THE PEACE
I. [HOPE WAKES AND DIES]
II. [ON CHRISTMAS DAY]
III. [BURNHAM AS LEADER]
IV. [OUT OF NIGHT]
V. [THE LEOPARD CHANGES HER SPOTS]
VI. [THE BURNING OF BLAZEY]
VII. [DEATH AT THE GATE]
VIII. [BEARDING THE LION]
IX. [A SPECIAL LICENSE]
X. [EYES IN THE DARK]
XI. [FAREWELL, LOVEY LEE]
XII. [MANOR WOODS]
XIII. [THE PASSING OF JOHN]
XIV. [NEWS FROM VERMONT]
BOOK I
FOX TOR FARM
THE AMERICAN PRISONER
CHAPTER I
CATER'S BEAM
The huge and solitary but featureless elevation of Cater's Beam on Dartmoor arrests few eyes. Seen from the central waste, one hog-backed ridge swells along the southern horizon, and its majestic outline, unfretted by tor or forest, describes the curve of a projectile discharged at gentle elevation. No detail relieves the solemn bulk of this hill, and upon it ages have left but little imprint of their passing. Time rolls over the mountain like a mist, and the mighty granite arch of the Beam emerges eternal and unchanged. Its tough integument of peat and heath and matted herbage answers only to the call of the seasons, and it bears grass, bloom, berry, as it bore them for palæolithic man and his flocks. Now, like a leopard, the Beam crouches black-spotted by the swaling fires of spring; now, in the late autumn time, its substance is coated with tawny foliage, scarlet-splashed under the low sun; now, dwarfed by snow, the great hill takes shape of an arctic bear. With spring the furzes flame again, and wonderful mosses—purple, gold, and emerald green—light the marshes or jewel the bank at every rill; and with summer the ling shines out, the asphodel burns in the bog, cloud-shadows drop their deep blue mantles upon the mountain's bosom, and the hot air dances mile on mile. Beneath Cater's Beam, and dwarfed thereby, arise the twin turrets of Fox Tor; while not far distant from these most lonely masses and pinnacles of granite shall be found the work of men's hands. Beside the desolate morasses and storm-scarred wastes that here lie like a cup upon Dartmoor, a stone cross lifts its head, and ruins of a human habitation moulder back to the dust.
In nettles, stereobate deep, stands Fox Tor Farm, and the plant—sure and faithful follower of man—is significant upon this sequestered fastness; for hither it came with those who toiled to reclaim the region in time past, and no other nettles shall be found for miles. Other evidences of human activity appear around the perishing dwelling-house, where broken walls, decaying outbuildings, and tracts of cleared land publish their testimony to a struggle with the Moor. Great apparent age marks these remains, and the weathered and shattered entrances, the lichened drip-stones, the empty joist-holes, point to a respectable antiquity. Yet one hundred years ago this habitation did not exist. Its entire life—its erection and desertion, its prosperity and downfall—are crowded within the duration of a century. In 1800 no stone stood upon another; long ago the brief days of Fox Tor Farm were numbered, and already for fifty years it has written human hope, ambition, failure upon the wilderness.
One fragment of wrought granite remains, and the everlasting nettles beneath shall be found heraldically depicted upon a shattered doorway. There, where the ghost of a coat-of-arms may still be deciphered, Time gnaws at the badge of the Malherbs: Or, chev. gules inter three nettle-leaves vert.
Upon the summit of Cater's Beam, some ninety years ago, a member of that ancient and noble clan sat mounted, gazed into the far-spreading valley beneath him and saw that it was good and green. Thereupon he held his quest accomplished, and determined here to build himself a sure abode, that his cadet branch of the Malherb race might win foothold on the earth, and achieve as many generations of prosperity in the future as history recorded of his ancestors in the past. Seen a mile distant, sharp eyes upon that August day had marked a spot creep like a fly along the crest of Cater's Beam, crawl here and there, sink down to Fox Tor, and remain stationary upon its stony side for a full hour. Observed closely, one had watched a man at the crossroads of life—a man who struggled to mould his own fate and weave the skein of his days to his own pattern. Here he sat on a great bay horse and pursued the path of his future, as oblivious to its inevitable changes and chances as he was to a black cloud-ridge that now lifted dark fringes against the northern sky and came frowning over the Moor against the course of the wind.