Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor

by S. Baring-Gould

This thought gnawed and bored in him, with ever fresh anguish, producing ever fresh aspects of humiliation. This was the black spot on which his eyes were fixed, which overspread and darkened the whole prospect. The brutality with which he had been treated by Fox was but a sample and foretaste of the brutality with which he would be treated by all such as hitherto he had held under, shown harshness and inconsideration towards. He had been selfish in his prosperity, he was selfish in his adversity. He did not think of Anthony. He gave not a thought to Bessie. His own disappointment, his own humiliation, was all that concerned him. He had valued the love of his children not a rush, and now that his material possessions slipped from his grasp, nothing was left him to which to cling.

He had ridden as far as the point where his horse had fallen, on his way back to Hall, when the rope twined about his waist loosened and fell down. The old man stooped towards his stirrup, picked it up, and cast it over his shoulder. The act startled his horse, and it bounded; with the leap the rope was again dislodged, and fell once more. He sought, still riding, to arrange the cord as it had been before about his waist, but found this impracticable.

He was forced to dismount, and then he hitched his horse to a tree, and proceeded to take the halter from his body, that he might fold and knot it together.

Whilst thus engaged, a thought entered his head that made him stand, with glazed eye, looking at the coil, motionless.

To what was he returning? To a home that was no more a home—to a few miserable days of saying farewell to scenes familiar to him from infancy; then to being cast forth on the world in his old age, he knew not whither to go, where to settle. To a new life of which he cared nothing, without interests, without ambitions—wholly purposeless. He would go forth alone; Bessie would not accompany him, for he had thrown her away on the most despicable of men, and to him she was bound—him she must follow. Anthony—he knew not whether he were alive or dead. If alive, he could not go to him whom he had driven from Hall, and to Willsworthy, of all places under the sun, he would not go. Luke he could not ask to receive him, who was but a curate, and whom he had refused to speak to since he had been the means of uniting his son to the daughter of his deadly rival and enemy. What sort of life could he live with no one to care for him—with nothing to occupy his mind and energies?

How could he appear in church, at market, now that it was known that he was a ruined man? Would not every one point at him, and sneer and laugh at his misfortunes? He had not made a friend, except Mr. Crymes; and not having a friend, he had no one to sympathise with, to pity him.

Then he thought of his sister Magdalen. Her little annuity he would have to pay out of his reduced income; he might live with her—with her whom he had treated so unceremoniously, so rudely—over whom he had held his chin so high, and tossed it so contemptuously.

What would Fox do? Would he not take every occasion to insult him, to make his life intolerable to him, use him as his butt for gibes, anger him to madness—the madness of baffled hate that cannot revenge a wrong?

Anything were better than this.