GOOD NEWS
In his own estimation Maurice Malherb had long since
mastered the mysteries of Dartmoor, and was now familiar
with its difficulties and dangers by night or day. But heavy
snow presented new problems; progress toward Prince Town
proved very difficult; many detours had to be made, and a chill
gloaming, lighted by the purity of the earth, already sank upon
the travellers before Siward's Cross was reached.
As they approached Lovey's cottage, Malherb called up his
groom and bade him ride ahead. Until the present John had
kept behind, for his master objected to take advice or profit by
the lad's local experience.
"Get you forward to your grandmother and order a brew of
hot drink, John Lee. A draught of milk with something from
my spirit-flask will not be amiss."
John cantered forward and Stark, as many a man had done
before him, admired the rider's perfect skill.
"How magnificently that fellow sits his horse," he said.
"Well enough; but it was not I who taught him--a natural
gift," confessed Mr. Malherb.
When they reached Mrs. Lee's hut, both dismounted and
entered the squalid den, to find a pan of milk already steaming
upon a great peat fire. Malherb showed by no word or sign the
nature of his last meeting with Lovey Lee, and the American
was similarly cautious. As for the miser, she treated them both
with equal indifference.
Cecil Stark gazed round him to see the salvation he had
fought to find in the storm. With better knowledge of the
Moor, his amazement grew at his own recent escape; and yet
a thing not less remarkable had fallen out on the same
tremendous night.
When Lovey Lee handed a cup to the prisoner, Malherb proposed
to add spirits from his flask, but the old woman objected.
"Put nothing in, young sir. There's a drop of cordial there
already. Think you I don't know what cold men need to warm
their vitals?"
Stark laughed but read the look in her eyes and took the
cup quickly. Then he saw that a hollow hazel-nut floated in the
milk and, familiar with Lovey's expedients, drank at once. The
nut he kept within his cheek and presently transferred to his
pocket.
Anon they went their way refreshed, and, commenting upon the
grim and starved object who had ministered to them, Stark listened
to new sentiments from Maurice Malherb, and saw a little deeper
into the gulf that separated their convictions.
"The peasant's mind has ever been my close study, and I
have endeavoured to supply his requirements all my life," declared
the older man. "His path is narrow, but well marked. To
attempt to draw him from it would be madness. Poverty is no
hardship in itself, and to teach a peasant to be other than poor
is no part of a wise man's work."
"But education----"
"Endangers the tranquillity of the community at large. It
unsettles their minds, loosens the bonds that holds them to
their native soil, provokes all manner of outrage. Think of the
Tories, the Peep-o'-Day Boys, the Hearts of Steel and other
ruffianly hordes of banditti that disturbed Ireland before the
rebellion."
"But education is the watchword of civilisation," exclaimed
Stark.
"You think so; but like every half-truth, the idea is abominably
dangerous. What do you do? Under the name of Liberty,
you invite to your naked shores the German, the Frenchman, or
any other needy and worthless adventurer who goes a-wandering.
You announce that the feudal services required by the great from
the humble in Europe are banished from your country. You tell
the new-come immigrants that lie--you, who keep your heel upon
the black and fill your pockets with the proceeds of his misery!
A race of slave-dealers to trumpet Liberty!"
Stark flushed and felt the hit.
"I grant some truth there. Please God, we'll live to see that
plague-spot healed. But our constitution is sound; we shall
throw our ailments off. To deny knowledge to your own
people--that is a worse disease. Consider the epidemic you will
breed!"
"You are ignorant of history, Mr. Cecil Stark. We have centuries
of experience on which to base our judgment. What think
you fostered the naval rebellion of fifteen years agone? As a
sailor that will interest you. Why, the pen-and-ink gentry aboard
His Majesty's ships of war! They made a mutiny with their
devilish doctrines scratched on paper and spread in secret from
vessel to vessel. How shall we suppress concerted action in the
multitude, if every Jack among 'em learns to read and write?
Consider the sedition that must spring from such an abandoned
state. No, let the poor work, not think. These people are
only too ready to believe that their penury is the result of our
oppression, and grows incompatible with the rights of man. Then
what follows?"
"They'll do as we did and cast off their chains for ever,"
declared the sailor.
"You would support anarchy then?"
"And yet you yourself, sir, give your own workers more than
the usual wage, and pay the women as women were never paid
elsewhere--so Kekewich informed me."
Malherb shook his head impatiently.
"They will be talking, damn them, instead of doing their work.
Don't argue from a particular case. I've my own private
opinion--especially as to women's labour on the land. That's neither
here nor there. I'm possibly wrong. Education takes the poor
to the devil. Enlarge their views and you distort their views.
They institute uncomfortable and improper comparisons; they
begin to confuse the rights of property; the sanctity of birth is
forgotten; the interests of the country are threatened: the State
totters and falls."
"Surely the sooner it falls, the better for England. A State
built on foundations of ignorance----"
"So you echo your specious people. Ignorance is the solid
and everlasting rock on which the prosperity of every State must
exist. If you believe your Bible, you will see from Genesis that
the Creator made happiness depend on ignorance. The Tree of
Knowledge is a very statesmanlike conceit. Preserve a
fundamental ignorance at any cost. Your own life depends upon it.
Once let knowledge in--'tis like the foul air in a mine--death
follows. The Church battens on that golden rule; so does the
State. The security of both lie therein. But our spiritual and
temporal lords are far too wise openly to proclaim what I tell
you."
"Then God help your country," answered the younger man;
"for a policy more cynical, more vile, was never uttered. I go to
prison now, but 'tis you who are in prison. I am free. This
State's a prison--a prison not made with hands, but with heads--a
prison of cruel prejudices, narrow distinctions, distrusts,
hatreds, and lies. But your prosperous errors shall not always
prevail against unpopular truths. Your time will come."
"I wish you had been better brought up," said Malherb.
"You feel deeply; there is character in you; but unfortunately
it has been poisoned at the source."
"And I wish that I could open your prison doors, sir, before
mine shut upon me. Stone and iron are only dust; they will
not endure; but the pride of Lucifer, the blind prejudice of the
Dark Ages, and such a damnable policy as you have this moment
uttered, make a prison-house for the spirit of man that it will
need a revolution to shatter."
"It is such windy nonsense that has led you there!" answered
Malherb.
He pointed where the grey walls of Prince Town, set in snow,
rose ashy against the twilight, and Stark's enthusiasm chilled a
little at sight of them.
They fell into silence; then the American shook his host's
hand and bade him a grateful farewell. A moment later he had
dismounted from 'Cæsar' and entered the War Prison.
Two surprises awaited the sailor. Within Lovey's hazel-nut
was a scrap of paper that told how, by miraculous chance, James
Knapps had escaped the blizzard, and, while turning from the
full force of it, in reality corrected his way and made a straight
journey to the hut by Siward's Cross. Thus wonderfully he
saved his life; and his eyes, at a crack in the boards of Lovey's
ceiling, had watched Cecil Stark beneath. Through Lovey,
Knapps now made urgent appeal to his friends, and the paper
in the nutshell called for money to pay the miser and for
instructions as to the future conduct of Mr. Knapps himself.
Heartened by this circumstance, Cecil Stark presently went
before the authorities; and then another sensation greeted him.
During his absence Captain Cottrell had been superseded, and a
new commandant now reigned over the prisoners.
BOOK III
UNDER THE EARTH
CHAPTER I
THE TREASURE HOUSE
On a day when the storm had sunk to a grim memory, when
cold winds blustered and more snow fell through the dark
and sunless weeks before spring-time, did Harvey Woodman and
Richard Beer hold converse with ancient Kekewich. For once
the pessimist had those of the household with him; but no
sooner were the labouring men reduced to a condition of absolute
hopelessness before the picture he painted, when Kekewich
changed sides, according to his wont, took up his master's part
and foretold fair things out of contradiction.
"Ban't our business," declared Woodman, "an' yet even a
common man have eyes; an' touching the potatoes, a fool could
see he's wrong."
"Actually feeding the stock on 'em, an' grumbling when my
wife goes to fill a sack for the house!" said Beer. "Ban't good
husbandry or good sense to feed beastes on such human food.
Lord knows they potatoes cost enough to fetch up out o' the
airth. 'Twould be better far to face the trouble an' buy fodder
in a big spirit."
"No method to him, if a man may say so without disrespect,"
answered Woodman. "Of course you wants to look forward
more 'pon Dartymoor."
"He fights the Moor same as he fights life," explained
Kekewich. "The masterfulness of un be so tremendous that us
might almost look to see Nature go down afore him."
"Nature don't go down; 'tis us that do," replied Beer; "an'
if the storm haven't taught him that, nothing won't. 'Tis no
sense your telling that sort o' rummage, Kek, an' very well you
know it."
"Not but the gentleman have his black moments," continued
Woodman. "I've seed him pass by me many a time wi' a cloud
on's face, an' a puzzled look in his eyes, as if he was trying to
read in a book an' couldn't catch the meaning. Essterday he
stood in the opeway an' stared out afore him so grim as a ghost,
as if he might have been waiting a message from the sky."
"He'll get a message as he won't like the taste of afore long,"
foretold Beer.
"He don't go about the right way to larn, I'm sure--to say it
without offence," added Woodman.
"He won't larn nought from you dumpheads, that's sartain,"
said Kekewich. "But he'm far off a fool, an' his heart's got
eyes if his head haven't. When all's said, 'tis for his lady an' his
darter he thinks an' plans. He lies waking o' nights for the honour
an' glory of the family. Things will fall out right yet, an us
shall live to see it."
"'Tis very well, though you'm the first to holler 'ruin' yourself
most days," retorted Beer, rather indignant that Kekewich should
thus take up a position so unusual. "Us all knows the man do
mean well as an angel, yet it looks a very unhandsome thing to
thrust his maiden into matrimony with a chap she hates like
sin."
"So it do," assented Woodman. "You'm right, Richard. He'll
take his stand behind his darter's welfare an' put a husband she
hates upon her. Wise it may be; Christian it ban't. But
everything's cut and dried now, and Mordecai Cockey, the journeyman
tailor, be coming in six weeks to make the clothes, so my wife
tells me."
"The maiden's Malherb, faither or no faither," said Beer, "and
Dinah, as understands such affairs, have marked by many a
foretoken that she won't wed out of her heart--not for fifty faithers."
"Matters be coming to a climax then," declared Harvey
Woodman solemnly. "My wife dreamed o' blood t'other night;
an' for my part I've seen Childe's tomb in my dreams, wi' Childe
hisself rising up like a ragged foreign bear. I do hate for things
to come in a heap this way. Ban't natural we should be called
upon to suffer more ills than one to a time. There's the whole
Book of Lamentations bearing down on Fox Tor Farm in my
opinion, an' I'd so soon be away as not."
"He've got money, however," argued Beer. "Money will
stem a good few mortal ills, let them as haven't got none say
what they please."
"As to that, my Mary heard him tell Missis something about a
canal somewheres that's gone scat; an' the lady turned white as
curds an' went in her chamber for to get over it unseen," answered
Woodman. "If you ax me, I reckon he'm driven for money.
When I spoke to un of half a dozen more drashels,[*] as wouldn't
have cost half-a-crown, he got so touchy as proud-flesh, an' told
me to run out of his sight, an' said us was a lot o' lazy
good-for-nothing hirelings as never thought of his pocket. Of course he
was round next day as usual with a cheerful word an' the money;
but I tented un to the quick when I axed for it first."
[*] _Drashels_: Flails.
"An' that's why Miss Grace have got to marry Mr. Norcot, no
doubt," declared Beer. "'Tis so much for her father's good as
her own belike."
He nodded to where Grace rode past the barn. She was clad in
a snug, short habit of purple Totnes serge; and upon her hands
were a pair of gloves made from the skin of a wild cat that had
been captured after prodigious exertions by Thomas Putt.
Behind Grace rode John Lee, and their enterprise was secret, for
it had to do with the young man's recent great discovery. Now
Grace, despite the languor of these days and the anti-climax
that followed upon Cecil Stark's departure, found herself awake
and much alive. Darkness shadowed her life and her home.
She knew that trouble slept with her parents and haunted her
father in all his goings; she suffered for them; yet she believed
that no such sorrow as her own private sorrow had ever crushed
into a human life before; that no such tragic experience as this
mistake of emotion for passion, had until now tortured an
unhappy young heart. Yet to fight upon her father's side seemed
good. She desired dangers and difficulties to lift her from her
personal tribulations. She herself had planned the present
expedition, and Lee was in some concern, for though undertaken
by daylight, it lacked not danger. John had at last discovered
Lovey's hiding-place, and now he was taking his mistress to
see it.
"Your star-bright eyes will find this wondrous treasure if 'tis
there," he said. "For myself I could light on nothing but
money-bags. They had gold in 'em and were ranged on stone
ledges as high as I could reach. For the rest, there was a pitcher
under trickling water that runs in a corner of the place; a basin,
with mouldy bread and cheese in it; and a great stone upon
which stood half a dozen rush-lights. And as I first climbed
down, 'twas like the story of Arabia that you told me, for the
walls of the hole all shone as though they were plastered with
pure gold. A light in darkness they made. 'Tis a shining moss
that glitters there on the damp rocks. I'm right glad to have
found the place; an' yet my mind misgives me that more evil
than good will come out of it."
"The only evil that can come out is Lovey Lee. If she
caught us!"
"No--that won't happen. She's safe for to-day. You'll laugh,
but you know there's force in the old charms for all your laughing.
They work, though wiseacres may know better."
"John, John!"
"A maiden nail has power, I tell you, despite all scoffing."
"A maiden nail! And what is that?"
"A nail fresh made from bar iron--one that has never touched
ground. Drive such in the threshold of a witch's door and for a
day and night she cannot hurt a fly."
"Really, John Lee, I could blush for you--here at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, in these dazzling days of
enlightenment!"
"I got 'em from Noah Newcombe, hot off his anvil," said John,
"and I've driven them home into the dern of grandmother's
door. Believe it or not, I very well know she's harmless to all
mankind this day."
"I wish I had such faith in men as you have in nails, John,"
said the girl thoughtfully. Then silence fell between them, and
Grace reflected upon her sweetheart's credulity. She had never
realised the extent of it until recent events and the intercourse
with the American prisoner. Peter Norcot's manifold ingenuities
and petty cleverness of quips and cranks had but served to make
John Lee's simplicity shine bright by contrast; but the light that
Stark cast over thought was a white light, and smote pitiless upon
both the others.
"You have faith in one man sure?" said John presently. He
had thought of her words long before replying to them.
"In two--in two," she answered hastily; but more she would
not say.
"'Tis old Kekewich and me," he mused aloud. "A very
strange thing, my lady dear, that two such men should get to be
trusted by your sweet spirit, afore all the rest of the world."
But she could not let him remain in ignorance.
"I meant Mr. Stark, not Kek," she answered.
He nodded and looked away.
"I know you meant him. 'Twas only to see if you'd tell me,
that I pretended you meant Kek. A sly thing to do, but
somehow I was tempted."
She did not answer, nor did he speak again until they reached
the ruin in Hangman's Hollow.
"Here we are at last--a queer sort of place. 'Twould call for
little fancy to see my grandmother meeting the Devil himself
here after dark. 'Pon that rowan above the gravel-pit a man
hanged himself a little while back, 'cause he found he'd been
cheated over a horse. Here, under our feet, is granny's den.
We'll dismount, tether up; an' then you follow me down this
blind alley-way to the top of the mound. By the wall-side at
the end, is a stone that will turn when we set foot upon it, and
open a hole down the blowing-house chimney into a great
chamber underground."
Grace dismounted; John fastened up their horses and soon
led the way whither Lovey Lee had vanished.
"But 'twas no miracle after all, you see. There--the stone
twists on a regular pivot. 'Tis balanced beneath like a logan."
He showed where a large piece of granite slowly yielded under
his weight. Then he retained it in position with a stick and
made it firm. A black, perpendicular pit appeared, and upon
the side of it rough stones protruded irregularly and formed a
ladder.
"I'll go down," said Lee, "and light a candle. 'Tis day-proof
and air-proof nearly; but you'll soon see and breathe when you're
used to it."
He disappeared, and from beneath Grace heard him strike
flint and steel, then saw the gleam of candlelight, and prepared
to descend. The way proved easy enough to one of her activity,
and soon she found herself beside John Lee, ten feet beneath
the earth, in a large irregular chamber. The place was half
natural, and half built of masonry now ruinous. A shaft of
daylight from above revealed the steps, and the walls of the grotto
diffused a glimmering and golden radiance, so that it seemed to
Grace that she had, indeed, descended into some storehouse of
fabulous treasure. The shining moss[*] encrusted the cavern
with its phosphorescent light, and water tinkled drop by drop
unseen. Lee held above his head a candle that he had brought
with him, and slowly details stole out of the gloom as their eyes
focussed them.
[*] _The shining moss_: Schistostega Osmundacea.
For some time they found nothing more than John had already
recorded. Then the desiccated remains of a dog in a corner made
Grace exclaim with sorrow. The beast was fastened by its neck
to a staple in the wall, and had clearly perished of starvation
there. Close scrutiny revealed nine or ten money-bags perched
aloft in nooks of the granite and holes of the broken building.
Grace opened three, and all contained the same amount--one
hundred pounds in gold. They restored every bag to its proper
hiding-place, and continued their search. Yet the girl grew
listless, and John Lee felt it by his senses, although he could not
see her face.
Presently he hit his shins against a square box corded up with
ropes, and his companion's heart throbbed as she thought that
within an hour the Malherb amphora would be restored to its
owner's hand. Then, while yet their new discovery remained
unproved, a dull indifference again invaded her spirit; and John
stood amazed to find her in no way disappointed when the box was
found to contain nothing more precious than silver plate, sundry
fine French snuff-boxes, watches and other trinkets.
"How brave you are!" he said. "Yet this is something
worth discovering, for I'll wager my grandmother stole what is
here from your family in times past."
"Be just to her. These French things perchance came from
the prisoners. Tie them up carefully, and put them where you
found them. Lovey must never guess that we have seen her
secrets."
The man obeyed, and for half an hour they continued to make
laborious and unrewarded search.
"'Tis a rogue's roost of a hole!" cried Lee. "You shall stop
in it no longer, else you'll faint for lack of sweet air. 'Twill take
much time and patience to exhaust all these crannies and clefts.
My candle wanes."
"Let us depart then and visit the place again presently when
time allows it."
"But you've lost your old eagerness," he said shortly.
"Not so. I care very much. Why, it is life or death
almost--for father. I know him to be sore driven for money."
"For your father. And is it nothing that it means life or
death for Jack Lee? Have you forgotten what you yourself
proposed? Oh, Grace, I'm afraid you have. I was to go to the
wars----"
"The wars are like to be soon over now, dear John."
He made no answer, but lighted her to the steps and helped
her to ascend them. Things recently suspected, like clouds
lifting their furrowed foreheads above a remote horizon, grew daily
nearer, and this experience within the treasure house had brought
alarm to the very zenith of John Lee's mind. He was quick to
see and to read each mood and humour of Grace Malherb. A
hesitation before a kiss, a wayward breaking off in mid-speech,
sudden ardours to atone for periods of coldness--all these shadows
and half-shades of change, and of a sense of honour at war with
overmastering love, had made themselves manifest in the girl;
and Lee had read them while she was ignorant of their visible
existence. At first such apparitions from her inner self merely
mystified him, and the memory of them vanished with the mood
that displayed them; but now more clearly he began to perceive
that her highest graciousness followed upon coolness; that she
was kindest after being least kind; that her outbursts of wild
affection sprang not from love, but remorse. He battled against
the belief; but it grew into a conviction, bitter and sure.
To-day, as he restored the cover-stone of the cave, he felt that
another nail was struck into hope's coffin; and the thought
wakened no indignation against Grace, but rather a mighty,
melancholy anger with himself, that he had proved a man too
feeble to hold his pearl against all comers.
"We must seek and seek and never despair," said Grace as they
turned to ride homeward. "I feel positive that the amphora is
there. If necessary you will have to hide in the den of the tigress
yourself, John, and mark her when she supposes herself alone.
Yet I should tremble for you. 'Twill be an awful day for that old
woman when she loses the amphora. It is her god."
"If I got it, I could almost find it in my heart to break it."
"John Lee!"
"Why, I spoke as I felt. I'm beginning to see terrible things
beyond your strength to hide, Gracie. You would hide them if
you could; you think in your heart that they are hidden; but
they peep out and scourge me for my awful folly."
"What--what can you mean?"
"Don't think to deceive me, for you deceive yourself, dearest
heart, if you do. I'm sensible in flashes, though mostly blind
with you. I've read the riddle ever since he went away; now
I've read the answer too."
"You wrong me to speak so. I have not changed to you,
John; and to him I am nothing in the world."
"Be angry; be angry; I could rage, too; I could tear up the
earth and--and--but I haven't the heart. I wouldn't hurt him
excepting as man to man. I'd pray to Heaven to bring us face
to face in war. I'd seek him out on land or sea--I'd----" He
broke off, dropped his rein, and pressed his hands to his face.
Then Grace rode close to him and touched his arm.
"You are unhappy, and I have made you so. This must not
be, dear John. 'Tis life and death between--between lovers, to
speak pure honesty at all times. Listen. He grew to love me.
'Twas the loneliness and friendlessness of his life. His eyes had
seen no woman for years; therefore he made more of me than
I deserved. He--he asked me to marry him some day; and I
told him that I belonged to another. Then he went out of my
life and blessed the unknown man who had been more fortunate
than himself. That is the truth; and if I've been half-hearted
and my wits a wool-gathering, forgive me, for the thought of
Master Stark's sorrow has made me sad. I have much desired
the war to end that he might go home to those who love him;
and--and--don't look at me like that, John, for God knows I
speak the truth to you. I hoped for his sake that the war might
cease; for yours that it might not cease. Then I settled it by
praying for peace with America--for his sake, and war with
France--for yours. I'm only a fool, John, but I'm a truthful
fool. There's nothing else in my silly heart but that."
"But there is--looking out of your eyes when you forget to
shut them and hide it. My pretty darling--oh, God, to give you
up! I cannot. I never will. A thousand heroes shall not take
you----"
"Give me up--what do you mean?" she cried, and her heart
beat fiercely.
"Why, 'tis true there must be no secrets betwixt us," he said in
a gentle voice, "not so long as we are what we are to one
another. 'Pure honesty' was your word. You tell me he asked you to
marry him. And you tell me what you answered. I know all
that right well without your telling me. But I've got to know
more; I've got to know what you felt as well as said."
"Sorry for him--most truly sorry for him, dear John. I _did_
like him. I'll own to that."
"Don't speak in a tone so light, sweetheart. 'Sweetheart'
still a little longer. You women do think a tone of voice makes
truth less true and falsehood less false. You say the same words
in different voices and mean different by them. And a man must
grow skilled in your sounds, like a hunter grows clever in the
sounds of wild things, not counting the weight of the words. You
say you liked him as you might like such a one that held your
stirrup or opened a gate; but you and me are at a place now
where you've got to speak sacred truth--solemn, slow, each word
forged to last till doom. Did you love that man?"
"What is it to love a man?"
He bowed his head.
"I'm answered," he said. "Oh, Gracie dear--once mine,
never mine--you know what 'tis to love a man; but you never
did afore you saw him."
She marvelled that one who had yesterday driven maiden nails
into a doorpost could see so deep. She remembered that it was
she who had taught him to read. Tears came to her eyes and
shining drops fell glittering on her horse's neck.
"You break my heart," she said.
"Please God, never! You didn't know; you mistook--what? you
mistook something else for love. We were a boy and a girl;
and I couldn't choose but worship--you were so lovely in soul
and body--so gentle to me--so----"
"John," she declared solemnly, "I shall marry you or no
man."
"You mean it with your whole heart, Gracie? Right well
I know you do, and I love to hear you say it, and to see you
think it while your beautiful, steadfast eyes fright the tears
away."
"I love you, I love you indeed, John."
"I am content to be loved so," he answered slowly. "And
maybe the time that's coming will show the colour of my love for
you, since 'tis all too big for words. 'Twill take deeds to set
it forth. It calls for deeds to show the pattern of a man's life, and
love for you be all that's left of life for me henceforward."
CHAPTER II
RHYME AND REASON
A fortnight after the visit to the old blowing-house,
Mr. Peter Norcot arrived from Chagford to stay a while at
Fox Tor Farm, and with him he brought more snow. This fact
by no means troubled his level temper. He was neither more
plain-spoken nor less poetical than usual as he walked out with
Grace after noon, and reminded her of Maurice Malherb's
intention that she should marry during the coming summer.
"Do not think, my dear girl, that Peter is blind. He knows
all about Endymion. But positively John Lee as a husband!"
"'Tis not the first time I have bade you mind your own
business, Peter. You have no right or reason to say these
things to me. 'Tis worse than your rhymes. If you were half
the man he is!"
"Hard words cannot break bones, or kill love. Do what you
please; say what you like,"
"'A very sandal I would be
To tread on--if trod on by thee.'
I can even rise superior to the necessity of being loved back. I
love on and suffer on.
"'It is not for our good in ease to rest;
Man, like to cassia, when bruised is best.'"
"I will never love you, nor marry you. Is not that enough?"
"Too much--more than I could bear, if I believed it. But
you are very young, Grace. I am often relieved to remember
that you are too young to know your own mind."
She was going to deny it indignantly; but stopped, vividly
conscious that he had come near the mark. Therefore sadness
followed anger in her face and cooled her cheek.
"I do most seriously believe that before next year you will find
me a continual joy," declared Peter. "'Tis high time the world
should see what a husband awaits the making in me. Too long
I've pined alone.
"'Life's a short summer--man a flower,
He dies--alas! how soon he dies.'"
"'He lives--alas! how long he lives!' So has many an
unhappy wife breathed to her soul; and so should I."
"You might, indeed, if, like certain foolish but authentic
virgins, you married out of your status. Now John Lee----"
"Have done, or I'll never speak to you more!" cried Grace
passionately. "I had rather a thousand times marry John Lee
than you; and if I please, I will."
"Frankly, my poppet, you are something too much of a child
to marry anybody yet. 'Winter and wedlock tame maids and
beasts.' A true West Country proverb that. But I'd be your
lover still, not your master. Vile word! In sober honesty,
however, you can be very provoking, mistress."
"Never less than now. Walk quicker and save your breath;
more snow is coming."
The transient gleam of sun that had drawn them out on to the
Moor departed, and snow began to fall again.
"I've wanted that to happen," said Mr. Norcot. "Now you
shall hear a charming thing--not my own, I regret to say, but
from Petronius Afranius--translated by one Smart. For its
perfection you must make a snowball and hurl it at me."
"I'm in no mood for fooling."
"I beg; I implore. 'Twill be worth your pains."
She bent and picked up some snow.
"Don't miss my manly bosom, or you'll spoil all," he said.
"There--I would it could cool your heart and freeze every
thought of me out of your head!"
Grace flung the snow, and, letting it melt upon his coat,
Mr. Norcot struck an attitude while he recited another rhyme. His
eyes were full of the snow light and seemed harder and brighter
than usual as he gazed at her.
"'When, wanton fair, the snowy orb you throw,
I feel a fire before unknown in snow,
E'en coldest ice I find has pow'r to warm
My breast, when flung by Gracie's lovely arm!'"
He swept off his hat and bowed; whereon she laughed outright.
"You should have been a player, for you are a most
unreal man--for ever feigning to be something else than you
are."
"Then marry me and find the kernel in the nut."
"How can I marry one I do not know?"
"Even such you should choose if you are wise; for the following
sufficient reasons."
He prattled on, and presently Maurice Malherb joined them.
The master had been that day in Prince Town upon various
business, and he returned with news of a sort to interest his
daughter. Now her eyes asked him a question and he answered
it.
"I paid my respects to Commandant Short at the Prison. He
is a gentleman, but I think the business of that place will tax his
authority. A saint would grow impatient with the knaves."
"And your visitor?" inquired Mr. Norcot. "'Twas a wonderful
Providence that sent him here."
"The rascal! And yet Stark was one worthy of respect, had
he been properly educated. He listened to me, as a young man
should listen to his elders and betters. I could have found it in
my heart to like him, but for his soaring nonsense and his
disinclination to call treachery and revolt by their true names.
Doubtless his ideas are the common property of his country.
He suffered but a week's detention in the cachot and is now with
his friends again."
Peter Norcot from under amber eyelashes studied Grace and
found further material for interest.
"Another!" he said to himself. "An inflammable wench
truly! Quick to catch fire from every torch but mine. Well,
well--may war last until we are wedded. I ask no more."
"There's further news of a parochial sort," continued Malherb.
"What think you, Grace? The old hag on the hill is off! She's
left Siward's Cross and gone to a hovel near the Prison, where a
few acres of land were to be let. She represented to the High
Bailiff, the Duchy's man, that I'd robbed her of her best cattle
lairs when I raised my boundaries! The old liar has money
too--ay, and more than money."
"A wonderful creature. I mind her eyes that sparkled with
gorgonian fire; her starved abode, and her penury. It called to
my recollection Lucilius--his miser and his mouse:--
"'"You greedy rogue, what brings you to my house?"
Quoth an old miser to a little mouse;
"Friend," says the vermin, "you need have no fear,
I only lodge with you; I dine elsewhere."'
Ha-ha-ha! She feeds on snails and berries. Such was Sycorax."
"She's worth above twenty thousand pounds, nevertheless,"
declared Malherb.
"Impossible!"
"True and not true. She has stolen my amphora. She
confessed it when we were without witnesses."
"Now here's a matter indeed! Can you be sure that she is
not deceiving you?"
"She has it. It is her very life."
"Then we'll be innocent murderers and deprive her of life at
the first opportunity. Nothing shall become her life like the
leaving of it."
Malherb turned and addressed Peter out of Grace's hearing
Indeed, the girl's heart beat fast at this conversation, and she
was busy with many private thoughts.
"You speak unselfishly, for the jewel will be my son's--that is,
Grace's son's. It must remain under a Malherb's roof for ever,
not under yours, Peter."
"Most just. The amphora is an heirloom."
Norcot glanced at Grace and marked her profound indifference.
A wave of real indignation made his forehead hot and much
astonished him. It was a revelation of himself. Then his mind
chanced to roam towards Prince Town; he thought upon Cecil
Stark and speculated whether the American could be of any
service. While he thought clear prose he continued to utter
epigrams for Grace's amusement.
"'The wanton snowflakes to her breast
Flew down, like birds into their nest,
And, vanquished by the whiteness there,
For grief they thawed into a tear.'"
Then he turned to Malherb again.
"The amphora must be recovered at any cost. I need not ask
whether you have plans. Do you seek assistance, or undertake
the affair single-handed?"
"I work alone. Bow Street runners would not run far on
Dartmoor. Lovey Lee may well be left to my mercies. It shall
never be said that an old and ignorant woman outwitted Maurice
Malherb."
"Spoken well! I'll wager the amphora will grace dear
Annabel's cabinet before wool-shearing. To think of that
priceless fragment of glass in the keeping of such a bag of bones!"
"And to know that she gets joy of it," said Grace, "that is
the amazing matter. She, who eats vermin and wears old sacks,
to find her greatest earthly pleasure in the plump Cupids upon
that antique!"
"Human nature is full of these tricks," answered her father.
"I have studied such freakish traits in mankind so long that
nothing now has power to surprise me."
"Not even yourself? Now I, though so near to forty, can yet
astonish myself. I have done so within this hour," confessed
Peter. "As to Lovey," he continued, "she'll clothe herself with
ashes as well as sackcloth when she loses her treasure."
"Well, well, the snow increases. Hasten home, the pair of
you," answered Malherb; then he left them together, and turned
to an outlying shed where two men worked.
"What a fate!" murmured Norcot when he had gone off;
"what a pleasing fate, Grace, to be imprisoned here, even as Cecil
Stark was imprisoned! How gladly I'd make exchange with
him--the rough with the smooth."
She made no answer, and he continued--
"Talking of Loves, 'twas a pretty thing that Antonius Tebaltius
wrote, and Thompson paraphrased, and Norcot improved--
"'Venus whipt Cupid t'other day,
For having lost his bow and quiver;
The which he'd given both away
To Gracie by a Dartmoor river.
"Mamma! you wrong me while you strike,"
Cried weeping Cupid, "for 'tis true
That you and she are so alike,
I thought that I had given 'em you!"'"
"You've missed the gate while you chattered," said Grace;
"now we must climb over the wall."
"I generally do miss the gate with you," he answered.
"Don't these beautiful pearls that I utter move even a spark of
pity?"
"Of pity--yes."
"'Tis akin to love."
"As often akin to contempt."
"In mean natures; never in yours."
He helped her over the wall, then spoke again as they hurried
on with heads bent to the snow.
"'Twas that young American then? Why so silent about it?
Why ashamed to tell frankly who 'tis you really do love? I
blazon my emotions to the world and do it proudly. Can you
not be as open?"
"I hate everybody; and it's all your fault."
"Well, well; mend your pace; we shall be frozen. And if you
hate me, change every garment that you wear. I much fear that
you are wet and cold."
This practical thought touched the woman in Grace and
softened her a little.
"I wish I could love you, Peter, for it would be better for
me and happier for us all if I did. But I never, never
shall."
"Well, try to tolerate me--fitfully. Even a fitful toleration is
something, and perhaps more beautiful than a fixed and steady
flame--just as moonlit clouds are lovelier than the moon
herself."
They talked awhile longer, then reached the house. Grace
retired immediately to don dry clothes, while Mrs. Malherb spoke
with Peter.
"Lord! what a poet was marred when you commenced wool
merchant," said she, while he drank a jorum of hot spirits and
held his coat to the fire.
"Nay, nay, Annabel, the same man can serve both mistresses.
Thus, if I might but come at it, I would weave wool shorn off the
sheep in paradise for Grace's tender limbs; and I would clothe
her mind also with a robe spun of the best and the most beautiful
thoughts to be gleaned from books. But she'll none of me nor
my stock-in-trade. 'Tis the weather, not my prayers, that makes
her wear flannel next her skin. Yet I told her that I'd gladly be
the wether that furnished the wool."
"And what said she?" inquired the lady.
"I will be honest with you," answered Peter. "I will conceal
nothing. She replied in one word, 'Baa!' Believe me, Annabel,
that never since this mundane egg was hatched did such a
maddening maiden appear to torment honest men."
CHAPTER III
THE OATH
The reign of the new Commandant opened auspiciously at
Prince Town, for Captain Short came to his work with
understanding and sympathy. He was still young, and his heart
had not grown callous before the spectacle of human misery.
Compassion filled him at the sufferings of those half-naked hordes
who wandered through the War Prison; he countermanded many
of his predecessor's egregious enactments, and stated in feeling
terms to the Board of Transport the conditions that he discovered.
The zeal of a reformer first marked his achievements; then he
grew discouraged, erred, lost heart, and fell from his own ideals.
Cecil Stark served a term of imprisonment in the cachot, after
which he returned to his compatriots and found familiar faces
missing. Some among his acquaintance were exchanged; not a
few had passed away. Caleb Carberry perished soon after his
punishment; Burnham had also suffered as a result of that awful
penance in ice and granite; but he was now restored to health.
Of the Seven, two were dead, and James Knapps remained hidden
with Lovey Lee.
Now, even as the lowest note of their sad hearts had sounded,
came light upon the darkness of the Americans. While they
hung their heads and mourned as men forgotten of their country;
while hundreds daily threatened Mr. Blazey with letters and
vowed to transfer allegiance to Britain if he did not better their
case, good news arrived, and the first written communication ever
received from their representative reached the prisoners.
Cecil Stark read Blazey's message aloud in the exercise yard of
No. 4, and jubilant crowds gave ear to it.
"Fellow Citizens," wrote the Agent, "I am authorised by the
Government of the United States to allow you one penny
half-penny per day for the purpose of procuring you tobacco and
soap, which will commence being paid from the first day of last
January, and I earnestly hope it will tend towards a great relief
in your present circumstances."
A roar of delight greeted the announcement. Men cheered
and wept flung their red caps into the air, fell upon each other's
necks, embraced, danced wildly, sang and laughed.
"Not forgotten! Not forgotten!" was the burden of their cry.
A great emotion of thankfulness animated the mass and woke
fire in the meanest spirit amongst them. The actual blessing of
this pittance seemed less to that forlorn gathering than the
thought that had inspired it. A link, sorely tested, stood firm.
Now all again gloried in their sonship with the mother country;
for Congress had remembered. Every man viewed the news
through the glass of his own nature; but pride in their nation
glowed upon each face, and trust renewed uplifted their sinking
hearts. From the powder-monkeys and negroes to the Committee
of six leading men now appointed to administer the moneys all
rejoiced and blessed their native land. Their trustful natures
shone out of them, and Congress received many a cheer; Captain
Short was also saluted; and even the sluggard Blazey won his
meed.
"Burn the old country; it ha'n't thrown us over after all,"
said David Leverett to a companion. "I guess my first dollop
of money will go in drink, for we've done so long without soap
that we can easy keep dirty a while more. We've come out of
a tarnation tight snarl at last, and nobody's better pleased than
me."
"Such a swipe ob money, gem'men!" cried Cuffee. "De Lord
Him send back Marse Stark; den he send free cents a day. Our
own mudders won't know us, nebber no more."
"We-alls shall be eating money presently," laughed Leverett's
friend. "Things is on the bounce for sartin. We've got our
monkey up agin; and if we can't follow that chap's lead--Stark
I mean--and hev another try to quit this place, 'tis pity."
"No smouch him," admitted Leverett. "If there's any hanky-panky
in the wind, we'll do well ter let him boss it. 'Tis the
differ between a man well aggicated and you and me. We'd be
as good as him if we'd had his luck and his money."
"Maybe we should, maybe we should not," answered the
other. "Anyway, if we pull together and let him lead I lay
he'll hit on a contrapsion ter get every doodle of us clear of
this."
Something prophetic marked the sailor's speech, for within
two months of that conversation Cecil Stark, Burnham, one Ira
Anson and other leaders in No. 4, were maturing their historic
scheme to liberate the whole of the American prisoners at one
stroke. Enthusiasm, like a subterranean fire, burnt in every man
when the project was whispered abroad, and each entered upon
his part with determination and courage. Until this enterprise,
defections, while rare, were yet regularly recorded. Nearly a
hundred Americans had entered British service rather than
endure the plagues of longer durance; but henceforth none could
be persuaded, despite well-directed efforts to win them.
We are now concerned with an extraordinary undertaking.
The Seven were separated by death and other accidents, but
James Knapps was free; and henceforth the boatswain of the
_Marblehead_ enjoyed an importance beyond his ambitions. In
connection with Lovey Lee, Knapps was able greatly to assist his
countrymen in their endeavour; and first, he proved by the fact
of his personal safety that Mrs. Lee remained, after all, faithful
to the cause of the prisoners. It was agreed, therefore, that
Lovey might be further trusted, and she immediately received a
gift of ten guineas; while within a fortnight, and upon payment
of a much greater sum, she accepted Stark's proposals and
prepared to alter her manner of life accordingly.
The markets reopened when the weather broke, and a brisk
correspondence with the miser and James Knapps was established
from inside the Prison. Thus Lovey learned that her co-operation
must be secured at closer quarters than Siward's Cross. She was
bidden to establish herself as near the War Prison as possible,
and chance enabled her to take up the identical position desired.
Mention has already been made of a ruinous cottage immediately
without the Prison walls. Some acres of rough land went along
with this deserted "newtake," and the authorities were well
content to let the worthless place to a tenant. Instantly grasping
the significance of the manoeuvre, and alive to the importance of
blinding all official eyes, Lovey, for the first time in her life, spent
the prodigious sum of twenty pounds in a week. She had the
old cottage thatched and rendered storm-proof; she ploughed up
a part of the land and fenced all in. She continued to traffic
among the Americans, and no question of her integrity had ever
arisen. Her stock increased and she became one of the most
important among the small merchants. She sold tobacco and
potatoes; she also smuggled many prohibited articles, such as
candles, alcohol, oil. She paid private taxes upon these things to
the turnkeys, but nobody in high authority ever heard of the
matter. Lovey even made the Commandant a friend, and
regularly provided his table with poultry. She deceived him by
her independent manners; and he fell into the common error
of supposing that one who is laconic, businesslike and dour, must
of necessity be honest.
A general escape having been planned in every detail, conventions
were ordered, the plot revealed, and the Americans sworn
to secrecy. Such liberty did these prisoners of war enjoy within
their own confines, that their assemblies were never interrupted
nor their meetings for entertainment opposed. On this occasion,
however, special guards were set by the captives themselves and
every precaution taken to prevent surprise.
Then Stark addressed his fellows, for by common consent the
ringleaders appointed him their spokesman.
"Gentlemen," he said, "as honest Americans, born under the
Flag of Freedom, it becomes us to attempt escape. Our condition
of late has been much bettered, and I, for one, owe no grudge
against our present guards or their Commandant, Captain Short.
He is honourable, and does what he may to lessen our tribulations;
he is also generous; he has increased our privileges, and
by throwing open the new yards and admitting us to larger
quarters for exercise and the amusement of games, he has earned
universal blessings. Our bill of health is greatly improved,
thanks to him; he has, indeed, put fresh life into us. Yet are
we prisoners, and, upon careful study of the journals smuggled to
us, it is clear that no immediate hope of peace or of further
exchange can be held out. Our country is suffering a period of
sea losses, and it is not in the moment of these reverses that she
will tune her ear to peace. Our circumstances have, therefore,
prompted us to plan a scheme of escape, and we now submit it
to your opinions. Immediately the pending changes in our
disposal are made, and we have wider fields to work in, we mean to
dig under these walls a tunnel, that must be two hundred and
eighty feet long. It is planned and calculated most fully. It
will be sunk in Prison No. 6, and, concerning the exit of it on
to the Moor, no more need yet be said than that we have stout
friends outside who will look to that. Our numbers, as you
know, increase very rapidly, because our ships have fallen upon
a bout of ill-luck; but ever recollect that these relays of our
countrymen from Plymouth and elsewhere only represent American
mishaps. Our successes are hidden from us; yet our hearts
tell us that they exist and occur. Many English doubtless
languish in American prisons. So thus it stands. I speak to
two thousand men, and I ask them all to swear secrecy before
Almighty God."
A dozen Bibles were circulated, and there arose a strange and
solemn murmur throughout the company as every man swore to
his neighbour that he would maintain absolute silence concerning
this matter, and that neither by word nor pen, by look nor
gesture, would he divulge the secret to any among those set in
authority.
"To break this oath is death," said Stark. "You have now
sworn to keep the secret; and we, your leaders, have also sworn
that the man who gives one hint of this business to those whose
duty it is to stop it, will be cut off. He shall not escape. In
ancient Sparta there was a society called Crypteia who slew by
night. The Helots perished at their hands, but none knew who
struck the blow. They only left corpses behind them. So will
it be with us. Eyes are upon every one of us, and he that
watches has eyes upon him also. A traitor will most surely fall.
He will vanish from amongst us; his place will be empty, and
none will ever know where his dust lies rotting. I who speak to
you have been once betrayed with others whom death has since
freed. Woe to that man! Let him tremble yet while he hears
me, for his hour will surely come."
The meeting disbanded, and a small sub-committee sat to select
five-and-twenty trustworthy persons who should fulfil the important
office of spies upon the majority. Many refused this unpleasant
work, until it was explained to them that they incurred no shame.
Among those finally chosen were Leverett and Samuel Cuffee.
The negro had work apportioned him with his kindred, while it
was the duty of Leverett and others to keep in touch with the
general throng, glean public opinion and report upon any sign of
unrest, disaffection, or other danger. A martial system marked
the plot. Every sentry and turnkey was under close surveillance;
the digging parties were chosen for their strength and sobriety;
while the work itself had been so planned that it proceeded night
and day without intermission. A pit was first sunk perpendicularly
to the depth of twenty feet, and then pursued upon a
horizontal plane. This tunnel, if extended for ninety yards,
would clear the foundations of the outer wall and reach beneath
Lovey Lee's cottage.
While Stark and his companions cautiously opened their enterprise
in Prison No. 6, to which they were now admitted, James
Knapps, snugly hidden with Mrs. Lee, was engaged upon a
similar task. Here, when Lovey kept watch, the boatswain
laboured; and if she went abroad: to the prison, or upon other
business, he hid himself closely and smoked his pipe in a hole
under the roof of the cottage.
As for Cecil Stark, a passionate zest marked his attitude to the
plot, and for mingled reasons he permitted it to fill his mind. But
greater than patriotic ardour or personal thirst for freedom, was
the desire to escape his own thoughts. He believed that liberty
could never more be anything but a word to him, for his soul was
for ever fast bound. One girl's face haunted him; one voice rang
musical upon his ear by day and night. He suffered enough; but
no man guessed it.
CHAPTER IV
JOHN TAKES HIS ROAD
To move her household goods from the hut by Siward's Cross
was no great matter for Lovey Lee. A donkey carried all and
found the burden light. The things about which her life's interest
centred were buried deep in Hangman's Hollow, and her only
hesitation, when the great enterprise at the War Prison was
broken to her, arose out of the knowledge that she must now
abide three miles further from her treasure-house. To this fact,
however, the old woman grew reconciled, when she considered
the nature of the promised reward. She settled down beneath
the Prison walls; and now not the least of her grievances was the
enormous appetite of Mr. James Knapps. He worked exceedingly
hard and insisted upon having wholesome food and plenty
of it.
"We're not all built like you, ma'am, ter do our stint of work
on ditch-water and shell-snails," he explained. "Victuals and
drink I'll have; else I must grumble ter them over the wall. I
can't dig my best on offal."
There fell a morning when John Lee visited his grandmother,
and she saw by his face that a climax had come in his fortunes.
He was gloomy and sad, yet of his own affairs he said nothing
until Lovey mentioned them.
"I'm on a private errand," he said, "and since 'tis too early
yet to see the prisoners, I thought I'd drop in and learn how
you're faring."
She suspected that he was sent to spy by his master.
"I keep body and soul together, an' that's all I ever shall do,"
she answered, little thinking that John Lee had counted her
guineas but a few weeks before. "Even so I have to thank they
Yankees to the Prison."
He marvelled at her cunning.
"Do you hear anything of that fine gentleman, Master Cecil
Stark?" he inquired.
"Ah, you was all in love with him to Fox Farm, I hear. I wish
there was more like him."
John did not answer, and his grandmother jeered.
"I see how 'tis! Your nose be out of joint. What did I tell
you, Jack? Broken hearts--broken fiddlesticks! Ban't the
wench's heart as have broke, anyhow. So her throwed you over
for a properer man?"
"No, by God! But----"
"You'm minded to let her off her bargain? Then the bigger
fool you!"
She hit the truth in her brutal fashion. Lee had not trusted
himself to pursue the matter of his attachment; yet, as time
progressed, he saw more clearly what Grace strove with might and
main to conceal. The accesses of her affection, the thousand
little kindly thoughts for him--all wrote truth in letters of fire
upon his aching heart. True love had acted differently--had
claimed as well as given; and he knew, despite her assurance
oftentimes repeated, that her attitude was founded on another
impulse. Now, after grief and pain, his thoughts moved slowly
to Cecil Stark. In turn he was attracted by and repulsed from
the prospect of speech with the young prisoner. Finally he
braced himself to the ordeal; yet he knew not what he would say
when they stood face to face. He felt as a man in a dream at
this period. A most unreal and monstrous task lay before him.
Deliberately he was turning his back upon all that made life
precious; consciously he was hastening out of day into eternal
night. He chafed against the noble impulse that drove him
onward; for a season he resisted it; then Grace Malherb's own
steadfast purposes warmed his inspiration. Her delicacy, her
gentleness, her courage cried to him. Must he prove less brave
and more selfish than she?
It was indeed sheer suffering that supported the girl now; but
her strength rose superior to it, and only one who knew and loved
her as this man knew and loved, had guessed at the things hidden
in her heart. The torture simulated Grace to a surface brilliance,
as a bird will sing out of pure misery in sight of his robbed nest.
Her eyes were ever bright, but unshed tears made them so; her
plots and plans were ceaseless and sanguine; but he knew that
she rushed into them to escape from her heart. Love, indeed,
had found her at last, but she struggled fiercely to shut him
out since he had come too late. She never wearied of plans
concerning the Malherb amphora, and of the future for John Lee
when he should discover it. And he humoured her and himself
a little longer, so that she scarcely realised that he had grasped
the truth, despite his first sure guess thereat.
Now the story was told. He had wandered through the last
autumnal glade of his fool's paradise; he had witnessed the red
sunset of his dying romance; and he stood patient and strong
under the cold starlight at the end.
John Lee was come to speak with Stark, for at certain times in
the War Prison visitors were permitted to enter and have
conversation or transact business with the captives. A tall grille
of iron alone separated them, but to this grating all men might
approach on certain days and traffic with the imprisoned for those
trifles which they wrought and sold to any purchaser. Work-boxes,
dinner mats, hand-screens, bone toys and ornaments they
manufactured; and many persons came from Plymouth and other
towns to see the spectacle of the great moorland limbo and carry
from it some memento of the sufferers there. Nefarious and
doubtful trades were also practised in the secret fastnesses of this
gaol. Exceeding good imitations of the eighteenpenny and
three-shilling pieces then current passed into the world from Prince
Town, and forged bank notes also circulated. Venal soldiery
helped the prisoners in the business of uttering base money;
but such simple and honest trash as passed to the visitors
between the bars of the grille, was openly sold.
Hither from his grandmother's cottage came Lee, and soon he
noted the tall form of Stark standing with Burnham and Ira
Anson. They had nothing to sell, but watched the visitors with
interest. Then Cecil caught sight of John Lee, hastened to the
barrier and shook hands heartily through the bars.
"Well met, well met," he said. "I'm right glad to see you,
Jack. Would that I could give you such a welcome as your
master gave to me!"
"I hope you are well and strong again, Mr. Stark."
"Well enough----"
The American looked at Lee with intense scrutiny and wondered
how much or little he might know concerning the affairs of his
mistress.
"All are happy at Fox Tor Farm, I trust?"
"Well enough," answered the other, as Stark had answered him.
"That means not absolutely well," replied Cecil quickly.
"Miss Malherb--all at least is well with her? Yet--Mr. Norcot.
'Tis intolerable, you know, Jack Lee, that I should speak of that
man except to bless him for his goodness. Nevertheless--Miss
Malherb--but this is none of your business I doubt?"
"It won't be much longer; for the present it is," said John.
"I know she hates Mr. Peter Norcot. She's bound to hate him
in self-defence. But, nevertheless, 'tis intended she shall marry
him within six months."
"Yet there's a man she--she loves. It's too terrible! She
suffers--she must suffer horribly. And this other--why doesn't
he come forward and sweep Norcot out of her path? What clay
is this creature made of that he holds back?"
"The man?"
"Do you know him?"
"I do."
"Then tell him from me--but what's the use of bellowing like
a pent-up bull? Can't you, at least, assure him from yourself
that he must be up and doing? You're in your lady's good
graces--therefore justify her trust. Seek this laggard and explain how
the land lies. Maybe 'tis her tyrant father he fears."
"The man knows everything. He can't help her."
"Cannot! What's the matter with him? Has he no arms,
nor legs, nor courage? Is he made of gingerbread? Oh, if
I---- But perhaps I speak ignorant of facts. Maybe he's
chained fast, too."
"Yes, he's fast enough."
"Then 'tis your duty to do what a man may, Jack. You, at
least, are free as well as faithful; and in love with Miss Malherb
also, I'll wager. You must love her if you're a man."
"I do love her."
"And can see her and speak to her every day of your blessed
life! Oh, if I might but help you; if I might come between her
and trouble----"
He broke off and ended his aspirations to himself. Then Lee
spoke.
"Could you escape from this place again?"
Stark started and looked round about him.
"For that cause--yes."
"There may be good reason why you should presently--not
yet. The first thing----"
Here Cecil interrupted.
"'Good reason--good reason'? You know so much that you
must know more. And you must tell me more."
"I'll tell you this. We are at cross purposes. I let you talk
because--because it amused me in a strange sort of painful way.
But the truth----"
He hesitated, and the full, fatal significance of the next few
words impressed itself vividly upon his soul. There was no
blinking it. The fact stared pitiless. He stood at the cross roads
of fortune, and with his next word to Cecil Stark, his own path
would be chosen, his own desire renounced, for ever.
The American saw that great emotions fought in this man's
mind, and waited for him to speak.
"The truth is that Miss Malherb is a free woman--so far as
love is concerned."
"She told me when I----" began Stark; then he looked
guilty and held his peace.
But Lee understood.
"When you asked her to marry you? I know. She could not
say otherwise then. Bide bold and patient; the time will come
when she may answer differently."
The other was terribly moved. A great expiration burst from
him, half an oath of astonishment, half a hallelujah.
"In God's name what are you that dare to speak these great
things?" he asked under his breath, as though he apostrophised
a sexless spirit.
"Her servant--her slave. At least I tell truth. Thus it
stands--that other--he will not marry her."
"And she still loves him? This is damnable! Let me but
meet that man!"
"No need to rage against him. He's a harmless fool enough
and would be your friend--anybody's friend but his own. 'Twill
be no grief to her, a joy rather to find that she's mistaken in
him."
"She never really loved him then?"
"She didn't know--she didn't know. You forget how young
she is. I think she loved him with an innocent, baby love; I
think she'll always love him a little for the sake of--but let that
go--she's free--free to listen to a lover. Now you know what I
came to tell you."
Stark stared silently up into the sky and John Lee saw a light
dawn upon his face, as though some angel passed in the air and
shone upon him. Then the prisoner turned to Lee and spoke
slowly and solemnly, for he was awestruck at the magnitude of
this great revealment.
"If I owned a kingdom it should be yours this day. Please
God I can do something, though nothing worthy such news. If
you will, you shall have an acre of good Vermont earth presently
for every word you've spoken to me. Yet earth's a pitiful payment
for the hope of heaven on earth you've given to me."
He knew not the sufferings he wakened or the wounds he tore
open. Voices laughed in John Lee's ears and told him that he
had sold his heart.
"Leave that," he said roughly. "You mistake me. I'm here
for love of her--not you. Listen, then I'll be gone. You must
get in touch with her very gradual and delicate. I can go
between you."
"I see; I see. What a learned man you are in these matters,
Jack! With your Apollo's face you've had your experiences, I'll
wager! But wait; I'll be gone and write a letter--just a reminder
that I live. I'll sell you a little bone windmill I made for a
turnkey's child; and in it I'll place a note. You must give me a
coin for it, but you shall find a larger one inside for yourself."
He was gone, and Lee waited, seeing but not perceiving the
throng around him, hearing but not heeding the medley of voices
and the tramp of many feet. Aloft in the blue a hawk hung
poised upon trembling wings. It surveyed the bustling scene,
then glided away to the Moor. The American, David Leverett,
approached Lee and invited him to purchase a little mat of
woven grass.
"Here, young feller," he said. "I reckon now your gal's just
fretting herself silly for a keepsake, whoever she is; and you'd
best not displeasure her by refusing. This was woven by a
one-armed man, you see, and that makes it worth twice as much
as any other mat. So 'tain't no manner o' use ter offer less than
ten cents for it. Hev a squint at the workmanship--not bad for
a crab with one claw--eh?"
Lee shook his head and the sailor gibed:--
"Not ten cents! Then by God! you don't love her, and she
shall hear of it. Come now--fourpence, then--only four dirty
pennies. Think o' the kisses she'll give for it."
Still Lee declined, his thoughts elsewhere, and Leverett cursed
him for a fool, shook his stump in John's face, and turned to find
a customer.
A few minutes later, as bugles were sounding for the visitors to
depart, Cecil Stark came back with a little toy made of mutton
bones.
"Hand me any small coin you have about you," he said.
"You'll find a billet for Miss Malherb and two guineas for
yourself in the drawer at the bottom."
These simple words hurt poor John cruelly, for their business-like
and even sordid tenour jarred upon his own great renunciation
in a way that Stark little guessed. Lee's heart was numb;
his mind had grown dreamy and incoherent now. Mechanically
he took the windmill and handed Cecil a shilling. Then, without
any word of farewell, he turned away and followed the departing
crowds. He heard Cecil Stark say "God bless you!" as he
went; but only a strange loathing of the money he carried rose in
his mind. This mean detail of two guineas fretted him to madness.
He could not see the matter as Cecil saw it; he jealously
muffled his reason, and refused to behold in himself henceforth
no more than that necessary thing--a lover's messenger.
Slowly he returned over the Moor towards Fox Tor Farm, and
the thought of all that he had lost swept down upon him like a
storm in the wilderness. Temptations shook him then. He
turned the toy of bone about in his hand. He might have
crushed it and stamped it down under the bog in a moment.
But nothing could crush the deed done. He relapsed into a
sullen and ferocious sorrow. His feet dragged under him. A
sense of age swept over him, and along with it came bitter
remorse that he had flung his fate away to another man and set
no store upon fortune's priceless gifts. A savage loathing of
himself awoke in his spirit. He hated the flesh that he was clad
in, poured contumely upon his own head and cried out aloud in
the loneliness that his repulsive weakness proclaimed him what
he was: a bastard and a creature fit only for the scorn of men.
He cumbered the earth. None was the better for him. The
cur that fled from a badger had greater courage; the baying
foxhound more pluck, than had he. His grandmother's words in
the past returned to his memory and clashed in his head like
bells rung by demons. This was how he had employed her
wisdom; this was how he had cast away his grand opportunity to
win fortune and love.
Siward's Cross rose before him and he stood near the home
of his childhood. He sat awhile beside the hoary monument
and leant his back against it. Then he turned and examined
it with listless eyes, and watched the shadow cast by its squat
arms darken the heather. Long he delayed; and, at last, as
the sun, turning westward, warmed the Moor and touched the
cross with a gentle and roseate glory, the benignant, evening
hour found out John Lee, soothed his giant sorrow and set its
seal upon him. This venerable stone had power to comfort the
lad's grief. He began to think less of himself and more of Grace
Malherb. Her joy grew out of the sunset light; her young life's
story opened before him; he saw a ribbon of pure gold stretching
down into the West, where the sun was setting beyond a
distant sea; and he knew that it was her road home.
Great words came to his recollection: "He that loseth his life
shall save it," was written for him in the soft and mellow
earth-shadows of sunset.
"My life shall be lost in her life," he said; "and if she's saved,
I'm blessed above all deserving."
CHAPTER V
STARS AND STRIPES
When Mr. Mordecai Cockey entered Fox Tor Farm the
spirit of Grace Malherb sank within her. Had an executioneer
appeared, she had felt no greater horror; for Mr. Cockey
was a journeyman tailor, and, according to the custom of that
time upon Dartmoor, when clothes were needed, the maker of
them came to his customers and took up his abode in farm or
hamlet until local requirement was satisfied. A month's work
or more awaited Mr. Cockey, and first among the articles to be
fashioned with his skilful needle were certain gowns--a part of
Grace's wedding trousseau; for all men now knew that within the
space of a few weeks Miss Malherb was to become Mrs. Peter
Norcot.
Two trestles and a dozen boards completed Mr. Cockey's
professional requirements in the servants' hall; and here, day by
day, he sat and snipped and sewed, and sewed and snipped.
He was a very full-bodied, pallid man, with flabby cheeks, mournful,
watery eyes and a puzzled expression. He came from Totnes,
and often mourned that his itinerant labours required him to be
much away from his wife and family. This tailor descended in
direct line from Mordecai Cockey, the famous seventeenth-century
bell-founder; and when he heard any one of those seven great
bells that the bygone Cockey had cast, he would lift his head
where the musical monster thundered from some Devon belfry,
and nod respectfully, as to the spirit of his ancestor.
Now Mordecai worked at the wardrobe of the farm, and,
elevated upon his trestles, held a sort of conference, and told the
things life taught him. Once during the dinner hour, several
farm folk were at Mr. Cockey's feet, as he sat cross-legged amid
his tools and ate his meal of bread and cheese. Meat he might
have had in plenty, but he explained to Dinah Beer that his
sedentary life had long since turned him vegetarian.
"By God's blessing I can stomach cheese," he said, "an' if so
be as a body's humours will cope with vinnied cheese, he may
hope for a long life."
"Be my breeches mended, Mister?" asked Tom Putt. "'Cause
if so, I should like to don 'em afore afternoon. I've got a riding
job as'll take me to Holne by-an'-by."
"They'm done. I've double-seated 'em for 'e."
Mr. Cockey nodded towards the garment.
"You'm always as good as your word, I'm sure," said Harvey
Woodman, "though how them fat hands of yours--as look more
like bunches of parsnips than hands--can do such finnicky work
makes me wonder."
"Ah, I dare say a lot of things make you wonder," answered
the tailor. "Not but what I envy you your way of life, for 'tis
healthier'n mine. You chaps, as till the earth, have no time to
fret your intellects like what I do. Ploughmen never band
together and make trouble in the world. Tailors be a very
thinking race; but you'll not find they takes a hopeful view of
human nature."
"Then they'm small-minded," said Beer firmly; "for, looked
at all round, human nature be a very hopeful thing."
Mordecai Cockey sighed.
"You may be in the right. Perhaps building of clothes do
narrow the heart, for we grow apt to think 'tis our feathers make
the birds. For that matter the world counts us but light. We'm
slighted tradesmen, we tailors. They say it takes nine of us to
make a man; though it only takes one to get a long family, as
I know to my cost. Thirteen children have I, an' all with the
tailoring spirit in 'em except my eldest son."
"An' what might he be doing?" asked Putt.
"Well, he's a baker."
"A very honest trade."
"That's just what it ban't," declared Mr. Cockey. "They'm
sly as lawyers; an' there's a damned sight more in bread than
corn nowadays. A man may be eating his own great gran'faither;
as I've said openly down to Totnes, an' nobody contradicted
me.
"God's word! They don't rob churchyards for their bones, do
they?" asked Woodman. "If I thought that, I'd never take bit
nor sup to Totnes no more."
"There's ways an' ways," explained the tailor. "Bone goes
in; as thus. Man is earth, an' earth is bread; an' when they
take the top spit off what was thought to be an old burial place
of the ancients an' turn it over an' make a wheat field--what
then?"
"'Tis just short of a cannibal act!" declared Woodman; for
they never buried deep in them days."
"Rubbish, Harvey!" answered Beer. "We ourselves be only
the fatness of the earth when all's said. 'Tis nature's plan; an'
I see no harm in it at all."
"More don't I for that matter," declared Cockey. "With my
well-knowed feelings about human nature, you won't be surprised
if I say that many a man's better as corn or cabbage than ever he
was on two legs."
"Then you don't believe in God, same as me," said Kekewich
grimly.
"Not at all, not at all," answered the other. "I'm only saying
a man's body is mud, an' his clothes is mud in shape of wool
or flax; an' he's all mud to the eye; but as to his soaring spirit
I won't hazard a word. A tailor must believe in God. 'Twas
Him as gave the word for clothes an' put Adam an' his lady into
their first shifts of His own Almighty making."
"You meet men whose spirits be the muddiest part about 'em,
all the same," declared Kekewich.
"So you will; but every thinking creature turned of fifty must
have come across folks with souls looking out of their eyes.
Why, I've seed pictures in big houses where the paint had a soul!
Ess fay--beautiful dead an' gone women have pretty nigh spoke
to me where I sat an' worked below their gold frames."
"I'll never believe in souls," said the older man. "We'm
a vile race, an' no God of Heaven would ever make such a poor
bargain as to overbuy such trash as us at the price of His only
Son. Why for should He? If He'd but lifted His finger, He
might have had us for nought."
"The devil must be itching for you, Kek," said Harvey
Woodman.
"You'm no hand at argument, Mr. Kekewich," continued
Cockey; "for half the beauty of argufying is to hold close to the
matter. You was saying as you didn't believe in souls; an' I was
saying as I did. Well, take an instance. There's Miss Grace
Malherb for who I be making this here lovely vest. Be that
bowerly maiden no more than the pink-an'-white china dust she
goes in? If so, she's no better'n this bit of flowered silk."
"People can be good or evil, an' yet have no more souls than
dogs," began the head man; but at that moment Miss Malherb
herself entered as a bell rang to tell that the dinner hour was
done.
The labourers departed to their work, and Grace was left with
Mr. Cockey. She came to beg a secret favour and now whispered
it into the tailor's ear, though there was none but himself to
hear it.
"If you command, it must be done," he said. "I know a
mariner to the harbour at Totnes, where the Holne timber goes
down Dart to build His Majesty's great warships. The man has
goodly stores, an' will sell me so much bunting as I want--red,
white and blue. I'm going down to-morrow for the day to get
more cloth."
"And, before all things, keep it secret. Not a whisper!"
"It shall be as you please, Miss. An' I'll ax you to take this
here vest along, an' put it on, an' let me see if 'tis all right."
"You work so dreadfully quick! You're sewing a shroud,--d'you
know that, Mordecai?"
"What a word! How comes it you want stuff for flags
then?"
"Ah! 'tis not for my wedding day. Now, if you could fashion
me a pair of wings to fly with----"
Mr. Cockey drew a thread through his needle.
"Fine clothes don't make a happy marriage, I know," he said;
"but they do put heart into a wedding party, an' speaking
generally, they'm a great softener of life to females. A parcel
from me has dried many tears--poor fools."
"I'm not married yet, however."
"No, but--Lord! what's that?"
The tailor sat with his back to the window, and, unseen by him,
a horseman had ridden up to it. Now he stopped, rapped upon
the casement with his whip, doffed his hat and grinned at Grace.
The glass was not good, and it distorted a countenance generally
esteemed amiable and handsome.
"Mercy on us, what a chap! 'Tis a face like to Satan!" cried
Cockey.
"That's the gentleman my father wishes me to marry," answered
Grace quietly.
"Then I'm sure I beg pardon, Miss. 'Twas a twist in the
glass."
"You caught sight of his soul--not his face," she said. The
girl had turned pale, and now she hastily left the room.
Much had happened since Mr. Norcot's last visit, and soon
accident was to enlighten him in certain directions. Mordecai
Cockey went off on the following morning and returned in
eight-and-forty hours with various bales and packages. One of these
he handed to Grace in private, and she conveyed the parcel
unseen to her chamber. Its nature will presently appear. For the
moment it suffices to say that Miss Malherb's secret concerned
Cecil Stark, with whom, thanks to John Lee, she had now
established a correspondence. Their letters Grace showed to
John openly for some time, but, perceiving that they were the
joy of two lives, the messenger refused to read these missives
more. Grace still stood at the parting of the ways, nor knew that
John Lee's road was already chosen. The relation of three
became difficult beyond endurance; Stark understanding that
John had access to all letters, chafed at the mystery, and naturally
found little to admire in such control. He was meditating action
when a sudden incident upset their former relations and quickened
the catastrophe.
Peter Norcot, upon this, his last visit to Fox Tor Farm before
the wedding, pursued a customary course and endeavoured by
imperturbable good humour and kindness to soften his lady's
temper. He well knew the futility of the task, yet persevered.
On the night of his arrival Grace had a headache and did not
appear, whereupon he wrote her a letter and sent it to her by the
hand of Mary Woodman.
"Dear Light of my Eyes," said he, "I am quite broken-hearted
to know that Mordecai Cockey has a greater place in your
affections just now than any other man. It is the Tailor's Hour!
Well, well! I must be patient. Yet what can a tailor do to make
Grace more graceful? Here's a beautiful epigram from our own
Devon poet, Browne. I transcribe it for you:
"'To CUPID.
"'Love! when I met her first, whose slave I am,
To make her mine why had I not thy flame?
Or else thy blindness not to see that day;
Or if I needs must look on her rare parts,
Love! why to wound her had I not thy darts?
Since I had not thy wings to fly away?'
How cruel well these lines fit one Norcot! But I would never
fly. True love is patient--like charity it suffereth long; like hope
it is eternal; like faith it keeps its course with the stars. Bless
you! May the morning light restore you to health, and to the
presence of your devoted Peter.
"Postscript:--
"'If all the earthe were paper white,
And all the sea were incke,
'Twere not inough for me to write
As my poore hart doth thinke.--LYLY.'"
To this letter came no reply; but in the morning Grace
appeared as usual and spent a reasonable portion of her time
with the wool-stapler. For once Mr. Norcot tried an erotic vein,
quoted the most passionate things he knew and attempted to
warm a heart that--moonlike--ever turned one face to him.
But it was the dark frozen side he saw.
"My ideas are boundless," he said. "I spurn space on the
day I call you my own. You were meant to mirror the Mediterranean
in those wonderful eyes of yours, and you shall. We'll
sail away to the land of wine and song--to Provence, the cradle
of the troubadours. It can be done now that we are friends with
the French again. Yes; and I'm going also to take you to Italy;
I----"
"At the beginning of the hunting season? How ridiculous
you are, Peter. Why, even if I married you--which you know I
never shall--I would not----"
"Grace, you must marry me. It is an accomplished fact. The
banns have been read for the first time of asking at Widecombe
and at Chagford. Nobody forbade 'em. You are absolutely
vital to my peace of mind, to my well-being, to my sanity. You
may not love me yet, but soon enough you'll look back to these
wayward days and mourn 'em."
"Indeed I shall."
"Mourn 'em, that you could so often have made so true a man
sad. You won't understand me."
"Yes, I do--perfectly. If there is one thing about our dreadful
relations that I do see clearly, it is your nature. You have
been peculiarly and horribly clear of late. You want me--what
you call 'me'--my curls, eyes, lips, and all the rest of a wretched
girl. But you don't care a feather for the part of me that matters.
You never consider that I've got a soul, and that it's always sad
and sick and sorry when it thinks of you. You don't mind that
you're killing all my higher senses and instincts--poisoning them;
you----"
"Now, my dear Grace, these assumptions are nonsense, and
show first how little you really know about me, and, secondly,
how absurdly scant attention you pay to my conversation. It is
a union of souls that I sigh for and shall assuredly establish when
the time comes.
"'Tell me not of your starrie eyes,
Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed--'
George Darley--a pretty boy-poet who has not published yet."
"Really, Peter, you're impossible!"
"I say tell me not of these things, Grace, because they are
nothing whatever to me. I don't want to hear about 'em. Soul
to soul--that's all I ask; and that is what I will have."
"Never! It takes two people to be married, and they've got to
be of the same mind."
"Happily you are mistaken in that last assertion. Your idea
is that one lover may take a maid to church, but the Bench of
Bishops can't make her his wife if she's averse. Tut, tut! What a
violent thought! We'll find ourselves of one mind yet. Greater
things than matrimony have happened in less time than lies
before us."
"Plain English is wasted upon you, Peter Norcot, and upon my
father too."
"I'm much afraid you'll hear some exceedingly plain English
yourself before long--from that same father. He grows singularly
savage of an evening when you have retired. How clear lies your
duty--why do you so shirk it? Is your conscience taking a
holiday? You know better than you speak--I'm positive you
do."
Many such-like futile conversations passed between them; then
befell the accident aforesaid. It placed some sensational
information in the hands of Peter, and, little guessing at the result,
he hesitated not to avail himself of it.
There came an afternoon when he sat with Maurice Malherb;
while the master mentioned Grace and inquired how matters
progressed in the affair of Peter's courtship.
"To tell you truth, a very retrograde business. I had done
better to have copied your own unbending methods. But I'm a
soft-hearted fool. What says the poet? Those writing men
always know such a deal about it!
"'He that will win this dame, must do
As Love does, when he bends his bow;
With one hand thrust the lady from,
And with the other pull her home!'"
"I'm amazed that any child of mine--but words only waste air
now. The wedding day's at hand. She'll be the first to see her
own folly when she looks back upon it. Obey she must and shall.
To-morrow I purpose to have speech with her. Things have
reached a climax. Heaven knows whence she got this sullen
and mulish humour. Not from me."
"Nor from her mother, I'm very sure. Would she was more
like your wonderful lady.
"'Prudently simple, providently wary,
To the world a Martha and to heaven a Mary.'
Annabel is a jewel among her sex."
"A wise man chooses his wife," said Malherb, "but it is denied
him to choose his daughter. To-morrow, at any rate, we'll try
and make the matter clear to her. I hate force. I am naturally
a man of mild manners; yet this thick-headed world will never
understand me until I clench my fist."
"One thing I must beg," interrupted Peter. "Don't surprise
her. Don't suddenly appear before dear Grace. It would not be
fair. I passed her chamber door yesterday, and by chance it
stood ajar. She sat there busy with her needle; and the purpose
to which she was putting it nearly startled me into an ejaculation.
She does not know that I saw her. Candidly, I wish that I had
not done so. There are sad secrets--'She loves a black-hair'd
man.' In fact, there is somebody dearer to her than either you or
I. What did I see? 'Sight hateful--sight tormenting!' Stars
and stripes--stars and stripes--but all stripes to me. I'll swear
each one has left a bruise upon my soul!"
"What, in God's name, are you ranting about?" cried
Malherb impatiently. "Is everybody going mad, or have I
already become so?"
"You must ask Gracie that question. I saw her enfolded in a
mass of red, white, and blue bunting. There is nothing in that.
Bunting may stand for joy.
"'The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.'
And I wondered the more since these coloured rags were taking
upon themselves the likeness of the United States national flag.
Now, what is that notable emblem doing under this roof? I
would not deny my future wife any rational amusement, but----"
Peter stopped, for Maurice Malherb had hurried from him.
The father strode straightway to his daughter's room, found the
door locked and kicked it open with a crash, to see Grace sitting
beside her window half hidden under billows of bunting.
In the year 1814, America's banner consisted of fifteen alternate
red and white stripes with fifteen stars arranged in a circle on the
blue canton. Helped by designs from Cecil Stark, Grace was
carefully reproducing the historic standard upon a generous scale;
and her father surprised her in the act to fit the last star into the
circle. Upon one star was the word "Vermont," embroidered
with white silk, and round about it ran a tiny margent of golden
thread.
"What means this, woman?" roared Malherb.
"Why, that you've broken into my private chamber, dear
father, and kicked the door down. And this--this, that I am
making, is a flag of freedom for Mr. Cecil Stark and his friends.
They hoped to hoist it above their Prison and rejoice at the sight
of it on the Fourth of July--a very glorious day among them."
CHAPTER VI
UNDER LOCK AND KEY
No man nor woman at Fox Tor Farm had ever witnessed an
explosion of human passion so awful as shook Maurice
Malherb upon his discovery. Annabel, in tears, confided to
Peter Norcot that her husband had taken his daughter by the
shoulders, shaken her nearly senseless, then flung her upon her
bed. He had raged and roared until the house was a cave of
harsh echoes; he had made fast his daughter's chamber door
from the outside, and dared any living soul to approach the
sinner without his permission.
"In the case of these tropical tempests," explained Peter,
"nothing can be done. Happily they are short. 'In rage deaf
as the sea, hasty as fire.' For my part, I return home
immediately. Everybody here must get under shelter and wait for a
change of wind."
"Argument is vain," said Annabel.
"Tut, tut! Who argues with a volcano? Write to me in a
day or two; and have no fear for the dear girl. Half his rage
now is because he so far lost his self-command as to shake her.
A shaking after all--well, by my faith, she deserves it. To
correspond with Cecil Stark! When I say that it was naughty,
I understate the offence. However, that matter lies in a
nutshell. Get rid of her messenger. John Lee's the man. Despatch
him; and let him know that I'll befriend him. Farewell, until a
brighter star shines over us, my dear Annabel."
Towards evening, when his wrath had somewhat abated, Mrs. Malherb
told her husband of Norcot's departure--a fact he had
not noticed for himself. She added particulars of his last advice;
and before the moon rose John Lee had passed out of Fox Tor
Farm for ever. With difficulty Beer and Kekewich withstood
their master, for he had rushed among his people with a horsewhip.
"I was her servant, sir, to do her bidding," said Lee quietly;
then he rose from his meal to depart. One ghastly blow he
received across his face; and he clapped his hand to it and went
out, while Kekewich interposed his stunted figure between Malherb
and the groom.
"You've done enough for one day," he said without flinching.
"Best to cool down, else your raging fires will set your brain on
light and cast you into Bedlam."
"'Enough'! Is it enough that a man's daughter----?" began
Malherb. Then he broke off and rolled his eyes upon their
frightened faces until the pallid and rotund orb of Mr. Cockey's
countenance challenged his glance.
"And you, tailor, work as you never worked yet! Let your
trash be done next week, or take it back again."
He quitted the hall abruptly; and for the rest of that dim day
his wife suffered him alone. Her prayers he cried down; her
tears he dried by terror. He ordered her not to weep, and
frightened her into obedience. She believed that he was going
mad and suffered untold dismay until, cast up like a drowned
thing by the waves of his passion, physical nature collapsed and
Malherb slept. Groaning and moaning in the dream scenery
begot of his wild spirit, she left him, crept to the prisoner and
took Grace to her bosom.
For an hour they held mournful discourse, but Annabel did
all the weeping. Her father's temper animated the girl and she
panted with indignation.
"I weary of your tears, dearest mother," she said. "If you
may fetch me some food I should be thankful for it. That smooth
coward to peep into my room! And to tell! I will jump from
my window on to the kind granite sooner than marry him!"
Annabel mourned her daughter's folly; she explained how that
John Lee had been dismissed at a moment's notice; and then,
changing her mood, she talked herself into quite another frame
of mind, and began to upbraid the sinner with all her might.
"'Twas a very unmaidenly thing, and that much I stoutly tell
you. To have an understanding with a man, and one who is
your country's enemy! Your father has destroyed the flag. He
thrust it into the red-hot peat and scorched his own hand badly.
He raved against the very foundations of the earth when he
burnt himself. Like Samson, he would have dragged down the
house if he could. Oh, you are a thorn, not a daughter! He is
breaking his great heart. Treachery is beyond his understanding.
I blush for you, Grace Malherb."
"I wish you would get me some food; I'm starving," said the
girl wearily. "He would not grudge me bread and water."
"That is what he said just before he slept. 'Bread and water,'
said he; then his voice grew softer on the brink of sleep, and he
said, 'She may have milk too.'"
"I love him through it all!"
Mrs. Malherb's tears flowed again. She left her daughter and
presently returned with the food.
"He didn't say 'twas not to be warmed, so I've heated it for
you. Oh, my pretty, wicked sweet--how could you do a deed so
unbecoming?"
"I don't know, mother," answered Grace, beginning to eat.
"These things happen. I liked Mr. Cecil Stark very much, and
I like his country and his ideas about right and wrong."
"A young man's ideas upon such subjects are usually very
mistaken."
"In the third letter he wrote me he asked me to make a flag
for him, and I consented after carefully weighing the matter in
my mind."
"What should he want with a flag, poor soul?"
"'Twas for the Fourth of July--the Anniversary of their
Independence. There--the bread and milk are gone. Good night,
kind mother. I'm sorry you ever had a daughter."
"The female character has always been beyond me," confessed
Mrs. Malherb. "The difference between a boy and a girl, as
Peter once said, is the difference between a dog and a cat. A
dog is so much more reasonable, so much easier to comprehend
and direct. Slyness: 'tis a feline thing; and as to obedience, it
certainly comes more natural to a son than a daughter, though I
know not why. At any rate, it is so where a mother's concerned.
A son will do anything so gladly for his mother--if you don't ask
him to interfere with his own comfort. And what mother worthy
of the name would do that? Not that disobedience to parents
was ever recorded against either sex in our rank of society when I
was a girl. Now good night, child. Try to sleep, and let your
prayer be the same as mine--that it will please God to lift your
dear father's wrath by morning."
But with the return of day Malherb still wasted his nervous
energy in anger. He refused to see his daughter or to liberate
her. He wandered miles upon the high Moors alone; then going
back again, he returned to the infamous treatment he had suffered
and the torment of possessing a thankless child. Presently
he attacked his wife, and cursed her past folly and ignorance.
"You are to blame for all!" he said. "'Twas your upbringing--so
weak, so fond--that bred this devil in her. Would to
God you had more of my own mother's spirit in you. Look at
me. I owe everything to my education. She was a Roman
mother. Had you been more like her, this minx had never
dared to flout a father. But, by God, I'll break her now or
never!"
Within the day Malherb arrived at a determination; but he
told his wife and Kekewich only. Then a letter reached Peter
Norcot. The secret, however, leaked out, for Kekewich confided
it to Mordecai Cockey, and Mr. Cockey uttered it aloud as a
mournful fact in the hearing of Dinah Beer. That night Richard
Beer naturally heard it; and then the news reached Harvey
Woodman's ears. Finally it came to the intelligence of Tom
Putt, and made his heart quicken by a stroke or two in the
minute. For Putt had taken this matter much to heart.
"'Tis become a common prison, wi' that lovely miss locked up
as if she's done a murder, 'stead of fall into love with a fine
gentleman," grumbled Thomas. "For my part, I can't stand it
very much longer. Ban't a manly thing for us chaps to bide here
an' know a maiden's being starved to death on bread an' water
under the same roof with us."
"Her done it underhand," said Woodman. "If it wasn't for
that, I'd feel the same as you."
"Well she might do it underhand wi' a tiger for a parent."
"Best you pick your words, else you'll go after Jack Lee, wi' a
flea in your ear," returned Woodman. "I say 'tis a very terrible
proceeding," he continued. "An' seeing the chap's a Yankee,
nought can be done. 'Tis an unthinkable thing for one of our
bettermost young women to marry an American. I'm 'mazed
she could give her mind to such a rash deed."
"That's because you haven't got more ideas than a cow," said
Mary Woodman firmly. "What's the matter with the man--Mr. Stark,
I mean? God's goodness! You talk as if he was a
monkey, or some foreign savage as scalped people for his pleasure.
He'm good to look at, an' he had a beautiful gentle way with him
for all his fighting face. An' so straight as a fir tree a was, an'
full of learning, an' civil to the least of us, an' gave you a golden
half-sovereign afore he went away. So you'm a traitor to miscall
him. I won't have no narrowness, Harvey, an' you well know it.
You used to be so broad as Bible in your opinions, an' very
charitable-minded for a common man. But to tell such things
because a young gentleman be born out of England--I'm shamed
for 'e!"
Woodman had little to say before this wifely rebuke. They all
talked on and expressed their concern; but Thomas Putt did
more than debate the situation and regret it. Despite lack of
opinions on all matters save sporting, he had plenty of common
sense and courage. He could act promptly, and danger or any
consciousness of unlawfulness in a task usually stimulated him to
successful achievement. On his own responsibility he took up
the cause of the prisoner. While there was yet time, Grace
Malherb must know the thing determined; so argued Putt; and
in that conviction he took a definite step, and conveyed his
information to another.
Then came a morning when Grace from her prison window
witnessed the departure of Mr. Mordecai Cockey. She shivered
as he went, for she knew that his work was done. Some six
weeks yet remained before the day appointed for the marriage,
and gloomily she speculated as to whether her father could find
it in his heart to keep her thus shut up throughout the whole
splendour of summer. Annabel visited her daughter thrice daily;
but she brought little news and no comfort. Grace soon
discovered that her gentle parent suffered much under weight of
secrets. The mother felt often tempted to reveal what was now
afoot; but she had promised her husband to say nothing.
"Mr. Cockey has gone off much earlier than it was proposed,"
said Grace upon the evening of the tailor's departure.
"He has done his work."
"And wasted much good cloth."
"I pray to Heaven that you will listen to reason when the time
comes to do so, Grace."
"I shall never hear reason under this roof, mother. To think--a
grown woman so treated! How can father heap such insult
upon his own flesh and blood? How he would have scorned any
other man in the land who had treated a daughter so!"
"It has pleased God to perplex his noble nature; and he
knows his own weaknesses. He has come near relenting more
than once. But, like Pharaoh, he hardens his heart again. He
suffers worse than you do. He has quite lost his appetite--a
very alarming symptom, I think. At table he helps himself, as
he helps everybody, with his usual generosity; then I see you
come into his mind, and he fumes and frets and thrusts his meat
from him. There is trouble, too, that I know not of. We are
much straitened. I shall hear all about it some night, when he
is in a soft mood."
"Nobody can help him--that's the cruel thing with dear
father."
"He'll not listen to his kind. It is as though God had cursed
him and said, 'Thou shall trust no judgment but thine own.' So
warm-hearted and so beyond reach of other men's wisdom as
he is!"
"I trust in Heaven to bring him to his better self. There are
yet many weeks before this dreary farce is ended," said Grace.
Mrs. Malherb looked exceeding guilty as her daughter uttered
these words. She answered nothing and prepared to depart; but
she hesitated at the door as though about to speak. Then she
changed her mind and withdrew quickly.
Ere the morning's dawn, however, Grace heard the thing so
studiously concealed from her. She slept but little at this period
and busied her mind with futile thoughts. She did not doubt
that John Lee and Stark knew all and were busy upon her
behalf. Therefore, when a gentle tap fell on her casement an
hour after midnight, she felt neither fear nor astonishment, but
welcomed it as a thing expected. She struck a light to show that
she had heard, wrapped a gown about her and came to the
window.
A scrap of paper tied round a pebble lay on the sill, and upon
the paper was written one word: "PULL." She obeyed and found
that a thread communicated with the ground below. At the
other end of this string was a length of whipcord, and when that
also had been drawn up, she found that it brought after it the
head of a slight rope-ladder. A further laconic direction appeared
upon another scrap of paper: "MAKE FAST." Grace fixed the
ropes to the iron grate of her fireplace and extinguished the light
for safety; then her heart beat fast as the cords strained and a
man rose up from the darkness of the earth below.
Not until he was at the casement and she heard him whisper,
did she know that it was John Lee. A wave of disappointment
swept over her; and to hide any ray of it, she bent and kissed
his hand.
"'Tis only me," he said; and his voice that read her heart so
clear, cried to her to be honest with him and speak the thing she
had longed yet feared to say.
"Dear, dear John. I wish I could say what you deserve to
hear! You risk your life for me, for father would surely kill you
if he knew of this. Yet what have I to give you back for such
devotion? 'Tis no time for anything but solemn truth. I've
long feared to face it, dear John; but now I'm grown older and
braver. I will marry you, John, but I do not feel all that I
thought I felt. I am not the true, trustful girl you think me, but
a flighty fool who did not know her own mind. There--you
know--and I'm thankful that you should know, though you must
hate me and condemn me evermore."
"Think you this is news, my pretty Grace? How strange to
hear these things retold after so many days! I'm long since
schooled to this cold truth. Dear heart, your eyes never hid a
secret--nor your soul! I know--I know everything--all that
you feel--all the sorrow you've suffered for me--all that you
cannot say--all--all--to the secret prayers you've prayed to
Christ about it! Suffer no more. The man you love will soon
be free to stand between you and trouble. And you'll never
quite forget me neither--never forget me--I know that. I'm
content; and I'm selfish too, you see. I've claimed one great
payment--the right to rescue you, and the joy of it. 'Twill be
his turn next. I'm saving you for him. You can trust me if he
does?"
"Whom should we trust? We're both in prison now. 'Trust
you'! faithful, generous John!"
"You must be so good as your word at once then. Your banns
have been asked out thrice. To-day is Saturday; you are to be
married on Monday. The date is changed. Putt brought me
the news where I dwell now. I have returned to my grandmother.
There's much to tell about what's doing at the War
Prison, and about him--Master Stark--but that must wait until
you're safe."
"They have plotted to marry me--to dash me into it by a
surprise?"
"They have."
"I'll stay and brave them!"
"No, no--what's one girl against two resolute and determined
men? Terrible things happen--women have been drugged as
maids and come to their senses wives. Don't pit yourself against
them. Stark knows that you must escape."
She reflected a moment.
"If he wishes it--if you wish it--yes. But not now. To-morrow
night, John."
"All's ready. Your parents shall learn that you are safe and
well. But to find you will be beyond power of man. So that
you can trust me----"
"To-morrow night, then, I'll be furnished for flight.
To-morrow--kiss me, John."
"For him?"
"For yourself. Is not my life worth that? Yet 'tis poor
payment for a poor thing."
"For the last time before God."
He bent over her and folded her in his arms. She felt his
young heart against her own. Then he kissed her lips.
"Your lover no more; your slave for ever," he said.
A moment later he had descended to earth, and Grace shed
tears for the first time since her imprisonment. She drew up the
ladder as he directed, hid it close and watched John Lee vanish
into the dim dawn. Then she turned into her room and felt
already that it was a memory of the past--a nest of youthful joys
and sorrows, of many a girlish fancy and old dead dream, now
left behind for ever.
CHAPTER VII
THE TUNNEL GROWS
Cecil Stark and William Burnham walked side by side
in their exercise yard and discussed the affairs of the world.
While the American prisoners toiled like moles underground,
great events marked the time. The Allies were in Paris;
Napoleon had abdicated and, for a moment, the war with France
was ended. The Peace of Paris had been accomplished, and
Europe took breath. Yet liberty's glorious reveille woke the
French at Prince Town to more grief than joy.
"I can find it in me to be truly sorry for them," said Stark.
"They have starved and frozen and suffered for an ideal cause
and the ideal is shattered. They trusted Bonaparte as our people
trust God; and now the idol they adored is fallen, and the master
they hate is lifted up again."
"Men from Plymouth presented them with their old national
flag and advised them to wear the white cockade," answered
Burnham; "but every mother's son of 'em sticks to the tricolour
and has pinned the Bourbon favour to his dog!"
"They cry out that Elba is too small to hold the spirit of
Napoleon. Perhaps they are right. Time will show that," said
Stark.
"Their wives and children will soften their griefs when they
get home."
"Doubtless. And their common sense, so soon as the first
smart of failure is past. War teaches men to look twice into the
claims of kings."
Burnham did not immediately reply. Then he said--
"I've noticed a change in you since that awful experience when
Miller perished. You seem--forgive me--less patriotic-minded
than of yore."
"I have wider interests than of yore. I get important private
letters."
"From home?"