the hogshead before the apples have set, or killing a pig without having
the pickle-tub. Langford is not yours, any more than Coombe Park is
ours.'
'Langford must come to us Nanspians some day, you know, Honor. Not that
I reckon on it. God forbid. May Uncle Taverner live for ever. But it
gives a chap confidence to know that a large estate will come to him in
the end.'
'Don't reckon on that,' said Honor.
'It can't fail. It stands so in the deeds.'
'But Mr. Langford might marry.'
Hillary would have burst into a hearty laugh at the idea, had not Honor
laid her hand on his arm to arrest him, and raised the forefinger of the
other to impose silence.
Sitting up on its hind legs, in a begging posture, at the mouth of the
excavation, was a _white hare_. It looked at the young people for a
moment, doubtingly, inquiringly. Then Hillary stirred, and with a flash
it was gone.
Hillary exclaimed, 'O Honor! is it not the picture of Mrs. Veale?'
*CHAPTER IV.*
*THE WHITE HARE.*
'I have seen the white hare before, several times,' said Honor Luxmore.
'You have? Do you know what folks say?'
'They say that it is unlucky to see a white hare; but I think nothing of
that.'
'I do not mean that,' said Hillary, laughing. 'But they say that when a
witch goes on her errands she takes this shape. Perhaps, Honor,' he
went on with roguery in his twinkling eyes, 'Mrs. Veale is off over the
Down in quest of her master. He has gone to the Look-out Stone to have
a talk to my father.'
'Nonsense, Larry. I put no credit in those tales of witches; besides, I
never heard that Mrs. Veale was one--not properly.'
'She is white with pink eyes, and so is the hare,' argued Hillary, 'and
spiteful she is, certainly. I hope, if that were her, she won't be
bringing mischief to you or to me. We shall see. If that were her,
Uncle Taverner will be coming home directly. Folks say that he is
afraid of her tongue, and that is the only thing in heaven or hell he is
afraid of.'
Honor uttered an exclamation of surprise and alarm. A black ungainly
figure stood before them, black against the glowing western sky. She
recovered herself at once and rose respectfully. Hillary turned and
recognised his uncle.
'Well, Uncle Taverner!' he exclaimed, 'you have come on us suddenly. We
were just talking about you.'
'Ah' answered Langford, leaning on his stick and lowering at him, 'leave
me out of your talk and your calculations altogether. I dare say you
have been reckoning on my shoes, and how well they would fit your young
feet. No, no! no feet of yours shall ever be thrust into them.' Then
seeing that Hillary was disconcerted, he laughed a harsh, bitter laugh.
'Your father and I have parted for ever. We have quarrelled; I will not
speak to him more. To you I speak now for the last time also. As
Nanspian has split with Langford, Chimsworthy and Langford will not
splice. Remember that. Go to work, young man, go to work, instead of
standing idling here. Your father is in my debt, and you must help him
to earn the money to pay me off.' Then he turned to Honor, and said,
'Why are you here, instead of watching your horse? Diamond is down in
the gravel-pit, on his side, dead or dying.'
Honor sprang up with a cry.
'The white hare,' said Hillary, 'has brought the ill-luck--to both of us
at once.'
Neither of the young people gave another thought to Taverner Langford.
Honor was in distress about the horse, and Hillary was desirous of
assisting her. He accompanied her to the spot, a hole dug in the
surface of the moor for rubble wherewith to mend the road. Diamond had
either made his way into it by the cart road, or had fallen over the
edge. He lay on his side panting.
'Poor fellow,' said Hillary gravely, 'Diamond is done for.'
'Oh, I ought not to have let him from my sight,' cried Honor, stung with
self-reproach.
'You could do nothing for him,' said the young man. 'He is not dying
from your neglect. Look here, Honor, do you see that hoof-print? He
walked in, he did not fall over the edge. Every beast when it feels
death approach tries to hide itself, as though it were ashamed--as
though death were a crime. It is so, Honor.'
'O Larry! What can I do? What can I do for poor Diamond?'
'You can do nothing but pat him and let him go out of the world with a
word of love.'
'I will do that. I will indeed!' Then she caressed the old horse, and
stroked its cheek and nose, and spoke to it tenderly. Diamond raised his
head, snuffed, rubbed his head against his young mistress, then laid it
down again on the stones and died.
Honor's tears flowed, but she was not one to make a demonstration of
distress. She said: 'I must go home, Larry, and get supper ready for
the children. I can do nothing here now.'
'I am very sorry for you,' said Hillary, showing more emotion than she;
'I am indeed, Honor. I know what a terrible loss this will be to your
father, and he is too proud a man to go round with a brief. Put your
hand to mine, Honor; we shall always be good friends, and I will do what
I can for you; but it cannot be much now that Uncle Taverner is across
with us, and about to exact his money. I will tell you what. I will get
my father to lend you our horse Derby for awhile, till we can scheme
what is to be done. I wish I'd got a quarter of an acre of land of my
own, and I would sell it and give you the money wherewith to buy another
horse. I would, in truth and sincerity, Honor.'
'I am sure of that,' answered the girl; 'I know I can always trust to
your good-will and kind offices. Good-bye! I must go.'
Then Hillary went slowly homewards. The sun had gone down in the west,
and the sky was full of after glory. A few level bars, steps of vivid
fire, were drawn against the sky, and there was, as it were, a pavement
of sapphire strewn with the down from a flamingo. The moor stood with
every furze-bush on its margin and two small cairns on the edge blotted
black against the blaze. As Hillary descended from the moor he got into
the Chimsworthy Lane, shadowed by a plantation of Scottish pines his
father had made twenty years ago, and which stood up high enough to
intercept the light.
'Poor Honor!' mused Hillary. 'Whatever will she and her father and all
those little uns do without the horse? A carrier without a horse is a
helpless animal. I don't like to ask my father too much for the
Luxmores, and seem hot about them, or he will be thinking I am in love
with Honor, which I am not. Some chaps think a young fellow cannot speak
to a girl, or even look at her, without being in love with her. I like
Honor well enough, as a friend, but no more.'
The road was very rough, he could not descend fast because of the loose
stones. In rainy weather the way was a watercourse, and the water broke
up the shale rock that formed the floor and scattered it in angular
fragments over the road.
'What a ridiculous notion, that I should be in love with a carrier's
daughter! I a Nanspian of Chimsworthy, and heir----' he stopped.
'No--that part is not to be, though how Uncle Taverner will do us out of
Langford is more than I can imagine. That he should marry and have a
family is clean too ridiculous! Confound that stone! It nigh turned and
broke my ankle. If Honor's father had Coombe Park it would be another
matter. Then, possibly, I might think of her in a different way; but--a
cottage girl!--a carrier's daughter! Luxmore is not a bad name. But
then they have the name and nothing else. I'll cut myself a stick, or I
shall be down on my nose. I should not care for Honor to see me
to-morrow with a broken nose. These pines may be a shelter, but they
cast a very black shadow, and the rabbits breed in the plantation like
midges in a duck-pond.'
He cut himself a stick and went on. 'If Honor were here, I should be
forced to lend her a hand, and then if father or any one were to meet
us, there'd be laughter and jokes. I'm mighty glad Honor is not here.'
Presently he got beyond the pines.
The hedges were high, the way still dark.
'Good heavens!' he exclaimed, 'the white hare again!'
As he cried out, a white animal ran up the lane, passed him and
disappeared.
'Confound it,' said Hillary. 'I wish I had not seen that. Why----what
have we here?'
He ran forward. In the lane, across it, where the stile to the Look-out
Stone allowed a streak of western light to stream across the road, lay
Hillary Nanspian senior, insensible, on his face, with the broken cyder
jug in his hand.
'Father! what ails you? Speak!' cried Hillary junior. He tried to lift
the old man; he could raise but not carry him. The anger aroused by his
contention with Langford had brought on a fit.
*CHAPTER V.*
*'TIMEO DANAOS ET DONA FERENTES.'*
Honor Luxmore sat near the window, weaving a hamper out of willow twigs.
Her sister Kate was similarly engaged. By the fire sat Oliver, smoking
and watching the smouldering peat on the hearth. The sisters earned
money by making baskets. Down in the bottoms, in the marshy land, grew
willow-bushes; and they were allowed by the farmers to cut as much as
they needed free of charge. Towards Christmas, indeed from the 1st of
October, there was a demand for 'maunds,' in which to send away as
presents. Honor, Kate, and even some of the younger children could
plait withies into hampers, which their father took into Launceston and
Tavistock on market-days and sold. Little figures make up long sums,
and so the small proceeds of the basket-weaving formed no inconsiderable
profit in the year, out of which Honor was able to clothe her sister
Kate and one of the other children.
Silence had lasted some time in the room; Oliver leaned forward with his
elbows on his knees, dreamily watching the fire. At last he said,
'Whatever I am to do for a horse I cannot tell. I've sold the carcase
to Squire Impey to feed the hounds with for a half-sovereign, and the
skin for another ten shillings. That is all I got for Diamond. I
suppose I shall have to give up carrying and go on the land. To think
of that, I that should be in Coombe Park riding about in a gilded coach
with four cream horses and long tails and a powdered coachman on the
box--that I should become a day labourer for lack of a horse!'
'Never mind about Coombe Park, father. It is of no use looking down a
well for a lost shilling. Young Mr. Larry Nanspian will lend you a
horse for a while.'
'What will that avail?' asked Oliver disconsolately. 'It is like
sucking eggs when you've got the consumption. It puts off the dying a
few days, but it don't cure.'
'The last horse was paid for. You are not in debt.'
'Ah! but then I had not so many little ones growing up. I could be
trusted to pay. But now they consume every penny I earn.'
'They cost more as they grow up, but they also earn something. I've a
mind to do this, father. You know I've been asked by several gentlefolk
to go to their houses and reseat their cane-bottomed chairs, but I've
never liked to go because of the distance, and because I wouldn't leave
the house and the children. But now Kate is old enough to take my place
and do such little matters as are needed here during the day, I will go
about and do the chairs.
Oliver Luxmore laughed. 'You'll never buy a horse with cane bottoms.
No, that won't do. I'll give up carrying and go work on the roads. You
don't know what grand new macadamised roads are being laid out; they are
carrying them round slopes, where before they went straight up. They
are filling in bottoms, and slicing into hills. Thousands upon
thousands of pounds are being spent, and there are whole gangs of men
engaged upon them.'
'No, father, you are too old for that work. Besides, those who go to the
road-making are the rough and riotous young fellows who want high wages,
and who spend their money in drink. No, such society is not for you.'
'I don't see that,' said the father. 'As you say, the wages are very
high; I am not so old that I cannot work.'
'You are unaccustomed to the kind of work.'
'I should get into the way of it, and I am no drunkard to waste my
money.'
'But you are a Luxmore.'
Oliver held up his head. That last was an unanswerable argument. He
considered for a while, and then he said, 'I cannot borrow the money of
Mr. Nanspian, he is ill. It is, of course, useless my asking Mr.
Langford, he is not a lending, but a taking man.'
'If we worked out the first debt, we can work out the second,' said
Honor. 'I know that you can get nothing from Chimsworthy, and I do not
suppose you can get anything from Langford, nevertheless you might try.
Mr. Langford knows you to be an industrious and a conscientious man. He
has but to look in your face, father, to be sure that you would rather
be cheated than cheat any one. Try Mr. Taverner Langford to-morrow.'
'It is no good,' sighed Oliver. 'Only wear out shoe leather for
nothing. You go if you think anything of the chance. Folks say, walk
with Hope, or you are walking backwards.'
'I--I go to Mr. Langford!'
'No need for that, when I have come to you,' answered a voice at the
open window.
Honor started, looked up, and saw Taverner Langford there, looking at
her, and then at Oliver.
'Won't you step in and take a chair, sir?' asked Honor, rising and
moving towards the door.
'No, I am well where I am,' answered Taverner, leaning his elbows on the
bottom of the window and peering in. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, that
shadowed the upper part of his face, but out of this shadow shone his
eyes with phosphoric light.
'Father!' exclaimed Honor, 'here is Mr. Langford.'
Oliver had risen and stood with his pipe in one hand leaning against one
jamb of the chimney, looking wonderingly at the visitor. Langford had
ascended the steps from the lane, and thus had appeared suddenly before
the Luxmores.
From the window no one that passed was visible unless he were seated on
the top of a load of hay carted along the lane from the harvest-field.
Oliver Luxmore went to the window, and, like his daughter, asked, 'Will
you step inside, sir?'
'No, thank you,' answered Langford, 'I can talk very comfortably
standing where I am. I know you to be a sensible man, Luxmore, and to
have your eyes about you, and your ears open. There is no man goes
about the country so much as you. They say that in a town the barber
knows all the news, and in the country the carrier. Now I'll tell you
what I want, Luxmore, and perhaps you'll do me the favour to help me to
what I want. I'm short of hands, and I want a trusty fellow who can act
as cattle-driver for me. I won't have a boy. Boys over-drive and hurt
the cattle. I must have a man. Do you know of one who will suit?'
Oliver shook his head. 'I don't know that I do, and I don't know that I
don't.'
'You are talking riddles, Luxmore. What do you mean?'
'Well, sir,' answered the carrier with a sigh, 'my meaning is this.
Poor Diamond is dead, and I am thinking of giving up the carrying
trade.'
'Giving up the "Vivid"! You are not in your senses, man.'
'Ah, sir, how am I to buy a new horse? The price is up and money is
scarce--leastways with me. Horses ain't to be bought on promises no
more than they are to be reared on wind.'
'Want a horse, do you? Of course the "Vivid" won't go by herself except
down hill, and that is what every one and every thing can do unassisted.
It is the getting up hill that costs a strain. Ah, Luxmore, I could
show you two men, one going up and the other down, going down as fast as
the laden van on Rexhill, without a horse to back against it. You've
only to look to Chimsworthy to see that. I need not say in which
direction to turn your eyes to see the contrary.'
He pushed up his hat and looked at the carrier, then at Honor. He did
not deign to cast a passing glance at Kate.
'Then, sir,' said Oliver, 'if the worst came to the worst--I mean, sir,
begging your pardon, and no offence intended, if I could not get another
horse, and where it is to come from the Lord Almighty only knows--I'd
have to work for my living some other way, and I might be glad to take
service with you. I was even thinking on going to the roads that be
making, but Honor won't hear of that, so I reckon it can't be.'
'No,' answered Taverner, with his eyes resting on Honor, 'no, she is
quite right. Your proper place is at home with the family. The men on
the roads are a wild lot.'
'So she said,' the carrier put in humbly, 'and of course Honor knows.'
'Now look you here, Luxmore,' said Taverner, 'I'm not a man to squander
and give away, as every one in Bratton knows, but I'm not as hard as
they are pleased to say, and where a worthy man is in need, and no great
risk is seen by myself, and I'm not out of pocket, I don't mind helping
him. I do not say but what I'll let you have my grey for keep. She's
not an infant. There's not much gambol about her, but there is a deal
of work. You shall have her for awhile; and pay me ten shillings a
week, as hire. That is a favourable offer, is it not?'
The carrier stood silent with astonishment. Honor's cheeks flushed with
pleasure and surprise, so did those of Kate.
'Your grey!' exclaimed Luxmore. 'I know her well. She's worth
five-and-twenty pounds.'
'She may be. I do not know. I will not consider that. I do not want
her just now, and shall be glad to lend her for her keep and a trifle.
You are an honest man. Your family is like mine--come down in the
world.'
'Ah!' exclaimed the carrier, raising his head proudly, 'I reckon Coombe
Park is where I should be, and all I want wherewith to get it is a
hundred pounds and a register.'
'That may be,' said Taverner; 'there were Luxmores in Bratton as long as
there have been Langfords, and that goes back hundreds of years. I do
not want to see you fall to the ground. I am ready to lend you a
helping hand. You may fetch away the grey when you like. You will have
to sign an acknowledgment, and promise to return her in good and sound
condition. Always safest to have a contract properly executed and
signed, then there can be no starting up of a misunderstanding
afterwards.'
'I am to have your grey!' Oliver Luxmore could not believe in his good
fortune, and this good fortune coming to him from such an unexpected
quarter. 'There now! Honor said I was to go up to Langford and see
you. She thought you might help, and 'twas no use in the world asking at
Chimsworthy.'
'Honor said that!' exclaimed Taverner, and he looked at the girl and
nodded approvingly.
Then Luxmore, who had been sitting in his shirt-sleeves, took his coat
and put it on, went to the nail and unhooked his hat.
'I don't mind if I go and look at the grey,' he said. He had sufficient
prudence not to accept till he had seen.
Whilst Oliver Luxmore was assuming his coat, Langford, leaning on his
arms in the window, watched the active fingers of Honor, engaged in
weaving a basket. Her feet were thrust forward, with the red stockings
encasing them.
'Ah!' said Taverner, half aloud, half to himself; 'I know a red spider
that brings luck. Well for him who secures her.'
Just then voices were audible, bright and clear, coming from the lane;
and in a few minutes up the steps trooped the younger children of the
carrier, returning from school. Each, even the boy of thirteen, went at
once to Honor, stood before her, and showed face and hands and clothes.
'Please, Honor,' said one little girl, 'I've got a tear in my pinafore.
I couldn't help it. There was a nail in the desk.'
'Well, Pattie, bring me my workbox.'
How clean, orderly, happy the children were! Each before going to
school was examined to insure that it was scrupulously neat; and each on
returning was submitted to examination again, to show that it had kept
its clothes tidy whilst at school, and its face and hands clean.
Regardless of the presence and observations of Langford, Honor mended
Pattie's pinafore. She was accustomed to do at once what she observed
must be done. She never put off what had to be done to a future time.
Perhaps this was one of the secrets of her getting through so much work.
When each child had thus reported itself to Honor, she dismissed it with
a kiss, and sent it to salute the father.
'You will find, each of you, a piece of bread-and-butter and a mug of
milk in the back kitchen,' she said. Then the children filed out of the
room to where their simple meal was laid out for them.
'Busy, systematic, thrifty,' said Taverner Langford, looking approvingly
at Honor. 'The three feet that stay Honour.' Whether he made this
remark in reference to her name the girl could not make out; she looked
up suddenly at him, but his face was inscrutable, as he stood with his
back to the light in the window, with his broad-brimmed hat drawn over
his eyes.
Her father was ready to depart with Langford. As the latter turned to
go, he nodded to the girl in an approving and friendly way, and then
turning to her father, as he prepared to descend the steps, said, 'What
a maid that eldest daughter of yours is! Everything in your house is
clean, everything in place, even the children. The sphere is not big
enough for her, she has talents for managing a farm.'
'Ah!' groaned Luxmore, 'if we had our rights, and Coombe Park came to
us----' The sisters heard no more. Their father had reached the foot
of the steps.
When both he and Langford had disappeared, Kate burst out laughing.
'O Honor!' she said, 'that screw, Mr. Langford! how his voice creaked.
I thought all the time he was speaking of a screw driven into father,
creak, creak, creak!'
'For shame, Kate! Mr. Taverner Langford has done us a great kindness.
He must not be ridiculed.'
'I do not believe in his kindness,' answered the lively Kate. 'The grey
has got the glanders, or is spavined, that is why he wants to lend her.
Unless father is very keen, Mr. Langford will overreach him.' Then she
threw aside the basket she had been weaving. 'There, Honor, that is
done, and my fingers are sore. I will do no more. No--not even to buy
the grey with my earnings. I am sure that grey is coming to bring us
ill-luck. I turned my thumb in all the time that Mr. Langford was here,
I thought he had the evil eye, and--Honor--his wicked eye was on you.'
*CHAPTER VI.*
*THE PROGRESS OF STRIFE.*
So it fell out that two worthy men, land-owners, brothers-in-law, in the
parish of Bratton Clovelly, each a churchwarden, each a pillar of
religion, Jakim and Booz, one of the Temple, the other of the
Tabernacle, were at variance. About what? About nothing, a little red
spider, so minute that many a man could not see it without his
spectacles.
The money-spinner had provoked the calling of names, the flying forth of
fury, the rush of blood to the head of Hillary Nanspian, and a fit. It
was leading to a good deal more, it was about to involve others beside
the principals.
But the money-spinner was really only the red speck at the meeting-point
of rivalries, and brooding discontents and growing grievances. Nanspian
had long chafed at the superiority assumed by Langford, had been angry
at his own ill-success, and envious of the prosperity of his
brother-in-law. And Langford had fretted over the thriftlessness of
Nanspian, and the prospect of his own gains being dissipated by his
nephew.
Hillary was a boastful and violent man. Taverner was suspicious and
morose. But Nanspian was good-natured at bottom; his anger, if
boisterous, soon blew away. Langford's temper was bitter; he was not
malevolent, but he harboured his wrongs, and made a sort of duty of
revenging them.
The love of saving had become so much a part of Taverner's soul, that it
caused him real agony of mind to think that all he had laid by might be
wasted by young Hillary, who, brought up in his father's improvident
ways, was sure to turn out a like wastrel. Moreover, he did not like
young Larry. He bore him that curious aversion which old men sometimes
manifest for the young. Taverner had been an ungainly youth, without
ease of manner or social warmth. He had never made himself friends of
either sex; always solitary, he had been driven in on himself. Now that
he was in the decline of life he resented the presence in others of
those qualities he had never himself possessed. The buoyant spirits,
the self-confidence, the good humour, the pleasant looks, the swinging
walk of young Larry were all annoyances to Langford, who would have
taken a liking to the lad had he been shy and uncouth.