Chapter X: "darling Blue-Eyes!"

Daniel Brendon asked Sarah Jane to marry him on an afternoon in November, when the wind blew like a giant from the west, and the life of the Moor slept.

They sat in a nook of Great Links Tor, looked at the world outspread beneath them, and listened to the hiss of the wind, as it flogged heath and stone and chattering rushes. A million tiny clouds dappled the sky with pure pearl, and far beneath this apparently motionless cloth of silver was woven another cloud-pattern of darker tone, where tattered vapour fled easterly across heaven before the roaring breeze. This rack sank to earth's surface, swept the Moor, and, when it reached the crowns of the land, swallowed them. Thus a world of wild movement and music filled the lower air and throbbed upon the wilderness, while the upper chambers of the sky were bright and still. Some faint sunlight pierced the cirrus, but its radiance was caught by the turmoil below and hardly reached these lovers, where they sat sheltered from the riotous breath of the wind.

Daniel had asked for a half-holiday, and Sarah met him by appointment in this most lofty, most lonely place.

He had rehearsed his words many times until his brain whirled. By night the statement was clear, and phrases that seemed good to him thronged up from heart to tongue. With day they vanished, and now, on the threshold of the supreme moment, not a shadow of all his fine ideas remained. The wind from the Atlantic swept the last thought away. He sat by her, heaved immense sighs, panted dumb as the stone and heather, fixed his gaze upon her placid face.

"You'm blowing like the wind's self," said Sarah.

"I know I be," he answered. "There's times when I find mouth-speech terrible difficult, and this be one of them."

She knew very well what Daniel must now find words to tell her, but for once love was stronger than herself. When a halting blacksmith had nearly choked with a proposal in the past, she had helped him out of his misery as swiftly as possible, so that there might be little delay before the fatal word fell on his ears; but to-day the case was altered. She enjoyed the discomfort of her dear one's struggle, because her answer must presently make him forget his tribulation, as a warm fire makes us forget battle with the cold air outside.

"You don't talk enough to be very clever at it," she said. "'Tis the little, peart men talk best, like the small birds sing best. You gert big chaps croak like the crows--just now and again. You can't keep it up."

"Very true, I'm sure. But I don't want to croak now, God knows. If I was to put it in shape of a prayer, 'twould come easy, for you'd be surprised how my words slip out then. It loosens the tongue something wonderful to ax God for anything. He helps."

"You don't say your prayers out loud, however--else everybody to Ruddyford would hear 'em--with your gert voice."

"No--I whisper 'em. But no man can pray to anybody but his Maker. So it's cruel difficult."

"Who is it you'm fretting to speak to, then? Be you shamed to do it? Be it an uncomely thing?"

"No, no--'tis a very every-day thing; and yet not that--'tis a---- Would I say anything to you that weren't comely?"

"To me?"

"To you--yes."

"Whatever should you have to say to me?"

"Things as I haven't got the language for. There's words--like 'marriage,' for instance--that be an awful mouthful to spit out. Worse than having a tooth drawed. Yet there's no other word for it."

"And what's the hard word you can't bring yourself to say?"

"Look here--listen. There are some things that I can say, and they'll do for a start. I'm a terrible poor man. I've only got fifty pound stored up, but it goodies and it will be fifty-four ten by next March. I get twenty-five shillings a week; and that's very tidy indeed for me. Yet I'm worth it--not to despise myself--and I've great hopes of getting up higher. You'll think I'm a very own-self man, to keep on about myself so much."

"Not at all. 'Tis cruel interesting."

"Very kind to say so."

"Well, what next?"

"Should you reckon that was a promising case, or maybe you don't?"

"'Tis a very common state of things--save for the fifty-four pounds ten."

"You'd reckon that was to the good, then?"

"Every penny of it."

"It took some saving, Sarah Jane."

"I lay it did, Daniel Brendon."

"And I'm putting by a nice bit every week now."

"So you ought to be. You never know."

There was silence between them, but the wind ceased not. Then she relented and made it easy for him.

"I say you never know; because presently you'll be sure to see a girl that you'll like. No doubt you think not; but you will."

"I have--I have!"

She hardened her heart again.

"Ah! So soon? Well, if I may give you advice, you lie low till that fifty's up in three figures. Then--very like she'll take 'e, if nobody better comes in the meantime."

She looked at him and saw his face grow long and his jaw droop.

Then she suddenly threw her arms round him.

"You dear, great monster!" she said.

"Eh--what! Good God!" cried the man; and his emotion heaved up, slow and mighty, like the swing of a wave. He could say nothing; but he kept her face close to his and kissed her pale hair; then his arms tightened round her, and she felt the immense strength of them, and the great uplift of his ribs against her breast.

"I can't let 'e go; I'll never let 'e go again, I do believe," he said at last.

She knew he was unconsciously bruising her white body, but let him hug.

"My darling Blue-eyes!" he cried out, "what have I done to deserve this?"

"Made me love you."

"Think of it--think of it! When did you begin?"

"When did you?"

"First moment that ever I set eyes on you. When I walked down-along, after seeing you and drinking the cider you poured out for me, I knocked my knees against the rocks, like a blind sheep, for I couldn't think of nothing but your lovely hair."

"'Tis too pale. What d'you suppose I said to myself when I seed you first?"

His arm had settled to her waist. She rubbed her ear against his cheek.

"I said, 'I'll get that chap to take off them little funny three-cornered whiskers, if I can. They spoil the greatness of his beautiful, brown face."

"Did you think that--honour bright?"

"Honour bright, I did."

"I'll chop 'em off afore I see you again!"

He kissed her on the mouth.

"I never thought I could be so happy as this, Daniel," she said.

"'Tis almost too much," he admitted. "I doubt if any two was ever heart an' soul together like this afore. Feel me--fire--fire--burning like the bush in the wilderness, and yet not burning away! An' Him up above the clouds--to think it all out for us and plan it so loving and merciful! Bless God for His great goodness, darling Blue-eyes! This be all His work and His thought."

She showed no religious enthusiasm.

"Leave God till after," she said. "Go on burning now. Love me, hug me. There'll be black and blue bruises on my arms to-morrow."

"I'll make you love God in a way you haven't come to yet, Sarah Jane."

"Don't drag God in now," she said. "Talk to me, cuddle me. Tell me about what we're going to do when we'm married. Think of it all round--the astonishment--the fun. My father first--and then the castle-keeper. He'll have the flesh off your gert bones for this! Talk--talk--hug me tight and talk!"

"I want to think--I want to think," he said.

"Don't," she answered. "Feeling is better than thinking any day."

They lived through an hour as though it had been a moment. They did not feel the gathering dusk; they did not hear the wind. The rain fell presently, and to Sarah it seemed to hiss as it touched Daniel's cheek.

She leapt up at last.

"Now us'll go straight home and tell father."

"To-day--must we?"

"In course. You needn't fear it. It won't surprise him over much."

As they returned, he spoke again of the goodness of his watchful Creator, and moralized upon it.

"He does so much for us--He is sleepless--always watching and thinking for us worms.... And what can we do to pay Him? Nothing. We can only thank Him in our hearts every hour of the day."

Sarah Jane was silent a moment--then broke out suddenly.

"I don't want you to fawn on God about me, Daniel."

He started.

"What do you say, my darling dear?"

"Us don't think all alike there. I hate a mean spirit in a man. Not that you've got one--far, far from that. But I hate even a dog that cringes; and maybe God thinks the same of a man that does."

"Can we cringe to the Almighty?"

"The Giver's more than the gift to you, perhaps?"

"Nought on earth could be more than the gift, and well you know it! But----"

"I've given myself to you. I've done it myself--out of my own heart," she cried almost passionately.

He did not argue the point, but put his arms round her again. Yet he pondered as they passed on to Dunnagoat Cottage; and presently she startled him once more.

Mr. Friend took the news in a spirit very stoical.

"It had to come: 'twas only a question of time. I've always knowed that," he said. "I'm going to bargain for a fair spell of keeping company afore you do the rash deed. You catched fire from each other the first moment you met, I do believe. But sometimes the love that's soon ripe is soon rotten. So you'll just larn a bit about each other and we'll talk of marrying presently, when there's a foundation of understanding and knowledge built up between you."

"I know Dan to the very soul of him," said Sarah Jane. "I've read him day by day like a book of large, easy print; and he knows me--better than I know myself--don't you, Daniel?"

Brendon grinned doubtfully.

"I know you're the best, beautifullest wonder of a woman as ever I met with; and I know that I ban't worthy to tie your shoe-string; and that's about all I do know," he said.

"Exactly so!" declared Gregory. Then he took his daughter's face between his hands and kissed her.

"Bless you, you bowerly maid. You know nought about her, man; and I--her own parent--don't know much more; and she herself--what do she know, but that she's born--and loves you? There's as much we don't know, and she don't know, behind them blue eyes of hers, as there is behind the blue sky. Mark that; an' the Lord bless you, I'm sure; and if all goes well, I shall be pleased to have you for a son-in-law."

"I hope you'll never get no cause to regret them words, Mr. Friend. And, God helping, I'll Be a useful son to you as the years go on."

"That's a very proper thing to say. And if I have any opinion in the matter, 'tis this, that you won't take her too far off from me. She must bide fairly close. She's all I've got, and I couldn't go on without seeing her from time to time."

"That I will promise."

They fell into long silences while Gregory's daughter made tea; then they ate and drank and talked more freely again.

The lovers began to plan daily meetings; and Sarah Jane allowed herself to think deliciously of all the friends to whom this great news must be broken. Daniel remarked that they were mostly of his sex, and remembered that she had told him how her friendships with women were few.

"Every Dick, Tom, and Harry on the country side is to know about it seemingly," he said with a comical expression. "I hope they'll take the hint anyhow, and the less we see of 'em the better henceforward."

Then it was that she astonished him again, and the humorous note was changed abruptly in his mind, though not in hers.

"You men--so greedy you be--like a dog with a bone. 'Tis all or none with you."

He stared. It sounded an unmaidenly speech to his ear.

"By God! I should think so! All or none indeed. We don't share sweethearts, I believe."

She enjoyed his tragical face.

"'Twould be a poor look out for them as tried to come between me an' my gert monster," she said.

"It would be."

"An' for me too, I reckon?"

"Yes," he admitted. "But don't be telling such nonsense--or thinking such folly. You've done with all men but me for evermore. The Lord help any man or woman who ever came between us in deed or thought, if I catched word of it."

She nodded.

"They'd be dust afore your wrath."

Mr. Friend left them presently and went to a little room on the ground floor of Dunnagoat cot, where he pursued his business of testing peat for tar and gas. He never wearied of this occupation. Then, while Sarah Jane washed up the tea things, Brendon made an excuse to leave her and spoke with his future father-in-law.

"Can 'e lend me a razor, master?" he said.

"A razor? Yes. I don't use 'em of late years, but it happens I've got one. What for? Have you changed your mind and want to cut your throat for being a fool?"

"No, indeed. I've only just begun to live; but she don't like my whiskers."

"Ah! Take 'em off, and she'll want 'e to grow 'em again in a week. Wear a hard hat and she'll order a billycock; put on black gaiters and she'll cry out for yellow. God help you, poor giant of a man! You'll hear more about yourself from her fearless lips in the next fortnight, than ever you've found out yet all your life."

"The razor be--where?"

"Up in my sleeping chamber, in a little drawer under the looking-glass."

"Thank you very much, master."

"They'm like the false gods o' the Bible: they think nought of axing the men to gash themselves with knives. The biggest fool of a woman as ever cumbered earth can always be clever at inventing tortures for the men."

"'Tis all very well; but if I take Sarah Jane, you'll have to marry again yourself, Mr. Friend," said Daniel.

"Not me. I had one good one. I drew a prize, though she was always wrong about Amicombe Hill. Ban't in reason to expect two prizes."

Presently Daniel appeared with shaven cheeks before Sarah Jane. He left her to discover the loss, and she did so in an instant.

"My stars! if it isn't as though you was another man!" she said. "But I wasn't _quite_ tired of them all the same. I think I must ax 'e to put on a beard, Dan. I like 'em, because faither's got one."

"I could easy enough; my chin be like a stubble field after I've let him bide a day or two."

"But I couldn't rub my cheek against it while 'twas coming!'

"Better let me go as I am."

"I'll think about that. Be you going to stop to supper?"

"Can't, worse luck. I've promised to be back for a few indoor jobs this evening."

"When shall I see you next?"

"To-morrow night without a doubt. I'll come up over for an hour after supper."

"'Tis a terrible long way up; an' a terrible rough road."

"Not to me--and never has been."

"I love you with every drop of blood in my body, you dear blessed Daniel!"

"Well I know it; but 'tis such an amazing thought, I can't grasp it yet. 'Twill take days, I doubt."

"I've grasped it tight enough! 'Tis the only thing in my head. I've forgot everything else in the world, for there's nought else worth knowing, except you love me."

Thus they prattled at the door. Then a great gust dashed in and blew out the lamp. Brendon had to stop until it was relighted, and they made three more partings. Then Mr. Friend's voice called Sarah Jane, and Brendon set out in earnest for home.

The darkness was full of storm; but his heart made a heaven of night, and the elements that swooped, and shouted, and soaked, were agreeable to Daniel as he plunged into them. They seemed tremendous as his love; and his love made him tremendous as they were. He felt kinship with the lash of the rain and the thrust of the wind. Underfoot, earth, like a slave, submitted to the torrent and the gale; and he also spurned it even as they did; he feared not its steep and stony miles; he swept forward as strong and fierce as the sky, as joyful as the fetterless forces of the air.