Chapter XII: The Hermit Passes

Jarratt Weekes came into his father's home with an item of news.

"That old madman at the peat-works--Gregory Friend--is about done for," he announced. "I met Brendon yesterday, running about for a doctor. I couldn't feel too sorry myself, and angered him. 'Wouldn't you do as much for your father-in-law?' he asked me; and I thought of Adam Churchward, and said I wouldn't."

"A man didn't ought to marry his wife's family," admitted Mrs. Weekes. "But you'm too hard without a doubt. Well, if Friend be going, there's an end of the peat-works for evermore. 'Twill be the last breath of life out of the place."

"All the same," said her son, "there's no call for that long-limbed man to reprove me, as if I was a creature not made of flesh and blood. He's so dreadful serious--can't see any light play of the mind."

"A deadly earnest creature, no doubt," admitted his mother. "I wonder if Sarah Jane will be any the better for Gregory's going? Probably not. But come to think of it, they've had their luck of late. Her man's getting what I should call fancy wages myself."

"He's worth it," ventured Philip Weekes. "The things he does--Joe Tapson was telling me. Even Joe, who's a jealous man, and didn't take at all kindly to Daniel's rise--even Joe admits that he's a wonder."

"Bah!" said Jarratt. "He's not half so wonderful as a three-horse-power steam engine, and can't do half the work of it."

"You're wrong there," answered his father. "He's got plenty of brains in his head, and Prout himself has let it be known that them alterations he begged to be allowed to make will certainly be for the better, though he stood out against them at the time."

"We're friends now, anyway," continued his son. "I'm not saying he's not a very useful man; but I do say, and always shall, that he wasn't good enough for Sarah Jane."

"Us don't want to hear her name no more," declared his mother--"not on your lips, that is. 'Tis Mary now, and she's a proper girl too. Where she got her wits from I never can make out. 'Twasn't from her mother, for the poor soul was only moon to schoolmaster's sun, and hadn't more sense than, please God, she should have. That gert, hulking chap, William, as paints his silly little pictures, be so like his mother in character as two peas, though he carries his father's body."

"Mary hasn't got no higher opinion of 'em than you have," declared Jarratt. "She can suffer her father, but not the 'Infant.' She'm twice the man he is."

"For my part, I'd sooner do with him than schoolmaster," answered Hephzibah. "Lord save us--such an empty drum never was. Why, to hear his great, important voice, you'd think he'd met a lion in the path. Moses--when he comed down from the Mount--couldn't have felt more full of news. And what do it all come to? Nothing at all--save that he's just drunk a dish of tea round the corner with some other old fool; or that one of the school-childer's got the mumps; or some such twaddle."

"Not that us should seek to set Mary against her own father, however," said Philip mildly.

"Be quiet, you mouse of a man!" answered his wife. "Who wants to set children against parents, I should like to know? If a child be set against parents, 'tis the silly parents' own fault--as you ought to understand--nobody better."

The family met again that night, and Susan, coming across from Mr. Woodrow's for some butter, brought the expected news with her.

"Mr. Gregory Friend was took off about midday," she said. "I met young Billy Luke--him as he apprenticed to Mr. Medland, the undertaker. He knowed all about it. They be building his coffin this minute, and 'twill be taken up to-morrow morning; and 'tis ordained that poor Mr. Friend shall be drove on the trolley that he used to work up and down the line with his peat."

"Quite right," said Mr. Weekes. "For that matter, there's no other way they could fetch him down. Well, well--who'd have thought of him going?"

"They've allowed Mr. Brendon to have the corpse took to the vicarage; and the funeral party will walk from there; and he's to be buried Friday; and two wreaths have come in already, if you'll believe it," continued Susan. "One from them people at High Down, that Mr. Friend did use to keep in firing free of cost; and one from somebody unknown."

"Us will do the same," declared Philip. "There should be some Michaelmas daisies near out, but I haven't looked at the front garden for a fortnight."

"If you had," said Mrs. Weekes, "you'd have found that owing to your mazed foolishness in leaving the gate open a while back, Huggins' cow got in, an' the daring hussy ate our Machaelmas daisies down to the roots afore I could force her out again. All the same, we'll do something, else Sarah Jane won't send us a memorial card; and I like to see them black-edged cards stuck in the parlour looking-glass. They be good for us, and remind us that a time will come when they'll be printing ours."

"Leave that to me," said Philip. "Not your card--God forbid!" he added hastily, "but the wreath. I thought well of poor Friend--very well--a most hopeful creature. 'Twas only back-along, at his grandchild's christening, that me and him had a great tell over things in general."

"If 'tis a boughten wreath, I'd be wishful to put a shilling from my savings to it," said Susan. "I'm terrible fond of Sarah Jane, and she'll be cruel sad for him."

They rolled the morsel of other folks' sorrow upon their tongues.

Mrs. Weekes surprised nobody by deciding to attend the interment. A funeral was an event she rarely denied herself, if it was possible to be present. She found the ceremony restful and suggestive.

"You and me will go, Jar," she said. "You can't come, master, because you'll have to be on your rounds against market-day. But Jar and me will stand for the family."

"And me," said Susan. "I can borrow a bit of black easily from a lot of girls."

"I want to go," began Philip. "I really want to go. As a rule funerals ban't all to me they are to you, my dear; but this is out of the common. Yes, I must ax of you to let me go, out of respect to poor Friend."

Thereupon Mrs. Weekes took the opportunity and her voice rose to a familiar and penetrating pitch.

"Nought to you if we starve," she began. "You--amusing yourself on Friday of all days--and the people along your beat waiting and wondering, and coming down on us next week for damages; and me going empty-handed to market Saturday, to be the laughing-stock of Devon and Cornwall; and----"

Here Philip, with deprecatory attitudes, withdrew.

For once the man stood firm, and having started on his rounds at dawn upon the burial day of Gregory Friend, he was able to pay final respect to the peat-master and be numbered with the mourners.

Their company was small, but among them stood one most unexpected. Hilary Woodrow had sent a wreath the night before, and its beauty occasioned comment and admiration among those who saw it; but that he should come to the funeral was a great surprise. Come he did, however, and attended the opening portion of the service; but he did not join the party in the churchyard.

Brendon waited to see the grave filled; then he returned to his wife. She went with her little boy to the house of Mrs. Weekes after the funeral; and there he presently found her.

Hephzibah insisted on Sarah Jane drinking a glass of brown sherry, while the child ate a sponge-cake.

"Pale sherry-wine be right at a funeral--not dark," said the market-woman; "but, at times like this, the right and wrong of such a small thing really don't count for much to a sad heart." Then she turned to Gregory, the child.

"You darling boy! Behaved so beautiful, he did, with his curls a-shining like gold over his poor little black coat! 'Tis one in ten thousand, as I said from the first. I could wish vicar had read the lesson himself, instead of letting schoolmaster do it. But Churchward's always turned on to the lessons nowadays. 'Tis like a bumble-bee reading, to my ear. And Farmer Woodrow there too! Fancy that!"

Sarah Jane nodded. She had suffered very bitter grief in this loss, but she showed little of it except to her husband. Only he knew the extent and depth of her sorrow. He had asked her not to come to the funeral, but she chose to do so. Pale and dry-eyed, Sarah Jane endured. Of her sorrow very little appeared. She lacked her husband's faith, and strove with poor success to pass the barrier, or see herself in her father's arms when life's day was done.

She drank the wine and brushed the crumbs from her baby's frock and face.

"He wrote Daniel a very beautiful letter--Mr. Woodrow, I mean. He don't think about death like my husband do; but the letter made even Dan think. 'Twas deep, lovely language," she said.

"He'll be meat for the grave himself if he ban't careful," answered Mrs. Weekes. "A poor, starved frame and hungry eyes, though there's a wonderful gentlemanly hang about his clothes. Something be burning him up in my opinion--we all mark it. Jarratt says 'tis his harmful ideas about religion; I say 'tis a decline. I told the man so to his face last week, when I went over to see Susan; and he laughed in his gentle way, and said he was all right. Still, I don't like his look--more don't John Prout."

Sarah Jane listened, but she knew a good deal more about Hilary Woodrow than any other living creature save himself. Little by little there had risen an intimacy between them--not of the closest, yet of a sort beyond friendship. She met him by appointment, now here, now there. To this extent she lived a double life, since Brendon heard nothing of these occasions. Woodrow talked of going away for the winter, but she knew that he would never do so. The days when he did not see her were blank days to him. He often spoke warmly of Brendon and of the future that he designed for him. He longed to make her presents, but could not. Now thinking upon almost the last words that her father had spoken to her, Sarah Jane determined to throw herself upon Hilary's goodness and honour. But she reckoned without his passion.

That night, while Brendon slept beside her, she turned and turned sleepless, with a wet handkerchief rolled up in her hands. She mused upon the dear dust in the churchyard, and the living man beside her, and of that other who thought waking, and dreamed sleeping, of none but her. How did she regard him?

For a month after her father's death Hilary Woodrow spared her, and she appreciated his self-denial. But during the days he saw her not he revealed a constant and steady thought for her. He had continued speech with Daniel, and Sarah Jane noted that Brendon's enthusiasm for his master grew as Woodrow's trust in him increased. Then she saw Hilary again herself, and his flame leapt the fiercer for their weeks of separation.