Chapter XIV

HOW THEY TOOK SHELTER IN TOM-TIT-TOT’S PALACE.

An hour later two storm-tossed beings were fighting their way step by step beside the Taw river, which was there little more than a meandering crack in the peat. They were completely enveloped in whirling mist, which looked and felt like masses of damp wool. The wind was in their teeth and was steadily increasing. It threatened to become a gale. There was not much rain, but it could hardly be distinguished from the wet mists.

“Now I know what a fly feels like when it’s strolling along a ceiling,” shouted irrepressible Beatrice, as she balanced her shapely body between bog and river.

The girl had never looked so entirely fresh and charming. Her face was as red as a rose beneath the buffetings of the wind. Her hair, which had long ago discarded all pins and fastenings, streamed about her, and she had twisted the ends about her waist, and walked holding it. The wind stretched her scanty clothing tightly upon her and revealed every line from waist to ankle. She looked the very spirit of health and strength. She suggested the pixy queen or the white witch of Cranmere. She appeared to make headway without effort. It was different with Burrough, who was nearing the end of his tether. His breathing was becoming difficult and he was very weary. He had not spoken for some time, partly that he might save his breath, partly because he did not know what to say. He knew it would be impossible for them to reach the village, unless there was a sudden change in the weather, but he did not venture to put his conviction into words. Beatrice had arrived at precisely the same conclusion, and felt exactly the same unwillingness to mention the subject. They were both thinking of the ruin in Steeperton Cleave.

The crack in the peat which represented the river made the most astonishing curves. It was a marvel of crookedness, so that in following it they sometimes had the wind on their backs and appeared to be returning to Cranmere. Bogs were everywhere. They were continually jumping the river to evade them, and when the crack widened and boulders appeared this became a matter of difficulty and some danger. In the meantime the mists increased, it became gloomy, and the wind whistled like weird instruments of music.

“What were that you was a saying of?” cried Beatrice when her companion at last called to her.

“We shall never get anywhere at this rate,” he said. “Can’t we get away from the river? We seem to be walking in circles.”

“Leave the river!” cried Beatrice. “Why, it’s our only hope of salvation. If we got away from it we should be lost hopelessly. We should walk in circles then if you like. It would be Tregeagle’s very own job to strike a course over the moor without the river to guide us.”

“Are you tired?” was his next question.

“I shall be presently. I am putting on weight very fast. These woollen garments are soaking in the wet, and I could squeeze a jugful of water out of my hair. By the time we get into the Cleave I shall be a perambulating Cranmere. Bog!” At that monosyllable they jumped, and went on twisting and doubling as if they were trying to throw the bewildering spirits of the mist off their track.

“Have you any idea where we are?” Burrough asked.

“Well I’ve got a rough, a very rough idea,” she replied.

“If it were clear we should see Steeperton, or rather the spur of it, on our right, and Oke Tor on our left. The widening of the river tells me that, and the stickles are beginning. We shall get into a frightful part presently--all bogs and boulders.”

At the end of another hour the wind and the mist had increased and there was a great rain. Two very tired persons scrambled over the streaming rock-clatters, and one of them shouted in triumph when she perceived a dilapidated clapper bridge. The granite slabs had been broken, and the entire structure badly wrecked, by the Artillery. A huge shell was visible among the shattered rocks. A thick wire passed across the river and went up the steep bank through the heather. To this wire Beatrice pointed with the remark,--

“Tom-tit-tot’s palace is just above. This wire runs beside it. We might take shelter there until the storm passes?” she suggested.

They crawled up the steep bank beside the wire of the military field telegraph. Presently they reached a smooth stretch of turf which looked as though it had been mown and swept by fairy gardeners. A moment later a grey mass loomed out of the mist. They passed through what had been once a doorway, and the force of the wind became immediately broken. The mist was making strange shapes within. It was writhing and twisting along the walls, and passing like smoke up a huge chimney. But at least there was shelter. A portion of roof remained and beneath it was a huge antique fireplace, green with ferns and mosses, and there were blocks of granite for chairs and tables.

“The first thing to do,” said Burrough, rousing himself, “is to make a fire.”

Beatrice said nothing. She seated herself in a corner, to wring the water out of her hair, and watched her companion with shy eyes. She thought it exceedingly probable she would have to spend the night there with him.

“Can you find anything dry enough to burn?” she said demurely.

“I’ll look under the sheltered side of the ruin,” he said, and disappeared, while Beatrice smiled nervously at the mists and played with her wet fingers.

Burrough was soon back to announce his discovery of a peat-stack close to the wire of the field telegraph. It had been cut and placed there by the soldiers. The sergeant and his party, who had the duty of exploding the live shells that might be about the moor, had evidently made use of the ruin as a shelter in time of bad weather. Burrough brought as much peat as he could carry. There were gorse-bushes and dry bracken within the old walls. Beatrice produced paper from her satchel. After various efforts the fire was started. Soon the peat began to glow and warm scented smoke took the place of the mist.

“This is quite an adventure,” said Burrough, cheerily.

“Oh, it often happens upon the moor,” said Beatrice, indifferently. “I’ve been weatherbound like this before.”

Silence fell again. Burrough gave his attention to the fire, while the girl combed her wet hair with her cold fingers. Suddenly a gorse-stick became ignited and sent a warm light across the damp walls and the two eager young faces. Before the flame died down they had looked at one another, and Beatrice felt angry, knowing that she had flushed.

“How noisy the wind is!” she said, hurriedly.

“Do you think it’s going to clear?” Burrough asked, boldly. “You know this moorland weather better than I do. How long do you think this will last?”

Beatrice laughed and plucked up her spirits.

“I won’t prophesy,” she said. “It may clear in another hour or so; it may go on half the night.”

“I am thinking of you,” he explained, awkwardly.

“Well, I don’t mind. Auntie won’t be nervous--at least, not very. She knows I’m a moormaid, and can look after myself quite well. How goes the time?”

“Nearly four,” said Burrough.

“Gugh! it might be October,” she said. “Did you notice how dark it was last night? There’s no moon. This fiery chimney will be the only light upon the moor. If I could have three wishes now, I know what the first would be.”

“What?” he asked.

“For a great cup of the hottest tea that was ever brewed.”

“You shall have it,” he said.

“That’s wicked,” cried Beatrice; “wicked to tempt a poor girl. Unless,” she added, “you also are among the magicians.”

Already Burrough had produced various articles from his knapsack. He set them out upon the hearthstone, and the girl bent forward to examine them by the glow of the peat. She saw a metal flask, a collapsible cup, a canvas bag, which she smelt and declared to be tea, and a tiny packet, which she pinched and decided was sugar.

“I thought you might want a cup of tea,” he said. “I can boil the water in this flask.”

“This is entirely, utterly, too inexpressibly----” Beatrice began, then broke off and gazed, mischievous, witch-like, towards him between the dark-brown curtains of her hair. “And I suppose,” she went on in the naughtiest fashion imaginable, “if I express a desire presently for a little dinner, just a simple meal, you know--clear soup, a piece of sole, the wing of a chicken, and a relish--you will pull a lot of wee-winikin things out of that bag and serve it up hot.”

Burrough had sufficient self-restraint not to look at her. He knew, by the mere sound of her voice, what her face had looked like when she said “wee-winikin.”

“I’ll go down to the river and get some water,” he said.

“I’ll come too--I must,” she cried. “I’m not going to risk losing my tea.”

“Don’t get yourself wet again,” he pleaded. “I’ll follow the wire.”

“If you promise not to let go of it I won’t come,” she said. “I know it sounds absurd, but in a mist like this one is absolutely helpless. You might be within a few yards of the place and never find it. I’ll give you ten minutes, and if you aren’t back by then I shall come down with a torch and yelling like the whist hounds.”

Burrough gave the required promise and went out into the whirling clouds. While he was absent Beatrice sat gazing into the fire, with her hands clasped round her knees and little smiles chasing one another across her mouth.

“That’s nice and thoughtful of him,” she murmured; “but, my child, you must behave yourself. You must not talk nonsense, and you must leave off squeaking as if you were talking to a kitten, and you mustn’t use west-country words and phrases. Can’t you see that sort of thing makes him uncomfortable? You must be prim, and stiff, and old-maidish; only I’m afraid you can’t. You will keep on doing those things that you ought not to do. My dear little girl, really I love you very much, and I’m only telling you this for your good, because I’m afraid someone else loves you too, and if you are silly you will have to put up with the consequences. It’s no use saying you’re as strong as a little prizefighter, because you’re also a human being and a girl--a nice one, but still a girl--and when a girl’s feeling tired and slack, and has a good-looking young man with her, it somehow doesn’t occur to her to be sensible. ‘And that’s the end on’t,’ as someone used to say.”

Burrough came back safely, and in a very short time the water was boiling. He dropped the bag of tea into the cup, poured the water upon it, fished out the bag, added sugar and milk, of which Beatrice had a little left, and handed her the cup with the warning, “Take it by the top, or it will collapse.”

Beatrice thought it wiser to make no remark beyond a prim, “Thank you,” though a number of ridiculous things occurred to her. She sipped the tea with little gasps of delight. Presently she held out the half-empty cup and said prettily, “You finish it.”

He did so, although disliking the sugared tea; but that which was in the cup had touched her lips. They shared another cup and ate a few sandwiches. The weather remained as bad as ever. Burrough went for a fresh supply of peat, and Beatrice showed him how to build it so as to insure a hot fire. She piled a lofty pyramid, making below numbers of cunning air-holes, with passages above to convey the draught into the apex. She was a practical moormaiden. While she was thus engaged Burrough went to the sheltered parts of the ruin and cut a quantity of bushy heather, which he spread in the nook beside the fireplace. This was a bed for Beatrice. The girl watched him, but did not say anything. All the remarks which suggested themselves were instantly dismissed as being too frivolous. She wondered how long she would be able to keep it up.

“It’s getting quite homelike,” she said at last, and immediately observed under her breath that it was a stupid thing to say.

“Tell me if it’s comfortable,” he invited.

She tried the bed, and was graciously pleased with it. She declared it was as comfortable as a spring mattress, and then scolded herself again for saying such a thing. She went on to ask for a cigarette, and after a few soothing puffs she forgot most of her good resolutions.

“Do you mind me having my hair down?” she asked; “because I can’t help it. I’ve lost all the hairpins, and it’s too wet to twist up.”

“I think you ought to have it down always,” he replied; and after a moment he added, “What lovely hair it is!”

Beatrice ignored this remark, although the end of her cigarette glowed fiercely for a second.

“I wonder if we are the only two fellows weatherbound upon the moor,” said Beatrice slowly and distinctly, thus giving him to understand that she expected to be treated as if she had been a male comrade; but almost immediately she became feminine and fretful. “My feet are most uncomfortable,” she said. “Would you mind if I took my boots off?”

“Let me do it for you,” said Burrough.

He went on his knees and began to unfasten the boot which was the first to be extended.

“They’re horrid soppy and mucky,” she murmured.

“They will soon dry by the fire.”

“We’ll sit and tell ghost stories,” she went on. “If the pixies come here presently how astonished they will be. I hope they won’t be maliceful. Is my stocking wet?”

“Not very,” he replied; while she screamed, “Don’t! It tickles.”

A sudden gust forced its way into their shelter and beat upon the peat, making it appear like red-hot iron.

“That’s to tell us the king is on his way here,” she cried. “King Tom-tit-tot with all his lords and ladies. He’ll say, ‘What are yew a-here for?’ And you must bow and say, ‘What’s that to yew?’” Oh, dear, she thought, I’m talking nonsense again.

“Go on,” said Burrough, who was struggling with a tightly-knotted lace. “What would he say then?”

“A--what?” she mused. “Oh, he’ll say, ‘Ef yew ain’t out o’ my palace in less than no time, off’ll go yar hid.’”

“And then I shall put my foot upon his majesty and squash him,” said Burrough.

“You wouldn’t,” said Beatrice. “You would be too frightened. Tom-tit-tot is the funniest little black impet yew iver set eyes on. And when he’s angry he twirls his tail horrid. Now shall I tell you a story?” she said, as she extended a little stockinged foot towards the glowing peat.

“Tell me the story of Tregeagle,” he said.

“But every child in Cornwall knows that by heart,” she objected. “Wouldn’t you rather hear about the Lord of Pengerswick and his Saracen bride, and the witch of Fraddam who floats about in her coffin off Kynance Cove?”

“I would rather hear about Tregeagle,” he replied.

“Very well, then,” she said. “You shall have the true Cornish version. I wish some of our old women could tell you the story. They would make you laugh with their quaint words and tragic faces. I’m no good at telling a serious story. But I’ll do my best.”

“May I sit beside you?” he asked.