sailor men, so I hear, an' 'tis
no use cussing 'em same as master do. They be only earning
their living. A sailor have got to do what he'm bid, like any
other warrior."
"God's word! but he makes my blood boil, no matter how
cold the weather be--master, I mean. I wouldn't speak to a dog
like he speaks to me. The manhood in me will blaze out some
day," declared Putt.
"Then you'll get turned off," said Mr. Woodman.
"'Tis very well for you; though Lord He knows how you can
stand the mouth-speech you suffer from him in his rash moments,"
retorted Putt.
"I stand it, like a donkey eats dachells:[*] I be built to. My
family's always had a marvellous power of putting up with hard
words from our betters. Not from smaller men, mind you, nor
yet from our equals; but what's simple impidence an' sauce not
to be borne from the common sort, be just greatness of mind in
the bettermost. They don't mean nothing. 'Tis only the haughty
blood in 'em."
[*] _Dachells_: Thistles.
"'Tis just their haughty blood that these here American chaps
won't sit down under no more," declared Mr. Beer. "There's no
bettermost among them, so I'm told. A man have got to work
his way to the top. He can't be born up top; though how it
answers to have no gentlefolks, I ban't witty enough to guess."
Malherb's great mastiff presently, by skill or accident,
discovered the thing that these men sought. Beside Childe's
desolated cenotaph the hound stopped, lifted up its head and
bayed. Then it began to dig, and the terriers, yelping loudly,
rushed to aid it. The men with their shovels made quick work,
and the corpse of Jonathan Miller lay revealed. Neither physical
agony nor mental grief clouded his features. His eyes were shut;
his countenance appeared placid under the gentle snow-slumber
that had led him through the Valley of the Shadow. All perceived
that they stood before one who had been their superior. Thomas
Putt touched his hat to the corpse. Beer dragged a bottle from
his pocket, then, appreciating the futility of troubling the dead,
prepared to put it away again with a sorrowful oath.
But Bickford proposed another course.
"He can't drink, poor hero, but us can. If you've brought
brandy, gi' me a drop, for I'm in a proper case for it. My feet
be just conkerbils of ice beneath me."
Therefore they all drank, and Woodman spoke as his turn came
for the bottle.
"Here's to the gen'leman," said he, "an' may he be out of
trouble for evermore."
"An' here's to his wife an' family," added Beer, wiping the
mouth of the bottle with his sleeve before he put it to his
lips. "You may be pretty sartain he's left a wife an' half a
dozen, for men in new countries allus get a quiver full, according
to the wonnerful wisdom of the Lord."
"An' I'll drink to the sexton," said Bickford, "because the
ground's froze two feet, an' the digging of this carpse's grave be
going to fetch out a proper sweat on some man."
"You take his honour's heels, will 'e, Woodman? An' walk
first. Me an' Putt will hold each a shoulder. You gather up the
tools, Bickford, an' keep back they dogs. Look at thicky baggering
hound! He knows he've done a clever thing an' wants the
world to know it."
So they returned and cast their features into a solemn mould at
the direction of Richard Beer.
"Us can't be axed to feel no more than the proper sorrow of
man for man," he explained, "but death's death; an' it might be
you or me as was going feet first an' shoulder high, but for the
goodness of God an' us being Englishmen."
"The poor soul's feet would make a merry-andrew sober," said
Woodman. "What he's suffered only him an' his Maker will
ever know."
"They'll be cured again afore his honour wants 'em," answered
Richard Beer. "He'll rise so well as ever he was at the Trump,
along with the best man amongst us."
That night a coffin was built and the dead American's remains
laid with reverence therein. A few papers and a watch were
found in Miller's pockets, and Malherb, making a packet of them,
handed all to the prisoner on parole. Then, two days afterwards,
when the weather was bright and the temperature had a little
risen, Stark found himself strong enough to rise and creep about
and reach the grave that had been dug for his friend.
Maurice Malherb selected a resting-place upon his own
domain; and to Bickford himself the task of sinking six feet into
the frozen soil was allotted. Thus within the bosom of Dartmoor,
as many of his countrymen before him, a good and wise son of
America was laid to rest; but his compatriots' dust mouldered
under the prison walls; the sailor slept on the central waste. And
still his pall is the solemn-moving and purple shadow of the
clouds in summer, and in winter the unstained snow; still his
knell is sounded in the musical echo of sheep-bells, or the cry of
birds by night. The life and activity of Fox Tor Farm have
vanished into the eternal past, and graves widely scattered hold
those who buried Miller then; but none sleep so grand, so
solitary as he in his forgotten tomb under the heather. A repulsed
civilisation has retreated before the severity of the land, before
the far-flung granite, hungry peat and rough greeting of winter
winds and storms; but these forces, harsh to living man, are the
patient watchers beside his grave; this earth and stone he cannot
tame, yet they open their hearts to him at the last.
The American was present as chief mourner at his friend's
interment; while Maurice Malherb read the funeral service, and
at his order all the human life of the farm assembled beside the
grave. Stark, now restored to strength, exhibited no trace of
emotion during the ceremony, and at the completion of it he
limped homeward with Mrs. Malherb and her daughter. This
he did by direct command.
"Your health and the weather do not permit me to allow you
to follow your wish," his host said curtly; "but I shall be proxy
for you in my own person."
Therefore Maurice Malherb waited beside the grave alone until
Putt and Bickford had completely filled it up.