Chapter XIV: The Lonely Altars

Before noon on the day after Hilary Woodrow's death two men advanced towards Ruddyford farm. One went slowly on foot; the other rode as hard as his horse could carry him. While Brendon climbed White Hill and stopped for several minutes beside the cairns upon its summit, Jarratt Weekes leapt off his horse at the farmyard gate and hurried into the house.

He had learnt that Brendon was returning home from Lydford station, and he had instantly set out to go before him and give Sarah Jane warning. Not, however, until his arrival at Ruddyford did he realize the whole truth or appreciate the effects of his recent action.

It was Sarah Jane herself who told him, and his terror at the recital contrasted forcibly with her calmness.

"Agg broke all to me yesterday," she said. "My husband went to Dawlish to kill Woodrow. I want no words with you, nor any other man now. You can't alter what's got to be."

"For God's sake let me save you!" he implored. "'Tis murder on my soul for ever if he does you any hurt."

"See you to that," she said; then she turned to Tabitha Prout. "I know my way clear enough. The man's on the road. When he comes, you can tell him that I be gone up-along to the peat works, and have taken the boy with me. He'll understand."

She left them and went to her own cottage. There she took a pencil and wrote a few words on a piece of paper. The brief letter she folded up, put into an envelope, and addressed to Daniel. Next she called her child.

"Us be going up to the peat works, Gregory. Come along quick, my pretty."

"Hurrah!" said he; and as soon as Sarah Jane had put on her sun-bonnet, they started over the Moor for Great Links. Her letter was in her pocket. She knew that her husband must presently appear on the summit of White Hill; and from that point he could not fail to see her. She understood why he had come, and what he would do. No shadow of fear for herself clouded her understanding now. She perceived very fully what this terrific discovery must mean to Brendon, and unutterable grief for him was at her heart. Hilary had escaped, and she was thankful, both for Daniel and the dead. Now she went up through the unspeakable glories of a cloudless June day; and sometimes her hand tightened on the hand of her child.

Below, Agg, Weekes, and Lethbridge held earnest converse. The terror of Jarratt made the others contemptuous. "Give over shouting out to your God, you dirty cur," said Walter Agg. "Well may you shake in your shoes. If yonder man, as be coming now, was sane and not mad, 'tis you that he'd put out of the way, and I could hope that he will do so yet. To betray her--you blasted rogue! You'll be damned afore any of us for it--that's one comfort."

"'Twas never meant to turn to this--God's my judge, I didn't foresee any such thing."

"Get out of honest men's eyes and hang yourself, like the Judas you be. I would break your head this moment and rejoice in it, if I hadn't to keep my strength for yonder man."

"I can do no more," said Weekes. "I call you to witness that I comed here afore him to warn her. She might have escaped him if she chose to do it."

"Where be she now?" asked Lethbridge, and Tabitha Prout spoke.

"She went to her own house, so soon as she heard Daniel was on the way."

Weekes returned into the yard, where his horse stood. Then he pointed to the hill.

"He cometh!"

On the cairn, motionless, stood Brendon. They watched him, and presently he began to descend. Jarratt Weekes rode away. Agg took off his coat and tightened his belt.

"Be you going to help me withstand that man, Peter?" he asked calmly; but Lethbridge refused.

"No, I ban't," he answered. "I'll die in my bed a few years hence for choice. This be none of my business. You know him. The man of common strength that stands between him and her now will be broken for it. She might have been saved, but she wouldn't be, an' there's an end."

The great moment in Walter Agg's life had come.

"Broken, or not broken, I'll do what I can," he said.

They looked up the hill again to see that Daniel Brendon no longer approached them. He had caught sight of Sarah Jane far away, and already near the summit of Great Links. Instantly he changed his course, and proceeded directly over the Moor toward her.

Seeking the reason of his action, Agg and Lethbridge also marked Sarah Jane, now above a mile away on the heights.

"God Almighty, she's run for it--too late!" cried Lethbridge; but Agg had already left him. He knew that he could cut off Brendon, and started to do so. They met far below Great Links, and by the time that they did so Sarah Jane had already reached the summit. She sat there for a space, took her farewell of the world, drank her last draught of the glory of the summer sun and the splendour of the summer earth.

Like a dream picture painted in milk and gold, rich with magic light even in the pearly shadows, overflowing with the lustre and fervour of June, Devon spread before her feet and rolled in sunlit leagues to the horizons of the sea. There lacked no gracious beauty proper to that scene. It rose beyond perfection to sublimity, lifted her watching spirit higher than any praise; begot the serene, still sadness that reigns above all joy.

The mundane matter of Brendon's meeting with Agg interested her but little. Like the struggle of two ants it seemed in the midst of that huge loneliness. She saw the figures run together and turn and twist a moment. Then the lesser was shot violently away and fell sprawling. The prone atom writhed for a second and was still; the other came on.

"Poor Walter!" thought Sarah Jane.

Her heart throbbed farewell to the only world she had known; and, gazing upward, she was glad that the sky shone blue over her death.

As Daniel Brendon stood and gazed upon Ruddyford from the barrows of White Hill, he had suddenly recollected two former occasions when the distant farm spread before him with special significance. His first vision of it in storm came to his mind, and he remembered how that he had descended, and entered into the life of the place, and toiled mightily to advance the welfare of the farm and its master. Then came the moment when, fresh from reading Hilary Woodrow's will, he had gazed upon the land of promise and, by slow stages, grasped the tremendous truth that all he saw within these boundaries would presently be his own. Vividly he remembered that occasion, and how, lifted by the actual spectacle of Ruddyford, he had turned back again to the giver and renewed his gratitude. And now he looked upon his own, and called on his God to shatter it with lightning, to burn it with fire, to bury it and blot it out, like the cities of the plain. He hungered to be at the work, to tear its foundations from their granite roots, to blast the bed it lay on, to leave no trace upon earth by which man might remember it.

He moved a little way onward; then suddenly saw the woman and child. He stopped, shielded his eyes from the light and recognized them. The man felt glad that she understood why he had come. It was better to make an end up aloft on the lonely altars, than within the cursed confines of the farm. He knew that she was going to the peat-works; that she understood his coming. His mind was calm now and steadfastly settled to destroy her. He changed his course and proceeded leisurely towards Great Links. Already he said to himself that Sarah Jane should sleep beside her father and die where he died.

Then ran Walter Agg and stood against him and tried to stay him. The battle between them was not of long duration, and to the weaker man happened what Lethbridge foretold. He was flung down with terrific violence; he fell upon a rock and his leg was broken. Brendon left him there without any word and went on to the great hill. Presently he stopped, looked upward to the grey forehead of the tor, and he noted that his wife was sitting quietly there, watching him. Only then his soul sickened, and he found it in his heart to call upon God to spare her. For she sat very near the spot where first they had loved and worshipped each other. He hesitated, but strode on again; and presently she rose and disappeared.

A track over the heavy fens between the tor and the peat-works was known to Sarah Jane, and now she followed it, while her child ran on before.

Soon they entered the familiar ruin and took their way to the great drum. There, in dead heath and fern, little Gregory rested awhile; then he called for his favourite toy.

"Not yet, my dicky-bird," she said. "You've got something to do for mother first. Look over there--down to the end of the path--who be that coming after us?"

The child uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.

"Daddy! Daddy back home again!" he said.

"So it is, then. And I've got a letter here that you must take to him. Such a man you be now! Here 'tis--you run down along with it and tell him mother's sent it. Quick! How fast he's walking!"

She gave her child the letter and a long kiss. After that he trotted off to meet his father.

Sarah Jane watched him; then turned and took his toy from its hiding-place. It was the famous old knife which she had seen so often in her father's hand. The blade was blunt, but that mattered not, for her Roman spirit turned to the point.

"'Tis my heart did wrong," she said; "'tis my heart----"

The child ran to Brendon and jumped into his arms, as he was wont to do.

"A letter from mother, daddy," he cried; "I've carried it safe for 'e."

Deep soul movements had swept Daniel as he climbed to the crowns of the land. He began to ask himself questions; his heart shook and bled within him; he prayed to his God; he humbly implored his God; but no answer came. Therefore he went onward--since the Almighty's mind was unshaken. Then came the child, and he took the letter and doubted not that the Father of Mercy had, even at this last hour, dictated it to her who sent it. Now he was to learn what he must do. While he opened it he walked on, until he had reached within fifty yards of the ruin.

After he had read it, he stood still a moment and considered. He doubted not that his wife's eyes were upon him.

The letter was very short:--

"_My dear, they say you have come. I know. I'll spare you that.--Your true love._"

The man lifted his voice at last.

"I can't do it--God forgive me, I can't--I can't. Make your peace with Him, as I shall. Live out your life on your knees for ever, as I shall. I'm going. You shall never see me no more."

Then he spoke to the child.

"Get to your mother," he said.

Gregory, frightened at his face and voice, ran back as fast as he could go, and Brendon departed. But a moment later, when shrill shriek upon shriek cut his ears, he stopped, turned again, and went to his child; because he knew that the little thing was alone.