Chapter V: The Keeper of the Castle

The former glories of Lydford have long since vanished away; yet once it was among the most ancient of Devon boroughs, and stood only second to Exeter in credit and renown. Before the Norman Conquest Lydford flourished as a fortified town; when, "for largeness in lands and liberties" no western centre of civilization might compare with it. But hither came the bloody Danes by way of Tavistock, to consume with fire and sword, and raze this Saxon stronghold to the ground. From these blows the borough recovered, and upon the ruins of the settlement arose a mediæval town wherein, for certain centuries, there reigned a measure of prosperity. The late Norman castle belonged to the twelfth century. It was a true "keep" and a stout border fortress. Within its walls were held the Courts, beneath its floors were hidden the dungeon, of the Stannaries. From the Commonwealth until two hundred years ago, the castle lay in ruins; then a partial restoration overtook it; Manor and Borough Courts were held there; prisoners again languished within its walls. But when Prince Town rose, at the heart of Dartmoor's central wastes, all seats of local authority were moved thither; Lydford Castle fell back into final neglect, and the story of many centuries was ended.

To-day this survival of ancient pride and power lies gaunt, ruined, hideous, and, in unvenerable age, still squats and scowls four-square to all the winds that blow. From its ugly window-holes to its tattered crown there is no beautiful thing about it, save the tapestry of nature that sucks life from its bones and helps to hide them. Grass and ferns, hawkweed, sweet yarrow, toadflax, and fragrant wormwood thrive within its rents and crevices; seedling ash and elder find foothold in the deep embrasures; ivy mantles the masonry and conceals its meanness. The place sulks, like an untamable and unlovely beast dying. It reflects to the imagination the dolours and agonies of forlorn wretches--innocent and guilty--who have pined and perished within its dungeons. Now these subterranean dens, stripped to the light, are crumbling between the thumb and forefinger of Time; their gloomy corners glimmer green with moss and tongues of fern and moisture oozing; briars drape the walls from which hung staples; wood strawberries, like rubies, glitter among the riven stones. Windows and a door still gape in the thickness of the walls; and above, where once were floors, low entrances open upon air. In the midst extends a square of grass; aloft, a spectator may climb to the decayed stump of the ruin, and survey Lydford's present humility; her church, dwarfed largely by the bulk of the castle; her single row of little dwellings; the dimpled land of orchards and meadows round about her; and the wide amphitheatre of Dartmoor towering semi-circular to the East.

Fifty years ago, as now, the village straggled away from the feet of the castle under roofs of grey thatch and tar-pitched slate. Many of the cottages had little gardens before them, and one dwelling, larger than the rest, stood with a bright, rosy-washed face, low windows and low brow of grey thatch, behind luxuriance of autumn flowers. To the door of it there led a blue slate path, and on either side smiled red phloxes, bell-flowers, tiger-lilies with scarlet, black-spattered chalices, and pansies of many shades. A little golden yew, clipped into a pyramid, stood on one side of the door; upon the other sat a man peeling potatoes.

Philip Weekes was short and square and round in the back. His black beard, cut close to the chin, began to turn white; his hair was also grizzled. His cheeks were red and round; his large grey eyes had a wistful expression, as of eyes that ached with hope of a sight long delayed. His voice, but seldom heard, was mournful in its cadence. Now Mr. Weekes dropped his last potato into a pail of water; then he picked up the pail, and a second, that contained the peelings. With these he went to the rear of his house. It was necessary to go out through the front gate, and as he did so a friend stopped him.

"Nice weather, schoolmaster," he said in his mild tones. "Very seasonable indeed. And I observe your son up at the ruin with a party every time I pass. He must be doing well, Mr. Weekes."

"Nothing to complain about, I believe; but Jarratt--to say it friendly--is terrible close. I don't know what he's worth, Mr. Churchward."

"I expect your good lady does, however."

The father nodded.

"Very likely. I ban't in all their councils."

The schoolmaster--a tall, stout man, with a pedagogic manner and some reputation for knowledge--made no comment upon this speech, but discreetly pursued his way. He stopped at the Castle Inn, however, for the half-pint of ale he always allowed himself after morning school. The little public-house stood almost under the castle walls; and beyond it rose a bower of ancient trees, through which appeared the crocketed turrets of St. Petrock's. Adam Churchward was a widower and enjoyed high esteem at Lydford. People thought more of him than the vicar, because though of lesser learning, he displayed it to better advantage and denied himself to none. He was self-conscious under his large and heavy manner, but he concealed the fact, and nobody knew the uneasiness that often sat behind his white shirt-front and black tie, when accident threatened the foundations of his fame.

As he emptied potato peelings into a barrel, there came to the master of this flowery garden a wild and untidy brown maid, easily to be recognized as the runaway Susan.

"Pleace, Uncle Phil, aunt says if you've done them 'taters she'd like 'em to see the fire, if us be going to have dinner come presently."

"They'm done," he said. "I be bringing of 'em."

A voice like a guinea-hen's came through the open door.

"Now, master, if you've finished looking at the sky, I'll thank you to fetch a dollop o' peat. An' be them fowls killed yet? You know what Mrs. Swain said last Saturday? Yours be the bestest fowls as ever come into Plymouth Market, Hephzibah,' she said. 'I'd go miles for such poultry; an' you sell 'em too cheap most times; but if your husband would only kill 'em a thought sooner, to improve their softness----' 'He shall do it, ma'am,' I said; but well I knowed all the time I might so soon speak to a pig in his sty as you--such a lazy rogue you be."

"I'll kill 'em after dinner--plenty of time."

"'Plenty of time'! Always your wicked, loafing way. Put off--put off--where's that gal? Go an' sweep the best bedroom, Susan. 'Plenty of time.' You'll come to eternity presently--with nothing to show for it. Then, when they ax what you've been doing with your time, you'll cut a pretty cheap figure, Philip Weekes."

Her husband exhibited a startling indifference to this attack; but it was the indifference that an artilleryman displays to the roar and thunder of ordnance. His wife talked all day long--often half the night also; and her language was invariably hyperbolic and sensational. Nobody ever took her tragic diction seriously, least of all her husband. His position in the home circle was long since defined. He did a great deal of women's work, suffered immense indignities with philosophic indifference, and brightened into some semblance of content and satisfaction once a week. This was upon Saturday nights, when his partner invariably slept at Plymouth. Her husband and she were hucksters; but since, among its other disabilities, Lydford was denied the comfort of a market, they had to seek farther for customers, and it was to Plymouth that they took their produce.

Every Friday Mr. Weekes harnessed his pony and drove a little cart from Lydford into Bridgetstowe, through certain hamlets. He paid a succession of visits, and collected from the folk good store of eggs, butter, rabbits, ducks, honey, apples and other fruit, according to the season. His own contributions to the store were poultry and cream. He had one cow, and kept a strain of large Indian game fowls which were noted amongst the customers of Mrs. Weekes. On Saturday the market woman was driven to Lydford Station with her stores, and after a busy day in Plymouth, she slept with a married niece there, and returned to her home again on the following morning.

This programme had continued for nearly forty years. On rare occasions Philip Weekes himself went to market; but, as his wife declared, "master was not a good salesman," and she never let him take her place at the stall if she could help it.

Hephzibah was a little, lean woman, with white, wild locks sticking out round her head, like a silver aureole that had been drawn through a bramble-bush. She had bright pink cheeks, a long upper lip, a hard mouth with very few teeth left therein, and eyes that feared nothing and dropped before nothing. She was proud of herself and her house. She had a mania for sweeping her carpets; and if at any moment Susan was discovered at rest, her aunt instantly despatched her to the broom. After a good market Hephzibah was busier than ever, and drove her niece and her husband hither and thither before her, like leaves in a gale of wind; if the market had been bad, the strain became terrific, and Susan generally found it necessary, to run away. Mr. Weekes could not thus escape; but he bowed under the tempest, anticipated his wife's commands to the best of his power, and contrived to be much in the company of his Indian game fowls. After each week of tragical clacking and frantic sweeping Saturday came, and the peace of the grave descended upon Mr. Weekes. During Saturday he would not even suffer Susan to open her mouth.

"'Pon Saturdays give me silence," he said. "The ear wants rest, like any other member."

While his wife's shrill tongue echoed about her corner of the market-place and lured customers from far, he sat at home in a profound reverie and soaked in silence. By eventide he felt greatly refreshed, and generally spent an hour or two at the Castle Inn--a practice forbidden to him on other days.

"Go," said Mrs. Weekes; "go this instant moment, afore dinner, an' kill the properest brace you can catch. If you won't work, you shan't eat, and that's common-sense and Bible both. Mrs. Swain said----"

Her husband nodded, felt that his penknife was in his pocket, and went out. The poultry-run stood close at hand at the top of Philip's solitary field. Sacks were nailed along the bottom of the gate, to keep safe the chicks, and a large fowl-house filled one corner. As the master entered, a hundred handsome birds, with shining plumage of cinnamon and ebony, ran and swooped round him in hope. But he had brought death, not dinner. A gallows stood in a corner, and soon two fine fowls hung from it by their long yellow legs and fulfilled destiny. Then Mr. Weekes girt an apron about him, took the corpses into a shed, spread a cloth for the feathers, sat down upon a milking-stool and began to pluck them.

Meantime the other occupant of his home had returned to dinner. Jarratt Weekes, the huckster's son, came back from his morning's work at the castle and called to his mother to hasten the meal.

"There's quite a lot of people about to-day," he said, "and a party of a dozen be coming up at three o'clock to look over the ruin."

"Then you must make hay while the sun shines," declared Mrs. Weekes.

Hephzibah's only child had now reached the age of forty, and the understanding between them was very close and intimate. Reticent to all else, he found his mother so much of his own way of thinking, that from her he had no secrets. She admired his thrift, and held his penuriousness a virtue. Despite her garrulity, Mrs. Weekes could keep close counsel where it suited her to do so; and neither her son's affairs nor her own ever made matter for speech. They enjoyed an inner compact from which even the head of the house was excluded. Jarratt Weekes despised his father, and failed to note the older man's virtues. The castle-keeper himself could boast a personable exterior; but he was mean, and his countenance, though not unhandsome, betrayed it. He loved money for itself, and had saved ever since he was a boy. His clean-shorn, strongly featured face was spoiled by the eyes. They were bright and very keen, but too close together. He looked all his years by reason of a system of netted lines that were stamped over his forehead, upon his cheeks and round the corners of his lips. He lent money, ran sheep upon Dartmoor, and was busy in many small ways that helped his pocket. He paid his mother five shillings a week for board and lodging; and she tried almost every day of her life to make him give seven-and-six, yet secretly admired him for refusing to do so. He was of medium height, and in figure not unlike his father, but still straight in the back and of upright bearing.

Jarratt sat down at the kitchen table, while his mother made ready a meal for him. The room was empty, and overhead sounded the regular stroke of Susan's broom.

"Glad you're alone," he said, "for I wanted to talk a moment. I saw Sarah Jane to Bridgetstowe yesterday. She'd come down with a message from her father. Sunday week she's going to take her dinner with us. Then I shall ax her."

Mrs. Weekes nodded, and for a moment her tongue was silent. She looked at her son, and a shadow of something akin to emotion swept over her high-coloured cheeks and bold eyes.

"What a change 'twill be! I suppose you'll take the house to the corner? Mrs. Routleigh can't hold out over Christmas."

"Yes, I shall take it. But there's Sarah Jane to be managed first."

"Not much trouble there. She ban't a fool. She'll jump at you."

"You're not often wrong; but I'm doubtful. Sarah's not like other girls. She don't care for comfort and luxury."

"Give her the chance! She's young yet. They all like comfort, and they all want a husband. Quite right too."

"She can have her pick of twenty husbands--such a rare piece as her."

"Them pretty ones all think that; an' they often come to grief over it. They put off choosing year after year till suddenly they find 'emselves wrong side of thirty, and the flat chits, that was childern yesterday, grown up into wife-old maidens. Then they run about after the men they used to despise. But the men be looking for something younger by that time. You men--the years betwixt thirty to forty don't hit you; and what you lose in juice an' comeliness, you make up at the bank. But ban't so with us. There's no interest on good looks--all the other way. These things I've told Sarah Jane myself; so be sure she knows 'em. You'm a thought old for her: that's my only fear."

"Would you go at it like a bull at a gate, or wind round it? She knows well enough what I feel. Why, I gived her a brooch that cost five shillings and sixpence come her last birthday."

"Dash at her! She's the sort that must be stormed. Don't dwell over-much on the advantages, because she's too young to prize 'em. Catch fire an' blaze like a young 'un. They like it best that way. Don't take 'no' for an answer. 'Twas a dash that caught me; though you'd never think it to see your father now-a-days."

He listened respectfully.

"I'm not the dashing sort, however."

"No, you ban't. Still, that's the best way with she. Many a woman's been surprised into saying 'yes.' Do anything but write it. Sarah Jane wouldn't stand writing. For that matter, 'tis a question if she can read penmanship. An ignorant girl along of her bringing up."

"Good at figures, however; for Gregory Friend told me so."

"What does he know about figures? Still, 'tis very much in her favour if true."

Mrs. Weekes now went to the window and looked out of it. Down the street stood an ivy-covered cottage where two ways met. Beside it men were working in the road.

"The water-leat will run through your back orchard, won't it?"

"Yes; I'd counted upon that. The new leat goes from one side to t'other. 'Twill be a great source of strength and improve the value of the property."

"The sooner you buy the better then--afore Widow Routleigh understands--eh?"

He hesitated a moment, then confessed.

"I have bought," he said.

"Well done you! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was going to. But keep silent as the pit about it. Only me, an' her, and her lawyer knows. As a matter of fact, I bought before the leat got near the place. I knowed 'twas coming; they never thought of it."

"You'm a wonder!"

She looked at the house destined for her son and his bride.

"You won't be far off--that's to the good. You an' me must always be close cronies, Jar. Who else have I got?"

"No fear of that."

She went to the oven, put a stew upon the table, and lifted her voice to the accustomed penetrating note.

"Dinner! Dinner! Come, master! Us can't bide about all afternoon for you. Susan, get down house, will 'e, an' let me see the dustpan. I know what your sweeping be like--only too well."

Mr. Weekes received a volume of reproaches as he entered five minutes later, and took his place at the head of the table.

"I've been plucking fowls, an' had to wash," he said.

"Then I hope to God you chose the right ones. Mrs. Swain _will_ have 'em the same size to a hair. If they come to table a thought uneven, her pleasure's spoilt. And the best customer I've got in the Three Towns. But what do you care...? Susan, you dirty imp, can't you... Tchut! If your parents don't turn in their graves, it ban't no fault of yours...!"

So she played chorus to the banquet. How Mrs. Weekes ever found time to eat none knew.