Chapter IV: Sympathy

Sarah Jane Friend's eyes opened wide to see so mighty a stranger approaching with her father. But he was of their own class, for his raiment proclaimed him. Therefore the woman left the doorstep and walked a little way to meet them.

Of purest Saxon type was she. One might have guessed that some strain of blood from the Heptarchy had been handed onward through the centuries, unalloyed with any Celtic or Norman addition. So did not the aboriginal Danmonii look; for the women who herded in the old granite lodges aforetime and logged the stoneman's babies in a wolf-skin were swarthy and small. Sarah Jane stood five feet ten, and was fair of face. Her hair shone of the palest gold that a woman's hair can be; her skin was white. Only the summer suns and the wind from the ocean warmed it to clear redness. When winter came again and the light was low, her face grew pale once more. But pallid it was not. Health shone in her radiant blue eyes and on her lips. She revealed great riches of natural beauty, but they were displayed to no artificial advantage, and her generous breast and stately hips went uncontrolled. She was clad in a dirty print gown, over which, for apron, hung an old sack with "Amicombe Peat Works" stamped in faded black letters across it. Her sleeves were rolled up; her hair was wild about her nape.

Mr. Friend had found Daniel to his taste, for a steadfast listener always cheered him and made him amiable.

"This be Mr. Daniel Brendon," he said. "He'm working to Ruddyford, and comes up with a message. Give us a drink o' cider."

Sarah nodded, cast a swift glance at the labourer, and returned to her house.

"Won't come in--I be in such a muck o' dirt," declared Dan; but the other insisted.

"Peat ban't dirt," he said. "'Tis sweet, wholesome stuff, an' good anywhere."

They sat at a deal table presently, and Gregory's daughter brought two large stone-ware mugs decorated with black trees on a blue ground. She poured out their cider and spoke to the visitor.

"How do 'e like it down-along then, mister?"

"Very nice, thank you kindly," he answered, looking into her eyes and wondering at the colour of them.

"John Prout's a good old chap," she said.

"So he is, then. Never met a better."

"How his sister can keep all you men in order I don't know, I'm sure."

"She's a very patient creature. Here's luck, Mr. Friend."

He turned to the peat-master and lifted his mug. Gregory thanked him.

"You'm an understanding chap, seemingly; though they'm rare in the rising generation. What's your work to Ruddyford?"

Dan's face fell.

"To be plain with you, not all I could wish. Master 'pears to think a man of my inches can't be no good in the head. He puts nought but heavy work upon me--not that I mind that, for I can do what it takes two others to do--to say it without boasting, being built so. But I'm an understanding man, as you be good enough to allow, and I'd hoped that he'd have seen it, too, and let me have authority here an' there."

"Of course," said Sarah Jane. "If you can do two men's work, you ought to have the ordering of people."

"But a big arm be nought nowadays, along o' steam power," he explained. "I haven't a word against Tapson, or Agg, or yet Lethbridge: they'm very good fellows all. But, if I may say so without being thought ill of, they'm simple men, and want a better man to watch 'em. Now such as they would bide here, for instance, and talk the minute-hand round the clock--from no badness in them, but just empty minds."

He rose and prepared to go.

"Your parts will come to be knowed, if you're skilled in 'em and bide your time," said Mr. Friend; "though if you balance patience against the shortness of life, 'tis often a question whether some among us don't push patience too far. I've been patient too long for one; but that's because I can't be nothing else. I've told 'em the great truth--God knows. But ban't my part to lead. I must obey. Yet, knowing what I know about Amicombe Hill, 'tis hard to wait. Sometimes I think the Promised Land ban't for me at all."

"I should hope the Promised Land was for all of us," ventured Daniel.

"That Land--yes. I mean yonder hill, bursting with fatness."

He waved up the valley in the direction of the peat works.

They came to the door and Sarah spoke again.

"I should think Mr. Woodrow wouldn't stand in your way. He rode up to see father last year, and was a very kindly man, though rather sorrowful-looking."

"He is a kindly man," said Brendon, "and a good master, which we all allow. But he'm only half alive, so to say. At least, the other half of him be hidden from us. He'm not one of us, along of his education. A great reader of books and a great secret thinker."

"I'm sure he'll come to know your vartues, if he's such a clever man as all that," said Sarah Jane frankly.

The compliment took Daniel's breath away. He laughed foolishly.

"'Tis terrible kind of you to say so, and I thank you very much for them words," he answered.

The father eyed them, and saw Mr. Brendon's neck and cheeks grow red. The young men often revealed these phenomena before his daughter's good wishes. She was amiable and generous-hearted. Her exceedingly sequestered life might have made some women shy; but to her it lent a candour and unconventional singleness of mind, that rendered more sophisticated spirits uneasy. The doors of her nature were thrown open; she almost thought aloud. Numerous suitors courted her in consequence, and a clown or two had erred before Sarah Jane, because they imagined that her good-natured interest in their affairs must be significant and special. Brendon, however, was not the man to make any such mistake. He departed, impressed and flattered at her sympathy; yet his mind did not dwell upon that. He sought rather to think a picture of her young face, and strove to find a just simile for her hair. He decided that it was the colour of kerning corn, when first the green fades and the milky grain begins to feel the kiss of summer.

A man cried to him before he had gone more than a hundred yards from Dunnagoat Cottage, and, rather gladly, he retraced his steps. But Sarah Jane had disappeared, and Mr. Friend was alone. Gregory advanced to meet him as he returned.

"I like you," said the elder. "You'm serious-minded and might wish to hear more about the truth of peat. What do you do of a Sunday?"

"I go to church mornings; then there's a few odd bits o' work; but I've nought between three o'clock and supper."

"Next Sunday, if the day's fine, I'm going over to Wattern Oke."

"I know the hill."

"You can meet me an' my darter there an' have a tell, if you mind to."

"I'm sure nothing would please me better, Mr. Friend--'tis a very great act of kindness to propose it."

Gregory nodded and said no more, while Brendon, gratified by the invitation, went his way.

He had no thought for the immensity of the earth vision now rolling under his feet. His eye turned inward to regard impressions recently registered by memory. Friend's strange, peat-smeared face, his shining beard, and wild eyes; Sarah Jane's neck and shoulders and straight back; her hands that held the cider-jug; her voice, so kindly--these things quite filled the man's slow brain.

Of a devout intensity under religious influence, Brendon's strenuous nature developed less favourably beneath pressure of mundane affairs. He could be passionate and he could be harsh. He found it uncommonly difficult to forgive injury, and sometimes sulked before imaginary injustice. He was somewhat sensitive and given to brooding. He knew his own good qualities, but while too modest to push them, felt secret sense of wrong when others failed to discover them swiftly. Like all men, he delighted to be taken at his own valuation; but though his humility would not publish that valuation, yet, when his cause was not advanced, he resented it and made a grievance of neglect.

It was early at present to predict his future at Ruddyford. The place proceeded automatically. Nobody was ambitious of power, or of work; each did his toll of toil, and all were friends. Nominally Mr. Prout ruled; in reality the little commonwealth had no head under the master. In time of rare disputes John Prout laid down the law and none questioned him. Few difficulties arose, for Woodrow paid well and kept the farm in a state of culture unusually high. A very rare standard of comfort prevailed, and neighbours always held that Hilary Woodrow was rather an amateur, or gentleman-farmer, than one who lived by his labours and worked for bread. But none could say of him that he neglected his business. He knew the possibilities of Ruddyford, spent only upon the land what it was worth, and devoted the greater part of his money and care to raising of sheep and cattle.

Brendon strode down the great side of Hare Tor, then suddenly perceiving that he was walking out of his way, turned right-handed. The wind blew up rain roughly from the south, and separate cloud-banks slunk along the hills, as though they hastened to some place of secret meeting. Daniel passed down among them, and was within a hundred yards of the farm, when Prout, on a grey pony, met him.

"You've seed Friend and told him about the peat?" he asked.

"Ess; 'twill be ready--'tis ready now, for that matter."

"A curious human be Greg Friend," commented Mr. Prout. "Peat! Why, he's made of peat--body and bones--just the same as me an' you be made of earth. He thinks peat, and dreams peat, and talks peat--the wonder is he don't eat peat!"

John Prout lived alone in a cottage thirty yards from the main building of Ruddyford. It contained four rooms, of which he only occupied two. Now and again Tabitha insisted upon tidying up for him, but he dreaded her visitations, and avoided them as much as possible.

Brendon stopped at his door, and John spoke again before he alighted.

"Not but what Friend isn't a very good sort of man. The peat's a bee in his bonnet, yet never an honester or straighter chap walked among us. He looks to Amicombe Hill to make everybody's fortune presently."

"He calls it the Promised Land," said Daniel.

"He do--poor fellow! He's out there. It don't promise nothing and won't yield nothing. They bogs have swallowed a long sight more solid money than anybody will ever dig up out of 'em again; and 'twould be well for Greg's peace of mind if he could see it; but he won't. He goes messing about with his bottles and bellows, and gets gas and tar out of the stuff, and makes such a fuss, as though he'd found diamonds; but 'tis all one. Peat's good, but coal's better, and God A'mighty meant it to be. You can't turn peat into coal, or hurry up nature. She won't be hurried, and there's an end of it."

"He've got a fine darter, seemingly."

Mr. Prout laughed.

"Ah! you met her--eh? Yes, she's a proper maiden--a regular wonder in her way--so open, and clear-minded as a bird. Never yet heard a girl speak so frank--'tis like a child more than what you'd expect from a grown-up woman. But ban't she lovely in her Sunday frill-de-dills! I was up over last spring, and drinked a dish of tea with 'em. Lucky the chap as gets her--bachelor though I am, I say it."

"Be she tokened?"

"A good few's after her, I believe; but there's only one in the running. I mean Jarratt Weekes to Lydford--the castle keeper there."

"I know the man--why, he's old!"

"Doan't you say that. 'Tis hard thing for my ears to hear. If he's old at forty, what be I at sixty-five? I won't let nobody say I'm old, Daniel!"

"Old for her, I mean. There must be best part of twenty year between 'em."

"It often works very well an' keeps down the family."

"Can't fancy her along with that man."

"She won't ax your leave, my son. But her father's rather of your mind, I fancy. Gregory never did like Jarratt Weekes--nor any of the Weekes breed, for that matter. Jarratt was spoiled as a child. He'm the only son of his parents, and more hard than soft--just as you would expect the child of Hepsy Weekes to be. She's stamped herself upon him."

"Us'll be late for dinner if us talk any more; though what you tell me is very interesting," answered Brendon.