Like beehives cluster the thatched roofs of Buckland, for the cottages are dwarfed by the lofty trees which soar above them. Oak and ash, pine and beech heave up hugely to their canopies upon the hill slope, and the grey roofs and whitewashed walls of the hamlet seem little more than a lodge of pygmies sequestered in the forest. The very undergrowth of laurel has assumed giant proportions and flings many a ponderous bough across the highway, where winds a road with mossy walls through the forest and the village. Here and there green meadows break the woods and lay broad, bright tracts between the masses of the trees; then glimpses of the Vale beneath are visible through woodland rifts.
The cottage coverings were old and sombre of tone; but on this September day, before the great fall of the leaf, destined presently to sweep like a storm from tree top to earth, sunshine soaked through the interlacing boughs and brought light to the low-browed windows, to the fuchsias and purple daisies in the gardens. It flashed a ruby on the rays of Virginian creepers that sometimes clothed a wall and brightened the white faces of the little dwellings to pale gold. All was very silent about the hour of noon. For a few moments no human form appeared; only a brook poured down from the hills, foamed through its dark, hidden ways, rested at a granite drinking trough beside the road, then trickled on again. A robin sang, and far distant throbbed the note of a woodman's axe.
Midway between the squat-towered church, that stood at the limits of the village to the north-west, and the congeries of cots within the border of the woods, a second rivulet leapt in a waterfall from the hedge at the root of a mighty ash that shook out its serrated foliage a hundred feet above and made the lane a place of shade. The road bent here and the dingle was broken with great stones heavily clad in moss. Above stretched the woods, legion upon legion, their receding intricacies of branch and bough broken by many thousand trunks. Beneath, again the woods receded over steep acclivities to the river valley.
Though the houses were few and small, great distinction marked them. They held themselves as though conscious of their setting, and worthy of it. They fitted into the large and elaborate moulding of the hillside and by their human significance completed a vision that had been less without them. There was a quality of massive permanence in the scene, imparted by the gigantic slope of the hill whereon it was set. It fell with no addition of abrupt edge or precipice, but evenly, serenely from its crown on the naked Beacon above, by passages of heath and fern, by the great forests and sweeps of farmland and water meadows that broke them, down and down past the habitations, assembled like an ants' nest on its side to the uttermost depths of the river valley and the cincture of silver Dart winding through the midst of it.
At a point where the road fell and climbed again through the scattered dwellings there stood two cottages under the trees together. They adjoined, and one was fair to see—well-kept and prosperous, with a tidy scrap of garden before it and a little cabbage patch behind. The straw of the roof was trimly cut and looped heavily over the dormer windows, while above, on a brick stack, four slates were set instead of a chimney pot. But the neighbour cottage presented a forlorn appearance. It was empty; its thatch was scabbed and crusted with weeds and blobs of moss; at one place it had fallen in and the wooden ribs of the roof protruded. A mat of neglected ivy covered the face of the cot and thrust through broken windows into the little chambers. Damp and decay marked all, and its evil fame seemed reflected in its gloomy exterior. For the house was haunted, and since Mrs. Benjamin Bamsey had seen a "wishtness" peering through the parlour window on two successive evenings after the death of the last tenant, none could be found to occupy this house, though dwellings in Buckland-in-the-Moor were far to seek.
Now a man appeared in the road from the direction of the church. He was of an aspect somewhat remarkable and he came from Lower Town, a hamlet sunk in the Vale to the west. Arthur Chaffe combined many trades, as a carpenter in a small village is apt to do. He attended to the needs of a scattered community and worked in wood, as the smith, in iron. He boasted that what could be made in wood, from a coffin to a cider cask, lay in his power. And beyond the varied and ceaseless needs of his occupation, he found time for thought, and indeed claimed to be a man above the average of intelligence. His philosophy was based on religious principle and practice; but he was not ungenial for an old bachelor. He smiled upon innocent pleasure, though the lines that he drew round human conduct were hard and fast.
He was eight and fifty, and so spare that the bones of his face gave it expression. Upon them a dull, yellowish skin was tightly drawn. He was growing bald and shaved his upper lip and cheeks, but wore a thin, grey beard. His teeth were few and his mouth had fallen in. His cheeks puffed out when he ate and spoke, but sank to nothing under the cheek bones when he sucked his pipe. He had a flat nose, and his long legs suggested an aquatic bird, while his countenance resembled a goat and his large and pale brown eyes added to the likeness. His expression was both amiable and animated, and he could laugh heartily. Mr. Chaffe's activities were centripetal and his orbit limited. It embraced Lower Town and Buckland, and occasionally curved to Holne and outlying farms; but he was a primitive, and had seldom stirred out of a ten-mile radius in his life. Had he gone much beyond Ashburton, he had found himself in a strange land. He employed three men, and himself worked from morning to night. His highest flights embraced elementary cabinet-making, and when he did make a piece of furniture on rare occasions, none denied that it was an enduring masterpiece.
He left the high road now, approached the pair of cottages and knocked at the door of the respectable dwelling.
Melinda Honeysett it was who appeared and expressed pleasure.
"So you've come then, Mr. Chaffe. What a man of your word you are!"