II

"I've changed my mind about 'e, Mary," said the wise woman. "I'm terrible unwilling to tell young people concerning the future as a rule—for why? Because the future of most people be cruel miserable, and it knocks the heart out of the young to hear of what's coming; but you'm a sensible girl, and don't want to go through life blind. And another thing is this: 'tis half the battle to be fore-warned; and a brave man or woman can often beat the cards themselves, and alter their own fate—if they only know it in time."

After all this rigmarole Charity Badge bade Mary take a seat at the table. Then she drawed the blind, and lighted a lamp; and then she fetched out a pack of cards and her seeing-crystal. 'Twas all done awful solemn, and Mary Tuckett without a doubt felt terrible skeered even afore t'other began. Then Mrs. Badge poured a drop of ink into her crystal—some said 'twas only the broken bottom of an old drinking glass; but I don't know nothing about that. Next she dealt out the cards, and fastened on the Jack o' hearts and the Jack o' oaks,[1] and made great play with 'em. And, after that, she sat and gazed upon the crystal with all her might, and didn't take her eyes off of it for full five minutes.

"Now list to me, Mary Tuckett," she says, "and try to put a bold face on what be coming, for there's trouble brewing for 'e—how much only you yourself can tell."

With that she read out the fortune.

"There's a dark, rich man after you, Mary. He's fierce as a tiger, and the folk don't like him, but he's good at bottom, and he'll make you a proper husband. But there's another chap who have more right to you according to the cards, and I see him in the crystal very plain. He's flaxen curled with a straight back and a fighting nose, and blue eyes. Very great at horsemanship seemingly, and he'll have you for a wife, so sure as death, unless something happens to prevent it. He's on the way to you this minute. He's the Jack o' hearts; and t'other man's Jack o' oaks. Now hold your breath a bit while I look in the crystal and see what happens.

"Good powers!" cried the girl, creaming with terror down her spine. "'Tis Nathan Coaker as you be seeing! I thought he'd forgot me a year agone!"

"Hush! Don't be talking. No, he ain't forgot you by the looks of it. Quite the contrary."

Mary went white as curds, and sat with her hands forced over her heart to hear what the wise woman would see next.

"Them men will meet!" she said, presently. "There! They crash together and fight like dragons! There'll be murder done, but which beats t'other I can't tell yet. The picture's all ruffled with waves. That means the future's to be hid—even from me. But one thing is only too clear; there'll be a gashly upstore and blood spilled when Jack o' oaks meets Jack o' hearts; and the end of it so far as you be concerned is that you'll have no husband at all, I'm afeared—poor girl."

So that was the end of the fortune-telling, and Mary wept buckets, and Mrs. Badge reminded her of the florin but wouldn't take it.

"No," she said, "money like that be nought in such a fix as you find yourself. The thing is to help you if I can. I don't want to know no names. 'Tis better I should not; but 'tis clear there's a fair, poor man coming here to marry you; and there's a dark, rich man also wants to do so. Now maybe I can help. Which of 'em is it you want to take? Don't tell me no names. Just say dark or pale."

"The d-d-d-dark one," sobs out Mary. "I thought 'twas all off with the pale one years ago, and I wouldn't marry him for anything n-n-n-now—specially if he's so poor as when he went."

"And what'll you do for me if I can save you from him? I don't say I can, for 'tis a pretty stiff job; but I might do so if I took a cruel lot of trouble."

"I'll give you everything I've got, Charity—everything!" cries the girl.

"I'm afraid that ban't enough, my dear. Will you give me ten pound the day you'm married to the dark one? That's a fair offer; and if I don't succeed, I'll ax for nothing."

The girl jumped at that, and said she thankfully would do so; and Mrs. Badge bade her keep her mouth close shut—knowing she would not—and let her go. Poor Mary went off expecting to meet Nathan Coaker at every step o' the road, and little knowing that the poor blid was sleeping his last sleep in a grave in foreign parts to Ireland.

The very same evening she met Peter Hacker himself; and though he was a chap without much use for religion, yet, like a good few other godless men, he believed in a good bit more than he could understand, and hated to spill salt, or see a single pie, and wouldn't have cut his nails on a Friday for a king's ransom.

She told him that her old sweetheart, Nathan Coaker, was coming back, and that blood would be spilled, and that the wise woman didn't know for certain whether 'twas his blood or Nathan's. She wept a lot, and told him about Coaker, and what a strong, hard chap he was, and how he had the trick to ride over a woman's heart and win 'em even against their wills. And altogether she worked upon the mind of Peter Hacker so terrible, that he got into a proper sweat of fear and anger—but chiefly fear. And the next day—unknown to Mary—he rode up along to Walna, and had a tell with Charity Badge on his own account.

Peter began in his usual way with women. He blustered a lot, and talked very loud and stamped his foot and beat his leg with his riding-whip.

"What's all this here tomfoolery you've been telling my girl?" he says. "I wonder at you, Mrs. Badge, a lowering yourself for to do it—frightening an innocent female into fits. You ought to know better."

Of course Charity did know better, and she knowed Peter and his character inside out as well.

She looked at him, calm as calm, and smiled.

"I wish 'twas tomfoolery, Mr. Hacker. I wish from my heart that the things I see didn't happen; but they always do, if the parties ban't warned in time; though now and again, when a sensible creature comes to me and hears what's going to overtake 'em, they can often escape it—as we can escape a storm if we look up in the sky and know the signs of thunder and lightning soon enough."

"'Tis all stuff and rubbish, I tell you," he said, "and I won't have it! Fortune-telling be forbidden by law, and if I hear any more about you and your cards and your crystal, I'll inform against you."

"You'd better be quick and do it, then, master," she answers him, still mild and gentle, "for I'm very sorry to say there's that be going to happen to you, as will spoil your usefulness for a month of Sundays or longer; and that afore a fortnight's out. Of course, if you don't believe what I know too well to be the truth, then you'll go your rash way and meet it; but so sure as Christmas Day be Quarter Day, I'm right, and you'll do far wiser to look after your own affairs than to trouble about mine. And now I'll wish you good evening."

She made to go in, for Hacker was sitting on his horse at her very door; but that weren't enough for him. His cowardly heart was shaking a'ready.

"Don't you go," he said. "I'll onlight and hear more of this."

He dismounted and came in the house; and Charity Badge bade me go out of the kitchen, where I was to work, and leave 'em together, but I catched what came after through the keyhole.

"Now," he said. "It lies in a nutshell. My Mary was tokened in a sort of childish way to a man called Nathan Coaker—a horse-stealer or little better, and a devil of a rogue, anyway. But it seems you looked in your bit of glass and pretended to see—"

"Stop!" cried Charity, putting on her grand manner and making her eyes flash like forked lightning at the man. "How do you dare to talk about 'pretending' to me? Begone, you wretched creature! I'll neither list to you, nor help you now. Go to your death—and a good riddance. You to talk about 'pretending' to me!"

He caved in at that, and grumbled and growled, but she'd hear nought more from him till he'd said he was sorry, and that so humbly as he knowed how.

"Now you can go on again," she said, "but be civil, or I'll not lift a finger to aid you."

"'Tis like this," he went on. "It do look as if that man, Nathan Coaker, was coming back."

"That's so. I never seed the fellow myself, but his name certainly was Nathan Coaker, and Mary called him home in a minute from my picture in the crystal. They was certainly tokened, and if she's forgot it, he haven't; and such is the report I hear of him, that 'tis sure he'll overmaster such a man as you by force of arms. No woman can resist him. I guess he's made his fortune and be coming in triumph to marry her."

"She's going to marry me, however."

"So you think."

The man began to grow more and more cowed afore her cold, steady eyes, and the scorn in her voice.

"The strongest will win," he said.

"Yes," she answered him, "that's true without a doubt—so the cards showed."

"And what's stronger than money?" he axed.

"A man in a righteous rage," she replied; "and a charge of heavy shot with gunpowder behind 'em."

"Lord save us! You don't mean he'd lie in a hedge for me?"

"He'd do anything where his own promised woman was concerned," she said. "But 'tis more likely, from what I hear, that he'd meet you face to face in the open street, and hammer you to death for coming between him and her."

"She's my side."

"Now she may be, but wait till she sets eyes on him again. He's well knowed to be so handsome as Apollyon."

Peter Hacker got singing smaller and smaller then.

"'Tis a thousand pities the wretched fellow can't be kept away."

"For your sake it is, without a doubt—a thousand pities," admitted Charity. "She loves you very well, and a good wife she'll make—and a thrifty—but she won't trust herself if that man's curly hair and blue eyes turn up here again."

"Is it to be done—can we keep him off—pay him off—bribe him—anything?"

"Now you talk sense. There's very few things can't be done in this world, Mr. Hacker, if you get a determined man and a determined woman pulling the same way. Man's strength and woman's wit together—what's ever been known to stand against 'em?"

"Help me, then," he said.

"Me! You want me to help—with my 'tomfoolery'?"

She roasted him proper for a bit, then came to business.

"I can't work for nought, and since 'tis the whole of your future life that depends upon it, I reckon you'll be generous. If I succeed I shall look to you for thirty pound, Peter Hacker; if I fail, I'll ax for nothing. Still, I do believe I may be able to get you out of this, though 'twill call for oceans of trouble."

He tried to haggle, but she'd none of that—wouldn't bate her offer by a shilling. So he came to it.

"Thirty pound I must have the day you marry Mary," she said. "And now tell me all you know about this rash, savage man, Nathan Coaker. The more I understand the better chance shall I have of keeping him off your throat."

With that Peter explained how t'other fellow was the young brother of Mrs. Sarah White; and he went on to say that Sarah was one of his tenants; but he didn't mention the row about Sarah's cottage.

Mrs. Badge then took up the story, and made it look as clear as daylight.

"My gracious!" she said, "why now you can see how the crash be coming! 'Tis a terrible poor look-out for you every way. Sarah's writ to him, of course, to say as you won't let her have the cottage your father faithfully promised to her husband, and Coaker's coming over with threatenings and slaughters about that job. And then, as if that weren't enough, he'll find what a crow he's got to pluck with you on his own account about Mary."

"The more comes out, the more it looks as if he'd better be kept away," said Mr. Hacker.

"And the harder it looks to do it," added Charity. "You lie low, anyway. The next step is for me. I'll see Sarah and tell her that you've changed your mind about the cottage—to call it a cottage, for 'tis no better than a pig's lew house. You'll give it her, of course, for her life and the life of that man French, as she wants to marry. That's the first step."

"Why should I?"

"What a fool you are! Why, for two reasons I should think. Firstly, because your father promised her husband; secondly, because 'tis half the way to keeping Nathan Coaker in Ireland. If she lets him know as you be going to do the rightful thing, he'll have no more quarrel with you, since he don't know about you and Mary. Then, what you've got to do is to hurry on the match with her; and when you'm once married, 'tis all safe. Very like you'll not have to offer the man a penny after all."

"You'd best see Mrs. White to-morrow then," said Peter.

"I'll see her this very night," answered the wise woman. "In kicklish matters of this kind an hour may make all the difference for good or evil. To-night I'll tell her that the house is hers on condition that her brother Nathan don't come from Ireland this side o' Christmas; and she'll bless your name and do her best to keep him away altogether. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she succeeded, and it might even happen that when he comes to know of your marriage and hears that 'tis over and done, that he'll give up the thought of coming at all, and you'll get out of it with credit and a whole skin."

Peter thanked her a lot, and she was as good as her word, and went to see Widow White that very same evening.

She didn't put it to Sarah quite like she'd promised; but she explained that Mr. Hacker was quite a reasonable man in some ways, even where females were concerned, and that he had undertaken to let Sarah keep her house so long as she and Mr. French should live. Which, of course, was all that Mrs. White or her Johnny cared about.

"Hacker naturally thinks that your brother is still living," explained Charity. "And mind you take mighty good care not to tell him 'tisn't so. The longer he supposes that Nathan is alive, the better for us all. And what you've got to say presently be this—that so soon as you told Nathan 'twas all right about the cottage, he changed his mind about coming to Postbridge for the present."

"'Twill be a lie," said Mrs. White.

"'Twill be a white lie, however," answered Charity; "and 'twill help a good many people out of a hobble and do harm to none; so I advise you to tell it."

And Sarah did tell it—with wonderful, far-reaching results, I'm sure; for it meant that she had her cottage for life; and that she had Johnny French for life also; and it meant that Mary married Peter Hacker afore the next Christmas and went honeymooning to London town for a week with the man; and it meant that, unbeknownst each to t'others, Sarah and Mary and Peter gived my mistress the money they promised her. So Charity Badge came out of the maze with flying colours, you might say, not to mention fifty golden pounds, all made out of her own head.

And many such like things she did, though never did they fetch such a dollop of money again.

[1] Oaks—Clubs.

No. XII
THE TORCH

In my opinion there's hardly an acre of Dartmoor as wouldn't set forth a good tale, if us could only go back along into time and get hold of it. Anyway, there's a 'mazing fine thing to be told about Vitifer Farm; and you don't want to go back far, neither, for it all happened but ten year ago.

Vitifer is one of the "tenement" farms and don't belong to the Duchy; and Furze Hill farm, which adjoins Vitifer, be likewise land handed down from father to son from generations forgot. The "tenements" are scattered over Dartmoor, mostly in the valleys of East and West Dart; but Vitifer and Furze Hill stood together half a mile distant from the famous Vitifer tin mine that lies in the wild ground west of Hameldon. And Joe Gregory farmed Vitifer when this fearful thing fell out, and his brother Amos Gregory was master at Furze Hill.

The Duchy had long desired the land, for 'tis Duchy's rule to snap up the tenement farms as they fall in the market, and indeed few will soon remain in private possession; but for the minute the two brothers—middle-aged bachelors both—held on where their forefathers had worked before them time out of mind, and it looked almost as though they was going to be the last of the ancient name to resist the over-lord of Dartmoor; for men come and men go; but Duchy lasts for ever and, no doubt, will have all it wants to the last rood afore many years be past.

One of the next generation, however, still stood for the Gregory race, and he was a nephew to Joe and Amos. A third brother they had, but him and his wife were dead, and their only son lived with Joe and was thought to be his heir. Ernest Gregory he was called, and few thought he'd make old bones, for the young man was pigeon-breasted and high-coloured and coughed a good bit when first he came up from the "in country" to the Moor.

Along with his uncle, however, he put on flesh and promised better. Fair and gentle he was—a quiet, timid sort of chap, who kept pretty much to himself and didn't neighbour with the young men and maidens. He was said to be vain behind his silence and to reckon himself a good deal cleverer than us Merripit people; but I never found him anything but well behaved and civil spoken to his elders, and I went so far sometimes as to ask his Uncle Amos why for he didn't like the man. Because the master of Furze Hill never did care about Ernest, though Joe Gregory, with whom the young fellow lived at Vitifer, thought very highly of him indeed.

And Amos confessed he hadn't got no deep cause to dislike his nephew.

"To be plain, 'tis a woman's reason and no more," admitted Amos. "Ernest have got a glide in his eye, poor chap, and God knows that's not a fault, and yet I never can abide that affliction and it would put me off an angel from heaven if the holy creature squinted."

It was a silly prejudice of the man, and in time I think he got it under and granted that you did ought to judge a person by their acts and not by their eyes; but human nature has its ingrained likes and dislikes, and I for one couldn't question Amos, because I hate a hunchback, and I wouldn't trust one of they humped people—man or woman—with anything that belonged to me. The broadest-minded of us have got a weak spot like that somewhere and hate some harmless thing if 'tis only a spider.

But, after he'd been along at Vitifer five years, I don't think a living soul felt anything but kindly to Ernest, and when it was rumoured that he'd got brave enough to go courting Sarah White from Postbridge, everybody wished him luck, including his uncles—especially Amos himself; for Joe's younger brother was very friendly to the Postbridge Whites, and them who thought they knew, always said how he'd offered for Jenny White twenty-five years before and might very like have won her if she hadn't loved the water-keeper on East Dart better and married him instead.

Then happened the wondrous mystery of Joe Gregory. 'Twas just before Christmas—rough stormy weather and not much doing on the high ground—when Joe set out early one morning for Exeter to see his lawyers. He'd done very well that year—better than Amos—and he was taking a matter of one hundred and fifty pounds in cash to Exeter for his man of business to invest for him. And Ernest drove him in to Ashburton, at cocklight of a stormy day, and was going in again that evening to meet his uncle and fetch him home.

All went well, and at the appointed time Joe's nephew set out once more with a light trap and a clever horse, after dark, to meet the evening train. And no more was heard till somewhere about ten o'clock of that night. Then Amos Gregory, just finishing his nightcap and knocking out his pipe to go to bed, much to his astonishment heard somebody banging on the front door of Furze Hill. Guessing it was some night-foundered tramp, he cussed the wanderer to hell; but cussing was only an ornament in his speech, for a tenderer creature really never lived, and he wouldn't have turned a stray cat from his door that fierce night, let alone a human.

It weren't no tramp, however; it proved to be his nephew Ernest, and the young man was clad in his oilskins and dripping with the storm rain and so frightened as a rabbit.

In a word, he'd been to Ashburton and waited for the appointed train, only to find his uncle hadn't come back by it. And so he bided, till the last train of all, and still Joe hadn't turned up. So Ernest drove home, hoping to find a telegram had come meanwhile and been brought up from Merripit post office. But there weren't no telegram; and now he was properly feared and had come over to Amos to know what did ought to be done.

First thing to do, in the opinion of Amos, was to pour a good dollop of gin down Ernest's neck; then, when the shaking chap had got a bit of fight in him, he explained that till the morn they were powerless to take action.

"I know his lawyer, because Cousins and Slark be my lawyers also," said Amos; "and they always was the family men of business, so if us hear nought when the post office opens to-morrow, we'll send off a telegram to them; and if they've got nothing to say, then we must tell the police."

Ernest was a good bit down-daunted and said he felt cruel sure evil had over-got his uncle, and Amos didn't like it neither, for a more orderly man than Joe Gregory and one more steadfast in doing what he promised couldn't easily be found. However, they had to suffer till morning, and Ernest went back to Vitifer, which stood not quarter of a mile away.

Morning brought no letter nor yet telegram, so Amos went down to Merripit post office and sent a wire off to the Exeter lawyers axing for news of his brother; and he waited till an answer came down. It ran like this:

Mr. Gregory spent an hour with us yesterday and left at four o'clock to catch down train.

Cousins and Slark.

Well, that showed there was something wrong, and Amos felt he was up against it. He never let the grass grow under his feet, and in twenty minutes he was riding to Ashburton, to catch a train for Exeter. And afore he went, he directed Ernest to tell the police that his uncle was missing. So hue and cry began from that morning, and the centre of search was Exeter, because from there came the last sure news of the man. The lawyers made it clear that Joe was all right when he left them. He'd handed over his money to be invested, and he'd put a codicil to his will, which, of course, the lawyers didn't divulge to Amos. Then he'd gone off very cheerful and hearty to buy a few things afore he catched his train. But from that moment not a whisper of Joe Gregory could be heard. He wasn't a noticeable sort of chap, being small with an everyday old face and everyday grey whiskers; and nobody to the railway stations at Exeter or Totnes, where he would change for the Ashburton line, had seen him to their knowledge. Yet in the course of the next few days, when his disappearance had got in the papers, three separate people testified as they'd met Joe that evening, and Ernest Gregory was able to prove they must have seen right. The first was a tobacconist's assistant at Exeter, who came forward and said a little, countrified man had bought two wooden pipes from him and a two-ounce packet of shag tobacco; and he said the little man wore a billycock hat with a jay's blue wing feather in it. And a barmaid at Newton Abbot testified that she'd served just such a man at the station after the train from Exeter had come in, about five-thirty, and afore it went out. She minded the jay's feather in his hat, because she'd asked the customer what it was, and he'd told her. And lastly a porter up at Moretonhampstead said that a small chap answering to the description had got out of the Newton train to Moreton, which arrived at Moreton at fifteen minutes after six. But he'd marked no jay's feather in the man's hat and only just noticed him, being a stranger, as went out of the station with half a dozen other travellers and gave up his ticket with the rest. The tickets was checked, and sure enough, there were two from Exeter to Moreton; but while Ernest could prove the jay's feather to be in his uncle's hat, neither he nor anybody else could give any reason why Joe should have gone to Moreton instead of coming home. He might have left the train for a drink at Newton, where there was time for him to do so; but he would have gone back to it no doubt in the ordinary course. Asked if he came in alone for his drink, the barmaid said he did so and was prepared to swear that nobody spoke to him in the bar but herself. And he'd gone again afore the down train left. But at Totnes, where Joe was known by sight and where he ought to have changed for Ashburton, none had seen him.

The police followed the Moreton clue, but nobody there reported sight of Joe on the night he disappeared. He'd got a friend or two at Moreton; but not one had fallen in with him since the autumn ram fair, when he was over there with his nephew for the day.

The law done all in its power; the down lines were searched from Newton, and Amos Gregory offered a reward of fifty pounds for any news of his lost brother; but not a speck, or sign, of Joe came to light. A month passed and the nine days' wonder began to die down a bit.

I met Amos about then, and we was both on horseback riding to Ashburton, and he told me that he was bound for the lawyers, to make inquiry of how the law stood in the matter and what he ought to do about Vitifer Farm.

"My nephew Ernest, is carrying on there," he told me, "and he's a good farmer enough and can be trusted to do all that's right; but there's no money to be touched and I must find out if they'll tell me what have got to be done and how the law stands."

He was a lot cut up, for him and his brother had always been very good friends; and he was troubled for his nephew also, because Ernest had lost his nerve a good deal over the tragedy.

"He's taking on very bad and can't get over it," said Amos to me. "The natural weakness of his character have come out under this shock, and the poor chap be like a fowl running about with its head off. He never had more wits than please God he should have, and this great disaster finds him unmanned. He will have it his uncle's alive. He's heard of men losing their memory and getting into wrong trains and so on. But I tell him that with all the noise that's been made over the country, if Joe was living, though he might be as mad as a hatter, 'tis certain by now we should have wind of him."

"Certain sure," I said. "He's a goner without a doubt, and 'twill take a miracle ever to get to the bottom of this."

I was reminded of them words a fortnight later, for it did take a miracle to find the shocking truth. In fact you may say it took two. And one without the other might just as well not have happened. And 'tis no good saying the days of miracles be passed, because they ban't.

I heard later that the lawyers let Amos read his brother's will and got a power of attorney for him to act and carry on. And the will left Vitifer Farm to Amos, on the condition that he would keep on his nephew Ernest. It was four year old; and the codicil, that Joe wrote the day he disappeared, ordained that when Amos died, Vitifer shouldn't be sold to Duchy, but handed down to the next generation of the Gregorys in the shape of Ernest.

Well, Amos had no quarrel with that, and when he went home, he asked his nephew if he'd known about the codicil, and he said he had not. And when he learned of his uncle's kind thought for him, he broke down and wept like a child, till Amos had to speak rough and tell him to keep a stiff upper lip and bear himself more manly.

"If you be going to behave like a girl over this fearful loss, I shan't have no use for you at Vitifer," Amos warned the young chap. "You must face this very sad and terrible come-along-of-it same as I be doing. And you must show me what you're good for, else I may do something you won't like. This tragedy reminds me, Ernest," he said, "that I haven't made my own will yet, and as you be my next-of-kin, if your poor uncle have gone home, that means you'll inherit Furze Hill also in course of time and be able to run a ring fence round both places. But that remains to be seen; and if you are going to show that you haven't got manhood enough to face the ups and downs of life, then I shall turn elsewhere for one to follow me and young Adam White, my godson, may hap to be the man."

He gave his nephew a bit more advice and told him he'd best to go on courting the maiden, Sarah White, to distract his mind.

"For you're the sort," said Amos, "that be better with a strong-willed woman at your elbow in my opinion, and if Sally takes you, I shall be glad of it."

So Ernest bucked up a bit from that day forth, and no doubt the fact that he was to have Vitifer in the course of nature, decided Sarah, for she agreed to wed the young man ten days afterwards, and Amos was pleased, and decided that the wedding should fall out next Easter.

Ernest Gregory, as we all marked, was a changed man from that hour; for though he was built to feel trouble very keen, he hadn't the intellects to feel it very deep, and in the glory of winning Sarah, he beamed forth again like the sun from a cloud. And nobody blamed him, because, whether your heart be large or small, a dead uncle, however good he was, can't be expected to come between a man and the joy of a live sweetheart, who has said "Yes" to him.