vital matter. I don't speak without sympathy for you either; but, in
common with the two of you--Myles and yourself--this silly woman is
uppermost in my mind--her and her good. So, since you ask, I tell you
I'm disappointed with you; you've falsified my predictions of late, and
your present relations with Honor have drifted into a flat wrong against
her husband, though you may be on a plane as high as heaven, in your own
flabby imagination. This friendship is not a thing settled, defined,
marked off all round by boundaries. No friendship stands still, any
more than anything else in the universe. Even if you're built of
uncommon mud, lack your share of nature, and can philander to the end of
the chapter without going further, or thinking further, that is no
reason why you should do so. The husband of her can't be supposed to
understand that you're a mere curiosity with peculiar machinery inside
you. He gives you the credit of being an ordinary man, or denies you
the credit of being an extraordinary one, which you please. So it's
summed up in a dozen words: either see a great deal less of Honor, or,
if you can't breathe the same air with her apart from her, go away, as
an honourable man must, and put the rim of the world between you. Try
to live apart, and let that be the gauge of your true feeling. If you
can bide at Godleigh happy from month to month without sight of her or
sound of her voice, then I'll allow you are all you claim to be and give
you a plane all to yourself above the sun; but if you find you can do no
such thing, then she's more to you by far than the wife of another man
ought to be, and you're not so abnormal as you reckon yourself. This is
going right back upon your renunciation in the beginning--as pitiful a
thing as ever I heard tell about."
"Stay here and never see her! How would you like it? I mean--you see
and hear with the mind, though your eyes are dark. Of course I couldn't
do that. What's Godleigh compared to her?"
"And still you say that sight of her and sound of her voice is all you
want to round and complete your life?
"Emphatically."
"You're a fool to say so."
"You don't believe it?"
"Nor would any other body. Least of all her husband."
"A man not soaked in earth would."
"Find him, then. Human nature isn't going to put off its garment at
your bidding. If you're only half-baked--that's your misfortune, or
privilege. You'll have to be judged by ordinary standards
nevertheless."
"Then I must leave the land of my fathers--I must go away from Godleigh
because a man misunderstands me?"
"You must go away from Godleigh because, on your own showing, you can't
stop in it without the constant companionship of another man's wife."
"What a brute you'd make me! That's absolutely false in the spirit, if
true in the letter. The letter killeth. You to heave such a millstone!"
"You're a poorer creature than I thought," answered Mark sternly, "much
poorer. Yet even you will allow perhaps that it is to her relations
with her husband, not her relations with you, that Honor Endicott must
look for lasting peace--if she's to have it."
"Yet I have made her happier by coming back into her life."
"It's doubtful. In one way yes, because you did things by halves--went
out of her life and then came back into it at the wrong moment. I won't
stop to point out the probable course of events if you had kept away
altogether; that might not be fair to you perhaps, though I marvel you
missed the lesson and have forgotten the punishment so soon. Coming
back to her, ghost-haunted as she was, you did make her happier, for you
lifted the horror of fear and superstition from her. But now her
lasting content is the theme. How does your presence here contribute to
that?"
"It would very considerably if Stapledon was different."
"Or if he was dead--or if--a thousand 'ifs.' But Stapledon is
Stapledon. So what are you going to do with the advice I've given you?"
"Not use it, I assure you. Consider what it means to drive me away from
Godleigh!"
"For her lasting content."
"I don't know about that. Of course, if it could be proved."
"You do know; and it has been proved."
"Not to my satisfaction. I resent your putting me in a separate
compartment, as if I was a new sort of beast or a quaint hybrid. I'm a
very ordinary man--not a phenomenon--and there are plenty more people in
the world who think and act as I do."
"Go and join them, then," said Mr. Endicott, "for your own peace of mind
and hers. Get out of her life; and remember that there's only one
way--that leading from here. I'm sorry for you, but you'll live to know
I've spoken the truth, unless your conscience was forgotten, too, when
the Lord fashioned you."
Yeoland grumbled a little; then he brightened up.
"My first thought was best," he said. "I should not have bothered you
with all this nonsense, for it really is nonsense when you think of it
seriously. I should have stuck to my resolve--to see Myles himself and
thrash this out, man to man. And so I will the moment he's up to it.
The truth is, we're all taking ourselves much too seriously, which is
absurd. Good-night, my dear sir. And thank you for your wisdom; but
I'll see Stapledon--that is the proper way."
*CHAPTER VIII.*
*THE ROUND ROBIN*
Before they slept that night Myles had expressed deep sorrow to Honor
for his utterances and declared contrition.
"The suffering is mine," he said; "to look back is worse for me than for
you."
His wife, however, confessed on her side to a fault, and blamed herself
very heartily for a lapse, not in her love, but in her thoughtfulness
and consideration. She declared that much he had spoken had been
justified, while he assured her that it was not so.
The days passed, and health returned to Myles; upon which Christopher
Yeoland, believing the recent difficulty dead, very speedily banished it
from his mind, met Stapledon as formerly in perfect friendship, never
let him know that he had heard of the tribulation recorded, and
continued to lead a life quite agreeable to himself, in that it was
leavened from time to time by the companionship of Honor.
Spring demanded that Myles should be much upon the farm, and the extent
of his present labours appeared to sweep his soul clean again, to purify
his mind and purge it of further disquiet. All that looked unusual in
his conduct was an increased propensity toward being much alone, or in
sole company of his dogs; yet he never declined Honor's offers to join
him.
She had not failed to profit vitally by the scene in the sick-room, yet
found herself making no return to peace. Now, indeed, Honor told
herself that her husband's state was more gracious than her own; for
there began dimly to dawn upon her heart the truth of those things that
Myles had hurled against her in the flood of his wrath. She divined the
impossible persistence of this divided love, and she felt fear. She was
sundered in her deepest affections, and knew that her peace must
presently suffer, as that of Myles had already suffered. Her peculiar
attitude was unlike that of her husband or the other man. She saw them
both, received a measure of worship from both, and grew specially
impatient against the silent, pregnant demeanour of Mark Endicott. His
regard for her was steadily diminishing, as it seemed, and he took some
pains that she should appreciate the fact.
It grew slowly within her that the position was ceasing to be tenable
for human nature, and not seldom she almost desired some shattering
outburst to end it. She was greatly puzzled and oftentimes secretly
ashamed of herself; yet could she not lay a finger on the point of her
offending. Nevertheless she missed some attributes of a good wife, not
from the conventional standpoint, which mattered nothing to her, but
from her own standard of right-doing.
Meantime, behind the barriers now imperceptibly rising and thickening
between man and wife, behind the calm and masklike face that he
presented to the world, Myles Stapledon suffered assault of storm upon
storm. He knew his highest ambitions and hopes were slipping out of
reach; he marked with punctuations of his very heart's throb the
increasing loneliness and emptiness of his inner life; and then he
fought with himself, while his love for Honor waxed. In process of time
he came gradually to convince himself that the problem was reduced to a
point. She loved Christopher Yeoland better than she loved him, or, if
not better, then, at least, as well. She did not deny this, and never
had. Life with him under these circumstances doubtless failed every
way, because his own temperament was such that he could not endure it
placidly. He doubted not that his wife went daily in torment, that she
saw through him to the raging fire hidden from all other eyes. He gave
her credit for that perspicacity, and felt that her existence with him,
under these circumstances, must be futile. He then convinced himself
that her life, if spent with Christopher, would be less vain. Through
dark and hidden abodes of agony his soul passed to this decision; he
tried to make himself feel that he loved her less by reason of these
things; and finally he occupied thought upon the means by which he might
separate himself from her and pass out of her life.
In the misty spring nights, under budding woodland green, or aloft in
the bosom of silence upon the high lands, he wandered. A dog was his
companion always, and his thoughts were set upon the magic knife, that
should cut him clean out of his wife's existence with least possible
hurt to her. By constitution, conviction, instinct, the idea of suicide
was vile to him. He had spoken of the abstract deed without detestation
in Mark Endicott's company, had even admitted the possibility of heroic
self-slaughter under some circumstances; but faced with it, he turned
therefrom to higher roads, not in fear of such a course, but a frank
loathing rather, because, under conditions of modern life, and with his
own existence to be justified, he held it impossible to vindicate such a
step. And that door closed; he thought of modern instances, and could
recall none to serve as a precedent for him. He turned, then, to
consider the mind of Christopher Yeoland, and endeavoured to perceive
his point of view. Blank failure met him there; but the thought of him
clenched Stapledon's hand, as it often did at this season, and he knew
that hate was growing--a stout plant of many tendrils--from the
prevalent fret and fever of his mind. He worked early and late to
starve this passion, but toil was powerless to come between his spirit
and the problem of his life for long.
His tribulation he concealed, yet not the outward marks of it. The eyes
of the farm were bright, and it was natural that he should be the focus
of them all. There came a night when Myles and his wife were gone to
Chagford at the wish of others, to lend weight in some parochial
entertainment for a good cause. Mr. Endicott was also of the party, and
so it chanced that the work-folk had Bear Down house-place to
themselves. The opportunity looked too good to miss, and their master
was accordingly discussed by all.
"Some dark branch of trouble, no doubt," said Henry Collins. "Time was
when he would smoke his pipe and change a thought with the humblest.
Now he's such a awnself man, wi' his eyes always turned into his head,
so to say."
"Broody-like," declared Churdles Ash; "an' do make his friends o' dumb
beasts more'n ever, an' looks to dogs for his pleasure."
"Ess; an' wanders about on moony nights, an' hangs awver gates, like a
momet to frighten pixies, if wan may say so without disrespect,"
continued Collins.
"A gert thinker he've grawed of late," said Cramphorn; "an' if I doan't
knaw the marks of thought, who should?"
"Sure a common man might 'most open a shop with the wisdom in his head,"
admitted Sam Pinsent; and Jonah answered--
"He ban't wise enough to be happy, however. A red setter's a very gude
dog, but no lasting company for a married man--leastways, he shouldn't
be. Theer's somethin' heavy as a millstone round his neck, an' dumb
beasts can't lift it, fond of 'em as he is. The world's a puzzle to all
onderstandin' people; yet theer's none amongst us havin' trouble but can
find a wiser man than hisself to lighten the load if he'll awnly look
round him. Theer's Endicott, as have forgot more of the puzzle of life
than ever Stapledon knawed; an' theer's Ash, a humble man, yet not
without his intellects if years count for anything; an' me, as have some
credit in company, I b'lieve. Ess, theer's auld heads at his sarvice,
yet he goes in trouble, which is written on his front and in his eyes.
Best man as ever comed to Endicott's tu, present comp'ny excepted."
"Theer's nought as we could do for his betterment, I s'pose?" asked
Gaffer Ash. "I've knawed chaps quick to take fire at any advice, or
such bowldaciousness from theer servants; but if you go about such a
deed in the name of the Lard, nobody of right honesty can say nothin'
against you. Now theer's a way to do such a thing, an' that is by an
approach all together, yet none forwarder than t'others. Then, if the
man gets angry, he can't choose no scapegoat. 'Tis all or none. A
'round robin' they call the manifestation. You puts a bit of common
sense, or a few gude Bible thoughts in the middle, an' writes your names
about, like the spokes of a cart-wheel, or the rays of the sun sticking
out all around. So theer's nothin' to catch hold of against them as
send it."
"Seein' we doan't knaw wheer the shoe pinches, the thing be bound to
fail," said Pinsent. "If us knawed wheer he was hit, I be sure auld
blids like you an' Jonah would have a remedy, an' belike might find the
very words for it in the Scriptures; but you caan't offer medicine if
you doan't know wheer a body's took to."
"'Tis the heart of un," said Cramphorn. "I'm allowed an eye, I think,
an' I've seed very clear, if you younger men have not, that this cloud
have drifted awver him since Squire Yeoland comed to his awn--an' more'n
his awn. Stapledon be out o' bias wi' the world here an' theer no
doubt."
"I'm sure they'm gert friends, sir, an' awften to be seed abroad of a
airly mornin' together 'pon the lands," piped in Tommy Bates.
"Shut your mouth, bwoy, till us axes your opinion," retorted Jonah.
"An' come to think on't, seein' the nature of the argeyment, you'd best
clear out of this an' go to bed."
"Let un listen to his betters," said Mr. Ash. "'Tis right he should,
for the less he listens to men as a bwoy, the bigger fule he'll be come
he graws. 'Tis a falling out contrary to all use," he continued.
"Missis was set 'pon squire fust plaace; then, second place, he died;
an', third place, she married t'other; fourth place, he comed to life;
an' fifthly an' lastly, 'pon this thumb of mine, he graws rich as
Solomon, an' bides in pomp an' glory to Godleigh again."
"An' they'm awften about together, drivin' an' walkin' for that matter;
though God, He knaws I'd be the last to smell a fault in missis," said
Jonah.
"Damn bowldacious of the man, however," declared Pinsent.
"'Tis so; an' all of a piece wi' his empty life, fust to last; an'
that's what's makin' Myles Stapledon go heavy an' forget to give me an'
others 'Gude-marnin'' or 'Gude-evenin',' 'cordin' to the time of day.
He thinks--same as I do--that theer's a sight tu much o' Yeoland in the
air; an' yet he's that worshipful of his wife that, though maybe she
frets him, he'd rather grizzle hisself to fiddle-strings than say a word
to hurt her. 'Mazin' what such a wonnerful woman sees in that vain
buzz-fly of a man."
"You'm right, no doubt, Jonah," assented Ash. "An' if 'tis as you say,
an' we'm faaced wi' the nature of the ill, us might do our little in all
gude sarvice an' humbleness towards the cure."
"The cure would be to knock that cockatrice 'pon the head an' scat his
empty brains abroad wance for all. Then the fule would have to be buried
fair an' square, wi' no more conjuring tricks," declared Jonah
Cramphorn.
"You'm an Auld Testament man, for sartain!" admitted Collins in some
admiration.
"Fegs! So he be; but these here ain't Auld Testament days," said
Churdles Ash; "an' us caan't taake the law in our awn hands, no matter
how much mind we've got to it. 'Tis a New Testament job in my judgment,
an' us'll do a 'round robin' to rights, an' set out chapter an' verse,
an' give the poor sawl somethin' very high an' comfortin' to chew 'pon.
Truth to tell, he's a thought jealous of his lady's likin' for t'other.
I mean no rudeness, an' if I doan't know my place at fourscore, when
shall I? But so it seems; an' the fact thraws un back 'pon dogs an' his
awn devices, which is very bad for his brain."
"What's the gude o' texts to a jealous man, whether or no?" asked Jonah
scornfully.
"Every gude; an' even a bachelor same as me can see it. Fust theer'll
be the calm process o' handlin' the Word an' lookin' up chapter an'
verse, each in turn; then the readin', larnin', markin', an' inwardly
digestin'; then, if we pick the proper talk, he'll come to a mood for
Christ to get the thin end of the wedge in wi' un. An' so us'll conquer
in the name of the Lard."
"'Pears to me as a bloody text or two wouldn't be amiss. I'd like to
fire the man up to go down-long to Christopher Yeoland an' take a
horse-whip to un, an' tan the hide off un. Theer's nought cools a
lecherous heart like a sore carcase," growled Jonah, reverting to his
Old Testament manner.
Then Mr. Collins created a diversion.
"I won't have no hand in it anyways," he said. "'Tis a darned sight tu
perilous a deed to come between a man and wife, even with a text of
Scripture, 'specially when you call home how hard 'tis to find lasting
work. Us might all get the sack for it; an' who'd pity us?"
"All depends 'pon how 'tis done. Wi' a bit of round writin' the blame
doan't fall nowheers in partickler."
"'Tis the wise ch'ice of words such a contrivance do depend on; an' what
more wise than Paul?" inquired Jonah Cramphorn. "I read the seventh of
Romans to my wife 'pon our wedding night, and never regretted it. He
hits the nail on the head like a workman; an' if theer's trouble arter,
the chap will be fallin' out wi' an anointed apostle, not us. Ess, I be
come round to your opinion, Ash. Us had better send it than not. You
wouldn't have had the thing rise up in your head if Providence didn't
mean us to do it."
"Might be safer to send it wi'out names, come to think of it," suggested
Collins; but Gaffer Ash scorned the cowardly notion.
"Wheer's the weight of that? No more'n a leaf in the wind wi'out names.
No sensible pusson would heed advice, gude or ill, as comed so. 'Tis
awnly evil-doers as be feared to sign an' seal their actions."
"Us might send it to she, instead of he," suddenly suggested Cramphorn.
"Her's more to us, God bless her; an' a woman's better able to brook
such a thing. She doan't see how this here do 'pear to other people,
else she'd never give the chap as much as 'Gude-marnin'' again. An'
her'll be fust to mark the righteous motives to the act. Gimme the big
Bible from the dresser-drawer, Tom Bates; an' then go to your bed. Us
doan't want a green youth like you in the document.
"A dangerous thing to give advice wheer it ban't axed," mused Pinsent;
"an' specially to your betters."
"So dangerous that I'll have no part nor lot in it," declared Henry.
"The dear lady's temper ban't what it was, so your darter tells me,
Cramphorn; an' you've got a mother an' sister to keep, Samuel, so you'd
best to bide out of it along wi' me."
Mr. Cramphorn was turning over the leaves of an old Bible thoughtfully.
"Paul's amazin' deep versed in it, seemin'ly," he said. "'Pears as he
was faaced wi' just such a evil when he wrote an' warmed up they
Corinthians. Listen to this here. 'An' unto the married I command, yet
not I, but the Lard, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But an'
if she depart, let her remain unmarried.'"
"Awften had a mind 'pon that scripture myself," declared Mr. Ash.
"An' lower down he's at 'em again. Hark to this: 'Art thou bound to a
wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a
wife.' I reckon most men doan't need to be told that last. Then theer's
another bracing word further on. Parson Scobell preached 'pon it awnly
last month. Ephesians, fifteenth of five: 'See then that ye walk
circumspectly, not as fules, but as wise.'"
"Tu strong for a lady," said Mr. Ash.
"Not so, Churdles. I'm the last to say or set a hand to any
awver-bitter speech. 'Tis what her wants to awpen her butivul eyes, an'
shaw her the right road, same as them 'twas fust writ for. An'
here--same chapter: 'Wives, submit yourselves to your awn husbands, as
unto the Lard.' Ban't tawld to submit theerselves to young, flauntin'
bachelors, you see; an' then it says how women should hold theer awn men
in special reverence."
"Theer's the twinge, an' I'd have 'e put that in for sartain," declared
Churdles. "If her reverenced un, her wouldn't go about in high-wheeled,
cranky dog-carts with t'other. Ess, put that down; together wi' any
light hint against the lust of the flaish, so long as you can find it
set out in parlour language."
Mr. Cramphorn took pencil and paper to his task; and Gaffer Ash, with
the help of a round candlestick, drew a shaky circle in the middle of a
sheet of foolscap. "Our names will all stick around," he said; "an' in
the midst Jonah will set chapter an' verse. Perhaps ten verses might be
enough to right the wrong, an' if you'm quick, Cramphorn, us'll get it
in a henvelope an' addressed to missis, then slip it off to bed an'
leave the manifestation 'pon the table against her comes home."
"More respectful to send it through the post," ventured Collins; and
Churdles admitted that it might be so.
"P'raps you'm right theer, Henery. Ess, for sure you be; an' you'm
gwaine into Chaggyford wi' the cart fust thing to-morrow, so you can
post it theer; then 'twill come wi' all the dignity of the mail," he
said.
Jonah finished his pious task and wrote his name; Churdles Ash, who had
only learned to write in middle-age, set down a shaky signature, half
schoolboy's, half senile in its wavering line; Pinsent wrote a laboured
but well-regulated hand, and Mr. Collins also subscribed, yet with such
uneasiness that one might have imagined he was signing his own
death-warrant.
"Even now I'd like to hear Maister Endicott 'pon it," he murmured. "If
he was against it, I'd never willingly countenance the step."
"He'm wan of the family; an' whenever was it knawn as a female gived
credit to them of her awn blood for sense?" inquired Jonah. "Why, 'tis
last thing they think of. No; us o' the land will send this here for
gude or evil. We'm doin' our duty an' shan't be no worse thought of.
She'm a wonnerful woman--a queen among 'em at her best--always was
so--an' she'll think the better of us for this transaction."
"She'm just the sort to put a bit on our wages if the 'round robin'
worked to her betterment--a most grateful woman," said Sam Pinsent, who
from doubt had suddenly sprung to the extremity of hope.
"Ess--an' if her didn't, he would, so like as not," declared Gaffer Ash.
"If this sets all right an' makes 'em happy an' sensible an'
onderstandin', in the name of the Lard and of Paul, how much smoother
'twill be for all parties!"
"An' if all works well an' nobody don't do nothin'," suggested Pinsent,
"it might be a question whether us shouldn't send in another to remind
'em of theer well-wishers. However, that's in the future."
"'Twould be like sendin' in a bill, an' not to be dreamt of," answered
Cramphorn. "'Tis awnly a small-fashioned mind as would think of such a
thing."
Pinsent retorted; but at that moment footsteps and voices warned the
company. Pipes were relighted; the Bible was placed in the
dresser-drawer; wide innocence sat upon each brown face; and, like lead
within the breast pocket of Henry Collins, reposed the 'round robin'
destined, as all hoped, to such notable issues.
*CHAPTER IX.*
*RED DAWN*
The admonition culled from Paul was duly posted, and henceforth Collins
avoided his mistress with utmost care, while Pinsent, fear again
overtaking him, did likewise. Cramphorn, on the contrary, itched to
hear or see some definite result of his daring, while as for the ancient
Ash, he went unmoved upon his way. To tell truth, the missive made an
impression as deep as any of those responsible for it could have
desired; but they never knew of its results, for the outgrowth of them
was swept away by greater concerns. When Honor first received the
"round robin," she felt amused; then she became annoyed; and, lastly,
she grew anxious. The sort of men responsible for this audacity she
understood, and she was aware the action sprang from honest purpose and
most laudable intent. Cramphorn, the master spirit, worshipped her with
high devotion, and she knew it; for the rest, they had but done as he
bid them. The selected quotations, which Honor carefully consulted,
were not indeed apposite, yet had this value, that they showed her how
present relations appeared in the eyes of an ignorant, though impartial
countryside. She was astounded at such an uncharitable and painful
mistake; yet, seeing that the error existed, and was probably
widespread, the wife felt thankful to know it. She fluctuated between
contempt and anger, then finally fell back upon a condition of real
concern. First she thought of showing the paper to Myles, but feared
that his lack of humour might prompt him to austere treatment of her
censors. To speak to Christopher was out of the question, and Honor,
after some demur, decided that her uncle should know. From him she
expected full measure of sympathy in her embarrassment, but she was
disappointed of this hope.
"Very interesting and instructive," said the old man, after his niece
had begun in laughter and ended with recitation of every text to which
the document referred; "very interesting. So we may learn from the
mouths of babes and sucklings."
"I ought to be cross with them. Fancy Cramphorn so greatly daring,
despite his feudal instincts!"
"Shows how much and how deeply the man must have felt constrained to
act. You say you should be cross. Why? They only try to give you some
practical light. There's a great, deep goodwill behind this."
"But it is such nonsense."
"They don't think so."
"Surely you're not going to take it seriously, Uncle Mark?"
"Most seriously; and so do you, though you pretend to laugh--as if I
didn't know every note in your laughter, like every note in a ring of
bells. It is serious. You cannot defy simple, wholesome usage and
custom for ever."
"But who has a right to speak while Myles is silent? If I hurt him, he
would tell me. He is quite himself again."
"Shows how little you know him, for all your love of him. You are
hurting him, and my ear tells me more than all your senses can tell you.
He lives in a dreary hell and speaks out of it. I can almost see his
face when I hear his voice."
"I'm always thinking of him."
"Yes, with a moiety of your thoughts. It isn't allowed one woman to
make two men wholly happy--else you might succeed. But you're only
following the old, stale road and making two men wholly miserable. Any
fool in a petticoat can manage as much. That's the foundation your
present content is built upon. There's awful wickedness in it, to my
mind; and double-distilled sin coming from such as you, because you're
not a fool at all, but have sense enough to profit by experience. You
must be aware that Myles is a wretched man; and, though you may not
think it, Yeoland knows very well he's living in a wrong atmosphere--a
mere shadow of happiness. Better far you make one happy, out-and-out,
than keep each miserable. One has got to smart, and the sooner you
decide which, the better for both."
"That you should ever speak so!"
"You've fallen away much of late--in mind and conduct I mean. Your
fine, sharp instincts are grown blunter. You can live this mean,
half-and-half life; and you don't understand, or you won't. There's no
passion in it, I do think, and I suppose you can go on being fond of two
men without disgracing Endicott breed; but I'll speak plainly, since
it's vital I should. Men are different. They're not built to go on
mooning with a talking doll for ever. Even Christopher Yeoland is made
of flesh and blood. A woman may be all mind; a man never is. Now, what
are you, and what are you doing? You're a married woman, and you're
ruining the life of about the worthiest man I've been happy to meet
since my own brother--your dear father--died. End it--if Yeoland hasn't
got strength and determination sufficient to do so. Tell him your mind;
be true to your husband, and bid the man go--if he is a man."
Honor Stapledon listened to this grave rebuke with a heaving breast.
"You call that justice! You would ask him, after all he has suffered
and endured, to go away from his own? You would coldly bid him turn his
back on all that makes life worth living for him--Godleigh?"
"Without the least remorse, if he can't stop decently."
"To judge so vilely! If you cannot understand and appreciate the fact
that Christopher isn't made of common clay, then the case is hopeless."
"Coarse clay or china clay, he's a callous, cruel devil to do what he is
doing; and you can tell him so from me."
"I'm only sorry that you so hatefully misunderstand Christo."
For once the blind man let his anger run over. It had been boiling for
many days, and now, before this attitude in Honor, he could restrain the
explosion no more.
"Damn Christo!" he said. "Damn him for a poor, white-livered, whole
cowardice of curs rolled into one! Your husband's worth a wilderness of
his sort, and you ought to know it, and--there, I'll not say more. I
blamed Myles first for being jealous of nought; now I blame him no more.
Reason is with him. And though this boneless thing doesn't know better,
you ought to, if only to credit your stock. What's come to you? What's
sapped up all your old sense and self-respect?"
She stared at his wrath as at a new experience.
"I am unchanged," she answered, "though all the rest of my little world
is going mad it seems. I have been misled and mistaken, if you are
right, though I am not sure at all that you are. Certainly I thought
after his illness, and the things he said to me then, that Myles was
looking at this matter from my own rational stand-point. He grew
sensible again--the old, wise Myles. But if you are correct in this
monstrous belief, Myles must have set my mind at rest at the cost of his
own peace. Yet could he hide that from me?"
"Not if your eyes were as they used to be. There must be no more rest
at any rate--neither rest nor peace--till I'm proved right and the case
is righted, or I'm shown wrong, when I'll not be backward in begging for
forgiveness. Only remember, it's got to come from you--this clearing
up. Myles will do nothing while he thinks your happiness is in blossom;
he'll go on silently fretting his soul sour; and t'other will do
nothing--that I'll swear to--unless a pitchfork be taken to him. Enough
said now. Have it out with your husband, and first put yourself in his
place so far as your knowledge of him allows. Look out of his eyes, and
try to feel what this means to such a man--ay, or any other man worth
calling one."
"I will think of what you say. At least, you are right when you tell me
that I have degenerated. Happiness means degeneration, I suppose."
"You're the last leaf of an old tree, and I'd have you live beautifully,
and make a good end, and leave a fragrant memory to your children."
"He's the last of his line, too--Christopher."
"That rests with him probably. It is well that he should be if he's no
more than appears. But I have done, and am cool again. I'm sorry if
I've hurt you. I love you better far than anything in the world, yet
you've given me cause for deep mourning of late days."
Honor prepared to speak, but did not do so. She looked at her uncle's
wrinkled, grey face and blind eyes, bent down, kissed him on the
forehead, and then hastened away without any more words.
While the matter of this serious speech was in his wife's mind, it
chanced that Stapledon and the Squire of Godleigh met after the dawn
hour, each being led to the same spot upon his homeward way. Neither
had seen the other for some weeks, and by mutual exchange of thought, a
common subject leaped to the mind of each.
Myles had been upon Kes Tor to see the sunrise; Christopher was
returning from a further point; and now in the valley beneath Batworthy
Farm they met, where Teign, touched with ruddy gold of the morning,
wound murmuring along. Upon one bank the hill rose sharply under silver
birch, mountain ash, oak, and concourse of tall pines; to the north more
gradual acclivities of shaggy moor extended, and these were broken into
leek-green beds of sphagnums, and gemmed with ruddy sundews, where
springs opened or rivulets wound with little bubbling whispers to the
river. A red dawn scattered the stream with stars and sparks reflected
from low eastern clouds above the sunrise; and this radiance, thrown
upward from the water, touched the under-leaf of the alders, where they
hung above the stream and slashed the shadows with sanguine light. A
spirit, sweet, fresh and dewy as any naiad, dwelt here; the place was
bedecked with mossy greens and olives, duns and transparent
velvet-browns, all softened and swept with the purest opaline blue, by
contrast of dawn shadows with dawn fire. Rock shapes upon the
river-bed, perfect in their relations of colour and of form, made most
harmonious medley of manifold planes. They were touched by sunshine,
modelled to the outlines of their mosses by great violet shadows spread
between flame-lances from on high, blended by ripple and shimmer of
reflected light from the river, broken in mass by the green rushes and
tall grasses, by the dancing briar, its point under a waterfall, by the
snowy blossoms of great umbel-bearers, and by the majestic foliage of
king fern. Teign splashed and spouted crystal-bright through this
display of forms and colours, and there was pleasant music of water and
murmur of new-born leaves, while red light came and went through the
dawn purity, soaked each dingle with misty gold, and chequered the river
with many shades of ambers and agates and roses agleam together.
"Sons of the young morning--you and I! This is our hour, and we suck
life from the risen day," said Christo, extending a hand to the other as
they met at stream-side.
"Rain's coming," answered Myles; "and this splendour will be drowned
long before noon."
"Then let us make the most of it. I'm glad we met here. A happy place
to talk in, with fair things to fill one's eyes."
"What is there to talk about? I'm afraid our interests are too widely
separated."
"Well, that will do for a start. I want to talk, if you'll listen.
Frankly, Stapledon, we are not what we might be each to the other. I
wish I understood you better. There's hardly a man in the world that I
regard more deeply. Yet I know right well you don't echo the sentiment.
We grow less intimate daily, instead of better friends. Yet we're bound
together in a sort of way by the past, however distasteful that may be
to you. At least I should say we must be. And so many common
interests--say what you please to the contrary. Both fairly intelligent
and intellectual, both prone to probe under the surface of things.
What's the barrier? Frankly I have no idea. I thought at one time it
might have to do with Honor; and so did Mr. Endicott. He talked to me
with amazing vigour and plain choice of homely words. Yes, honestly, he
made me feel like a criminal lunatic for about a week. Then, thank God,
you recovered your health, and we met, and I saw at a glance that the
old man was utterly wrong and had been engaged with a mare's nest. Yet
there's a gulf between us, despite so much that we enjoy in common."
"Since you wish to speak of this, I say that there are some things that
cannot be enjoyed in common."
Yeoland started.
"You mean that I was wrong, then, and Mr. Endicott right? But don't you
see how infernally greedy and unreasonable you are? Either that, or you
continue to misunderstand me of set purpose. I gave you Honor for your
own; yet you grudge me my place at Godleigh--at the footstool of the
throne you share with her. What do I rob you of? Do the birds rob you
when they eat the crumbs fallen from your table? I cannot remotely
judge of your attitude."
"That is true; but every other man can. And it may be that many do."
"Have you considered that this position you take is in some measure a
reflection on your wife?"
"I have not, and if I had, I do not ask your criticism upon that."
"Well, I shall never see how you hold any ground for this ridiculous
animosity, Stapledon; but for the sake of argument, you must be conceded
a case. What is your exact grievance in English? The thing I have done
I can do again: go; but before we imagine you bidding me to do so, or
picture me as obeying, out of regard for Honor--before that climax, I
say, consider what you are doing in common justice. By banishment you
take from me every temporal and spiritual treasure worth living for. As
I stand here, I believe I am a happy man--almost; happy in Godleigh;
happy in renewed intercourse with Honor; happy--on my oath before
Heaven--in the knowledge that she belongs to you. I may be unfinished
and unfurnished--only half a man, as Mark Endicott didn't hesitate to
tell me; but, such as I am, this hillside is my life, and, if you bade
me depart from it and I went, then I should presently die."
Myles lifted his head and looked from under his brows half in contempt,
half in dubiety.
"You're a slight thing to turn a man's hair grey--a slight thing on your
own showing," he answered. "Can you dissect yourself so glibly and mean
it? You parade your own emptiness without flinching. Yet you believe
what you say, no doubt; and there may be truth in it, but not all the
truth. I can't suppose you utterly abnormal in your attitude towards
other people, just because you say you are."
"I say no such thing. It was Endicott who said so. I say that my view
of life is very much more exalted and my standards higher than--yours,
for instance. If you could understand my plane, you would understand
me; but you can't. The aesthetic habit of mind is beyond your
percipience."
"Then we can leave it out. You may deceive yourself with big words,
nobody else. What are you going to do? That is the question. The fact
that my peace of mind and my salvation are bound up in my wife is
unfortunate, because I neither wish you to consider me, nor do I desire
to be under any further obligation. But Honor is my wife, and, as that
relationship is understood by common men, it carries with it definite
limitations. She loves you, and never attempts to hide it. Her
primitive nature is big enough to find room in her heart for us both;
but my still more primitive nature can't tolerate this attitude. I'm
not big enough to share her with anybody else, not big enough to watch
her happier than the day is long in your company."
"You think soberly and honestly that the world grows too small for the
three of us?"
"Little Silver does."
"We might toss up which of us blows his brains out."
"Try to feel as serious as I do, Christopher Yeoland. Try to look at the
future of this woman's life, since you have approached me upon it."
"I do so, and I see a life not necessarily unhappy. A woman heroic
enough to love two men deserves double share of happiness; don't you
think so?"
"I suppose you're in earnest, though God knows it is not easy to argue
with such a babbler."
"No, I'm not flippant. It is you who have got the perspective of this
thing all wrong. If you were a little older, you would see how absurd
it is to try and turn pure comedy into drama. If you were only a better
judge of character--can't you understand that I'm incapable of tragedy?
There's nothing hurting you, or going to hurt you, but your own narrow
nature. When we're all white-headed--the day after to-morrow, or
so--when we are all grown into the sere and yellow--you will be the
first to laugh, through toothless gums, at this, and say that I was
right."
"Well, we won't argue, because there's no solid ground where we can meet
as a foundation for any possible sort of understanding. You take such a
view of life and its responsibilities as I should have supposed
impossible for a reasonable being. We're different to the roots, and,
materialist though I am, I recognise, a million times more deeply than
you can, the demands of this existence and the need to justify it. Now
listen, and then we will part: I tell you that in my judgment as her
husband, my wife's ultimate happiness and content and mental health will
be more nearly assured if you go out of her life than if you stop in it.
I ask you to go out of it. I recognise all that this demand means,
especially as coming from me to you. You'll gauge the depth of my
convictions that I can bring myself to ask you so much--for her sake,
not mine."
"You want me to turn my back upon Godleigh?"
"I do; as that is apparently the only way you can turn your back on Bear
Down."
"You have no right to ask such a thing."
"Under the circumstances I consider that I have."
"There is another alternative."
"I cannot see it then."
"You will though, before you sleep to-night. I shall not suggest it to
you; but such a level-headed man as you are must presently see it for
himself. I say I shall not propose it, because my peace of mind is not
at stake. As a matter of fact, you're arguing for yourself now, though
you fancy you are speaking for Honor. She's very nearly happy, and
would be perfectly so if you were. It is your five-act drama manner and
general tragic bearing that make her feel more or less downcast. And I
am also happy. Now, consider; if I clear out, you'll be joyous again; I
shall be in doleful dumps, of course, and Honor----?"
"Well?"
"Don't you know? She can't help loving us both. She can't alter that
now, poor girl. If she knows I'm miserable, she certainly won't be
happy.'
"You are making your position clear to me. She is not unhappy now,
though my life is dark; but if your peace of mind was spoiled, then hers
would suffer too.
"It may appear egotistical, but I think that nearly defines the
situation."
"Which is to say that you are more to her than I am?"
"Remorseless logic, but--no; I don't assert that for a second. You are
her husband. Such a delicate question should not be raised."
"It is raised, and she must decide it."
"My dear Stapledon, let us have no brutality. Do try to catch a little
of her big, pure spirit. We may both learn from her. These earthly
wranglings would shock her immeasurably."
"You won't leave this place?"
"Not unless Honor asks me to do so, and without inspiration. Now,
good-bye. To think of the sweet air we've wasted in such futilities!
You're right about the rain. Look away south."
Yeoland rose from the mossy stone whereon he had pursued this matter,
and quickly disappeared; Myles also moved upon his way. Great
slate-coloured ledges of cloud were already sliding upwards from the
Moor, and it was raining by the time the farmer returned home to his
breakfast.
*CHAPTER X.*
*A MAN OF COURAGE*
Sally Cramphorn found the secret of her happiness hard to hide, and as
the weeks lengthened into months and Libby still bid her hold her peace,
yet would give no definite reason for the imposed silence, she grew
somewhat restive. He refused to discuss dates, and declared that a year
at least ought to pass in order that each should thoroughly understand
the other before irrevocable matrimony. Under these circumstances Sally
found her engagement fall something flat. She was in no haste to marry,
but importunate that the world might learn of her good fortune; and
finally, after a decided difference or two upon the question, Gregory
realised that definite steps must be taken, and at once. First he
thought of telling Sally, with frankness, how he had made a mistake, and
was of opinion that, by reason of wide disparity in their dispositions,
she could be no bride for him; but, to do Gregory justice, all manner of
sincerity he consistently abstained from, and, in the present case, more
than a candid bearing seemed necessary. To throw Sally over before her
face called for full measure of courage, and any such step, until he was
thoroughly established in Margery's good graces, must be highly
dangerous. So Libby assured himself. He determined, therefore, first
to propose to Sally's younger sister, win to his side the strength of
her personality and the bitterness of her tongue, then explain his
mistake to Margery and leave her wit to solve and escape from present
entanglement with the wrong woman.
For once Mr. Libby acted speedily upon a decision, sought out the other
maiden, lured her from the sheltering radius of the farm, and proceeded
with his proposal after a plan very similar to that which had conquered
Sally.
"It's took me a long time--I may say years--to make up my mind," he
said, chewing a blade of grass and glancing sideways at the rather hard
profile of Margery; "but I do think as you'm the best maid in Little
Silver, cautious though I am by nature. Ess, a wife's a solemn thought,
yet you come nearer my fancy than any gal ever I seed or heard tell of,
Margery Cramphorn. You've got a warm heart, as would make any man
happy, I should reckon; an' to cut a long story short, I've ordained to
marry you, if you'm willin'."
For answer Margery began to cry; but she let him kiss her, so he knew
that the response was favourable.
"Doan't blubber about it. 'Tis a joyful thing; an' I'm sure I'm mazed
wi' gladness to think as you can care for me. An' I hope as your love
be big enough to last."
"Always, always, till we'm auld mumpheads--so long as ever I can see an'
move an' love--so long I'll do for you an' fight for you, dear Gregory."
"Caan't say no fairer, an' I b'lieve you mean it. An' the whole beauty
of married life lies in the woman putting the man fust--so my mother
said; 'cause he'm the bread-winner an' must be thought of all times.
An' you might remember my mother's ways wi' me--a very gude, comforting,
proper woman. I ban't a horse for strength, an' comfort I must have."
"Which you shall have--love an' worship always, dear Gregory; an' I'm a
proud maiden to think such a rich man as you could look to me for a
helpmate. An' you shan't never be sorry; an' faither do set me higher'n
Sally, so come presently I'll bring 'e more'n myself."
"That's no odds. A chap in love doan't heed no such things as them; but
theer's wan point as I ban't ezacally clear on touchin' Sally. I can't
say nothin' now; but--but next time we meet, I'll tell you how it
stands--a mystery like. She'm a gude gal, no doubt, but tu apt to run
away with ideas an' misread a man's intentions, an' take for facts
things what she've dreamed in her sleep, I reckon. But bide till next
Monday, then I'll make it clear. Now we'll just love each other an'
tell about marryin'."
"Oh, Greg, I do blush to think of it. An' I've longed for 'e, out o'
sight, all these years an' years! Won't her be raw--Sally? Her always
thought as she was the favoured piece."
"Ban't seemly in a woman to set her mind 'pon a chap so outrageous. But
let her bide. Now, when shall us be man an' wife? An' what fashion
wall-hangings would 'e like to the cottage-parlour? For it must be done
again, 'cause theer's beastly grease 'pon it, wheer my mother's head got
against the wall on Sundays. She used to fall asleep regular in a auld
armchair, then roll to the left out o' the chair till the wall stopped
her head. Done it for years. An' her recipes I've kept, an' the wan
for herby-pie you'd best larn by heart, for 'tis favourite food o'
mine."
"I will, Greg. You know how I can cook."
"Wi' a tender-stomached man, same as me, you'll have to put your heart
into the cooking."
"So I will then."
He squeezed her slowly until she gasped.
"You'm strong enough, I reckon, however," she said. "Your arm be like a
bar of steel around me!"
"'Tis love as hardens the sinews. I've a gert gift for lovin', an' if a
man couldn't love the likes o' you, he'd be a poor, slack-baked twoad,
for sartain. I'm lucky to get 'e, an' I knaw it, an' us'll be a happy
couple, I lay--me a-doin' man's work an' makin' gude money, an' you
'bout the house, so thrifty an' savin' that us shall graw rich 'fore we
knaw it, an' p'raps come to keep a servant for you to order here an'
theer. An' me wi' my awn hoss an' trap, so like as not, to drive to
cattle-shows an' junketings, an' taake my plaace in the world."
"An' I'll sit beside 'e an' look down at the walkers."
"You'll be home-along wi' the childer more like. That's the mother's
plaace. But us be lookin' a thought tu far forrard now. Wait till Bank
Holiday anyway; then I'll meet 'e quiet by the river--down where
Batworthy fishing right ends. 'Tis a private an' peaceful plaace; an'
theer you must fix the day."
"So I will then, an' a proud woman I am, an' a true wife I'll make you;
Lard's my judge."
"Mother----" began Mr. Libby; but he changed his mind and declared that
it was now time to turn homewards.
At Bear Down he left his new love, after cautioning her by all holy
things to keep their secret, and, ten minutes later, met his old
sweetheart returning from Chagford. Sally was heavily laden and in a
bad temper. Indeed Mr. Libby's procrastination seemed enough to try any
woman who heartily worshipped him. Now he offered to carry her parcels
up the steep hill to the farm, and such unwonted civility soothed her
not a little. Presently they rested awhile in the gathering twilight,
and Gregory, with cynic satisfaction, kissed Sally's red lips while yet
he tasted Margery's caresses. The experience fired him, and a wave of
fancied courage held his soul. He told himself that he was the strong,
resolute spirit into whose hand destiny had thrust the welfare of these
simple maids. He laughed to think what soft wax they were under his
control. Then he determined to put Sally out of her misery at once. He
began a sentence to that end; but he changed his mind as her blue eyes
fell full and honest upon him. After which she travelled the old, weary
ground and clamoured for a definite understanding and definite date,
superior to all self-respect in her importunity.
"How long be I to go dumb, anyways? An' how long be I to wait? Us
doan't grow no younger, an' you'm five-an'-thirty come September. Ban't
fair, I reckon, an' theer's more in it than I can guess, for you'm like
no sweetheart ever I heerd tell 'bout. So cold as a newt seemin'ly.
But if your love's gone poor, then best to say so. If you'm shamed of
me or you've changed your mind----"
The opportunity was an excellent one, but Gregory's courage had
evaporated. Moreover, there came into his head an inspiration. It
occurred to him--while removed from such an event by distance--that it
would be an exciting incident to invite Sally to the streamside also, to
confront the sisters and clear up the situation once for all. The
vision of himself between the tearful twain was pleasing rather than
not. He saw himself the centre of an impressive scene.
"I'll play the man," he reflected; "an' set her down handsome afore her
sister. 'Tis awnly her word against mine, an' Margery'll believe me
quick enough, for 'tis her interest so to do."
Upon this heroic resolution he spoke.
"I doan't say as you'm not in the right, Sally, to ax for somethin'
plain. Us'll come to a fixture next Monday, as be a holiday. You meet
me wheer Batworthy fishing right do end, down in the valley onder the
roundy-poundies on the hill, at three o'clock in the afternoon by my
watch, an' us'll settle up 'bout the axing out in church an' such like."
The girl could scarcely believe her ears.
"Really! 'Tis 'most tu gude to be true."
"I mean it. Ess fay, I begin to want a wife 'bout the place."
"I'll come down-long, then, Monday afternoon, rain or shine."
"Very well. An' now I'll bid you gude-night. Mind the spot an' doan't
keep me waitin'; but if 'tis pourin' cats an' dogs I shaan't be theer,
for I've got to be careful of my paarts, bein' a bit naish, as you
knaw."
"Bless 'e, dear Greg; 'tis gert news to me. An' you'll never be sorry
for it, wance I'm Mrs. Libby--that I'll swear."
"Theer's awnly wan gal as be the wife for me," he said, and grinned at
his own wit.
So they parted; and while Sally went home all gladness, forgetting the
weight of her parcels in the lightness of her heart, Gregory moved down
the hill occupied with a curious reflection.
"Theer'll be a 'mazin' tempest o' words between 'em, I doan't mind a red
rage, but I'm always terrible afeared of a white wan. Sally'll go so
fiery as sunset, an' use crooked language, no doubt; but that's nothin'.
Awnly I couldn't cross t'other. Her turns ash-colour when her's vexed,
an' her tongue's sharper'n a razor. 'Twill be a gert battle to watch
an' a very fine study of female character, no doubt."
*CHAPTER XI.*
*THE ROAD TO PEACE*
A month after his conversation with Christopher, Myles Stapledon made
definite and determined advance upon the road to peace. There came a
night when he and his wife lay in bed and a bright moon fretted the wall
opposite their eyes with the pattern of the latticed window. The man
gazed upon this design as it elongated and stole from left to right;
then, conscious that Honor was not asleep, he spoke gently to her.
"You are waking," he said, "and I also. Hear me a little while, dear
heart. There's no shadow of anger in what I'm going to say to you. I'm
cool in body and brain, and I want to look at your life as it must seem
in other eyes--in the eyes of those who love you, though not as I love
you. I want to be just--ay, and more than just."
"You are always just, Myles--where you understand. The hard, impossible
thing is to be just where we don't understand. You're going to talk to
me about Christo; and I'm going to listen. You've a right to
speak--which is more than anybody else in the world has, though certain
folks don't realise that. I thought all was well, but I am wrong. You
hide behind yourself so much--even from me. You are an unhappy man, and
you have not told me, but Uncle Mark has."
"I may be considered so. And to know that I am makes you unhappy and
Yeoland uncomfortable. I have spoken to him recently. I explained to
him that the present position, apart from my personal feelings
concerning it, was very undesirable and must be modified, to say the
least. He seemed surprised, but quite unprepared to make any
suggestion. A plan other than my own proposal he hinted at, but he did
not put it before me."
"He can feel deeply too; this must have been a shock and a grief to
him."
"At least he recognised that it was so to me. I think he was neither
shocked nor grieved himself. If anything, he felt incensed by my
attitude. The position is not endurable to me, though you and he see no
difficulty. But I must be allowed the decision, and I say that this
state has to cease--selfish though that may seem to you."
"Then it shall cease. You could not be selfish if you tried, Myles. I,
too, can feel a little. Uncle Mark began what you are going to finish.
I'm probably faulty in my intellect, or I should have seen all this
sooner. At any rate I know what I owe to you--what a husband you have
been to me. I won't talk of duty; I'll talk of my love for you, Myles
dearest. That is a live, deep thing at least."
"I never thought to doubt it, or ask proof of it. I knew it was real
enough, and believed it immortal until--not doubt--I won't say doubt
came--but sorrow, and a cloud, and a mist of the mind that was very
chilling to me. I have lost my way in it of late, and have wandered
wondering how far off you were in the darkness, asking myself if we were
drifting further and further apart, fearing that it was so."
"You have been too patient, and I too blind. And I have loved you more
every day, not less."
"It is a question for your decision. I don't like to wound your ear
with blunt words; but there must be no more vague misery for want of
speech after to-night. Half the wretchedness of life happens because
we're frightened to speak out, and make a clean wound, and have done
with it. You're my wife, for better or worse--not necessarily for good
and all. My heart and soul are wrapped up in your well-being; but I've
got to live my own life, not yours; I've got to do the unknown will, and
I've no right to let anything from outside come between me and what I
believe is my duty. Nothing outside a man can hurt him, unless he
suffers it to do so. I must not let these troubles stand between me and
my road any longer. I must go on with the light I have--alone, if you
say so; but I must go on."
"Alone?"
"If you say so. Self-respect to a man with my outlook is all he has.
And I'm losing it."
"To live without me?"
"If you say so. I'm not as conventional as you think, Honor. You made
certain promises to me under certain impressions. The fact that the man
whom you believed to be dead, when you married me, was not dead in
reality absolves you from your undertaking, if you wish to be absolved.
So at least it stands in my judgment; and mine is the only judgment,
after your own, that you need consider."
"I swore an oath before God!"
"You swore in the dark. Now go back to the starting-point and make up
your mind anew. Which of us is to have you henceforth--all of you?"
"To think that I should hear you say that! To know my actions justify
the words!"
"I can very easily teach myself to go without; I can never tame myself
to share. No man could."
"You have all of me, for ever, and for ever, and for ever. I am your
wife."
"Don't let that last accident influence you. Argue as if you were not;
argue as if you were free. Second thoughts are often best. You're
linked to me by a chain that can quite easily be broken if you desire to
break it."
"Your words are blunt, as you said they should be; but you're making the
clean wounds you spoke of in my heart. They'll heal if they don't kill.
I'd rather die--much rather die than leave you, Myles."
"Consider. Yeoland will be just as ready to accept and applaud your
decision as I shall. He, too, realises at any rate that this isn't
going on. We don't stand at the end of our lives; rather at the
beginning of them. We may have fifty years more of it yet--either
together or apart; but not like this."
"The alternatives?"
"We two are the alternatives. Go to him, if you like, and I shall know
what to do; or stay with me and abide by my will. What comes afterwards
you may leave to me. If you are to be my wife, Honor, you must shut
this man clean out of your existence, for evermore, absolutely--never
speak his name again, or think it. And for myself I shall be what I
have always been--neither better nor worse. I can promise
nothing--nothing of the beautiful side of life. No rainbows ever play
in my cloudy atmosphere, as they do in his changeful, April weather. I
am plain, dull, uninteresting, old-fashioned. I know nothing, and go
joylessly in consequence--a cheerless soul with little laughter in me.
Sometimes I think the east wind must blow colder for touching me.
That's all I have to offer, and you know it by this time. What the
other can give you that is better, softer, sweeter for a beautiful
woman, I needn't tell you. It's the difference all through the piece
between a working farmer and an accomplished gentleman of no
occupation--no occupation but to make you happy. And no need to study
the world in your choice; no need to think the accident of a human
contrivance that makes you my wife should weigh with you. It was under
a wrong knowledge of facts that you accepted me, and, in any case, we've
gone far beyond paltry conventions and customs. I shall respect you
more if you fling away that ring and go to him, than I do at present."
"Can you love me with all your heart and speak so?"
"You know whether I love you."
"And yet you talk so coldly of going on with your life alone."
"The necessity of facing that has been forced upon me, Honor."
"Do you think I am even without a sense of duty?"
"Don't let any trumpery consideration of duty weigh with you. You have
to decide what is to become of your life. Consider only your duty to
your soul. Your religion--of love and fear and belief in an
eternity--should be of service to you here, if ever, for your trust is
in a just Being who metes out reward or punishment according to the
record in the book. That's a wholesome assumption if you can accept it;
but don't let minor dogmas and man's additions interfere with your
decision. By your record you will be judged--so you believe. Then
create that record; set about it wisely and decide which line of action
leads to making of the higher history. If you can justify your
existence better with me, then stay with me; if life lived with
Christopher Yeoland will offer more opportunities of doing something big
and useful and beautiful--as very likely it might, when we consider his
money and position and sympathetic nature--then it is your duty to
yourself to go to him. Nobody can decide for you; but use your best
thought upon it and make no mistake in this critical pass. Look at it
every way impartially and distrust even your conscience, for that has
been educated by rote, like every other woman's conscience."
"Your speech is very cynical, Myles; but your voice is earnest enough."
"There is nothing ironical in what I say; only the facts are ironical."
"Do you want me to go to him?"
"Yes--if your heartfelt conclusion is that you can live a finer,
worthier life so."
"Don't you know I love you dearly?"
"I know you love us both."
"I've never stopped to contrast or compare. I was your wife."
"But I ask you again not to remember that. Decide between us, or decide
against us. There's that alternative. I've thought of that for you.
Once you said that, as you couldn't have both, you'd have neither. That
was in jest; but the course is still open in earnest if the road to your
peace points there."
"To leave you. Oh, Myles, how you must have suffered and suffered and
thought before you could say these things to me."
She put her arms about him and pressed close to him. The light had
stolen round and, one by one, the diamonds of wan silver were
disappearing. He showed no responsive emotion, but stroked the small
hand on his breast wearily.
"Yes, I have thought a good deal. Will you decide what you are going to
do in a week? Is that long enough?"
"How wicked--how wicked I have been in this. To think we can be wicked
day after day and never know it! And your patience! And how
extraordinary that you had it in you to speak in this cold, calculating
way!"
"A stronger man might have borne it longer--into old age, perhaps, as
Yeoland said. I could not. I've got nothing much beyond my
self-respect. That's the sole thing that has kept me from destroying
you, and him."
She thought upon this, but did not answer it.
"Sleep now," he said, after a pause. "'Tis the day-spring nearly. I've
wearied you, but it had to be. Speak to me again about the matter in a
week. And don't fear me any more. Passion against him is clean passed
and gone. Just a gust of nature, I suppose, that makes the males fight
in season. I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head--or his."
She nestled closer.
"Why wait a week when there is no need to wait a day, or an hour? I
love you--better than anybody in the world; and I'll tell Christopher
that; also that I have done great wrong in this matter; and I ask you,
Myles, to take me where I shall never see him again--for his good and
because I love you with my whole heart--all, all of it. And judge me by
what I do henceforth and not what I say now. See how I shall order my
life--let that convince you."
He did not speak, but his silence was cardinal--a hinge on which his
whole spirit turned.
"You believe me, Myles? You know that I have never spoken an untruth to
you."
A sigh rose, and seemed to pass away like an embodied trouble under the
first dawn light--to depart like a presence from the man and leave him
changed.
"I believe you--I believe you. I wish I could feel a personal God--to
kneel to Him and thank Him, and to let my life thank Him henceforth."
"I'm a very wicked woman, and I ought to have lived in the Stone days,
for I deserve nothing better than a hut circle and a cruel master to
beat me. I should have been kicked about by some old, Neolithic hero
with his dogs. I'm not big enough to deserve the love of a man like
you, not wise enough even to rate the depth and height of it. But you
shall see I can learn still and be single-hearted too. I'll live
differently--higher; I'll aim anew--at the sun--I'll--I'll----"
Here she broke down, and he comforted her in his slow, stolid fashion.
"Honor, you are all the best part of me--the best thing that my life has
known, or can know. Pray that the time to come may shine brighter seen
against gloom gone. I've never doubted your motives--never. I've only
lived in torment, because--there, don't be unhappy any more. I could do
great things--great things for sheer thanksgiving. I must try to pay
the world back in coin for this sunrise. The rest will be easy now you
have spoken. Thought can cut the knot that remains, and I will take
deep thought for all of us. Nothing is left to hurt us; think of that!
Here's a solid foundation to work upon, now that you have decided to be
my wife."
"What shall you do, Myles?"
"Think of him, and study how best to take you out of his life with least
wound to him. I can be sorry for him now."
"His life is to live as well as ours."
"He must learn how to live it; but not from me. Sleep now, my own
woman, again. Leave me to think out the rest. You don't know what this
return means to me; I can't find the words to thunder out such a
heart-deep thing. I feel as I felt when first you promised to marry me.
I am waking out of a long chaos into peace."
Honor answered him, and their conversation presently grew disjointed as
slumber stole over her weary brain. She sighed once or twice--the shaken
sigh that follows upon tears--then her hand, that held his, relaxed and
fell away. But Stapledon did not sleep. A thousand blind alleys of
future action he followed, and countless possible operations pursued to
barriers of difficulty.
At dawn he arose, and, leaving unconscious rest to repair the fret and
turmoil of his wife's mind, pressed on to new problems. For the
storm-cloud of his sorrows was touched with light; the ragged
soul-garden within him spread smoothed and purged of deep-rooted weeds.
He found space for wholesome seed therein, and passing into the air
breathed wordless prayers upon the pure morning and opened his heart to
the warmth of the sunrise fires.
*CHAPTER XII.*
*PEACE*
The day was the first of the week, and Myles, finding that no immediate
plan entered his mind under the risen sun, turned homeward to breakfast,
then announced a determination to take himself upon the Moor for a tramp
alone. Thither he proposed to carry his new-found peace, and, once
there, he knew that a final and just decision would reach him from his
counsellors of the granite and west wind. After dinner he set forth to
spend some hours face to face with the central fastnesses. A dog--his
great red setter--accompanied him, and the beast was far less easy at
heart than the man, for storm threatened, and since dawn sign upon sign
had accumulated of electric disturbances on high. Thunder had growled
about for some days, yet night was wont to dispel the gloom.
"Gert bouldering clouds, maister," said Churdles Ash, who met Myles
setting forth. "A savage, fantastic sky out Cosdon way, and reg'lar
conjuring time up-long in the elements."
Thus this man unconsciously echoed a hoary superstition, that lightning
and thunder are the work of malevolent spirits.
But Myles, for once much mistaken, saw no immediate promise of storm.
To the north remote banks of low cloud, with edges serrate and coppery,
sulked above the distant sea, and all manner of cloud shapes--cumulus,
stratus, and lurid nimbus--were flung and piled together, indicating
unusual turmoil aloft; but similar threats had darkened several recent
noons, and Stapledon, in a mood most optimistic, trusted the weather and
foretold the storm would delay for many hours until its purple heart was
full to the bursting.
"Exmoor will hold it back as like as not," he said.
Ash, however, believed that he knew better; and it was certain that the
red dog did. A silence not natural to the time of day spread and
deepened; and the wind came to life strangely at corners and
cross-roads, sighed and eddied, then died again.
The farmer, with his thoughts busier than his eyes, strode swiftly
onward, for he pictured himself as coming to great definite resolutions
at some spot hid in the heart of the heather, bosomed deep upon the
inner loneliness, beyond the sight of cattle and the sound of
bellwether. He desired to reach a region familiar to him, lying afar
off to the south of Cranmere, that central matrix of rivers. Here the
very note of a bird was rare and signs of animate life but seldom seen.
The pad-marks of some mountain fox upon the mire, or a skeleton of
beast, clean-picked, alone spoke of living and dead creatures; sometimes
a raven croaked and brooded here; sometimes, from a great altitude above
the waste, fell cry of wild fowl that hastened to some sequestered
estuary or fruitful valley of waters afar off.
Such stations brought sure content and clarity of mind to this man; they
rested his spirit and swept foregrounds of small trouble clean away
until he found himself at the altar of his deity in mood for worship.
It was only of late that the magic of the Moor had failed him, and now,
with new peace in his heart, its power for good awakened, and he knew
right well that solution of the problem before him lay waiting his
advent in the solitudes.
Over Scor Hill he passed, among the old stones that encompassed each
supreme experience of his life with their rugged circle; then, his
leathern leggings dusted to yellow by the ripe pollen of the ling, he
walked onward over a splendour of luminous pink, crossed northern Teign
under Watern, proceeded to Sittaford Tor, and, steadily tramping
westward, left man and all trace of man behind him. The unmarked road
was familiar, and every gaunt hill-crest about him stood for a steadfast
friend. He crossed the infant Dart; he ploughed on over the heavy peat
hags, seamed and scarred, torn and riddled by torrents; he leapt from
tussock to ridge, and made his way through gigantic ling, that rose high
above his knees. Cranmere he discarded, and now his intention was to
reach the loneliest and sternest of all these stern and lonely
elevations. He beheld the acclivities of Great and Little Kneeset and
other mountain anchorites of the inner Moor; he passed the huge mass of
Cut Hill by the ancient way cleft into it, and from thence saw Fur Tor's
ragged cone ahead, grassy and granite-crowned. Stapledon had walked
with great speed by the shortest route known to him, yet suddenly to his
surprise a darkness as of evening shadowed him, and, lifting his head,
he looked around upon the sky, to regret instantly a preoccupation that
had borne him forward with such unthinking speed.
Strange phenomena were manifesting themselves solemnly; and they offered
opportunity to note the difference between natural approach of night and
the not less natural but unaccustomed advent of a night-black storm from
the north. Darkness gathered out of a quarter whence the mind is not
wont to receive it. A sudden gloom descended upon the traveller from
Cranmere, and under its oncoming the Moor heads seemed massed closer
together---massed and thrust almost upon the eye of the onlooker in
strange propinquity each to other. A part of the sky's self they
seemed--a nearer billow of cloud burst from the rest, toppled together
like leaden waves on the brink of breaking, then suddenly frozen along
the close horizon--petrified in horror at tremendous storm shapes now
crowding above them.
On every side heath and marsh soaked up vanishing day, and were nothing
brightened by it. The amethyst of the ling spread wan and sickly upon
this darkness; only the granite, in studs and slabs far-strewn, gathered
up the light and reflected a fast-waning illumination from the southern
sky. One sheep-track, which Stapledon now traversed, was similarly
luminous, where the narrow pathway wound like a snake and shone between
sulky heather ridges, dark as the air above them. Over this region, now
to a timid heart grown tenebrous and appalling in its aspect, pale
lightning glared and, still remote, came the growl and jolt of thunders
reverberating above distant granite. As yet no rain broke from the
upper gloom, and the Moor retained its aspect of sentient and vigilant
suspense. All things were still clear cut, and to the eye abnormally
adjacent. Like some incarnate monster, that cowered under its master's
uplifted lash, the desert seemed; and the granite teeth of it snarled
through the heather, and shone steel-blue in the lightning, while a
great storm stretched its van nearer and nearer. Yet no breath stirred
a grass blade, and between the intermittent thunder from on high, a
silence, tense and unbroken by the murmur of an insect, magnified the
listening man's heart-beat into a throbbing upon his ear.
Stapledon now perceived from the congested accumulations of the sky that
a tempest of rare severity must soon have him at the heart's core of it.
He increased his pace therefore, and broke into a run. To turn was
futile, and he hurried forward upon Fur Tor, wherein some niche or rocky
crevice might offer shelter. Such a spot he knew to the lee of the
great hill; and now he stumbled forward, while the black edge of the
thunderstorm billowed and tumbled to the zenith, and swallowed up the
daylight as it came.
Upon a tremendous gale, still unfelt at earth-level, the clouds hurtled
in precipices, in streaming black wisps and ribbons, and in livid
solitary patches over the pallor of dying light behind them. Then,
half-way up Fur Tor, as he stood panting to regain breath, the wanderer
felt the wind at last. A hot puff struck his hotter cheek, then another
and another, each cooler and stronger than the first. His dog whimpered
and crawled close; there ran a sigh and a shiver through the heath;
grass blades and fragments of dead things floated and whirled aloft upon
little spiral wind-spouts; vague, mysterious, and solemn--carried from
afar, where torrential rains and hail were already churning the mosses
and flogging stone and heath--there came the storm murmur, like a tramp
of approaching hosts, or the pulsing of pinions unnumbered.
A grey curtain suddenly absorbed and obliterated the purple horizon, and
softened the sharp details; lightning stabbed through and seared the
watcher's sight, while thunder immediately above his head wounded the
ear like discharge of ordnance. He ran for it, having difficulty to see
his way. The vanguard of the wind buffeted him; the riot above his head
deafened him; the levin dazed his senses; then by good chance that spot
he sought was reached, and he crept into a stony hollow opening upon the
south-east--a natural cave among the clatters of the tor, where two
masses of stone stood three yards apart, and a block falling upon them
from above made a pent-house nearly weather-proof. Growing heather and
fern filled the interstices, and the spot resembled a large natural
kistvaen of the sort not seldom discovered in the old Moorland barrows,
where Stone men laid the dust of their heroic dead.
Hither came the raging spirit of this tempest and looked into the eyes
of Myles Stapledon. Then, at the moment of its prime fury, when the
very roots of the land were shaking, and its living pelt of heath and
rush seemed like to be stripped from its quivering carcase by the hail,
did Stapledon pluck a way to peace through future action. Ever curious,
he picked up the ice morsels, noted how the hailstones, frozen and
frozen again in some raging upper chamber of the air, were all cast in
like mould of twin cones set base to base; and then, from this
observation, his mind turned to the twin life of a man and woman united
indissolubly. Out of the uproar came a voice to him, and where the tors
tossed thunder back and forth, until it died among their peaks, the
watcher caught a message affirming his own heart in its sudden
determination.
The simplicity of his conclusion struck him as sure criterion of its
justness; and a mind possessed of one humorous trait, one faint
perception of the ludicrous, had been surprised into some ghost of
laughter before the idea, had surely smiled--even in a hurricane--before
the inevitable contrast between its past long intervals of mental misery
and this bald, most unromantic finger-post pointing to peace. True, no
decision had been possible before Honor's determination was made known
and the nature of the final problem defined; but now, under all this
turmoil of sky and groan of earth, from his hot mind came a course of
action, right and proper every way, reasonable and just to each of the
three souls involved, yet most unromantic and obvious. He stumbled, in
fact, upon the manifest alternative alluded to by Yeoland at their last
meeting. As the master of Godleigh would not depart therefrom, Stapledon
decided that he and Honor must leave Bear Down. That the labour of his
brain-toil and deep searching should produce no more notable birth than
this mouse of a plan, that the stupendous storm should have uttered no
greater thing, appeared small matter to tempt one smile from Myles.
Indeed, he forgot the weather and all other questions save this step
ahead of him, for upon nearer examination it appeared not at all simple,
but both complex and intricate. Retreat was the total of his intention;
there appeared no other way to conquer this difficulty than by flying
from it. He convinced himself that justice demanded this step, because
one must depart from Little Silver, and his interests in that region
could by no means be compared with those of Christopher Yeoland.
Justice to Honor faced him; but Bear Down was less to her than Godleigh
to the owner, and never had Stapledon known his wife to manifest the
patrimonial ardour of the man. Leaving of her old home, therefore,
would be no excessive sorrow to her, and the fact that such a course
must impoverish them was not likely to count for much with husband or
wife. His mind ranged forward already. The fair weather within it
laughed at the elemental chaos around him. There was sunshine in his
heart, and the whole force and centre of the storm failed to cloud that
inner radiance. He thought of the future, and in spirit plunged over
seas to the child-countries of the motherland, that he might seek
amongst them a new environment for his life and Honor's--a new theatre
for work. But from such flights to the far West and South he returned
upon these austere regions that now stretched around him, and his heart
much inclined to familiar scenes on the fringe of the Moor hard by the
place where he was born.
Long he reflected until the night or the storm merged into true dusk,
and day closed untimely. The thunder passed, and the rain floods,
having persisted far beyond Stapledon's experience of such electric
tempests, began to lessen their volume. Yet heavy downfalls steadily
drove across the twilight; the wind sank to a temperate gale, and, below
him, mists arose from the new-made swamps, and woke, and stretched their
tentacles, and crept through desolation round about the footstool of the
tor.
A space of five wild leagues now separated Myles from his home, and he
stood night-foundered in the very capital of the central waste. Alive
to the concern his absence must occasion, he yet hesitated but a moment
before declining the ordeal of a return journey. The man was too
experienced to enter upon such a hazard. He knew that radical changes
had overtaken the low marshes since he traversed them; that the quaking
places over which he had progressed by leaping from tussock to tussock
were now under water; that great freshets had borne the least rivulets
above their banks, and that an element of danger must await any attempt
to retrace his way until the morning.
Viewed in the light of his new content, this tribulation looked trumpery
enough. He lighted a pipe, regretted his small dinner, and sorrowed
more for his hungry dog than himself, in that the great beast was denied
consolation of tobacco or the stimulant of an exalted heart.
Mapping the Moor in his mind, Stapledon considered every possible way to
food and shelter. He knew more than the actual roads or ridges, streams
or natural tracks and thoroughfares of beasts; for the inhabiting spirit
and essence of Dartmoor was his--a reward of lifelong service. He
possessed some of that instinct of the dogs and birds and ponies born to
these conditions. Like them, he rarely erred, yet, like them, he often
felt, rather than recognised danger--if danger was abroad; while he knew
that widest experience and shrewdest natural intuition are not always
proof against those perils that may spring into activity by day or night
in these tenantless, unfriended wastes.
Fur Tor stands near the heart of the Devonshire moorland. It is a place
not easy to reach at all times, and impossible to depart from under the
conditions now obtaining. Water-springs unknown had burst their founts,
and the central sponges were overflowing in deep murmurs from the hills.
Time must elapse, hours--the number of which would depend upon future
weather--must pass by before any possibility of Stapledon's retreat.
His mind drew pictures of the nearest human habitations around him and
the means by which they might be reached. Five miles away, by the
western fork of Dart, was "Brown's house"--a ruined abode of one who had
loved the Moor as well as Myles and built his dwelling upon it. Only
shattered stones stood there now; but further south, by Wistman's wood
of dwarf and ancient oaks, a warrener dwelt in a cabin on the hillside.
Yet a network of young rivers and a cordon of live bogs extended between
that haven and Myles. Tavy's stream encircled him with its infant arms
and wound between him and safety beyond the forest boundaries. Approach
to Mary Tavy or Princetown was also impracticable, and, after very brief
deliberations, the wanderer decided that nothing could be done until the
morning. This conclusion he announced aloud to his dog--a pleasantry
indicative of his happy mind, for such an action from Stapledon's
standpoint looked a considerable jest.
Soon the man piled stones before the entrance of his hiding-place,
filled a draughty gap with fern and heather, and made himself as
comfortable as the circumstances allowed. Great content was in his
heart, and when, near midnight, the clouds passed, the moon rose and
painted with silver the waters spread below, with frosted silver the fog
that rolled above them, he deeply felt the silence and peace, their
contrast with the frenzy of the past storm; he roamed in thought through
the unutterable silence of that moonlit loneliness; and presently he
slept, as he had not seldom slumbered on the high land in time
past--within some ruined hut circle, or where the wolves, through long,
primeval nights, once howled around Damnonian folds.
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*A SOUND OF SUFFERING*
Stapledon slept well, and, awakening with the light, found himself
strengthened and refreshed. The stiffness consequent on a hard bed soon
passed as he rose, stretched himself, strode sharply here and there to
restore circulation, and drank of the morning air. Sunlight warmed him,
and his thoughts turned homeward. He thought first of descending to Two
Bridges and the hospitality that would there await him; but the day was
so brilliant after the storm, and in his waking mood he felt so well
furnished with strength, that he abandoned this project and determined
to tramp back to Little Silver. He tightened his belt on his empty
stomach, lighted a pipe, and set his face for home. It was nearly seven
o'clock when he started, and, allowing for all reasonable interruptions
of progress--incidents inevitable after the storm--he believed that it
would be possible to make the shepherd's cot at Teign Head under Watern
Tor long before midday.
His road of the previous evening he found quite impassable, and it was
nearly nine o'clock before he fairly escaped from the labyrinth of deep
waters and greedy bog now spread about Fur Tor. The task of return
indeed proved far more difficult than he had anticipated, for the
present harmonious contentment of his mind, despite hunger, induced an
optimism rare enough in Myles at any time. But experience came to his
aid, and he set to work soberly to save his strength for a toilsome
journey.
It is unnecessary to describe the many turnings of a tortuous way
followed at mercy of the unloosened waters. Chance ultimately willed
the man to Watern--a craggy fastness familiar enough to him, yet
somewhat removed out of the direct course he had planned. But Teign's
birthplace was overflowing, and, to avoid morasses beneath Sittaford, he
had tended northerly and so found himself not far from the tremendous
and stratified granite ledges that approach the magnitude of cliffs on
Watern's crown.
Weary enough by this time, and surprised to find himself somewhat
weakened from unusual exertions and lack of food, Myles paused to rest a
little while on the northern side of the crags. Here was grateful
shadow, and he reposed in the damp rushes, and felt his heart weary and
his head aching. His dog similarly showed weariness, but knew the
horizon-line easterly hid Bear Down, and marvelled why the master should
call this halt, within three miles of home.
Then, pleasantly conscious that the worst of his difficult enterprise
was over, Myles Stapledon suddenly heard a sound of suffering. There
fell upon his ear reiterated and hollow meanings, that might be
expressions of pain from man or beast. Some creature in an extremity of
physical grief was certainly near at hand; so he rose hastily, that he
might minister to the tortured thing, while his dog barked and ran
before him.
And here it is necessary to leave the man for a period of brief hours,
for ancillary matters now merge into our main theme at this--the climax
of the record.
*CHAPTER XIV.*
*FROM WORDS TO BLOWS*
Honor by no means enjoyed such easy sleep as her husband after the
thunderstorm; indeed it can scarcely be said concerning her night's rest
that it held slumber. The tempest and a belief that Myles was alone in
its midst, brought very real terror to her; nor did she win much comfort
from her uncle's reiterated assurance that no ill could touch Myles
Stapledon upon Dartmoor.
"Return he won't for certain until morning," declared the blind man.
"Full of thought he went his way and forgot to raise a weather eye until
suddenly surprised by the storm. Its loosened torrents cut him off on
the high land and drowned his way home, no doubt; but whatever part of
the waste he's upon, 'tis familiar ground to him, and he'll know the
nearest way to shelter and doubtless take it."
In his mind, however, the speaker felt a cloud. He was alarmed rather
for the storm that he believed might have burst within Stapledon's heart
than for any chance accident of sudden tempest from without. Quite
ignorant of the last phase of the other's trial; unaware that Myles had
passed the point of highest peril and now approached happiness once
more, old Endicott only suspected that this man had reached the climax
of his tribulation, and believed Stapledon's long and lonely expedition
was undertaken that he might wrestle with his fate and determine some
final choice of way. Herein he judged rightly, but he knew not the
modified enigma that lay before Myles upon that journey to the desert,
and remained wholly unaware that the major problem stood solved.
Thought upon the matter took Endicott along dark ways; he remembered
words spoken long ago; and for once a mind usually most luminous in
appraisement of human actions, deviated from the truth. Such a mistake
had mattered little enough; for Mark was no harbinger of gloomy
suspicions, and never word of his had made sorrow more sad or deepened
any wound; but a time came when his conviction, supported by apparent
evidence, was confirmed in his own mind; and from thence cruel chances
willed that it should escape from him to another's keeping, should
hasten night over a life scarcely advanced to its noon.
A morning of almost extravagant splendour followed upon the storm, and
the soaked world under sunshine fortified human spirits unconsciously,
wakened hopes and weakened fears in the breast of Honor. She walked out
before breakfast, and upon the way back to Bear Down met Christopher
Yeoland.
He was full of his own concerns, for the lightning had fallen upon
Godleigh, slain certain beasts, and destroyed two ancient trees; but,
hearing of Stapledon's absence, Christopher forgot his troubles,
mentioned various comforting theories, and promised to ride far afield
after breakfast upon the Moor.
"He'll probably come back a roundabout way and drive from Moreton," said
Yeoland; "but there's a ghost of a chance that he may walk direct, after
having put in a night at a cot or one of the miners' ruins. In that case
he'll be starving and wretched every way. So I'll take a flask and some
sandwiches. Poor beggar! I'm sorry for him; still he knows the Moor as
well as we know our alphabet, so there's very little need for anxiety."
But the news of the thunderbolt in Godleigh Park by no means tended to
make Honor more content, and she returned home in tribulation despite
the sunshine. After breakfast she went out alone, and Christopher, true
to his promise, made a wide perambulation on horseback; while others,
who had planned no special pleasure for their holiday, also assisted the
search, some upon ponies and some upon foot. Yet no news had reached
Bear Down by midday, and then Christopher Yeoland arrived, after a ride
of twenty miles.
"A good few wanderers I met and accosted--Moor men out to look after
their beasts and see what harm last night was responsible for--but I saw
nothing of Myles," he said. "Gone far down south, depend upon it.
He'll be here in the course of the evening. And it's rum to see the
flocks, for the storm has washed them snow-white--a beautiful thing.
The hills are covered with pearls where the sheep are grazing. You can
count every beast in a flock three miles off."
Yeoland lunched at the farm, then trotted homeward; but Collins and
Pinsent, though they had travelled far that morning, set out again after
dinner, being privately pressed to do so by Mark Endicott.
Elsewhere, true to his word, the man Gregory Libby repaired to riverside
that he might meet Sally and her sister, and settle that great matter,
once and for all, at a spot quite bathed in sunlight and little framed
to harbour broils, though an ideal tryst for lovers. Libby was first to
arrive, and after waiting for five minutes a twinge of fear shadowed his
mind. The deed before him looked difficult and even dangerous at this
near approach. Gregory, therefore, decided to slink by awhile and hide
himself where he might note the sisters' arrival without being
immediately observed. They would doubtless prove much amazed each at
sight of the other; they would demand an explanation; and then he would
come forth and confront them.
He concealed himself with some care, put out his pipe, that the reek of
it might not betray him, and settled down to watch and hear from a
position of personal safety.
Sally was the first to arrive--very hot and somewhat out of spirits, as
it seemed, because the way was rough for a woman, and her green Sunday
dress had suffered among the bilberries, while a thorn still smarted in
her hand. Libby saw her sit down, ruefully regard her gown, and then
fall to sucking at her wounded finger.
There followed a period of silence, upon which broke a slow rustle, and
Sally's eyes opened very widely as another woman, cool and collected,
appeared within the glade. But Margery also became an embodiment of
surprise as her sister rose and the two confronted each other. Then it
was that a heartless rascal, from his secure concealment, felt disposed
to congratulate himself upon it. He stood two inches shorter than Sally
Cramphorn, and he realised that in her present formidable mood the part
he had planned might prove difficult to play.
"Merciful to me! What be you doin' in this brimbley auld plaace?" asked
the elder girl abruptly.
"My pleasure," answered Margery with cold reserve. "'Pears you've comed
a rough way by the looks of you. That gown you set such store by be
ruined wi' juice of berries."
'"Your pleasure'! Then perhaps you'll traapse off some place else for
your pleasure. I'm here to meet a--a friend of mine; an' us shaan't
want you, I assure 'e."
Margery stared, and her face grew paler by a shade.
"By appointment--you--here? Who be it, then, if I may ax?"
"You may not. Mind your awn business."
"I will do, so soon as I knaw it. Awnly it happens as I'm here myself
to meet a friend, same as you--an'--an'--is it Henery Collins you'm come
to see? You might tell me if 'tis."
"Shaan't tell you nothin'--shaan't underman myself to talk to 'e at all.
I'm sick of 'e. You'm spyin' 'pon me, an' I won't have it."
"Spyin' on a fule! Do 'e thinks I care a farthin'-piece what you do or
what trash you meet? I'll be plain, anyways, though you'm 'shamed of
your company whoever 'tis, by the looks of it. I'm here to meet Greg
Libby; so I'll thank you to go!"
"Him?"
"Ess--him. He's a right to ax me to meet him wi'out your leave, I
s'pose?"
"No fay, he haven't! No right at all, as I'll soon larn him."
Margery blazed.
"An' why for not, you gert haggage of a woman? Who be you to have the
man 'pon your tongue--tell me that?"
"Who be I? I be his gal, that's who I be--have been for months."
"You damn lyin' cat! _Your_ man! He'm mine--mine! Do 'e hear? An' us
be gwaine to be axed out in church 'fore summer's awver."
"Gar! you li'l pin-tailed beast--dreamin'--that's what you be--sick for
un--gwaine mad for un! We'm tokened these months, I tell 'e; an' he'll
tell 'e same."
Awed by such an exhibition, and amazed at rousing greater passions in
others than he himself was capable of feeling, Gregory sank closer and
held his breath.
"'Tis for you to ax him, not me, you blowsy gert female," screamed
Margery, now grown very white. "Long he's feared you was on a fule's
errand. He knaws you, an' the worth of you. An' he an' faither's
friends again, thanks to me. An' he'm not gwaine to marry a pauper
woman when he can get one as'll be well-to-do. You--you--what's the use
of you but to feed pigs an' wring the necks of fowls for your betters to
eat? What sober man wants a slammockin' gert awver-grawn----?"
A scream of agony cut short the question, for Sally beside herself at
this outburst, and but too conscious through her rage that she heard the
truth, set her temper free, flew at her sister like a fiend, and
scratched Margery's face down from temple to chin with all the strength
of a strong hand and sharp nails. Blood gushed from this devil's
trident stamped into a soft cheek, and the pain was exquisite; then the
sufferer, half blinded, bent for a better weapon, picked up a heavy
stone, and flung it at close quarters with her best strength. It struck
Sally fairly over the right eye, and, reeling from this concussion, she
staggered, held up for a moment, then gave at knee and waist and came
down a senseless heap by the edge of the water.
Margery stared at this sudden work of her hands; she next made some
effort to wipe the blood off her face, and then hastened away as fast as
she could. Mr. Libby also prepared to fly. For the unconscious woman at
his feet he had no thought. He believed that Sally must be dead, and
the sole desire in his mind was to vanish unseen, so that if murder had
been done none could implicate him. He determined not to marry Margery,
even if she escaped from justice, for he feared a temper so ferocious
upon provocation. Gregory, then, stole away quickly, and prepared to
perambulate round the farm of Batworthy, above the scene of this tragic
encounter, and so return home secretly.
But circumstances cut short his ambition and spoiled his plan. When
Margery left her sister, she had not walked far before chance led her to
Henry Collins. He was on the way to the Moor once again, that he might
pursue search for Stapledon, when Margery's white face, with the hideous
wales upon it, her shaking gait and wild eyes, arrested him. He stopped
her and asked what had happened.
"I've fought my sister an' killed her," she said; "killed her dead wi' a
gert stone. She'm down to the river onder Batworthy Farm; an' if 'twas
to do awver again, I'd do it."
He shrank from her, and thought of Sally with a great heart-pang.
"Wheer be she? For God's love tell me quick."
"Down below the fishing notice-board, wi' her head in the watter. She'm
dead as a nail, an' I'm glad 'twas I as cut her thread, an' I'm----"
But he heard only the direction and set off running. So it came about
that Gregory Libby had not left the theatre of the tragedy five minutes
when Collins reached it, and saw all that made his life worth living
lying along procumbent beside Teign. One of Sally's arms was in the
river, and the stream leapt and babbled within six inches of her mouth.
Her hair had fallen into the water, and it turned and twisted like some
bright aquatic weed a-gleaming in the sun.
Even as Henry approached the woman moved and rolled nearer the river;
but its chill embrace helped to restore consciousness, and she struggled
to her side, supported herself with one arm and raised the other to her
head.