"Good-bye, Jean, my wife! May God bless you! Yes, I'll soon be back."
CHAPTER I
A LEGACY OF HATE
Their meeting-place was on the Altarnun Moors, eight miles from the town of Bodmin, perhaps as many from the rugged peaks—the highest peaks in Cornwall—Router and Brown Willy. Almost as far as the eye could reach was bare moorland. A white streak, the road which ran between Altarnun and Bodmin, was the most striking thing seen. On either side of the road were only bare, uncultivated, uninteresting moors; and yet, perhaps, I do the district injustice. Here and there was a rugged tor, and again a few fields taken in from the moorland by some enterprising labourer who wanted to earn a living by farming. Near this road, too, is the famous Dozmary Pool, known to all those who love folk-lore and are acquainted with the legends of the most Western county in England—a dismal piece of water, black as ink, and, so the old stories have it, bottomless. It was here that Tregellas, of Cornish myth, was set by the Devil to scoop out its water by means of a limpet-shell. Here, too, in old times, coaches were robbed and dark deeds done. At the time of which I am writing, however, it was simply one of the most unattractive and bleak districts in what is otherwise perhaps the most beautiful county in England. The woman had walked all the way from Launceston, a distance of not less than a dozen miles. The youth had come from Bodmin, and he had covered nearly the same length of road. The afternoon was drawing to a close as they met. It was a November day, and darkness would be upon them by five o'clock. No one was near, for since the days of stage-coaches the traffic on this road has been small. Occasionally a farmer's cart passes along, or again a vehicle of more ornamental description, used by those who wish to travel either to Bodmin or to Launceston. There is no railway station within ten miles of that drear region, and it seemed a fitting meeting-place for the couple who came there that day. The woman was perhaps thirty-five years of age, and suggested the fact that in her girlhood she must have been strangely beautiful. Even yet there were times when one would have spoken of her as one possessing more than ordinary attraction. That was when her eyes became soft, and her features relaxed into a smile, but these times were very rare. As she trudged along the dreary road her face was set and stern, her lips were compressed, her eyes hard and relentless. As she passed through Five Lanes and asked for a cup of tea at a cottage there, the villagers remarked upon her and wondered who she was. "She might be a witch," said one.
"No, too young for that," said another.
"But where can she be goin'? She is a straanger in thaise paarts."
"Up to no good, I reckon."
But the woman gave no confidences. Evidently her purpose was clear before her mind, and after she had obtained her cup of tea she stepped forward with the same resolution in her eyes, turning neither to the right nor to the left. She seemed as little impressed by the suggestion of beauty contained in the valley where the old Altarnun Church stands, as she was by the bleak moors on to which she presently entered. She might be looking into her own soul rather than on the vast sweep of hill and dale which presently stretched out before her. Now and then she muttered like one talking to herself, but she never faltered on her way. She seemed to know no weariness. Firmly and resolutely she went her way, her mind evidently set upon some grim purpose. It was two o'clock when she left Five Lanes, and considerably past three when she saw a dark object in the road in front of her. "It must be he," she said to herself, and her lips quivered and her eyes shone with a new light. As they drew nearer she quickened her footsteps.
"My boy!" she said; "what will he say—what will he do? But he must know, for his own sake and for mine. He must know that his mother is an honest woman and tried to do right."