Chapter VI: Wattern Oke

When Daniel Brendon stepped out of the world into church, a change came upon his spirit, and he had the power of absorbing himself in religious fervour. He lived under the permanent sense of a divine presence, and when life prospered with him and nothing hurt or angered him, the labourer's mind was cheered by the companionship of his Maker. Only if overtaken by a dark mood, or conscious of wrong-doing, did he feel solitary. The experience was rare, yet he faced it without self-delusion, and assured himself that when God forsook his heart, the fault was his own.

In a temper amiable and at peace he kept the Sunday appointment with Gregory Friend. During morning worship he had heard a sermon that comforted his disquiet, and served for a time to mask from his sight the ambitions proper to his nature. He had been told to do with his might the thing that his hand found to do; he had been warned against casting his desires in too large a mould; he had heard of the dignity of patience.

Brendon's mind was therefore contented, and as he strode through the evening of the year's work and marked the sun turn westward over a mighty pageant of autumn, he felt resignation brooding within him. Nature, for once, chimed with the things of his soul and blazoned a commentary upon the cherished dogmas of his faith.

He stood where the little Rattle leapt to Tavy, flung a last loop of light, and, laughing to the end of her short life, poured her crystal into a greater sister's bosom. Sinuously, by many falls, they glided together under the crags and battlements of the Cleeve; and the September sun beat straight into that nest of rivers, to touch each lesser rill that threaded glittering downward and hung like a silver rope over shelf of stone, or in some channel cut by ancient floods. Their ways were marked by verdure; by sphagnum, in sheets of emerald or rose, orange or palest lemon; by dark rushes, stiffly springing, and by the happiness of secret flowers. Heath and grey, granite shone together; a smooth, green coomb stretched beside water's meet, but beyond it all was confusion of steep hills and stony precipices. Over their bosoms the breath of autumn hung in misty fire, while strange, poised boulders crouched upon them threateningly and sparkled in the sun. Haze of blue brake-fern shimmered here and burnt at points to sudden gold, where death had already touched it. Light streamed down, mingling with the air, until all things were transfigured and the darkest shadows abounded in warm tones. The ling still shone, and its familiar, fleeting mantle of pale amethyst answered the brilliance of the sky with radiant flower-light that refreshed the jewels of the late furze by splendour of contrast. The unclouded firmament lent its proper glory to this vale. Even under the sun's throne air was made visible, and hung like a transparent curtain over the world--a curtain less than cloud and more than clarity. It obscured nothing, yet informed the great hills and distant, sunk horizon with its own azure magic; it transfused the far-off undulations of the earth, and so wrought upon leagues of sun-warmed ether that they washed away material details and particulars. There remained only huge generality of light aloft, and delicate, vague delineation of opal and of pearl in the valleys beneath.

The rivers, spattered with rocks and wholly unshadowed, ran together in a skein of molten gold. Behind the murmuring hills they vanished westerly; and though these waters gleamed with the highest light under the sky, yet even in the dazzling force of sheer sunshine, flung direct upon their liquid mirrors, were degrees of brilliance--from the pure and steady sheen of pools, through splendour of broken waters, up to blinding flashes of foam, where the sun met a million simultaneous bubbles and stamped the tiny, blazing image of himself upon each.

Sunshine indeed poured out upon all created things. It lighted the majesty of the hills and flamed above each granite tower and heather ridge; it brightened the coats of the wandering herds and shone upon little rough calves and foals that crept beside their mothers; it touched the solitary heron's pinion, as he flapped heavily to his haunt; and forgot not the wonder of Vanessa's wings, nor the snake on the stone, nor the lizard in the herbage. Each diurnal life was glorified by the splendour of day; and when there fell presently a cloud-shadow, like a bridge across the Cleeve, it heightened the surrounding brilliance and, passing, made the light more admirable. Upward, like the music from a golden shell, came Tavy's immemorial song; and it echoed most musical on the ear of him who, crowning this vision with conscious intelligence, could dimly apprehend some part of what he saw.

Daniel seated himself on rocks overlooking the Cleeve. His massive body felt the sun's heat strike through it; and now he stared unblinking upward, and now scanned the glen upon his right. That way, round, featureless hills climbed one behind the other, until they rose to a distant gap upon the northern horizon where stood Dunnagoat cot against the sky. Low tors broke out of the hills about it, and upon their summits, like graven images, the cattle stood in motionless groups, according to their wont on days of great heat.

Brendon rose presently, stretched himself, and, seen far off, appeared to be saluting the sun. Then he turned to the hills and passed a little way along them. His eye had marked two specks, a mile distant, and as they approached they grew into a man and woman.

Gregory Friend, with his daughter, met Daniel beside a green barrow. He shook hands and remarked on the splendour of the hour. The peat-man had put off his enthusiasm with his working clothes. He wore black and appeared somewhat bored and listless, for the week-days only found him worshipping.

"He hates Sabbaths," explained Sarah. "To keep off his business be a great trouble to him; but he says as we must mark the day outwardly as well as inwardly. So he dons his black, an' twiddles his thumbs, an' looks up the valley to the works, but holds away from 'em."

She wore a crude blue dress that chimed with nothing in nature and fitted ill. Brendon, however, admired it exceedingly.

"'Tis very nice 'pon top of Wattern Oke, if you care to come so far," he said.

They returned to the place where Daniel had sat.

"I'll spread my coat for 'e, so as you shan't soil thicky lovely gown," he suggested to Sarah Jane.

"No call to do that, thank you. I'll sit 'pon this stone. I'm glad you like the dress. I put it on for you to see. My word, 'tis summer come back again to-day!"

The labourer was fluttered, but could think of nothing to say. Both men smoked their pipes, and Friend began to thrust his stick into the earth. They spoke of general subjects, then Daniel remembered a remark that the other had made upon their first meeting. He had no desire to hear more concerning peat; but his heart told him that the theme must at least give one of the party pleasure, and therefore he led to it. Moreover, he felt a strong desire to please Gregory, yet scarcely knew his reason.

"You was going to give me a little of your large knowledge 'bout Amicombe Hill, master," he said, after an interval of silence.

Mr. Friend's somewhat lethargic attitude instantly changed. He sat up briskly and his eyes brightened.

"So I was then; and so I will. To think that within eye-shot at this moment there's more'n enough fuel to fill every hearth in England! There's a masterpiece of a thought--eh? If people only realized that.... And Amicombe Hill peat be the very cream and marrow of it all--the fatness of the land's up there--better than granite, or tin, or anything a man may delve in all Dartymoor."

"Not a doubt of it--not a doubt," said the listener; but Sarah Jane shook her head.

"Don't you encourage him, Mr. Brendon, or I'll not have you up the hill no more. Ban't six days a week enough for one subject? Can't us tell about something different Sundays?"

"Plenty of time," answered her father. "Peat's a high matter enough in my opinion. If us knowed all there is to know about it, us should see nearer into the ways of God in the earth, I'm sure. There's things concerning Amicombe peat no man has yet found out, and perhaps no man ever will."

"On week-days he lives up to his eyes in the peat, an' 'pon Sundays he preaches it," said Sarah. "That is when any man's silly enough to let him," she added pointedly.

Her father began to show a little annoyance at these interruptions.

"You'd best to go and walk about, an' leave me an' Brendon to talk," he said.

"So I will, then, my dear," she answered, laughing; "an' when you've done, one of you can stand up on a rock an' wave his handkercher; then I'll come back."

To Daniel's dismay, she rose and strolled off. Friend chattered eagerly; Sarah Jane's blue shape dwindled, and was presently lost to sight.

For half-an-hour the elder kept up a ceaseless discourse; but, since Daniel did nothing more than listen, and scarcely asked a question to help the matter, Gregory Friend began to tire. He stopped, then proceeded. He stopped again, yawned, and relighted his pipe.

"That's just the beginning about peat," he said. "But don't think you know nothing yet. My darter knows more than that--ignorant though she is."

"Not ignorant, I'm sure. But--well, shall I tell her that, just for the present, we've done wi' peat, or would you rather----?"

Gregory felt that Brendon had fairly earned a respite and reward. Moreover, the sunshine was making him sleepy.

"Go an' look after her," he said. "An' come back to me presently. I'll have forty winks. Nought on earth makes me so dog-tired as laziness."

Daniel was gone in a moment, yet, as he strode whence the girl had disappeared, he found time to ask himself what this must mean. He had never looked round after a woman in his life. Women about a place made him uneasy, and acted as a restraint on comfort. He knew nothing whatever concerning them, and was quite content to believe the opinions of John Prout: that, upon the whole, a man might be better single. Yet this woman had interested him from the first moment that he saw her; he had thought of her not seldom since; he had anticipated another meeting with interest that was pleasure.

He crossed Wattern Oke, then looked down where Tavy winds beneath the stony side of Fur Tor. A bright blue spot appeared motionless at the brink of the river. Daniel, feeling surprise to think that she had wandered so far, hastened forward and, in a quarter of an hour, stood beside her. She smiled at him.

"I knowed you'd come for me," she said. "There was that in your face made me feel it. You was sorry when I went off?"

"So I was then."

"I rather wanted to see if you would be. It shows friendship. I like men to be friends with me. I often wish I'd been born a man myself--'stead of a woman. I'm such a big maiden, an' awful strong--not but what I look more than a fly beside you. You could pick me up in they gert arms, I reckon?"

"I suppose I could for that matter. I carried a pig yesterday--lifted un clean up an' got un on my back; but it took two other chaps to move it. 'Twas Agg and Tapson. 'Here, let me get to his carcase,' I said; an' I lifted it clear into the butcher's cart, while they two was wiping their foreheads!"

She nodded with evident approval.

Suddenly his slow mind worked backwards.

"All the same," he said, "I didn't ought to have mentioned your name in the same breath with a pig. 'Twas a hole in my manners, and I hope you'll overlook it."

Sarah Jane laughed.

"What a man! Where was you brought up to? Ban't many so civil in these parts."

"I was teached to be civil by my mother. But I know nought beyond my business--not like Mister Woodrow. He has grammer-school larning, an' London larning, and reads books that I can't understand a word about."

She told him of her own childhood, of her mother, of her few friends.

"Girls don't seem to like me," she said. "I hardly know above half-a-dozen of 'em. There's Minnie Taverner to Lydford, and Mary Churchward--nobody much else. Mary's brother's nearly as big as you be. But t'others I used to know, when I went to school, are all married or gone to service now."

"Very interesting," said Daniel. "I never had but one sister. She's down to Plymouth--a greengrocer's wife there."

They talked freely together, and presently rose and set out to rejoin Mr. Friend. Under their feet Daniel suddenly saw a piece of white ling, and stopped and picked it.

"May I make bold to ax you to take it?" he said. "'Tis an old saying that it brings fortune."

"Then I won't accept of it," she said. "Thank you all the same; but fortune's in the wind for me already; an' I don't want it very much. I'm happy enough where I be along with my father."

"Tell me about the fortune," he said, flinging the heath away.

Thereupon she reminded him that, despite her masculine aspirations and amazing frankness, she was a woman after all.

Her eyes fell, then rose to his face again. A glorious, gentle, gentian blue they were.

"You want to know such a lot, Mr. Brendon," she said.

He was crushed instantly, and poured forth a string of apologies.

"You all do it," she answered. "I don't know what there is about me; but you chaps get so friendly--I feel as if I'd got about fifty brothers among you. But there's things you can't tell even brothers, you know."

"I'm terrible sorry. Just like my impudence to go pushing forward so. I deserve a clip on the side o' the head--same as my mother used to box my ears when I was a little one, an' hungry to ax too many questions."

Mr. Friend was awake and ready to walk homeward. Daniel accepted an invitation to tea, and accompanied them.

They ascended slowly by the steep channels of the Rattle-brook, and presently Gregory rested awhile.

"I can't travel same as once I could," he explained. Then he moralized.

"The world's an up an' down sort of place, like this here fen," he said. "Some holds the good and evil be balanced to a hair, so that every man have his proper share of each; but for my part I can't think it."

"The balance be struck hereafter. That trust a man must cling to--or else he'll get no happiness out of living," answered Daniel; and the other nodded.

"'Tis the only thought as can breed content in the mind; yet for the thousands that profess to believe it, you'll not find tens who really do so."

"I'm sure I do," asserted Brendon.

"At your time of life 'tis easy enough. But wait till you'm threescore and over. Then the spirit gets impatient, and it takes a very large pattern of faith to set such store on the next world that failure in this one don't sting. If I am took from yonder peat works afore their fame be established to the nation, I shall go reluctant, and I own it. There'll be nought so interesting in Heaven--from my point of view--as Amicombe Hill."

"You'll have something better to think of and better to do, master."

"Maybe I shall; but my mind will turn that way, and I shall think it terrible hard if all knowledge touching the future of the place be withholden from me."

"We shall know so much of things down here as be good for our peace of mind, I reckon?" ventured Daniel.

"'Twould be wisht to have all blank," declared Sarah Jane. "Take the mothers an' wives. What's the joy of heaven to them if they don't know things is going well with their children an' husbands?"

"'Tis almost too high a subject for common people, though I could wish for light upon it myself," said her father.

"Of course they know!" cried the woman. "Don't you believe as mother holds us in her thoughts and watches our goings? Such a worrying spirit as hers! Heaven wouldn't be no better than a foreign country, where she couldn't get letters, if you an' me was hidden from her."

Daniel felt uneasy.

"Knowing what she knows now, she would be content to leave it with God," he said.

"Not her," answered Sarah Jane. "A very suspicious nature, where those she loved was concerned."

"True. My wife could believe nought but her own eyes. She was built so. That's why she never would share my great opinions of Amicombe Hill. A very damping woman to a hopeful heart. A great trust in arithmetic she had; but for my part nought chills me like black figures on white paper. You can't draw much comfort from 'em most times."

"I'm like her," said Sarah Jane. "All for saying what I think. Father here's a dreamer."

"Hope's very good to work on, however; I hold with Mr. Friend there."

"Not so good as wages," said Sarah Jane.

"Sometimes in my uplifted moments I've wondered whether truth's made known to my wife now, and whether, looking down 'pon Dartymoor, she knows that I was right touching Amicombe Hill, and she was wrong," mused Gregory.

"Perhaps she knows she was right and you are wrong, my old dear," suggested Sarah Jane.

But her father shook his head.

"I ban't feared of that," he answered.

After a cup of tea, Daniel Brendon made a faltering proposal, and met with a startling reply.

"I wonder now, if you and Miss here would take a walk along o' me next Sunday?" he asked. "I'll meet 'e where you please. And I'm sure I should be terrible proud if you could lend me your company."

"I can't--not next Sunday," declared the girl. "'Tis like this: I'm going to Lydford to spend the day along with the Weekes family. And Jarratt Weekes be going to ax me to marry him."

Dan's eyes grew round.

"Good Lord!" he said, with surprise and reverence mingled.

"That's what the man's going to do, if I know him. 'Tis all planned out in his mind. I could most tell the words he'm going to say it in--knowing him so well as I do."

A natural question leapt to Brendon's lips, but he restrained it. He wanted to ask, "And shall you take him?" but resisted the burning temptation. This news, however, was a source of very active disquiet. He drank his tea, and was glad when Gregory Friend broke the silence.

"And you'll do well to think twice afore you say 'yes,' Sarah Jane. A successful and a church-going man. A good son, I believe, and honest--as honesty goes in towns. But----"

"I'd never get a husband if I waited for you to find one, faither."

"Perhaps not. Good husbands are just as rare as good wives."

"Then--then perhaps Sunday after----?" persisted Brendon, whose mind had not wandered far from the mam proposition.

"Perhaps," answered Sarah Jane. "You'm burning to hear tell what I shall say to the castle-keeper--ban't 'e now?"

"Who wouldn't be--such a fateful thing! But I know my manners better than to ax, I hope."

"I don't know what I'm going to say," declared she. "D'you know Jarratt Weekes?"

"No, I don't."

"Does anybody to Ruddyford?"

"Most of 'em know him."

"What do they say about him?"

Brendon hesitated.

"Can't answer that: wouldn't be fair to the man."

"You have answered it!" she said, and laughed.

A moment later he took his leave and strode slowly over the hills. So absorbed was he, that he did not watch his way, and presently tripped and fell. The accident cleared his mind.

"This be a new thing in me," he thought. "That blessed, lovely she's bewitched me, if I know myself! She'll take the man, no doubt. And yet--why? Such a face as that might look as high as a farmer at the lowest."