Brendon stood still a long time, in some concern at this unexpected incident. He puzzled himself to know what it might mean, retraced the course of his relations with Weekes during the last few years, and could see no light. It struck him that Sarah Jane might be able to find some explanation. Animosity clearly lurked in the man's temper; but on what foundation it rested Daniel could not imagine. The threat he dismissed without thought, as a futile utterance of disappointment.
CHAPTER IX
THE MEMORY OF MR. HUGGINS
On a day after noon in late January the hand of winter was upon Lydford, and the wet roads ran shining into the village. Utmost sobriety, with a scant splash of colour here and there, marked the time. The hedges were iron-grey, yet they flamed now and again where a copper glow of foliage still clung to some pollarded beech. The great castle scowled down from its blind windows, rain fell drearily; all round about was mire and gloom and low mists, that crept along hill and over fallow. In the meadow-lands grass seemed trodden into mud; the very streets repined, and no life was revealed save where fowls sat in the boughs of a laurel and resigned themselves to sleep and forgetfulness, and where a lonely dog trotted along the main thoroughfare. In an open doorway of a carpenter's shop two men planed coffin planks; and further on came clink of chisel and mallet from a shed where a stonemason was hammering at a granite cross. The only human life visible seemed occupied with death. Each wayside garden was a litter of ragged stalk and stem that cried to be hidden; but the little golden yew, beside the home of Philip Weekes, shone like a candle across the waning day, and rose sprightly and cheerful in the languor and depression of the hour.
Aloft a winged people did not share Lydford's gloom. Starlings much frequented the village at this season, and towards nightfall assembled in many thousands together, where certain elms stood beside the castle. Here, in a living stream, they flowed up from hedgerows and fields, until the naked boughs were black with them. They forced the sense of their presence upon the most abstracted spirit, and raised a merry din that was audible a mile distant. This life dominated dusk until one felt a sojourner in the abode of birds rather than any home of men. If a door slammed or a man shouted, the myriads would simultaneously take wing and launch like a black cloud into the air. Then, uttering a sound as of many waters, they whirled and warped, gyrated, turned, and with a gradual hush of diminishing noise regained their perches, folded their feathers, and resumed their shouting. Only with night did they depart into darkness and silence. Then, one by one, the windows twinkled with fire, and there came a wakening moment when men returned from their labour and the street echoed to slow, splashing boots and human voices lifted in many moods. Children cried to each other and hastened home from school; women, indicated in the dark by the white oblongs of their aprons, flitted between the cottage doors and the shops; suddenly came barking of dogs and a pitter-patter of five hundred little hoofs, where a flock of sheep passed through the village to an open gate beyond. As they went, a fan of light from the post-office window found their fleeces and flashed upon them during their brief transit from darkness back into darkness again.
Behind the sheep came Joe Tapson, and beside him walked Jarratt Weekes. They were discussing Brendon, and the widower talked, while the other listened to him.
"Turned me off, like a worn-out dog, for no reason on God's earth except I was losing my nature and getting old! May the time come when the same happens to him; may I live to see him begging his bread—that's what I pray; and me, now I'm up in years, brought down to do a common drover's work and thankful for a roof to cover me."
"Wanted a younger and spryer man, I suppose," said Jarratt indifferently. "Don't see you've got much call to grumble. 'Tis the curse of all men who have to trust to their bodies for a living and not their brains, that a time comes when they be worn out. I heard from Sarah Jane that Daniel was sorry to be rid of you, only he couldn't help it in justice to the farm. She told me Mr. Woodrow gave you five pounds when you left."
"What's that? 'Tis nothing against the cruelty of flinging me off. They don't fling Prout off, though he's far more useless than me. They don't sack that sour-faced, sour-minded bag of bones, Tabitha."
"They are old servants—retainers. 'Tis quite a different matter. Here's my way. I hope you'll get a fixed job soon. But I can't help you; my luck's out too, and I'm a long way worse off than you for the minute. You've got only your own carcase to think of; I've got a wife and children."