“As to what you’ll do or won’t do,” answered Maybridge, growing very rosy again, “there’s two sides to that. I’d have asked you to box weeks ago, only I’m taller and heavier, and I thought you would think it unsportsmanlike. But now—when you please. As for Miss Jane, I shall speak to her, and see her, and go to church with her just as often as she’ll let me, without asking leave from you or anybody. So now you know.”
Anthony swung off over the Moor, and Richard, pursuing the way to his hut on the shoulder of the tor, let the other depart unanswered. This sudden and unexpected breach rather pleased the keeper. He had always held Anthony to be a fool, and the fact seemed now proved beyond further dispute. It was not until he had lived through the loneliness of a long day and night upon the warren that the young man viewed his situation differently. Then three harpies—wrath, resentment and a natural jealousy—sprang full-fledged into being, and drove him home before them.
As for Maybridge, smarting under a sense of insult and a worse sense that he deserved it, the young man strove to excuse himself to his conscience. He assured himself many times that Richard Daccombe was unworthy of Jane Stanberry in every possible respect. And there came a day when he told her that he thought so.
CHAPTER IV
Mary Daccombe was wont to reserve the problems of the working day until nightfall; and her husband solved them as best he could during those brief minutes that intervened between the extinction of the candle and his first snore. An honest but unsentimental man, love for his offspring had never particularly marked his mind. He was contented that his sons should quarrel, and that Dick should thrash Davey when he felt so disposed, for it saved him the trouble. He held that each did the other good, and he had neither pity nor particular regard to spare for either.
This cheerless fact now appeared, for on a night soon after Christmas, Mrs. Daccombe approached her husband upon a matter of sentiment, and won colder comfort from him than she expected. He gave her an obvious opportunity to approach the subject, otherwise it is doubtful whether she would have had the courage to do so. That day, to the farmer’s astonishment and gratification, Anthony Maybridge had come back from a brief Christmas vacation. The holiday extended over a fortnight, and Daccombe fully believed that he had seen the last of his pupil; but Anthony returned, declared a renewed interest in matters agricultural, and gave the farmer to understand that he should continue to reside at Cross Ways for the present.
Now Jonathan laughed as he stretched himself on his bed; he laughed, and wondered what had brought young Maybridge again to the Moor. Whereupon his wife read him the riddle.
“Not you, nor yet the work, nor yet the shooting,” she said. “’Tis right as you should know, however, for trouble’s brewing, if I can see, an’ ’tis our awn son will smart for it.”
“Us have all got to smart off an’ on, though how that moon-calf of a boy be going to hurt Dick or Davey, I can’t tell.”
“Not Davey, though ’twas him as found it out, I reckon. Davey be venomous against his brother—always was, worse luck. Dick rubs it into the bwoy, and his brother hurts him with bitter mouth-speech when he can. ’Tis this way: that young gen’leman be getting a deal too fond of Jane Stanberry by the looks of it. That’s what he’s comed back for, I reckon. Davey spat it out essterday when Dick clouted his head. Her wasn’t theer, so the boy up an’ said as Dick’s temper would weary the Dowl, an’ that Jane was looking away from him to a better. Lucky I was by, else Dick would have done the li’l un a mischief. He growed thunder-black, yet I could see by his wrath be knowed the tale were more than Davey’s spite.”