Chapter XV: Part 15

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.

Mr. Collins praised the Almighty. He cried--

"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.*

CHAPTER I.

*THE PASSAGE OF TWO YEARS*

Upon the death of Myles Stapledon great changes marked the administration of Bear Down. The event stood for a landmark in the history of the farm, and served as an occasion from which its old, familiar name of 'Endicott's' fell into disusage; for the place now passed into alien hands, and from it departed the last of the old stock, together with not a few of those whose fortunes had been wrapped up with the farm for generations.

Honor determined to leave her home within a month of her husband's death. To roam awhile alone seemed good to her, and, for a space of time that extended into years before her return, she absented herself from Devon. Her farm had appreciated much in value of late years, and a tenant for it did not lack long; but the new power brought new servants, and certain of the older workers took this occasion to retire from active service. Churdles Ash went to live with an elderly nephew at Little Silver; Mr. Cramphorn also resigned, but he continued to dwell in his cottage at Bear Down and was content that Sally and Margery should still work upon the farm. Collins, promoted to deputy headman, took his life with increasing seriousness--a circumstance natural when it is recorded that matrimony with Sally Cramphorn had now become only a question of time.

Mark Endicott also left Bear Down for a cottage at Chagford, and Mrs. Loveys accompanied him as housekeeper. This great uprooting of his life and necessary change of habits bewildered the old man at first; but his native courage aided him, and he unfolded his days in faith and fortitude. From Honor he heard erratically, and gathered that she drifted rudderless amid new impressions now here, now there. Then, as the months passed by, into the texture of her communications came flashes or shadows of herself, and the blind man perceived that Time was working with her; that her original, unalterable gift of mind was awakening and leavening her life as of yore.

Humour she still possessed, for it is an inherent faculty, that sticks closer than a spouse to the heart that holds it from puberty to the grave. It wakens with the dawn of adult intelligence, and neither time nor chance, neither shattering reverse nor unexpected prosperity can rob the owner of it. Earthly success indeed it brightens, and earthly failure it sets in true perspective; it regulates man's self-estimate and personal point of view; enlarges his sympathies; adjusts the too-staring splendours of sudden joys; helps to dry the bitterest tears humanity can shed. For humour is an adjunct divine, and as far beyond the trivial word for it as "love" is, or "charity." No definition or happy phrase sums it correctly, or rates it high enough; it is a balm of life; it makes for greater things than clean laughter from the lungs; it is the root of tolerance, the prop of patience; it "suffers long and is kind"; serves to tune each little life-harmony with the world-harmony about it; keeps the heart of man sweet, his soul modest. And at the end, when the light thickens and the mesh grows tight, humour can share the suffering vigils of the sleepless, can soften pain, can brighten the ashy road to death.

In the softness of the valley air lived Mark Endicott, and still knitted comforters for the Brixham fishers.

His first interest was Honor and her future. Of these, he prophesied to those few who loved her and who came to see her uncle from time to time. To Mrs. Loveys, to Ash, to Jonah Cramphorn the old man foretold a thing not difficult of credence. Indeed, eighteen months after the death of her husband, a letter from Honor, despatched at Geneva, came as confirmation, and informed Mark that she had met Christopher Yeoland there.

"They will part no more," said he when the letter was read to him; and he was right.

An interval of six months separated this communication from the next, and when his niece wrote again, she signed herself "Honor Yeoland." The missive was tinctured with some unusual emotion, and woke the same in Mrs. Loveys as she rehearsed it, and in Mark as he listened. "I am just twenty-seven," said the writer. "Do not tell me that it is too late in life to seek for a little happiness still. At least I know what Myles would think."

But the deed demanded no excuse in her uncle's judgment, for he had long anticipated it, and was well content that matters should thus fall out.

And a few months later, when August had passed again, the master of Godleigh and his lady returned home. Special directions prevented any sort of formal welcome, and the actual date of their arrival was only known to a few. Through a twilight of late summer they came, unseen and unwelcomed; and one day later, upon a fair afternoon in mid-September, Honor, escaping from the flood of new cares and responsibilities, slipped valleywards away to traverse the woods alone and visit her uncle at Chagford.

A chill touched her heart as she proceeded, for in these dear glades, at Doctor Clack's command, the woodmen had been zealous to help Nature during the preceding spring. Wide, new-made spaces innocent of trees awaited her; light and air had taken the place of many an old giant, and raw tablets of sawn wood, rising in the vigour of bramble, and refreshed undergrowths were frequent beside her path. Then, at a familiar spot, no pillar of grey supporting clouds of mast and foliage met Honor's eyes. Instead there opened a little clearing, created by one effort of the axe, with the frank sky above and a fallen column below--a column shorn of branch and lopped of bough--a naked, shattered thing lying in a dingle of autumn grasses and yellow, autumn flowers, like, yet unlike, the old nest of memories.

And this fallen tree, so unexpected, came as right prelude to the matter that awaited her beside it. The beech of her joy and sorrow was thrown down, and its apparition awakened in her heart none of that gentle and subdued melancholy she anticipated. Rather, such emotions were smothered in active regret at its downfall. And now a howling, winter storm descended upon her spirit--a tempest very diverse from the silver-grey, autumnal rainfall of placid sadness that here she had foreseen and expected.

The stricken tree struck a chord of deeper passion than it had done beheld in prosperity; whereupon, looking forward, Honor found herself not alone. Close at hand, in a spot that he had favoured through the past summer, sat Mark Endicott with his knitting; and a hundred yards away, beside the river, a boy, successor to Tommy Bates, stood with his back turned watching the trout.

Mark sat in the sunshine with his head uplifted.

There was speculation in his face, but his hands were busy, and the old wooden needles flashed in white wool.

She watched him a moment, then her eyes caught sight of something nearer at hand.

*CHAPTER II.*

*NO AFTER-GLOW*

The object that had attracted Honor's attention was an inscription carved upon the fallen beech tree. Ignorant of the interest awakened by that ancient work of Christopher's hand, when the same came to be discovered by woodmen, she glanced hurriedly at the initials and love-knot, now weathered and toned by time and the tree's growth; then she produced a little pocket-knife, and, not without difficulty, erased the record of her husband's red-letter day in a vanished summer.

Mark Endicott sat within ten yards of Honor while she worked; but he continued unconscious of her near presence, for the song of a robin and the music of Teign muffled the small noise she made. Moreover, the blind man's own voice contributed to deaden all other sound, for, following his ancient use, he thought aloud. This Honor discovered, hesitated a moment, then, her task upon the tree completed, listened to Mark Endicott.

There are blind, dark forces that spin the fabric of man's day and night from his own emotions and sudden promptings. In thoughtless action and unconsidered deed; in impulse born of high motive or of low, they find their material, weave our garments; and, too often, led by destiny, steep most innocent white robes in poisoned blood, as Deianira that of Hercules. Thus they fashion man's black future out of his sunny past, breed his tears from his laughter, his enduring sorrows from fleeting whims, and tangle him soul-deep in networks of his own idle creation. Our secure hour is the signal to their activities; they sleep while we are watchful; they wake when we enter upon our pleasures and seek for joy.

Moved by a sentiment that herself might be the object of his thoughts, and her heart yearning to him as he sat there alone, Honor gave heed to the slow voice and listened to Mark Endicott's oral musings upon the time that was past. Fitfully he spoke, with unequal intervals of silence between the sentences. But his thoughts were of a piece; he dwelt upon a theme that he could now endure to handle--a theme rendered familiar to his mind by constant repetition and convictions rooted beyond power of further argument. Of Honor indeed he had been thinking; for the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand he had greatly longed. These were numbered first among the few good things left to him; but from reflection upon his niece he had now passed to her dead husband, and he spoke and thought of Myles Stapledon. His voice, though he communed with himself, was so clear that no word escaped the listener; and every utterance came as cloud upon cloud to darken her day and deepen her night henceforward.

"A man good in the grain--frugal--industrious--patient--yet the one thing needful denied him--held out of his reach. Maybe faith had made him almost a hero--maybe not. Anyway, there was strong meat in the rule he set himself; and he didn't swerve even to the bitter end of it.... Strange, strange as human nature, that his way of life could reach to that. Yet I heard the words upon his lips; I heard him say how self-slaughter might be a good, high deed. And certain 'tis the Bible has no word against it. Little he thought then--or I--that he'd take that road himself....... And the foundations of his life so simple as they were. His pleasures to find out flowers and seeds in season, and the secret ways of wild creatures. To think that 'twas only the Moor, and the life of it, and the moods of it, that he sucked such iron from. 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.' That it should have been help to do such a thing as he did! All a big mind turned to ruination for lack of faith..... Close touch with natural things taught him the killing meaning of selfishness; for everything in nature is selfish but Nature's self. Out of the innocence of barren heaths, the honesty of the sky, the steadfastness of the seasons and the obedience of green things to the sun--out of all these he gathered up the determination to do a terrible deed....... 'Twas all they taught him, for Nature's a heathen. Yet a wonderful departure; and the heart of him held him up at the last, for his face was happy, his eyes at peace, so they said. 'Twas a glimpse of that life to come he could never believe in here that made his eyes at peace. God spoke to him I doubt. Yet never a glimmer of promise did he see, or a whisper of hope did he hear in this life. And he gave up the only life he knew for her--died brave enough, to the tune of his own words spoken long, long since.... And the suicide of him not guessed, thank God. Even she couldn't see--so quick as she is. The dust was flung in her eyes by a kind angel. Yes, surely she was blinded by some holy, guardian thing, for his great nature was understood by her. She had sense enough for that."

He shook his head for a space, then fell into silence again.

He had uttered his conclusion--this old, wise man--in the ear of the soul on earth most vitally involved. He had been for long years a voice that conjured some sense out of his own darkness; he had lightened the difficulties of others; he had spoken not seldom to the purpose and won a measure of love and respect; yet here, by same flaw of mind, or by the accident of blindness; by weakness that hinted approaching senility, or by mere irony of chance, he had taken a wrong turning and missed the transparent truth concerning Myles Stapledon. The dead man's own past utterances were in a measure responsible; and upon them Mark had long since built this edifice of error; he had lived in the belief for two years; had accepted it as life's most tragic experience, to be taken by him in silence to the grave.

But now this opinion crashed into the mind of Honor Yeoland, and she reeled before it and was overwhelmed. Up into the blue sky she looked blankly, with a face suddenly grown old. For an instant she fought to reject the word; for an instant she had it in her to cry out aloud that the old man lied; then the life of Mark Endicott--the sure bulwark of his unfailing wisdom and right judgment rose before her, and she believed that what he said was true. Not in her darkest hour had the possibility of such an event entered Honor's thoughts. Agony she had suffered at Stapledon's death, and the mark of it was on her face for ever, but he had left her for the last time at peace to seek a course that might maintain peace; he had departed full of awakened content to find the road to new life, not death.

Yet this utterance under the woods made her uncertain of her better knowledge; this remorseless, unconscious word, thrown by a voice that had never spoken untruth, was, as it seemed, a blind oracle above appeal from human suffering, an inspired breath sent at God's command to reveal this secret in her ear alone. The glare suddenly thrown upon her mind she held to be truth's own most terrible white light; and she stood helpless and confounded, with her future in ruins. At least some subdued Indian summer of promised content with Christopher had seemed to await her. Now that, too, was torn away and whelmed in frost and snow; for Myles had killed himself to give it to her; Myles had not believed her solemn assurance, but, convinced that she still placed him second in her affection, had set her free. With steady heart and clear eye he had gone to death, so ordering his end that none should guess the truth of it. And none had guessed, save only this ancient man, whose judgment within Honor's knowledge was never at fault.

She believed him; she saw that her present state, as the wife of Christopher, could only confirm him in his conviction; she pictured Mark Endicott waiting to hear how, all unconsciously, she had followed the path Myles Stapledon marked out for her when he died. And then she looked forward and asked herself what this must mean.

A part of her answer appeared in the old man who sat, ignorant of her presence, before her. He--the instrument of this message--had spoken his belief indeed, but with no thought of any listener other than himself. She knew Mark Endicott; she was aware that he had rather himself suffered death than that this matter should have reached her ear. Loyalty to him was not the least part of her determination now. He must never know what he had done.

Neither could she tell her husband for a kindred reason. Such news would cloud his mind for ever, and lessen all his future joy in living.

Before the loneliness of such an unshared grief the woman's soul rose up in arms, and, for one brief moment, she rebelled against her lot, told herself that the evangel of evil had spoken falsely, determined with herself to reject and cast aside this thought as a suspicion unworthy, a lie and a libel on the dead. But the unhappy soul of her was full of the fancied truth. Had she possessed power to turn deaf ears and reject this theory as vain and out of all harmony with her own knowledge of Myles Stapledon, Honor's state had been more gracious; but it was beyond her mental strength to do so. Understanding the dead man no less and no more than her uncle, she read new subtleties into the past before this bitterness, credited Myles with views that never existed in his mind at all, and concluded with herself that he had indeed taken his own life that she might be what she now was--the wife of Christopher Yeoland.

Therefore her own days stretched before her evermore overshadowed until the end of them, and her thoughts leapt whole abysses of despair, as the revelation gradually permeated her being. Seed was sown in that moment, as she stood with the blue sky mirrored in her brown eyes, and a growth was established, whose roots would keep the woman's heart aching till age blunted sensibility, whose fruits would drop gall upon her thirst while life lasted. Unshared darkness must be her portion--darkness and cruel knowledge to be revealed to none, to be hidden out of all searching, to be concealed even beyond the reach of Christopher's love and deepest sympathy. He indeed had her heart now, and knew the secret places of it; therefore, in a sort of frenzy, she prayed to God at that moment, and called upon Him to show her where she might hide this thing and let it endure unseen.

The boy by the river had not observed Honor, and her uncle remained ignorant of her presence. She turned, therefore, and departed, lacking strength at that moment to speak or hearten his desolate life with the music of her voice. She stole away; and in the woods, returning, her husband met her and rejoiced in the accidental encounter.

"Good luck!" he cried. "I'd lost half myself the moment you disappeared, and had made up my mind to mourn unobtrusively till you came back to me. Why hasn't outraged Nature sent a thunderbolt to suppress Courteney Clack? I might have known that desperate surgeon would have prescribed amputation upon most shadowy excuse."

"He has been very busy."

"And done absolutely the right thing, viewed from standpoint of forestry; which makes it impossible to say what one feels. But forget all that. Home we won't go yet. Come and see the sunset."

A promise of great aerial splendours filled the sky as the day waned, and Yeoland, to whom such spectacles were precious as formerly, hastened upwards to the high lands with his wife by his side.

Together they passed through the wood of pines above Godleigh, then, pursuing their way onwards, the man caught a shadow of sobriety from Honor, being quick at all times to note the colour of her thoughts. The fact that she was sad called for no wonder where they then stood, for now in her eyes were mirrored Bear Down's wind-worn sycamores, ripe thatches, whitewashed farm-buildings, and grey walls. The relinquished home of her forefathers lay there, and she had now come from visiting the last of her line. This Christopher supposed, and so understood her demeanour.

Overhead a splendid turmoil of gloom and fire waxed heavenwide, where wind and cloud and sinking sun laboured magnificently together.

"I know every strand in your dear thoughts, love; I could write the very sequence of them, and take them down in shorthand from your eyes."