Knock at a Venture

by Eden Phillpotts

But Yelland died, as I tell ’e, an’ the young man comed to his own. With all his airs an’ graces, he knowed when he was well off, an’ of course followed his faither’s footsteps an’ stuck to the land, despite his mother’s hopes, as planned an’ prayed with her last breath for him to be a lawyer. Though why a lawyer should be a greater man than a farmer, you’d have to ax a lawyer to tell ’e. An’ I won’t say that Nicholas was a bad farmer. He’d got sense, though no broad-mindedness. The difference between him an’ his faither was showed by a path-field as ran through Cator Court lands and was very much used by folks coming up from Widecombe to Postbridge and the farms round about, because it saved foot-passengers a good mile of walking, an’ it had been there time out of mind. But there weren’t no right of way with it all the same, an’ farmer he always used to shut it up one day a year to make good his claim in the eye of the law. He wouldn’t have turned back the leastest little one he’d found on the field-path, for ’twas his pride an’ pleasure always to make life easier for man, woman an’ child when the chance offered. An’ the boys had the filbert nuts an’ the girls had the mushrooms; an’ he never minded, bless you; he liked ’em to be there.

Well, this here carmudgeon of a young Yelland—first thing he done, out of pure sourness of disposition, was to shut up the field-path an’ stick up a lot o’ scowling nonsense ’bout “trespassers would be prosecuted.” So much for his radical ideas an’ everybody being equal! But it’s always that sort who talk loudest about the rights of men, be the sharpest about the rights of property. Belted Earls will throw open their beautiful parks, but you won’t catch common men doing it. An’ the boys knocked young Yelland’s boards down with stones, an’ broke his hedges; an’ the Widecombe people, as didn’t care a snap of the finger for the man, took their even way as usual. He spent half his time storming up an’ down the great meadow in the farm-bottom, where Webburn river goes clattering to meet Dart; but he only turned back women an’ children, for he was a little chap—thin an’ not overstrong—so men just told him to get out of their road, else they’d knock him upsy-edgeways into the hedge.

But of course such a state of things couldn’t last. There comed a terrible day when he turned back Mr. Matthew’s wife—Matthew being the miller to Widecombe an’ a churchwarden, an’ a man of high renown in general. Then us had a proper tantara, an’ Matthew he took the opinion of Lawyer Pearce, an’ Pearce he had a tell with young Yelland, an’ parson Courtenay of Postbridge, he also done what he could; which was nought. They might so well have talked to a fuzz-bush as Nicholas. He stuck out his chin—he was a underhung toad, like a bulldog—and he said that rights was rights an’ land was land; an’ he turned on parson, like an adder, and said: “If you’ll open a footpath through your vegetable garden an’ let all Postbridge walk up an’ down it when your gooseberries be ripe, then I’ll do the same with my meadow, an’ not sooner.”

But parson, whose heart was in gooseberries, said the cases weren’t similar; an’ Nicholas held out they were.

Matters was let sink for a bit after that, but the upshot made a story, an’ people laugh yet when you tell ’em about it.

You must know that young Yelland was courting just then, an’ he’d got his hands so full with Mary Jane Arscott, the stone-breaker’s darter, that for lack of leisure—nought else—he didn’t watch his path-field so sharp as usual. The storm died down a bit, an’ by the time that the matter of Mary Jane had come to a head, things were fallen back into the old way. All the notice-boards was knocked down—most of ’em had floated along the river; an’ the people went to an’ fro on Yelland’s path, just as if his faither was still alive. He’d only made a lot of enemies by his foolish conduct, an’ that thought made him so grim as a ghost, an’ poor company for every living soul.

Well, this Mary Jane was a very fine woman—rather on the big side for a girl of twenty-two; but the small men always look for a large, helpful pattern of maiden, an’ Nicholas was as much in love with her as he could be with any mortal she, despite her humble circumstances. Her liked him too, up to a certain point; but ’twas the sort of fondness a maiden naturally gets for any young man who be very well-to-do, an’ have a fine house an’ land an’ a prosperous business. ’Tis hard to make up your mind about such a man, specially if he’m a trifle undersized an’ underhung, an’ not generally well liked by the neighbours. But, for all that, Mary Jane Arscott kept his beautiful farm in her eye an’ seed her way pretty clear, if it hadn’t been for a young youth by the name of Benjamin Pearn. But for him no doubt she’d have said “yes” long ago—perhaps afore Nicholas had had time to get out his proposal of marriage, for she comed of very pauper stock, an’ had never known comfort in her life. But this here Ben Pearn chanced to have just what t’other man lacked—a comely countenance an’ a fine, manly frame to him. A blue-eyed, sandy-headed man—hard as nails an’ fairly prosperous for a chap only turned four or five-an’-twenty. He was a shepherd in springtime; an’ looked after the common lands; an’ he was verger of the church; an’ he kept bees; an’ he’d lend a hand at thatching or painting of sign-boards, or harvesting, or any mortal thing. But his father had been a famous poacher, though of course I ban’t bringing that up against the man. Yet, with all his cleverness, he was a fool when he failed in love, as a many afore him. ’Twas love for Mary Jane found out the soft spot in him, an’ showed that he was a thought weak in his head, for all his business, and could do an underhand deed, like anybody else in the same fix. For when we’m struck on a maid, if us can’t see how to fight fair in it, us all fights foul without a blush. Which shows love ban’t a Bible vartue, but just a savage strain in the blood, if you come to think of it. Besides, you can’t forget his father was a poacher.

Between these two men, Ben an’ Nicholas, it rested, an’ Mary Jane took her time to make up her mind. She was in love with Benjamin’s self an’ Yelland’s farm. That’s how it stood. She didn’t want to miss the farm, an’ she didn’t want to miss Benjamin; but her couldn’t have both; an’ her found it a bit difficult to make up her mind, though Lord He knows her faither an’ mother done their best to make it up for her. They had an eye on the gert chimney-corners to Cator Court, no doubt.

Then things happened that helped Mary Jane to decide.

The rights of it got out long after, but what took place was this, for I heard it direct from Nicholas. Whatever else he was, he was a truth-teller. One fine evening in late summer, when Yelland was walking down his field-path in a devil of a gale, because he found that folks had been breaking his hedge again for the hazel-nuts an’ running all about the meadow after mushrooms, there comed by Ben Pearn, an’ he marked the trouble an’ spoke.