She didn't put it to Sarah quite like she'd promised; but she explained that Mr. Hacker was quite a reasonable man in some ways, even where females were concerned, and that he had undertaken to let Sarah keep her house so long as she and Mr. French should live. Which, of course, was all that Mrs. White or her Johnny cared about.
"Hacker naturally thinks that your brother is still living," explained Charity. "And mind you take mighty good care not to tell him 'tisn't so. The longer he supposes that Nathan is alive, the better for us all. And what you've got to say presently be this—that so soon as you told Nathan 'twas all right about the cottage, he changed his mind about coming to Postbridge for the present."
"'Twill be a lie," said Mrs. White.
"'Twill be a white lie, however," answered Charity; "and 'twill help a good many people out of a hobble and do harm to none; so I advise you to tell it."
And Sarah did tell it—with wonderful, far-reaching results, I'm sure; for it meant that she had her cottage for life; and that she had Johnny French for life also; and it meant that Mary married Peter Hacker afore the next Christmas and went honeymooning to London town for a week with the man; and it meant that, unbeknownst each to t'others, Sarah and Mary and Peter gived my mistress the money they promised her. So Charity Badge came out of the maze with flying colours, you might say, not to mention fifty golden pounds, all made out of her own head.
And many such like things she did, though never did they fetch such a dollop of money again.
[1] Oaks—Clubs.
No. XII
THE TORCH
In my opinion there's hardly an acre of Dartmoor as wouldn't set forth a good tale, if us could only go back along into time and get hold of it. Anyway, there's a 'mazing fine thing to be told about Vitifer Farm; and you don't want to go back far, neither, for it all happened but ten year ago.
Vitifer is one of the "tenement" farms and don't belong to the Duchy; and Furze Hill farm, which adjoins Vitifer, be likewise land handed down from father to son from generations forgot. The "tenements" are scattered over Dartmoor, mostly in the valleys of East and West Dart; but Vitifer and Furze Hill stood together half a mile distant from the famous Vitifer tin mine that lies in the wild ground west of Hameldon. And Joe Gregory farmed Vitifer when this fearful thing fell out, and his brother Amos Gregory was master at Furze Hill.