"God's grace! God's gudeness! Her ban't dead! Glory be to Faither, Son
an' Ghost--her'm alive--poor, dear, darlin' maid!"
Then he fished Sally from the stream, and hugged her closer to himself
than necessary in the act. Next he set her with her back against a
tree, and presently she opened her eyes and sighed deeply, and gazed
upon Henry with a vacant stare. Then Sally felt warm blood stealing
from her forehead to the corner of her mouth, and put up her hand to the
great contusion above her eye, and remembered. Collins, seeing that her
eyes rolled up, and fearing another fainting fit for her, dipped his
Sunday handkerchief in the river and wiped her face.
"A gashly auld bruise, sure enough; but it haven't broke your head
bones, my dear woman; you'll recover from it by the blessing o' the
Lard."
She became stronger by degrees, and memory painted the picture of the
past with such vivid colours that a passionate flush leapt to her cheek
again.
"Blast him! The dog--the cruel wretch--to kindiddle me so--an' play wi'
her same time. What had I done but love him--love him wi' all my heart?
To fling us together that way, so us might tear each other to pieces! I
wish I could break his neck wi' my awn hands, or see him stringed up by
it. I'll--I'll--wheer's Margery to? Not gone along wi' him?"
"No. I met her 'pon the way to home. She reckons she've killed you."
"An' be happy to think so, no doubt. I sclummed her faace down--didn't
I?"
"Doan't let your rage rise no more. You've had a foot in the graave for
sartain. Be you better? Or shall I carry 'e?"
She rose weakly, and he put his arm around her and led her away. They
moved along together until, coming suddenly above the ridge of the hill,
Mr. Libby appeared within two hundred yards of them. He had made his
great detour, and was slipping stealthily homeward, when here surprised.
Sally saw him and screamed; whereupon he stopped, lost his nerve, and,
turning, hastened back towards the Moor.
"Theer! the snake! That's him as fuled me an' brawk my heart, an'
wouldn't care this instant moment if I was dead!"
"'Tis Greg Libby," said Collins, gazing at the retreating figure with
great contempt. "A very poor fashion o' man as I've always held."
But Sally's mind was running forward with speed.
"Did you ever love me?" she asked suddenly, with her eyes on the
departing hedge-tacker.
"You knaw well enough--an' allus shall so long as I've got sense."
"Then kill him! Run arter un, if it takes e' a week to catch un, an'
kill un stone dead; an' never draw breath till you've a-done it."
Mr. Collins smiled like a bull-dog and licked his hands.
"You bid me?"
"Ess, I do; an' I'll marry you arter."
"Caan't kill un, for the law's tu strong; but I'll give un the darndest
dressin' down as ever kept a man oneasy in his paarts for a month o'
Sundays. If that'll comfort 'e, say so."
"Ess--'twill sarve. Doan't stand chatterin' 'bout it, or he'll get
off."
Henry shook his head.
"No, he won't--not that way. The man's afeared, I reckon--smells
trouble. He's lost his small wits, an' gone to the Moor, an' theer
ban't no chance for escape now."
"Let un suffer same as he've made me--smash un to pieces!"
"I'll do all that my gert love for 'e makes reasonable an' right," said
Collins calmly. Then he took off his coat and soft hat, and asked Sally
if she was strong enough to carry them back to the farm for him.
"'Tis the coat what you sat upon to Godleigh merry-making, an' I
wouldn't have no harm come to it for anything."
She implored Henry to waste no more time, but hurry on the road to
vengeance; for Mr. Libby was now a quarter of a mile distant, and his
retreating figure already grew small. Collins, however, had other
preparations to make. He took a knife from his pocket, went to a
blackthorn, hacked therefrom a stout stick, and spoke as he did so.
"Doan't you fret, my butivul gal. Ban't no hurry now. Us have got all
the afternoon afore us. 'Tis awnly a question of travellin'. Poor
gawk--he've gone the wrong way, an' theer won't be no comin' home till
I've had my tell about things. You go along quick, an' get Mrs. Loveys
to put a bit of raw meat to your poor faace; an' I'll march up-along.
'Twill be more'n raw meat, or brown paper'n vinegar, or a chemist's
shop-load o' muck, or holy angels--to say it wi'out disrespect--as'll
let Greg lie easy to-night. Now I'm gwaine. Us'll have un stugged in a
bog directly minute, if he doan't watch wheer he'm runnin' to, the silly
sawl."
*CHAPTER XV.*
*WATERN TOR*
Desperate was the flight, deliberate the pursuit of Gregory Libby. He
had started without more purpose than that of a hare at first
death-knell from hounds, and now, too late, he realised that by heading
directly for the open Moor, his enemy must get the opportunity he needed
to make a capture. Mr. Libby indeed was lighter and fleeter than Henry
Collins, and at a mile or two the bigger man had stood no chance, but
now, with Dartmoor before them, the question was one of endurance, and
in that matter Henry held the advantage. He would lumber along in
pursuit until dark, if necessary, and it was impossible for the other to
hide from him. But the probable result of capture lent Libby wings. He
pushed forward, yet wasted precious breath by cursing himself for a fool
as he ran. Across the wastes, where old-time miners streamed for tin, he
went, and gained a little as he did so. Then it struck him that at
climbing his slighter build would win great advantage, so he headed for
the rocky foot-hills of Watern Tor. The extra labour told upon
Gregory's lungs, however; he had soon been running for half an hour--a
performance without parallel in his career--and he found that hoped-for
vantage of ground by no means crowned his supreme effort. Henry came
along with a steady shamble. He was blowing like a roaring horse, but
his huge chest proved equal to the strain, and he grinned to find
himself steadily decreasing the gap between his stick and Sally's enemy.
Presently the fugitive caught his foot in a rabbit hole, fell, and hit
his shins on stone. He groaned and swore, for the accident cost him
fifty yards, and quite shook his scanty pluck. His breath began to come
hard, and he felt his heart flogging against his ribs very painfully. A
mist filled his eyes, and it was lurid and throbbed with a red pulse at
every stride. Nervous twitchings overtook him, and his knees and elbows
jerked spasmodically. He grew unsteady and giddy, fell again, and then
got upon his feet once more. Turning to avoid a bog, and splashing
through the fringe of it, he still kept running, but his pace was
dwindling to a slow trot, and his force was spent. Now he could hear
the other snort within a hundred yards of him.
Then Mr. Collins hazarded a request.
"Stop!" he bawled. "Best to draw up, for I be gwaine to give 'e worst
walloping ever you had, an' 'tis awnly puttin' off the hour."
But Libby did not answer. Terror added a last impetus, and he reached
the summit of the hill, under those low precipices of granite that
surmount it. Here rises a huge mass of stratified rock, beside which a
smaller fragment, the Thirlestone named, ascends like a pinnacle, and
stands separated at the summit by a few feet only from the main mass.
Moved by physical fear and a desire to get as far as possible from
Collins and the blackthorn, did Gregory struggle hither, and over rough
granite steps crawled and jumped on to the great crown of the tor. A
last effort took him to the top of the Thirlestone, and there, stranded
between earth and sky, at an elevation of some forty feet from the turf
below, he assumed a very tragical attitude. Frightened sheep leapt away
from the granite plateau, and bounded down, sure-footed, from the
northern ledges, where they found cool shadows. Bleating, they regained
the earth, and so scampered off as Henry, his man safe, stopped to blow
and recover necessary energy. For the victim there was no escape; the
path to the summit of Thirlestone was the sole way back again. Turning
up his sleeves the pursuer advanced from ledge to ledge until only the
dizzy aperture between the pinnacle and its parent tor separated him
from Mr. Libby. To stride across would be the work of a moment; but
Collins felt haste was unnecessary. He sat down, therefore, recovered
his wind, and volunteered some advice.
"Best come down-along wi' me quiet. I caan't do what I be gwaine to do
on this here gert rock. Us might fall awver an' break our necks."
"If you move a step towards me, God's my witness I'll jump off an' slay
myself; an' 'twill be brought home against you as murder," declared
Libby. "S'elp me I will; an' who are you to do violence against me, as
never hurt you in word or deed?"
"Us won't talk 'bout that. I've got to larrup 'e to the point wheer
'twould be dangerous to give 'e any worse; an' I be gwaine to do it,
because I knaw you desarve it--never no chap more. So come awver an'
us'll get back to the grass."
"What for do 'e want to bruise a man 'cause a rubbishy gal be vexed wi'
un? Females is allus wrong-headed an' onreasonable. You ain't heard
the rights, I'll swear."
"An' ban't likely to from such a gert liar as you, I reckon. Come
awver, will 'e, an' shut your damn mouth!"
"I'll jump--I'll jump an' kill myself!"
But the other knew his man too well. Even Henry's customary caution did
not interfere between him and instant action now.
"You ban't built to do no such reckless deed," he answered calmly. "You
wouldn't be in such a boilin' fright of a thrashin' else. I'm sick of
the sight of your snivelling, yellow face an' rabbit mouth--lyin',
foxin' varmint that you be!"
He strode across the gap, and Mr. Libby, abandoning all thought of
self-destruction, merely dropped where he stood and grovelled.
"I'll give 'e money--anything I've got--a gawlden pound--two--five!
Doan't--doan't for Christ's love! 'Tis tu hurtful, an' me a orphan, an'
weak from my youth. Oh--my God--it'll kill me--you'll do murder if you
touch me--it'll----"
At this point, and during a pause in the scuffling and screaming of the
sufferer, circumstances very startling were forced upon the attention of
both men. Collins had made the other rise and get back to the tor, at
risk of falling to earth if he refused the jump. He had then gripped
Gregory by the collar, and was cautiously dragging him down the granite
ledges to earth, when a strange noise stayed his progress. It was the
same sound that had arrested Stapledon upon his homeward way.
"Gude Lard!" exclaimed Collins, dropping the other as he spoke; "theer's
somebody groanin' horrid near by. God send it ban't maister!"
They listened, and the mournful cry of suffering was repeated.
It seemed to rise from the heart of the great cliff on which they stood,
and while in measure human, yet vibrated with the mechanical resonance
of a beast's voice. Collins returned to the summit, crept towards its
edge, and peered over where the tor terminated in abrupt western-facing
cliffs. Then the mystery was explained, and he saw a dying creature
beneath him. Midway between his standpoint and the turf below there
stretched a narrow ledge or shelf, weathered out through the centuries,
and upon this excrescence lay a mortally injured sheep. The poor
brute--probably scared by flash of lightning or roar of thunder
overnight--had made a perilous leap and broken both forelegs in its
tremendous descent. Now, helpless, in agony and awful thirst, it lay
uttering mournful cries, that grew fainter as the sun scorched life out
of it.
But Collins, attracted by a barking, gazed beyond, and his eyes filled
with active concern at sight of a thing, motionless and distorted as a
scarecrow, upon the rocks and turf below. Beside it a red setter sat
and barked. Then the creature rose and ran round and round, still
barking. Collins knew the broad shape below, and the brown, upturned
face. He nearly fell forward, then turned, leapt to safety, and,
forgetting the other man, hastened down to earth.
And there he found Myles Stapledon, unconscious if not a corpse. Upon
his open eyes was peace, and the Death that must have looked into them
had lacked power to leave there any stamp of terror or impress of fear.
He had fallen backwards and so remained, supine. No visible violence
marked his pose, yet a general undefined distortion pervaded it.
"God's holy will!" murmured the living man to himself. "An' he heard
the same cry as us did, an' quick to end the sorrow of the beast, tried
to get to un. Cruel plain; but 'twas no job for a gert, heavy piece
like him. An' he slipped, an' failed backward on the bones of his neck
'fore he could say the words."
Libby shivered at the other's elbow.
"Be you sure he'm truly dead?" he asked
"The gen'leman's warm, but the faace of un tells death, I be feared; an'
his niddick's scatted in somethin' awful. But the dog do think he's
alive by the looks of un; an' such things is awften hid from us an'
shawed to beastes."
"Please God he've enough heat in un to bring back life."
"It may be so. Anyway, 'tis for us to be doin'. I'll bide along wi'
un, an' you slip it back quicker'n you comed. Run for your life, or
his'n, to the farm, an' tell what's failed, an' send folks here an' a
man 'pon a hoss for a doctor, an' bid 'em bring brandy."
Collins spoke with extraordinary passivity. He received this tremendous
impression with grief indeed, but no shock. Fear before any plain,
daylight event, however horrible, his nature was incapable of suffering;
only the night unnerved him.
"Go!" he said. "Doan't stand starin', an' keep out of Missis
Stapledon's way, but see the men. An' tell Pinsent, or the bwoy, to
bring a gun along wi' 'em. 'Twas his dyin' deed to try an' put thicky
sheep out of sufferin'; an' I'll see 'tis done my awn self, for respect
of the man."
Gregory answered nothing, but departed. In the excitement of this event
he forgot his own pending discomfiture and escape. But he remembered
these things half-way back to Little Silver. Then he had time for
personal satisfaction.
"'Tis a ill wind as blaws gude to none," he thought.
And the other ordered the body of his master in seemly pose, and placed
a pillow of fern under the battered skull, and sat down and waited. Not
all the mellow sunset light could bring warmth to the face of Myles
Stapledon. An evening wind blew over the Moor; the mist, generating and
growing visible at close of day, stole here and there, and spread silver
curtains, and wound about her familiar playthings of granite. She hid
the heath, and transformed the stone, brushed by the living, and glazed
the placid eyes of the dead.
With profound respect, but no active emotion of sorrow, Henry Collins
sat and watched; yet bitter mourning did not lack, for the great red dog
still ran up and down, nosed his master, then lifted up his voice and
howled as the cold truth struck into him. His wonderful eyes imaged a
world of misery and his face showed agonies far more acute than the
moonlike countenance of the man.
But Collins had come correctly to the truth, and, in his speech,
accurately described an incident that here, upon thresholds of renewed
hope and peace, had ended the days of Myles Stapledon.
At sudden cry from a brute in pain above him, Myles climbed Watern,
realised the sheep's sad plight, and immediately essayed to throw it
down, that its miseries might be ended. But at unguessed personal
disadvantages, from a protracted fast and recent physical exertions, the
man over-estimated his strength, nor took account of the serious
difficulties attending such a climb. Half-way to the ledge, he grew
suddenly giddy, and, for the first time, realised that though he might
descend, return must be for him impossible. A desperate effort to get
back proved futile; he slipped, struggled, slipped again, and found his
hands and arms powerless to serve or save. And then he heard the
unexpected Message and knew that his hours were told.
Now he slept where he had fallen, below the unchanging granite. His
life was done with; its tribulations and sunrise of new hope alike
quenched. Yet no pang of mental sorrow marked his dead face, and
physical suffering was likewise absent from it. The man lay calm of
feature, contented of aspect. His eyebrows were arched and normal, his
hands were unflexed. One had guessed that he made no effort to question
the mandate, but rather, in a phrase of Aurelius, had yielded up life
with serenity complete as His who issued the discharge.
*CHAPTER XVI.*
*THRENODY*
"In all my life, and long it has been, I never met a particular good
man, nor yet a particular bad one. Maybe each sort's rare as t'other,
for black and white mixed is the common dirt-colour of human nature.
Yet--him--him we've laid to his rest--I do think he was good. He was
better than sight to me--that I know."
The men in Bear Down kitchen were clad in black, for that noon they had
buried their master, not without tears. He lay in Little Silver
churchyard beside his wife's father; but Honor had not attended the
funeral.
"Ess, a very gude, upright man, I think. A man as stood to work in
season, and never bid none do a job what he couldn't have done better
hisself," said Churdles Ash mournfully.
"A man of far-seeing purposes, as allus carried through whatever he
ordained; an' could tell when rain was comin' to a day," added Samuel
Pinsent. He knew of no higher praise than that.
"An' so soft-hearted wi' the beasts what perish that he comed by his
death for a silly auld sheep. Who but him would have thrawed away life
on such a fool's errand?" asked Cramphorn bitterly.
"No other man for sartain, sir," answered the boy Bates.
"Very fine to bring it in death by misadventure," continued Jonah, "an'
I'm not saying 'twas anything but seemly so to do; but all the same, if
the maister had lived an' come off wi' a mere brawken leg or arm, I'd
have been the fust to tell un as he was riskin' his life in a fule's
trick, even if he'd been a lighter built an' spryer man."
"A plaace as looks much easier than 'tis," said Tommy Bates. "I climbed
it next day an' done it easy gwaine down, but 'twas all I could do,
hangin' on by my claws like a cat, to get up 'pon top again."
'"Twas playin' wi' his life, I say, an' though he'm dead, worse luck,
theer's blame still falls against un. What do 'e say, maister?"
Mark Endicott's face wore a curious expression as the question reached
him. The blind man had preserved an unusual silence before this
tragedy, and while the real explanation of Stapledon's death was
accepted by all, from Honor to those amongst whom the farmer was no more
than a name, yet Endicott had at no time discussed the matter, though he
exhibited before it an amount of personal emotion very rare from him.
The sudden end of Myles had aged Mark obviously, shaken him, and set
deep currents surging under the surface of him. Even his niece in her
own stricken heart could find room for wonder at her uncle's bitter
expressions of sorrow and self-pity before his personal loss. After the
first ebullition of grief, when tears were seen to flow from his eyes
for the first time in man's recollection, he relapsed into a condition
of taciturnity and accepted the verdict brought at the inquest with a
relief not understood by those who observed it. He kept much alone and
spoke but seldom with Honor, who rarely left her room through the days
that passed between her husband's death and burial. Out of the darkness
of his own loss Mark seemed powerless to comfort another, even though
she might be supposed to suffer in a degree far keener than his own; and
the men of Bear Down, noting his attitude, whispered that old Endicott
was beginning to break up. Yet this was but partly the case, for
private convictions and an erroneous conclusion before mentioned were in
the main responsible for the blind man's great concern; and the
impossibility of sharing his burden with any other at this moment
weighed heavily upon him. Spartan he still stood under the blow and that
worse thing behind the blow; but the night of his affliction was darker
than a whole lifetime of blindness, and the signs of it could not be
hidden. The man began to grow aged, and his vigour and self-control
were alike abating a little under steady pressure of time.
Now each of the toilers assembled there uttered some lament; each found
a word of praise for his dead master.
"The auld sayin' stood gude of un," declared Churdles Ash. "'The dust
from the farmer's shoes be the best manure for his land.' Ess fay,
everywheer he was; an' no such quick judge of a crop ever I seed afore."
"Never begrudged a chap a holiday, I'm sure," declared Pinsent.
"Would to God it had been t'other," growled Mr. Cramphorn. It was a
vain desire that he had openly expressed on every possible occasion, and
once to Christopher Yeoland's face.
"Don't wish him back, lads," answered Mark Endicott. "His life's work
was done nearly perfect--by the light of a poor candle, too; an' that's
to say there was a deal of pain hidden away deep in it. For pain is the
mother of all perfect work. He's out of it. We that have lost the man
are to be pitied. We cannot pity him if we're good Christians."
"A cruel beast of a world 'tis most times," declared Cramphorn, as he
lighted his pipe. "Takin' wan thing with another, 'tis a question if a
man wouldn't be happier born a rabbit, or some such unthinking item."
"World's all right," answered Ash. "You'm acid along o' your darters.
'Tis the people in the world makes the ferment. 'Twas a very gude
plaace when fust turned out o' hand, if Scripture's to count; for God
A'mighty seed it spread out like a map, wi' its flam-new seas an'
mountains an' rivers; an' butivul tilth--all ripe for sowin', no doubt;
an' He up an' said 'twas vitty."
"Ah! Awnly wan man an' wan woman in it then--wi'out any fam'ly,"
commented Jonah. "The Lard soon chaanged His tune when they beginned to
increase an' multiply. Disappointing creations all round, them
Israelites. God's awn image spoiled--as they be to this day for that
matter."
"Pegs! an' us little better'n them judged in the lump. Take I--as'll be
next to go onderground by the laws of nature. What have I to shaw for
all my years?" asked Ash sadly.
"You've done a sight o' small, useful jobs in your time--things as had
to be done by somebody; an' you've worked no ill to my knowledge. 'Tis
somethin' to have bided on the airth eighty year an' never woke no hate
in a human breast," said Jonah. "Very differ'nt to the chap that
mourned in his Lunnon clothes at the graave-side, an' cried his
crocodile tears into a cambric 'ankersher for all to see," he added.
"They was real, wet tears, for I catched the light of the sun on 'em,"
said Tommy Bates. "An' he shook grevous at 'dust to dust,' as if the
dirt was falling 'pon him 'stead of the coffin."
"He'm gone since--drove off to Okington, they tell me; an' Brimblecombe
says he be off to furrin paarts again to roam the world," murmured
Samuel Pinsent.
"Like the Dowl in Job, no doubt," declared Jonah; "though 'tis question
whether he'll see worse wickedness than he knaws a'ready--even among
they Turks.
"The man stopped in the yard till the graave was all suent, an' smooth,
an' covered to the last turf, however," answered Collins; "for I bided
tu, an' I watched un out the tail o' my eye; an' he was cut deep an'
couldn't hide it even from me."
"No gude for you to spit your spite 'gainst him, Jonah," summed up
Churdles Ash. "It caan't be no use, an' 'tis last thing as dead maister
would have suffered from 'e."
There was a silence; then Collins spoke in musing accents, to himself
rather than for any listener.
"Really gone--dust--that gert, strong frame--an' us shan't see the
swinging gait of un, or the steady eye of un, nor hear the slow voice of
un calling out upon the land no more."
"Gone for ever an' ever, amen, Henery," answered Ash. "Gone afore; an'
I like to be the fust to shaake his hand, in my humble way, t'other side
the river."
"An' his things a mouldering a'ready," whispered Tommy Bates with awe.
"I found the leggings what he died in behind easy-chair in the parlour,
wheer he wus took fust; an' they'm vinnied all o'er."
Jonah Cramphorn nodded.
"'Tis a terrible coorious fact," he said, "as dead folks' things do
mildew 'mazin' soon arter they'm took off of 'em."
The talk fell and rose, flickering like a fire; then silence crowded
upon all, and presently every man, save only Mark Endicott, departed;
while he was left with a horror of his own imagining, to mourn the last
companion spirit his age would know.
*BOOK IV.*