Chapter I: First Blood to Brendon

In the struggle between Daniel Brendon and Jarratt Weekes, circumstances combined to strengthen the former's cause at every point. Right, as a matter of fact, was on his side, but what promised to be a greater source of strength, he found in Sarah Jane. The ingenuous and fearless character of his betrothed and her intrepid handling of truth, albeit embarrassing enough at times, made her strong against enemies of the type of Jarratt Weekes. Moreover, the lovers had many friends; the castle-keeper, few. His mother tried to help him; but she was honest and her shifts proved absolutely futile. She could only suggest that Jarratt should see Sarah Jane and argue with her the folly of such action. She herself invited Gregory Friend's daughter to tea, and used what powers of persuasion she possessed to turn the girl. She also saw Mr. Friend, and showed him the advantages of a union with the Weekes family. Her attacks were direct and straightforward; therefore they failed. Neither did Jarratt's more tortuous methods win him any advantage. He worked what little harm he could, but it amounted to nothing. Daniel's record was clean; he had a reputation for sober-mindedness; no man could tax him with wrong-doing. To separate him from Sarah Jane at any cost became the castle-keeper's problem; but, while achieving this deed, it was vital that the woman's regard for Jarratt should be increased rather than lessened; and the double task proved altogether beyond Jarratt's power.

He trusted that Hilary Woodrow might prove an obstacle, and that marriage must at least mean dismissal from Ruddyford; but even here his hopes were disappointed. Matters combined at the farm largely to advance Daniel Brendon's ambition, and a tower of strength appeared in a quarter from which little might have been hoped. Tabitha Prout smiled upon the match, first from kindness of heart, secondly to gain private ends. Another woman at Ruddyford had long been her desire. She sounded Brendon first, then finding that he approved, approached her master. The person most vitally involved in Tabitha's plot was her own brother; but she knew that John would make no difficulties, and therefore left him until the last.

"Does your maiden know anything about milk and butter?" she asked Daniel, on an occasion when they were alone.

"Can't say she does; but there's nothing she couldn't learn in a few months--quick as light at learning she is," he answered.

Then Tabitha proposed that Sarah Jane on her marriage should come to Ruddyford as dairymaid.

"As things go," she explained, "'tis all sixes and sevens; and now the boy milks, and now Tapson do, and there's no proper system to it. But with our cows, few though they be, a dairymaid ought to be kept; and she'd help me here and there--I expect that. And if she comes, we ought to keep three more cows, if not four. I only want to know if you be willing. 'Tis worth your while, for if that was planned, you could bide here after you're married and wouldn't have to look round again."

"Too good to be true, Tabitha Prout; yet none the less a great thought; and I lay you'd find Sarah Jane your right hand if she did come. But where could us bide?"

"That's easy enough. The difficulty is with Mr. Woodrow. However, I'll have a tell with him and put my grey hairs and increasing age as strong as I can. I'm overworked without a doubt. This place has suffered from lack of females for years, and I won't have no more boys, so I've got to do it all--save for the messy, silly help you men give. But there 'tis: with his hate of 'em, I doubt if he'd stand a young woman about the place."

"I wonder. Make a point of the extra cows, Tabitha. That might win him; and as for Sarah Jane, by the time we'm married, I'll promise for her that she knows the whole craft of milk and cream and butter near so well as you do."

But Tabitha would not allow that.

"In time--in time. She won't have my hand to butter in six months, Daniel--perhaps not in six years. Butter-making's born with a woman. But I'll teach her so much as she can learn. Not that anybody ever taught me--save nature and my own wits."

Joe Tapson entered at this moment, knew not of the argument, but heard Tabitha's self-praise and sneered at her. They often wrangled hotly about the relative powers of the sexes; for while Tapson was a cynic touching womankind, Tabitha declared that she had seen too much of men in her life to have any admiration left for them.

"'Tis about Sarah Jane and work," explained Miss Prout.

"Work?" he said. "What about work? Let her do her proper married woman's work and get boys.--plenty of 'em--eh, Daniel?"

Tabitha sniffed scorn upon him.

"Always the way with you vainglorious creatures. 'For us to be mothers and get boys'--the conceit of it! As if there was nothing else for a woman to do beside that!"

"Nothing--except get girls," said Joe bluntly. "There's nought else in the world that men can't do a darned sight better than females. Don't you deceive yourself there. Why, look around--even to cooking and sewing; tailors and men-cooks beat you out of the field, when first-class work has to be done. You work hard enough--too hard even in your way; yet the likes of you--to say it in a perfectly kindly spirit--don't really do much more than cumber the earth. Women be wanted for the next generation--not for this one. Their work lies there; and when you talk about the value in the world of all you frost-bitten virgins, I'm bound to tell you, without feeling, that 'tis only in your own imagination."

"You speak like the withered stump of a married man you are," she answered indignantly. "I blush for you--you to lecture me! 'Tis a good thing you've no finger in the next generation, I'm sure; and I lay the happiest moment in your wife's life was the last."

But Joe had not finished. He smiled at her temper and spoke again.

"Why, my dear soul, after the business of child-bearing's done, you ban't so much use as cows; for they do give us milk; but such as you yield nought but vinegar."

"What things to say!" exclaimed Daniel; "who ever heard the like?"

"Truth's truth; and the sharp truth about women none knows better than me. But all the same----"

"Shut your mouth and get out of my kitchen," cried Tabitha. "What woman could be blamed for treating you harsh? To insult the whole of us--a poisonous, one-eyed rat like you!"

"A one-eyed rat I may be," retorted Joe; "but I can bite, and 'tis easy to see the force of my words by the heat of your temper. You hate men, and I hate women, so all's said."

The question to be answered was Hilary Woodrow's attitude towards the suggestion of Sarah Jane as dairymaid. He had heard that Brendon was going to be married, and supposed that the giant would leave Ruddyford upon that event. But he cared little whether Daniel went or stopped. The problem of labour on a Dartmoor farm was far less acute fifty years ago than at present, and the master knew that Daniel's place might easily be filled. He listened to Tabitha's arguments but withheld judgment until he had consulted his head man. John Prout, however, approved, and himself disposed of the only difficulty attaching to the plan.

"I think very well of it," he said, "and to show how well, I'll help by coming to live here, and letting Brendon have my cottage. That makes all clear. She's a very nice, strong maiden, and Tabitha's right when she says we want another woman about the place. There's too much on her shoulders now. You'll do well to let it be so, master; and then the girl can set about learning her work straight away and be useful from the start."

Thus the matter fell out, to Sarah Jane's delight; and her father was also well pleased, because his daughter would henceforth dwell close to him. The woman asked for no assistance or advice in the conduct of her life henceforth. Her object was swiftly to master the business of the dairy, and to that end, after conversation with Tabitha Prout, she went to Lydford and saw Mrs. Weekes. Whether Hephzibah could be expected to serve her, Sarah Jane never stopped to consider. Nobody knew more about the local dairy-farmers than the wife of Philip Weekes; nobody therefore was better able to help Gregory Friend's daughter, if she chose to do so. But Hephzibah apparently did not choose.

"To have the face to come to me! 'Tis enough to make angels weep tears of blood, Sarah Jane," she said. "You throw over the best men in Lydford and go your own wild, headlong way to misery; and let me waste torrents of advice upon you; and then walk in, as if nothing was the matter in the world, and ax me to get you a larner's place along with cows! What you'll come to, be hid with your Maker, for no human can guess it. Never was such a saucy wench seen or heard of. You'll be asking me for a wedding present next, I suppose."

"Don't see no reason why not," said Sarah Jane. "I can't marry two men, I believe; and I love one and don't care a rush for t'other, so there's an end to it. Because you wanted for me to take Jarratt and I ban't going to--that's no reason why you shouldn't do me a kindness."

"Loramercy! you talk just like a man. If you don't carry a heart under your ribs, I do. You wait till you've got a proper son as hankers after a girl, and she won't have him--then we'll see how 'tis. Don't you never ax me for the price of a shoe-lace to keep you from the union workhouse, Sarah Jane, because you won't get it."

Sarah laughed pleasantly.

"For all you scream out at everybody, like a cat when his tail's trod on, you're my sort, Mrs. Weekes. You say what you think--though you may think wrong as often as anybody."

"You'm an outrageous baggage," said Hephzibah, "and I won't bandy no more words with you. Not a hand--not a finger will I lift to help such a thankless fool of a woman. Go to Mrs. Perkins at Little Lydford, and get out of my sight, else I'll put my ten commandants on your face!"

Thus, despite her ferocity and terrible threats, Mrs. Weekes told Sarah Jane exactly what she wanted to know; and Hephzibah knew that she had done so, and scorned herself in secret for a silly fool. But her nature could not choose but like Sarah Jane. In secret she loved all fearless things. Therefore, while hating the girl because she would not take Jarratt, Mrs. Weekes had to admire her because she was herself.

The work that Sarah Jane wanted was found for her, and during the next three months she disappeared from Amicombe Hill. Sometimes on Sundays, however, she visited her father. She worked as hard as she possibly could, proved an apt pupil, made new friends at her temporary home in Lew Trenchard, and saw Daniel Brendon now and then. She also wrote to him and her father.

Meantime her betrothed planned his future, calculated the cost of new furniture for Mr. Prout's cottage, and made himself very useful to that large-hearted man.

John Prout was quite content to return to the farm and live under the same roof as his master. For some reasons he relished the change, since it would now be easier to devote a little more personal attention to Hilary. He could see no faults in him; he pandered to Woodrow's lethargic nature as far as he was able; he stuck stoutly to it that the farmer was not a robust man and must be considered in every way possible.

The time sped and Winter returned. Then Sarah Jane, her education with regard to milk and butter complete, came home, and Daniel began to clamour for marriage. Mr. Friend finally decided that the season of Spring should be chosen. For himself he had planned to live henceforth in a little building at the peat-works. He held that a few slates and stones, some mortar and a pail of whitewash, would render it habitable. An engineer had paid one of his rare, periodic visits to the works, made some suggestions and departed again. Therefore Gregory was full of new hopes. There had also come increasing demands for Amicombe peat from various sources, and he was very busy with a trolly on the old tram-line. He loaded it from his stores, then steered it down the winding ways of the Moor, discharged his fuel near the railway station, and, with one strong horse to drag the trolly, climbed back again to his boggy fastness behind Great Links.

The banns were called at Lydford, and Sarah Jane and Daniel listened to them. He burnt under his brown skin; she betrayed interest, but no visible embarrassment.

At this season Jarratt Weekes was much occupied by business, into which he plunged somewhat deeply as a distraction. Widow Routleigh passed away, and it was known that her cottage had been purchased by the castle-keeper; but circumstances suspended the operations on the water-leat, and its advent at Lydford became delayed by a year. Therefore the advantages accruing to his new property were not yet patent to every eye, and only Jarratt and his mother knew the real quality of his bargain. In other directions he had obliged his enemy Mr. Churchward with a loan, because an opportunity arose for putting "the Infant," Adam's son, into business. William Churchward joined a bookseller in Tavistock. The occupation, as his father explained, was genteel and intellectual, and might lead to higher things. From William's point of view his work was sedentary and slight, and led to hearty thirst after the shutters were put up. He lived with his senior partner, pursued his efforts at picture-painting, and often came home at the end of the week.

No further meeting to discuss the water-leat celebrations had been called after the postponement was announced. But Mr. Churchward only waited a fitting time to proceed with his plans. The committee was understood to continue to exist, and Mr. Nathaniel Spry still flattered the schoolmaster; Mr. Norseman still went in doubt as to the propriety of the enterprise; Mr. Pearn still talked about his free luncheon; and Mr. Huggins still laboured under the thought of impersonating Moses.

Then came the wedding day and the wedding ceremony. Save for the master, Ruddyford was empty, because all asked and obtained leave to see Daniel married. Dunnagoat cot was not large enough to hold the wedding guests, and its inaccessible position made it impossible in any case. Therefore Mr. Friend, who insisted on straining his resources to the extent of a banquet, borrowed an empty cottage near the church, and with the assistance of Mr. Pearn and his staff, arranged a very handsome entertainment.

There were present the company from Ruddyford; and Mr. Churchward and his daughter also accepted Gregory's hospitality; for Mary Churchward and Sarah Jane were old acquaintance, and Mary, in secret, had liked Sarah Jane the more for refusing Jarratt Weekes. Mr. Huggins, Mr. Norseman and the latter's wife also attended; and five or six other men and women, with their grown-up sons and daughters, completed a throng of about twenty persons. Many more came to the church ceremony, and all frankly agreed that such a splendid man and woman had not within living memory been linked at St. Petrock's. But the house of Weekes was unrepresented, save by Susan. She had taken occasion to run away at dawn; and she thoroughly enjoyed the great event, without any uneasiness as to the future. Her aunt would be far too interested at learning all particulars, to waste time in reproaches and admonishment.

So Daniel Brendon and Sarah Jane Friend were wedded, and, having spent a week in Plymouth and watched the wonder of the sea, they returned to their little home at Ruddyford and joyfully set about the business of life.