The whirlwind

by Eden Phillpotts

BOOK III

CHAPTER I
BRENDON STOPS AT RUDDYFORD

Even Joe Tapson expressed regret when Daniel Brendon decided to leave Ruddyford, and let his decision become known. All begged him to reconsider the step; all bluntly asked where he expected to find more satisfactory employment, a happier home, and equal money. Prout had been among those who urged him most strenuously to reconsider his determination. Then shone the lunar rainbow, and from that hour the head man was silent.

Three days later Daniel, after long brooding, set off to do two things. He meant to visit Jarratt Weekes and express contrition for his recent violence; and he intended to call upon his master, that he might give notice of his approaching departure from Ruddyford.

Joe met him on the way, saw that Daniel wore Sunday clothes, guessed his mission, and made a final appeal.

"Don't you be a fool, Dan. A man's only worth what he'll fetch, as you ought to know. I withstood you so long as I could do it, and, to this day, I don't reckon you be worth a penny more in open market than what I be myself; because, though I've but one eye, it sees further than the two of many men I could name; and though you've got larger muscles upon you than me, yet I won't grant your brains be ahead of mine by an inch. However, he thought different, and he's the purse, so 'tis for us to mind our own business and keep our opinions in check. I've long larned to do that."

"You mistake me, Joe," answered the other. "My money's all right, and the place is all right, and I shall be mighty sorry to go from you all—you as much as any man, for in your way you've taught me a great deal worth knowing. But life have got an inside and an outside to it; an' 'tis the inside of mine I ban't too pleased with. More than good wages and good friends go to peace of mind."

"Well, I hope he'll make you change your ideas, for I'm sure he'll try."

"The more he tries, the steadfaster shall I stand."

"More fool you, then. However, go your way. I know a chap who'd be very wishful to fill your shoes, an' a very willing boy, though 'twill be like David coming to do Goliath's work."

Brendon called at Adam Churchward's and learned from Jarratt's wife that he was at Lydford Castle.

"'Tis his last season there," she said; "for he've grown too big a man for that small work now, and his time's better worth. I wanted to make him give it up long ago, but he don't like dropping sure money, even though 'tis small money. However, they've appointed young Teddy Westover to succeed him—old Westover's grandson."

"I'm much obliged to you," answered Daniel. "I'll seek him there."

Presently, as a party left the ruin, Brendon met Weekes, and asked to be allowed to speak to him.

Jarratt hid his heart and consented to listen. He nodded gravely while Brendon apologized, explained that he had acted from worthy motives, and added that he had told nobody—not even his wife—of the outrage put upon him by Daniel.

"I'm sorry to God," said Brendon. "I was wrong every way to smite you. Whether you was right to speak what you did, I won't say. I don't know. I only know that I'd no right to answer so. And I ask you to forgive an erring man. I was shaken from my hold on the Lord—surprised away from it by the shock of what you said. You were wrong in your opinion—that I do steadfastly know; but none the less—— But I ban't here to make any excuses. I'm sorry to the heart, and I beg you to forgive me."

"I will do so, Daniel Brendon."

"Thank you. There's another thing. I've got a five-pound note here. I heard as you kept your bed for two days. That means I did more than hurt you. I robbed you of money. Please to take this. 'Tis a sign that you forgive me properly if you take it."

He held out the note and Weekes extended his hand quickly, then drew it back.

"I was off work three days, to be exact. But five pounds for three days would be ten for a week. That's five hundred and twenty for the year."

"Ban't it enough?"

Weekes laughed.

"That's a home question; however, since you want to do the honest thing, I won't stand in your way."

He took out a heavy leather purse and put the note into it.

"Now we'll cry quits. Don't let this go no further."

Weekes shook hands and left Daniel abruptly; but the big man felt satisfied. He held that, save for his own lasting regret, the matter was now concluded. He continued to be ashamed of himself when he reflected upon it; but he ceased to feel any pity for Jarratt Weekes, and he could not satisfy himself that the other's motives had been pure.

Now Daniel called upon his master and found him at home.

"I came because of the rain," he said. "I knew 'twould hold you to the house."

Hilary was writing, and held his hand for silence. Then he finished a page and blotted it. Various papers littered his desk, and, among others, lay a large one, rolled up and tied round the middle with pink tape.

"Good-morning, Dan. This is a funny coincidence. I sent for you an hour ago. You missed my messenger."

"I met no messenger."

Woodrow rose and took his pipe from the mantelshelf.

"Let's have your business first, then you shall know mine. Sit down. We don't see one another often enough. I wish you'd come more frequently."

Brendon took a chair and put his soft black hat under it.

"'Tis harder to speak afore those kind words, master. And yet—I've got to do it. I want to go—I must go. This is to give notice, please. I'll suit your convenience, of course. Perhaps after Christmas. I'm mighty sorry for many reasons. Still, 'twill be the best thing."

An expression of real pain crossed the face of Hilary Woodrow.

"How can you say this, Daniel? Don't you care more than that for me? I thought—why, good God—I hold you dearer than almost anybody in the world! You're far, far more to me than a servant. You—a friend—to say this! You, my right hand, to ask to be cut off!"

"I know you set store by me. I know how good you've been—yet—we can't say all we know. You mustn't think 'tis a small thing; you mustn't think I'm not grateful, master. I owe you far more than 'tis in my power to pay. I pray for you. 'Tis all I can do—all the poor can do for the rich—to pray for 'em. My work's nought. That's the everyday business between man and man. For that you pay, and pay well. But prayer's beyond. I tell you this because, afore I go, I want you to know I'm more than just a strong man working for wages."

"You shall not go! This is a matter far beyond the farm, or the welfare of the farm. You are a great deal to me. You are an example to me and to all of us. While you have prayed for me, I—I haven't prayed, since I know of nothing to pray to that has ears to hear—but I've done what I could—according to my lights."

"I know that. You've been good and generous to me. There's nothing—nothing I can say against you."

"I can't part with you, Dan. I won't believe the reason is beyond explanation. Be honest with me—absolutely. Tell me why this idea has come to you. You're at a point far more vital in your career than you think for. Don't leave any shadow or uncertainty. Be dead straight about it, Dan."

Brendon did not answer, but he struggled fiercely with himself. He was a great-hearted man, and now, within sound of his master's voice, in sight of his earnest eyes, his reason dwindled somewhat.

Suddenly he blurted out the truth.

"Jarratt Weekes told me a while ago that you saw too much of Sarah Jane. I believe that he said it without malice. He thought so—like as not others do."

A great expiration left the lungs of Woodrow.

"Too much of her! No, Dan—not too much of her—not enough; but too much of this dirty little village and the mean-minded vermin that live in it! Nobody could see too much of Sarah Jane—any more than they could see too much of the sun in the sky, or hear too much of the song of the birds. I don't see enough of her—or of you. How glad I am you had the pluck to speak!"

"One thing I must ask of you—to take no step against Weekes. I've punished him. I nearly broke his neck when he said it. I knew 'twas a lie; but, of course, I can't live where 'tis possible to tell such lies."

"You'll never get beyond the reach of falsehood in this world, Dan. Lying is woven into the fabric of all human life—part of the regular pattern. We should be like the beasts that perish if we did not lie. Civilized existence rests on a bedrock of lying. 'Tis the cement that keeps every state together; the first necessity of conscious existence. Only Nature can work without falsehood. The lie is as old as human language. If men said what they thought, the world's work would stand still. Try it—yet I wouldn't ask you to do that. Why should I wish my best friend to have nought but enemies?"

"I won't live where 'tis possible to tell this lie," repeated Brendon.

"If you believed the lie—then I should be the first to ask you to be gone. Happily you don't. I've not got much heart, Brendon; but the little I have would break if I thought you did not care for me. If there is a thing that I've hoped and planned and rejoiced to plan in this fading life of mine, it is your future."

"My future! That's God's work to plan—not yours."

"I know it is. But in one of these conversations I held with your wife, which have shocked this low-minded rascal, she said a fine thing to me, Dan. She said, 'All good things come from my man's God. You can't have no good without His hand be in it. And men and women are His messengers to carry the goodness of God up and down in the world and show it.'"

"That's true enough. Nothing new, surely?"

"It was new to me. If there's a God, Daniel, He is a good God. I'll grant you so much. And if good comes to any man, 'tis his God that sends it. I suppose you believe that?"

"Where else can good come from? Man's heart don't imagine it. Man's heart don't breed it."

"Then you're answered, for into my heart has long since come the wish to do you good. I desire it, and I am thankful that I can perform it. I wish you to have power, because you understand how to use power wisely; and content, because you are the only man I ever met who understood that content is higher than happiness."

"You've done all you could, and I have thanked you."

"And thanked your God, I warrant?"

"Yes—Him first."

"It's good to thank Him, I suppose?"

"It's right—it's natural—'tis all we can give Him—our thanks and worship."

"Then take my hand, Daniel, and say I've cleared this cloud. Don't make my sad life sadder by going out of it. Don't say I may not sometimes see and speak with Mrs. Brendon. If you had a beautiful and rare flower in your garden, you would not deny other people the sight of it. 'Tis a parallel case every way. She is a remarkable woman, full of high qualities. I ask you to be my close friend henceforth, Brendon. It would seem a strange thing for a master to ask of his man. Yet I do it. Prout is my friend and I want you too, because you are much more to me than good old John, or any other man on earth."

He stopped and coughed, then rose, took a wisp of paper from a china jar, and re-lighted his pipe.

Brendon did not speak. Woodrow's words troubled him at one moment, gratified him at the next; now the farmer said a thing that made him start, and, before he had grasped it, the quick, nervous voice passed on and uttered some word that could not fail to soften his heart.

"Say you'll stop, Dan," continued Hilary Woodrow. "Say you'll stop, before I come to my affair. 'Twill spoil all if you cleave to this determination. 'Twill make the thing I have plotted all dust and ashes. Yet I won't influence you with it. I won't influence you save to say this: I'm not going to be in the land of the living more than a few years at best; but you'll cloud those years for me, Daniel, if you go; and as sure as your God's watching you to-day, you'll be sorry afterwards, if you stick to this determination."

He turned to the window, and smoked and looked out into the little street.

For a minute or two neither spoke. Then Brendon bent for his hat, picked it up, and rose.

"Since you put it that way, and say so solemnly that 'tis in my power to better your life by stopping, then I'll stop, master. Don't think I wanted to go, but for what I told you. 'Twas the only thing in the world that would have took me. But since 'tis false, I'll spurn it. My God's Self's a jealous God, but—there 'tis—I'll fight to be large-minded—I'll stop——"

Woodrow did not speak, but his eyes were damp when he turned from the window and came back to the table. A strange conflict of emotions filled his spirit, choked his throat, seethed upward to his brain, and sunk downward to his heart. His admiration and even affection for Daniel were genuine enough at that moment; and he rejoiced at the thing that he was about to do. But not for an instant did he mourn the thing that he had done.

He could not speak immediately.

He took the other's hand and shook it very warmly. Then he picked up the packet on the table, dragged the tape off, and gave it to Brendon.

"Read," he said.

The giant, amazed at such emotion, stared dumbly out of his dark, dog-like eyes, opened the packet and knit his brows to peruse the calligraphy.

Woodrow walked about the room while Daniel read his will. It was short, and took but three minutes. Then Brendon put the paper on the table again.

"Tell me one thing," he said. "Be you sure that to do this is not to wrong some other—somebody of your own kin who have a right to it all? Can you swear that?"

"None has a right. I'm alone in the world. My kin are remote and nothing to me. They are well-to-do, and have no anxiety. You must keep John Prout easy and comfortable until he dies, and also his sister—that's the only condition."

"I can't bring it home to my mind. 'Tis too much to happen to a man. I don't know what to say."

"Say you're my friend, that's all I want you to say."

"'Your friend'! This is not friendship. This is a thing greater than friendship. I know how to thank my God; I don't know what to say to you, master."

"Not master. Thank me by calling me 'master' no more. Thank me by seeing me oftener—both of you. Talk to me. Tell me all you believe, and why you believe it. Help me, if you can. Perhaps your God will look to it that you pay me so well that my gift shall be dross to your gold. Stranger things have happened. I'd dearly like to believe in a world beyond this, Daniel, before I go to find out for myself. Now be off for a while. Good-bye—friend Daniel."

"Good-bye. I be dumb still—in a maze. I'm surely dreaming this."

"Tell nobody—not a soul except your wife. But ask her not to mention it."

Brendon went away entranced, and was nearly run over at the corner of the street by a waggon laden with straw. The carter laughed at him.

"Ban't often us catches you mooning about in the middle of the road!" he said.

Daniel climbed White Hill presently and looked down at Ruddyford. Then his eyes atoned for his lack of imagination, and helped him to understand and realize the prodigious thing that had happened.

This place would be his own. He would be master presently, and his child would follow him. It rushed upon him in a wave—drowned him almost, so that he panted for air. His mind turned to Woodrow, and, with heart and soul, he hoped that the farmer might enjoy length of days. He determined with himself that evermore he would add to his prayer for Woodrow that it might please God to let him see Truth before he died. He thought of himself being allowed to make Woodrow a Christian.

For a while he gazed, then considered Sarah Jane's joy. Suddenly his mind turned back to Hilary, and next he turned his body back also. He began to understand at last; he yearned to go before the giver again and say a little of what he felt. As for God, Dan believed that he was in His presence all the time. An under-current of thanksgiving rose from his soul, like smoke of incense.

Words from his favourite, Isaiah, ran through his head as he swept with great strides back to Lydford:

"That He may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act," the man kept repeating.

But the strange act went far deeper than Daniel conceived. Of the strange act, strange thoughts were bred in one man's spirit; and when he was alone, Woodrow pondered long of the amazing complexity of his own motives during the past few days, and of the impress stamped upon present thought and future resolution by this actual conversation with the husband of Sarah Jane. He was moved to find how little he had pretended, how much he had felt; how largely grain of truth mingled with the seed of falsehood sown by him upon Brendon's heart in that hour.

CHAPTER II
AFTER CHAPEL

The chapel of the Luke Gospellers was full, and their pastor won his usual attention. With very considerable ability, through a ministry of some ten years, he had lifted his congregation along with himself to wider thinking. A tolerance rare amid the sects of Christianity belonged to him, and he had imparted something of it to those who suffered him to lead them.

"How great is man, and how small," said the preacher, as he drew to the close of his address. "How much he has grasped at; how little he can hold. He measures the journeys of the stars and the paths of comets, marked for them through utmost space by the God that made them; but he cannot measure the limit of the growing grass-blade or the breadth of the petal of a budding flower. He predicts when the earth's shadow will fall upon the moon; but he cannot foretell when the next raindrop will fall upon the earth. His intellect has reached out into the universe and read rightly among the laws of it; but the way of the wind and the birth of the cloud, the advent of the frost and the appointed day of the storm—these are hidden from him. So also with his conscious nature and his power to do and to withstand; he is sublime and pitiful at a breath; and his greatness and littleness interwoven, appear on every public page of his history and in every private tablet of his heart."

He exhorted them to know themselves, to read their souls by the light of the Word of God; he told them that within the spectrum of that light were rays that could reach to the darkest, secretest chambers of the human spirit, and search and purify and sweeten them.

They listened, were uplifted according to the measure of their understanding, and went home in the brightness of the teacher's earnest words. Then life and the fret of it came between; and some of the seed perished immediately, and some was scorched at the springing.

Agg and Joe Tapson walked together on their way back to Ruddyford, and behind them came Sarah Jane, Daniel, and their little boy.

Tapson had already dismissed the service, and was grumbling to Walter Agg. They did not know the truth concerning Brendon and the future of the farm; but of late, in certain directions, Daniel was still further advanced, and even Agg felt it hard, because he did not understand.

"He's bewitched Woodrow, if you ax me," said Joe. "'Tis the evil eye over again. Farmer can't call his soul his own now. He don't seem to care a groat for the place. Thicky big monster be always right. Why, if he wanted to pull down the house and build it again to a new pattern, I believe it would be done. Prout's no more good than a bird on a tree; though he used to hold his own very well. Now he always says 'ditto' to Brendon."

"Not that Brendon be what he exactly was, all the same," argued Agg. "He's much gentler and easier, despite his uplifting. He don't order anybody about, and he's always got a good word for a good job well done."

"I know that and I grant it. But who be he to pat us on the back so masterful? I don't want his praise any more than his blame. Damn it all! I was getting my shilling a day afore the man was born!"

"'Tis just pushfulness have raised him up."

"Why don't I go and pat him on the back and say, 'Well done, Brendon!'? I've as much right to patronize him as what he have me," continued Joe.

The other laughed.

"Well, why don't you? 'Tis beyond words to explain these things. But there 'tis. He's above us—got there somehow—how, I don't know—had to do it by vartue of what's in him."

"He may come down again, however."

"I hope not. He's a good man, and grows larger-hearted and gentler as he grows older. His child have done a great deal to his character, as I dare say you've marked."

"We've a right to be jealous of him, all the same. There's no justice in it. If I came along with great ideas, who'd listen to me?" asked Mr. Tapson.

"That's it," answered Walter Agg very placidly. "That's just it. You and me don't get great ideas. Us never think of anything worth a lump of peat. All the same, Joe, I'll tell you this: me and Peter Lethbridge was feeling much like you do a bit back. And I had a tell with Prout on the subject, and he said a thing worth remembering in my judgment. He said, 'Don't envy the man, souls; never envy nobody. 'Tis only God in heaven knows if a human creature's to be envied or not. No fellow-man can tell. How should they, for which among us can say from hour to hour whether even our own lot be good or evil?' That's what he spoke to me, and there's sense in it. King or tinker may come a cropper, but the tinker's up soonest. Not much could happen to me or you—especially you, with your wife dead and no children. Your ill fortune's behind you; and, when all's said, us ought not to make another man's good luck our bad luck. 'Tis a mean-minded thing, though common."

Elsewhere Daniel imparted a great ambition to Sarah Jane.

"I do wish that he could hear Matherson."

When either spoke indefinitely now, the other knew that Hilary Woodrow was meant.

"I believe he'd come if you made a favour of it," she answered.

"I'd ask minister to do something out of the common. Not that he don't put every ounce of his power into his preaching every week. But if I said 'Here's a soul coming to listen to you as be wandering—lost,' minister might be lifted to something special."

"He'd come for you."

"For you more likely. 'Twould be worth the effort before he goes away, for 'tis pretty certain now he won't stop here through winter. He's going to London again, just for the day, to hear what the doctor says. He's better, I believe myself. There's been a lot more heart and life in him of late, to my mind."

"You're going in to-night to have a pipe along with him, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

"Then ask him—as a favour to you—to come to a service. Can't hurt him—so large-minded as he is—blames nobody."

"I'll ask him—and yet, I won't. He knows there'd be such a lot of meaning in it if I asked him. He'd think 'twas a deep-laid plot against his opinions. You ask him next time you see him. Say that you'd like him to hear Mr. Matherson. Let the thing come as a surprise, not a planned attack. If I say anything, he'll know he's to be preached at, and that would anger him. But you're lighter-handed. You ban't so deadly in earnest as I am."

"I'll say 'tis to please me, then, not you."

"Do so. It should be true too. You ought to be pleased to get him to come."

Brendon now went disarmed. Even his natural instincts were lulled. Sarah Jane did sometimes see the master, and often brought messages from him to her husband or to Prout. Daniel also, at Hilary's express desire, came twice weekly to smoke with him after the day's work was over. Brendon was a man capable of great gratitude. His fortune had worked largely upon that superficial crust of his character revealed to fellow-men; and, more than this: the sun of his great worldly success had warmed his heart to the core, sweetened his inner nature, made him happier, smothered something of the canine jealousy that belonged to him as an ingredient of character. His trust in God had led to a rarer thing and taught him to trust man also. He was gentler than of old, for he found pity in his mind at the sight of those less fortunate than himself. He felt no personal land-hunger, and, had it been in his power, would have insured full term of years to his master; but upon his child henceforth he looked with respect, as one born to possessions. The unconscious Gregory Daniel already bulked in his parent's eyes as an owner of property. He longed for another boy and carefully planned small Gregory's education.

Sarah Jane went to see Woodrow a few days later, and they spoke intimately together—first of her and then of himself.

"Don't put off going to see your doctor till the weather turns."

"I have been."

"Never!"

"Yes—last Monday; and back again on Wednesday."

"'Twas good news, I hope?"

"Yes, I think so. Only I must go down to the sea for the winter. He will let me stop near at hand. I mean to take rooms at Dawlish. I shall be within reach there. You'll have to invent reasons for coming to see me sometimes."

"You wasn't no worse?"

"Not worth mentioning. I'll be all right down there. But it's rather like going into exile."

They spoke long about his health, his food, his winter clothes. She thought of these things, and had made him buy thicker and warmer garments.

Presently she asked him to come to the chapel of the Luke Gospellers.

"Mr. Matherson is a wonderful man, and that learned. The stars and the trees and the lightning come into his sermons. I do think you'd like them. As broad as charity he is—nought frights him."

"There are two Books," said Hilary; "and whether one was written by God is doubtful; but, God granted, there's no doubt about the other. Even Mr. Matherson won't deny who wrote the Book of Nature. And I'm glad he's not fool enough to forbid sane people from reading in it. But for me to hear him—would you have me play the hypocrite?"

"Why do you say that? There's no deceit. Ban't no harm to listen. Your conscience wouldn't say 'no' to that. You've often said you'd deny the light to none. He might change you."

"I only want to be changed when I feel death peeping at me by night. It might be very awkward for both of us if I was changed."

"I'm not thinking of that, but after. 'Twould be good to believe in a life beyond. You've often said so yourself."

"How many secrets will be carried on into that life—there is such a life, I wonder?"

"Some, for certain—ours for one."

He laughed.

"And yet they say all will come to light then."

She shook her head resolutely.

"We must keep it safe through all eternity."

"There's God."

"What then? He don't want to turn Daniel's heaven into hell. Too large-hearted for that. He'll never tell it."

"Perhaps you and I won't be there, Sarah Jane."

"We shall be there. What would Daniel's heaven be without me, or you, for that matter?"

"You've set Dan's God a big puzzle. However, there will be no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven."

"Maybe not. But there's brains in heaven. Angels ban't bird-witted as well as bird-winged. Suppose the first thing my husband heard when he comed to die was that I'd done—the thing I have done? What would eternity be to him then? You know him—you can tell."

"He'd have larger views then."

"Daniel's Daniel. 'Twould be fire in his bones instead of marrow, for ever and ever. But God won't tell him, Hilary."

"I wouldn't trust God, all the same—not if I believed in God."

"'Twould be too cruel; and Dan thanking God so deep and pure and earnest every day and every night—and praying for you."

"May his God bless him a thousandfold."

"He has—through you."

"He's a grand character in his way. Prosperity has sweetened him, so that he'd pick an insect out of his path nowadays rather than put any creature to pain."

"He's all for letting the world share the good that's come to him. And why shouldn't he thank God, Hilary? God's brought the good. I'll cleave to that—else how can I live?"

"Then so will I," he said. "God's my judge, but I'll believe in God too! Yet—yet once—not so long ago neither—I knew a lovely woman that claimed goodness rather hotly for man, and hated the sky to have all the praise when pleasant things were done!"

He looked out of the window, then he caressed her.

"I've changed from that," she said. "I clung to it awhile—then it gived way somehow. 'Tis easier to—to put it on God. All the same, I almost hate a man when he calls himself a lowly worm, as Daniel often does. And I know well that God don't like us to cry bad wares neither. Bain't no compliment to Him, anyway."

"Give man—and woman—the praise still. I like your old way best. You're a wonderful darling, and my whole life; and I'll think just what you please; and I'll come to hear your minister next Sunday—even that I'll do—for you and Daniel. Tell him that you nearly made me promise. Then he'll surely say a word next time we meet; and I'll relent and appear among the faithful! Is there a penitent's bench?"

CHAPTER III
JARRATT BECOMES A FATHER

Despite a promise, Hilary Woodrow did not visit the chapel of the Luke Gospellers. He caught a chill and kept the house for a fortnight. Then he decided that he must go immediately into the milder climate of the coast, and left Lydford for Dawlish. John Prout accompanied him and stopped for a few days.

At last the patience of Mary Weekes was rewarded, and she became mistress of the ivy-clad house, and the orchard, and the sweet water from the Moor that ran through her husband's little domain.

A child was to be born to her, and she felt glad that her own house would see the event. Susan still remained as maid-of-all-work; but she let it be understood that her services could not be depended upon for more than a year at the utmost. Then a certain square-built youth, called Bobby Huggins, one of Valentine's many grandchildren, intended to marry her. A cottage and a wife would be within his reach at the expiration of that time; and all men admitted that Bobby's deserts embraced both. He was an under-gamekeeper, and no more promising and steadfast spirit had ever shone in the great family of Huggins.

It happened that the patriarch himself called on Philip Weekes three days after Christmas, and accepted Hephzibah's invitation to stop and eat a mouthful.

"Master ban't home yet," she said; "though I believe I've made it clear to him for the last forty year that one o'clock's the dinner-hour in this house. But there—time be a word to him. 'Time was made for slaves,' he said once to me, in one of his particular foolish moments. 'Go along with you, you silly old monkey!' I answered him. 'Time was made for humans, and we was no more expected to waste it like water, same as you do, than we was meant to waste corn and food and greenstuff and money.' But there—you know him. A watch he carries, but ain't got no more use for it than if he walked in New Jerusalem, where night and day will be done away with for evermore. Us'll begin, Mr. Huggins."

They ate and drank; then Philip joined them.

"I'm glad to see you," he said. "And I wish you a very happy New Year, Val, and a good few more yet."

"Thank you, thank you," answered the veteran. "I hope so too, I'm sure, for the balance of comfort in going on living be still my side, and will be while I've got such a rally of friendly neighbours wishing me to live. This be pretty drinking, sure enough. What do'e call it, Mrs. Weekes, if I ban't making a hole in my manners to ax?"

"'Tis broth made from the rames[[1]] of the Christmas goose," said Mrs. Weekes. "For richness there's nought like goose-bone soup—dripping with fatness, you might say. The very smell of it is a meal."

[[1]] Rames—skeleton.

Presently Philip pressed Mr. Huggins to take a slice of cold plum-pudding, but the guest reluctantly refused.

"Daren't do it, though with all the will in the world, my dears," he declared. "Hot plum-pudding be death, but cold's damnation—using the word in its Bible sense. When you'm up home fourscore, such things must be passed by. Not but what I've had my share, and ate it without fear till seventy; but there's nowhere age tells crueller than in the power of the frame to manage victuals. Well I mind the feast when my granddarter, Hester—now Mrs. Gill—was married. Gill was to work at a wine merchant's in them days, and his master give him a bottle of glittering wine."

"Champagne, no doubt," said Mrs. Weekes.

"So it was then; and nothing would do but I must top up my other beverages with a glass of it, when it came to be taken at the end of the feast. Next day I wasn't hungry till four in the afternoon! ''Tis age upon me,' I said to myself. 'Tis the sure hand of age. Time was when I could have tossed off a quart of that frothy rubbish an' thought no more of it than a cup of tea; now the organs is losing their grip of liquid food, an' any fancy drinking defies them.' 'Tis the same with solids. If I was to partake of that Christmas pudden, 'twould harbour, like a cannon-ball, under the small ribs on my left side and stick there, very likely, till the spring, unless doctor could dislodge it."

"'Tis a bad thing to have the inner tubes out of order—nobody knows that better'n what I do," confessed Mrs. Weekes. "My unfortunate spasms be all owing to some lifelong failure in the tubes."

"Through peppermint comes salvation, however," murmured Philip.

He had just uttered this great truth when Susan rushed wildly upon them, and in doing so precipitated one of those identical agitations her aunt had just deplored.

"Lord save us, you little fool!" cried Philip. "Bursting into a room so—all endwise, like a frightened fowl! Don't you know your aunt better?"

"'Tis cousin Mary—she's took. Jar's gone for doctor, and Mrs. Taverner's along with her, and of course I come for Aunt Hepsy."

"Took! So like as not you're lying. 'Tis a fortnight afore the time."

"Don't know nothing about that," answered Susan. "But took she is—for good or evil—so you'd better come, I reckon. Anyway, she cried out for you the moment she got bad."

"A pretty darling, and well she might!" said Mrs. Weekes. "Thank the watching Lord she's in her own house, and the schoolmaster ain't there to add another terror to the scene."

"He is there," answered Susan. "He's in the parlour, calculating exactly how long 'twill be in minutes afore Dr. Hext can get up from Bridgetstowe."

"Us'll soon have him out, anyhow," said Hephzibah. "Fetch down my grey shawl and black bonnet, and the basket as you'll find in the corner of my bedroom, Susan. All be there that's called for."

"One of the fore-handed ones, you," said Mr. Huggins with admiration.

"I believe so," she answered. "You've got to be fore-handed in matters of body and soul, Valentine Huggins; and them as ban't, get left behind in this world and forgot in the next."

She kicked off her slippers and drew on a pair of elastic-sided boots which stood by the fire. Then Susan brought her shawl and bonnet.

"Take the basket and I'll be after you," said Mrs. Weekes. "And as for you, Philip, you'll do well to wash up, bank the fire, put the kettle on the hob just near, to catch heat without boiling, and then come across to Jarratt's to see if there's anything I can set you upon. And, for the sake of pride, put a little more uprightness into your bearing. You slouch like a bachelor—always have; and yet afore another morning, if God so wills, you'll be a grandfather."

She whirled away, and the men were left alone. Mr. Huggins mopped his forehead.

"Lord, what a masterpiece among women! Don't she often bring the perspiration out on your brow?" he asked.

"Not now," answered Mr. Weekes. "I'm long past that."

Towards night the market woman's prophecy came true, and Philip was permitted to hold a granddaughter in his arms. The grandmother had saved the situation in her own opinion, and she only returned home, utterly exhausted in mind and body, at midnight. But Philip was even later, and the kitchen clock had rattled the hour of two before he left his son and returned to his wife. She slept heavily, but he ventured to wake her.

"Thought you'd like to know they be going to call the child 'Hephzibah,'" he said.

She uttered sleepy sounds.

"Jar's idea, I lay. I'm glad."

"'Twas my idea—I would have it," answered Philip.

"Mary's prettier, however. Better you hadn't interfered. But there'll be plenty of others. A long family they'll get, mark me. Don't you talk no more. I'm three parts dead to-night, and I wish you hadn't woke me."

He felt a wound and sighed. He had expected a little praise.

Sarah Jane was among the first who came to visit the new mother. She said many kind things of the child, spent an hour with secret thoughts in the house where Hilary Woodrow had lived, and then departed homeward again.

The day was stern and fresh. Easterly winds blew over the cradle of the New Year, and February had not thus far emptied her usual libation upon the earth. The Moor slept in the colours of mourning, and the wind seemed to bite into the very granite and shrivel up the humble life that dwelt thereon. Hazes hid the horizon, but the adjacent hills stood darkly out, clean-cut against the steel-grey sky. Lyd shrilled along her ways and beside the water a carrion crow or two sat with feathers puffed out. They rose heavily as Sarah Jane approached to cross the stepping-stones. Then, under Doe Tor, a man met her. He was riding a rough horse and bound for home; but now he stopped, and turned, and went back a part of the way to Ruddyford beside her.

"I've just been seeing Mary," she said. "I'm sure you're very fortunate. Nobody never had a braver li'l one."

"How are you?" he asked. "Why, 'tis six months since I've seed 'e—to speak to—or more."

"Very well, thank you."

"And your man and your youngster?"

"Well as possible."

He looked down at her and thought of the past, and smiled to himself.

"'Tis funny to you, no doubt, being in my house again. You must have missed Mr. Woodrow a bit, I should think."

"'Twas funny."

"What's the news of him? Do you ever go down to Dawlish to have a chat with him?"

Sarah Jane remembered that this man warned her husband against Woodrow. From that moment her attitude towards him had changed. And she had just heard another thing from his wife. Mary was anxious that Sarah Jane should be her child's godmother and Jarratt refused to permit it. He gave no reasons, but explained that he wished others to fill that position. This fact Brendon's wife had learned within the hour from her friend.

"Daniel and Mr. Prout go down from time to time and bide a night or two. I haven't," she said.

"Of course not. Yet I'm sure you miss him."

"Yes, I do."

"I never could see much in the man myself."

"You wouldn't. You'd never understand why anybody could overpay you for your house. To you that would be a fool's trick. No doubt you despise him for paying more for a thing than 'twas worth."

He laughed and shook his head.

"Oh no, Sarah Jane. That didn't surprise me at all, I assure you. He had his reasons. It suited—his health very well. 'Twas money well spent from his point of view; and well earned from mine. A lucky man—a very lucky man."

She disliked his tone with its suggestion of insolent superiority.

He leant over and patted her shoulder, whereupon she started indignantly away.

"Needn't be cross with me, my dear," he said. "Why, bless your life, I feel that intimate—however, since you're not in an amiable mood seemingly, I'll go my way. Give my respects to Daniel. He's calling out for rain, I suppose."

She stopped and turned on him almost fiercely.

"Why for wouldn't you let me be godmother to your li'l girl?"

"Oh—that's it! What the mischief did Mary want to tell you that for? No offence, no offence at all, and you mustn't take it so. The reason—and yet I'm not sure if you'd understand. You're so out of the common, you know—such a large mind—so—how shall I put it now? 'Tis the difference betwixt you and your husband—the difference in your way of thinking. I'm a Christian man, Sarah Jane; but you—I ban't quite sure that you're a Christian woman; so all's said. But don't be angry about it; and don't tell Daniel, for 'twill only hurt his feelings, you see."

"Don't you think it. He can read me like print, and he knows I'm a better pattern of Christian than what you be, anyway. 'Tis a slight you've put on me—not that I care a straw what you think of me."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Why should you care? But I wouldn't hurt you for anything, Sarah Jane—much too fond of you for that. I know your virtues—nobody better. If you'd like to be god-mother, you shall, bless your large heart! And don't try to quarrel with me, because I'll never let you. Them beautiful eyes—they make the sky ashamed these cold days!"

He rode away before she could answer, and left her in doubt of his meaning. The words he said were nothing, but the easy familiarity of his tone exasperated her. She determined with herself that now, even if pressed to be his child's godmother, she would refuse.

And Jarratt Weekes, returning to Lydford, met another of the Ruddyford folk. He was passing with a nod, when John Prout stopped him. The ponies rubbed noses, and then Prout turned and rode for a while beside the other.

"Funny I should chance on you," said Jarratt. "I've just been having speech along with Sarah Jane Brendon. 'Tis the salt of life to me to see that woman carry her lovely head so high—knowing what I know."

"Weekes," answered the old man, "I want to pray you by all that you hold sacred, by the prosperity that's yours, by your wife and by your child, and by your God—yes, by your God—to let this pass over. Forget it you can't—no more can I—but don't let it be a part of your life, or your thoughts. Don't let it enter into your mind, as a thing to be used. Which of us can live his whole life with the blind up? 'Twas a fatal accident, and I'm not saying a word against sin—my hair be the greyer for it—but—oh, man, don't harbour it; don't hug it, for God's sake—same as you be doing now. I know—I know. I read it in your face every time you and me meet in company. I——"

"Stop," interrupted Weekes. "You're wasting your wind, Prout. And you're quite mistaking me. Everyone of us, if we keep our eyes open, hoard a harvest in our memories and collect all sorts of things gleaned up out of the world. Some of the gatherings may be useful, some may not be useful. You never know. A man's memory be like a woman's boxes—full of all sorts; and the wisest man keeps all in order, so as he'll know where to put his finger on anything if he wants it. He may die without using some of the things stored up—or he may find he needs 'em in a hurry any minute. That's how 'tis with me."

"What sort of Christian be that who hoards what he knows another creature would dearly wish destroyed? You mean to strike these people when the time comes and you hunger for the chance to do it."

"Not a bit. I'm in no hurry to roll 'em over, I do assure you. 'Live and let live' is a very good motto. And 'Let sleeping dogs lie' be another worth remembering. But as to laughing at a good joke—that I always shall do. And the cream of the joke is the fix you be in. For if you wasn't here, I should have no witness; but since you be here, I can blow Brendon to the devil when I like. 'Tis amusing in itself to feel so much stronger than that very strong chap."

"He's never wronged you—more have they—her and the master."

"How do you know that?"

"You'd never do it as a Christian man, Jarratt Weekes."

"As a Christian man I ought to do it. 'Twould be a good Christian deed, surely, to let the light in on that darkness, and so save the woman's soul alive. But it might be a tragical mess if it got out: that I'm free to grant; and I've no intention whatever of saying a word. I'm a very patient man, and can stand hard knocks as well as most. We'll wait and watch, and see what sort of friend Brendon will be to me presently. I've just offered Sarah Jane to be my baby's gossip; so you see I don't harbour no ill-will against the dear creature herself—who could? So long, and keep warm against this piercing wind. Good men are scarcer every day, John Prout!"

Jarratt rode away, leaving in the old man's mind a deep uneasiness, somewhat similar in quality to that he had just awakened in the soul of Daniel Brendon's wife.

CHAPTER IV
THE FARMER COMES HOME

Hilary Woodrow returned home during the latter part of May, and Ruddyford rejoiced to see him. But despite his assurances, all found him a little changed. He was tolerably active and cheerful, yet thinner than of yore, and his love of the saddle had decreased. He rode abroad less than formerly, and he read more; but he showed no indifference to the minor questions of the passing hour. Of old, nothing was too small for him to bestow thought upon it; and he still liked to be consulted as to the affairs of his farm.

Yet in certain particulars it seemed that he had slightly changed his attitude to most things.

"'Tis more like a visitor in the house, somehow, than the master," said Peter Lethbridge to Daniel; and the other admitted it.

"Too easy for a master now," he answered. "'Tis a very bad sign in my opinion, and I shall have a tell with him about it."

He was as good as his word, and explained his uneasiness in very clear language.

"I feel I'm largely the cause of this," he declared while once they walked together homeward from the railway station of Lydford. "It hurts me terrible—'tis as though you felt Ruddyford was gone already. I wish to God you'd burn them papers, and put dying out of your mind. If I may say so, you'm a man running to meet the end of life. And you, please Heaven, with thirty years of usefulness before you."

"I like you to say these things, Dan; because it shows you're the same always. You don't change. I wish we were all as steadfast. But to be honest with you, I'm come to a time when the rest of the road can be seen pretty clear. The things that make life worth living shrink very small as soon as life ceases to be worth living."

"Life's worth living while we've got the power left to think a good thought."

Woodrow did not answer for some time. Then he said:

"I want you to go to Bristol for me next month. Don't think I've lost interest in my farm and my stock. There's a sale there of pedigree stuff, and I've ideas. I'll buy three beasts—a bull and two heifers."

"They'll cost a mint of money."

"Why not?"

Brendon rejoiced.

"A pity there ban't more with your great ideas on Dartymoor. The place is the best grazing ground in England, yet who knows its worth? I'll go, and gladly. You must put a limit on the purchases if 'tis an auction."

"I'll tell you to-night, if you'll come in for an hour. How's little Gregory this morning?"

Daniel's animation waned somewhat.

"Not all us could wish—fretful seemingly, and off his food. Sarah Jane be going to have doctor to him if he ban't better next week."

"Don't put it off."

"He's growing that fast."

"A very good lad—more like you than his mother. You'll make a farmer of him, Daniel?"

"I mean to. 'Twas my hope us should have had another boy to grow up with him—but——"

"Plenty of time."

A month later Brendon started for Bristol. It was a great incident, and his wife and he felt much excited about it. She had so far seen but little of Hilary since his return; now, during the three days' absence of Daniel, it became possible to spend some hours in the master's company.

By appointment they met in the old peat-works, but the relation between them was different from of old. Woodrow's fever had departed with possession; his appetence had quite faded. Now he loved her, with all his soul rather than with all his heart. The words were his own, and she questioned them.

"'Tis a higher thing, no doubt, and I'm thankful you feel so," she said. "'Twill surely grow up so great in you that all else will be forgot. I wish I could see more of you, and look to your comfort closer. Tabitha's a kind woman, but hard at the edges."

They sat in the great empty drum at the peat-works. It was dry and littered with sweet fresh fern, for Sarah Jane sometimes climbed thither to reflect and think upon the dead, when leisure served. She brought the child with her to play in the peat, and liked to see him at his games, because she knew that his grandfather would have loved the sight. On these occasions he was allowed to play with the famous knife. Then Sarah Jane hid it safely until their next visit.

Where now they sat, she could see the little figure busy with rusty tools that a man had used in earnest, though in vain. Upon Gregory Friend's death the last spark of human life departed from Amicombe Hill, and now only Nature worked there.

Woodrow reclined beside Sarah Jane, and stroked her hand. From time to time came the thud of a hoof, where his horse was tethered close by.

"And yet," she said, "to hear you put your soul afore your heart be a wonder, Hilary, for 'twas only a little time agone that you'd have none of the word. I be glad and sorry both to hear you say it. Glad because it makes you a thought happier."

"Why sorry?" he asked.

"I don't know—down deep in me I be. Can't find a word for it. 'Tis giving up something in my feeling to put anything afore our bodies When I think of father, I see his round shoulders and beard and shining eyes. I'm so small-minded, I can't fancy them I love save in their dear flesh."

"You beautiful thing! Well may you say it—such a queen of the flesh as you are! But for me 'tis different. A pain-stricken wretch, sinking away back to the dust so fast."

"Don't say that. 'Tis only your hands be thinner, because you never use 'em save for turning the pages of books. I do wish you'd be on your horse more."

"I know—I know. Man cannot live by books alone. I'll do everything. But think—what a great, precious thought—to believe there's a time after! Aren't you glad I've got to believe that?"

"Do you believe it?"

"I do."

"I'll say no hard thing against your books no more then. Somehow—after what fell out—I wanted to be the same as you. I was torn in half between Dan and you; and sometimes I thought heaven would be good, and oftener I couldn't see how. Then I felt as if the sleep without end and without dreams that you trusted to was best. But if you and Daniel both think for sure that there's a time coming will find us alive for ever, and no growing old in it—then I'll believe it too—I must."

"Believe it," he said. "'Tis worth anything. We call death endless sleep and all the rest of it, to make it sound less terrible; but that is only playing with words. Death is dust if it is the end. I prayed to God—the God I didn't believe in—to make me believe. Such vain things will a sad heart do. Not vain either, for He heard and answered. The sea it was that fetched the answer. Miles and miles I tramped along lonely shores and watched the waves. They brought the idea of endlessness so near to me. My watch in my pocket ticked time; but the great, sad-coloured waves beat out eternity. I want to walk on that beach with you and see the water-scythes sweep round and mow the sand. And when the sand sighs I feel it is the sigh of the weary earth, that knows no rest from the unwearying sea. The sea's a better lover than I was. Twice a day he worships the shore."

"I might come maybe when autumn's back. A change would do the child good belike."

"Well thought. What more natural? Somehow I want you there—just to walk over the sand and hear the long sob and hopeless sigh of sea against stone. It will force you to believe in your soul, Sarah Jane."

"Do it make you glad—this new feeling?"

"Yes, it does. It opens out so many doors to hope. It teaches so much. I told you once that if there was another world, there was a God. It is so."

"Do it make right and wrong plainer?"

"In time—in time it will. I've flung over a lot of old opinions already. 'Tis like parting with the very stuff of your brain; for my thoughts were my life—till you came into it. But you—you've taught me such a lot too. You taught me that truth was beyond our reach—that was a great piece of learning. Once hold that and comfort grows out of it—a sort of desolate comfort to a hungry heart—still comfort. Truth's got to be softened behind a veil for things with no more intellect than we have. The stark, naked light would blind us for ever and make us mad. God knows that. Truth is God's face, Sarah Jane."

She was secretly amazed at this great mental change in him. For his sake she was glad, because he had evidently welcomed the possibility of a new belief that was strong to throw hope over the present desert of his mind. With weakened physical circumstances, reason had also weakened; but Woodrow believed otherwise and told himself that unimpaired intellectual powers, working unceasingly on the problem he conceived to be paramount, had at last purged his understanding and lifted him into a purer belief. He was, moreover, proud that he had attained to this triumph by the exercise of what he believed to be pure reason. He doubted not that such faith as he had now attained was the only faith worthy of mankind.

But in the woman's heart lurked something akin to regret. She could not name the emotion; she lacked words to analyze it; but she knew that it was there; and while her nature leapt to gladness—because Hilary was glad—behind the joy persisted something of disquiet and even distrust.

"I'll be well pleased to think like you do, then," she said; "but—but, oh, Hilary, for God's sake don't you grow to think like Daniel do—else—else——"

He shook his head.

"Never fear that—that would be to go down the hill—not up it. It's cost the life-work of my brains to get where I have got, dear heart. I shan't go backward now."

Presently she left Woodrow and went to her child. Then Gregory and his mother set off homeward.

The farmer watched them sink—a large spot and a little one—into the waste. Presently he rose and mounted his horse. He thought long upon Sarah Jane and that last note of fear—so foreign to her fearless voice. He reflected, too, upon his own altered attitude and sublimated affection for her. He supposed that belief in immortality must be a force very elevating to the human mind; he doubted not that it lifted glorious flowers when once the root struck down and flourished. He considered the great matter from divers points of view, but not from one. He did not know that decaying physical circumstances frequently open the door to superstition and make a fading intellect succumb before what, in full vigour of intellectual life, it scorned.

The day chimed with his mood, and he told himself very honestly that none could gaze upon this outspread world and believe that it represented but a display of natural laws, a casual compact of heat and light and substance, a chance conglobation of matter whirling beautifully about the sun's throne at the moment of summer solstice.

The light of noon shone over the world. Cloud shadows flew along the silvery planes of the earth's surface, and life teemed in a myriad shapes even to the pinnacles of the land. Day herself scarcely died now, and night was a shadow rather than a darkness. Even in the midnight watches, light, like a ghost, stole under the stars and behind the northern hills until day returned. So spirits might haunt the nether gloom, he fancied, ere they vanished again at the glorious advent of day.

To Woodrow, gazing upon the June world, it seemed that he was the only faulty thing in the visible universe; and he longed to cast his slough and also be without fault.

CHAPTER V
THE FRUIT OF FAITH

Matters fell out much as Hilary Woodrow desired. He returned to Dawlish in October, and soon afterwards Brendon brought his wife and child to the sea.

His master and he took long walks together among the Haldon hills, and Daniel learnt with enormous satisfaction that the other had of late experienced great changes of spirit. The big man gloried in this fact from a personal point of view, because it appeared to justify his immense faith in prayer. He had petitioned Heaven for Hilary Woodrow; and here dawned the answer. Daniel doubted not that this was the beginning of a larger and deeper conversion. He urged Woodrow to go farther.

"There's no standing still," he said. "There's no standing still for you now—no more than the light stands still when the sun rises. Brighter and brighter surely it must grow, till the full light of the Gospel of the Son of God warms your heart. Man! what's deeper than that, what shows all clearer than that—or throws a darker shadow—the shadow of our sins?"

"What a preacher you are!"

"'Tis the good tidings of what you say. They make even my slow mind move quick. 'Ye believe in God, believe also in Me'; 'tis that I'm thinking."

"Ah, Dan, that's a very different matter."

"God'll show you 'tis the same."

Thus oftentimes they talked; then work called Brendon, and he went home again. But his wife and child stopped for some weeks longer beside the sea; because little Gregory gained benefit from the change, and Sarah Jane was anxious to remain for his sake.

The old-time fires were now banked deep in Daniel's mind under the changes and chances of his life. Jealous he was, since a large power of jealousy pertained to his nature; but for Woodrow he had long since failed to feel anything but the staunch devotion of a brother. Apart from this emotion, awakened by the circumstance of the farmer's personal goodness to him, another far deeper, begot of natural instinct, told him that Hilary was harmless now. Whatever his attitude towards Sarah Jane had been, the very openness of their friendship and the close intimacy of their conversation under his own eyes and before his own ears, had convinced the husband that no shadow of danger existed in their relations. The past in truth was dead enough, and Brendon, a man of clean mind, despite jealousy, made the mistake of supposing that it had never been. He went further and, looking backward, blamed himself for an unseemly attitude, and confessed his sin to his Maker.

The past was dead, and neither Hilary nor Sarah Jane, as they walked together at the edge of the winter sea, sought or thought upon its grave. Far otherwise, she found that in the light of his new opinions he could now bitterly mourn the past. On a grey day, when a slight shore wind smoothed the water and the sea was almost of the same colour as the gulls that floated upon it, the man and woman sat under shelter of a red cliff, talked together, and watched Sarah Jane's child gathering cowry shells upon the beach.

"How your husband rejoices in his God! Have you marked it, Sarah Jane? Such a trust and such a great, live gratitude underlying his scrupulous obedience."

"Well he may be grateful."

"I'm only a child in knowledge of the divine idea. He's got far beyond that. And yet—sometimes—I wonder what would happen to his religion—and to us—if he knew."

"I don't wonder. I know what would happen. He might be sorry after—when 'twas too late—but while the storm was raging in his heart, God's self wouldn't hold him."

"I understand."

"And I wouldn't blame him neither. Think—the solid earth giving way under his feet. 'Twould be no less to him."

"It's very awful—considered in that manner. I hope you're wrong."

"The sea would be weak and the rocks would be soft compared to him."

"You've never felt he ought to know?"

She gasped and stared.

"My God! No, I haven't."

"Sometimes I have, Sarah Jane."

Her eyes rested on him in profound and horrified amazement.

"You can say that! Believing in God has brought you to that! Then I wish you'd never come to it, Hilary Woodrow."

"I have almost felt that if I lived very much longer, I might tell him."

"You won't live much longer afterwards, if you do. He's said to me in naked words, that 'tis no sin to kill them as have done what we have done. His Bible is behind him."

"Nevertheless, if you were dead, I should tell Brendon."

"I'm not dead, and I don't want to die. You—you to say this awful thing to me! I feel as if I was going mad. I can't believe it. I won't believe 'tis you talking. You—knowing all you know!"

Something akin to indignation trembled in her voice; and he marked it and felt shame.

"The thought came to me in a dream," he declared. "Of course it's unthinkable awake. But I wanted to hear how it would sound."

She was much moved.

"It sounds like a bell tolling," she said. "You grow to be such an own-self man now—along of finding God, I suppose. You think to tell Brendon would ease your soul, no doubt. But what about his? You've come to reckon that you did wrong—that I did wrong—but can't you see what might be rest to your mind is hell for his? Don't you know him well enough to know what it would mean to him? I can see the things that would happen—like a row of awful——there, you've made my brain whirl; you've throwed me into a maze of terror for that man."

The other noticed that not a thought of fear for herself influenced Sarah Jane. Neither did she concern her mind with him after his confession. Her husband filled her heart.

Hilary pacified her and quite agreed with her; he laughed at her fervour and declared that his God and her husband's were as different as love from hate; that his God was hers, not Daniel's. She made no answer; but the reflection that even from the fantasies of a dream he could pluck such an idea and utter it in her ears, transformed her feeling towards him from that hour for ever. The shock of this experience aged the spirit within her. She returned home at the appointed time; and was glad to be home. But her mental life had changed.

CHAPTER VI
PHILIP FALLS

Philip Weekes considered that all men might be divided into two classes: those who knew their own minds, and those who did not. His wife and son both belonged to the smaller category; himself he numbered with the majority and confessed that there were occasions when he found himself not in two minds, but twenty.

With winter, Fate passing through Lydford, perceived the amazing prosperity of all who bore the famous local name of Weekes, and from her bitter lemon squeezed a little verjuice. Jarratt experienced some bad fortune and lost more than he could afford to lose in a copper mine on the east side of the Moor; while Philip himself fell ill. It was the attitude of Mrs. Weekes at the time of this latter unparalleled misfortune that served so greatly to bewilder the huckster. He had fought against his indisposition valiantly and only retired upon medical compulsion; but it was quite as much fear of the consequences, if he went to bed, as a valiant indifference to physical misery that kept him on his legs until the last moment.

He drove Mrs. Weekes to Lydford station as usual on a market day, and then returned home, feeling exceedingly unwell. A doctor called twice weekly at the village, and fortunately he might be seen at his surgery upon Saturdays. When Hephzibah came back her son Jarratt was waiting with the pony-trap, and she learnt the amazing news that the master was ill in bed.

"Guy Fawkes and good angels!" cried Mrs. Weekes. "Philip down! Push the pony along for the love of the Lord, Jar. Who's with him?"

"Mary runs in and out, and Susan, and Mrs. Taverner have been very kind."

"Poor lamb! poor helpless lamb!" said the wife.

Ever in extremes, she now poured forth a torrent of praise and extolled the immense virtues of Philip. She also dwelt on his practical value and her own imperishable affection and admiration for him.

"Such men go down to the grave with nobody but God Almighty and their wives to mark them," she said.

"'Twill be a case of 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant' if he goes. But it mustn't be. It shan't be!"

"He's not in the least danger, mother."

"Danger!—how can you dare to use the word? Oh, my God, to think of the staff and prop of my life tottering—and me not there! 'Danger'!—you ought to be a better son than to say it. Why for wasn't a telegram sent off? What do Mary know of sickness?"

Jarratt grunted.

"If she don't, she's a fool then. Another child coming and the first always got something wrong with it."

"There—to think—that poor martyr! I knowed there was something wrong—felt it in my bones all yesterday. 'God send Mary's all right,' I said again and again to myself in market. But little did I think of master. I fancied 'twas no more than just a running at the nose—and all the time he was suffering agonies, no doubt. The bravery of the man! Lash the pony, can't 'e, or I'll get out and go afoot. How long are we to take? I'm itching to be at him!"

Mrs. Weekes soon reached home, and swiftly swept the neighbours out of the house.

"He'm asking for you, Aunt Hepsy," said Susan. "He'm very peaceful, with his medicine, an' a Bible, an' the kettle 'pon the fire; and blacksmith have made a proper long spout for the kettle as the doctor ordained, so the steam can get to him."

"You go off, you chattering magpie," began Mrs. Weekes; then she hastened up to the head of the house, and found him pretty comfortable, but very crestfallen and full of the humblest apologies.

"Awful sorry," he croaked. "I blush for myself, I'm sure."

"Don't you talk—not a word. I'll do the talking for once, you poor fallen creature! It do tear me to pieces to see you thrust into your bed, in the full vigour of manhood, like this. And never a groan—you valiant boy! But now I be back, us shall soon have 'e on your feet again. You trust to me! Be you easy? Where's the pain? I'd sooner fight evils above the navel than below it, as I have always maintained. Don't say 'tis the stomach—don't say that. But your poor cracked voice tells me all I want to know."

"'Tis the breathing parts, my dear."

"And you brave as an army about it, and never told me, and let me desert you without a thought. You wonderful man! I wish to God there was more like you. Let me look in your face. Good! Don't you fear any harm, Philip. While the white of your eye be so clear, there's no danger. You'll come through all right."

"No danger, I'm sure. I can drink soup as easy as anything. But 'tis the ill-convenience of upsetting the bedroom so."

"Like your big mind to think of it; but what's a bedroom to me? I don't want no bedroom while you'm stricken down. Not a wink of sleep shall I have, till doctor says you can rise up again. And to think I never guessed, so quiet you kept it! When Jar showed hisself at the station—even then I didn't seem to know what had kept you. 'Where's that beetle of a man, Philip Weekes?' I asked, in my brisk, cheerful way. 'Struck down,' says Jarratt; and you could have flung me into the air. I was blowed out with sudden terror, like a balloon."

"I did ought to have a bowl of something to lap at about mid-day, according to doctor's orders—not that I want it if 'twill be troubling you," said Mr. Weekes.

"So you shall, then; an' the fat of the land shall you have, as becomes such a man; an' wine, if I've got to sell my shoes for it—good, black port wine—as good as Noah Pearn have got in the house—you shall drink—bottles and bottles—till your very blood be wine! There's nought makes blood like what port does."

She set to work from that moment and toiled unceasingly until Mr. Weekes had passed the crisis of his illness, and was pronounced convalescent. Then she nearly fed him to death, praised God for His mercies, and wearied the whole street of Lydford with nursing details, with symptoms and their treatment, with the particulars of diet, with enthusiastic comments on the majestic attitude of mind preserved by Philip throughout his sufferings.

Presently neighbours called, and were allowed to have speech with the invalid. Philip's eyes had been giving him some trouble, and during his illness the doctor had prescribed a pair of glasses. These were now made, and Mr. Weekes was proud of them, and pleased with the appearance of himself in them. Adam Churchward visited him, and admired his spectacles.

"It brings out the natural thoughtful bent of your countenance, if I may say so. You'll find them a great comfort and support without a doubt. For my part, strange though it may seem, I have to put on my glasses now—not only to see with, but to think with. My mind refuses to move freely until I feel them on the bridge of my nose."

"It clears print something wonderful," explained Philip, "and of late, for want of power to do anything useful, I've sunk down to reading the newspaper, and found it very interesting. I've had a good dash at the Word too; and 'tis curious to see that fighting was just as bloody a job in Old Testament days as it be now. The only difference is that then they always knowed which side the Lord was, afore they went to war; and now we never know till afterwards. If the Almighty took the same pleasure in England as He done in Israel, we should just walk over the earth."

"A very wise remark," declared Mr. Churchward; "I can see the glasses are steadying your mind already."

"He be so vain of 'em as a turkey-cock," said Mrs. Weekes, who sat beside her husband's bed. Why, it minds me of the time Jarratt was born. Then the airs and graces this man give himself! 'Twas every minute, 'Where's my son? Where's my boy Jarratt to?' And now 'tis 'Where's my glasses?' 'Here, let me get on my glasses!'

"I like a middle-aged face to look wise," declared Mr. Churchward. "There's no more shameful thing in nature than an elderly fool. Yet one meets them—people over whose heads life has passed and not brought a single thoughtful line. Poor, smooth-faced souls! Why, the very beasts that perish as doth the grass of the field look wiser, and undoubtedly are wiser, as they grow older."

"No good growing old if you don't grow artful, for certain," said Mrs. Weekes. "And another thing is that they fools are far more harmful than the knaves. A knave makes clean work, but a fool botches all. Everybody knows that. Why, you men—Lord bless you!—I see through the pack of you, like windows!"

"You do your best, as I do, to inculcate wisdom," answered the schoolmaster. "For my part I may say that I leave no stone unturned to implant it in the rising generation. Sow enough seed and some will undoubtedly germinate in a satisfactory manner. We never know how great a matter may be kindled by a flash of sense bursting in upon the youthful mind. And, in your case, you don't deny your immense fund of common sense to the humblest who asks for it. I suppose that nobody in Lydford gives more good advice in the course of a twelvemonth than you do, Mrs. Weekes. Nathaniel Spry is sound also."

"Him!" returned Hephzibah with contempt. "What does he know, more than how many penny stamps make twelve, or how to weigh a parcel, or write a gun license? How can he know anything, living out his life behind the counter in that stuffy little post-office?"

"I was going to admit that his experience of the world is rather limited; but he is a great reader, and has nourished his intellect on the learning of wiser men than himself. His advice generally comes out of a good book, and is therefore pretty well to be relied upon."

"As to advice," she answered. "'Tis taking it, not giving it that matters. If a man or woman agrees with you, and falls in with every word, and thanks you over and over again—then you may feel perfectly sure they won't follow a syllable and have only come to waste your time. 'Tis them that argue, and wrangle, and sulk, and ax your reasons, and go away in a temper with you—'tis them that be most likely to profit by what you've said."

A voice cried from below stairs.

"Can Valentine come up to see father?"

"He can," answered Mr. Weekes; and a moment later old Huggins creaked upstairs, followed by Jarratt.

"You'd better go, schoolmaster. You've had your turn," said Hephzibah. "Philip mustn't see too much company all at once."

Adam, therefore, withdrew, and Mr. Huggins took his place.

"I heard the joyful news as you was your own man again, and soon to come down house," said the patriarch; "therefore nothing would do but what I must walk up and have a look at you. Not changed a hair, thank God."

"He's fatter," said Mrs. Weekes. "The idleness have put flesh on him—round as a tub he have grown. You'm inches deep in lard, ban't you, my old dear?"

"I believe I am," answered Philip. "But I'll work it off again so soon as I get on my legs. It shows how little us be wanted, Val, that though we may be struck down, the world goes on just the same. Now I've often thought, in my vainglorious way, what would become of all my Indian game birds if anything happened to me. Yet they was never better, and be laying as free as Nature can make 'em, so missis tells me."

"'Tis this here wonderful woman," said Huggins. "You'm one of the fortunates, you are. 'Be dashed if Hephzibah Weekes don't know how to be in two places to once!' I said not long since to Noah Pearn. And he answered 'twas the cleverest thing he'd ever heard me say."

"Philip's going to be let out of bed to-morrow," said Mrs. Weekes. "And he'll come down house the day after."

"The spring weather will soon set him up."

"Spring be here without a doubt," she answered. "That dear angel boy of Sarah Jane's comed in along with his father yester-eve; and he fetched as fine a bunch of primrosen as you could wish to see. But the darling had picked 'em without stalks, as childer will, so they was flinged away so soon as his li'l back was turned."

"A very promising start to the year, I do think," said Mr. Huggins. "A good deal of prosperity in the country, and very great promise of hay—so John Prout tells me."

"What was the news of Mr. Woodrow?"

"I named him. He've wintered pretty well—ban't worse nor better. Daniel Brendon be going down to him for a few days, and 'tis hoped he'll come home first week in June."

"Good luck all round, then."

"You forget me," said Jarratt, who had been standing with his hands in his pockets, looking out of the window. "But one man's ill-fortune don't matter, I suppose."

"I heard as Wheal Cosdon was looking up again," answered Mr. Huggins.

"You heard wrong. 'Tis as like as not 'twill be knacked in autumn. 'Twas a damned swindle; but they promoters be on the windy side o' the law, as usual, and us, who put in our hard-earned savings, get nought."

"Can't you have the law of nobody about it?" asked his father.

"No, I can't. The rogues be safe enough. The law's their side."

"I'd like to poison the traitors with the arsenic they've digged out of the place," cried Hephzibah. "To steal the bread from the mouths of men and women and children; and eat it themselves—the anointed robbers! 'Tis a shameful thing to think in a Christian land the laws should all be made with an eye to the comfort of the rich."

"Can't be otherwise—so long as the rich make 'em," ventured Philip.

"With all your natural needs and requirements in the big life you lead, it must be a terrible crash to have to put down your servant, as they tell me you think of doing," said Huggins to Jarratt Weekes.

"I must face it. I like ease and comfort as well as anybody—especially since I earned it by my own hard work. But we must cut the coat as the cloth allows. Ban't no good thirsting for half a pint, if you haven't got three-halfpence."

Valentine, however, doubted the philosophy of this sentiment.

"Don't say so. You'm leaving out of your reckoning all the Good Samaritans that be about the world, and the beauty of human nature in general."

"Human nature's all rot. Anyway, it isn't the thirsty folks that human nature asks to drink."

"Yet I've had scores and scores gratis and for nothing in my time," declared Mr. Huggins. "Eighty year old am I, and if I could tell 'em up, I make no doubt that I should find I'd had barrels over one counter and another—all out of the goodness of my fellow-creatures, without a thought of any return. Not but what I haven't stood oceans of drink in my time too. But gratitude's the thing—an' rarer even than generosity. I'm exceedingly grateful for all the free beer I've had, and I won't hear you tell that human nature's rot, just because you are a bit under the weather. Your luck will come uppermost presently—then you'll think different."

"Good sense, Val. Cheer him up if you can," said Mrs. Weekes. "And now you men had best to get off, for Philip must have his dinner."

CHAPTER VII
A CHRISTIAN CONVERT

With another summer Hilary Woodrow again returned to his home, and time passed as during previous years. But the passage of the last winter had left its mark upon him, and the least observant noticed a change. Physically he had grown thinner. His cheek-bones thrust out, and there were hollows beneath them. He still rode, and he still read; but his books belonged now to a different plane of thought, and a man by glancing at them might have calculated with pretty close accuracy the nature of his bent, and the slow but sure victory of faith over reason.

In some respects he looked younger, for a colour that means health in infancy and death at adolescence, lighted his fallen cheek. His eyes were bright; his manner continued courteous and kind as of yore; his energies were not yet much decreased, save in certain directions. From predisposition he had gradually passed into actual disease; and as the bodily fires waned and cooled, his interest in the superhuman waxed and dominated every waking hour. He believed in a life beyond the grave; he had infected the domain of reason by deep reading of irrational authors; and these created an atmosphere through which he groped his way back to the faith of his fathers.

Sarah Jane held secret speech with him, at oncoming of another autumn, and the great matter arose upon his lips. This happened towards the end of his stay at home, when already it became necessary to think of leaving the Moor. First he treated of his health, and confessed, to her grief, that he was not so well; then he discussed the superstitions now supremely precious to him.

"What will you say when I tell you that I have followed in the path of many and many a greater man than myself, and changed my opinions?" he asked.

"I know it," she answered. "You told me nine months agone at Dawlish. You believe in God and heaven; and so do I with all my heart."

"But I've gone beyond that—higher—higher. We must believe in that, when our eyes are opened to read the meaning of the world—or even a glimpse of the meaning. Looking back, I tremble to see what a dreadful, lonely thing I was—walking here in my pride. But God's too great a thought for the mind of man to grasp single-handed. I've come to see there must be something between—something within reach of human intellect—something that man's mind can understand and even love—something that will bring the divine light to us, yet soften its wonder and terror, so that we can gaze upon it. Without Christ, the idea of God dazzles and blinds and bewilders. With Christ, the thought can be received and taken home into our hearts. The only possible God for man is made clear to us by the Son of God. Therefore I am a Christian, Sarah Jane."

Frank but fleeting anxiety filled her eyes as they opened widely to regard him. Great excitement was manifested by Hilary. An expression she had never seen there shone in his countenance as he spoke. It was the same light that she knew as a familiar beacon upon her husband's face; but there it glowed steady and flameless; here it shot up and played like fire.

"You believe all that my Dan believes?"

"All. Oh, Sarah Jane, the grief of it is greater than the joy; for who, when the light comes, but must look back as well as forward? If I could only look forward! But a man in my case sees the past clear enough—clearer and clearer as the sun sets upon it. My sun-setting will be stormy now. I should have died happy enough with the glorious thought of you and the past; but now 'tis just that thought that will darken all."

"Can't you forget? The years and years it was ago! The scores and scores of things that have happened since."

"I can't forget. I lament it—I lament for it with my whole heart and soul. I mourn it waking and moan for it sleeping. I'd die a hundred deaths if the time could come again."

"This be Christianity?"

"Yes; it shows that I have not deceived myself. I am a Christian—therefore this thing that I have done torments me."

"How it festers in your mind! I've forgot it—very near. Many a dream that I dream seems more real to me than that."

"It's the only reality left in my life."

"Then I wish you'd die quick and be at peace," she said fiercely. "I love you so dear that I can wish that for you!"

"I'm dying fast enough—yet not fast enough. I'm impatient now to see what mercy means—mercy and forgiveness. I shall know soon. How clear the stages are, Sarah Jane! I wonder if they are so clear with you? First joy and pride in what I'd done; then content and a blessed memory to look back upon; then, as disease got hold of me, and I had to begin to fight for life, clouds came between me and the past. Then the first sharp twinge of regret, as my soul began to waken; then sorrow; then frantic, undying grief and a vain agony of longing that I'd not sinned so damnably against those I loved best in the world. Have you felt so, Sarah Jane?"

"Never," she said. "I wept fire for a week after; I was half raving for joy and half raving for misery—mad like. Then I put it all behind me. Things stronger than me—or you—worked that deed. I'll pay the price, if I must. I didn't do it for myself—you know that."

"Can't you feel for my sufferings?"

At the bottom of her heart flashed a passing scorn; but she expelled it and blamed only his unhappy physical decay.

"'Twill all be made up if what you think is right. Your Christ will be so pleased with you for being sorry, that He'll forgive you everything—and me too. We sinners are His sort. The just persons go into heaven without any fuss, by all accounts. 'Tis such as we are—weak, wicked, good-for-noughts—that the angels will blow their trumpets for."

Hilary was astonished at her attitude and its satire—the more terrible because quite unconscious.

"What would Daniel say to that?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered. "And I don't care."

Then her outlook utterly changed at a breath.

"Yet that's folly, if justice be anything," she continued. "And I do care—care with all my might. 'Tis the like of Daniel—pure in heart and soul, the faithful servant of his God, that must go in first. And so he should. If heaven's waiting, 'tis Dan and my dear, dear father, and such as them—not me and you—will be put first. 'Tis for their sakes I ever think or care about it, or want to go there. For their sakes. But for them and my little boy, I'd sooner go nowhere. I've had nearly enough of living anywhere—beautiful though 'tis to be alive. I don't want much more of it—not now you've said this to me."

"May you live long—very, very long—long enough to forgive me."

"You needn't say things like that," she answered. "The more you heap all this misery on your own head, the less I'm likely to blame you. I never did—not even in thought, 'Twould have been a coward's part. 'Twas no more than a bitter bargain, when all's said."

"How can you have the heart to speak so?"

"Because I ban't the religious creature you are, I suppose. Let the dead past be—or you'll fret yourself to death afore your time."

"Daniel is never out of my thoughts. Sometimes I feel almost as though I could fling myself on the ground at his feet and, for my peace of mind, tell all."

"So you said last year, and made my heart stand still. Yet 'tis a cruel, selfish wish—even for a full-blown new Christian, I should reckon. I loathed you for it at the time, and my thoughts choked me to think as a man who—to think such a wish could come to you. But now I'm changed too. 'Tis all one to me what you do, so far as I'm concerned, and I'd tell Dan myself, if he was anything but what he is. Not for fear of him do I keep dumb—God He knows that—but for love of him. For great love of his dear self I want the past to be dead and buried. If it would better Dan to tell it, I'd tell it; if my death would help his life and his power of goodness, and fix him any stronger and surer with heaven, I'd die laughing. But what would hap to him if he knew? Would it bring him nearer to his God? No—worse luck: I'd be casting down his God and leaving him stripped of everything he cares for and clings to. You know what he'd do—if you have spared a thought from yourself for him."

The man winced.

"I deserve that," he said. "You're right enough. I shall die with this on my conscience. I shall die, and trust Christ to do the rest—for you and him—and even for me."

He left her then, and passed down from the high ground on which they had walked and talked. Her little boy picked whortleberries and filled a can with them not far off. Woodrow was on foot, and now he sank into the valley. She rose and stood perched on the stone crown of a hill—stood with fluttering skirt and lifting bosom, to drink in the great wind that panted overhead from its strife with the Atlantic. Mist swept here and there, and Hilary Woodrow was presently obliterated by grey vapours that drove against the hills, and broke along them, like waves upon a shore.

All that was most precious of this man had already died to Sarah Jane. What remained went ghostly, shadowy as the grey vapour winding at her feet. He had slain himself before her eyes, and she mourned for him, and dumbly wondered at the dreadful change. Was it only the evil-doer who trembled? So did not Dan face his destiny. But Dan's heart and hands were clean. She asked herself what she believed; and she waived the subject as a thing altogether indifferent. Her soul was centred upon her husband and his good. She knew now that she wished Hilary to die. She looked straight and fearless upon her own desire, and did not flinch from it. Death would end his tribulations and bring him peace; and his death must prevent the haunting possibility of the past from ever falling upon her husband's ear.

She went home presently, and was heartened on the way by little Gregory's prattle and happiness. His berries were to make a pudding for dear Aunt Tab, and nobody else was to eat of that pudding.

Presently Tabitha Prout received the gift with immense gratitude, and promised faithfully that she would make a pudding and eat every bit of it herself. The child grew more and more like his father. He was spoiled by all but Daniel, and his little tyrannies brought merriment to Ruddyford, where life did not stand still.

Brendon without question now took command and stood in his master's stead. What he held good to do was done. The old order changed steadily. Further land had been taken from the wilderness; larger flocks and herds roamed the summer Moor; new cattle-byres rose; success attended the homestead, and content dwelt therein. Prout's work was now as much or little as he cared to make it, and when Woodrow abode at Dawlish, the old man spent a good deal of time there and insisted on being his body-servant. Another labourer had been engaged at the farm, and the rest of the men remained, save Joe Tapson. Him Daniel reluctantly dismissed, since rheumatism in the shoulder had spoiled his usefulness. He left in a bitter mood, and though Brendon found him work, showed hate rather than gratitude. Sarah Jane was still dairymaid; Tabitha still controlled the internal economy of the farm.

Much speculation was rife as to the real relations of Woodrow and Daniel Brendon. Those interested guessed at a bargain, and foresaw that the latter would ere long take over Ruddyford; but the truth none knew, save only John Prout, the Brendons, and Hilary himself.

Prout was indifferent, and troubled little about his own old age. That he trusted to Daniel, as he had trusted it to his master. Indeed, he made no leisure for more than grief. He knew now that Woodrow must presently die, and the fact darkened his days, for he greatly loved him.

As for small Gregory, his attractive behaviour continued to appeal to Mrs. Weekes, who hesitated not to set him up above her own grandchild. The circumstance annoyed her son a good deal; but now had come an addition to Jarratt's family, so interesting, that he expected Hephzibah would forget Brendon's child before the wonder of the new arrivals. For, succeeding upon some further bad fortune, the man's wife bore twin boys, and the parents and grandparents found themselves uncertain whether to welcome or deplore such a sudden increase of responsibility. Finally the grandparents rejoiced, but the father and mother resented their cheerful and sanguine view, and thought themselves ill-used.

The matter formed subject for a serious debate at the Castle Inn on a Saturday night, and several of those personally interested contributed to the discussion.

"'Tis very well for you to be so gay," said Jarratt to his father, who was much pleased with the twins. "You're like t'other man in the corner there." He pointed to Mr. Churchward. "To hear you two old fools, one would think you'd both been left a legacy. If you're so jolly pleased with 'em, you'd better each take one. You're welcome."

He pulled at his beer gloomily.

"You oughtn't to speak so," answered the miller, Jacob Taverner. "You'd be sorry presently if the Lord took them. Then you'd look back at such bitter words in a very different spirit."

"That I certainly should not. The Lord's welcome to 'em, I assure you. Time was when I wouldn't have minded; but now I do. Everybody knows the sort of luck I've had of late."

"This may be good luck in disguise," returned Taverner.

"Who knows but what these infants be born to set you on your legs again? They may have the very cleverness of their grandfather Churchward or their grandmother Weekes."

In a corner Mr. Huggins and Philip Weekes sat together. They were not discussing the twins; but it happened that one of the huckster's fits of depression was upon him, and he hinted at a few personal sorrows to the aged man. Valentine's mind moved slowly, and demanded great length of time to grasp any change. Many months had passed since his friend's illness, yet Mr. Huggins only now began to appreciate the fact that he was restored to health. He continued to inquire as to Philip's condition.

"'Tis a great blessing to know that you'm fully returned to the use of all your parts, I'm sure. It encourages us old chaps to hear of such recoveries. Do you call yourself perfectly well again yet?"

"Well as ever I was. 'Twasn't doctor, but the missis told me when I'd recovered. One day, without any warning, as I comed in from the fowls for my drop of beef tea, which I'd got rather to rely upon, she said there wasn't none, and she went on to add that I was 'a dare-devil old Gubbins, and would eat us all out of hearth and home, if she'd let me.' So then I knowed I was cured."

"A great female, Phil."

"She is; yet here and there, to say it without any bad meaning, I often wish she wanted more sleep. I'm a hog for sleep—'tis my nature to be so. I like ten hours when I can get it; but she—she don't cry out for more sleep than a bird takes in summer. I've knowed her talk till light scores an' scores of times. And she stops gradual, not sudden. She'll drop remarks, on and on and on—like a bell tolling for death, or a cock crowing. She don't snore, thank God—which shows how one evil be balanced against another, come to think of it."

"The human snore cuts to the ear-drum almost afore any other sound," declared Mr. Huggins. "For my part I can go on through thunder or the elements like a new-born child; but my wife was a great midnight trumpeter. Cotton-wool's a good thing against it."

"What be you going to call your brace o' boys, Weekes, Junior?" asked Mr. Pearn. He had just returned home, and now appeared behind his bar and renewed a subject that was already exhausted.

"Damn my brace of boys," retorted Weekes brutally. "I don't want to hear no more about my brace of boys for the present. Give me a drop of whisky."

Noah Pearn obeyed and laughed.

"Dare say you wish they was a brace of birds instead of boys—then you could eat 'em and have done with them."

"Pearn!" said Mr. Churchward. "I'll thank you to be more careful. A jest is a jest, and I believe I am considered as quick to laugh at a piece of wholesome fun, within the limits of propriety, as any man; but it ill becomes the head of a family, like you, to say such a thing. That is not a gentlemanly joke, but simple coarseness, and you ought to know a great deal better."

"Sorry," answered Mr. Pearn. "I stand corrected."

"Their names are already decided upon," continued the schoolmaster. "Very much to my gratification one tender bud is going to be called 'Adam'—after me, rather than the original father of the human race; and the other will be called 'Jarratt,' after his father. So much is settled. They will each bear a second Christian name, but these have not yet been decided upon. I may mention that I was the only member of the family who was not astonished at this circumstance."

"Why not?" asked Jacob Taverner.

"For the simple reason that the thing has frequently happened before in the Churchward race," answered Adam. "I myself was one of two at a birth, though who would think it?"

"It runs in families—like drink and other disasters," said Mr. Huggins. "Did your twin die early or late, schoolmaster?"

"Almost immediately. In fact, my dear parents had to have her christened before she was two days old. Otherwise she would have passed away outside the pale of Christianity. I also seemed likely to perish; and they were so hurried that they had no leisure to think out our names. So they called us after our first parents. Poor Eve died soon after the sacred ceremony had been consummated. And I was spared by the inscrutable intelligence of Heaven. Still it was a case of arcades ambo, as we say."

CHAPTER VIII
THE LOAN

Dartmoor has been chosen by Nature for a theatre of worship and of work—a hypæthral temple, wherein she ministers before the throne of the sun, nurtures life, ripens her harvest, and buries her uncounted dead. Each year springtime breaks the bud joyfully and lifts the little lark into the blue; each year the summer builds and the autumn gleans; each year, when the sun's lamp is lowered, when the curtain of cloud is drawn, sleep and death pass by together along the winter silences. Thus the punctual rite and round are accomplished century after century, and, at each year's end, arise immemorial threnodies of many waters and fierce winds. Rivers roar a requiem; and their inevitable dirge is neither joyful nor mournful, but only glorious. The singers also are mortal; the wind and the wave are creatures, even as the perishing heath, crumbling stone, and falling foliage; they too rise and set, triumph and expire; they too are a part of the only miracle of the universe: the miracle of matter made manifest in pomp and wonder, in beauty and mystery, where Nature rolls her endless frieze along the entablature of Time.

Beneath December sunlight Dartmoor stretched in sleep—a sleep that lay hidden under death. Rack and ruin of many fair things were scattered upon the bosom of the wilderness, and all pursued their appointed way to dissolution. The conventional idea of man's mind was reversed, as usual, by this wide natural process; for death lay exposed league upon league under the operation of air and light, frost, and water; while life was buried and invisibly received back its proper payment for the year's work accomplished. But mortality so exhibited revealed nothing unseemly or sad, for much beauty belonged to it. The land rose stark to its tors, and the shattered summits of the range rolling south-west from Great Links, towered dark against the low slant of the winter sun. Some fleeting mist, like a vapour of silver, swept around the highest turrets and shone very dazzling by contrast with the gloomy northern faces of the hills; while far below, huddled, as it were, beneath the reach of the horizontal light, there hung a leaden and visible heaviness of air. On the shoulders of the Moor drowsed pallid sunshine, but little warmth was yielded thereby. Dartmoor soaked up this illumination like a sponge, and did not waken at its tepid touch. The wilderness slept at noon; and in its sleep it frowned. Over all spread the mighty, mottled patchwork of the hour—the immeasurable, ancient, outworn habit flung down by Nature when she disrobed for sleep. The summer green had vanished, the autumn fire was cold; where heath had wakened into amethyst, swart patches and tracts of darkness now scattered upon the livid pelt of dead grass, like the ebony pattern on the coat of a leopard. But while the ling was sad-coloured and sombre, the heather had taken a cheerful green. Under humid sunshine this huge design was apparent; then the west darkened and the pale gold of the sky became blurred by veils of rain. They swept up slowly and cast gloom over the light. The Moor colours all changed beneath their shadow and ran together. Only within stone's-throw from a man's eyes might detail and distinction still be marked. There persisted the shades and half shades of the dead, grey bloom-bells of the ling; there shone manifold minute, bright vegetation on scattered boulders; and there the wet brake-fern, that scattered these slopes with fallen filigree of deepest auburn, uttered its last expression of beauty.

Caught in the heavy rain, a man who walked upon the side of Great Links ran for the summit, and dived into a familiar cavern, where rocks fell together and made shelter. To his surprise the first wayfarer found a second already taking refuge against this sudden storm; and thus met Jarratt Weekes and Daniel Brendon on a day near Christmas.

This accident inspired the elder man. He had long contemplated certain propositions with regard to Daniel, and now opportunity was thrust upon him and he prepared to take advantage of it.

They tendered friendly welcomes, asked each for the other's good news, and together deplored the weather. There had been a wet, cold summer that denied the prophecy of spring, and many a moorman faced the approaching season with fear.

"Rain—rain—rain—curse the rain!" said Weekes. "Rain driving deep enough to drown the dead in their graves."

"There's not much to be said for this autumn's work, truly. We must hope for a good year coming. We shan't have such another for certain. Not that it matters so much to us, since we depend on beasts."

"'Twill mean buying a lot of hay, surely?"

"Not for us. We had a bit of luck. I saved a fortnight before my neighbours, and catched a spell of dry weather. They laughed to see me cutting so early. 'Let 'em laugh,' said Prout. 'They laugh best who laugh last.' And so it fell out."

"Most of the Lydford hay was ruined."

"And the corn on top. 'Twas beaten down, just too late for it to get up again. There'll be trouble this winter, I'm much afeared."

"There is trouble—everywhere already. And for my part I haven't got to look further than my own roof to find it."

"Very sorry to hear you say so, I'm sure. What was the end of that mine business? Somebody said they was going to try again; but that's to fling good money after bad, I should judge."

"Damn the mine: I've done with it anyhow. My wife had a hundred pound from her father when she came to me; and now 'tis gone in that swindle, along with another hundred of my own."

BENEATH GREAT LINKS.

"They'm tricky things to put money in. I wonder you risked it."

"There wasn't no risk on paper. Their figures would have convinced any man. But they lied, and did it under the law, so that they be safe. I'm in a very tight place indeed, to be frank with you. I've got a few stiff bills to meet this quarter, and there's only two ways of doing it now. One is to sell out of a little investment or two that is paying well; and that's a cruel thing to do for a man with a wife and an expensive family. And t'other is to find a friend that'll prove a real friend, and raise a bit of money to tide over till spring."

"You ought to be able to do it."

"I can, no doubt; but I'm proud. 'Tisn't everybody I'd go to—even for a trifle like a hundred pound. I've got to show security, and nobody likes opening out their private affairs to other men. I'd thought about it, however, for it must be done. And it may astonish you to hear I'd nearly settled who I was going to."

Brendon nodded.

"You'll have no difficulty," he repeated.

"That's for you to say; for 'tis you I intended to ask."

"Me!"

"Why not? We all know you're a snug man nowadays. You ban't bringing Ruddyford into the front rank of Dartymoor farms for nothing. You're not doing all those big things down there, and taking in land, and doubling your sheep, and buying pedigree cattle and all the rest of it, for nothing. You're putting hundreds into Woodrow's pocket; and, as a sane man, I suppose you look to it that a bit sticks in your own."

"That's right enough, though it's the future rather than the present I think for."

"So we all do. It's the future that's troubling me. I've got a policy of life insurance to be paid next week, and it's got to be paid. The only question is how. There's that and fifty pounds for other things, besides ten I owe my mother. So the long and short is I want a hundred, and I shall be a good bit obliged to you if you'll lend it to me for six months."

Brendon did not answer immediately. Then he spoke.

"If ten or even fifteen—I've done a little this year, to tell you privately. I've helped my married sister to Plymouth, whose husband is very much under the weather, and I've gived Joe Tapson a trifle too. He's left us. I had to make a change. Then there's the monument to Mr. Friend. Altogether you've asked at a very awkward moment."

Jarratt sneered.

"It's always an awkward moment when a man asks a fellow-man to do him a kindness. And them as talk about the decent things they do—you'll find they don't do many as a rule. Ban't a habit, else they'd not think 'em worth naming."

Daniel's face hardened.

"Why d'you say that? Can't you see I had to give you a reason for refusing? And don't you know me well enough to know that I'd give the true reason or none? 'Twas out of consideration for your feelings I said so much. Ban't pleasant to beg, and ban't pleasant to refuse."

"I'm not begging. And you should not use the word. I'm wanting to raise a loan at proper interest—four per cent., if you like. That's not begging. That's offering anybody with any sense a good investment for money."

"I shouldn't want no interest at all. I'm in your debt to the extent of losing my temper and striking you years ago, and I've not forgot it; and I'd be glad to do you a service. I've always looked out for the chance."

"You needn't mention that. I remember very well. There's a white mark across the bridge of my nose, Brendon, that reminds me of what you did every time I look in the glass, and always will."

"You'll forget it before I do. But I can't lend you a hundred, nor yet fifty. I'll lend you—twenty the day after to-morrow. That's the very best I can offer."

"Useless. I want a hundred."

"Then I'm sorry, but I can't find it."

Weekes reflected. He was in a position considerably more straitened than he had confessed to Brendon. He had overreached himself from cupidity, and now stood in debt to several people, including his lawyer. In this last quarter Jarratt's relations were strained, and the man of business refused to wait longer. A natural darkness of disposition had increased as a result of these troubles. He had quarrelled with his mother, with his wife, and with his wife's father. He had lost his self-respect somewhat, and as that lessened he grew the riper for mischief. Now he became a little hot, and permitted himself to remember the secret past. At Brendon's refusal, events long gone by rose up in the other's mind, and he spoke.

"Better think twice. You never know who you are helping. This hundred, even if it pinched you a thought for the moment, might be a very good investment, though you don't get interest for it."

Brendon stared at him.

"Come out," he said. "The rain's done. Perhaps I shall understand a speech like that better in the open. And yet—how? To my ear that sounds a bit curious. Perhaps you'll explain it."

"No, I shan't—though I might, I dare say. 'Tis for you to decide. I want to be friends."

"Why not, I should like to know?"

"No reason at all—if you'll lend me the money."

"And I tell you I can't."

"You mean that you won't."

"Take it as you please, if you're such a fool."

"No fool me—not by long chalks. Perhaps the boot's on the other leg. Not that I threaten anything."

"'Threaten'! Good God A'mighty—who be you to threaten? Best be off—or I'll threaten—and do more than threaten!"

"Strange, such a trumpet of the Lord as you are, that you never can keep your temper five minutes together with me. And yet I'm civil enough. Your education's to blame, I suppose. Well, I only ask you if you'll lend me a hundred pounds, and I only say you won't regret it if you do; but may possibly regret it if you don't. That's all."

"If I could, I wouldn't—not now. You have said that I shall regret it if I don't. And I say 'Explain that, if you want to remain my friend.'"

"I certainly shan't explain that. Only remember that those who think they stand, had sometimes better be careful lest they fall. And, as to friendship, I'm quite indifferent. If you refuse this loan you're not my friend, of course. Friendship is as friendship does. This is my way. I'll wish you good-bye and a good investment for your savings."

"Better talk this out," said Brendon; but Jarratt Weekes was already on his way. He did not answer, and did not look back. Instead, he twirled his stick, whistled, and assumed a cheerful and careless air as he departed.

Brendon stood still a long time, in some concern at this unexpected incident. He puzzled himself to know what it might mean, retraced the course of his relations with Weekes during the last few years, and could see no light. It struck him that Sarah Jane might be able to find some explanation. Animosity clearly lurked in the man's temper; but on what foundation it rested Daniel could not imagine. The threat he dismissed without thought, as a futile utterance of disappointment.

CHAPTER IX
THE MEMORY OF MR. HUGGINS

On a day after noon in late January the hand of winter was upon Lydford, and the wet roads ran shining into the village. Utmost sobriety, with a scant splash of colour here and there, marked the time. The hedges were iron-grey, yet they flamed now and again where a copper glow of foliage still clung to some pollarded beech. The great castle scowled down from its blind windows, rain fell drearily; all round about was mire and gloom and low mists, that crept along hill and over fallow. In the meadow-lands grass seemed trodden into mud; the very streets repined, and no life was revealed save where fowls sat in the boughs of a laurel and resigned themselves to sleep and forgetfulness, and where a lonely dog trotted along the main thoroughfare. In an open doorway of a carpenter's shop two men planed coffin planks; and further on came clink of chisel and mallet from a shed where a stonemason was hammering at a granite cross. The only human life visible seemed occupied with death. Each wayside garden was a litter of ragged stalk and stem that cried to be hidden; but the little golden yew, beside the home of Philip Weekes, shone like a candle across the waning day, and rose sprightly and cheerful in the languor and depression of the hour.

Aloft a winged people did not share Lydford's gloom. Starlings much frequented the village at this season, and towards nightfall assembled in many thousands together, where certain elms stood beside the castle. Here, in a living stream, they flowed up from hedgerows and fields, until the naked boughs were black with them. They forced the sense of their presence upon the most abstracted spirit, and raised a merry din that was audible a mile distant. This life dominated dusk until one felt a sojourner in the abode of birds rather than any home of men. If a door slammed or a man shouted, the myriads would simultaneously take wing and launch like a black cloud into the air. Then, uttering a sound as of many waters, they whirled and warped, gyrated, turned, and with a gradual hush of diminishing noise regained their perches, folded their feathers, and resumed their shouting. Only with night did they depart into darkness and silence. Then, one by one, the windows twinkled with fire, and there came a wakening moment when men returned from their labour and the street echoed to slow, splashing boots and human voices lifted in many moods. Children cried to each other and hastened home from school; women, indicated in the dark by the white oblongs of their aprons, flitted between the cottage doors and the shops; suddenly came barking of dogs and a pitter-patter of five hundred little hoofs, where a flock of sheep passed through the village to an open gate beyond. As they went, a fan of light from the post-office window found their fleeces and flashed upon them during their brief transit from darkness back into darkness again.

Behind the sheep came Joe Tapson, and beside him walked Jarratt Weekes. They were discussing Brendon, and the widower talked, while the other listened to him.

"Turned me off, like a worn-out dog, for no reason on God's earth except I was losing my nature and getting old! May the time come when the same happens to him; may I live to see him begging his bread—that's what I pray; and me, now I'm up in years, brought down to do a common drover's work and thankful for a roof to cover me."

"Wanted a younger and spryer man, I suppose," said Jarratt indifferently. "Don't see you've got much call to grumble. 'Tis the curse of all men who have to trust to their bodies for a living and not their brains, that a time comes when they be worn out. I heard from Sarah Jane that Daniel was sorry to be rid of you, only he couldn't help it in justice to the farm. She told me Mr. Woodrow gave you five pounds when you left."

"What's that? 'Tis nothing against the cruelty of flinging me off. They don't fling Prout off, though he's far more useless than me. They don't sack that sour-faced, sour-minded bag of bones, Tabitha."

"They are old servants—retainers. 'Tis quite a different matter. Here's my way. I hope you'll get a fixed job soon. But I can't help you; my luck's out too, and I'm a long way worse off than you for the minute. You've got only your own carcase to think of; I've got a wife and children."

Tapson departed behind the sheep, and Jarratt Weekes dropped in upon his mother. He found her out, but Sarah Jane had also come to see Hephzibah. She was talking to Philip when the huckster's son arrived.

"Can't wait no more, Mr. Weekes. Tell your wife—why, here's Jarratt! Where's your mother got to, Jar?"

"I want her myself," he said. "Down there chattering to the people at Little Lydford, I suppose, and setting the world right in general, no doubt."

"I can't wait no longer, else Daniel will fear for me. 'Twas only about the butter. How be you faring, and how's Mary? Haven't seen her this longful time."

"She thought you'd forgot her, like one or two more of late."

"You say that. Mary never did. She knows me a long sight better than that."

"I'll see you part of your road," said Jarratt. "I want to speak to you; and you want to speak to me."

He referred to a previous conversation.

Sarah Jane nodded, bade Mr. Weekes good-bye, and went out with Jarratt.

"What did he say? But I know. You'd have let me hear before now if the man had any wish to befriend me. Did you ask for Mary's sake? That was the only chance I know."

"I did. I said how she'd been troubled beyond reason of late, and that the money would go far to lessen her load. I asked more than once for her, and he was sorry he couldn't do it. You know him. He doesn't make excuses or anything like that. He just said that if he could have done it, he would have, and gladly. But it's out of his power, so there's an end. Won't anybody else oblige you? Wouldn't Mr. Churchward?"

"He can't. He's got that great, slack, good-for-nought William on his hands again. How he endures the worthless rascal beats me; but so it is. A pity your husband don't see his way—a very great pity indeed."

"I feel the same, I'm sure. I wish there was anything I could do for Mary. Would it rest her if I was to take your eldest boy home along with me for a bit?"

He shook his head.

"No, no; 'tisn't little things like that; 'tis the big thing of having to find three figures and lose money on it. I know right well Brendon could do it. And I'll tell you more than that: he's making a mistake not to."

"'Tis out of his power, I tell you."

"I know better."

"You oughtn't to speak so."

"Oughtn't I? Well, we all do what we oughtn't sometimes—even you and Daniel. Tell him this: that I want the money badly and I make it a very special favour, and I shall be greatly obliged to him, for all our sakes, if he'll manage to find it for me by Ladyday next. Tell him that. And use what influence you've got, Sarah Jane. You know what I felt for you once—well, I'm fond enough of you still—much too fond to bring any trouble on you if I can prevent it. So try with all your might to get Dan to see sense."

He left her no time to answer, but turned away abruptly. She stood still a moment, then, in deep astonishment went on her way; and presently told Daniel of the matter.

"He's desperate seemingly," said her husband. "Even so he talked to me, but dared not go quite so far as he did to you. Threats be the weapons of weak men. He was always fond of talking rather large. Even so Joe Tapson spoke when he had to go. The good I did him was not remembered. He cared nothing for that. As for Weekes, I can't help him, and there's an end of it."

Brendon dismissed the subject from his mind and bade Sarah Jane do the like. He went on his way, and life with its thousand calls soon made him forget the tribulations of Jarratt Weekes. His wife, however, did not overlook them, because, when possible, she visited Mary and heard of the increasing difficulties of her husband.

And Jarratt himself allowed embarrassment to breed ferocity, as happens often with small-minded men. When he left Sarah Jane after uttering his threat, he returned to Lydford and went to drink at the Castle Inn. Full well he knew that Daniel Brendon was not to be moved, and he dared not approach him directly for fear of actual injury to himself. But he had reached striking point; out of his own vexed and troubled heart rose a fierce longing to bring vexation and trouble upon others. He scarcely realized the terrific gravity of any attack on Brendon at this juncture, for the years had dulled his memory, and only one main fact respecting Daniel's wife stuck there. Given prosperity and sustained success, he might never have struck; but now a time had come when misfortune played the lodestone and drew from him an active and avid malignity. He smarted to see the other rise from strength to strength. He did not perceive that even rumours of the truth would bring absolute and utter ruination, or he might have hesitated. All he designed as yet was a drop of gall for Brendon's full cup of sweetness. He thought how to embitter; but he did not desire to poison. He failed, as many a coarse-minded soul fails, to perceive that what for him might be no more than affliction and transitory torment, to a greater spirit must mean everlasting wreck and perdition.

With a mind quite empty he entered the inn, ordered his drink and waited to catch the thread of the conversation before taking his part in it. Taverner was there, and old Huggins. The latter talked, and half-a dozen men in the bar listened to him. Noah Pearn served his customer with liquor and explained the subject.

"Valentine here be running on the past to-day, and he's gone back fifty years in his memory as easy as we go back a month. He often will after a third glass. 'Tis a pity there's none to write down the things he calls home; for they'll all perish with him, and some of 'em be very well worth remembering."

He stopped, and they listened to the ancient.

"Them days of barley bread! But which among you folk ever tasted it? Harsh it was and made us far shorter and sharper than we be nowadays. I've seed a chap buried at cross-roads with a stake drove through his carcase. 'Twas thought he'd killed hisself, and cross-roads was the grave of such people then. By night they buried him; and by night they dug him up again."

"Dug him up, Val!" cried Mr. Pearn. "Surely not. What for did they dig him up again?"

"Because a year later 'twas found that he'd died by lawful murder and never took his life at all! A valiant man, as stopped coaches on the Launceston Road, was catched red-handed, and tried to Exeter, and hanged 'pon Gibbet Hill above Mary Tavy. The last hanging there 'twas—somewhere about the year 1790, I reckon, or may have been later. But I went to see the sight, as a small boy, and afore they turned the bold feller off, he confessed that among other wicked things, he'd put a bullet through the chap we buried, because the chap had seed him stop a coach and marked him. And he'd left a old hoss-pistol by the chap a purpose to make it look as if he'd done it hisself. So they dug him up again and gived his fragments a proper box, and laid him in holy ground, and parson made a whole-hearted speech about it, and forgived everybody, as he hoped to be forgiven."

"The things you've seen!" murmured a young man.

"True for you—few living have seen the like. Ripe old customs, as be gone past recalling. And religion at the back of all we did and thought in them days. Even wassailing the apple-trees be dying out, and charms, and all them high ways we had of reproving lightness and sin, and punishing evil-doers afore the nation. I never seed a human creature whipped at the cart-tail myself, and I'm glad I didn't, for that's a very horrid idea, though 'twas often well enough deserved; but other things I have seen, when the evil-doer has been catched out in his sins and held up in the sight of all men. 'Twas a sign, no doubt, that men were rising in knowledge and understanding when we punished their minds instead of their backs, and made them a sign and a byword without putting a hand upon 'em."

Mr. Huggins paused, quite weary. He had been talking a long time, and before Weekes arrived he had sung an old song to an old tune.

"Wonnerful form he's in," whispered Taverner. "I hope it ban't the last flicker of the candle, and we shall hear presently the cold have took him off. He'd be quite a loss in company."

Weekes nodded. Certain words let drop by the venerable chronicler had fallen upon the hungry soil of his mind and taken root there. Now he desired further speech with Valentine, and presently offered him an arm upon his way.

"I must get you to sing that song to me," he said. "You'm a wonderful old man, Val. To think that you can sing and mind a tune and the words and everything, and you up eighty-three or more."

"'Tis so. Not a note out of place, I believe, though the high ones roll up into my head and miscarry somewhat. Still there 'tis: I've got it; and a many others I've got as was thought pretty singing in my young manhood, but wouldn't be vitty now. The times be altered, and if I singed a thing or two I know right well, you'd think I was a very coarse-minded old chap. Ideas have changed."

"Yes; but human nature hasn't. Did you punish frail folk then? There was skimmitty riding, wasn't there?"

"Certainly there was; and a thing oftener done, because dreadfuller and more solemn-like, was burying. 'Twas a very heart-shaking affair, and the manner of it was this. Suppose a man and woman did wrong, owing to the power of nature upon them, or the husband being away from home, or some other natural cause, then, if 'twas found out against 'em, the people rose up and acted a funeral. Everything was done decently and in order. But you had to do it on private land, else 'twas an unlawful assembling, like a prize-fight or a cock-fight, and might get you into trouble. When the land was chosen, skilled hands made two puppets as much like the parties as their craft could; and they was dressed in grave-clothes, or else common clothes, and put in coffins. Then some man who was up to it, read the service, and the dolls were nailed home into their boxes, and buried underground with all the dignity of real dead people. The service was read, and if a chap had a clever tongue, he'd preach a bit and lash the erring victims all he could. I've knowed cases when a man faced it out and laughed at his own burying, and stood beer to the mourners; and I've known cases when the parties was saved by it, and turned to the Almighty, and was forgiven by all men; and I've known cases where the burial was a mistake and the man and woman were both quite innocent. A choir and undertaker and all, mind you. And, besides such things as that, I've seen witches ducked, and scolds bridled—in fact, 'twould puzzle me to tell you what I haven't seen in my time."

Jarratt, however, kept him to the former matter, and won various other details of the old ceremony before he bade Valentine farewell. His mind was stored with a fantastic medley of ideas and possibilities when he returned to his home; and on the following evening he re-visited Mr. Huggins and learnt more concerning the subject that now so largely interested him.

CHAPTER X
FAREWELL

At the turn of winter John Prout went down to Dawlish, and did not come back. He sent a gloomy letter to Brendon, and explained that their master desired him to remain.

"He's come down to a shadow of himself," wrote John, "and the doctor told me yesterday, when I asked him how things were going with Mr. Hilary, that he'd taken a bad turn of late, and might not weather another year. He coughs something cruel; but he's wonderful cheerful since he comed to believe the old things. A clergyman often sits along with him by the hour and does him good seemingly. I be a large comfort to him, I do think, so I can't leave him no more, unless he takes a turn for the good. He wants to see you all again, and if he doesn't come back, you and Sarah Jane and Tabitha will have to come and see him, for he's set upon that. Never a man faced death braver. Now he thinks like he does, he'll be glad to go, I do believe. But he hasn't lost touch of Ruddyford, as you'll see by the rest of my letter."

There followed a string of directions from Woodrow to Brendon. Some Daniel approved, some he disapproved; but all were very carefully executed. He read Prout's letter to the farm, and wide sorrow and concern greeted it. The women mourned and openly wept together; Daniel went for days silent and abstracted. He spoke to none but his wife. Then Agg and Peter Lethbridge, reduced to considerable doubt concerning their own future, ventured to question Brendon. They explained their uncertainties and he set them at rest.

"What will happen when Mr. Woodrow goes is already determined," he said. "I can't tell you what it is till the time comes; but this I'll say: I can promise you both to bide here on your present money as long as you please me."

At Dawlish, Prout waited upon his fading master, nursed him like a woman, and added to his comfort in every way possible. To please John, Woodrow sent for a consulting physician from Exeter; but the man could give no hope.

Now Hilary had ceased to ride, though he let Prout drive him when the days were fair. Together they went in a little pony-carriage round about the fir-fledged hills of Haldon; and it was given to Hilary once more to see the first glory of spring larches, once more to look into the eyes of the violet and note the little sorrel shake forth her fleeting loveliness. Great peace of mind had now descended upon him, and with reduced activities an interest in the lesser things of nature awakened, and he loved to pluck the flowers, as a child plucks them, yet with the understanding of a man. The smell of the spring earth was good to him. He feared not at all to sink therein and return to Nature the dust that she had lent him. In his heart there reigned sure consciousness that this was not the end; that a higher, fuller life opened beyond the earthly portals; that the prelude and not the play was done when the clod fell and a man's coffin-lid vanished for ever.

To Prout he imparted these opinions, and John, who doubted not of eternity, rejoiced to see the strength and peace that henceforth marked his master's mind.

"How you could bear with me, John! Often, looking back, I marvel at the patience of you and of Brendon. You had all that I lacked; yet you listened to my trash and never did you rise and denounce me for a fool!"

"Not likely. Whatever you was, you wasn't that."

"I did things then, and thought them not wrong that I know now were wicked."

"Thank God for it that you know, master."

"But is it too late, John?"

"Never too late. Never too late."

"I must leave mercy to my wronged Maker. 'Tis well to be a free-thinker in a way—just as 'tis well for a country bred man to go to cities. You don't know what the country really means till you've been mewed up in the town; and you don't know what faith means till you've tried to live without it. So I feel. No freedom of thought will think right into wrong, John Prout."

"God's above all."

"Once I thought, with a wise man who lived before Christ came, that what we men call life is only a poor shadow dragging a corpse, like a prisoner drags his chain. Now I know better. Now the things that seemed good suffer an eclipse, and the things that seemed beautiful stand out in their naked, ugly truth. They were all a mirage—all shadows in a desert of sand. I thought that they quenched thirst and satisfied hunger. That was part of the great blindness, John. Now I know that the sun-dance and glare and dazzle was all a wicked sham. I wove them for myself; I blinded myself; I deluded myself. If I could tell you how base I'd been—what things I did, believing them to be reasonable and not wrong. The folly—the madness! I said to myself, 'Nature does neither right nor wrong; it is only the foolish man who calls her cruel or kind. She rises above these human ideas. And so will I.' Yes, I thought to copy Nature and follow the thing she prompted. I dinned into my own ears that what I did was far above right or wrong. I said to myself, 'Let the fools who like words call their actions "good" or "evil." Do you, for your part, look to it that your actions are "reasonable," and so content your conscience that demands only reason.' What a light has burned in on all that preposterous nonsense since! Crimes—crimes I have committed in the name of nature and reason. O God, Prout, when I think—— And now I know that it will take a forgiving Saviour to save me. Well may Christ have taught us that God is a merciful God! I should go mad if I did not grasp that unutterable truth, John. To His mercy I trust myself—and not only myself."

He prattled on of the dogmas he had now accepted, and behind every thought and pious hope John Prout saw Sarah Jane. Often the sick man spoke directly of her; more often, when declaring his new convictions he used no names; but Prout—from his inner knowledge—perceived which way his master's mind was tending. He gathered that Hilary hoped Sarah Jane would presently come to see with her husband's eyes and abandon a certain large enthusiasm for her own kind in favour of a narrower trust and confidence in the tenets of Christianity alone. Once or twice Prout believed that the other was actually going to confess his action of the past; but Hilary never did so. He told his old servant that the farm had been left to Brendon, but he gave no reason for the step. He was, however, quick enough to be astonished at John's lack of surprise.

"Did he tell you? Did you know it, that you take it so calmly?" he asked.

"To be frank, I did know it," answered John. "Don't blame her. You understand women better'n me; and you'll guess how hard 'twas for her to keep it in. 'Twas a night five year ago and more, when chance throwed us together at Lydford, and she helped me home against a storm. By the same token a rainbow showed over against the moon. Of course I never spoke of it again; more did she."

"You don't blame me?"

"Who be I to blame you? No man on earth have ever had a better master than what you have been to me."

"And no man ever loved a man better than you have loved me, John. Well I know it."

So oftentimes they talked, and when Hilary was unequal to speech he made Prout read to him and rehearse those things that he best liked to hear repeated.

Sometimes, however, the sick man cared for no company other than his thoughts; and then he would bid John depart, and for hours together brood upon the past and survey his vanished deeds in the light of present belief. A fading memory served to dim their details, and what was left faith much distorted. He remembered the glow and glory of the first kiss, and loathed that damnable contact as the beginning of the master-sin of his days; he beheld himself imparadised in those lovely arms; and he shuddered and saw all hell watching with hungry eyes.

Woodrow knew that he would not return to Ruddyford. He had planned to die there; but now he was indifferent, and already pictured his own mound under the shadow of the old church at Dawlish. He was desirous, however, to take leave of his few friends, and invited Prout to plan their visits in such a way that they should not know these meetings must be the last.

Miss Prout first came and spent three days. With her she brought little dishes made with her own hands; and while she remained at Dawlish she spent most of her time in the kitchen, to the concern of the landlady, who resented Tabitha. Hilary cared not much for Prout's sister, and bade her good-bye indifferently. She returned home with a black story of his decline, and foretold that he must soon pass. Next Daniel went down, but the time was full of work, and he stayed a very short while. To speak became increasingly difficult for Woodrow; yet he liked to listen to Daniel, and came to him in some respects as a learner. He invited Brendon to preach to him, and the earnestness and conviction of the big man impressed him. Old instincts awoke to the challenge at these dogmatic utterances, but the sufferer smothered them. He believed them no more than a mere mechanical process of the brain—a reflex action persisting after the death of the habit of thought that was responsible for it. He made himself believe all that Brendon did. And, last of all, he believed in hell, because Christ did.

Hilary was frank with Daniel, and did not hide his approaching end.

"I shall hope to see you once more," he said. "And that will be the last time. I should much wish you to be with me when I die, if that is not a selfish wish. Would you mind?"

"No. I want to be with you then. Do you like the minister here? Is he the right man for you?"

"I value him very much. A gentle, hopeful man."

"Be sure I'll come."

"And I must see Sarah Jane too. Don't tell her that it will be the last time, because that would be a great grief to her, for she's fond of me, I know."

"Yes, she is."

"Let her come next week for a day or two, if you can spare her. But I'll not tell her that it's the last 'good-bye.' All the same, I'm afraid she'll guess it for herself."

"Try to do her good—same as you have me," said Brendon. "You won't speak many more words on human ears now. Let 'em be as the Lord wills. He'll put it into your heart what to say to her. A better, nobler woman than my wife never lived. Fearless and brave and high-minded—I never saw the like of her and never shall. But all the same, from the first—from our courting—there was always something I couldn't understand. Her point of view—not all pure godliness; yet I'd not dare to say she was ungodly in anything. But a sort of high habit of mind that wouldn't bend to the yoke. Always hated and still hates to call herself a miserable sinner afore the footstool of Grace. Yet humble, and gentle, and true to my heart and my hopes here and hereafter, as the moss is true to the stone."

"No man was ever worthy of her, Daniel."

"I know it. Tell her the meek are blessed and inherit the earth."

"And blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I've never known but one woman that I could think of as able to look at God, Daniel, and that's your wife. Don't ask me to dare to teach her—'tis for her to teach me; and teach you too. Why should she be fearful? She can't be. Perfect love casteth out fear. That's her lesson to us."

Brendon considered doubtfully.

"You may be right," he said. "All the same——"

And when the future owner of Ruddyford returned home, his wife made ready. She knew full well without words that this was her last visit to Hilary Woodrow; and she braced her mind for the ordeal and all that it must mean. She had long since ceased to fear that he would speak, and when Sarah Jane and Hilary met for the last time it was not necessary for him to inform her that their secret perished with themselves.

"Leave it to be told in the next world, if it is right that it should be told," he said to her. "Sometimes I think it may be a part of my purgation and proper punishment, in some place of learning and cleansing, that I may yet have to confess this terrible sin before my fellow spirits—even to the spirit of Daniel himself, when his turn comes. That seems justice, Sarah Jane, as man pictures justice in his feeble ignorance. But at any rate I'm convinced, so far as this life goes, that the proper course is silence. We've no right to wreck lives by imparting our knowledge to them, if that knowledge can only bring ceaseless suffering along with it. I've confessed my sin to God a thousand times. But I know that both punishment and absolution belong to the world to come, not to this."

"Like a schoolboy called up afore his master—to learn the best or worst," she said.

"Even like that. Nothing's settled down here; nothing is finished down here. Everything has to wait till the light touches it."

"And even good and evil ban't understood down here. Maybe you'll find in that light you won't cut such a poor figure after all. Ban't your many great, good, generous deeds and kindly thoughts to count? Ban't your last years to count? Be it a small thing that you've fought your way to your God through all that thicket of books?"

"Not a small thing for myself, certainly. All the difference between heaven and hell, Sarah Jane."

"Oh, don't let that last word come on your lips, for God's sake," she begged. "I do hate it, like I hate a snake. Sometimes, for all I'm so glad that you are happy and have got God, I can find it in me to wish you was the same as you used to be without Him. You was a deal braver, when you laughed at hell, than you be now. And I'll laugh at hell for ever and ever—laugh at it still, even if I was to find myself in it."

"Think of me as I am, Sarah Jane, and believe what I say now. Don't remember me as I was, or call back the vile things I uttered then. Do you remember that once I said God was only the shadow of man's self reflected against the background of his own self-consciousness? I thought that a very fine idea when I made it up. Now I know 'twas the Devil that prompted it."

"I reckoned nobody believed in God and hell both—except my own dear Daniel. And now he's got you to think the same. But I hoped 'twould be t'other way round, and you'd make him flout it."

"Christ believed in it."

"An' quenched it for ever, didn't He? So some seem to think, anyhow. Mr. Matherson be shaky about it, I'm sure, for Dan's very unsettled with the Luke Gospellers along of that very thing. He's going to leave 'em. 'Tis a great grief to him to go, but he says that Mr. Matherson's in danger, and that much larning have made him mad here and there. Did you ever hear tell of the Salvation Army?"

"Yes. It's a new thing, but it's growing fast, and my clergyman believes that in time to come it may be a great power for good in the world."

"Dan's very much took by it; but Mr. Matherson be doubtful. My husband's like to join 'em, I believe. He says they work on Bible bed-rock, and seem to him to follow closer on the actual words of the Lord than any of the regulars."

"If 'tis a good thing, God will surely bless it, Sarah Jane."

"'Tis all one to me, so long as Daniel is content."

They made pretence that this was not the last meeting, and that Sarah Jane should come down again in the summer and bring her child. But death was written on the man's face now, and she knew how soon the end must come. The religious atmosphere, with which he surrounded himself, stifled her worse than the physical odours of a sick chamber. When the clergyman came, she was glad to rush away for a time and walk by the sea.

Hilary rarely rose before noon; but on the day that she was to return home he partially dressed and went into a sitting-room. It faced south, and the train, which was to take her away, would pass along in sight of it.

Their actual parting was brief. Prout left them alone and waited outside.

"Good-bye—you—you—the best and bravest of living things that I have ever seen," he said.

"Good-bye, dear Hilary. We shall meet again—somewhere."

"I know it—thank my God I know it."

She went close to him and looked into his haggard face. Then she kissed him.

"I'll wave my handkercher as the train passes."

"And I'll wave mine, Sarah Jane."

Presently, when the train steamed along between Hilary Woodrow and the sea, though Prout waved from the window and Woodrow stood behind him and strained to catch his last glimpse of her, they only marked her hand held out, and the dance of her handkerchief fluttering. She saw nothing, for the blue of her April eyes was dimmed and drowned.

CHAPTER XI
THE DOLLS

"Jar," said Mrs. Weekes, "you be getting on home to fifty years old, and since I first slapped your breech, when you'd been in the world a matter of six months, you and me have never had no grave difference of opinion."

"What then?" asked the man.

Sarah Jane was spending a soft May evening at the cottage of Mary; but, not desiring to be in her presence, Jarratt left them and went to see his mother. For some time Hephzibah had expressed a desire for private conversation with him, and now Jarratt gave her the opportunity. But quickly he regretted it. Rumour had reached his mother's ears, and she felt very agitated to learn that some strange and most unusual event was pending. Only whispers and hints had reached her, and since such shadowy insinuations were specially offensive to her mind, she commanded her son before her and ordered him to be plain.

"What then?" repeated Jarratt.

"Then 'twould be an everlasting shame and misfortune if we fell out now—you in your prime and me with my white hair and coming to the end of my days. You've never hid much from me that I know of, and nothing that I didn't find out if I wanted to. So don't try now. There's all manner of beastly whisperings in the air; and you be in them. Wherever I go to have a talk, people say, 'What's this here thing Mr. Jarratt be up to?' And when I tell 'em I don't know, they shut their mouths and change the subject."

"So much the better. It don't concern you, anyway."

"You can say that! But it do concern me, and I will know the truth of it. From all I hear it concerns everybody called Weekes; for the credit of a family be of some account, though 'tis only a family of dormice, like your father's family. I was born a Mudge; and that's a lasting blessing to me; and you've got my blood in you and ban't going to demean it, I should hope."

"If old Huggins have been talking—or William Churchward either, I'll wring their necks!"

"Jar," answered his mother. "'Tis an old saying, and true as old, that Satan finds mischief for idle hands. Hard luck you've had of late, and to my cost I know it; but because you've been forced to wait and use patience, and haven't had the usual chances to be busy, that ban't no reason why for you should use your time ill. Guy Fawkes and angels! Isn't the world full of chances to do right? Better bide home and nurse the babbies than go out to do other folks a wrong turn."

"When I'm hit, I hit back."

"I don't know nothing about the parties, and don't want to know. If a man's hurt you, hit him back from the shoulder so hard as you know how. But this—this thing I hear. Even if 'tis true, and some poor unhappy girl have made a slip—good God Almighty!—you ban't a coward to lift your hand to a woman, be you?"

"What d'you know, and what don't you know?" he asked.

"I don't know no names, and 'twasn't Val, nor yet Adam Churchward's son who told me that you'd got a plot afoot. Philip Weekes it was who heard it—your own father; and very properly he put the thing afore me. There's a middle-aged spinster down to Little Lydford, that Bill Churchward be rather silly after, and she've screwed a bit of news out of him seemingly. She's one of them nasty 'have you heard?' sort of women, always with a bit of news on her lips—generally untrue. And she told your father that you and another here and there was caballing and hatching up a cruel joke at the expense of a certain man and woman very well known round these parts. I hope 'tis a lie, and I hope you'll tell me 'tis. Then I'll go early to market next Friday and stop at that female's house, and say a thing or two as'll be worse than a mustard poultice to her mean heart."

"Better mind your own business. There's a bit of fun in the air—that's all. Sometimes a nod's as good as a wink to a blind hoss. There's a few self-righteous, damned fools about that won't be any the worse for hearing a thing or two they don't know."

"I don't like to hear you tell that way, and I wish to God you was busier about your own affairs; then you wouldn't be stirring on other people's. Are you the man to set this wrong right? Ax yourself that afore you go farther."

"Yes, I am."

"For my sake, Jar, think better of it."

"Too late now."

"Tell me about it, then."

"You'll know soon enough. 'Tis only a joke, when all's said. We are going to let the rough truth loose for once, and tell a psalm-smiting fool a thing or two he don't know seemingly. Or, if he do know and have winked at it, for his own ends, then so much the more shame to him. Anyway, he shan't think Lydford be in the dark—not after next Monday night."

"You won't tell me what's doing?"

"Go to that field called 'Thornyside,' what miller Taverner owns up above the gorge, presently after nightfall, if you want to know any more. I'll let you hear when the day is fixed. 'Tis only following out an ancient custom. You like the old ways and you like buryings, so the business will just suit you."

"One of them mock funerals!"

"Just so."

"Then you're going to show up a bit of secret sin as you've found out—is that it?"

"If it is?"

Mrs. Weekes was much concerned.

"For my son to meddle in such work as that!" she gasped.

"'Tis fun, I tell you. Damn it all, be I to live my dreary days without never a joke or a laugh to make life better worth? If you knowed a half or a quarter of the dull dog's life I lead now and the hardships I've had of late, you'd be only too glad for me to amuse myself sometimes."

"Don't think to fool me," she said. "You ban't the sort of man—no better than a savage monkey—who'd do a thing like this for fun. You've got your reasons. You be going to strike an enemy."

"Leave it at that, then, since you're so clever."

"Will he leave it at that? I should judge what you be wanting just now are friends, Jar, not enemies. You are going to hurt a man in a terrible tender place. And if you can't make good this charge—what then?"

"I've thought of that. I'm not attacking any man; I'm punishing a man for attacking me. I want money. I go to a chap who is rolling in it. I beg for a trifling loan, and he refuses, for no reason but unkindness and want of charity. 'Tis he has made me his enemy. And now I'll show him up. He's either a blind fool, or else a knave—and the world shall know it one way or t'other."

Mrs. Weekes partly read the remark.

"He's a husband, then, and you be going to let folk know he's—what? wronged or wronging?"

"Go to Jacob Taverner's field and find out," he answered. "I'll say no more at all upon the subject. 'Twill all be done very decently and in order, I promise you. There be those about who remember the same thing often in the past."

"And so do I," said Hephzibah, "and also what comed of one of those May games. A man had another man's life for it after the funeral was over, and the murderer swung in Exeter gaol, though recommended to mercy. You mind what you're doing—else your childer may be orphans and your wife a widow afore hay harvest."

Philip Weekes appeared at this moment, and Jarratt took himself off. He did not go home, but visited the field of Jacob Taverner already mentioned. It lay upon the southern side of Lyd, and Weekes crossed the river by the bridge over the gorge, then entered the croft, climbed its steep side, and knocked at the door of a cowshed which stood in one corner. It was locked from inside, and light and the sound of voices issued from the chinks of the wooden building.

"Who be that?" cried somebody.

"Me—Weekes," answered Jarratt.

The door opened, and he entered, to find three men. One was busy about a strange task; the other two sat on empty cider-barrels and watched him.

"It's getting out," said Weekes. "One of you fools—or else some of the singing boys—have been chattering. 'Tis you, I believe, William, for my father heard it down to Little Lydford from that old maid you'm so fond of."

William Churchward looked up from his work on the ground. He dropped a bundle of long straw and assured Weekes that he must be mistaken.

"I only just said, in a vague way, that one of them famous funerals of the living was on hand, and advised her to be up at Taverner's field on a night I'd let her know."

Jacob Taverner, another of the company, also spoke.

"All the same, we must let the people hear about it. We want all Lydford there on the night, else the fun's spoiled. The more the merrier, surely. It must be blazed abroad."

"In reason. But there's some won't hold with it, and will try to stop it at the last moment."

"They can't," declared old Huggins. "Take care of your pipe, Jacob, or else you'll set William's straw alight and spoil all. They can't stop you, Jarratt, because you'll be 'pon private land. 'Tis Jacob's field, and nobody in the kingdom—not the Queen of England's self—have the power to say what Jacob shall not do on his own ground. The constable may be allowed in to keep the peace, and that's all."

"When will you have the dolls done, William?" asked Mr. Taverner.

Young Churchward desisted from his labour, rose to his feet, and with an artist's eye regarded two headless dummies upon which he was engaged. They were of full human proportions and represented a male and female. The man's image showed a long and thin figure. It wore brown leggings, riding breeches, and a Norfolk jacket. Spurs were attached to its boots, and from its hand, modelled in putty and painted, there hung a hunting-stock.

"What fashioned tie did the man use to wear?" inquired William.

"Red as often as not," answered Weekes.

"I've nearly done him. The legs loll out too much yet, but when young Prowse have knocked up the coffin, we'll fit him in all natural as life."

Then he pointed to the other puppet.

"That's the very daps of her round shape," whispered 'the Infant' aside to Weekes, and Jarratt nodded.

"It is," he admitted.

Then he remembered what his mother had said and turned away with a qualm. Anon he fortified his spirit and sneered at himself.

"'Tis a good joke, sure enough. Won't hurt nobody really. But 'twill make a certain psalm-singing fool of a husband come down a peg or two. And well the man deserves it."

For his own comfort Weekes made this remark.

"How if the man breaks your head?" asked Taverner.

"Two can play at that game."

"When be us to know the parties?" piped Mr. Huggins. "I'm all on fire to hear who 'tis."

"You leave that to me," answered William. "When you see their heads stuck on, you'll know who they be well enough. I've had to take Jarratt's word for the man; but the woman everybody in Lydford will swear to, or I'm no painter."

"Be the putty dried out, 'Infant'?" asked Weekes.

"Very nearly. I've got the paints mixed and a fine lot of corded rope the very colour of——"

"Stop! That'll tell 'em!" cautioned the elder.

Then William rose and whispered to the senior conspirator.

"And the very thing for the eyes—a piece of luck. I was wandering along thinking of 'em, when what should I see in a rubbish heap but a broken plate—blue as the sky! I've chipped a pair of eyeballs and put the pupils in."

He showed enthusiasm for his unlovely task, and Weekes encouraged him.

Then Churchward returned to his dummy and filled the nether garments of the male figure with straw.

"Mustn't have too much," he said, "for by all accounts he's a thin man—a mere skeleton of a man."

Mr. Huggins rose.

"I be going, souls," he said. "These here lifeless carpses be getting to make me go goose-flesh along the spine. That true to life—that cruel true they be—that I shall dream bad dreams about 'em if I sit here gloating any more. They be a masterpiece of horror and dreadfuller without their heads than with 'em. I'll ax you to see me up the hill, Jacob, for 'tis a very difficult task for me to breast it alone at my age."

"So I will, then," answered Taverner. "And we'll drop into Noah Pearn's at the top."

"Spirits 'twill be for me, if anything," said Valentine. "I'm a bit down-daunted along of this gashly spectacle, and I'm almost sorry now I called upon my memory to help. 'Twill vex somebody for certain, and at my great age us ought to rise above politics. 'Tis a terrible gift of likeness-making the 'Infant' have got; but for my part I'd sooner be a common man, wi'out any such devilish cleverness."

"Don't you fear," said William. "Nobody will pull your old nose."

The painter, quite oblivious of the grave issues behind this outrage, pursued his operations in a light and cheerful spirit. Once taken in hand, he became exceedingly interested in his bizarre task; and now he had grown enthusiastic. He regarded the dolls as an advertisement of neglected talents, and he was only sorry that so much careful work must presently be buried in the earth. But he hoped it might be possible to dig his masterpieces up again.

At home, under lock and key, he had fashioned two heads of putty. One, albeit still unpainted, indubitably resembled Sarah Jane; the other—a shrunken visage, with eyes made of grey slate and high cheek-bones, represented the farmer, Hilary Woodrow. A mass of bright tow hair fell about the female face; the male puppet wore a round hat. Presently William intended to paint these effigies up to the colour of life. Sarah Jane he had secretly studied when she came to visit his sister. Her pure, bright skin, just beginning to take the kiss of the sun as he warmed the spring again, he already knew. As for the male doll, putty-colour came almost near enough to the cadaverous deterioration of the original.

"How long will it be afore all's ready?" asked Jarratt.

"A matter of three days. I'll bring the heads up in a basket an hour before the show. Taverner's going to look after the torches, and Dicky Prowse fetches up the coffins after dark Sunday."

"I'm only thinking of the man. Monday's the best day for him. He goes into Tavistock often of a Monday, and comes home by Lydford way. The point is to hit on a night when he'll be passing by here just at the proper moment. We must made dead sure of him. If he don't actually come face to face with the funeral, half the fun's out of it."

William Churchward assented to this opinion.

"I'd dearly like to coax her here also; but perhaps that would be a thought too rough," he said.

"Yes, we can't do that. I'm not desirous to hurt her at all. 'Tis him I'm aiming at—just to let the gas out of him a bit and larn him that he ain't under the special care and charge of Providence, but have to share the rough edge of things along with his betters."

William nodded.

"Of course you've got proof positive," he said.

"I have—my own eyes and another pair. Besides that I've got her, come to think of it. You know her fashion. 'Tis true, I reckon, that she never told it; but when 'tis blowed, she won't deny it, whatever the farmer might be tempted to do. Anyway, he's at death's door, so we shan't hurt him."

"If 'twas a thing of yesterday, I should be rather frightened of the job," confessed William. "But seeing the matter's five years old and more—what's the odds to any sensible person?"

"Quite right. If they let it hurt 'em—more fools them. Anyway, the man's no friend to me, or anybody else, for all his cant. He's brought this on himself."

"There—that's about all I can do for this pair of legs," said William. "Now we'll lock up and be gone. Come and see 'Sarah Jane.' You'll want to kiss her when I've painted her!"

CHAPTER XII
THE MOCK BURIAL

For various reasons the event of the mock burial was postponed until a night in late June; and then, through the dewy twilight of evening, numerous persons proceeded from Lydford and outlying hamlets to the field known as Thornyside above the river. Many motives took the company, but not one amongst them knew the facts. Certain folk felt interested in the revival of an ancient use; others were only concerned with the excitement of a new thing; and most attended from morbid desire to know what man and woman were to suffer this public denunciation and rebuke.

The light waned after nine o'clock, and the dots and clusters of spectators decreased upon the roads and thronged into a black mass about the centre of Jacob Taverner's field. In the midst two graves had been dug, and beside them, on trestles, lay two coffins close together. The lids hid their contents. A rope fastened between stakes ran round to prevent spectators from crowding upon performers.

Walter Agg and Peter Lethbridge were among the people. They smoked their pipes, stood at the ring-side, and joked with the men about them.

"When be the covers to be lifted, so as we shall see the parties?" asked Lethbridge.

Mr. Nathaniel Spry was near and answered.

"When the torches are lighted, I believe. The procession comes down from the cowshed over there. It is all to be done in the old way. Mr. Huggins and Mr. Churchward both remember the ceremony in their youth; and they were able to furnish the particulars. Wasn't you, Mr. Churchward?"

"I was," said Adam, who stood close at hand. "In my boyhood's days much was done that has been since forgotten. The common people have a rough sense of poetic justice. So has the human race in general. Jarratt Weekes, my son-in-law, asked me to be the minister on this occasion and read the burial service; but I refused, because it was contrary to the dignity of my age or my calling. Moreover, Jarratt will do it himself."

"He's the leading spirit, then?" asked Agg.

"I am violating no confidence when I answer that he is," replied Adam. "He has an active sense of justice—a thing specially acute in those who are suffering from injustice. I fear we are about to administer a harsh lesson to some erring brother and sister. Yet who shall say it won't be well deserved?"

"Perhaps the parties will," suggested Lethbridge; "bound to come as an ugly shock to them, no doubt."

"You are quite right, my man," declared Nathaniel Spry. "It is a very tragical thought, isn't it, Mr. Churchward? that the very people themselves may at this moment be laughing and joking by these graves, little knowing that their own effigies are lying within a few yards of them in those boxes."

"A very tragical thought indeed," admitted the schoolmaster. "So much so, in fact, that I wish we had three or four more constables here, instead of merely Arthur Routleigh. He is a good man enough for keeping order amid ordinary people; but he might lose his head at a crisis. However, he has the majesty of the Law behind him."

"Jimmery! There's Joe Tapson!" cried Agg suddenly. "What the mischief's that on his head?"

Mr. Tapson, clad in black, with flowing mourning bands fluttering from an old beaver hat, passed hastily and disappeared into the cowshed.

"He's the undertaker," explained Mr. Spry. "Everything is done in the proper way, so that the ceremony may be solemn and awe-striking. They wanted Valentine Huggins to be undertaker, but the old man was frightened to do anything so prominent. Then they asked me, but I had to refuse owing to my official position in Lydford as postmaster under Government."

"There goeth Noah Pearn, with his man and a barrel of beer," said Lethbridge. "He'll broach it under the hedge. Never loses a chance, that chap."

The crowd increased and began to grow impatient. Shouts were directed to the cowshed, which was now illuminated brightly from within. Then Mr. Huggins, in deep black, against which his white beard shone luminously, came out and hobbled to the policeman in charge of the ring.

"Tell 'em the procession moves at ten o'clock sharp, will 'e, Arthur? And mind you have a way cleared through the people to the graveside, so there shan't be nothing onseemly done."

Mr. Routleigh raised his voice and proclaimed the news. Then he drove some boys out of the ring. They had crept in behind him and were trying to peep under the coffin lids.

Not many women were present, though many desired to be. Their men in most cases had forbidden them. Certain wives, however, who were not under dominion, attended the rite; and among these stood Mrs. Philip Weekes. Her daughter-in-law was beside her and, hidden from them, Susan Huggins and her gamekeeper also mingled with the people.

"I don't like it, whoever 'tis," declared Hephzibah. "But since it had to be, I'm here. To bury the living be a very terrible piece of work, and I hope to heaven nothing evil will come of it."

"She deserves it, whoever she be," said Jarratt's wife.

"You mean you don't know who 'tis?"

"Not me, mother."

Mrs. Weekes sniffed.

"It puzzles my spirit to know how a man can keep anything hidden from his wife. If I'd been in your shoes, I'd have got the woman's name, and the man's name too, out of my husband double quick. Guy Fawkes and angels!—who be they, I should like to know, to keep their two-penny-halfpenny thoughts from us? A son's different. Of course I couldn't make Jarratt tell me. I wish they'd get on with it. The dew be going through my shoes and chilling me to the knees."

The church clock presently struck ten and a wave of excitement rippled round the rope. People swept this way and that, as people will. Shouts and laughter rose. The grass, trampled under many feet, emitted its own odour, and from the open earth a faint smell came. The sky was clear and a few stars twinkled. Light still hung westward and the great bulk of Lydford Castle loomed square and black against it.

A dance of many flames suddenly flashed through the grey gloom of summer night. The dew answered, and the earth was streaked and shot with points of fire. Above the smoky effulgence of the torches, the sky appeared to grow very dark. Everything outside this radiance of orange flame disappeared and was lost. Only within the glare the procession appeared and moved forward—a medley of lurid lights and ink black shadows.

"They're coming, they're coming!" cried many voices, and the solitary policeman, opening the rope, struggled to make a way for them. Agg, Lethbridge, and others, seeing his efforts futile, lent their aid, and presently into the ring the performers slowly came with torches waving above them. From the shed which they had left there echoed a hollow reverberation, repeated at intervals of half a minute. This represented the lich bell. A hymn rose as the procession approached, and the shrill treble voices of six boys singing together sounded thin and strange under the night.

The choir, in long white smocks, led the way. Then came six men with torches; and then Mr. Huggins and Mr. Taverner appeared as mourners. More torches followed, and Jarratt Weekes next played his part in a parson's gown with a broad black stole hung over it. On one side of him walked a boy with a book; on the other side a boy carried a tall candle. The huge shape of the 'Infant' in black, with a hat-band streaming behind him, followed; and at his side walked Joe Tapson, similarly attired. The disparity in their sizes created much merriment.

Into the ring they came. The boys took their places between the graves; the men stuck their torches into sconces arranged for them upon poles.

Then attention was paid to the coffins. Jarratt opened the book and the boy with the big candle held it aloft, so that the light fell upon the page. All was done with absolute order and decorum. The spectators, not the performers, threatened to break the peace. A great sheaf of light rose up into the darkness; a babel of voices echoed. Laughter and shouts resounded round the ring, and under the flickering fire the people searched each other's faces and called out greetings. An effect impish and demonian danced upon every countenance. Flame and darkness played at hood-man-blind together, and now features were distorted, and now whole bodies loomed huge or shrank and shrivelled under the light. Mrs. Weekes observed this sinister transformation.

"Never seed such a shocking sight," she said to Philip.

"We'm like a ring of evil apes. 'Tis a flouting of religion to play these tricks with it, and I wish I'd not been such a fool as to come. To see us, you'd think 'twas Bostock's wild beasts, not Lydford, had broke loose. Just look at the awful shape Adam Churchward cuts!"

"He don't look worse than he feels, if 'tis with him as it is with me," answered Philip.

Elsewhere Agg spoke to Lethbridge.

"Can you mark Brendon? He was coming up a thought before ten o'clock from the station, and he promised to look out for us. I'm afraid he'll miss the fun."

"Can't see him; but he may be here," answered Peter. "Look at Jacob Taverner. I'll die of laughing in a minute. The toad's pretending to cry!"

Jarratt Weekes at this moment shouted for peace. Then Joe Tapson and William Churchward approached the coffin-lids, while a very real silence fell as the dolls were revealed. The creator's heart beat fast under his great bosom. He hungered to hear a shout of instant recognition; and indeed this was not long delayed.

With a ghostly semblance of life the effigies stared out, and the feet of the coffins were lowered so that all might see. The throng massed in front of the show, and the ringside behind the performers was left empty.

What the people saw was a long, thin doll in riding breeches, Norfolk jacket, and hard hat. It stared out with sunken, sallow cheeks, and the torchlight played upon its life-size, life-like body. In the other coffin lay the female doll, and her tow hair was drawn back from her forehead and her red lips smiled. The face had been most carefully modelled and painted; therefore its resemblance to Sarah Jane Brendon was clear to all who knew her.

"God's light! what's this?" Lethbridge asked loudly; but Agg did not answer.

A great murmur shook the throng. Names were cried back and forward. A few laughed, some already shouted angrily for the mummery to cease.

"'Tis Sarah Jane and Hilary Woodrow—sure as I'm a sinful man," said Philip Weekes to his wife.

She did not answer, but glared at the figures.

Several voices cried out "Sarah Jane Brendon!" Others remembered the vanished farmer and named him. A spirit decidedly averse from the performers was apparent in the crowd, and Philip Weekes voiced it.

"This is a damned, wicked, wanton shame!" he roared out; "and I say it, though my own son's mixed in it."

"Order—order!" yelled a voice or two.

Mr. Huggins tried to get out of the ring, but was drawn back by the Infant. Mr. Churchward and Mr. Spry among the spectators also showed fear, and the latter, feeling that the sooner he departed from Thornyside the better for his reputation, set out to do so. Adam, in much concern, followed him. Jarratt Weekes, unmoved, proceeded grimly with the service as long as he could be heard. He had seen what none else had as yet; he had marked where the great form of Daniel Brendon suddenly reared itself behind the crowd. His voice shook at the sight, but he proceeded—

"'Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut——'"

Then shouts drowned his voice and a resolute and angry faction got over the rope with intent to stop the proceedings.

Mr. Taverner was appealed to by Jarratt Weekes.

"Stop 'em—stop 'em!—they can't interfere. This is private land!" he shouted.

But Jacob had gone over to the other side.

"If I'd known who it was——" he began, and stripped his mourning band off his hat.

At this sign the ring was broken up; a torch fell here and there and illuminated the open graves; then, like the sudden charge of some great beast, Brendon, who had at last understood, ploughed through the people and cast them to right and left. In another moment his hand was on the collar of Jarratt Weekes. With one sweep of his arm he tore the surplice off; then he dashed the book aside; and then he shook the mummer till Jarratt screamed and an answering scream came from his mother.

"Speak," said Daniel. "Tell me why you've done this; and tell me why I shouldn't let the life out of you for doing it!"

"Let go my neck, then," answered the other. Then he shouted to the people, "Why don't you pull this fool away? D'you want to see me killed?"

"Sarve you right," cried a dozen voices. "We'd do the like if we was the husband!"

"Speak!" repeated Brendon. His eyes burnt redder than the flames of the torch-fires round him.

"Then I will. I've done this thing because it was true. Ask John Prout. True afore the living God; and may He blast me, and strike me with all the curses of hell for all eternity now and for evermore if it ban't true. True!—ask Prout—ask them we've mimicked here—they'll not deny it!"

He pointed to the puppets staring mildly up at their makers.

For a moment Brendon held off and glared round him.

"Don't you believe the filthy liar, Dan!" bellowed Agg from the crowd.

"Let God strike me blind and mad now afore the people if it's not true. Prout saw it—with his own eyes he saw it. Kill me if you like—but it's true—true as the Bible is true—and you'll live to know it," cried Weekes; and his grim earnestness appeared to affect the principal listener.

Ignorant of what was doing, the boy in the shed still struck an old iron bin to imitate a passing bell. The sound acted on the people as a drum on a dervish. Brendon stood irresolute.

"Fling the beastly man into one of them graves and that big, fat fool after him!" shouted a voice.

There was a rush for Weekes and William Churchward. Mud and stones were flung, and a clod struck Jarratt in the mouth.

"Let him go—don't be cowards—let the man take his folly away!" cried Hephzibah shrilly; but none listened. Amid roars and shouts the mob surrounded Weekes and the younger Churchward. Joe Tapson and the choir boys were kicked heartily; Mr. Huggins had escaped in time, and now lurked behind a distant hedge and waited trembling to see what might happen. The people next threw the dolls out of their coffins, trod their putty faces into pulp and played football with their limbs. A man embraced the female figure amid roars of laughter. Then he danced with it.

Half a dozen resolute labourers dragged the Infant into one grave; while others, including a private enemy or two, tied Weekes within an empty coffin and lowered him into the second pit.

The passing bell still boomed on. Then the policeman, whose efforts towards maintaining peace were vain, did a definite thing, rushed up to the cowshed and stopped it.

Elsewhere Noah Pearn suffered. He had been standing rather anxiously beside his beer barrel, until some reckless spirits discovered the drink, and summoned others. Then Pearn was thrust into a ditch without ceremony, and his liquor consumed under the darkness. Many of the men present had come for miles, and those who belonged to the neighbourhood cared nothing for the publican's threats. They drank and presently emptied the barrel. Then a few intoxicated jesters began to throw earth on Weekes and William Churchward, and it was not until the parents of the two sufferers summoned aid and resolutely attacked the reckless party, that Jarratt and the bruised and battered Infant were rescued.

The torches expired and the folk at last departed. They left nothing to mark the event but a torn and trampled field, the dismembered limbs of the puppets, and the shattered timbers of their coffins.

Dawn found these things in their hideousness, and it also rose upon two men deep in conversation together. Agg and Lethbridge, appreciating the gravity of the position, had hurried home that some preparation for Daniel's coming might be made. But he did not come. They waited ready to intercept him and learn his mood and his intentions; then night passed and morning failed to bring him. Therefore they guessed that he must have followed the word of Jarratt Weekes literally, and turned his face to the sea that he might speak with Prout. They scorned the story, and dared not name it at Ruddyford. But at the earliest opportunity they despatched a telegram to Prout from Mary Tavy and warned him that he must stand between Daniel Brendon and the master.

"He'll soon calm the man down, if 'tis false, as it must be," said Agg. "Pray God no note of this gets to Sarah Jane's ears; yet that's a vain hope, for everybody on Dartymoor will be chattering of it inside twelve hours."

"I'm thinking of the man," answered Lethbridge. "If 'tis false, he'll have the hide off Jarratt Weekes for this night's work; and if 'twas true, he wouldn't stop short of——"

"'True'! Who that have ever met that clean, fearless creature would dare say it? Prout will calm the man down; but Lord pity them who get within reach of Brendon's rage when he goes into Lydford again."

"He may have believed it, however, and gone from that field and hanged himself," argued Lethbridge.

"Never! Would he wrong his wife like that—or Mr. Woodrow either? No, he ban't the sort to let a lie change him. This blackguard thing calls to be answered, and these insulted people will answer it."

"Daniel will for 'em, more likely. Master's so good as buried in real earnest and far beyond fighting; and as for Sarah Jane, 'tis her husband's part to make her name and fame sweet afore the nation."

"Which he will do—have no fear of that," answered Walter Agg.

At an early hour they despatched their telegram and Prout received it. Half guessing the truth, he waited in fearful anxiety; but Brendon did not come.

CHAPTER XIII
ANOTHER EFFIGY

From the pandemonium of the mock burial Daniel Brendon took himself unseen. The advice of Jarratt Weekes appeared to be reasonable, and he decided to follow it. He was told to ask Prout, and he determined to do so. He roamed through darkness, and the past turned back like a scroll, and he read into the recent years far more than Prout could tell him. It was not possible to reach Dawlish until the following day, and long before the summer dawn returned Brendon had passed beyond thought of Prout to that of his master.

Under deep and silent woods, by waste places and along lonely roads he went. The voices of night whispered round him, and sleeping trees sighed, shivered, and slept again as he passed them by. Nocturnal creatures were his companions; the solitary hare limped along before him; the owl and the night-jar cried from the wood; once he passed a colony of glow-worms, where they twinkled in the dewy grass, like a tiny constellation.

His mind suffered the gigantic convulsion proper to this blow. Within one hour of leaving Lydford, he believed. His inherent instincts, smothered through five years by kindness, hushed by gentle words, lulled by immense generosity, tore their way through these artifices and saw all that had been hidden, and far more. The goodness of Woodrow rotted as Daniel thought of it; and even his conversion stank. Brendon saw himself hoodwinked, laughed at, deceived—seduced, like a child, with sugar-plums, rendered harmless with gifts, muzzled and deluded with fields and beasts and great possessions. He had worshipped and obeyed his God for this; he had sung praises to the Almighty, and toiled in the ways of righteousness for this. The Everlasting had watched it all, had listened to his prayers, had marked his mighty efforts, had waited until the cup was full before striking it from the lip of His servant. Brendon turned from God to man, thought upon his enemy, and considered the plot that had robbed him of his honour. Not until the light of dawn awoke upon a world of young green and silver dew, did Sarah Jane enter into his mind; and then he determined with himself that she must stand beside her paramour. He could not remotely guess at the truth of the past five years; it was natural that he should conceive a web of heartless and cruel deception woven from their united cunning and daily wrapped closer about himself. They knew him so well: his weak spots were so familiar to them, that the rest was easy. They had laughed at his complacent and devout trust in God a thousand times; doubtless they had grown accustomed to their sin and finally become careless. It was natural that all the world should know before it fell upon his ears. He read the whole story; he saw Woodrow handing over the farm in exchange for what he wanted more; he imagined Sarah Jane making the bargain. Anon Woodrow pretended to Christianity and Sarah Jane also affected an attitude of increased prayer and devotion. All was dust—dust flung by cruel hands and hard hearts to blind him.

His life crashed down, like a tree thrown in March. So had he seen a great elm fall. One moment it stood in full and glorious dignity of adult growth, the sun upon its crown and rosy inflorescence of flowers meshed within a grey mist of the young twigs; then the saw gnawed to its heart, the axe rang, the mallet drove the wedge, and the whole mighty edifice, falling in thunder, lay crushed fiat by its own weight, maimed, wrecked, shattered, and utterly destroyed. Only a raw disc in the hedge marked the place whence it had sprung upward, to be a theatre for the loveliness of spring and autumn, a home for the storm-thrush, a harp for the winter wind.

Now the fabric of his fortunes similarly collapsed, and he found all that had looked so healthy was flourishing upon foundations of putrescence and decay. No canker had eaten into his life and ruined it; no sudden misfortune had grown and turned what was fair to what was foul; but, in ignorance, with immense labour, he had built upon stark fraud and filth and his own dishonour; he had founded his life on falsehoods and sins; he had worshipped his God in unconsciousness of the truth; he had been drawn to closer and deeper intercourse with Christ through the cold-blooded villainy of a man. His ambitions, aims and future schemes were all rooted and flourishing in his own betrayal; and his God had suffered this appalling thing to come to pass, and denied him one dim hint or whisper of the truth. At the crucial moment, when Woodrow made him his heir, the Almighty had blinded Daniel's native instinct and not permitted even a suspicion of reality to be associated with the gift. All had combined against him; all had cozened his understanding: his wife, his master, his God. Man and Heaven had united to deceive him; and man, knowing the truth, had watched his sustained devotion and faith; and Heaven, knowing the truth, had accepted his worship and thanksgiving, had suffered his delusion to continue, had planned the horror of the end.

Every wind of the night came to him with a new grief; every scent of the night brought a new agony; every voice of the night drove home the truth with an added torment. He looked up at the stars and asked them what he should do. From force of habit he knelt and called upon God. But he remembered that, in this matter, God was on the side of the enemy. Therefore he rose and went forward without prayer.

By morning he had walked many miles along the foothills of the Moor; and then, after five o'clock, he went down to a railway station, waited for the first train, and travelled to Plymouth. He suffered himself to rest there for a time; and he washed and ate. Henceforth he was concerned with Hilary Woodrow and not with John Prout. He perceived clearly that the old man, who would have sacrificed his soul for Hilary, had helped his wife and Woodrow against him. He retraced events of many journeys. He thought of the days that he had been from home, and of the time spent by his wife at Dawlish. He forged a long and dreadful chain of horrible deceits that had never existed. He began to imagine an evil story which occupied a place in time long after the actual treachery was over and done. Upon the fact of his betrayal he built a mighty monument; yet this memorial had itself scarcely any existence in fact. That, however, mattered little. The truth without addition had been enough for Brendon.

Day was turned to night in his mind, and he longed for the real night, that he might accomplish his purpose. About noon he took train to Dawlish, and reached it before three o'clock.

He bought bread and ate it to support himself; then he went into the woods above the town and lurked there until the dark. His decision was come to, and he intended to destroy both Woodrow and Sarah Jane. They should perish; and at that moment he would have killed his God too if he had known how. For a short time, indeed, his fetich was dead enough; because to find what he had believed a Creator's sustained and benignant attention proved instead one cruel, long-drawn trick and jest, shook the man to the roots of his faith. Such action seemed not compatible with any conception of a loving, a just, and an all-powerful father.

For an hour he cursed God like a fallen Titan; but only for an hour. Then lifelong trust and faith conquered, and even at this crisis atrophied reason proved too weak to grasp its opportunity. Faith re-took the citadel. He reflected upon his Bible, and presently perceived that nothing had happened to him which was contrary to the common way of God with man. The Jehovah he adored; He who once drowned every little child in the whole world; the Being who led Israel into the desert of Sinai; who slew Uzzah for steadying His ark; who killed seventy thousand innocent men because David numbered his people; who commanded whole nations to be slaughtered and their virgins only saved for the conquerors; who prescribed rules for slavery; who destroyed the firstborn of all Egypt, and tore ten thousand mothers' hearts; who loved the stench and smear of blood upon His altars, and pursued His foes with the tenacity, cruelty and craft of a Red Indian—this Everlasting Spirit might most reasonably be expected to play the faithless savage and torture even the least of those who worshipped His omnipotent name. But it was not for his creature to question Him; it was not for a thinking being to spurn this almighty pest with scorn and with loathing; it was not for a smitten man to ask how any Prince of Devils could worse confound his own creation.

Brendon offered the other cheek; and before he stole out from his hiding-place in the forest and went down where Woodrow dwelt, he was safe in the grip of his God once more. The fact, however, did not alter his determination, because this revelation of his own ordained ruin and destruction brought others in its train. Subsequent actions were clearly indicated to him by the Being he still obeyed; for Daniel was not wholly sane now. Streaks and flashes of madness touched the tissue of his thoughts, as sparks fly in smoke. Barriers fell, old orderly opinions perished, strangled by the horde of ferocious ideas that hurtled through his mind. From the broken links of dead principles a new thing was welded, and method and purpose were restored. He believed in predestination, and through that hypothesis he came back humbly to the footstool of his idol. He perceived that the World-maker had chosen him to drive the knife into these evil hearts. For that purpose, the infinitely wise, infinitely just, infinitely loving God of his fathers had called him from the womb; had suffered him to live and thrive; had ordered his life prosperously; had taught him from his youth up to worship Heaven, and walk uprightly before men. To this end his faith had been founded upon adamant, and tempered to move mountains; to this end the Sun of Righteousness had warmed his spirit; and now the fruit of his spirit was about to ripen in murder.

For a time the natural rage that consumed him cooled a little before these high mandates. The inversion of his intellect was complete; and though there came to him a fear that he was about to do this thing that he might gratify a personal lust and hunger for revenge, he put that temptation away as of the Devil. He believed that the powers of darkness urged him to spare his wife and his master; while Jehovah ordered their instant death. To let them live now would be to frustrate their Maker's plan—a thing unthinkable. He longed for a Bible that he might wallow in the atrocities of the Pentateuch and find wherewithal to strengthen his arm there.

He was very nearly insane at this crisis—madder than it happens to most to be at any time. Yet few there are, capable of intense feeling, who have not stood at the veil, looked behind it in dreams or calentures, and seen the red-eyed spirit glare like a gorgon out. She peers forth by night, and the dreaming brain knows her well; at times of terrific joy or grief she is near; after physical excesses she comes close; surfeit or starvation alike summon her; she is the firstling of superstition, the familiar of the fanatic.

This man walked with madness that night for a little time, and not until he had returned to the lamp-lit streets did the unholy thing depart from him. Then he affirmed his spirit, prayed fervent prayers, and tramped by the sea a while, before going upon his business. He meant to kill Woodrow with his naked hands.

Before the row of dwellings wherein the sick man lay, Daniel became puzzled, for he had forgotten the house. It was only by chance that he rang at the right one.

Some time elapsed before any answer came; then the door opened upon darkness, and Brendon did not know that it was Prout who stood before him.

"Who bides here?" he asked, and his voice startled him, for the tone was strange.

"Death, my son," answered the other.

Brendon pushed the old man aside, strode in, and then found that John told the truth.

Hilary Woodrow lay in his bed. The room was lighted by a gas chandelier, but only one jet burnt there. Brendon's mind leapt over the abysses of the last four-and-twenty hours.

"This is not him," he said. "You've dragged that doll back again to deceive me!"

"He died afore noon to-day, and yours was the last name on his lips in this world. Maybe the first in the next."

"Let him scream it in hell—the blasted, faithless villain! Dead—he's not dead—he knows what I'm here for—he's foxing now, as he has foxed me all his life—foul, heartless, godless monster that he was!"

"Daniel—Daniel—for God's sake—a dead man, Daniel!"

"Out on his death and out on you, you go-between! To hold my hand and swear friends, and help them into each other's arms behind my back—God of light and reason! why be such rank poison as you allowed to——?"

He broke off and stared where the colourless clay of his master gazed blankly up—just as the doll had gazed. Insolence seemed to sit on the dust—the insolence of a mean spirit that had narrowly escaped harm and now, in safety, turned to jeer. Brendon roared and cursed the corpse, while Prout implored him to be sane.

"This happened five years ago and more," cried the old man; "'twas all over then for ever."

"All over—for them it might have been. What of me? ... All over but the payment.... What of me, I say? ... Blight his dim, damned eyes—blight him lying there and telling the truth with his dumb lips now he's safe from me.... What of me? 'All ended'! It's only begun for me. The reaping's mine—the reaping of this devil's crop. Mine to put in God's sickle now!"

"Nought but the whirlwind will you reap, poor man. Turn to your God, and don't blaspheme Him. Call on Him, afore you do what can't be undone. For pity, Daniel—for pity. He's gone to answer for what he did. Leave her to God too."

The man grew calmer and reflected before answering.

"Mine's a difficult God, you must know," he said. "He's come between again. Only vengeance be God's, but justice belongs to us seemingly. This wasn't justice—to let that lying adulterer slip away in peace like he has! I comed to strangle him, and God's stepped between again—robbed me again. 'Tis almost more than a faithful soldier and servant can endure, John Prout. Job's self wasn't called to face a thing like this. I've been deserted, look you, for no fault of my own. Robbed—robbed of all my earnings, and my honour, and my hopes."

He was silent a moment, then rage broke bounds again.

"Let Him take care—let Him that's reigning above Heaven take care, else one more soul will be damned. He can steal everything from me but hell; but that's in all men's reach. We can rob Him of our immortal souls! That's in my power, and why not? What's Heaven to me now? I'd rather follow this devil down—down—if 'tis only to hunt and harry him through raging fire for evermore! ... Even that I'll do ... when she's gone. Evil for evil will I pay my God, and choose my portion with them that ruined me!"

"Man, man—I implore you by my grey hairs, Daniel!"

"Curse your grey hairs! who are you to squeak? You helped this man to hell—you know it! Cold he be now—but he'll roast for it for ever; and may it be mine to trample him into the hot eye of the fire, till he's red through, and the marrow runs out of his damned bones! Why is he dead—why is he dead now? I was his death—fashioned by the Almighty's plan to be his death—born to be his death. Bring him back! Bring him back! Be the God of Ages a fool to let all His planning and plotting fall to nought? Who is Death to stand grinning between me and this filthy clay? Be he stronger than the God that conquered him? Curse him, and curse heaven and hell that's caught this man away from me in his last hour."

Now he seemed to realize the other's absolute escape; and he lifted his voice, howled horribly, turned upon the dead, and struck Woodrow's forehead.

Thereupon Prout flung himself at Brendon with all his weak might, and cried shame, and called upon him to be a man and not a beast. But Daniel swept him off and went out.

CHAPTER XIV
THE LONELY ALTARS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He cometh!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Poor Walter!" thought Sarah Jane.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The child uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The letter was very short:—

"My dear, they say you have come. I know. I'll spare you that.—Your true love."

The man lifted his voice at last.

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

Then he spoke to the child.

"Get to your mother," he said.

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

CHAPTER XV
SET OF MOON

On a night at mid-December, in a darkened room, Daniel Brendon sat writing laboriously. The candle beside him was shielded so that the light should fall only on his papers, on a copy of the "War Cry," and on his Bible. In a corner were two beds, side by side, and his boy occupied the smaller one and slept peacefully there. Upon a chair by the little bed Gregory's clean clothes were placed for the morrow. A small scarlet jersey hung close by, and beside it a very large one, that Daniel would wear.

Brendon had joined the Salvation Army and was captain of the Lydford Branch. Indeed, he had founded this branch, and worked like a giant by night and day to increase its strength. Twenty-five persons were already numbered.

He rose up and stretched his arms; then sat down and read through the notes that he had made. To-morrow the man would preach from the twelfth chapter of Job and the twenty-second verse.

"He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death."

The child laughed in his sleep and then was still again. A clock struck four.

Brendon appeared to be much aged; he did not spare himself in his unceasing struggles for his God. Only at such moments as this, in the waste of night, when life's pulses burned low; when his own agony surged high; when human powerlessness to stem the tide of the world's grief was most borne in upon his spirit, did he waver and look forward hungrily to the end. For a moment now he put his great hands over his face and longed for the time when the dust of the workshop should be still, the dust of the workman at rest.

John Prout and his sister received all Woodrow's money—a sum sufficient for their needs until life's end. Brendon had sold Ruddyford; and the payment, in shape of notes, he burnt. Now he fought under the banner of the new sect that already foreshadowed its coming power.

He rose presently, gazed upon the night and started at what he saw.

"Blood and Fire in heaven too!" he thought.

Behind the mass of Lydford castle a moon, just short of fall, was sinking amid vast clouds. Some were very dark and some were luminous; some, while circled with flame, yet moved in masses unutterably black. The firmament seemed troubled by this conflagration. The setting moon, surrendering her silver, took upon her bosom the tinctures of earth; and the stormy clouds burnt with her stained radiance. Above them the light exhaled and shot upward into heaven, where stars shone through the vaporous floor of the sky. Orion wheeled his far-flung glories westward and followed the red moon.

The wonder of this silent and nocturnal pageant endured awhile; then it slowly died away. The planet flashed a farewell ruby above the edge of the world, and dreamless darkness brooded upon earth for a little space before the dawn.

THE END

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.