Chapter IV: Part 4

"You'm lookin' whisht this mornin', missis, what's the matter with 'ee?"

Jim Rosevear had brought two faggots of tamarisk wood for the cloam oven. His shy glance, taking in every corner of the now brightening kitchen, had assured him that Gray was not present; and, putting that main preoccupation momentarily aside, he had leisure to note that Mrs. Byron's face was haggard, that she looked older, more worn, than he had thought. It followed that she must be ill and for illness he had always a solicitous word.

After that revealing look Leadville had walked quietly past his wife out of the house. His dark thoughts, his secret hopes had risen to the surface. He had held them in for months but, in the end, they had escaped from him in a glance.

His footsteps died away on the hard mud of the yard, the warm silence fell again over the kitchen and, in the midst of it, a modern Lot's wife, Mrs. Byron sat strangely still. The steam died off the surface of the water, the sun crept a little farther into the room and the untidy pile of breakfast crocks gave back a glint here and a dazzle there. Mrs. Byron was undeniably shaken. Her poor hands were trembling and now and again a quiver passed over the rubicund cheeks. It was as if the woman would have wept, as if only a summer rain could have dissolved the ice at her heart, but as if the source of tears had for too long been dry.

At the sound of the yard-man's voice she raised eyes which, though tearless, were dim. Jim seemed a long way off but kind and human. She was old enough to be his mother and, like a mother who has secret sorrows, she answered him.

"I'm down in the dumps to-day, terr'bly. 'Aven't got any 'eart for nothing."

"Can I do anything for 'ee, missis?"

Being the eldest of a 'long tail,' he was used to doing odd jobs for a woman; and, at Treketh, his mother, dependent now on the unsatisfactory help of younger boys, sent him daily a regretful thought. Jim had been so handy, so good-natured.

Rousing herself, Mrs. Byron looked about. "You might light up the fire in the cloam oven for me, Jim, there's a good sawl."

Breaking a faggot apart he filled the oven with bushes and set a light to them. The smoke curled up the black chimney and little flames ran along the brittle wood. When the earthenware sides were sparkling hot the oven would be ready for the tins of bread, the cakes and pasties which were to feed the household during the ensuing week.

"Anything else I can do for 'ee while oven's hettin'?"

Mrs. Byron's eyes were the brave frozen blue of the seafarer and wistfulness was not possible to them, nevertheless Jim was conscious of that quality in their gaze. The son of a cross-grained father, words were not needed to tell him that the Byrons had had a difference. He moved deftly about, emptying the cool water and replacing it with hot, setting out the array of loaf tins and filling a scuttle. He was glad to be of use. It made him think of happy evenings with his mother, made him wonder which of the elder boys, Sidney or Charley, was carrying coal and water for her and what hand they made of it.

"Anything else, missis?"

She had watched him unseeingly, but with a growing sense of comfort. "I'm in better 'eart now you've helped me so." She would have this young man at hand to help her in all her future difficulties and the thought was reassuring. "'Tis near time for 'ee to be goin' into Stowe. Gray's all but ready."

As if she had been called, the girl opened the door of the linhay. At sight of Jim, a sight by no means unexpected, her pale-tinted face bloomed like an opening rose.

"Good mornin', Jim. You're late." If only he had come one little half-hour sooner!

He was looking spruce in clean shirt and new tie, a fresh smooth-skinned youngster. "Well, my dear," he said awkwardly, "I 'ad a lot to do this mornin' before I could come away."

"Jim 'ad to put 'is best bib and tucker on," said Mrs. Byron. Her interest in these opening lives helped her to push her anxieties into the background. Never one to nurse a grief, she smiled at the boy and girl, glad to be looking at a morning face.

"I'd thought," said Gray, and in her voice was a regret he could not fathom, "you'd be earlier, so as to take the chickens and eggs."

"Well, to tell 'ee the truth," the young man threw himself on her mercy, "I went down in the orchard to see if I could find a few vi'lets for yer. I want yer to look vitty to-day." He stepped back into the porch, returning with a little posy. In the West, flowers bloom the year round, and these were scented violets.

"Oh, Jim," said the girl, taking them--and could say no more. The violets were a charming thought; but if he had only known what hung on his keeping to the arrangement he had made with her the previous day, to come to the linhay after breakfast!

"Your uncle wants to go in with yer," said Mrs. Byron, making an effort to speak of the matter with her customary cheerfulness, "but I bain't goin' to let'n go." She was rewarded by a grateful glance from Gray, a glance which laid for all time the incipient doubts of a natural jealousy. "Now Jim, by the time you've tackled up Lady, Gray'll be ready. My dear," she turned to the girl, standing dreamily by the table, the violets in her hand, "'av you finished the butter?"

In the warm air of the kitchen the flowers were giving forth their scent. "Yes, and packed it," said Gray, raising the posy to her face. It had been dearly bought.

"Couldn't find your dress anywhere this mornin'. What 'av 'ee done with it?"

"Aunt Louisa carried it to ma's, and ma said I'd better come up there and dress."

Mrs. Byron looked disappointed. "P'raps 'tis best," she said, common sense triumphing as was usual with her, over the longing for a little personal gratification, "still I should like to 'av seen the costume."

"Well, I'll wear it down to-morrow for you to see."

"Iss, my dear, do."

The girl looked affectionately at the older woman, conscious for a moment of her disabilities and her still young heart. "I wish you could come, auntie."

"You don't wish it more'n I do." She shook her head, but in her eyes the old smile was relit. She had resigned herself and with her, when a decision was reached, the natural thing was to turn from it to the next item on the programme of life. "Now, my dear, you must make haste and clear off," she said, beginning to roll up the sleeves of her blue cotton gown. The day promised to be busy and it was high time the young people were on their way. She did not even wait until Gray was out of the room before reaching down for the 'springing' dough. The oven was nearly ready, but she was all behindhand. That would never do.

The atmosphere which Mrs. Byron diffused was so practical, so reassuring that it had soothed her young cousin's natural distress. As the girl walked quickly away to the room they shared, though she could not altogether forget the scene with Leadville, she remembered that she was about to escape from his importunities; and, though an occasional shudder still shook her, she encouraged herself to think of other, happier things and in particular of the errand upon which she and Jim were bound. Gray was bidding good-bye to Wastralls, at least for a time; and the green box she had brought with her had been packed ready for him to fetch away. For immediate necessities however she was taking with her a brown leathern bag, which had been given her by her aunt and which bore the initials G.R., initials Gray was never to change.

In an otherwise empty drawer lay a little pile of garments of superfine quality and workmanship; and for these, after cleansing herself from the stains of butter-making and household work, the girl exchanged her everyday clothes. Jim had made her a moleskin cap and necklet and in the latter, she pinned the little bunch of violets.

"It don't seem hardly possible!" she said dreamily, on her return to the kitchen, where Mrs. Byron was kneading the dough.

Memory carried the older woman back to a like day in her own life. "Well, my dear," she said, from the other side of Time's river, "you'll know all about'n by to-morrow." She contemplated the blushing girl for a moment then turned to practical matters. "Did you think about bringin' out the list for groceries?"

"Never thought nothing about it." She ran off, returning with a blue-lined page, torn from a penny account book.

"Whatever you do, don't 'ee forget yer uncle's pipe."

No man shall instruct deaf ears or open the eyes of the blind. Already Sabina's optimism was reasserting itself. She had exaggerated the import of her husband's look. Leadville, poor chap, had been disappointed and had shown it. No need for her to make 'the worst of a bad bargain.'

Christmas is a time of good-will and Christmas was coming. She had noticed he was in need of a new pipe and who knew whether such an offering might not prove a milestone on the difficult road to reconciliation?

"No, I won't forget," said Gray, who saw the commission as yet another instance of nobility exercised towards the entirely undeserving. She kissed her aunt warmly. "You are a darlin'," she said. "I feel awful to leave you to do all this work," she glanced from the dough to the bread-tins, "I can't bear going."

"Well, my dear," Sabina felt the pleasantness of this young and partisan affection, "'tis only for a little while. Richbell will do so well as she can."

"Richbell'll never think to make your cocoa of a night or to get your hot-bottle and make you comfortable."

"Please God, I'll 'av you back again soon. Now you go on and be 'appy and don't you think about me. I shall be all right. There--" she glanced through the diamond panes of the window, "the mare's being tackled up, make haste."

A slight frost had hardened the mud of the yard and above St. Cadic Mill the December sun had risen into a sky of little far-off clouds. Between the shafts of the wagon stood Lady, the young mare, glad to exchange the warm dark stable for the adventure of the public road. Jim Rosevear, in well-brushed clothes and with a tie that matched the blue of his eyes, was fastening the last buckle as Gray came out, with a basket of eggs and butter in one hand and her bag in the other. A larger basket, containing poultry, was already in place and, beside it, lay a piece of broken mechanism which was to be left at the smithy. As the girlish figure stepped out of the dark house Leadville, who, with frowning brow, had been watching the preparations, came forward. Gray had a momentary qualm; but saw with relief that he had not made any change in his dress. In old clothes and without a collar even Leadville, though he set many conventions at defiance, would not think of going to Stowe.

"Hullo!" said he, "what be yer gwine do wi' that bag?"

"I'm going to stay home to-night."

"'Ome? This is yer 'ome 'ere."

"Well, I'm going to stay to mammy's for a change," she spoke lightly, willing to placate him and hasten her escape.

"I think you ought to 'av ask me if you can stay 'ome or no." He had stepped between her and the wagon; and his eyes had the smouldering light which she had learnt to dread.

With her heart fluttering, she controlled her voice to a pleasant, "Well, what is there to hinder me?"

Her docility appeased him. After all she was only going to the butter market.

"Well, can I? Can I stay to mammy's?" asked the singing voice with its rising inflexion on the last word.

"I s'pose you can," he said reluctantly. "You can go if you'm a good maid and bring me back something."

"I'll bring you back something that'll surprise you," promised Gray, her eyes soft and smiling, but an edge of malice under her tongue.

He towered over her, ardent and dominating. "There's only one thing I want and that you know."

She knew and was both angered and afraid. In vain she tried to think of Leadville as wicked, for her he was worse than that, he was terrifying. She did not know what he might do, whether there was any limit.

Jim having finished harnessing the mare, came up on the other side of the wagon. Gray, glancing aside from her tormentor, saw his courageous eyes and took heart of grace. She had a protector and this was the last time, the very last, that she would be at Leadville's mercy.

"Come now, Uncle Leadville," she said and her young voice, carrying across the wagon, dissipated an incipient jealousy, "I want to be gone."

He drew back as if he had received a blow and, in a moment, the girl was climbing nimbly to her place on a bag of chaff which Jim had placed ready. As she turned, a little anxious as to the effect of her words, but glad on any terms to have got away, she was met by a black scowl of wrath. "Mind I never 'ear yer call me that again."

With a graceful swing, Jim sprang on to the rail of the wagon and the mare, fresh from her oats, began to move. Gray, secure at last, looked down on Byron with an air of innocent inquiry and the lad beside her smiled. For some time he had had a suspicion that the other was more attentive to her than became a married man; and this suspicion had stimulated a wooing which might otherwise have seemed too tame.

As the wagon wheels turned, Leadville perforce gave way, but unwillingly, for in his heart was suspicion, a fear of all men, a shaking terror lest one should have been before him. The memory of her supple yielding form yet thrilled him with its promise. For a moment she had abandoned herself and though she had drawn away at once the yielding had betrayed her. Gray was no longer a chrysalis of cool dim life and unfolded wings. Emotion was quick in her, she was ready for full experiences, the blue sun-warmed air and the flight. Instinct, teaching Leadville she was no unawakened maid, was brought up short by the word she had flung at him. Uncle? What did it mean? Had some younger man dared to approach her? Had she listened, listened because he was the first and young love is sweet? Was there some light fancy that must be extinguished before she could be wholly his? Surely not. Surely she had meant to mark the gulf between herself and Sabina's husband, to point out to him that he was married. The theory explained her momentary yielding, her quick withdrawal, her words. He smiled to himself. If Gray imagined that, because long ago he had gone through a form of words with another woman, they were to bind him now that for the first time in his life he loved with passion, she should learn that she was mistaken. As soon as she returned to Wastralls, he would show her in what estimation he held the worn unwelcome bond.

From the low window of the kitchen Mrs. Byron had watched the scene. Jim's handsome head had been bent over the mare's shiny coat as he thrust the tongues of the buckles through the brass. He moved easily and well, for life had not yet taken advantage of his strength and she saw him as a proper lad. When Gray came out, Mrs. Byron felt a motherly pride in the little rounded figure, the soft fair face between the furs of cap and necklet. "An' she've pinned they vi'lets on, trust her for that."

Leadville's appearance cast a shadow on the scene. In the bright winter sunshine he loomed up, a threatening unhappy figure, the incarnation of a desire which might not be gratified. The light fell on his uncovered head with its thick black hair, on his muscular figure, growing heavy with years but still a wonder for its strength, on his eager face. Sabina, in a reaction from the blow she had received, felt that the time was come for her to assert herself. Anxious not to drive him farther away she had played a gentle self-obliterating part and she felt that in doing so she had made a mistake. She would grasp her nettle more firmly, let him know that Gray was bespoken. Conscious, as she went, of envy, she began to push herself towards the porch. What a thing it was to have an old body, a body that had 'gone abroad' and a young heart! Jim and Leadville hung about Gray with the same hope. Sabina, for all her vitality and strength, had no longer anything to give. She was old and done, while Gray, to them and every man, was incarnate promise.

The wagon was turning out of the gate as Mrs. Byron reached her husband's side and the off-wheel rose over a stone. The body of the cart swayed and lurched and Gray, with a little cry, caught at Jim Rosevear's arm.

Byron swore fiercely. "If anything 'appen to her I'll wring his neck."

"You needn' fear. He'll take care of she."

The man turned and stared at the distorted figure in the cone of basket-work. He had not heard her come up but his mind was too deeply occupied with other matters for him to be startled. "Why?"

"Because they'm courtin'."

She had thought it would be difficult to tell him but the words sprang out of her resentment at the way in which she, struggling with difficulties, she who should have met with consideration from her husband, had been treated.

"Courtin'?" repeated Leadville and his swarthy skin turned a dull grey. The wagon was rattling up the road at a good pace, the cheery sound of hoofs and wheels and voices growing fainter as it turned towards Hember. The man stared after it and about him was the falling of dream castles, of built-up theories, false hopes. He had heard the truth and could not turn his back on it, could not refuse it credence. He knew, now, that Gray's response that morning had been to Jim Rosevear and not to himself. The pieces of the puzzle fitted. He was momentarily stunned by the revelation. Only when he realized that they were driving away together did he come to himself. The vision of their propinquity was intolerable and he started to run towards the gate.

"I won't let'n go with 'er."

Sabina raised her voice. "'Bain't a bit of good for 'ee to interfere. They'm to 'Ember by this time."

From the gate he could see the wagon had been stopped and that Tom Rosevear was lifting down his daughter. The family had gathered in the road and the younger girls were talking to Jim, doubtless giving him Christmas commissions. A little air of festivity pervaded the group, an air which as Leadville did not understand it, he found ominous. He wanted to rush up the road and seize and carry Gray off from among them, carry her away from Trevorrick, out of the complications of life there and, above everything, carry her away from Jim. For a desperate situation, desperate remedies. He did not mean to sit down under misfortune, to accept tamely the blows of destiny. All things come--not to those who wait, but to those who fight; and he who cannot fight for his mate is no man.

"They've been courtin' for months," said Sabina. "Anybody but you would have seen it, but you're never 'ome. You can't expect to know things when you'm out mumpin' around the cliffs like an old dog."

Gray had gone into the house, the big bold house on the hillside, with her mother; and Leadville turned back from the yard gate.

"I'll send 'un off neck and crop," he cried, ragingly. "He shall go to-night. He shall never stay 'ere on the place another night." His words came stammeringly, like liquid out of a bottle that is too sharply tilted. "I'll send'n goin' neck an' crop out of this, then we shall see."

"Iss, my dear," returned Sabina bitterly, "then we shall see. They'm courtin' and before long they'll be married--then we shall see; and when they'm married they'll live 'ere along with we, then we shall see."

But the unhappy man, unable to endure her words, had rushed blindly away.

*CHAPTER X*

Beyond Wastralls rose a line of black cliffs culminating in the high ground of Dark Head and, towards them, Leadville turned. No roads crossed these solitudes. Sheep cropped the fine herbage, sea-gulls built on the inaccessible ledges, tumuli and earthworks showed that man too had once sheltered here. Far inland an occasional grey homestead, in its nest of farm-buildings, could be discerned, while in clear weather the daymark was visible on Stepper Point. Otherwise the eye was given only the wide spaces of sky and sea and earth.

On the storm which had strewn the coast with wreckage had followed a land wind; and this had brought in the weed with which the coast-dwellers manure their sandy fields. The sea, in big unquiet rollers, fell heavily against the walls and islands of rock. It was dark with the slippery oreweed and, when the tide went out, the coves and bays would be ankle-deep in shining olive-brown masses. In that treeless wind-swept land however, the people look to the sea-harvest for more than weed. To the beaches drift beams that can be split into gate shivers; hatches, which put together, make a reasonable pig's house; chests and spars and miscellaneous wreckage. From cottage and hamlet the folks converge upon the coast and, at any other time, Byron would have stopped above the nearest sandy cove to shout down an offer for some of the piles of wood. Now he strode by, unconscious of the tiny carts being filled with planks and boxes, of the little figures intent on their grim work of salvage. The man was fleeing from the intolerable revelation that had been thrust upon him. He was closing his ears, his mind, his heart, seeking to delay the inevitable moment when he must give heed; yet with him, in the depths of his being, was carrying that from which he fled.

So obsessed was he with the desire to get away, to put space between him and that terrible prophetic voice, that he did not realize his solitudes had been invaded. He pressed on, crossing cliff-faces and climbing steeps. The crags, the wide prospect, the sea-unrest were familiar to him, this waif and foreigner who had come up out of the deep and could claim no place as home, no human being as of his blood. He was as safe among the crags as if he had been born to wings. The people, labouring far below, saw the grey figure on the heights and craned their necks to watch his perilous progress; and the salving of a good ship's bones went on more slowly because Leadville Byron, on a ledge six inches wide and cut away underneath, a ledge of black and crumbling slate, was risking a possession dear to no one but himself.

The man was coming to Dark Head as a hurt child rushes blindly to its mother. Hither had he fled after every difference with Sabina and here had he found a vastness, a changelessness, an impersonal peace upon which he could rest his little and tortured soul. His trouble was greater now. He was in the grip of powers which, if he could not escape from them, might break him. By climbing peaks on which cormorants had nested in a confidence hitherto secure, by ploughing through deep sands and up the slippery shale, by crazy leaps and a wild expenditure of force, he tried to exhaust himself. By so doing he might avoid, not only knowledge, but the sinister possibilities of his nature.

Dark Head is a narrow peninsula of rock which stands knee-deep in water. A green mane of turf ripples to the black edge and Leadville, scourged across the waste, came at last to a softness of thick untrodden grass. This was the world's end and behind lay the amazing cruelty of life. The great spaces were clean and they were sweet. The man strode to the sloping edge but, because he was not yet ready to surrender his atom of consciousness, drew back. For a moment he stood, looking vacantly across the breathing sea, then turned and flung himself upon the bed the ages had prepared. The grass, wind-swept and deep, yielded a little, closing about his heavy figure like the displaced water of a pool.

On a rock below, an oyster-catcher chattered disapproval but the gulls and shyer cormorants came back to their resting-places. The man was harmless and after the storm they must make the most of the sunshine. They stood about, preening themselves in the red light and above the southern hills but near them, the sun made the half-circle of the sky.

In moments of overwhelming emotion Byron, when the strain grew too intense, had hitherto passed into another state of consciousness. The sound of hammering had as it were, opened a door, beyond which was a bewildering peace. Forgetfulness had fallen on him like a garment and when he came back it was, always, to begin afresh. Sabina's words however, though they roused him to a frenzy of feeling, had not had the usual effect. He had not been able to escape.

Drowned in an agony that was elemental he lay on the cliff-top, supine and motionless; Sabina's bitter revelation had been like the pouring of vitriol over his heart. Loving for the first time in his life, loving with the passion of a highly emotional temperament, the hopelessness of his love had been thrust suddenly upon him. A disappointment so elemental, so profound, put him beside himself. His instinct was, somehow, to escape the ultimate pangs. He had fled before the flood, fled from himself, scrambled and sobbed himself across the cliffs until he came to rest, deep in the deep grass of the headland.

His exhaustion was so great that for some time he lay supine as the wreckage on the sands below. As the moments passed, however, consciousness began to return and with it, through the darkness of his mind flitted unhappy thought, a greyness here and there, a vague suspicion. By degrees Sabina's face detached itself from the background. He saw it resentful and defiant and, tired as he was, his gorge rose. The woman was for ever in his road. She had withheld Wastralls from him, now she would come between him and Gray. He saw again the strong lined face, the unlovely trunk; saw them with a dislike which had for some time been growing in intensity. Since her accident Sabina had been to him a death's-head, a creature which, without the power to enjoy, yet clung to its possessions; which, though its grave was yawning, persisted in dragging a repulsive mortality about the earth. A person with any decency of feeling, would have lain her down under the turf and slept the good sleep; but Sabina was neither dead nor alive. That trolly! He cursed it for the hideous thing it was and for the unseemly activity of which it was the symbol. He would have liked to break it in pieces. He would have enjoyed the wrecking and scattering.

Circumstances had put Sabina in opposition to him and had given her the upper hand; but if it came to a struggle he did not fear the issue.

Sitting up on his bed of grass he stared out to sea and, on the horizon, the ships went along and along, far off blacknesses, dim trails of smoke. He did not see them, was indeed unconscious of his material surroundings, but his mind was beginning to work. Behind Sabina's denying face he sensed the opposition of Gray's mother. Hitherto he had regarded Mrs. Tom as a friendly circumstance; but he knew she was shrewd and, in a small way, ambitious. Jim Rosevear of Treketh would be a satisfactory match. He had the promise of a good farm and was a steady chap. And Gray? Would she take her mother's penny shrewdness for wisdom, marry a young man for his youth, do the commonplace thing?

For the first time since the blow had fallen, Byron allowed himself to think of Gray driving away from him with Jim Rosevear. Suffocating with rage, he fell forward again upon the grass.

Such passion as that of Leadville Byron is the creative force at its human strongest and the man who feels it, recognizes in it something of the divine. He cannot doubt that he will be able to inspire in its object an equal flame; and he seeks, with a persistence worthy of its sacred object, for his opportunity. Byron had the most precious thing in the world to offer Gray and nothing, not her mother, not the hampering circumstance of a wife, not even her girlish preference for another man, would be allowed to stand in his way.

Noon found him by the yard gate of Wastralls. He had drifted back across the waste because the way was familiar to his wandering feet; and he reached the farm as the kitchen clock began to strike. The familiar sound, hoarse and creaking as the voice of an old person, carried across the sunshiny yard and the man stood to count the strokes. Twelve o'clock! Where had the morning gone? He rubbed his eyes like one waking out of sleep and, as he did so, became aware that a horse had been tethered to the staple and that beyond the horse, was a gig. The varnish of this threw off a hundred cheerful reflections while the buckles and bosses of the harness were of a highly polished brass. The glitter and hard cheeriness of the whole were like the sharp gleams of frost on a sunshiny winter morning. Byron recognized the gig as belonging to Dr. Derek of Stowe. Whenever other business brought him into the parish, the doctor was apt to drop in for a chat with his late patient. He liked her, but he had also a professional reason for coming. Her recovery had surprised him, for such vitality is unusual; and he meant to keep an eye on the case.

The farmer hesitated for a moment. He was not in a mood for talk. Nevertheless the force which had already set his feet upon a hidden road drove him forward and he took his accustomed way across the now slushy yard, straight to the porch. Clean blue flagstones ran by the hedge-gripe, turning at right angles along the side of the house; but, as Byron had once contemptuously said, "They were all right for cats and women, he wasn't afraid of a little mud."

As he opened the door the appetizing smell of new bread rushed out. Sabina had been baking and, on the side-table, stood a row of crusty loaves flanked by lightly piled splits while behind was enough white cake and saffron cake to carry the household over Christmas.

Byron stood for a moment, his bloodshot eyes scanning the place. The kitchen being a dark room, a new-comer required time to forget the sun. As his pupils widened, however, he perceived ensconced in Old Squire's big chair, a little man, rosy-gilled and grey-haired. This man was eating, with an air of pleasant enjoyment, a thunder-and-lightning split and, beside him on a stool, stood a cup of tea. Though Dr. Derek had been out all night he looked as if fresh from his bath; and no one could have supposed that this snack of new bread was in place of the breakfast he had missed. Opposite him, her unwieldy bulk seeming about to overflow the wicker cone of the trolley, sat Mrs. Byron, a quiet somewhat distrait figure. The contrivance had been made when she was a comparatively normal shape. Since then she had grown stouter, 'gone abroad'; and a new and roomier cone was becoming imperative. She looked tired after her morning's bread-making and her face had lost its jovial look. Over it a breath had passed, dulling the gaiety, wiping away even content, and the breath was one to which all of us, unhappily, can fit a name.

Dr. Derek looked up at the farmer's entrance. "Just come from Curvithick," said he, "and thought I'd look in on my way home."

Curvithick Farm, the mistress of which had been cheerfully expecting her thirteenth child, lay on the other side of the main road at the head of the valley. The land marched with that of Constantine Rosevear. "Maggie Martin 'av got a baker's dozen now then," said Mrs. Byron but she spoke without her usual interest in her neighbour's concerns.

"She's done better than that," and Dr. Derek helped himself to another split. "She's got twins!"

"Twins? My dear sawl and body, whatever they gwine do now with so many childer?"

"Twelve last night and fourteen this morning!" Dr. Derek looked pleased. He held that a declining birth-rate meant the opportunity of his country's enemies and was himself the father of five sons and four daughters. He was wont to declare blandly that he lived in the West because the women there had, on the whole, a sense of their duty to the empire.

"Boy and cheeld?" pursued Mrs. Byron.

"Yes, one of each kind, a pigeon pair." He beamed at her through round glasses, the rims of which had a yellow gleam, and passed his cup for more tea. "Your splitters are excellent, Mrs. Byron--but you," he shook his head, "what have you been doing with yourself?"

Sabina glanced at her husband who, after greeting the doctor, had seated himself heavily on the window-bench. The family physician has slipped gradually into the place of the family confessor and, if Byron had not been present, she might have taken Dr. Derek to a small extent into her confidence. As it was, she acknowledged her state without offering to explain it. "I don't feel very special. I be all any'ow to-day."

Not having seen her for some time Dr. Derek did not suspect that her wan looks and cheerless air were what a day had brought forth. Remembering the keen hearty cross-country woman of former days and contrasting her with this dulled stay-at-home, he found support for his theory that the amazing rally after her accident had been the last flicker of a strong vitality. She had gone downhill since he saw her last.

"You've been doing more than you should," and a glance at the array of loaves emphasized his words. "That heart of yours won't stand much, Mrs. Byron. A little extra strain, you know, and you'll find yourself in Queer Street."

Leadville who had been staring down at the gun which still lay across the table, turned his heavy eyes on the doctor. "'Tis no good tellin' 'er to stop, for she will carry on as long as she mind to. I tell 'er I'll do the out-o'-door work for 'er, but 'er won't listen, so 'tis so well I leave it drop."

The little bright doctor glanced from wife to husband and back again. With neat compact theories about everything, he held that Sabina's childlessness was the key to the situation. "Here's a man ready and willing to take the work off your shoulders! Why not make use of him? He'd save you all sorts of worries."

"I reckon he would," and Sabina covered bitterness with a smile. "He'd never say nothing about 'em. He'd keep 'em all to 'isself."

"Considering," retorted the doctor crisply, "that you have by no means regained your strength, surely that would be a good thing?"

Sabina shook her head. He did not understand and she could not explain. "I'd rather ride my own 'obby-'arse," she said vaguely.

"Don't overtax your strength then or you'll be sorry for it." After all, whether she should wear herself out quickly or rot by the chimney corner, was her affair.

Leadville withdrew his fascinated gaze from the gun. "Didn't I 'ear you say, last time you was 'ere, she ought to 'ave a operation?"

"I did, it wouldn't be a serious one, a matter of a week or so in hospital. What do you think, Mrs. Byron? To have it done would make you much more comfortable. Stronger too, I fancy."

But Sabina's recollection of the days after her accident, those days of pain and discomfort when she had hung conscious and half consenting on the edge of the void, was still clear. She wondered why Leadville should be showing this sudden interest on her concerns. Did he wish to get her out of the way again, so that he might be up to his tricks? Or did he think he still had a chance with Gray? She could smile to herself over his infatuation. It would not be long now before he realized its hopelessness.

"I don't like that old knife business," she said. "I'll live as long as I can and then I must die."

"This is hardly worth calling an operation."

"Thank you, doctor, I'll stay where I'm to."

"A wilful woman!" he said, rising. "Well, then, I must send you a tonic and Byron'll see that you take it."

"He's likely to," she said.

"Now come, Mrs. Byron, can't have you saying things like that. The person who is really interested in your getting better is your husband. You don't know what he was like when you were in hospital."

"I think," said she, with a little twitch of the lips, "as I can make a guess. But thank 'ee all the same, doctor."

Picking up his gun, Byron followed the doctor out of the house. The farmer might prefer to strike a path for himself but Dr. Derek had a feline dislike of dirt and wet. His patent-leather boots, small and pointed, twinkled in the sunshine as he stepped along the blue flagstones, and through his bright round glasses, his steel-blue eye shot an inquiring gleam at the man, padding heavily at his side.

Against that neat personality, Leadville's big frame showed rough and heavy. He was the hulking unshaven countryman, powerful as a bear and with a bear's light but ungainly walk. He did not attempt to accommodate his stride to the other's city gait but lounged along somewhere in his neighbourhood.

"The missis 'aven't been 'erself lately," Byron volunteered as they came up to the gate, "an' I wish you could make her do as you say. P'raps, next time you come, you'll try and persuade 'er?"

With his plans not yet matured, one way out of his difficulties was as good as another. If Sabina could be persuaded to return to the hospital for a time, he would only have to deal with Mrs. Tom.

The doctor climbed into the gig. "'Tis no good, Byron. When she says 'No' there's no moving her."

The farmer's vague gaze was fixed on the glittering harness but his heart sank. "I should like to have everything done that can be done," he growled in his deep voice.

"I know, my good fellow," comforted the other. "Well, don't let her do more than you can help and keep her diet as light as possible. Not too much pork, you know, and no heavy suppers."

"She won't be said by me," returned Byron.

"Well, well, one does the best one can and there's no more to be said. Wonderful case! Never thought she'd turn that first corner; yet, there she is, doing a day's work. It's a pity she's growing so stout. When I think of what she was!" With his small well-kept hands, the polished nails of which scattered tiny reflections of the light, he made a gesture of pity and regret. "The strength of a man, and now----"

Byron stepped back from the gig. "And now," he said grimly as the cob began to move, "now, she's a proper wreck."

*CHAPTER XI*

An hour later Byron came into the kitchen carrying a small dead seal. Climbing down by a little treacherous path, he had seen it lying at the mouth of a cave and for some minutes had stood to watch it. By means of an inner membrane it was clearing first one nostril of sea-water and then the other; and he had shot it while it was still unaware of him.

"What's become o' the furnace?" he asked. "I told George to leav'n by the hedge-gripe."

Sabina, though a farmer, preserved some feminine traits and in particular a love of tidiness. She was as clean as a cat and to see her yard churned up by the hoofs of the cattle, and the farm implements at the mercy of the weather, troubled her. The rusty furnace, an outdoor stove used for farm purposes and, in particular, to try out seal-oil, had been an eyesore and she had had it removed.

"'Tis out in the bullocks' house."

Leadville 'damned 'er up in the 'eaps for interferin' with 'is things'; but he spoke, not harshly so much as absent-mindedly.

"I'll 'av the place as I've a mind to," returned Sabina placidly. Her husband had often raged against the equable good nature which suffered without malice, as a mother surfers the unreasonableness of her child. Now he only muttered vaguely as he set the gun in its thongs over the door.

"Where's Dick to?"

"Drayin' oreweed." Sabina, who had manoeuvred the trolly close to the fender, had been nodding in the agreeable warmth. An indoor life had made her susceptible to cold and this afternoon she felt tired and ill. The emotions rather than the work of the day had exhausted her, and she had thought to snatch a few minutes' rest before Mrs. Tom, whom she was expecting to call on the way back from Stowe, should arrive.

"You'll catch afire one of these days if you keep on gruddlin' so," said Byron, with a fathering wish. Sabina could not follow his thought, in fact she mistook it for solicitude. It was long since he had shown any interest in her welfare. Could the doctor's visit, revealing that she was in a poor way, have brought her husband to a better mind? Like the rest of us she could not believe that it takes all sorts to make a world and, in the eyes of others, saw consequently only the reflection of herself. She looked hopefully at Leadville and at once he turned away, hanging his big head and balancing from one foot to the other. His mind was stirring, as the sand crawls under an army of ants. He felt the movement, was perhaps vaguely conscious of the direction in which he was going, but could not see the end; not yet.

A cart laden with glistening weed, wet and olive-brown, had come up from the beach. As Leadville lounged out of the porch he saw that Dick Bennett was the driver. The weed had been left by the receding tide, left ankle-deep in every sandy bay, strewn over the black rocks; a generous provision, enough for every potato-patch in the parish. Nor did the glossy slippery weed constitute the whole of the sea-harvest. Manure for the fields, wood for the kitchen fires and, what that wood had held--oranges and shelled walnuts, crates and bags and boxes--had floated in during the night. The sea had been good to the lonely dwellers on her coasts; and she had offered, in her own gruesome fashion, a Christmas gift.

"The furnace, maister? I knaw where 'tis to. Leave me empt up this and I'll get it for yer."

When the stove, red with rust, had been reinstated in the shelter of the hedge, Byron took up the limp body and began to prepare it.

"That's every bit of coal we got, till Jim bring 'ome some from Stowe," said Bennett as he poured a shovelful of round knobs, which had been salvaged from the sea, on to the furze bushes, and set them alight.

"There's plenty of wood there," grunted the other, "so we must burn that."

"I should think 'twas time Jim 'ud be back." The hind was a little mournful man with a grievance. He had seen Jim drive off that morning, in his Sunday suit, with a pretty girl for company; and he had felt that he himself, older in service, should have been sent. "But these young chaps, when they go an errand, they take good care they don't come 'ome very quick. Course," he added grudgingly, "'e can spend the day in Stowe without any trouble."

"Oh, shut yer mouth," cried the other savagely. The man's grumbling chatter had obliged him to remember that Jim Rosevear was with Gray. Till then, he had succeeded in keeping the thought of their proximity at the back of his mind. It had been difficult, but he had done it. Dick had made it no longer possible and the day in Stowe unrolled itself before his jealous eyes--the drive in, a drive of five good Cornish miles, the drive behind Lady who, though a good mare, was slow: the stall in the market where Rosevear would set up the trestles, help the girl arrange to the best advantage the eggs, the poultry, the pounds and half pounds of butter: the meeting after market on the Quay where, the wagon being loaded with coal and flour, they would leave Lady by the warehouse while they hurried from shop to shop, she buying and he carrying the parcels: finally the long drive home in the windy dusk. Leadville tortured himself with the thought of that drive, of Gray's softness and nearness, of the little face between the fur of cap and necklet, the little smiling face....

He had been skinning the seal. Much as less powerful men skin a rabbit, he had been tearing the coat, grey and damp, from the smooth pale body. A stone wall, five foot broad at the base and crowned with tamarisk bushes, is what in Cornwall is called a hedge. It is at least a shelter from the wind, and Dick Bennett had been careful to set the furnace in a lew corner. The furze bushes burnt with a crackle and above them the sea-coal smouldered slowly in large red lumps. The air in the yard was fresh but still, and through it, a warm reek, rose the smell of blood. It rose to Byron's nostrils, affecting him as it affects the children of the wild, rousing in him that primitive, long-forgotten, but deathless passion which claims survival as its right and, battling before the hosts that wait to be called across the threshold, stakes its life. Between his hands hung the limp body and he wrenched at the skin in a growing fury of impatience. His blunt dark-skinned fingers were foul and, as the sealskin slipped he noticed that a trickle of thickening blood had run down his palm on to the wrist. He stared at this from between narrowed eyelids for a second, then, stooping his big head, licked it away. The taste of it, salt on his tongue, further affected an equilibrium already unstable; and the beast which slumbers behind the arras of our civilization, which stirs with a faint growl at every shaking of that decent cover, that savage incalculable beast of the long past, awoke. The blood-lust rose in him. He forgot the presence of the bullock-man, the time, the place, everything but a sudden overmastering need. Something, he could not remember what, had defied him and it was of paramount necessity that this something should be done away with, destroyed, ground into the earth. To rend and crush had become obligatory, the vindication of his claim to live. The poor body of the seal was gone and in its place was an enemy who had been given into his hands. He caught up the carcass, seeing not it, but all he hated, all he was burning to destroy and the dismemberment degenerated from honest butchery into an orgy. Dick Bennett stood aghast. In the master's eye was a wildness which made the hind thankful he was even more inconspicuous than small. For once his querulousness was hushed. "The old devil pulled and dragged and 'acked as though 'e was mad," was his description afterwards of the scene. "'E fetched 'is spite out on the poor creature. It made me fairly sick to see 'im."

Bit by bit the crushed fragments of bloody flesh were cast into the cauldron; but as long as bone or sinew held together, Byron tore at the body with unabated passion. The last lump was flung in with the same fury of effort as the first; but as soon as his hands were empty, the mood passed. The sweat was on his forehead, his knees were knocking together and he was trembling, but he seemed unconscious of his condition. For some minutes he stood by the furnace staring vacantly into the bubbling depths but by degrees his breath came more evenly, and the suavity of successful effort began to wash over his tortured mind.

Daunted by his master's incomprehensible ferocity, the hind waited in the background; and, behind him again, the chickens picked and scratched and on the lichened roof the pigeons balanced in the sun. Byron was watching the formation of a large iridescent bubble. His eye dwelt languidly on the red and green transparence, on the smaller bubbles hurrying to its side; but as the film burst and disappeared he pushed the stirring-stick into the labourer's hand with a deep, "Mind you don't leave'n burn," and swung away. He was come fully to himself, a weary and a hungry self and he remembered that the dinner hour was long past.

The outer door of the linhay opened on to a paved drying-yard and, as he passed through, he stooped his head under a sagging cord with the practical man's comment that a new prop was needed. Trifles, common-place and wholesome, were distracting his mind. He felt cold, noticed that what little wind there was had gone round to the north, noticed too that above Dark Head the sky was flaming with a sunset of good augury. The short December day being so near its close, the linhay was dark; but the hungry man knew where to lay his hand on a rabbit pasty. He had shot the rabbits and brought them in--to Gray; and now Gray was--where? Behind him lay the old house with its many chambers and not one of them harboured her. For the first time he realized that without Gray, Wastralls was but an empty shell.

In a row on the shelf stood the loaves and, beside them, on a big white dish lay the pasties. Sabina had added onion and bacon to make them appetizing, parsley to give flavour, freshly dug potatoes to hold the gravy; and all was folded in a responsible crust. Her pasties were renowned; but Byron, satisfying his hunger, did not notice the quality of the food. He was still obsessed by his vision of the empty house. The barren years, when he had paced the friendly fields as a captive paces his cage, unable either to take action or to escape, had done their work. He had supported life on a meagre hope; but he was older now, less patient, had a shorter time left him in which to enjoy. The young Samson can afford to ask riddles and play tricks, it is the ageing man who, grown desperate, brings destruction upon the people. Standing by the shelf, eating hungrily but absent-mindedly, Byron presently became conscious of voices in the kitchen. For a moment his heart beat in swift anticipation. Was Gray back? He stopped eating to listen, but the voice which had suggested that of the young girl was older and had lost some of its West-country music. He recognized it disappointedly as that of the girl's mother.

Filling himself a mug from the pitcher of milk that stood on the flags, Byron drank. If Mrs. Tom were in the kitchen the little party must have returned from Stowe, and the thought was, in a way, reassuring. Gray would be at Hember now and Rosevear would have come on to Wastralls with the mare and cart. At least they were no longer together.