Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor

by S. Baring-Gould

There was no one who really admired and looked up to him any longer, except Julian Crymes.

He had wandered forth in the wet, without a purpose, solely with the desire to be away from the house where he had met with annoyance, where he had played—but this he would not admit, though he felt it—so poor a figure. He took his way to Peter Tavy, and went into the little inn of the Hare and Hounds at Cudliptown, the first hamlet he reached.

No one was there. Uncle Sol had sat there, and tippled and smoked; but had finally wearied of the solitariness, and had gone away. Now Anthony sat down where he had been, and was glad to find no one there, for in his present humour he was disinclined for company. The landlord came to him and took his order for aqua vitæ, brought it, and seated himself on a stool near him. But Anthony would not speak, or only answered his questions shortly, so as to let the man understand that his society was not desired. He took the hint, rose, and left the young man to his own thoughts.

Anthony put his head in his hand, and looked sullenly at the table. Many thoughts troubled him. Here he had sat on that eventful night after his first meeting and association with Urith on the moor. Here he had sat, with his heart on fire from her eyes, smouldering with love—just as an optic-glass kindles tinder. Here he had drunk, and, to show his courage, had gone forth to the churchyard and had broken down her father's head-post. He had brought it to this house, thrown it on this table—there! he doubted not, was the dint made by it when it struck the board.

How long was it since that night? Only a little over a twelve-month. Did Urith's eyes burn his heart now? There was a fire in them occasionally, but it did not make his heart flame with love, but with anger. Formerly he was the well-to-do Anthony Cleverdon, of Hall, with money in his pockets, able to take his pleasure, whatever it cost him. Now he had to reckon whether he could afford a glass before he treated himself to one, was warned against purchasing a new cradle as a needless expense, a bit of unpardonable extravagance.

He tossed off his glass, and signed for it to be refilled.

Then he thought of his father, of his rebellion against him, and he asked whether any good had come to him by that revolt. He, himself, was like to be a father shortly. Would his son ever set him at defiance, as he had defied his father? He wondered what his father was thinking of him; whether he knew how straitened his circumstances were, how clouded his happiness was, how he regretted the unretraceable step he had taken, how he was weary of Willsworthy, and how he hungered to hear of and to see Hall once more. There was little real conscious love of his father in his heart. He did not regret the breach for his father's sake, think of the desolation of the old man, with his broken hopes, his disappointed ambitions; he saw things only as they affected himself; he was himself the pivot about which all his meditations turned, and he condoled with, lamented over, himself as the worst-used of men, the man most buffeted by misfortune.

Anthony kicked the legs of the table impatiently. The host looked at him and smirked. He had his own opinion as to how matters stood with Anthony. He knew well enough that the young man was unlike Mr. Gibbs, was no toper; he had rarely stepped within his doors since his marriage. As the host observed him, he chuckled to himself and said, "That fellow will come often here now. He has a worm at the heart, and that worm only ceases to gnaw when given aqua vitæ or punch."

What if the old Squire were to remain obdurate to the end? What if he did not yield to the glad news that he was grandfather to a new Anthony Cleverdon? Anthony's heart turned sick at the thought. His son to be condemned to a toilful life at Willsworthy! But what if Urith should at some future time be given a daughter, then her estate would pass away from the young Anthony, and the representative of the Cleverdons would be adrift in the land without an acre, with hardly a coin—and Hall would be held by an alien.

He stamped with rage.