Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor

by S. Baring-Gould

The human heart is full of strange caprices, and is wayward as a spoiled child. The very fact that the whole country side was combined to condemn Anthony made Urith in heart exculpate him—that every mouth blamed him made her excuse him. It was true that he had acted with audacious folly, but there was merit in that audacity. What other youth would have ventured into the churchyard on such a night? The audacity so qualified the folly as almost to obliterate it. He had been challenged to the venture. Would it have been manly had he declined the challenge? Did not the blame attach to such as had dared him to the reckless deed? She repeated to herself the words that had been spoken in her mother's house about him, so extravagant in expression, exaggerated in judgment as to transcend justice, and her heart revolted against the extravagance and forgave him. If all the world stood up in condemnation, yet would not she. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled. She recalled his chivalry towards her on the moor; she heard again his voice; recollected how he had held her in his arms; she felt again the throb of his heart, heard his breathing as he strode with her through the flames, as he wrestled with her for the mastery; and she laughed aloud, she rejoiced that he had conquered. Had she overmastered him, and her will had been submitted to by him, she would have despised him. Because he was so strong in his resolution, so determined in carrying it out, she liked and respected him.

There flashed before her something like lightning—it was his eyes, lifted to hers, with that strange look that sent a thrill through all her veins and tingled in her extremities. That look of his had revealed to her something to which she dare not give a name, a something which gave him a right to demand of her that morning testimony to his integrity of purpose, a something that constrained her, without a thought of resistance, to give him what he asked, first her hand in witness that she believed him, then the bunch of flowers in token that she accepted him as her knight. As her knight?

Her heart bounded with pride and exultation at the thought! He her knight! He, the noblest youth in all the region round, a very Saul, taller by the head and shoulders than any other, incomparably handsome, more manly, open, generous, brave—brave! who feared neither man nor midnight spectre.

Yet—when Julian Crymes had charged her with attempting to rob her of her lover, she, Urith, had repelled the charge, and had declared that she did not value, did not want him. Nor had she then; but the very violence, the defiance of Julian, had forced her to think of him—to think of him in the light of a lover. The opposition of Julian had been the steel stroke on her flinty heart that had brought out the spark of fire. If anything had been required to fan this spark into flame, that had been supplied by the chattering, censorious swarm of visitors that afternoon.

And Anthony? How stood he?

At that moment he was weighed down with a sense of depression and loneliness such as he had never felt previously. He had been accustomed to be flattered and made a great deal of. His father, his sister, his cousin, the servants, Fox Crymes, every one had shown him deference, had let him see that he was esteemed a man born to fortune and success; he had been good at athletic exercises, good in sport, a good horseman, taller, stronger than his compeers, and heir to a wealthy gentleman. But all at once luck had turned against him; he had committed blunders and had injured those with whom he had come in contact; possibly blinded Fox, had offended the Malvine family, thrown the old dame into a fit, had quarrelled with his father, brought down on his head the reproach and ridicule of all who knew him. Then came the encounter with his grandmother, and the discovery of the wrong done to his mother and to the father of Urith by his own father. Bold, self-opinionated as Anthony was, yet this sudden shock had humbled him and staggered him: he had fallen from a pinnacle and was giddy. A sort of irrational, blind instinct within him drove him back in the direction of Willsworthy. He felt that he could not rest unless he saw Urith again, and—so he explained his feeling—told her more fully the circumstances of the previous night's adventure, and heard from her own lips that her mother was not seriously injured in health by the distress he had caused her, and that she, Urith, forgave him.

His imagination worked. He had not been explicit enough when he came to Willsworthy. The fainting fit of the mother had interrupted his explanation. Afterwards he had forgotten to say what he had intended to say, and what ought to have been said. When he was gone, Urith would consider it strange that he had been so curt and reserved, she would hear her Uncle Solomon's stories, tinged with rum punch past recognition of where truth shaded into fiction.

Moreover, he felt a craving for Urith's sympathy; he wanted to acquaint her with what he had done to Fox Crymes before the story reached her embellished and enlarged. To his discredit it would be told, and might prejudice her against him. He must forestall gossip and tell her the truth himself.

So he rode in the direction of Willsworthy, but when he came near the place, an unusual diffidence stole over him—he did not dare to venture up to the house, and he hung about the vicinity in the road, then he went out on the moor, and it was when on the down that he thought he caught sight of her at some distance in the direction of the Cleave.