THE VIRGIN IN JUDGMENT

BY

EDEN PHILLPOTTS

Author of "The Portreeve," "The Secret Woman,"
"Children of the Mist," etc.

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1908

Copyright, 1908, BY
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
NEW YORK

Published, October, 1908

CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER

1. [Crepuscule]
2. [Warren House]
3. [Harmony in Russet]
4. [Coombeshead]
5. [The Virgin and the Dogs]
6. [The Host of 'The Corner House']
7. [Dennycoombe Wood]
8. [In Pixies' House]
9. [The Dogs of War]
10. [Some Interviews]
11. [Mr. Fogo is Shocked]
12. [For the Good Cause]
13. [The Fight]

BOOK II

1. ['Meavy Cot']
2. [Bartley Doubtful]
3. [Preparations]
4. [The Wedding]
5. [Arrival of Rhoda]
6. [Repulse]
7. [Eylesbarrow]
8. [Triumph of Billy Screech]
9. [Common Sense and Beer]
10. [Crazywell]
11. [Reproof]
12. [The Courage of Mr. Snell]
13. [Rhoda Passes By]

BOOK III

1. [Mystery]
2. [A Pessimist]
3. [The Voice from the Pool]
4. [Points of View]
5. [End of a Romance]
6. [Virgo--Libra]
7. [A Sharp Tongue]
8. [Under the Trees]
9. [Darkness at 'The Corner House']
10. [Third Time of Asking]
11. [Bad News of Mr. Bowden]
12. [Rhoda and Margaret]
13. [The Search]
14. [David and Rhoda]
15. [Night Tenebrious]

BOOK I

THE VIRGIN IN JUDGMENT

CHAPTER I

CREPUSCULE

Night stirred behind the eastern hills and a desert place burnt with fading splendour in the hour before sunset. The rolling miles of Ringmoor Down lay clad at this season in a wan integument of dead grass. Colourless as water, it simulated that element and reflected the tone of dawn or evening, sky or cloud; now sulked; now shone; now marked the passage of the wind with waves of light.

Ringmoor extends near the west quarter of Dartmoor Forest like an ocean of alternate trough and mound, built by the breath of storms. This region, indeed, shares something with the restless resting-places of the sea; and one may figure it as finally frozen into its present austerity by action of western winds that aforetime laboured without ceasing here on the bosom of a plastic earth. Only the primary forces model with such splendid economy of design, or present achievements so unadorned, yet so complete. The marvel of Ringmoor demanded unnumbered centuries of elemental collaboration before it spread, consummate and accomplished, under men's eyes. Rage of solar flame and fury of floods; the systole and diastole of Earth's own mighty heart-beat; the blast of inner fires, the rigour of age-long ice-caps--all have gone to mould this incarnate simplicity. Nor can Nature's achievement yet be gauged, for man himself must ascend to subtler perception before he shall gather the meaning of this moor.

The expanse is magnificently naked, yet sufficing; it is absolutely featureless, but never poverty-stricken. To the confines of a river it extends, and ceases there; yet that sudden wild uplifting of broken hills beyond; their dark, rocky places full of story; their porphyry pinnacles and precipices haunted by the legends and the spirits of old strike not so deeply into human sense as Ringmoor's vast monochrome fading slowly at the edge of night; fading as a cloudless sky fades; as light fades on the eyes of the semi-blind; fading without one stock or stone or man or beast to break the inexorable tenor of its way.

Upon some souls this huge monotony, thus mingling with the universal at eventide, casts fear; to others it is a manifestation precious as the presence of a friend; and for those whose working life brings them here, the waste's immensities at noon or night are one; its highways are their highways, and indifferently they move upon its bosom with the other ephemeral existences that haunt it. Yet by none of these people is Ringmoor truly felt or truly seen. Cultured minds weave pathetic fallacies and so pass by; while for the native this spot is first a grazing ground and last a recurrent incident of stern spaces to be compassed and recompassed on his own pilgrimage--to the young a weariness and to the old a grief.

Now light suffered a change. There was no detail to die, but a general fleeting radiance failed swiftly to the thick pallor that precedes darkness. Each perished grass-stem, of many millions that clad the waste, reflected the sky and paled its little lamp as the heavens paled. Then sobriety of dusk eliminated even the sweep and billow of the heath, and reduced all to a spectacle of withered and waning grey, that stretched formless, vague, vast, toward boundaries unseen.

It was at this stage in the unfolding phenomenon of night that life moved upon the void; a black, amorphous smudge crawled out of the gloom and crept tardily along. At length its form, as a double star seen through a telescope, divided and revealed a brace of animals, one of which staggered slowly on four legs, while the other went on two. A man led a horse by a halter; and the horse was old and black, bent, broken-kneed and worn out; while the man was also bent and ancient of his kind. Neither could travel very fast, and one was at the end of his life's journey, while the other had a small measure of years still assured.

Death thus moved across Ringmoor and trod a familiar rut in the wilderness; because, under the darkness eastward, was a bourn for beasts that had ceased to possess any living value. Through extinction only they served their masters for the last time and made profitable this final funeral march. The horse stopped, turned and seemed to ask a question with his eyes.

"Get on!" said the man. "There ban't much further for you to go."

The brute dragged towards peace and his hind hoofs struck sometimes and sounded the dull and dreary note of his own death bell; the old man sighed because he was very weary. Then from the fringe of night sprang young life and met this forlorn procession. A tall girl appeared and three collie dogs galloped and circled about her. Noting the man, they ran up to him, barked and wagged their tails in greeting.

"Be that anybody from Ditsworthy?" asked the traveller of the female shadow.

"'Tis I--Rhoda Bowden. I thought as you might be pretty tired and came to shorten your journey--that is if you'm old Mr. Elford from Good-a-Meavy."

"I am the man, and never older than to-night."

He stopped and rubbed his leg. The girl stood over him by half a foot. She was tall and straight, but in the murk one could see no more than her outlines, her pale sun-bonnet and a pale face under it.

"Have you got the money?" said the man.

"Yes--ten shillings."

She spoke slowly, with a voice uncommon deep for a young woman.

"Not twelve?"

"No."

The ancient made a sound that indicated disappointment and annoyance.

"And the price of the halter?"

"We don't want that. One of my brothers will bring it back to you next time they be down-along."

He handed her the rope and took a coin from her. Then he brought a little leathern purse from his breeches pocket and put the money into it.

"You're sure your faither didn't say twelve?"

"No."

"He's a hard man. Good-night to you."

"'Tis the right price for a dead horse. Good-night."

The ancient had no farewell word for his beast, and the companions of twelve years parted for ever. The girl took her way with the old horse; the man turned in his tracks moodily, chattering to himself.

"Warrener did ought to have give twelve," he said again and again as he went homewards. By furze banks and waste places and the confines of woods he passed, and then he stopped where a star twinkled above the gloomy summits of spruce firs. Beneath them there peered out a thatched cottage, but no light shone from its face. The patriarch entered with his frosty news, and almost instantly a female voice, shrill and full of trouble, struck upon the night.

"It did ought to have been twelve!"

Owls cried to each other across the forest and seemed to echo the lamentation.

CHAPTER II

WARREN HOUSE

A river destined to name the greatest port in the west country, makes humble advent at Plym Head near the Beam of Cater in mid-Dartmoor. Westward under the Harter Tors and south by the Abbot's Way to Plym Steps the streamlet flows; then she gathers volume and melody to enter a land of vanished men. By the lodges of the old stone people and amid monuments lifted in a neolithic age; beside the graves of heroes and under the Hill of Giants, Plym passes and threads the rocky wilderness with silver. And then, suddenly, a modern dwelling lifts beside her--a building of stern aspect and most lonely site. Round about for miles the warrens of Ditsworthy extend, and countless thousands of the coney folk flourish. The district is tunnelled and tracked by them; the characteristics of the heath are altered. For the turf, nibbled close at seasons, shows no death, but spreads in a uniform far-flung cloth of velvet, always close shorn and always green. Its texture may not be rivalled by any pasture known, and so fine has it become under this cropping of centuries that the very grass itself seems to have suffered dwarfing and reduction to a fairy-like tenuity Of blade. Grey lichens are woven through the herbage here and there, and sometimes these silvery filigranes dominate the turf and create fair harmonies with the rosy ling in summer and the red brake-fern of the fall.

Inflexible Ringmoor approaches Ditsworthy on one side; while beyond it roll the warrens. Shell Top and Pen Beacon are the highest adjacent peaks of the Moor; and through the midst runs Plym with the solitary, stern Warren House lifted upon its northern bank.

A gnarled but lofty ash has defied the upland weather and grown to maturity above this dwelling. It rises wan in the sombre waste and towers above the squat homestead beneath it. Granite walls run round about, and the metropolis of the rabbits, with natural and artificial burrows, extends to the very confines of the building. A cabbage-plot and a croft or two complete man's work here; while at nearer approach the house, that looked but a spot seen upon such an immense stage, is found to be of considerable size. And this is well, because, at the date of these doings, it was called upon to hold a large family.

Fifty years ago Elias Bowden reigned at Ditsworthy, and with his wife, nine children, and ten dogs, lived an arduous, prosperous existence on the product of the warrens and other moorland industries. Rabbits were more valuable then than now, and Mr. Bowden received half a crown a couple, where his successors to-day can make but tenpence.

Elias and his boys and girls did the whole work of Ditsworthy. All had their duties, and even the youngest children--twin sons now aged nine--were taught to make netting and help with the traps. There were six sons and three daughters in the family; and the males were called after mighty captains, because Elias loved valour above all virtues. Such friendships as happen in large families existed among the children, and the closest and keenest of these associations was that between the eldest boy and second girl. David Bowden was eight-and-twenty and Rhoda was twenty-one. A very unusual fraternity obtained between them, and the man's welfare meant far more to his sister than any other mundane interest. After David came Joshua, the master of the trappers, aged twenty-five; and he and the eldest girl, Sophia--a widow who had returned childless and moneyless to her home after two years of married life--were sworn friends. Then, a year younger than Rhoda, appeared Dorcas--a "sport" as Mr. Bowden called her, for she was the only red child he had gotten. The two boys, Napoleon and Wellington, aged thirteen and fifteen, shared the special regard of Dorcas; while the twins were mutually sufficing. One was called Samson and the other Richard--after the first English monarch of that name. Mrs. Bowden had lost three children in infancy, and deplored the fact to this day. When work at the warren pressed in autumn, and the family scarce found leisure to sleep, the mother of this flock might frequently be heard uttering a futile regret.

"If only my son Drake had been spared," she often cried at moments of stress; and this saying became so familiar among the people round about, that when a man or woman breathed some utterly vain aspiration, another would frequently cap it thus and say, "Ah, if only my son Drake had been spared!"

A distinguishing characteristic of this family was its taciturnity. The Bowdens wasted few words. Red Dorcas and her father, however, proved an exception to this rule; for she chattered much; and he enjoyed a joke and could make and take one. Of his other girls, Rhoda was most silent. She, too, alone might claim beauty. Sophia was homely. She had a narrow, fowl-like face inherited from her mother; and Dorcas suffered from weak eyes; but Rhoda, in addition to her straight and splendid frame, was well favoured. Her features were large, but very regular; her contours were round without promise of future fatness; her nose and mouth were especially beautiful; but her chin was a little heavy. Rhoda's hair was pale brown and in tone not specially attractive; but she possessed a great wealth of it; her feet and hands were large, yet finely modelled; her eyes had more than enough of virginal chill in their cool and pale grey depths. David somewhat resembled her. He was a clean-cut and sturdy man, standing his sister's height of five feet nine inches, and having a slow-featured face--handsome after a conventional type, yet lacking much expression or charm for the physiognomist. He shared his thoughts with Rhoda, but none else. Neither parent pretended to know much about him, but both understood that it would not be long before he left Ditsworthy. David was learned in sheep and ponies, and he proposed to begin life on his own account as a breeder of them. At present his work was with his father's sheep and cattle, for Elias ran stock on the moor. As for Rhoda, her duties lay with the dogs, and she usually had two or three galloping after her; while often she might be seen carrying squeaking, new-born puppies in her arms, while an anxious bitch, with drooping dugs, gazed up at the precious burden.

Sober-minded and busy were these folk. Elias had few illusions. In only one minor particular was he superstitious; he hated to see a white rabbit on the warrens. Brown and yellow, grey, and sometimes black, were the inhabitants of the great burrows, but it seldom happened that a white one was observed. Occasionally they appeared, however, and occasionally they were caught. Elias never permitted them to be killed. The master's lapse from rationality in this matter was respected, and if anybody ever saw a white rabbit, the incident was kept secret.

Enemies the warren had, and foxes took a generous toll; but the hunt recompensed Mr. Bowden for this inconvenience, although it was suspected that his estimates of loss were fanciful. Once the usual fees had been delayed by oversight, and Sir Guy Flamank, M.F.H. and Lord of the Manor, was only reminded of his lapse on meeting Elias at "The Corner House," Sheepstor.

"Ah!" said the sportsman, "and how's Mr. Bowden faring? I've forgot Ditsworthy of late."

"Foxes haven't," was all the warrener replied. And yet a sight of the honeycombed and tunnelled miles of the burrows might have justified an opinion that all the foxes of Devonshire could have done no lasting hurt here. In legions the rabbits lived. They swarmed, leapt from under the foot, bobbed with twinkling of white scuts through the fern and heather, sat up, all ears, on every little knap and hillock, drummed with their pads upon the hollow ground, scurried away in scattered companies and simultaneously vanished down a hundred holes at sight of dog or man.

This, then, was the place and these were the people, animals and things that Plym encompassed with her growing volume before she thundered in many a cataract and shouting waterfall through the declivities beneath Dewerstone and left Dartmoor. Much beauty she brings to the lowlands; much beauty she finds there. The hanging woods are very fair; and the great shining reaches where the salmon lie; and those placid places where Plym draws down the grey and azure of the firmament and spreads it among the water-meadows. She flows through Bickleigh Vale and by Cann Quarry; she passes her own bridge, and anon, entering the waters of Laira, passes unmarked away to the salt blue sea; but she laves no scene more pregnant than these plains where the stone men sleep; she passes no monument heavier weighted with grandeur of eld than that titan menhir of Thrushelcombe by Ditsworthy, where, deep set in the prehistoric past, it stands sentinel over a hero's grave. Great beyond the common folk was he who won this memorial--a warrior and leader at the least; or perchance some prophet who wrought men's deeds into the gaunt beginnings of art and song, fired his clan to the battle with glorious fury, and welcomed them again with pæan of joy or dirge of mourning. But one chooses rather to think that these tumuli held ashes of the men who fought and conquered; who lifted their lodges to supremacy; who bulked as large in the eyes of the neoliths as their gravestones bulk in ours. The saga and the singer both are good; but deeds must first be done.

Of Plym also it may be said that nowhere in all its journey does it skirt a home of living men more sequestered and distinguished than the broad, low-roofed and granite-walled Warren House of Ditsworthy. Notable and spacious mansions rise as the stream flows into civilisation; abodes, that have entered into history, lift their heads adjacent to its flood; but none among them is so unique and distinctive; and none at any period has sheltered a family more eager, strenuous and full of the strife and joy of living than Elias Bowden and his brood.

CHAPTER III

HARMONY IN RUSSET

Sheepstor lies beneath the granite hill that names it like a lamb between a lion's paws. Chance never played artist to better purpose, for of the grey roofs and whitewashed walls that make this little village, there is scarcely one to be wished away. Cots and farm-buildings, byres and ricks cluster round about the church; a few conifers thrust dark spire and branch between the houses, and fields slope upward behind the hamlet to the shaggy fringes of the tor. A medley of autumnal orange and copper and brown now splashes the hills everywhere round about; and great beeches, that hem in the churchyard and bull-ring, echo the splendour of the time and spread one pall of radiant foliage on all the graves together. Behind the church, knee-deep in thick-set spinneys, ascends the giant bulk of Sheep's Tor, shouldering enormous from leagues of red brake-fern, like a ragged, grey dragon that lifts suddenly from its lair. The saddle of the hill falls westerly in a more gentle slope, and sunset paints wonderful pictures there; while beyond, breaking very blue through the haze of distance, Lether Tor and Sharp Tor's misty heights inclose the horizon.

A river runs through the village, and at this noon hour in late November the brook made all the music to be heard; for not a sound rose but that of the murmuring water, and not any sight of conscious life was to be noted. Clear sunshine after rain beat upon the great hill; its ruddy pelt glowed like fire under the blue sky, and beneath the mass a church tower, whose ancient crockets burnt with red-gold lichens, sprang stiffly up. Sheepstor village might now be seen through a lattice of naked boughs, fair of form in their mingled reticulations and pale as silvery gauze against the sunlight. Their fretwork was touched to flame where yellow or scarlet leaves still clung and spattered the branches. Yet no particular opulence of colour was registered. All the tones remained delicate and tender. The village seen afar off, seemed painted with subdued greys, pale yellows and warm duns; but at approach its deserted street was proved a haunt for sunshine and glittered with reflected light and moisture.

One cottage near the lich-gate of the churchyard had served to challenge particular attention. The building was of stone, but little of the fabric save one chimney-stack appeared, for on the south side a huge ivy-tod overwhelmed all with shining green; to the north a cotoneaster of uncommon proportions wrapped the house in a close embrace, covered the walls and spread over the roof also. Its dense, stiff sprays of dark foliage were laden with crimson berries; they hung brilliantly over the white face of the cottage and made heavy brows for the door and windows. A leafless lilac stuck up pale branches on one side of the entrance; stacks of dry fern stood on the other; and these hues were carried to earth and echoed in higher notes by some buff Orpington fowls upon the roadway, and a red setter asleep at the cottage door. Over all this genial and spirited colour profound silence reigned; and then the mystery of the deserted village was solved by sudden drone of organ music from the church. It happened to be Sunday, and most of those not engaged at kitchen fires were attending service.

At last, however, a human being appeared and a man came out from the cottage of cotoneasters with a metal pail in his hand. He wore Sunday black but had not yet donned his coat, and his shirt-sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His fore-arms were somewhat slight, but hard and brown; and his face had charmed any student of faces by its obvious kindness of heart and innate merriment of disposition. Bartley Crocker was thin and tall. He stood about six feet, yet weighed not quite eleven stone. He was, however, tough and very energetic where it pleased him so to be. Small black whiskers clung beneath his ears, while the rest of his face was shorn. His upper lip was short, his mouth full and rather feeble, his colour clear and pale. His eyes were small, somewhat sly, and the home of laughter. He was five-and-twenty and lived with a widowed mother and a maiden aunt under the berried roof of the cottage. The Crockers kept cows and poultry, and Bartley was a good son to his mother, though not a good friend to himself. He had a mind, quick but not deep, and his feelings were keen but transitory. He belonged to the order of Esau, won wide friendship, yet woke a measure of impatience among reflecting people, in that he spent his time to such poor purpose and wasted an unusually good education and a splendid native gift of nervous energy on the sports of the field. He had, in fact, become a man without putting away childish things--an achievement as rare among rustics as it is common under conditions of university education. Yet nobody but his mother ever blamed him to his face, and the tone of her voice always robbed her reproaches of the least forceful quality. She was proud of him; she knew that the men could not quarrel with him and that the girls were all his friends.

Bartley filled a pail with water from the brook, and then carried it home. His mother was in church; his Aunt, Susan Saunders, prepared dinner. The man now completed his costume, put on a collar and a red tie, donned his coat and a soft felt "wide-awake" hat. He then went into the churchyard, sat upon a tomb exactly in front of the principal door and there waited, without self-consciousness, for the congregation to emerge. Anon the people came--a stream of old men and maidens, women and children. Ancient beavers shone in the sun, plaid shawls covered aged shoulders; there was greeting and clatter of tongues in the vernacular; the young creatures, released from their futile imprisonment, ran hither and thither, and whooped and shouted--without apparent merriment, but simply in obedience to a natural call for swift movement of growing legs and arms and full inflation of lungs. The lively company streamed away and Bartley gave fifty of the folk "good-morning." Some chid him for not attending the service. At last there came his mother. She resembled her son but little, and looked younger than her years. Nanny Crocker was more black than grey. She had dark brown eyes, a high-coloured face, a full bosom and a square, sturdy body, well moulded to display the enormous pattern of a red, black and blue shawl. Beside her walked Mr. Charles Moses, the vicar's churchwarden--a married man with a grey beard and crystallised opinions, who on week-days pursued the business of a shoemaker.

"Where's Margaret?" asked young Crocker. But his mother could not answer him.

"I thought she'd have found me and prayed along with me, in the pew behind the font, that catches heat from the stove, where I always go winter time," explained Mrs. Crocker. "She never comed, however. Haven't she arrived home?"

"No," said Bartley. "But 'twas a promise to dinner, and since there's no message, without doubt she's on the way. I'll up over Yellowmead and meet her."

His mother nodded and went forward, escorted by the shoemaker; people in knots and strings thinned off by this gate and that; then came forth the imposing company of the Bowdens, for Sheepstor was their parish, and wet or fine, hot or cold, they weekly worshipped there. Only on rare occasions, when some fierce blizzard banked white drifts ten feet deep between Ditsworthy and the outer world, did Elias abstain and hold long services in the Warren House kitchen, lighted by the glare of the snow-blink from without.

To-day he came first, with his widowed daughter Sophia. Then followed David and Rhoda, Napoleon and Wellington, Samson and Richard, in the order named. Joshua was not present, as he had gone to spend the day with friends; and Dorcas kept at home to help her mother with dinner.

The Bowdens were well known to Bartley, and he bade them "good-morning" in amiable fashion. He shook hands with Sophia and Rhoda, and nodded to Elias and David. None of the family showed particular pleasure in the young man's company, but this did not trouble him. Their way was his for a while, and therefore he walked beside David and Rhoda and prattled cheerfully now to one, now to the other.

"How those boys grow!" he said. "A brave couple and so like as a pair of tabby kittens. They'll go taller than you, David. You can see it by their long feet."

"Very like they will," said David.

The other's ruling instinct was to please. He addressed Rhoda. In common with most young men he admired her exceedingly; but the emotion was not returned. Rhoda seldom smiled upon men; yet, on the other hand, she never scowled at them. Her attitude was one of high indifference, and none saw much more than that; yet much more existed, and Rhoda's aloof posture, instead of concealing normal maiden interest in the opposite sex, as Bartley and other subtle students suspected, in reality hid a vague general aversion from it.

"If I may make bold to say so, Miss Rhoda, those feathers in your beautiful hat beat anything I've ever seen," declared Mr. Crocker.

"'Tis a foreign bird what used to be in a case," answered she. "The mould was getting over it, so I thought I'd use its wings for my hat afore they went to pieces."

"A very witty idea. And what might the bird be?"

"Couldn't tell you."

"I wonder, now, supposing I was to shoot a kingfisher, if you'd like him to put in your hat when this here bird be done for?"

"No, thank you."

"If she wants a kingfisher, I can get her one," said David.

Bartley tried again.

"I hear that yellow-bearded chap, the leat man, Simon Snell, be taking up with your Dorcas. That's great news, I do declare, if 'tis true."

A very faint tinge of colour touched Rhoda's cheeks.

"It isn't," she said.

"Ah, well--can't say I'm sorry. He's rather a dull dog--good as gold, but as tasteless as an egg without salt."

"Simon Snell can stand to work--that's something," said David, in his uncompromising way.

But Mr. Crocker ignored the allusion. He looked at and talked to Rhoda. The pleasure of seeing her beautiful face and of watching that little wave of rose-colour wax and wane in her cheeks, was worth her brother's snub. He had often been at the greatest difficulty to abstain from compliments to Rhoda; but there was that in her bearing and consistent reserve that frightened him and all others from personality. Even to praise her hat had required courage.

Elias called Rhoda, and Bartley was not sorry to reach the point where their ways parted. He went to meet a maiden of other clay than this. Yet Rhoda always excited a very lively emotion in the youth by virtue of her originality, handsome person and self-sufficing qualities. When any girl made it clear to Bartley that she took no sort of interest in him, the remarkable fact woke quite a contrary attitude to her in his own ardent spirit.

Where a row of stepping-stones crossed Sheepstor brook under avenues of-beech-trees above the village, Bartley left the Bowdens with a final proposal of friendliness.

"Hounds meet at Cadworthy Bridge come Monday week. Hope I'll see you then, if not sooner, Miss Rhoda."

"Thank you, but I shan't go. Fox-hunting's nought to us."

"Well, good-bye, then," answered he. "I'm walking this way to meet Madge Stanbury from Coombeshead. She's coming to eat her dinner along with us."

A silence more than usually formidable followed the announcement, and it was now not Rhoda but David who appeared to be concerned. He frowned, and even snorted. Actual anger flashed from his eyes, but he turned them on his sister, not on Mr. Crocker.

Rhoda it was who spoke after a very lengthy peace.

"If that's so, there's no call for you to go over to Coombeshead after dinner, David. Belike Margaret Stanbury's forgot."

"I was axed to tea, and I shall go to tea," he answered in a dogged and sulky voice. "We've no right to say she's forgot."

"That's true," Rhoda admitted.

Bartley wished them "good-bye" again and left them. He skipped over the stream and climbed the hill to Sheep's Tor's eastern slopes, while they went up through steep lanes, furze-brakes and stunted trees to the great tableland of the Moor.

Mr. Crocker once turned a moment; and, as he did so, he marked the Bowden clan plodding on in evident silence to Ditsworthy.

"Good God! 'tis like a funeral party after they've got rid of their dead," he thought.

Ten minutes later a dark spot on the heath increased, approached swiftly and turned into a woman. Such haste had she made that her heart throbbed almost painfully. She pressed her hands to it and could not speak for a little while. Her face was bright and revealed an eager but a very sensitive spirit. There was something restless and birdlike about her, and something unutterably sweet; for this girl's temper was woven of pure altruism. Welfare of others, by a sort of fine instinct, had long since become her welfare.

She was four-and-twenty, of good height and a dark complexion. Perhaps her boundless energy preserved her from growing stout and kept her as she was--a fine woman of ripe and flowing figure with a round, beautiful neck and noble arms. Her hair, parted down the middle in the old fashion, was black and without natural gloss; her eyebrows were full and perfect in shape and her eyes shone with the light of a large and sanguine heart. Her face was well shaped and her mouth very gentle. Margaret Stanbury possessed a temperament of fire. She made intuition serve for reason, and instinct take the place of logic. Her capacity both for joy and grief was unusual in her class.

"Whatever will your people say, Bartley?" she gasped. "They'll never forgive me, I'm sure."

"No bad news, I hope?"

"Yes, but there is. Mother scalded herself just as I was starting to church, so I had to stop and cook the dinner. And, what's far worse, I've kept you from yours."

"We'll soon make up for lost time," he answered. "I hope your mother suffered but little pain and will soon be well."

"She makes nought of it; but of course I couldn't leave her to mess about with a lame hand."

"Of course not; of course not. I wish you hadn't hurried so. You've set yourself all in a twitter."

Nevertheless he much admired the beautiful rise and fall of her tight Sunday frock. It was as pleasant a circumstance in its way as Rhoda's ghostly blush when he had mentioned Simon Snell.

CHAPTER IV

COOMBESHEAD

The character of Margaret Stanbury affected very diversely those who came in contact with it. Her never-failing desire to be helping others was sometimes welcomed, sometimes tolerated and sometimes resented. Most people have no objection to being spoiled, and mothers of sick children, old bedridden folk and invalids welcomed Margaret gladly enough, and accepted her gifts of service or food--sometimes as a privilege, sometimes, after a few repetitions, as a right. But others only endured her attentions for the love they bore her, and because they knew that she joyed to be with the careworn and suffering. A residue of independent people were indifferent to her. These wished her away, when she sought to share their tribulations or lessen their labours.

Nanny Crocker and her sister Susan belonged to the last category. They hated fuss and they mistrusted sympathy. They were complete in themselves--comfortable, superior, selfish. They liked Margaret Stanbury so much that they held her worthy of Bartley; and he liked her as well as a man might who had known her all his life. His mother had settled with Susan that her son was husband-old, and this visit from Madge might be said to open the campaign.

The old women took cold stock of her as she ate her dinner. To an outsider they had suggested two elderly lizards, with wrinkled skins and large experience, studying a song-thrush on a bough. Madge trilled and chirruped from the simple goodness of her heart; they, in their deeper shrewdness, listened; she had much to say of many people and not an unkind word of any; but unfailingly they qualified her generous estimate of fellow-creatures.

After the meal Margaret declared that she must start immediately for home to keep an appointment; and she took with her Bartley Crocker himself and an elaborate prescription for scalds. Then, when they had gone, Susan and Nanny discussed the girl without sentiment or imagination, yet not without common sense.

They differed somewhat, but not in the conclusion. Both felt that though too prone to let her heart run away with her head, Madge would make a good wife for their man. The suspicion was that she might not be quite firm enough with him. That, however, appeared inevitable. Mrs. Crocker felt that Bartley must certainly be humoured. No woman born would ever deny him his own way or cloud his spirit with opposition. Susan feared that the girl had expensive tastes and an instinct which carried generosity to absurd lengths; but the mother of Bartley believed that, once married, this lavish benevolence would centre upon Margaret's husband and find all necessary scope for its activity in that quarter.

Meantime Bartley's own attitude had to be considered, and upon that point his parent and his aunt were satisfied. He had been attentive to Margaret at dinner and more than usually polite.

"It only remains to see what the girl thinks," said Susan; but her sister held that problem determined.

"She goes without saying, I should fancy, even if Bartley was different to what he is. He's only to drop the handkerchief. The girl's no fool. Catch a Stanbury refusing a Crocker!"

"I doubt he'll ask her afore Christmas."

"May or may not. That's not our job. 'Tis for us to bid her here now and again, and I may even get out to Coombeshead presently and pay her mother a visit. Of course Mrs. Stanbury and her husband will be hot for it."

Thus, despite their large worldly wisdom and knowledge of their fellow-folk, these elderly sisters, cheered by Sunday dinner, took a rosy view of the future and held the things which they desired to happen as good as accomplished. They even debated upon a new home for Bartley and wondered where it had better be chosen.

The man meantime was moving at one point of that great trio of tors known hereabout as "the Triangle." The heights of Sheep's Tor, Lether Tor and Down Tor are equidistant, and once upon a time, in the hollowed midst of them, Nature's hand held a lake. Then its granite barriers were swept away and the cup ran empty. Hereafter Meavy river flowed through the midst of meadows and, at the time of these incidents, continued to do so. It was not until nearly fifty years later that thirsty men rebuilt the cup to hold sweet water for their towns.

Across the river went Margaret and Bartley; then they turned and, by a detour, set their faces towards her home. Their talk was light and cheerful. It ranged over many subjects, including love, but no note of any close, personal regard marked the conversation.

"What do you think of Rhoda Bowden?" he asked, and Margaret answered slowly:

"I think a lot of her. She's a solemn sort of girl and goeth so grand-like! She'm different to most of us--so tall and sweeping in her walk. Maidens mostly mince in their going; but she swingeth along like a man."

"She's a jolly fine girl, Madge."

"David be terrible fond of her."

"Yes, he is. I saw that this morning before dinner. And I got actually a touch of pink into her cheek to-day, if you'll believe it."

"You're that bowldacious always--enough to make any girl blush with your nonsense."

"Not at all. I wouldn't say anything outright--but I just mentioned Simon Snell of all men, and I'll swear Miss Rhoda flickered up!"

"You never know what natures catch heat from each other. I don't reckon Rhoda's fond of men."

"And surely Snell would never dare to be fond of girls."

"And yet, for just that reason, they might be drawn together."

By chance the man of whom they spoke appeared a little farther on their way. He was a large-boned, ox-eyed labourer, with a baby's face on adult shoulders. Not a wrinkle of thought, not a sensual line was ruled upon his round cheeks or brow. A yellow beard and moustache hid the lower part of his face. His skin was clear and high-coloured; his nose was thin; his forehead was high and narrow.

"Give you good-afternoon," said Mr. Snell. He spoke in a thin, colourless voice and his face revealed no expression but a sort of ovine placidity.

Bartley winked at Madge.

"And how be all at Ditsworthy Warren House, Simon?" he asked.

"I was there last Thursday. They was all well then. I'm going there now to drink tea with--"

"With Miss Rhoda--eh? Or is it Miss Dorcas?"

The shadowy ghost of a smile touched Simon's mild face.

"What a dashing way you have of mentioning the females! I never could do it, I'm sure. 'Tis about some spaniel pups as I be going up over. Give you good-afternoon."

He stalked away, calm, solemn, inane.

Mr. Snell was engaged upon the Plymouth water leat. His neighbours regarded him as a harmless joke. It might have been said of him, as of the owl, that he was not humourous himself, but the cause of humour in others.

"I always think there's a lot of sense hidden in Simon, for all you men laugh at him," said Margaret.

"Then give up thinking so," answered Bartley, "for you're wrong. That baby-eyed creature have just brain-power to keep him out of the lunatic asylum and no more. His head is as empty as a deaf nut. He's never growed up. There's nought behind that great bush of a beard but a stupid child. He's only the image of a man; and you'll never hear him say a sensible thing, unless 'tis the echo of somebody else. He don't know no more about human creatures than that gate."

"A childlike spirit have its own virtues. He'd never do a bad thing."

"He'd never do anything--good or bad. He's like a ploughing horse or a machine. Lord, the times I've tried to shock a swear or surprise a laugh out of that chap! Yet if ever Rhoda Bowden showed me a spark of herself, 'twas when I said I thought Simon was after her red sister."

"'Twas only because you angered her thinking of such a thing."

"How d'you like David Bowden?" he asked suddenly, and the question signified much to them both. For Bartley had been not a little astonished to hear that David was going to drink tea at Coombeshead. The eldest son of Elias was an unsociable man and little given to visiting. Yet this visit, as Mr. Crocker had observed after church, meant a good deal to young Bowden. Now he desired to know what it might mean to Margaret.

Her merry manner changed and a nervousness, natural to her and never far from the surface of her character, asserted itself.

"What a chap you are for sudden questions that go off like a rat-trap! Mr. David is coming to drink tea along with us to-night."

"That's why you're in such a hurry."

"Why not?"

"No reason at all. David Bowden's rather a grim sort of man; but he's got all the virtues except a gentle tongue. I speak better of him than he would of me, however."

"I'm sure not. He's never said a word against you that I ever heard."

"You've heard him pretty often then? Well, he despises me, Madge. Because I don't stick to work like he does. Don't you get too fond of that man. He's a kill-joy."

She gasped and changed colour, but he did not notice it. All that Bartley had needed to turn his attention seriously to this girl was some spice of rivalry; and now it promised to appear. They walked along to Nosworthy Bridge, and from that spot Margaret's distant home was visible.

Like a picture set between two great masses of fruiting white-horn, Dennycoombe spread eastward into Dartmoor and climbed upward through glory of sinking light upon autumnal colour. To the west Sheep's Tor's larch-clad shoulder sloped in pale gold mottled with green, while northerly Down Tor broke the withered fern. Between them lay a valley of lemon light washed with blue hazes and stained by great darkness where the shadows fell. Many a little dingle opened on either hand of the glen; and here twinkled water, where a brook leapt downward; and here shone dwindling raiment of beech and oak.

Coombeshead Farm, the home of the Stanburys, stood at the apex of this gorge and lay under Coombeshead Tor. Still higher against the sky rolled Eylesbarrow, its enormous and simple outline broken only by the fangs of an old ruin; while flying clouds, that shone in opposition to the sunset, crowned all with welter of mingled light and gloom. The modest farmhouse clung like a grey nest into the tawny harmonies of the hill, and above it rose blue smoke.

"You'll come to tea?" said Madge; but Bartley shook his head.

"Two's company, three's none," he said.

"But we're all at home."

"No, no; I've had my luck--mustn't be greedy. One thing I will swear: David Bowden won't make you laugh as often at your tea as I did at your dinner--will he now?"

"We've all got our different qualities."

"I tell you he's a kill-joy," repeated Bartley; but Margaret shook her head.

"Not to me--never to me," she said frankly.

This fearless confession reduced the man to silence. Then, while he considered the position and felt that, if he desired Margaret, the time for serious love-making had come, there approached the sturdy shape of young Bowden himself.

They were now more than half-way up the valley, and David had seen them long ago. He advanced to meet them, took no notice of Bartley, but shook Margaret's hand and spoke while he did so.

"It was ordained that I should drink a dish of tea along with your people this afternoon; but if you've forgot it, I can go again."

"No fay! Of course 'twasn't forgotten. Why ever should you think so, Mr. David?"

"Because Bartley here--however, I'm sorry I spoke, since 'tis as 'tis."

"Not often you say more than be needed in words," remarked Mr. Crocker. But he spoke mechanically. His observation was entirely bestowed upon Margaret's attitude towards Bowden. That she liked him was sufficiently clear. Her face was the brighter for his coming and she began to talk to him of certain interests not familiar to Bartley. Then she remembered herself and turned to the younger man again.

"But what's this to you, Bartley? Nought, I'm sure."

He had remarked that she addressed David by his Christian name, but with the affix of ceremony.

"Anything that interests you interests me, Madge," he answered. "But I'll leave you here and go back-along through the woods."

"Better come on, now you're so near, and have tea with us."

"What does David say?"

"Ban't my business," answered Mr. Bowden.

The men looked at each other straight in the eyes and grasped the situation. Then Bartley shook hands with Margaret and left them.

Bowden made no comment on Mr. Crocker. Indeed he did not speak at all until they had almost reached the homestead of Coombeshead. Then, suddenly, without preliminaries, he dragged a little square-nosed spaniel puppy out of his pocket, where it had been lying fast asleep.

"'Tis weaned and ready to begin learning," he said. "Your brother Bart will soon teach it how to behave. But mind you let him. Don't you try to bring it up. You'll only spoil it. No woman I ever knowed, except Rhoda, could train a dog."

The little thing licked Madge's face while she kissed its nose.

"A dinky dear! Thank you, thank you, Mr. David. 'Twill be a great treasure to me."

He set his teeth and asked for a privilege. He had evidently meant to accompany this gift with a petition.

"And if I may make so bold, I want for you to call me 'David,' instead of 'Mr. David.'"

He looked at her almost sternly as he spoke. His voice was slow, deep and resonant.

"Of course--David."

He nodded and the shadow of a smile passed over his face.

"Thank you kindly," he said.

The pup occupied Margaret's attention and hid the flush upon her cheek. Then they entered together, to find the rest of the Stanbury family sitting very patiently waiting for their tea.

Bartholomew Stanbury and his son, Bartholomew, were men of like instincts and outlook. Coombeshead Farm had but little land and the farmer was very poor; but father and son only grumbled in the privacy of the family circle, and presented a sturdy and indifferent attitude to the world. They were tall, well-made men, flaxen of colour and scanty of hair. Their eyes were blue; their expressions were frank; their intelligence was small and their physical courage great. Save for the difference represented by thirty years of time, father and son could hardly have been more alike; but Bartholomew Stanbury, though little more than fifty was already very bald and round in the shoulders; while "Bart," as the younger man was always called without addition, stood straight, and though his face was hairless, save for a thin moustache, a good sandy crop covered his poll.

Both men rose as Madge and David appeared; both wrinkled their narrow foreheads and both smiled with precisely the same expression. The Stanburys had set their hopes on a possible match with the more prosperous and powerful Bowdens. Bartholomew, indeed, held that his daughter's happiness must be assured if she could win such a husband as David.

"Call your mother, Bart," said Mr. Stanbury, "and we'll have tea. Haven't seen 'e this longful time, David, but I hope all's well to home and the rabbits running heavy."

"Never better," answered young Bowden.

"As for us, can't say it's been all to the good," declared the farmer. "Never knowed a fairer or hotter summer, but in August the maggots got in the sheep's backs something cruel. Bart here was out after 'em all his time--wasn't you, Bart?"

Bart had a habit of patting his chin and nodding when he spoke. He did so now.

"Yes, I was," said Bart. "A terrible brave show of maggots, sure enough."

Mrs. Stanbury appeared, and it might be seen that while her son resembled his father, it was from the mother that Margaret took her dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes and wistful cast of countenance. She was a neat, small woman, and to-day, clad in her plum-coloured Sunday gown with a silver watch-chain and a touch of colour in her black cap, had no little air of distinction about her. Her face was long and rather sad, but it had been beautiful before the mouth fell somewhat. Constance Stanbury was eight years older than her husband and of a credulous nature, at once vaguely poetical and definitely pessimistic. She depreciated everything that belonged to herself; even when her children were praised to her face, she would deprecate enthusiasm with silence or a shrug. She believed in mysteries, in voices that called by night, in dreams, in premonitions, in the evil omen and the evil eye. Her brother had destroyed himself, and she was not the first of her race who had suffered from a congenital melancholia.

"I hope your scalded hand be doing nicely, ma'am," said David, with the politeness of a lover to the mother of his lass.

"Yes, thank you. 'Twas my own silly fault, trying to do two things at once. 'Tis of no consequence."

"I'll pour out the tea," said Margaret. "Then you needn't take your hand out of the sling, mother."

Mrs. Stanbury's profound and pathetic distrust and doubt that she could possess or achieve any good thing, extended from the greatest to the least interest in life. Now they ate and drank, and David ventured to praise a fine cake of which he asked for a second slice.

"Glad you like it, I'm sure," she said, "but 'tisn't much of a cake. Too stoggy and I forgot the lemon."

"Never want to taste a better," declared David, stoutly. "Our cakes to Ditsworthy ban't a patch on it."

Mrs. Stanbury smiled faintly.

"Did your mother catch any good from the organy tea?" she asked.

"Yes," answered David. "A power of good it did her, and I was specially to say she was greatly obliged for it; and if by lucky chance you'd saved up a few bunches more organies, she'd like 'em."

"Certainly, an' t'other herb to go along with it. I dried good store at the season of the year. Some people say the moon don't count in the matter; but there's a right and wrong in such things, and the moon did ought to be at the full without a doubt. Who be we to say that the wit of our grandfathers was of no account?"

The herb "organies," or wild marjoram, was still drunk as tea in Mrs. Stanbury's days, and decoctions of it were widely used after local recipes for local ills.

"This here Chinese tea be a lot nicer to my taste, all the same," said Bart. "We have it Sundays, and I wouldn't miss it for money."

"We drink it every day," said David.

"Ah! you rich folk can run to it, no doubt."

"But we don't brew so strong as what you do," added young Bowden.

"This is far too strong," declared Mrs. Stanbury, instantly. "It have stood over long, and the bitter be drawed out."

"That's my fault for being late," answered Margaret. "No fault of yours, mother."

"I like the bitter," said Bart. "'Tis pretty drinking and proper to work on. Cider isn't in it with cold tea."

Dusk gathered, and the firelight flickered in the little whitewashed kitchen. Then David mentioned a project near his hopes.

"You thought you'd found a fox's earth 'pon Coombeshead Tor," he said to Madge.

"I do think so; and if you've made an end of eating, us'll go an' see afore 'tis dark."

"I've finished, and very much obliged, I'm sure."

David rose, picked up his felt hat and bade the parent Stanburys "good-evening." Then he and Margaret went out together. Bart prepared to accompany them, when suddenly, as if shot, he sank down into his chair again beside his father and put his hand to his chin.

"Why for did 'e kick me, faither?" he asked when the lovers had disappeared.

"You silly zany! They don't want you!"

Bart grinned.

"He be after Madge--eh?"

"Wait till you'm daft for something in a petticoat yourself, then you'll understand--eh, mother?"

"I suppose so, master. We shall lose 'em both, without a doubt; 'tis Nature," she said.

Meantime Margaret and David climbed into the gloaming on Coombeshead Tor, and she talked to him, and for the first time let him know how much the wonderful granite masses of this hill meant to her.

"I was born on the farm, you know, and this place was my playground ever since I could run alone. A very lonely little girl, because Bart was six year older than me, and mother never had none but us. I never had no toys or nothing of that sort; but these gerstones was my dollies, and I used to give 'em names, an' play along with 'em, an' sleep among 'em when I was tired. That fond of chattering I was, that I must be talking if 'twas only to the stones! Never was a cheel cut out for minding babies like me; and yet I've not had a baby to mind in my life!"

He listened and enjoyed her voice, but felt not much emotion at what she told him.

"So these boulders were my babies; an' now this one took a cold and wanted nursing; an' now this one was tired and I had to sing it to sleep. And I'd bring 'em flowers an' teach 'em their lessons, an' put 'em to bed an' all the rest of it. They all had their names too, I warrant you!"

"'Twas a very clever game to think upon," he said.

"Thicky stone, wi' grass on his head, was called 'Pilgarlic.' His hair is green in summer and it turns yellow, like 'tis now, when winter comes. And yonder rock--its real name is the 'Cuckoo stone,' because cuckoo always sits there to cry when he comes to Dennycoombe; that flat rock was 'Lame Annie'--a poor friend of mine as couldn't walk."

David laughed.

"Fancy thinking such things all out of your own head!" he exclaimed. "Ah! here's the earth! Yes, that's a fox."

Presently he prepared to go homeward and she offered to walk a little of the way by a sheep-track under Eylesbarrow.

He agreed and thanked her; but when the turning point was reached, David declared that it was now too dark for Margaret to see her way home at all. And so it became necessary for him to turn again and walk beside her until Coombeshead windows blinked through the night.

Then he left her, and ventured to squeeze her hand rather tightly as he did so. He went home somewhat slowly and suffered as many sensations of affection, admiration and uneasiness as his nature would admit. He was deep in love and felt that possession of Margaret Stanbury represented the highest good his life could offer.

CHAPTER V

THE VIRGIN AND THE DOGS

Rhoda Bowden loved the dogs, and her part in the little commonwealth of Ditsworthy lay with them. Ten were kept, and money was made from Elias Bowden's famous breed of spaniels. To see Rhoda, solemn and stately, with puppies squealing and tumbling before her, or hanging on to her skirts, was a familiar sight at the warren.

"It takes all sorts to make a world," said Mrs. Bowden, "and I must allow my Rhoda never neighboured kindly with the babbies--worse than useless with 'em; but let it be a litter, and she's all alive and clever as need be."

Indeed, the girl had extraordinary skill in canine affairs. She loved and understood the dogs; and they loved her. By a sort of instinct she learned their needs and aversions, and the brutes paid her with a blind worship that woke as soon as their eyes opened on the world. Yelping and screaming, the puppies paddled about after her; the old dogs walked by her side or galloped before. Sometimes she went to the warren with them and watched them working. After David they were nearer to her heart than most of her own species. She seemed to fathom their particular natures and read their individual characters with a closeness more intense and a judgment more accurate than she possessed for mankind.

Perhaps not only dogs woke this singular understanding in her. As a child she had chosen to be much alone, and in silent reveries, before the ceaseless puzzles of Ditsworthy, she had sat sequestered amid natural things and watched the humble-bees in the thyme, the field mice, the wheat-ears, and the hawks and lizards. She had regarded all these lives as running parallel with her own. They were fellow mortals and no doubt possessed their own interests, homes, anxieties and affairs. She had felt very friendly to them all and had liked to suppose that they were happy and prosperous. That they lived on each other did not puzzle her or pain her. It was so. She herself--and David--lived by the rabbits. Many thousands of the busy brown people passed away through the winter to make the prosperity of Ditsworthy. That was a part of the order of things, and she accepted it with indifference. Death, indeed, she mourned instinctively, but she did not hate it.

She loved the night and often, from childhood, crept forth alone into darkness or moonlight.

There was no humour in Rhoda. She smiled if David laughed, but even his weak sense of the laughter in life exceeded hers by much, and she often failed after serious search to see reason for his amusement. Such laughter-lovers as Bartley Crocker frankly puzzled her. Indeed, she felt a contempt for them.

Life had its own pet problems, and most of these she shared with David; but of late every enigma had sunk before a new and gigantic one. David was in love with a girl and certainly hoped to marry her. Until now the great and favourite mystery in Rhoda's life was the meaning of the old sundial at Sheepstor church. Above the porch may still be seen a venerable stone cut to represent a human skull from whose eye-sockets and bony jaws there spring fresh ears of wheat. Crossbones support the head of Death, and beneath them stands a winged hour-glass with the words 'Mors Janua Vitæ.'

This fragment had since her childhood been a fearful joy to Rhoda. It was still an object of attraction; but now she had ceased to want an explanation and would have refused to hear one: the mystery sufficed her. David, too, had shared her emotions in the relic and had often advanced theories to explain the eternal wonder of the wheat springing from human bones.

And now all lesser things were fading before the great pending change, and Rhoda went uneasy and not wholly happy, like an animal that feels the approach of storm. Margaret Stanbury interested her profoundly and there lurked no suspicion of jealousy in Rhoda's attitude; but critical she was, and terribly jealous for David. Young Bowden's mother had been much easier to satisfy than his sister. With careful and not unsympathetic mind Rhoda summed up Madge; and the estimate, as was inevitable, found David's sweetheart wanting.

The irony of chance had cast Madge into a house childless save for her elder brother; and her instincts had driven her to pet and nurse the boulders on Coombeshead; while for Rhoda were babies and to spare provided, but she ever evaded that uncongenial employment and preferred a puppy to a child.

Rhoda held her own opinions concerning the opposite sex, and they were contradictory. A vague ideal of man haunted her mind, but it was faint and indefinite. She required some measure of special consideration for women from men; but personally she could not be said to offer any charm of womanhood in exchange. She expected attention of a sort, but she never acknowledged it in a way to gladden a masculine heart. And yet her loveliness and her presence made men forget these facts. They began by being enthusiastic and only cooled off after a nearer approach had taught them her limitations. In the general opinion Rhoda "wanted something" to complete her; but here and there were those who did not mark this shadowy deficiency. Mr. Simon Snell regarded her as the most complete and admirable woman he had ever seen; and David also knew of no disability in his sister. It is true that she differed radically from Margaret; but that was not a fault in his estimation. He hoped that these two women would soon share his home; he believed that each must win from the other much worth the winning; and he held each quite admirable, though with a different sort of perfection.

On a day at edge of winter, the mistress of the dogs sat on a rock and watched her brothers Napoleon and Wellington, and her sister Dorcas, engaged with a ferret. The long, pink-eyed, lemon-coloured brute had a string tied round its neck and was then sent into the burrows. Anon the boys dug down where the string indicated, and often found two or three palpitating rabbits cornered at the end of a tunnel. Then they dragged them out and broke their necks. At Rhoda's feet four spaniel puppies fought with a rabbit-skin, while she and their mother watched them admiringly.

Towards this busy scene there came a woman, and Rhoda, recognising Mrs. Stanbury, walked to meet her.

"Be your mother at home, my dear?" asked the elder. "'Twas ordained us should have a bit of a tell about one or two things, and I said a while ago, when us met Sunday week, that I'd pick a dry day and come across."

"She's at home, and faither too. We're making up a big order for Birmingham and everybody's to work."

"Such a hive as you be here. Bless them two boys, how they do grow, to be sure!"

She pointed to the twins, Samson and Richard, who had just joined their elder brothers.

Rhoda led the way and they approached the house. White pigeons and blue circled round about the eaves, and sweet peat smoke drifted from the chimney. A scrap of vegetable garden protected from the east by a high wall, lay beside the dwelling, and even unexpected flowers--gifts from the valleys--made shift to live and blossom here. Aubrietias struggled in the stones by the garden path, and a few Michaelmas daisies, now in the sere, also prospered there. Sarah Bowden herself, and only she, looked after the flowers. They were a sort of pleasure to her--especially the daffodils that speared through the black earth and hung out their orange and lemon and silver in spring. Walls of piled peat and stone surrounded the garden, and the grey face of the Warren House opened upon it. At present the garden and porch were full of rabbit baskets packed for market. One could only see rows and rows of little hind pads stained brown by the peat.

Mr. Bowden was doing figures at a high desk in the corner of the kitchen, and his wife sat by the fire mending clothes. Rhoda left Mrs. Stanbury with them and went out again to the boys.

Sarah Bowden had grown round-backed with crouching over many babies. She loved them and everything to do with them. Had Nature permitted it, she would gladly have begun to bear another family. Now she picked up her skirt and dusted a chair.

"Don't, please, demean yourself on my account," said Constance Stanbury. "I've come from master. As you know, my dear, there's something in the wind, and Bartholomew thought that perhaps you'd be so kind as to spare the time and tell me a little how it strikes you and what you feel about it."

"Fetch out elderberry wine and seedy cake," said Elias. "Mrs. Stanbury must have bit and sup. She've come a rough road."

"No, no. No occasion, I'm sure. Don't let me put you to no trouble, Sarah."

"Very pleased," said Mrs. Bowden. "'Tis about David and your maiden you be here, of course?"

"So it is then. My children ain't nothing out of the common, you must know--haven't got more sense than, please God, they should have. But all the same Margaret's a very good, fearless girl, and kind-hearted you might say, even."

"Kind-hearted! Why, her name's knowed all up the countryside for kindness," said Mrs. Bowden. "She's a proper fairy, and we be very fond of her, ban't we, Elias?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bowden. "She's got every vartue but cash."

"She'm to have twenty-five pounds on her wedding-day, however. Of course to people like you, with large ideas about money, such a figure be very small; but her father's put it by for her year after year, and she'll have it."

"Well done, Stanbury!" said Mr. Bowden.

"They ban't tokened yet, and you might think us a thought too pushing, which God forbid, I'm sure," said Mrs. Stanbury, crumbling her cake and not eating it. "But it's going to be. I know the signs. Your David's set on her, and he's the sort who have their way. That man's face wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, if I may say so. Not that he'll get 'no' for an answer. There's that in my daughter's eyes when his name is named.--So 'tis just so good as done so far as they're concerned."

Mr. Bowden left his desk and came to the table. He poured out a glass of elderberry wine for himself and drank it.

"Listen to me," he said. "Wool is worth one shilling and sevenpence a pound, and David be going to buy fifty sheep. You might ax how? Well, his Uncle Partridge--Sarah's late brother--left him five hundred pound under his will; and when he marries and leaves here, he'll spend a bit of that on sheep--old Dartmoor crossed with Devon Long Wool. 'Tis a brave breed and the wonderfulest wool as you'll handle in England. The only care is not to breed out the Dartmoor constitution. I may tell you an average coat is twelve pounds of wool. So there you are."

Mr. Bowden instantly returned to his stool and his ledger. He appeared to regard his statement as strictly relative, and, indeed, Mrs. Stanbury so understood it. In their speech, as in their written communications, the folk shear off every redundancy of expression until only the bare bones of ideas remain--sometimes without even necessary connecting links.

"We never doubted that he was snug. But where be he going, if I might ask?" said Mrs. Stanbury.

"Wait," answered Elias, twisting round but not dismounting. "We haven't come to that. I should mention ponies also. There'll be ponies so well as sheep, and in God's good time, when old Jonathan Dawe's carried to the yard, David may become Moorman of the quarter. Nobody's better suited to the work. Well--ponies.--With ponies what live be all profit, and what die be no loss. In fact, if you find the carpses soon enough, they be a gain too, for the dogs eat 'em. The chap as was up here afore me twenty-five year ago, was a crooked rogue, and many a pony did he shoot when they comed squealing to the doors in snowy weather--for his dogs."

"David be going to build a house," said Mrs. Bowden. "He couldn't abide living in no stuffy village after the warren, so he's going to find a place--he've got his eye on it a'ready, for that matter."

"Not too far away, I hope--if I may venture to say so."

"Not at all far, and closer to you than us. He was full of a place under Black Tor as he'd found by the river. There's a ruin of the 'old men' there, as only wants building up to make a very vitty cottage."

"And you see no objection and think 'tis a good enough match for your boy?"

"Just so," said Elias.

"Then I won't take up no more of your time, for I mark 'tis a rabbit day with you."

"There's a thought comes over me, however," said Sarah, "and 'tis about the young youth, Bartley Crocker. Mind, Constance, I'm not saying anything against him. But David's had the man on his mind a bit of late, and perhaps you know why."

"No doubt I do," said Mrs. Stanbury. "You see, Nanny Crocker have took up with Madge lately, and I believe she actually thinks as my girl be almost good enough for her boy. 'Tis a great compliment, but she've begun at the wrong end--curious such a clever woman as her. Margaret likes Bartley Crocker very well, as all the maidens do for that matter. A very merry chap, but terrible lazy and terrible light-minded."

"You'll not often find a young man so solid and steady as our David."

"Never seed the like, Sarah. An old head on young shoulders."

"I've said of him before, and I'll say of him again that nought could blow David off his own bottom," declared Elias. "As to t'other chap, he may have a witty mother, but bottom--none; ballast--not a grain. A very frothy, fair-weather fellow."

"What I say is, with so much open laughter there must be hidden tears. Nobody can always be in such a good temper--like a schoolboy just runned out of school," said Mrs. Stanbury.

"Why, 'tis so--ever grinning and gallivanting, that chap," answered the man. "David's built of different clay, and though your daughter may not have much to laugh at, for I'll grant he's a bit solemn, yet she'll have nought to cry at; and that's a lot more to the point."

"Her nature do tend to laughter, however; I won't hide that from you. Madge will get a bit of fun out of married life. Her very love for David will make her bright and merry as a dancing star."

"Why not? Why not?" asked Mrs. Bowden.

"No reason," summed up the warrener. "She'll bring the flummery and David will bring the pudding. Leave it so. They must do the rest. And as for laughter, why, I can laugh in the right place myself, as well as any man."

Mrs. Stanbury rose.

"I may tell master, then, that you'm both willing and agreeable?"

"Certainly you may; and when things is forwarder, David will put his prospects afore Bartholomew Stanbury all straight and clear."

"'Tis a very great match for any daughter of mine, and I hope she'll rise worthy of it."

"Don't be downcast, my dear," said Sarah. "Margaret's as good as gold, and lucky the man that gets her, though my own son."

"You speak too kind, I'm sure--both of 'e," declared Mrs. Stanbury; then she departed and her neighbours discussed her.

"Never seed the like of that woman for crying 'stinking fish,'" said Mr. Bowden; and his wife admitted it.

"She do make the worst of herself and her belongings without a doubt; but a good sort and better far than the puffed-up people."

"Seems to go in fear whether she ought to be alive--eh?"

"Yes, you might say so."

Elias uttered one of his sudden chuckles.

"What be laughing at?" asked his wife.

"Why, I was thinking when that humble-minded creature comes to die, she'll tell the angels when they come to fetch her, that she really ban't anything like good enough for the Upper Place!"

CHAPTER VI

THE HOST OF 'THE CORNER HOUSE'

'The Corner House' stood just outside Sheepstor village, and Mr. Reuben Shillabeer--a childless widower--was host of it. His wife had been dead ten years, but he kept her memory green, and so much that happened in the world appeared to remind him sorrowfully of her, that the folk found him depressing. Some air of romance from the past hung about Mr. Shillabeer: he had moved in sporting circles and been a prize-fighter. Though his own record in the ring was not glorious and consisted of five battles and one victory, yet Mr. Shillabeer had known as a friend and equal the giants of the past. In rare moments of cheerfulness he would open his huge palm before the spectator and explain how that hand had shaken the unconquerable and terrible 'rights' of the three immortal 'Toms.'

"I've knowed all three--Tom Cribb, Tom Spring and that wonder of the world, Tom Sayers," Mr. Shillabeer would say; "all Champions of England and all very friendly to me. And Mr. Spring would have been my second in my affair with Andy Davison, 'the Rooster,' but he had other business on hand. And now," Mr. Shillabeer would sum up mournfully, "now Cribb be in his grave and Spring in his, and Sayers will fight no more, though still the glory of the nation. But they always called me the 'Devonshire Dumpling'; and when I had my one and only benefit in the Fives Court, Mr. Spring showed, God bless him for it, though only a fortnight after his first mill with Jack Langan."

In person the 'Devonshire Dumpling,' now a man of sixty, was built on massive lines. He stood six feet two inches, and weighed sixteen stone. His large heavy-jowled face was mild and melancholy; his eyes were brown and calf-like. One nostril had been split and flattened in battle, and the symmetry of his countenance was thereby spoiled. He shaved clean, but under his double chin there sprouted and spread a thick fringe or mat of hair--foxy-grey and red mingled. Tremendous shoulders and arms belonged to Mr. Shillabeer. Sometimes he would perform feats of strength for the pleasure of the bar, and he could always be prevailed upon to discuss two subjects, now both defunct: the prize-ring, and his wife.

Tom Sayers had recently fought John Heenan, and the great records of the Ring were closed. Jem Mace was now champion, and his prowess perhaps revived the moribund sport for a few years; but prize-fighting had passed into the control of dishonest rascals and the fighters were merely exploited by the lowest and most ruffianly types of sporting men. The Ring had perished and many a straight, simple-hearted spirit of the old school regretted the fact, even as Shillabeer did. He was not vain and never hesitated to give the true reasons for his own undistinguished career.

There fell an evening in the bar of 'The Corner House' when Mr. Shillabeer appeared in a temper unusually brisk and genial. He even cracked a massive joke with Charles Moses, the shoemaker and vicar's warden. There were present also Simon Snell, David Bowden from Ditsworthy, Ernest Maunder, the village constable, and other persons.

Mr. Moses reproved a certain levity in the leviathan host.

"What's come to you, 'Dumpling'? A regular three-year-old this evening. But you'm not built for it, my dear. 'Tis like an elephant from a doomshow trying to play the monkey's tricks."

At this criticism Reuben Shillabeer instantly subsided. He drew beer for Bowden, cast David's three halfpence into the till and turned to Mr. Moses.

"You're right. 'Tis for dapper, bird-like men--same as you--to be light and pranksome. I've marked that you shoemakers do always take a hopeful view of life. Working in leather dries up the humours of the body and makes all the organs brisk and quick about their business, I believe. Then, as vicar's warden, you get religion in a way that's denied to us common men. You're in that close touch with parson that good must come of it."

"It does," admitted Mr. Moses. "It surely does."

"You can see it in your face, Charles," asserted Mr. Maunder. "Some people might say you had a more religious face than parson's self--his being so many shades nearer plum-red."

"But it's not a fault in the man," argued Mr. Shillabeer. "There's no John Barleycorn in the colour, only nature in him. Yet an unfortunate thing, and certainly lessens his weight in the pulpit with strangers."

"I'm glad that you feel my face to be a good face, Ernest Maunder," replied Mr. Moses. "Only once have I ever had my face thrown in my face, so to speak; and that was by a holy man of all men. In charity, I've always supposed him short-sighted. 'Twas the 'revival' gentleman that put up with you, Shillabeer, a few years agone, and preached in the open air, and drawed a good few to hear him."

"A Wesleyan and a burning light and proud it made me having him here," said the innkeeper. "A saintly soul the man had."

"Well, he met me as he was going to pitch one Sunday morning--me in black, of course, and off to church. 'Friend,' he said, 'be honest with yourself and with me. Are you saved?' You could have knocked me down with a feather, folks. 'Saved,' I said, 'saved! Me! Good God A'mighty, man,' I said, 'you'm talking to the vicar's warden!' No doubt he was shocked to think of what he had done; but he didn't show it. He went his way with never a word of apology neither. But a righteous creature."

"I quite agree. I listened to him," said Mr. Snell. "I wasn't saved afore; but I have been ever since."

A labourer laughed.

"You're safe enough, Simon. It ban't in you to do nothing wrong."

"I hope not, Timothy Mattacott, but I have my evil thoughts with the worst among you," answered Snell. "I often wish I had more money--and yet a well paid man."

"You leat chaps all get more than you're worth," said Bowden. "Why, 'tis only when the snow-banks choke the water that you have anything to do, save walk about with your hands in your pockets and your pipes in your teeth."

Mr. Snell had certain miles of Drake's historic waterway under his control. This aqueduct leads from the upper channels of West Dart and winds onward and downward to Plymouth. Behind Lowery, Simon's home, it passed, and for a space of two miles was in his care. They argued now upon the extent and gravity of Snell's task, and all agreed that he was fortunate. Then Mr. Maunder, returning to the point from which conversation had started, bade Reuben explain his unusual hilarity.

"Without a doubt you was above your nature when us first came in, 'Dumpling'--as Moses here pointed out. And if any good fortune have fallen to you, I beg you'll name it, for there's not a man in this bar but will be glad to hear about it," declared the policeman.

"Hear, hear, Maunder!" said Mr. Moses; "your good be our good, neighbour."

"Thank you kindly, souls. 'Twas nought, and yet I won't say that. A letter, in fact, from an old London friend of mine. A very onusual sort of man by the name of Fogo. I may have mentioned him when telling about the old fights."

"Be it the gentleman you call 'Frosty-faced Fogo'?" inquired Mattacott.

"The same," answered Reuben. "'Frosty-faced Fogo' is in Devonsheer--at Plymouth, if you'll believe it. There's a twenty-round spar between two boys there, and Fogo, at the wish of a sporting blade in London, who's backing one of 'em, be down to see the lad through. And what's made me so cheerful is just this: that, for the sake of old times, 'Frosty-face' is coming on here to put up with me for a week, or maybe more. You'll hear some wonders, I warn 'e. That man's knowed the cream of the P.R.s and pitched more Rings, along with old Tom Oliver, the Commissary-General, than any other living creature."

"My father must come down for to see him," said David. "There's nought rejoices him like valour, and he wouldn't miss the sight of such a character for money."

"All are welcome," declared Shillabeer with restrained enthusiasm. "I shall hope to have a sing-song for Mr. Fogo one night. And he'll tell you about Bendigo, and Ben Gaunt, and Burke, 'the Deaf 'Un,' and many of the great mills in the forties. I was the very daps of Ben Gaunt myself--though he stood half an inch higher. We was neither of us in the first rank for science, but terrible strong and gluttons for punishment. Gaunt was Champion in his day, but never to be named alongside Cribb or Dutch Sam or Crawley or Jem Belcher."

"When's he to be here?" asked Mr. Maunder. "I feel almost as if such a man of war threatens to break the peace by coming amongst us."

"You're a fool," answered David, bluntly. "A man like you, instead of being in such a mortal dread of peace-breaking, ought to welcome the chance of it now and again. If I was a policeman, I should soon get tired of just paddling up and down through Sheep's Tor mud, week in, week out, and never have nought to do but help a lame dog over a stile or tell some traveller the way. 'Tis a tame and spiritless life."

"The tamer the better," declared Ernest Maunder, frankly. "I like it tame. 'Tis my business to maintain law and order, and that I will do, Bowden. And to tell me I'm a fool is very disorderly in you, as well you know. I may have my faults, but a fool I'm not, as this bar will bear me out."

"I merely say," returned David, "that if I was a peeler, I should want to earn my money, and have a dash at life, and make a stir, if 'twas only against poachers here and there."

"Shows how little you know about it," answered Maunder. He was a placid, straw-coloured man, with an official mind. "You say 'poachers.' Well, poachers ban't my business. Poachers come under a different law, and unless I have the office from headquarters to set out against 'em to the neglect of my beat, I can't do it. I'm part of a machine, and if I got running about as you say, I should throw the machine out of order."

"What for do you want to speak to the man like that?" asked Mattacott, who was the policeman's friend. "You Bowdens all think yourselves so much above the common people--God knows why for. One would guess you was spoiling for a fight yourself. Well, I daresay, the 'Dumpling' here could find somebody at your own weight as wouldn't fear a set to with you."

"Why not you?" said Bowden. "When you like, Mattacott."

"What a fiery twoad 'tis! Why, you'm a stone heavier than me, and years younger."

Mr. Shillabeer regarded David with some professional interest.

"You'm a nice built chap, but just of that awkward weight 'twixt light and middle. In the old days I knowed some of the best bruisers you could wish to see were the same; but 'twas always terrible difficult to get 'em a job, because they was thought too light for the heavies and too heavy for the lights. But Dutch Sam in his day, and Tom Sayers in his, showed how eleven-stone men, and even ten-stone men, can hit as hard as anything with a fist. As for you, Bowden, you've a bit of the fighting cut--inclined to be snake-headed, though your forehead don't slope enough. But you're a thought old now."

"Not that I want to fight any man without a cause," said David. "If there's a reason, I'd fight anything on two legs--light or heavy--but not for fun. And I hope you men--Mattacott and Ernest Maunder--haven't took offence where none was meant."

"Certainly not," declared Mr. Maunder. "I'll take anything afore I take offence. 'Tis my place to keep the peace, and if I don't set an example of it, who should? Twice only in my life have I drawed my truncheon in the name of the Queen, and I hope I'll never have no call to do it thrice. Have a drink, David; then I must be going."

But Bowden declined with thanks, and the company soon separated.

When he was alone, fired by the prospect of seeing his old friend once more, Reuben Shillabeer took a damp towel and, visiting each in turn, polished up the portraits of a dozen famous pugilists which hung round the walls of his bar. Where sporting prints of race-horses and fox-hunting are generally to be met with, Mr. Shillabeer had a circle of prize-fighters; and now he rubbed the yellow stains of smoke off the glasses that covered them, so that the stern, but generally open and often handsome countenances of the fighting giants looked forth from their grimy frames. Before a print of the famous 'Tipton Slasher' Mr. Shillabeer paused, and thoughtfully stroked his battered nose.

"Ah, Bill Perry," he said, "if I'd been ten year younger--"

Then having extinguished two oil lamps, the old man retired and left his gallery of the great in darkness.

CHAPTER VII

DENNYCOOMBE WOOD

Of dingles under Dartmoor there is none so fair as Dennycoombe. Here wood and water, rock and heath, wide spaces and sweet glens mingle together, and make a theatre large enough for the pageant of the seasons, a haunt small enough to be loved as a personal possession and abiding treasure. Dennycoombe tends upward to Coombeshead, and the little grey farmhouse of Bartholomew Stanbury dominates the scene, and stands near the apex of the valley. At this hour, after noon in early December, a croft or two made light on the hill, where green of turnips and glaucous green of swedes ran parallel, and black tilled earth also broke the medley of the waste. Then winked out the farm from twin dormer windows--a thing of moorstone colour, yet splashed as to the lintel-post with raw whitewash, so that it should be seen in the darkness of moonless nights. Beneath, through a bottom of willow scrub, furze and stunted oak, the Dennycoombe stream tumbled and rattled to join Meavy far below. A single 'clapper' of granite spanned this brook for foot-passengers; while above it, under heathery banks, the rivulet crossed a cart-track at right angles, and widened there to make a ford.

Over these small waters at this hour came Margaret from her home; and though the day lacked for sunshine, her heart was full of it, because now she went to meet the man she loved best on earth, at a place she loved best of earth.

There are words that light a lamp in the heart and wake in the mind images of good things, with all the colour and life, the loveliness and harmony proper to them. There are syllables whose chance utterance unlocks all the gates of the mind; floods the spirit with radiance; lifts to delight, if the fair thought belongs as much to the future as the past; but throbs chastened through the soul if the fragrant memory is appropriated by the past alone.

Dennycoombe Wood meant much to this woman. In spring and summer, in autumn and winter, she knew it and cherished it always. And now she saw it with the larches feathering to a still grey sky, their crests of pale amber spread transparently upon the darker heart of the underwood beneath them. Grey through the last of the foliage thrust up a network of bough and branch; here a cluster of blue-green firs melted together and massed upon the forest; here dark green pines, straight-limbed, lifted their pinnacles all fringed with russet cones. A haze of the larch needles still aloft washed the whole wood delicately and shone against the inner gloom of it. Round the spinney edge stood beeches with boles of mottled silver, and their remaining foliage set the faint gold of the forest in a frame of copper. Lower still, under broken banks, lay the auburn brake; and great stones, in the glory of their mosses, glimmered like giant emeralds out of the red water-logged tangle of the fern. The hill fell steeply beneath Dennycoombe Wood, and there were spaces of grass and many little blunt whitethorns, now naked, that spattered the slope with patches of cobweb grey.

All was cast together in the grand manner of a forest edge; and all was kneaded through by the still, gentle light of a sunless and windless December hour before dusk. The place of the sun, indeed, appeared behind a shield of pearl that floated westerly and sank upon the sky; but light remained clear and colourless; tender, translucent grey swept the firmament, and scarcely a darker detail of cloud floated upon it. The day was a tranquillity between two storms, of which one had died at dawn and the other was to waken after midnight.

Nothing had influenced Margaret towards Elias Bowden's eldest son but her own heart. She had known now for some time that two men loved her, and she felt a certain affection for both; but the regard for Bartley was built on their likeness in temper; the love for David arose out of their differences. Hartley's weakness, which in some measure was her own, attracted Madge towards him; but David's strength--a quality quite different to any that she possessed--drew her forcibly into his arms. When she found that he loved her, the other man suffered a change and receded into a region somewhat vague and shadowy. Friendly she felt to Bartley Crocker and eager to serve him and advance his welfare, but the old dreams were dead. She had thought of him as a husband, in the secret places of her heart, long before he thought of her--or of anybody--as a wife; but now that his mind was seriously turned in her direction and he began to long for her, the time was past and his sun had set upon a twilight of steadfast friendship that could never waken again into any warmer emotion. Madge liked him, and the years to come showed how much; but she never loved him.

The tryst was a great stone under a holly tree, and through the stillness, over a sodden mat of fallen leaves, she came and found David waiting. He had not heard her, and he did not see her, for his back was turned and he sat on the stone, his chin in his hands, very deep in thought. His hat was off and his hair was brushed up on end. He wore velveteens and gaiters, and had made some additions to his usual week-day toilet in the shape of a collar, a tie and a white linen shirt. The collar appeared too tight and once he tugged at it and strained his neck. For a little while Margaret watched him, then she came forward and stood by him and put out her hand. He jumped up, hot and red; then, for a long time, he shook the small hand extended to him. As he did so, she blushed and felt an inclination to weep.

His slow voice steadied her emotion and calmed them both.

"Sit here, if not too hard for 'e. 'Tis dry fern. I found it a bit ago."

She mounted the stone with help from his arm. Then he sat beside her.

"I think it terrible kind of you to be here," he said. "To come here for to listen to a great gawkim like me."

"You're not a gawkim. You're the wittiest chap this side of the Moor. Leastways my father always says so."

"Very kind of him. There's no man I'd sooner please. Well--well--'tis a thing easily said and yet-- However, all the same, I wouldn't say it to-day if I hadn't axed you to come here, for I had a fore-token against it yesterday."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"A white rabbit. You'll laugh, but your mother wouldn't. And my father have a great feeling against 'em, though he can't explain it, and grows vexed if anybody says anything. Not on the warren; but over on the errish[#] down to Yellowmead I seed it."

[#] Errish = Stubble.

"I care nothing for that--at least--" She stopped doubtfully.

"If you don't care, more won't I. Then here goes. Can you hear it? Can a rare maiden like you let a rough chap like me offer to marry her? For that's what I've axed you to come here about."

She was silent and he spoke again.

"Could you? There's things in my favour as well as things against me."

"There's nothing, nothing against you, David."

"Then you'll take me!"

"And proud and happy to."

"Lord! How easy after all," he said--more to himself than to her. "And here I've been stewing over this job for two months, and sleeping ill of nights, and fretting. Yet, you see, 'twas the work of a moment. Thank you, thank you very much indeed for marrying me, Madge. I'll make you the best husband I know how. I must tell you all about the plans I've built up in hope you would say 'yes'--hundreds of 'em. And you'll have to help now."

He was amazingly collected and calm. He told her how he proposed a house for them far from other dwellings, where they would have peace from the people and privacy and silence. He had found such a place on the upper waters of Meavy, where stood a ruin that might easily be restored and made a snug and comfortable home. He meant to breed ponies and sheep. The suggestion was that Rhoda joined them and looked after the dogs. He could hardly get on without her, and she would certainly be very miserable away from him.

"She reckons that no woman living be good enough for you," said Margaret, faintly. Her voice showed her heart was hungry, empty. She had expected a meal and it was withheld.

David laughed.

"To be frank, she do."

"And no man living good enough for herself."

"As to that, the right one will come along in time. She shan't marry none but the best. She likes you well, Madge, as well as she may; but she hasn't got hold of the idea of me married yet. Now she'll jolly soon have to do it. There's five hundred pound has come to me, you must know, under the will of my mother's brother who died back-along. It's goodied a bit since and us'll have some sheep and you'll have a nice little lot of poultry. And Sir Guy will rebuild the ruin. It is all his ground. And now you've said 'yes,' I shall ask 'em to begin. When can you come to see the place?"

"So soon as ever you like," she said. "I hope 'tisn't too far away from everybody."

"Not so far as I could wish; but far enough. The ruins be old miners' works; and we'll have a shippen and a dog-kennel and all complete, I promise you."

For a long time he talked of his hopes and plans, but she came not directly into them. It seemed that her help was hardly vital to the enterprise. At last she brought the matter back to the present; and she spoke in tones that might have touched the stone she sat on.

"I'll try so hard to make you a good wife, David."

He started and became dimly conscious of the moment and the mighty thing that had happened to him in it.

"I know that right well. Too good for me every way. Too gentle and soft and beautiful. I'll be tremendous proud of you, Madge. And I'll do my share, and work early and late for you, and lay by for you, and lift you up, perhaps, in ten years or so to have a servant of your own, and a horse and trap of your own, and everything you can wish."

"I wish for you to love me always, always, always--nothing but that."

"And so I shall, and the best love be what swells the balance at the bank quickest. Now I know you can take me, I feel as if I should like to get up off this rock this instant moment and go away and begin working like a team of horses for 'e."

"Don't go away yet. Think what this is to me--so much, much more than it can be to you."

"'Tis everything in the world to me," he said solemnly. "You little know how you've been on my mind. My folk will tell you now, no doubt, how it has been with me. That glowering and glumping I've been--not a word to throw at man or woman. But they'll see a different chap to-night!"

She put out her hand timidly. Would he never touch her? Was she never to put her face against his?

Love reigned in his plans, and the little things that he had thought of surprised her; but there came no arm round her, no fierce caress, no hot storm of kisses. He talked hopefully--even joyfully, with his eyes upon her face; but there was no sex-light in their brightness; while hers were dreamy with love and dim with unshed tears.

"I must get back-along with the great news now," he said. "And it will be well if we're moving. Coarse weather's driving up again. I'll see you home first."

"You'll come in and tell mother?"

"Must I?"

"Yes," she answered. "You've got to obey me now, you dear David. I wish it."

"Then off we go."

He helped her down like a stranger and talked of crops as they returned to Coombeshead. Rhoda was better at figures than he was. He hoped that Margaret was good at figures. She said waywardly that she was not, and he regretted it but felt sure that she would soon learn.

A rain-laden dusk descended over Eylesbarrow as they returned, and through, the gloaming the white lintel and door-posts of the farm stared like an eye.

Silence fell between them, and during its progress some touch of nature woke in David. After they had crossed the stream and reached a rush-clad shed where a cart stood, he spoke in a voice grown muddy and gruff.

"Come in here a minute," he said, "afore we go on, Madge. I want--I want--"

She turned and they disappeared.

"I want to kiss you," he said.

A fearful clatter ascended from long-legged fowls roosting on the cart, for their repose was roughly broken. They clucked and cried until Mrs. Stanbury, supposing a fox had descended from the lulls, hastened out to frighten it away.

Then she met Margaret and David--shame-faced, joyous.

"We'm tokened, mother!" cried the man; "and please God, I'll be a dutiful second son to you."

"Thank you for that," she said. "Give you joy, I'm sure. And I'll be proud to have you for a son; and may you never repent your bargain."

She put up her face to his and kissed him; and since he still held Madge by the waist, all three were thus, for an instant, united in a triple caress.

By chance some moments of happy magic in the sky smiled upon this incident, for the grey west broke at its heart above the horizon and little orange feathers of light flashed suddenly along the upper chambers of the air. The Hesperides--daughters of sunset--danced golden-footed on the threshold of evening, and their glimmering skirts swept earth also, set radiance upon Eylesbarrow and hung like a beacon of fire against the deep storm-purple of the east. Thrice this glory waxed and waned; then all light vanished; the colour song was sung; the day died.

Not observing these gracious phenomena upon Night's fringes, the mother, the man and his maiden went in together.

CHAPTER VIII

IN PIXIES' HOUSE

Various interests are served by the great bulk of Sheep's Tor. Not only the colt and the coney prosper here and the vixen finds a place for her cubs, but man also avails himself of the hill in a manner little to be guessed. Battleships, swinging far off to adjust their compasses in Plymouth Sound, use the remote, ragged crown of the tor as a fixed point for determining the accuracy of their instruments; while once, if oral tradition may be respected, the stony bosom of the giant offered hiding in time of stress to a scion of the old Elford clan, lords of the demesne in Stuart days. This king's man, flying for his life from the soldiers of Cromwell, hid himself in a familiar nook; and we may suppose the 'foreigners' tramped Sheep's Tor in vain, and perhaps stamped iron-shod over the rocks under which he lay safe hidden. To-day this cleft, called the Pixies' House, can still be entered. It is of a size sufficient to contain two adults in close juxtaposition; but an inner chamber has fallen, and certain drawings, with which it was alleged the concealed fugitive occupied his leisure, have, if ever they existed, vanished away.

In the very bosom of the great south-facing rocky slope of Sheep's Tor where the lichen-coated slabs and boulders are flung together in magnificent confusion, there may be found one narrow cleft, above which a mass of granite has been split perpendicularly. Chaos of stone spilled here lies all about, and numberless small crannies and chambers abound; but the rift alone marks any possible place of concealment for creature larger than dog or fox; and beneath it, invisible and unguessed, lies the Pixies' House, one of the local sanctities and a haunt of the little people.

Here, two days after Margaret had accepted David Bowden, Bartley Crocker was walking with a gun. His goal lay up the valley and he hoped to shoot some snipe; but circumstances quite altered his intentions.

The day was one of elemental unrest and the clouds rolled tumultuous. They unrolled great planes of shifting gloom and splendour, of accidents of vapour that concealed and of light that illumined. But at mid-day a mighty shadow ascended against the wind and thunder rumbled along the edges of the Moor. The storm-centre spun about a mile off, then it drove in chariots of darkness over Sheep's Tor.

At this moment Bartley remembered the Pixies' House, and, hastening sure-footed over the wild concourse of stones that extended around it, he approached the crevice where it lay.

A woman suddenly caught his eye, and as the breaking storm now promised to be terrific, he called to her and, turning back, joined her.

It proved to be Rhoda Bowden on her way home, and she accepted Bartley's offer of shelter.

"Something pretty bad's coming," she said. "Be the Pixies' House large enough for the both of us? I've got a bit of news you'll be surprised to hear."

"Full large enough--quick--quick--down through there--let me have your hand."

But she accepted no help and soon crawled through the aperture into shelter. Then Bartley, taking two caps off the nipples of his gun, thrust it in after Rhoda and followed swiftly to avoid the onset of the storm.

They had acted with utmost speed and Rhoda was now aghast to find the exceeding propinquity of Mr. Crocker. He could hardly have been closer. She moved uneasily. It occurred to her that he ought to have surrendered the Pixies' House to her and himself found shelter elsewhere. The idea, however, had not struck him.

"Can't you make a little more room?" she asked, breathing rather hard.

"I wish I could, but it's impossible. I forgot you were such a jolly big girl," he answered.

She set her teeth and waited for the outer darkness to lighten. The thunder roared and exploded in a rattle overhead; they heard the hiss and hurtle of the ice and water; while at intervals the entrance of their shelter was splashed along its rough edges with glare of lightning.

"Better here than outside," said Bartley; but Rhoda began to doubt it. It seemed to her that he came nearer and nearer. At last she asked him to get out and let her pass.

"Can't stand this no more," she said, "I'm being choked. I'd sooner suffer the storm than this."

"You don't want to go out, surely!"

"Yes, I do."

The lightning showed him her face very close to his, and he saw her round cheek, lovely ear and bright, hard eyes with a wild look in them, like something caught in a trap. The storm shouted to the hills and cried savagely against the granite precipices; it leapt over the open heaths and roared into the coombes and valleys. The waste was all a dancing whiteness of hail, jewelled ever and anon by the lightning.

Already the heart of conflict had passed and it grew lighter to rearward.

"You must wait a bit yet. Your people would never forgive me if I let you go into this."

She pushed forward, then strained back horrified, for she had accidentally pressed his face with her cheek. But Bartley was not built to stand that soft, firm appulse of woman's flesh without immediate ignition.

"I must have one if I swing for it!" he said. Then he put his arms round her and kissed her.

He expected an explosion and found himself not disappointed. The thunder-storm outside was mild to the woman-storm within when Crocker thrust his caress upon this girl. She started back as though he had stamped a red-hot iron upon her face.

"You loathsome, godless wretch!" she shrieked out, and her voice broke the rocky bounds of earth and leapt into the storm. Thence frantically she followed it and trampled heavily on the amorous sportsman as she did so.

"I could tear the skin off my face!" she cried; and her words came deep and fierce and shuddering. "You coward! I'd sooner be struck by the lightning than have suffered it!"

She departed, running like a frightened child, and he crawled out after her and rubbed his bruised shins. Her nailed shoe had stamped on his hand, torn it and made it bleed; but his wound was light to hers. He was back in the shelter presently, laughing and smoking his pipe while the weather cleared; but she sobbed and panted homeward under the sob and pant of the storm. She felt unclean; every instinct of her nature rebelled against this touch of male lips. She magnified the caress into a mountain of offence; she held up her cheek that the rain which followed the hail might wash it and purge it from this man's hateful blandishment. Passion got hold of her violated soul, and she would gladly have called down fire from the cloud upon Crocker.

He, meantime, waited a while, and wondered what thing it was she had meant to tell him. As yet none at Sheepstor knew of Margaret's engagement, the great subject in Rhoda's mind; but though he did not learn it from her, chance and his own act put the information into Bartley's hand within that hour. This reverse with David's sister altered his intentions and turned him towards another woman. He suddenly longed for a sight of Margaret, and, abandoning the thought of snipe, decided to go to Coombeshead and see her instantly. A still larger resolve lurked behind. Now bright weather-gleams of blue and silver opened their eyes to windward; the storm had gathered up its skirts of rack and flame into the central moor; a thousand gurgling rivulets leapt over the grass; the hail melted; the ponies turned head to wind again and went on grazing, while their wet sides steamed in a weak tremor of sunlight.

Bartley stepped forth, shouldered his gun and whistled to his dog, which had taken refuge near at hand and gone to sleep in a hole. Then he started over the Moor to his destination and his great deed.

Margaret was at home and came out to see him. His greeting amazed her, for it differed by much from what she expected. The girl doubted not that her friend had heard the news and had come to offer his congratulations; but he had not heard it, and he came to offer himself.

Mr. Crocker had toyed with this achievement for six weeks; and now the storm, and Rhoda, and certain uneasiness begot of Rhoda, and a general vague desire for something feminine as different as possible from Rhoda, together with other emotions and sensations too numerous to define, all affirmed his resolve.

He wasted no time, for he was full of desire for Madge and honestly believed that she cared for him. And in answer to his abrupt but impassioned plea, she assured him that she did care for him and that his welfare was no small thing to her.

"We've known each other ever since we was dinky boy and girl to infant school together; and I, with my managing ways, would oft blow your li'l nubby nose when it wanted it," she said, looking at him with shining eyes and in a mood emotional. "But with my David--yes, my David he is--well, 'twas love, dear Bartley, and we'm tokened. And I'm glad 'twas left for me to tell you, though 'tis terrible strange it should fall out at such a minute as this."

He stared and stammered and wished her joy. He was disappointed, but not by any means crushed to the earth. It only occurred to him that no other woman's lips would that day destroy the flavour of Rhoda Bowden's.

"Then what becomes of me?" he said; but not as though there were no answer to the question.

"You'll get a better far," she replied.

"But you--you to go into that silent family--all so stern and proper. Think twice afore 'tis too late, Madge."

"I love them all," she answered. "But silent they surely are. I took my dinner along with them yesterday and, if it hadn't been for Dorcas and me, they'd have gone without a word spoken from grace afore meat to thanksgiving after."

"Dorcas is cheerful enough."

"I like her--best after David," said Madge, a little nervously, as though she talked treason.

Then Mr. Crocker told of the storm and his companion in the Pixies' House.

"Like a damned fool, just because her cheek happened to touch mine, I kissed her."

"Bartley!"

"Well you may stare. Lord knows what come over me to do it; but I got hell for my fun, and so like as not your David will have a bit more to say later on. Him and Rhoda are the wide world to each other. I suppose you know that?"

Margaret's face clouded, but she was loyal.

"Rhoda's a splendid woman, Bartley."

"She is. Now that you won't take me, I believe I shall have a dash at her. But 'twill be a long year afore she forgives this day's work."

He left Margaret soon afterwards and his depression of spirit steadily gained upon him as he returned home. At 'The Corner House' he stopped and drank a while; then he got back to his mother and took a gloomy pleasure in shocking her pride with his news.

Nanny Crocker was sewing at the kitchen table when he returned, and his Aunt Susan brought a belated meal to him hot from the oven.

He looked at the food and then spoke.

"Can't eat," he said. "I've had a full meal to-day a'ready."

"Was you in the storm?" asked Susan. "In the midst of all that awful lightning, with thunder-planets falling and a noise in the elements like the trump of Doom.--If the cat haven't chatted in the pigs' house! Her always brings six, so no doubt that's the number."

"I've just come from asking Margaret Stanbury to marry me," said Bartley, showing no interest in the kittens. "That's what I meant when I said I've had a full meal."

"At last!" cried Nanny Crocker. "Well, well, well--and what a day to choose, my dear! God bless you both, I'm sure. She's a lucky girl and we must set to work now to teach her more than she's been able to learn at home. Rise up and kiss me, my son."

Bartley obeyed with a sort of sardonic smile under his skin. His mother kissed him fervently and sighed.

"You didn't ask twice, I lay," said Susan.

"No," he answered, "I didn't."

"'Tis a terrible pity her mother's such a chuckle-headed, timid creature," declared Nanny. "Not a word against her after to-day, of course. But I'm sorry she haven't got larger intellects and don't believe a little less."

"When is it to be, Bartley?" asked his aunt. "You're not the sort to wait long, I reckon."

"It isn't to be," he answered. "You two silly old souls run on so, and can't imagine any woman turning up her nose at me. But unfortunately other people haven't such a good opinion."

"Won't have you!" gasped his parent. "A Stanbury won't take a Crocker!"

"Madge Stanbury won't take this Crocker--which is all that matters."

"The chit!" said Nanny.

"The ninnyhammer!" cried Aunt Susan.

"The sensible girl," answered Bartley. "She's found somebody better--a man as stands to work and will make a finer fashion of husband than ever I should."

"How you can sit there and talk in that mean spirit passes me!" answered his mother. "Have a greater respect for yourself, and let that girl see to her dying day what a fool she's been."

"Who is it? I suppose you got that much out of her?" asked Bartley's aunt.

"It's David Bowden from Ditsworthy, and they've been tokened two days, so, you see, I was a bit behind the fair."

"Nobody would blame her for changing her mind yet now you've offered yourself," declared Susan.

"She's no wish to change. She likes me very well as a friend--always have since she used to blow my nose for me in infant school--but she likes him a long sight better--well enough to wed."

"She'll change yet--mark me," foretold his aunt.

"My son have got his self-respect, I believe, Susan, and, change or not change, he'll never give her another chance, I should hope. 'Tis done, and to her dying day she'll rue it--as she well deserves. To put that rough rabbit-catcher afore--however, I thank God she did--I thank God she did; and I shall thank Him in person on my knees this night. Never, never was such an empty giglet wench heard of. A merciful escape without a doubt; for a fool only breeds fools."

"I may be her brother-in-law if I can't be her husband," said Bartley; and then he departed and left the indignant and wounded old women to wonder what he might mean.

CHAPTER IX

THE DOGS OF WAR

The renowned Mr. Fogo, with the modesty of a man really great, arrived at Sheepstor in a butcher's trap from Plymouth. He brought a box of humble dimensions, studded with brass nails; while for the rest, a very large umbrella, two walking-sticks and a cape of London pattern completed his outfit.

Reuben Shillabeer walked as far as Sheep's Tor Bridge, and the two notable men met there and shook hands before numerous admiring spectators. Then the sporting butcher, who had driven Mr. Fogo from Plymouth, proceeded to Reuben's familiar inn, while 'Frosty-face' and the 'Dumpling' made triumphal entry into the village together. The contrast between them could scarcely have been more abrupt. Shillabeer ambled with immense strides and heaving shoulders, like a bear on its hind legs, and his great, gentle face, set in its tawny fringe of hair, smiled out upon the world with unusual animation as he shortened his gait, crooked his knees somewhat and gave his arm to his friend. The notable Fogo was a good foot shorter than Reuben--a thin, brisk, clean-shaved man with eyes like a hawk, under very heavy brows, now quite white. His nose was sharp and thin; his mouth, a slit; his hair was still thick and white as snow. Fogo numbered seventy years, yet bore himself as straight and brisk as a youth. He was agile, thin and wiry; but a certain asperity of countenance, which had won him his nickname in the past, was now smoothed away by the modelling of time, and Mr. Fogo's face, though keen, might be called amiable; though exceedingly wide-awake, revealed no acerbity of expression. His glance took in the situation swiftly.

"Crikey!" he said. "And you live here among all these trees and mountains and rocks! But I daresay, now, there's pretty fishing in this river."

"Trout--nought else. And 'tisn't the season for 'em. But a fisherman still, I see--eh? What a man! Not a day older, I warrant. And how did they serve you at Plymouth?"

"I've no fault to find with Plymouth," said Mr. Fogo. "They done me a treat there, and we had a pretty sporting house and a nice set-to in the new way with the mufflers. I got my boy through, but he'd have lost if I hadn't been there. And now let me cast my eye over you, 'Dumpling.' The same man; but gone in the hams, I see. You big 'uns--'tis always that way. Your frames can't carry the load of fat. And so your lady has passed away to a better land. But that's old history."

"No, it isn't, Fogo," declared Mr. Shillabeer, his animation perishing. "'Twill never be old history so long as I bide in the vale; and I hope you'll have a good tell about her many a time afore you leave me. But not to-day. We'll talk about her in private--you and me--over a drop of something special."

"'Twas the weather killed her, I doubt," hazarded Mr. Fogo. "You couldn't expect a London woman to stand so much fresh air as you've got down here. Why--Good Lord!--you breathe nought with a smell to it from year to year! There's not a homely whiff of liquor or fried fish strikes the nose--not so much as the pleasant odour of brewing, or them smells that touch the beak Covent Garden way. Nought for miles and miles--unless it's pigs; and that I don't like, and never shall."

"Our air will make you terrible hungry, however," promised Mr. Shillabeer; "and by the same token we'd better get on our way, for there's a goose with apple sauce and some pretty stuffing to welcome you."

That evening a very large gathering assembled in the public bar of 'The Corner House,' and the men of Standing were introduced each in turn to Mr. Fogo. He had changed his attire and produced from the box of many nails a rusty brown coat, a shirt with a frill and black knee-breeches. Thus attired, he suggested some pettifogging attorney from the beginning of the century. He sat by the fire, smoked a clay and conducted himself with the utmost affability. He was, in fact, no greater than common men while ordinary subjects were under discussion. Only when the Prize Ring began to be talked about, did the aquiline and historic Fogo soar to his true altitudes and silence all listeners before the torrent of his discourse.

The visitor drank gin and not much of that. He was somewhat silent at first until Reuben explained his many-sided greatness; then, when the company a little realised the man they had among them, he began to talk.

"The Fancy always felt you was unlike the rest," said Shillabeer. "Even the papers took you serious. There was pugs and there was mugs; there was good sportsmen and bad ones, and there were plenty of all sorts else, but never more than one 'Frosty-face.'"

Mr. Fogo nodded.

"I can't deny it," he said. "'Twas my all-roundness, I believe. Fight I couldn't--not being built on the pattern of a fighting man, though the heart was in me; but I had a slice over my share of wits, and I'd forgot more about the P.R. than most people ever knew before I was half a century old."

"You must understand," said Shillabeer to his guests, "that Fogo always had letters stuck after his name, for all the world like other learned men. They was complimentary and given to him by the sporting Press of the kingdom."

"Quite true," said Fogo. "I was D.C.G., which stood for Deputy Commissary-General--the great Tom Oliver of course being C.-G. We had the handling of the stakes and ropes of the P.R. from the time that Oliver fought his last serious fight in 1821. He's a fruiterer and greengrocer now in Chelsea, and a year or two older than me."

"Then you was--what was it--P.L.P.R.--eh?" asked the 'Dumpling.'

"I was and still am," returned 'Frosty-face,' proudly. "P.L.P.R.--that's 'Poet Laureet of the Prize Ring.' And it may interest these gentlemen here assembled to know that many and many a time my poems about the great fights was printed in the sporting papers afore most of those present was born or thought of."

"I hope you've brought some along with you," said Reuben.

"Certainly I have--a sheaf of 'em. I never travel without them," returned the Londoner. "And when by good chance I find myself in a bar full of sportsmen of the real old sort, like to-night, I always say to myself, 'not a man here but shall have a chance of buying one of the poems on the great fights, written by old 'Frosty-faced Fogo.'"

"And you never fought yourself, Mr. Fogo?" asked David Bowden, who was of the company.

"Never in a serious way," answered the veteran. "There wasn't enough of me."

"I can mind when you come very near a mill though," declared Shillabeer. "'Twas after the fight between Tim Crawley and Burke, and the rain was coming down cats and dogs."

Mr. Fogo lifted his hand.

"Let me tell the story, 'Dumpling.' Yes, 'twas in 1830 at East Barnet, and 'the Deaf 'Un,' as Burke was called, had Master Tim's shutters up in thirty-three rounds. Then, afore I'd pulled up the stakes, if that saucy chap, Tommy Roundhead, the trainer, didn't come on me with a lot of his bunkum. I was on the losing side that day and not in the best temper; but I let him go a bit and then gave him some straight talk; and 'Dumpling' here will tell you that as a man of forty my tongue was as ready as my pen. Anyhow, I touched Roundhead on the raw and lashed him into such a proper passion that nothing would do but to settle it there and then in the old style. Tommy put down his five shillings and I covered it, though nobody knew 'twas the last two half-crowns I had in my fob at the time. But I was itching to have a slap at the beggar, and into the Ring I went and shouted for Roundhead. Raining, mind you, all the time--raining rivers, you might say. Well, up hops Roundhead, stripped to the buff and as thin as a dead frog; and when the people saw him in his skin and counted his ribs, they laughed fit to wake the churchyard. But thin though Tommy was, I knew right well that I was thinner. However, I cared nothing for that, and was just getting out of my togs, when some reporters and other chaps, having a respect for me as a poet and a man in a thousand, came between and wouldn't hear of it.

"'What about my five bob?' I said. 'D---- your five bob, "Frosty,"' they said. 'Here's ten.' And so, without 'by your leave,' they thrust me back into my clothes and dragged the arm out of my 'upper Benjamin' in doing it. 'Twas just the world's respect for me as a maker of verses, you might say, that kept me out of the Ring that day. So I soon had the true blue stakes up and went off with 'em; and the ropes and staples and beetle, and all the rest of it."

A warlike atmosphere seemed to waken in the peaceful bar of 'The Corner House.' The youths imagined themselves engaged in terrific trials of strength; their elders pictured the joy of playing spectators' parts. Mr. Fogo told story after story, and it seemed with few exceptions that the heroes of the ring, tricky though they might be in battle, were men of simple probity and honourable spirit. His great hero was 'Bendigo,' William Thompson of Nottingham, a Champion of England.

"And 'Bendy's' going strong yet," said Mr. Fogo. "After his last fight with Paddock, about ten year ago now--a bad fight too--'Bendy' won on a foul; after that he got converted, as they say, and took to preaching. He's at it yet and does pretty well, I believe."

"'Bendy' with a white choker! What a wonder!" declared Mr. Shillabeer.

"Yes--he met a noble lord last time he was in London," continued Mr. Fogo. "And his lordship recognised him for all his pulpit toggery. 'Good Gad!' says his lordship, ''tis "Bendy"! And what's your little game now, my bold hero?' 'Not a little game at all, my lord,' says 'Bendigo'--always ready with a word he was. 'I'm fighting Satan, and I'm going to beat him. Behold, my lord, the victory shall be mine,' he says in his best preaching voice. 'I hope so, "Bendy,"' answers his lordship; 'but pray have a care that you fight Beelzebub fairer than you did Ben Gaunt, or I may change my side!' Not that 'Bendigo' ever fought unfair; but he had to be clever with a giant like Gaunt; and he had to go down--else he'd have stood no chance at all with such a heavy man."

"One of three at a birth 'Bendy' was," concluded the 'Dumpling.' "I never knew one of triplets to do any good in the world before."

At this juncture in the conversation Bartley Crocker entered the bar. He had not heard of the celebrity, but soon, despite his own cares, found himself as interested as the others. The talk of battle inflamed him and, to the delight of the guests assembled, a thing most of them frankly desired actually happened within the hour.

David scowled into Bartley's eyes presently, and the younger, who was quite willing to pick a quarrel with this man of all men, walked across the bar and stood close to him.

"Is there any reason why you should pull your face crooked at sight of me, David Bowden?" he asked.

Something of the truth between these two was known. Therefore all kept silence.

"'Twas scorn of you made me do it. A chap who could kiss a girl, without asking if he might, be a coward."

"Bah! that's the matter--eh? Because I kissed your sister!"

"Yes; and if you think 'twas a decent man's act, it only shows you're not decent. Shame on you--low-minded chap that you are!"

"Not decent, because I kissed a pretty girl? D'you mean that?"

"Yes, I do."

"Did Rhoda tell you?"

"Yes, she did--when I axed her what ailed her."

"Well, hear this. You're a narrow-minded, canting fool; and if women understood you better, you wouldn't have won Madge Stanbury."

"Don't you name her, or I'll knock your two eyes into one!"

"Do it!" answered Bartley; "and if that'll help you to start, so much the better."

As he spoke and with infinite quickness he raised his hand and pulled David's nose. A second later they were in the sawdust together.

The huge Shillabeer pulled them apart, like a man separates a pair of terriers. Then Simon Snell, Ernest Maunder and Timothy Mattacott held Bartley, while, single-handed, the 'Dumpling' restrained young Bowden. Immense excitement marked the moment. Only Mr. Fogo puffed his long clay and showed no emotion. A senseless babel choked the air, and then Shillabeer's heavy voice shouted down the rest and he made himself heard.

"I won't have it!" he said. "I'm ashamed that you grown-up chaps can sink to temper like this and disgrace yourselves and me and the company. Strangers present too! If you want to fight, then fight in a decent and gentlemanly way--not like two dogs over a bone."

"I do want to fight," said Bartley. "I want nothing better in this world than to give that man the damnedest hiding ever a man had."

"And I'm the same," said Bowden. He was now quite calm again. "I'm sorry I forgot myself in your bar, Mr. Shillabeer, but no man can say I hadn't enough to make me. I'll not talk big nor threaten, nor say what I'll do to him, but I'll fight him for all he's worth--to-morrow if he likes."

"Now you're talking sense," declared the innkeeper. "A fair fight no man can object to, and if it's known in the proper quarters and not in the wrong ones, there ought to be a little money moving for both of you. How do they stand for a match, Fogo? Come forward, David, and let 'Frosty-face' have a look at you."

"Let 'em shake hands first," said Mr. Fogo.

"I'll do so," declared Bowden, "on the understanding that we're to fight this side of Christmas."

"The sooner the better," retorted Crocker. Then they shook hands and Mr. Fogo's glittering eyes inspected them.

"Weight as near as can be," he said. "At least, I judge it without seeing your barrels. This man's the younger, I suppose."

He pointed to Bartley.

"I'm twenty-five," said Mr. Crocker.

"Ay; and stand six feet--?"

"Five feet eleven and a half."

"Weight eleven stone?"

"A bit less."

Mr. Fogo nodded.

"You've got the reach, t'other chap's got the powder."

Then he examined David.

"Age?" he said.

"Twenty-eight."

"Height?"

"Five foot nine."

"Weight?"

"Eleven two, or thereabout."

"Do either of you know anything of the art?"

"I don't," said Bartley.

"No more don't I," added Bowden.

Fogo looked them up and down carefully.

"There's no reason on the surface why you shouldn't fight a pretty mill."

"How long can you stop with me, 'Frosty'?" asked Mr. Shillabeer.

"Well, if there was a few yellow-boys[#] in it, I might go as far as three weeks. I ought to see Tom King about something of the greatest importance before long; but I can write it. If these chaps will come to the scratch in three weeks, I'll stop. And they both look hard and healthy; and as neither of 'em know anything, it may be a short fight."

[#] Sovereigns.

Much talk followed and, in the midst, the visitor rose, put down his pipe and left the bar.

Then up spoke Ernest Maunder in the majesty of the law.

"I warn you, souls," he said, "that I can't countenance this. If there's to be fighting, you've got me against you, and to-morrow I shall lay information with the Justice of the Peace and get a warrant out."

"I hope you'll mind your own business," said Crocker, warmly. "The man who spoils sport when Bowden and me meet, is like to get spoilt himself."

"You won't frighten me," returned Ernest. "As a common man I'd give you best, Bartley; but in my blue and with right my side, you'll find me an ugly customer, I warn you. Bowden here was daring me to be up and doing a bit ago. Well, you'll soon see how 'tis if you try to plan to break the law and fight a prize fight in this parish! I know my business, and that you'll find."

"And I'm with you," declared Mr. Moses. "Have no fear, Maunder. The Church and the State are both o' your side, and let vicar but get wind of this and he'll--"

"You keep out of it, Moses," said Mr. Shillabeer, warmly. "We be very good friends and long may we remain so; but stick to your last, shoemaker, and if these full-grown men be pleased to settle their difference in the fine old way, 'tis very churlish in you to oppose it."

"Well said, 'Dumpling,'" shouted a young, odd-looking, hairy man with the uneuphonious name of Screech; "if Moses here don't like fair play and nature's weapons, let him keep out of it; but if he tries to interfere, never a boot do he make for me again."

"Nor yet for me," cried Bowden. "You'll do well to go back on that, Mr. Moses, and keep away from the subject."

"Nor yet for me," echoed Timothy Mattacott, firmly. "I'm Maunder's friend, as you all know, and hope to remain so. But if there's to be the glad chance of a proper prize fight in this neighbourhood, I'm for it heart and soul."

Mr. Fogo had returned and heard some of this conversation.

"If the gentleman's a Jew," he said, "he ought to take kindly to the sport. Some of the best boys as ever threw a beaver into the Ring were Israelites--only to name Mendoza and Dutch Sam and Barney Aaron, 'the Star of the East.'"

"I'm not a Jew," said Mr. Moses, "though I don't blame you for thinking so."

"Not with that name?"

"Not at all. My people are Devon all through."

"Well," said Fogo, "my humble custom is to make hay while the sun shines. We Cockney blokes learn that quite as quick as you Johnny Raws from the plough-tail; and as there's a fight in the air, I'll be so bold as to sell a few of my verses to them brave blades that would like to see what fighting was once."

On his arm he carried fifty broadsheets, and now the old sportsman began to distribute them.

"Twopence each, gentlemen--all true and partickler with the names of the Fancy present: Mr. Jackson, Mr. Gully, Tom Cribb, Jem Burn, Tom Spring, and all the old originals. The poems go from the first fight that I ever saw between Hen Pearce, 'the Game Chicken,' and that poor, old, one-eyed lion, Jem Belcher, in 1805; to the great mill between Mr. Sayers and Mr. Heenan a year ago, when our man fought the Yankee with one hand and jolly near beat him at that. All out of my own head, gentlemen, and only twopence each!"

Mr. Fogo distributed his warlike verses in every direction; then when not a poem remained, he began to collect them again. But the company proved in very vein for these lays of blood. Both the future combatants made several purchases; Mr. Snell also patronised the poet, while Mattacott, Screech, and even Mr. Maunder himself, became possessed of 'Frosty-face's' sanguine chronicles.

It being now closing time, the storm-laden air was cleared; the noisy company, with laughter and repetition of racy couplets from Mr. Fogo's muse, retired, and at last the two old friends were left alone. Shillabeer shut up his bar and locked the house; 'Frosty' counted the contents of his pocket and gathered up the poems still unsold.

"I ought to share the booty with you, 'Dumpling,'" he said, but his host scorned the thought.

"Hope you'll be sold out long afore you go," he returned. "And as to sharing, that's nonsense. You're a great man, and if you be going to stop along of me for three weeks, you'll bring a lot of custom, for the people will come from far and near to see you."

"Of course if you put it that way, I say no more, because you know best," declared Fogo.

Presently they sat together over a final pipe.

"Now talk of the wife," said Reuben.

Mr. Fogo obeyed, cast his acute countenance into a mould of melancholy, appeared to draw a film over his piercing eyes, ceased joyously to rattle the money in his breeches pocket, and shook his head sadly once or twice to catch the spirit of the theme.

"The biggest and the best woman I ever saw, or ever hope to see," he began. "I picture her now--as a young, gay creature in her father's shop at the corner of the Dials. Rabbits and caveys and birds he sold and him a sportsman to the marrow. Thirteen stone in her maiden days, they used to say, and very nearly six feet high--the wonder and the joy of the male sex. And 'twas left for you to win that rare female. And you did; and you was the envied of London, 'Dumpling'--the envied of London."

Mr. Shillabeer nodded, sighed heavily, and licked his lips at these picturesque words.

"It brings her back--so large as life--to hear you tell about her. 'Twas the weight she put on after marriage that killed her, 'Frosty,'" he said. "You must see her grave in the burying-ground."

"And take my hat off to it--so I will."

"There's room for me beside her, come my turn, Fogo."

"Quite right--perfectly right. You couldn't wait for the trump of Doom beside a better woman."

Reuben next gave all details of his wife's last illness, and the subject occupied him until midnight when conversation drifted from Mrs. Shillabeer to other matters. They talked until the peat fire sank to a red eye and the air grew cold. Then conversation waned and both heroes began to grow sleepy.

Mr. Shillabeer rose first and concluded the wide survey.

"Ah, 'Frosty,' the days we've seen!" he said.

"I'm with you," answered the poet, also rising. "'Tis all summed up in that word and couldn't be put better,--'The days we've seen!'"

CHAPTER X

SOME INTERVIEWS

Those from whom it was most desired to keep all information of the coming fight were the first to hear of it. Mr. Moses told Mr. Merle, the vicar, and Mr. Merle resented the news bitterly. He decided, indeed, that such a proceeding would disgrace the parish.

"We might as well revive the horrors of our bull-ring," he said. "It cannot and must not be."

The good man referred to a considerable tract of ground beneath the southern wall of the churchyard--a region known as the 'bull-ring' and authentically connected with obsolete sports.

Ernest Maunder was most unfortunate in the ally that he had expected to win. Sir Guy Flamank, the lord of the manor, though enrolled on the Commission of the Peace, was before all else a sportsman, as he declared at every opportunity. Somehow this gentleman, by means mysteriously hidden, became aware of the little matter in hand on the very morning after the arrangement, and though Ernest called at the Manor House, he found the Justice unable to see him. Thrice he was thus evaded, and when once he met Sir Guy on horseback, Mr. Maunder could not fail to mark how the knight retreated before him with obvious and paltry evasion. That a Justice of the Peace could thus ignore his responsibilities, caused both Mr. Maunder and Mr. Moses much indignant uneasiness.

At breakfast on the day after his undertaking, David Bowden announced the thing he intended to do; and while his mother wept some natural tears, nobody else showed any sorrowful emotion. Indeed Elias was grimly glad.

"Well done thou!" he said. "I've long wanted for some son of mine to show me a bit of valour above common, and now 'tis left for the eldest to do it. You'll trounce him to the truth of music, for there's a tougher heart in you than that man, and you've lived a tougher life."

"What'll Madge say?" asked Dorcas.

"She needn't know about it," declared David. "We're to fight in about three weeks, and the day's to be kept a secret as long as possible."

"What d'you want to fight for?" asked his mother.

"It's natural. We can't be friends no more till we've had it out. You see, he was after my Madge, and I bested him, and--besides--I had another crow to pluck with the man."

A martial spirit awoke at the Warren House and Mr. Bowden frankly revelled in this business, the more so because he believed that his son must win easily. The twins took to sparring from that hour, and Napoleon and Wellington fought their battles over again. Elias sent to Plymouth for a pair of boxing gloves, and Joshua for the good of the cause, albeit not fond of hard knocks, stood up to David for half an hour each day. It was arranged that young Bowden should train at home for a fortnight and then go to Plymouth and put himself in the hands of a professional at that town for some final polish.

The brother and sister had a private talk of special significance soon after the making of the match.

David met Rhoda returning from Sheepstor, and her face was grave.

"I've just heard more about that business than you told us, David," she said. "'Tis as much for what he done to me as anything, that you be going to fight him."

"No matter the reason. A licking will do him good--if I can give him one."

"Look here," she said--impulsively for her--"I must be in this fight. You're everything to me, David--everything. I can't keep away and I won't keep away. You know the sort of pluck I've got. Well, I must be in that Ring--me and father--"

David gasped.

"Would you?"

"I tell you I must. Something calls out to me to do it. You can't fight without me there, and I don't believe you can win without me. I swear I feel it so. Wouldn't you rather have me in your corner than any man if it comes to that?"

"Yes," he admitted, "I would; but you can't do what's got to do."

"I can do all," she replied. "I talked to Mr. Shillabeer to-day, when I'd made up my mind, and I axed him what the bottle-holder have to do; and he told me. I can do it all--every bit of it."

"You shall then!" said David.

She flushed with pleasure.

"You won't regret it. I may help you to win a bit. A woman that can keep her head, like I can, is useful anywhere."

"'Twill be you and faither--and I suppose that Crocker will have the 'Dumpling' and this queer, old, white-headed London man on his side."

"I'm gay and proud as you can trust me in such a thing," she said, her breast heaving.

"Yes--and now I think on it--you and me being what we are each to t'other--I will have it so. I couldn't fight all I know if you wasn't there, Rhoda. But I warn you, 'tis ugly work. You mustn't mind seeing my head knocked into a lump of black and blue flesh."

"That's nought so long as you win. 'Twill come right again."

"But I may not win. You never know how the luck will fall."

"You must win," she answered. "'Tisn't in nature that such an evil man as him can beat you."

"I shan't stop so long as I can see, or so long as I can stand," he said. "I think I shall win myself, but it don't do to brag."

Then Rhoda told him something that disturbed him not a little.

"Margaret Stanbury knows about it," she said. "I met Mr. Snell, and he was full of it, and we had a tell. Then he told me that Timothy Mattacott was out Down Tor way, and met Madge, and went and told her. So you'll have to calm her down somehow."

"Better you do," he answered. "'Tis a woman's job. Get over this afternoon, like a good girl, and just make light of it. Tell her I'm coming across o' Sunday but can't sooner."

Rhoda obeyed and later in the day saw Madge. David's sweetheart was tearful and much perturbed.

"'Tis all my fault," she said. "Oh, Rhoda, can't nothing be done to stop it? Such terrible strong men--they'll kill each other."

"No, they won't; and 'tisn't all your fault," answered the elder. "It had to come off afore they could be friends again. 'Tis to be a fair, stand-up fight; and the best man will win; and that's our David. Don't take on and make a fuss afore him, if you want to keep friends with him. David's like faither, all for valour. He'll be vexed if you cry about it. Time enough for us to cry if he's worsted. But he won't be."

"'Tis hard for me, because I know 'em both so well," said Margaret.

"And 'tis easy for me, because I know 'em both so well," answered Rhoda. "No man ever wanted his beastly nature cooled down with a good hiding more than what Bartley Crocker does. And, be it as 'twill, 'twas Crocker that made the fight, not David."

"I shall go mad when the day comes," said Margaret.

"No, you won't, because you won't know the day. 'Tis to be kept a dark secret. And I'm going in the Ring to look after my brother."

"Rhoda!"

"I am, though. He wants it. He will have it so."

"Be you made of iron?"

"Yes, where David's good is the matter. He wants me there--and there I shall be."

"The men will hoot you--'tis an unwomanly thing."

"D'you think I care for that, so long as I know it isn't?"

"If any woman's to be there, 'tis his future wife, I should think," said Madge; but Rhoda laughed.

"You! You'd faint when--but there, don't think no more about it. Men will be men, when they're built on the pattern of David. I come from him to tell you not to fret, so mind you don't."

"'Fret!' I shall fret my hair grey, and so will mother," said the promised wife. "To think of his beautiful face all smashed about--and Bartley too--both such good-looking, kindly chaps! What ever do they want to fight about? Can't they settle their quarrels no other way?"

"You should know 'em better. 'Tis a deeper thing than a quarrel. If they are to be friends, they must hammer one another a bit first. Why not? You puzzle me. Do 'e want 'em to have their minds full of poison to each other for evermore? Better fight and let it out."

"I shall pray David, if ever he loved me, not to do it."

"Don't," said Rhoda. "Don't be a fool, Madge. I know David better than what you do; and, if you're that sort, you never will know him as well as I know him; because you'll vex and cross him and he'll hide himself from you. He's a strong, hard man and straight as sunlight. If you're going to be soft and silly over this, or over anything, you won't make him love you any the better. Take my advice and try to feel like I do--like a man about it. It's got to be, and if you are against it and come to him with a long face and silly prayers not to fight for your sake, and all that stuff, you won't choke him off fighting, but you may choke him off--"

"'Off me' you were going to say. Well, that's where I know him better than you do, for all you know him so well, Rhoda. But don't think I'm a fool. 'Tis natural I don't want the dear face I love to be bruised by another man's fist; but if 'tis to be--'tis to be. I only ask to know why 'tis to be. I suppose David can tell me that?"

"We'll leave it so then, since you don't know why," said the other. "How's the pup? Have it settled down?"

But if Margaret Stanbury viewed this battle with dismay, her emotions were trivial compared with those of Bartley Crocker's mother and Bartley Crocker's aunt.

In vain did the fighter try to keep his great secret from them. It was impossible, and Mr. Moses laid every detail of the proposed encounter before Nanny two mornings after he had heard about it.

Bartley was from home when Charles Moses arrived, and the shoemaker harrowed and horrified his two listeners at leisure. Such palpitation overtook Mrs. Crocker, that the very cotoneaster on the outer walls seemed to throb to its berried crown; while as for Aunt Susan Saunders, having once grasped the nature of the things to be, her heart quite overcame her and she wept. But the mother of Bartley wept not: she panted--panted with wrath till her expansive bust creaked. Her anger flowed forth like a tide and swallowed first Mr. Shillabeer and the low characters he encouraged at 'The Corner House'; next, David Bowden and his family; next, the Stanburys, who doubtless were deeply involved in this contemplated crime; and lastly, the aged stranger, Mr. Fogo, concerning whose bloodthirsty and blood-stained career Charles Moses had dropped some hints. Her son Mrs. Crocker blamed not at all. She scoffed at the notion of her innocent and amiable boy seeking to batter any man.

"Bring me my salts, Susan, and don't snivel," said the mother. "For Bartley to be up in arms like this here--why, I never will believe it! And me a bailiff's daughter, as everybody knows, and him with the blood of the Saunders family in his veins. They've harried him into it along of his pluck and courage; but it shan't be if I can put my bosom between him and bloodshed. Bartley to be struck and assaulted by a warrener, and a common man at that! Wasn't it enough thicky, empty-headed wench at Coombeshead chose that yellow-haired Bowden, when she might have had a Crocker? And now, if you please, the ruffian, not content with getting the girl, wants to fight my boy!"

"It's my duty to tell you, ma'am, that your son's quite as set on it as t'other," declared Mr. Moses.

"No doubt; and a good whipping he'd give the man if it came to it; but it mustn't come to it. We're in a Christian land, and this firebrand, that's crept among us with his wicked rhymes, ought to be taken up and led behind the cart-tail and flogged out of the parish."

"I'm glad you take such a high, womanly view," said the shoemaker; "because you'm another on our side, and will be a tower of strength. They are to fight in about three weeks' time--afore Christmas. That is, if we, on the side of law and order--namely, his reverence, and me, and you, and Ernest Maunder, can't prevent it. I'm sorry to say everybody else wants to see them fight--even Sir Guy--more shame to him!"

"I'll have the place by the ears rather than it should happen," said Mrs. Crocker. "I'll have Bartley took up rather than he should have his face touched by that--that rabbit-catching good-for-nought up to Ditsworthy. Why, I'll even go up there myself and talk to Elias Bowden. This thing shan't be--not if a determined woman can prevent it."

Mr. Moses retired comforted in some sort, for he felt that Mrs. Crocker was probably stronger than the policeman and the vicar put together. But meantime, on the other side, matters developed steadily. Shillabeer and 'Frosty-faced Fogo' had taken charge of Bartley Crocker, and he prepared for battle with the benefit of all their immense experience. From the first, rumours of interference and interruption were rife; but Fogo treated them with disdain.

"Leave all that to me," he said. "I've been evading the 'blues' and the 'beaks' ever since I came to man's estate, and if I can't hoodwink you simple bumpkins--parsons and all--well, I'll pay the stakes myself."

For stakes there were, and Mr. Fogo, who insisted on seeing all things done decently and in order, arranged that five pounds a side should be posted to bind the match and five pounds more paid in the day before the battle. Mr. Bowden found the money for David, and no less a worthy than Sir Guy Flamank himself, having first commanded terrific oaths of secrecy from Mr. Fogo and Mr. Shillabeer, produced ten pounds for Bartley Crocker. He was young and had never seen a fight.

A great many local sportsmen evinced the keenest interest in the proceedings, but with British hypocrisy strove hard to conceal that interest, out of respect to the people who were not sportsmen. As for the combatants, to their surprise they found themselves rapidly developing into men of renown. Even the hosts of the lesser Bowdens were received with respect among their friends, in that they happened to be actual brothers of a hero. It might have been remarked that while most people at first expected Bowden to win, the larger number coupled the prophecy with a hope that they would be mistaken. From the beginning Bartley was the more popular combatant; and when certain opinions respecting him left the narrow lips of Mr. Fogo at 'The Corner House,' a little betting opened and ruled at two to one on the younger man.

Mr. Shillabeer set to work to teach Bartley the rudiments, but he found himself too slow and scant of breath to be of any service. A young boxer from Plymouth was therefore engaged--he who in Mr. Fogo's skilful hands had won a recent battle--and he swiftly initiated Crocker.

And then it was that the Londoner pronounced this raw material in many respects above the average, and declared that Bartley, among his other qualifications, had some unsuspected talent for milling. He was quick and very active on his legs. He hit straight naturally, not round. His left promised to be very useful and he had a vague idea of hitting on the retreat and countering--arts usually quite unappreciated by the novice. In fact, Mr. Fogo, from an attitude of indifference, presently developed mild interest in the coming battle and was often at hand when Bartley donned the mittens. He also superintended his training, and bore him company, for a part of the distance, on some of those lengthy tramps prescribed by Mr. Shillabeer.

Upon one of these occasions, however, Bartley was alone and chance willed that he should meet Margaret returning from Ditsworthy. She was depressed and he asked her why.

"For fifty reasons; and you know most of 'em," she answered. "I've just been eating dinner to the Warren House. Somehow it always makes me wisht. There's that young fellow, by the name of Billy Screech, running after Dorcas, and none of 'em like him or will hear of such a thing. And then the silence! They won't talk afore me. You can hear every pair of teeth working and every bite and sup going down. But that's not what's on my mind. 'Tis this awful fight. Oh, Bartley, can't you make it up?"

"We have, long ago. We're quite friendly. 'Tis no more now than a sporting fixture for ten pounds a side. There'll be twenty pounds more for furniture for your new home, Madge--if I'm licked."

"Don't talk like that. 'Twould always be covered wi' bloodstains in my eyes. Can't you use the gloves? Why do you want to knock your poor noses crooked for? 'Tis like savage tigers more than Christian men."

"Don't you worry. The colours be coming Monday. Of course I can't ask you to wear mine; but they're prettier far than David's. 'Twas Mr. Fogo's idea. I shall have the same as the mighty champion, Ben Caunt, once had."

"I don't want to hear nothing about it, and I pray to God every night on my knees that it may be stopped."

"Well, you'll be proud of one of us," he said. "I can't expect you to want me to win; but you mustn't be very much surprised if I do. This old Fogo finds I've got a bit of the right stuff in me; and for that matter, I've found it out myself. I take to it like a duck takes to water. I've always been fond of dancing--nobody knows that better than you--and dancing is very helpful to a fighter. To hit and get off without being hit back--that's the whole art of prize-fighting, and I'm afraid I shall hit David twice to his once."

Instantly the lover came to Madge's heart, despite herself.

"He doesn't brag," she said. "He's very quiet and humble about it. But maybe you'll find he can hit too, Bartley, though I grant you he can't dance."

He laughed and left her then; and next day as the pugilist from Plymouth had to return home about his business, an experienced local called Pierce, from Kingsett Farm, near Crazywell, on Dartmoor, was prevailed upon to assist. He and Crocker set to steadily. But Pierce was nearly forty, and too small for Bartley; therefore the lord of the manor himself filled the breach. Not, indeed, that Sir Guy Flamank put on the gloves; but he found a large-limbed youth down for Christmas from Oxford, who was the heavy-weight champion at that seat of learning, and this skilful youngster gave Bartley some invaluable information.

Little was known respecting David's progress; but Elias Bowden made the acquaintance of 'Frosty-face,' and provided this celebrity with one or two days' sport on the warren. Mr. Fogo proved no mean shot, and among other game of a good mixed bag, two wood-pigeons and three golden plover fell to his borrowed weapon. He discussed the Prize Ring for the gratification of Mr. Bowden on this occasion, but though David's father tried hard to learn how Bartley was coming on in his training, Mr. Fogo's silence upon that theme exceeded even the customary taciturnity of the Warren House. He was only concerned with the growing rumours of organised interference, yet he assured Mr. Bowden that the fight would certainly come off, at a time and place to be arranged by him and Reuben Shillabeer.

It is to be noted that Crocker had now left his home altogether, and was living at 'The Corner House.' The high-handed attitude of his mother and her immense energy and indignation rendered this step necessary. The reminder that his grandfather had been a bailiff lacked force to shake Bartley from his evil determination; therefore she threatened to disinherit him, and hinted at incarceration and other vague counter-strokes. But when day followed day and nothing moderated his intention; when she saw that he had given up malt liquor and spirits; that he insisted on certain foods; that he rose at reasonable hours and took an immense deal of active exercise--when, in fact, she grasped the truth that her only son meant to fight a prize-fight, and was taking every possible precaution to win it, then she broke down and threatened no more, but became hysterical, melodramatic and mournful. It was enough that he entered the house for Nanny to fling herself into an attitude of despair. Her appetite suffered, her sleep suffered, even her spirits suffered. From being a dictatorial and assertive woman, who used her personality like a pistol, she grew meek, mild and plaintive. She wearied her hearers; she filled Susan's ears with pathetic details concerning her wasting flesh, and begged her to report them again to Bartley. Thus her son learned that his mother's stockings had become too large for her attenuated calves, and that her dresses were being taken in many inches as the result of a general atrophy of tissue produced by his behaviour. Nanny's eyes haunted him. She had, moreover, an art to drop tears exactly at those moments when he cast a sly side glance at her face. She would drop them on to her work, or her plate, or into her tea.

These distressing circumstances finally ejected Bartley from the maternal threshold. He saw his mother daily, but felt that until the battle was lost or won, he could endure her constant remonstrances no more. He strove to make her take a sterner view, and she assured him that had she not been a woman of gentle birth, it might have been possible; but from one with the delicate Saunders blood in her veins, only a genteel outlook on life could be expected; and there was no room for tolerance of prize-fighting in that survey.

CHAPTER XI

MR. FOGO IS SHOCKED

'Frosty-face' very naturally looked to it that this little encounter of rustics should have some useful bearing on his own affairs. He was a poor man and could not afford to ignore opportunities. With Mr. Shillabeer he set about reviving all the glories of the twenty-four-foot square, and he was determined that nothing should be omitted which could make the approaching fight a dignified and successful entertainment, worthy, in its small way, of the best traditions.

Before a full bar Mr. Fogo spoke at length. He had sold thirteen of his poems that evening, and he was now about to unfasten a parcel that day received from London; but, before doing so, he outlined the situation.

"I'm very pleased to find you know a bit down here," he began. "There's more of the right sort in these parts than we might have expected, and there'll be a good sprinkling of Corinthians at the ring-side too. The doctor from Tavistock, who is going to referee, is as spicy a dare-devil as I wish to meet at any mill; and he knows his job; and afterwards, if either of you chaps want to be blooded, he can do it for you."

"We shall judge of the patronage by the number of fogies the swells take up," said Mr. Shillabeer. "You see, the old rule is that a fighter gives his colours to all who'll take 'em; and it's understood that if he's beat, the colours cost nought; but if he wins, everybody as took a handkerchief be expected to pay a guinea for it."

"Well, here they are," answered 'Frosty-face.' "I got 'em myself so cheap as they could be got through a friend. Fifty there are--twenty-five for each of the men--and if they go off, I can get more at the same low figure."

He opened his parcel and revealed the colours. Bartley and several of his friends were present; but David, who was to call that night with his father, had not yet arrived. Mr. Crocker's handkerchief was much admired. It showed a rich orange centre bordered with three inches of purple.

Both Fogo and Shillabeer took one, though not on the usual understanding, and Bartley calculated that he knew about twenty sportsmen, including Sir Guy, who would be glad to possess this memento of the battle.

Then came the Bowdens, and the future combatants shook hands in a friendly spirit and compared their colours. David's were simpler and quieter--a blue 'bird's-eye' with a white spot. Both parties could number a good handful of patrons, and the encounter, albeit date and place were still kept a dark secret, promised to be well attended.

"I'm painting the true blue stakes myself," said 'Frosty-face,' "and we'll have a nobby ring if we don't have a nobby fight in it."

"And where is it to be, Mr. Fogo?" asked Simon Snell.

"I wouldn't tell everybody, but you shall know," answered the old man, assuming a grim expression, which always preceded his finest jokes. "We'll have our turn up in the bull-ring, Mr. Snell. It have seen many a bit of fun, they tell me, so why not a bit more?"

Everybody laughed, because Sheepstor bull-ring was the most public spot for many miles round. It lay under the churchyard wall at the centre of the hamlet.

"Couldn't choose a better place, all the same," said Reuben Shillabeer, "that is, if they'd let us alone. The burying-ground runs eight feet above the ring; and there's good grass there, and a nice tilt to the ground, and proper trees all round for the sporting public to climb into. However, that's rather too warm a corner for modest men. We don't want the eyes of the nation on us."

"Leave it to me," said the Londoner. "There are certain people we shan't have no use for on the morning of the fight. And if they stop at Sheepstor, 'tis clear we must go somewhere else. However, look to me; I'll give you the office in plenty of time."

"You'll never get round parson and Mr. Moses and p'liceman and Mrs. Crocker," foretold Tim Mattacott.

"I fear but one of 'em," answered Mr. Fogo. "They are all harmless men, and I can handle 'em as easy as a mother handles her tenth babby. 'Tis that spry lady will take some stopping. I've not got the length of her foot yet--to say it with all respect. But all in good time."

"There's to be a sermon preached by Mr. Merle next Sunday against this here fight," said Mr. Bowden. "I'm sorry to the bone that he's taken this view, because I never like to quarrel with my betters; but to the House of the Lord me and mine go as usual next Sunday, and whatever he may preach won't change my opinions."

"And I'll go too," declared Fogo. "Yes, I'll go and hear his argeyments. 'Tis a good few years since I was in a place of prayer--in fact, never since I stood best man when Alec Reid, 'the Chelsea Snob,' was married. But on Sunday I shall be there, and you'll see I can shut my eyes and sniff my hat with the best among ye."

"You shall come along of me," said the 'Dumpling.' "I go most times and get a deal of good from it. My wife was a steady church member, for though she'd fling off to chapel for change now and again, as women will, yet she comed back again and again to the Establishment; and she died in it, and Parson Merle will tell you 'twas so."

Then exploded suddenly a piece of news that quite staggered and shocked the renowned visitor. It also cast down Mr. Shillabeer, for he felt that Fogo, as a man, and the P.R., as an institution, were alike insulted by such an astounding assertion from the rival camp.

The question of seconds had been raised and Mr. Fogo explained that he and Shillabeer proposed to look after Crocker.

"I shall carry the bottle and offer advice as it's called for, and Reuben will pick him up and give him a knee," he declared.

"If he wants it," added the 'Dumpling'; "but unless David here be cleverer than we think he is, Bartley won't ask for much picking up."

"And who are going to look after you?" asked Fogo of David.

"My father and--"

"He can't pick you up. Who else?"

"And my sister, Rhoda Bowden--a strong maiden. She and father will do all that's got to be done."

"Blow my dickey!" said Mr. Fogo, "that's the first knock-down for you anyway. A woman--a woman in the P.R.! You really thought that? That's the best joke I've heard since '45."

"It's settled," said David, calmly.

"A woman in the P.R.!" repeated Fogo. "Well, I've seen most things during the last seventy years, but not that. Why don't you ax your sister to fight for you?"

"Look here," said the elder Bowden, "I won't have nothing said in this matter by you or anybody, Mr. Fogo, till you see for yourselves. Anyway it's going to happen."

"I quite agree!" declared Mr. Snell, suddenly. "Miss Rhoda's a born wonder and a most renowned creature for courage. None ever was like her. A female no more feared to look on blood than we be to count our wages. And as to picking him up, she could pick him up--and you too, Mr. Fogo, as easily as I can turn a stop-cock."

"Can such things be?" asked Mr. Fogo. "This bangs Bannagher! A woman--a young, female woman inside the P.R.! 'Tis enough to provoke the anger of Heaven. May I die like a trundle-tailed cur, with a brick round my neck, if I could ever stand it!"

"'Tis my girl that you saw up to the Warren House," said Mr. Bowden, "her you said was a very fine woman, and you wished you'd got such a pair of arms."

"Her with the chin?"

"She have a chin, I grant you."

"And who haven't?" asked Mr. Snell.

"You must know 'tisn't a common case," explained David. "My sister and me be very close friends, and she's terrible interested in this fight, and, in short, she'll have to be there--there's no law against it."

"I'm shocked," said the old man. "'Tis a very indecent, outrageous thing, and I protest with all my might. A petticoat in the P.R.! Can't everybody in this bar see it's all wrong and disgraceful and disorderly?"

"In a general way it would be," admitted Shillabeer; "but she ain't no common young woman, 'Frosty,' and I'm not surprised to hear she means it. She was axing me what a bottle-holder be expected to do a bit back-along; and I half twigged that she'd got this idea in her noddle."

"Then it's the end of the world," declared Mr. Fogo. "I ask for nothing more. Perhaps our man wants his mother in his corner--also his aunt? I'm sure they very much wish to be there by all accounts."

"Since the fight be in part about my sister, she's a right on the spot," said David; "and this I'll tell you, Mr. Fogo: though you laugh, you'll see what she's like in the Ring; and if she does one thing--one single thing--she shouldn't, and fails of aught where a man could do better, then I'll give you the stakes if I win 'em."

"It's contrary to all history and law and decency and nature. It isn't possible, I tell you. Here am I trying to revive the P.R. in a first chop, gentlemanly fashion, and then you yokels plan a sin and a shame like this," said Mr. Fogo. He was very much annoyed and returned again and again to the threatened female incursion. Most of the company agreed with him; indeed, only the Bowdens and Simon Snell supported Rhoda as a second. Mr. Shillabeer was doubtful.

"Be there any law against it? That's the question," he said. "Well, I can't say there is, 'Frosty.' Of course there's nought in the rules about it."

"Because the rules was drawn for respectable, law-abiding people," answered Mr. Fogo.

They wrangled on, while David and Bartley spoke aside.

"Did you say that Miss Rhoda was really interested?" asked Crocker. "I shouldn't like to think that, David. I know I kissed her, like a silly fool, in the Pixies' House that day of the storm; but she don't bear malice, I hope, any more than you do?"

"Oh, no--no malice. It angered her cruel all the same, as it did me; and she won't be sorry to see you lose--though there's no malice--certainly not."

"You're in luck with such a sister and such a wife to be."

David changed the subject.

"Have they settled where 'tis to come off?"

"No--only the day."

"Monday week?"

"Yes."

"I'm going down to Plymouth Monday to practise with the boxers there," said David, and Bartley nodded.

"They'll larn you a lot," he said.

Mr. Fogo's voice again rose in wrath.

"The Fancy won't stand it. Mark me; they'll hiss her out of the Ring. Such a thing won't be suffered in a Christian land."

The hour grew late and Mr. Maunder looked in somewhat coldly. Since his vital difference of opinion on the subject of the prize-fight, he had withdrawn his patronage from 'The Corner House.' It was felt that he could hardly be present in the camp of a combatant until the matter of the pending battle was at an end.

"Closing time, Mr. Shillabeer," he said, and the 'Dumpling' nodded.

"Right you are, Ernest. Come in and take a thimbleful along with me, won't 'e?"

"No, thank you. Not till this business is over. I'm against you, and I won't have bit or sup along with the enemy. I speak as the law, Shillabeer, and not as a man. Of course afterwards I shall come back again; but not till I've bested you, or you've bested me."

"Nobody could speak fairer," declared Mr. Shillabeer.

Then the company departed; Bartley Crocker went to bed; and Reuben asked his friend what steps he proposed to take with respect to evading the police on Monday week. But Fogo was in no amiable or communicative mood. His feelings had that night been much lacerated and the prospect of seeing a woman in a prize-ring affected him acutely. He would not talk about the matter, and when Mr. Shillabeer, according to custom, brought conversation round to his vanished partner over the last glass, Mr. Fogo failed of that tact for which he was renowned and refused even to speak well of the deceased.

"I've heard enough about women to make me sick of the name of female this night," he said. "I won't utter a word more about 'em, living or dead. Thank my stars I kept single anyway. They may be all right in their proper place, but they don't know the meaning of fair play, and are worse than useless in every branch of sport that man ever invented. You mark me: this man's sister will come across the ring and try to gouge our eyes out if her brother's getting worsted!"

"Not she," promised the 'Dumpling.' "I grant 'tis a sign the P.R.'s coming to nought that a chap should have his sister to second him in a fight; but since it had to be, never was a woman built more likely to give a good account of herself in that place than Rhoda Bowden."

"Well, I hope to God the Fancy will rise like one man," answered Mr. Fogo. "And now I'll go to my bed; and if I don't have a nightmare and dream that I'm in a Ring along with the Queen of England and a few duchesses and other high female characters, may I be blowed from here to the top of Paul's cathedral and back again."

He then retired.

Bowden and Crocker had both paid for their colours and Mr. Shillabeer called his friend back to hand him the money, which, in his misery, Mr. Fogo had forgotten.

CHAPTER XII

FOR THE GOOD CAUSE

Probably the Prince of Darkness himself had won little more profound attention than Mr. Fogo when, in his cape and black knee-breeches, the old sportsman attended divine service on the following Sunday. Those interested entirely attributed the forthcoming fight to him, and many of the mothers and grandmothers of the hamlet would have been well pleased to mob 'Frosty-face' and drive him by force of arms from the village.

One painful interview with Bartley Crocker's mother he had not been able to escape. She offered him ten pounds in gold to prevent the fight, and when he explained that not for a hundred or a thousand pounds would he be party to a 'cross,' she had 'given him a bit of her mind and threatened him with her ten commandments,' as he afterwards expressed it.

And now Mr. Fogo, supported by Mr. Shillabeer, sat at worship, answered the responses and even essayed to join in the hymns. The behaviour of both old men was marked by highest propriety; and both put a penny in the plate when it reached them. The Bowdens, including David, were also present, and Mr. Fogo's sole acts of inattention were caused by the circumstance that Rhoda sat beside her father. He stole several glances at her and observed a powerful, handsome young woman, exceedingly self-possessed and apparently well able to keep her nerve under any circumstances. He admitted to the 'Dumpling' that in an ordinary emergency or difficulty Miss Bowden might probably hold her own; but a prize-fight was not an ordinary emergency, and he held that, under no conceivable tangle of circumstances, should a woman, in any capacity whatsoever, be present at such a proceeding.

Mr. Merle preached, or it would be more correct to say thundered, from a peaceable text in the New Testament. He hit hard and spared not. From the lord of the manor to the landlord of 'The Corner House' he ranged; and he called heaven to witness that, for his part, no stone should be left unturned to overthrow the forces of disorder. Incidentally Mr. Merle gave his hearers a picture of a prize-fight, for it appeared that in his degenerate Oxford days the pastor had witnessed a battle.

"One of the unhappy creatures who marred God's own image on that occasion was called Peter Crawley and known to his friends by the vulgar soubriquet of 'Young Rump Steak,'" said the clergyman. Then glaring at his congregation as though to dare a smile, he pulled his black gown from his wrists and proceeded: "The name of the other pugilist was Jem Ward, and they met on a winter's day within a hundred miles of London--"

"At Royston--I was there," whispered Mr. Fogo to Reuben Shillabeer. Both old men paid the preacher every attention.

"Their degrading operations were considered to constitute a pretty day's sport," continued Mr. Merle. "These men battered and tore and dashed each other upon the earth time after time. Again and again they fought themselves to a standstill, which is, I believe, the technical expression for absolute physical exhaustion. It was a battle of ferocious fiends disguised as men, and when this Peter Crawley had stricken the wretched Ward senseless in the eleventh round; and when both were reduced to mere swollen, half-blind palpitating masses of bruised and bleeding flesh, the people present shouted with infamous joy and bore both combatants away in triumph from the ensanguined field."

"Jem lost all along of not having Tom Oliver for second," whispered Fogo.

The clergyman proceeded at considerable length to point his moral, and he wound up an eloquent appeal with special allusion to the stranger who had come among his sheep. He did not actually describe 'Frosty-face' as a wolf; but he left no manner of doubt as to his opinion of the Londoner; and he expressed acute regret that this Philistine should be spending his leisure in Sheepstor, to the debasement of the youth and manhood of the district.

Mr. Fogo listened with attention and propriety; while Mr. Shillabeer, fearing what might happen, rolled uneasily, puffed, perspired and grew red at intervals.

Of the principals and those who intended to aid them, only Bartley Crocker was not present; but his mother heard the sermon, and the vision of Peter Crawley and Jem Ward caused her to become so faint, that she had to be helped into the air by Charles Moses long before the sermon was finished.

Mr. Fogo himself and the company of the Bowdens accepted all the vicar said without emotion. Only once, when he quoted Horace, did they lose him for a moment. Elias Bowden had long convinced himself that a fair stand-up fight, between men pretty closely matched, was a circumstance morally justifiable in every respect; and his children accepted this conclusion without demur. As for 'Frosty,' his deep mind moved far too busily with the future to trouble about any harsh present criticisms, personal and public though they might be. He saw in Mr. Merle's attitude an opportunity that he sought, and after the service was ended, he bade Reuben Shillabeer get home and leave him behind. Then, when most of the people had gone; when the Bowdens, full of this charge, trailed up to Ditsworthy; when the 'Dumpling,' in great uneasiness, got him back to his public-house; and when the congregation of chattering women and dubious men had vanished this way and that, Mr. Fogo prevailed upon Mr. Moses to introduce him to the vicar. The Rev. Theodore Merle was a solid, plethoric parson of the old school--a pillar of Church and State, loud-voiced, red-faced, kind-hearted, narrow-minded and conservative.

Mr. Fogo saluted this gentleman with the greatest deference, and briefly explained that his discourse had caused him deep interest and touched his conscience very forcibly at certain points. He then begged to know if he might, at the vicar's convenience, enjoy a little private conversation.

Mr. Merle gladly consented to go at greater length into the matter with the old stranger. He named the following evening for their meeting at the vicarage, and expressed a hope that he might yet lead the Londoner from his turbulent and unlawful ways.

Mr. Fogo replied that if any man had the art to do such a thing, it must be Mr. Merle, whose eloquence had deeply impressed him. He then bowed in a very courtly manner and withdrew. Afterwards, he secretly confided to the shoemaker that the sermon had left him in great doubt of his conduct, and he very patiently suffered Charles Moses to press the case for law and order without offering much in the nature of opposition. He hoped finally that Mr. Moses would make it convenient to be present at the meeting with Mr. Merle; and the cobbler, firmly convinced that 'Frosty-face' was yielding, promised to oblige him.

At 'The Corner House,' in public, Mr. Fogo maintained a taciturn attitude, and when invited to express an opinion on the sermon, replied that there was a good deal to be said on both sides. Mr. Shillabeer smelt mystery, but knew his friend's ways too well to interfere. At present the event stood fixed for an early hour on the following Monday week, and Mr. Fogo was prowling about the neighbourhood to find a secluded and suitable theatre for it; but nothing had been settled, and not until the Tuesday before the fight did he make the final announcement.

Mr. Fogo had already kept his appointment with Mr. Merle and listened to the arguments of the vicar and the churchwarden.

"I may tell you that the lord of the manor has only just left me," remarked Mr. Merle. "He, too, has harboured some erroneous opinions on the subject of this outrage, and I have gone far to convince him of his mistake."

But Mr. Fogo knew all about the opinions of Sir Guy Flamank. Indeed, he had enjoyed a considerable discourse in private with that sound sportsman only a few hours earlier in the day.

"Sir Guy Flamank," said the vicar, "at first argued speciously that there are times when a magistrate ought to act, and times when he ought to shut his eyes, or look the other way. Deluded by fanciful obligations to the claims of sport, he supposes that this is an occasion for looking the other way. But he is wrong--ignorantly, rather than wickedly, wrong--and I have thoroughly convinced him of the fact. A fight between two men, no matter whether they fight in the spirit of friends, or avowedly as foes, is none the less legally a breach of the peace, morally an outrage on the Creator. It is an un-christian, a brutal, a degraded performance, even though we regard it not as a battle of enmity but a trial of strength. Who are we that we dare to deface the image of God? Tell me that, Mr. Fogo. A prize-fight is the most complicated and many-sided offence it is possible to conceive--an affront alike on man and his Maker. None can attend such orgies without lowering his sense of decency and manhood; none can be present at such a spectacle and not suffer for it in the secret places of his self-respect. In the interest of public morals and of religion I take my stand, Mr. Fogo; and as a minister of the Word of God I tell you that, Heaven helping, this thing shall not be within my spiritual jurisdiction--nay, or beyond it, if energy and foresight can prevent."

Mr. Fogo rose from the chair whereon he sat, and bowed.

"I have not heard such burning words, your reverence, since I sat under a bishop a few weeks ago in Paul's, London. I would have you to know that I take life seriously. I am a pious man, though my calling has to do with rough characters; but I never saw things quite in this light before. We sporting blades mean no harm, and we are honest according to our lights. I've known many of the noted pugs and can assure your reverence that they are straight and kindly men--just such good souls as Mr. Shillabeer, my friend in this village. If they've done wrong, 'tis through their ignorance of right. And as for me, never, until I heard your great and forcible discourse o' Sunday, did I think that a fair mill was not agreeable to the morals of the kingdom, even though the law don't allow it."

"A prize-fight is not agreeable--either to the morals of this kingdom or the next," said Mr. Merle; "and I hope you are convinced of it."

"You told me you was," said Moses. "You made it very clear to me you was wavering, Mr. Fogo."

"I am wavering," answered the old hawk, while he tried to cool the fire in his eye with a film of piety. "I am hit very hard over this. You've let in the light on me, your reverence. It calls back to my mind that famous party, namely Bendigo--once a Champion of England, now a champion of the next world; for he's taken to preaching and, as he told me last time we met, is under articles to fight the Devil and all his works. A great man in his way, and they've given his name to half Australia, I'm told; but, though very free and forcible with words, he hasn't got the flow of your reverence. Of course you wouldn't expect it from a prize-fighter. And now with your solemn speeches booming on my sinful ears, I ask myself what I am to do."

"Let me tell you the answer to that question, Mr. Fogo," said the clergyman, very earnestly. "If your conscience has been mercifully permitted to waken at my voice, take heed that it shall not sink to sleep again. Emulate your reformed friend, Mr. Bendigo. Put on the armour of light and the breastplate of righteousness. Look back at these days of seclusion in this rural scene as Paul looked back to that journey on which burst in the dazzling light of living truth. Let the scales fall from your eyes, Mr. Fogo. Choose the better path, henceforth, sir. You are an able man. I can see it in your face. There is intellect there. With greater advantages you might have made a mark in the world and assisted its welfare. And that you must and shall still do! There is none among us so humble but that he possesses the grand, the glorious privilege and power to help the world towards goodness. Act rightly in this matter and great will be your reward--if not in this world, my dear friend, none the less and of a surety in the world to come."

"Exactly so," said Mr. Fogo. "I know you're right--I'm sure of it. You understand these things--nobody better. It is your holy calling so to do. I see now as never I saw before, that fighting oughtn't to be. I almost begin to believe that it's my duty to stop this fight. And yet--"

"Don't dally with the idea, Mr. Fogo," urged Charles Moses. "Believe it once for all and do your duty. Your salvation may hang upon it!"

Mr. Merle was a little vexed with the warden's interference. He put up his hand and said, "Hush, Moses; leave this to me, please."

"It's like this," explained 'Frosty-face,' mildly; "most of the males are for the fight; most of the women are against it. And his reverence here is against it, and you're against it, Mr. Moses, and of course the constable is against it, being paid by the nation to be so. Well, I must tell you that in these cases, if the police appear on the ground, the fight is always stopped at once and the Fancy goes off--either into another county, where the warrant don't hold, or else, if that's impossible, they stop altogether till the next meeting is arranged by the referee. Now, in this business, the fight has either got to stop or not begin at all if the police put in their appearance, because there's no getting into another county; so it all comes to this: if your reverence knows when and where the fight is to take place, you can stop it."

"Then your duty stares you in the face, Mr. Fogo. You must tell me," asserted Mr. Merle.

"It isn't decided yet."

"You'll have a hand in the decision, all the same," declared Charles Moses. "Very like they'll look to you to settle that point, as, with your learning of such things, would be natural."

Mr. Fogo glanced round about him as though he feared an eavesdropper.

"If I do this, and tell you the battle-ground, will you promise never to let it out?" he asked.

"It will be for you to let it out, and triumph in your righteous action," said Mr. Merle.

"Well, I'd rather not," answered the Deputy Commissary, with frankness. "I'll do good by stealth, and 'twill be quite time enough for me to write and tell Mr. Shillabeer that 'twas my work after I've got back to London out of harm's way. So there it stands: you've conquered me, your reverence. I put myself in your power. But this is thirsty work--this well-doing. Might I make so bold as to ask for a drop of liquor--spirits, if they may be taken without harm in the dwelling of holiness?"

Mr. Merle went to his sideboard and got a bottle of whisky, from which the repentant Fogo helped himself to a stiff glass.

"On Monday next at eleven o'clock the fight will begin, unless we stop it," he said. "And since, in the high name of the church and parson, it did ought to be stopped, stopped it shall be. The place is still a secret. But this I'll do for the sake of my own salvation, and other reasons, including my great respect to your reverence--this I'll do: on Monday morning next, at cock-light or earlier, I'll be here in secret to meet the police and his reverence and Mr. Moses; and I'll lead them to the ring. That's the work of your Sunday sermon on the heart of a sinful creature, parson Merle. At five o'clock next Monday I'll be at this house; but I trust those present to keep the secret, for if a word is breathed and it gets out, there's men interested in this fight that will change the 'rondeyvoo' and hide it even from me."

The clergyman, elated, yet not without secret doubts, gave all necessary promises, and Mr. Moses did the like. Then Mr. Fogo went his way.

He was in church again next Sunday and, meantime, conducted himself in a manner that mystified most frequenters of 'The Corner House.' Shillabeer declared that something was weighing on Mr. Fogo's mind, and Moses, who heard rumours, carried them to the vicar.

Then came grey dawn on the eventful morning and, before it was yet light, 'Frosty-face,' as good as his word, arrived at the vicarage.

Mr. Ernest Maunder, with the warrant and another constable, had already arrived, and a moment later Mr. Moses came on the scene. The first glimmer of light was in the sky and the day opened cold and clear. Stars shone overhead and the road tinkled with ice underfoot; but clouds were already banking against the northern horizon.

"I'm here to take you to the appointed place," said Fogo. "All is settled and the men are to be in the ring before eleven o'clock. You will be snugly hidden not a hundred yards from the spot when they begin. 'Tis Ringmoor Down has been chosen--alongside the wood at the west end by the turnpike. We can't miss it, because the ring was pitched overnight--I helped, so as not to bring down no suspicion on myself."

They started silently to climb the steep hill that ascends out of Sheepstor to Ringmoor. At Fogo's advice they carried food and drink with them, for the morning was very cold and laden with promise of snow.

"You mustn't mind hard words," said the betrayer. "They can't do nothing to any of you, because it's a fair score and you've won for two reasons. Firstly, by having more wits in your heads than them, and secondly, because his reverence has converted me to see the truth. I'm the only one as would be roughly handled and very likely--an old man like me--get my death from it; so I shan't stop for the great moment when you step forth in the name of the Queen's Majesty and bid 'em all to keep the peace. I shall see you in your places, and then I've arranged for a trap to come for me to the pike, and off I go to Plymouth. I won't face the music--why should I? As it is, I shall go in fear and trembling this many a day."

"You need neither fear nor tremble, Fogo," said Mr. Merle. "The mind conscious of rectitude is armed against all fear. You have done your duty, difficult though it was; you will have your reward."

"Thank you for that helpful word," answered 'Frosty-face'; "and I beg, if your reverence don't find it too much for your bellows against the hill, that you'll speak a few comforting speeches to me as we travel along. I'm an aged man to turn from vanity at my time of life; yet in your sermon yesterday you said 'twas never too late to mend, and I took that to myself."

"You were perfectly justified in so doing," said Mr. Merle.

He uttered exhilarating reflections until the severity of the hill reduced him to silence. Then Ernest Maunder, who had not yet recovered from his amazement at finding Fogo a traitor, asked him a question.

"If you're going straight away off to Plymouth, what about your luggage?"

"You'll see it in the trap," answered 'Frosty.' "I've got a box and a bundle and no more. Mind, Constable Maunder, that you step boldly into the ring; and don't do it too soon. Wait till the men have stripped and shook hands. Then out you go, and not a man dare withstand you. Have no fear for yourself. At their everlasting peril would they do it, for you are the State. 'Twill be the greatest moment in your life, and I hope you'll bear yourself with dignity."

"I hope I shall," replied Mr. Maunder; "but 'twould be easier if 'twas milder weather."

Dawn rolled along Dartmoor edge as they reached the silent hill-top, and it revealed an unfamiliar object upon the featureless bosom of Ringmoor. As Fogo had foretold, distant one hundred yards from a little wood beside the highway, the twenty-four-foot Ring stood stark in the twilight of morning. Heavy stakes, painted blue, supported the ropes. An outer ring--to keep spectators clear from the fight--was also set up beyond, and the ground could not have been better chosen.

Close at hand an open trap was waiting, and the driver stamped up and down to keep himself warm. Mr. Maunder, with a flash of professional zeal, satisfied himself that 'Frosty's' luggage was really in this vehicle and marked a wooden box, studded with brass nails, and a parcel containing a large umbrella and some walking-sticks.

"I got my kit out last night, after Shillabeer had gone to his rest," explained Mr. Fogo. "This morning he'll think that I've risen betimes and come up here--and he'll think right, for that matter."

In half an hour the party had cut down some boughs of fir, made a screen against the north wind, and hidden themselves carefully at the edge of the wood. Then Mr. Fogo joined the vicar in a light breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and cold tea; and finally he prepared to take his leave.

He declared that he left for Plymouth with reluctance and would much have liked to see the triumph of right; but, in plain English, he feared greatly for his own skin if the disappointed sportsmen discovered him with the police. Therefore he bade all farewell, invited and obtained Mr. Merle's formal blessing upon his future, and then drove away along the road to Plymouth.

Yet, for some private and obscure reason, when a mile had been traversed, Mr. Fogo appeared suddenly to change his mind. He directed the driver to sink down to Meavy valley; and thence the trap returned as swiftly as possible to Sheepstor.

Already that village was awake and alert. Strange men moved about through it; within the field, under the churchyard wall, had sprung up a square of ropes and bright blue stakes--the counterpart of that besides which Mr. Merle and his friends were waiting and crowing somewhat cold on the sequestered loneliness of Ringmoor.

Mr. Fogo had told Simon Snell the truth, though his listeners all laughed at the joke when they heard it. The fight, instead of taking place upon Ringmoor Down at eleven o'clock, was planned for Sheepstor bull-ring at nine.

CHAPTER XIII

THE FIGHT

The bull-ring of Sheepstor is a grassy field of near an acre in extent, surrounded west and east with beech trees, hemmed by a road and a little river southward, and flanked by the churchyard wall on the north. Here bull-baiting, cock-fighting, cock-shying, and other rough sports of our great-grandfathers were enjoyed; and here, on this winter morning, one of the last authentic prize-fights ever fought in England was duly conducted with all right ritual, pomp and circumstance, under direction of that high priest and poet of the P.R., 'Frosty-face' Fogo.

From Lowery and Kingsett by Crazywell; from Yellowmead and Dennycoombe; from Meavy and Middleworth and Good-a-Meavy those in the secret came. A large sprinkling of local sportsmen rode into Sheepstor before eight o'clock and stabled their horses at 'The Corner House.' Sir Guy Flamank's friend, the young boxer from Oxford, and a Plymouth professional, were umpires for the men; while the sporting doctor from Tavistock acted as referee on the strength of wide experience and sound knowledge.

Bowden and his party came down from Ditsworthy in a cart, and beside it walked Bartholomew Stanbury and his son. Simon Snell also arrived, with Mattacott, Screech and other local men. Just before nine o'clock two stout and frantic women rushed to the rectory and then disappeared up the hill towards Ringmoor. They were Mr. Crocker's mother and aunt.

As for Bartley, he arrived in the bull-ring at five minutes to nine, met David beside it and shook hands with him and his father. Rhoda stood by, clad in a dark stuff dress with short skirt and short sleeves. On her head was a man's cap and her bright hair had been coiled small and tight on her neck. She paid no attention to Mr. Crocker. Then Fogo appeared and assumed command. With him came the Corinthian contingent, jovial and jolly, clad in the most showy and stylish sporting costumes of the 'sixties.' The colours of both men were generally displayed.

"Throw your castors in the ring," said Shillabeer, and the fighters dropped their hats over the ropes.

A crowd of above a hundred persons was assembled. The front row sat ten feet from the ring; others stood behind them and twenty men clustered along the churchyard wall. Into the beech trees many boys had also climbed. Rhoda Bowden was the only woman present. Many protested and shook their heads, but none interfered.

The colours were tied to the stakes and the combatants tossed. Bowden won, and his father chose the corner with its back to the rising sun. Red light ranged along the eastern edge of Dartmoor; but it promised swiftly to perish, for the air was already heavy with coming snow.

Both men now stripped to the waist. They wore flannel drawers, socks and shoes with sparrow-bill nails in them. Each was clean-shaved and close-cropped. Fogo and Shillabeer, with bottles, towels and sponges, entered Bartley's corner, while his father and sister took their places in Bowden's.

As the church clock struck nine the men came to the scratch, listened to a brief word from the referee and again shook hands. Each in his different way looked strong and well. David's white body shone in the red sunlight and showed a silky texture over the big muscles. He was shorter in the reach than Bartley Crocker and far sturdier below the waist. Big thews and sinews held him up; but, as he came on guard, he shaped rather awkwardly with his hands and his head was somewhat too far forward. Crocker appeared slighter, taller and more graceful. His brown body seemed somewhat thin about the ribs, but his face was clean and hard and his eyes bright. His legs were not so solid as David's, but they showed more spring about them. His pose was good: he carried his head well back, and his hands neither too high nor too low. One man obviously possessed greater strength; while the other looked likely to be quicker both on his legs and with his fists. What either had learned about scientific fighting in the short time of preparation remained to be seen. Both were nervous and both were eager to begin.

David dashed out at his man and hit with his right but was parried. Again he tried his right, rather round, and just touched Crocker's shoulder; whereupon Bartley, hitting straighter, got his left on the other's face and followed it with his right on the throat. The second blow was heavy and shook David for a moment. They stood apart, then both began to fight desperately, but with little science. Some tremendous counters succeeded and each received a few blows in the face; but Bowden evidently hit harder than the younger man, though he did not get home so often. The little knowledge either possessed belonged to Crocker. He guarded to some purpose with his left and avoided one or two strong, right-handed blows in this manner. Twice Crocker missed his right; then the best blow of the round was struck by him. It fell fairly and full on David's forehead, and he followed it by another, under the eye. Then Bartley received one on the nose which drew blood. A moment later the men closed and Crocker threw Bowden with an ordinary cross-buttock and fell on him. Both walked to their corners and the round ended with nothing of importance done on either side. First blood was claimed and allowed for David.

Bartley sat on Mr. Shillabeer's knee, while Mr. Fogo polished him up and poured advice into his ear.

"Keep moving more," he said. "Dance 'Jim Crow' round the man! make him come after you and blow him a bit. He hits harder than you do; but he's not as clever and not as long in the arm. Get on to the right eye again. If you can shut that at the start, it's worth half the stakes."

And elsewhere David reposed on Elias Bowden's knee while Rhoda, white to the lips, but firm as a rock, sponged his face. He laughed at her.

"It's all right," he said to his father. "He only hit me once worth mentioning. I'll soon find his measure. I'm stronger than him."

"Don't talk," answered the old man. "And get the fall, if you can, next round. Better you drop on him than he drop on you."

The half-minute was over and both came instantly to the scratch. Preliminary nervousness had passed and they were eager to fight. David panted a little; Hartley appeared quite calm. The second round began with Bowden leading off; but Crocker easily jerked his head out of harm's way and escaped an ugly round hit.

They fell to heavy milling of a scrambling character, with few blows getting home on either side. Presently they stood apart, panting with hands down a moment; then, in response to shouts from partisans, they began to fight again. Crocker now had the best of it until the end of the round. David seemed unable to use his left and Bartley was learning to avoid the swinging round-arm blows delivered by his opponent's right. Thrice he escaped these attempts and each time countered with his own right. To Mr. Fogo's satisfaction one of these blows reached the damaged eye with great force and instantly raised a big 'mouse' beneath it. Then the round ended, almost exactly like the last, by David landing on the other's nose and drawing a copious flow of blood. Upon this they closed and David tried hard for the crook, but Bartley was the cleverer wrestler and Bowden went down with the other on top of him as before. Again they walked strongly to their corners and their friends did all that was necessary in the space of thirty seconds.

"Fight for his eyes, and even take a bit of risk to get there," said Mr. Fogo. "But, for the love of the Lord, don't let him land that round-arm hit on your ear. It won't do you no good. And use your left more."

Rhoda bathed the curious blue mark that had leapt into existence under her brother's eye. His face was puffy round it, but neither she nor her father guessed at the threatened danger. As for David, he was very cheerful and only vexed that he had missed so often with his right.

"I've got to get nearer to him," he explained. "Out-fighting's no good against his long arms. I must go inside 'em and see what I can do then."

The men smiled and nodded at one another as they came up to time.

Bartley began with his left. David threw it off well with the right guard and tried to begin in-fighting. But the taller man danced away before him and hit twice, right and left, on the retreat. Then Bowden, coming with a rush, caught him, and the finest rally of the battle followed. The combatants fought all across the ring with both hands almost entirely at the head. More by good chance than science each stopped some heavy hits and sparred much above their true skill. Immense applause greeted the round, and the 'Dumpling' bellowed a word of encouragement to his man. Fogo watched every move with his old, keen eyes. He was not entirely pleased with the result of the round. It ended in a scrambling fall with no advantage to either. But both, though blowing heavily, were still strong, and each man rose instantly and got back to his corner without aid.

The little advantage of the rising sun in his opponent's eyes was now lost to Bowden, for grey clouds had swallowed the morning and already a few stray flakes of snow fell leisurely. Elias, at the end of this round, complained that Crocker was holding some hard substance within his fists, but Fogo with disdain showed that they carried paper only.

Some marks of the last bout were visible when 'time' brought the men to the scratch. Bartley had a cut on his forehead and another on his cheek-bone, while his nose and lips had swollen and become distorted; the eyelids of Bowden's right eye were puffed and bulged. His face and breast were mottled with red; but Crocker, on the contrary, was as pale as a parsnip. David led off right and left, just touching with the first but missing with the latter. They countered heavily and then, in obedience to orders, Crocker got in suddenly, caught David's head in chancery, and before the elder, by sheer strength, broke loose, fibbed him thrice. Mr. Fogo rolled in an ecstasy. The blows had reached David's sound eye and done some damage. In getting away David fell and Bartley immediately went to his corner. The round had been much in his favour.

Rhoda worked hard to reduce the swelling on her brother's face, but it was not possible. He continued strong, cheerful and impatient to repay a little of Crocker's attention in the last round.

Yet from this point the fight went steadily in favour of the younger man. He was naturally quicker, neater and straighter in his hitting. The next round was a long one. David got to work first and lashed out as usual with his right, but was short. Then Bartley retreated until he had his enemy on the move, whereupon he stood and let fly both right and left at the head. Both told, though the blows were light. David slipped on to one knee but was up again instantly, and a moment later, for the first time since the beginning of the battle, he got his right home on Crocker's ear. The hit fairly staggered Bartley but did not drop him. He recovered before Bowden could repeat the blow and some furious fighting brought the men into Bartley's corner, where David had the worst of the rally. Crocker at last closed and might have gone far to end the fight, for he had his enemy on the ropes and was about to punish him in that position. His instinct, however, prevented it. He had raised his right and Bowden was for the moment defenceless; then the younger drew back and shook his head. "Nay, David," he said, "I'll not take advantage of thee."

A hearty cheer greeted this sportsmanlike act; but in his corner at the end of the round, Mr. Fogo took occasion to caution his man against further display of such a spirit.

"You haven't got him beat yet," he said. "'Tis all very well to play to the gallery when you're safe, but not sooner. He's harder than you and will take a lot of knocking out. You had it in your power then to give him pepper, and you ought to have done it till he dropped. Fight for his eyes and don't let's have no softness. You mind there's a lot of money going to change hands over this job, and you've no right to throw away half a chance."

In answer Crocker showed temper.

"I'll fight fair and be damned to you and your London ways," he said; but Mr. Fogo permitted himself no retort.

A great deal of tedious sparring occurred in the next round and Bowden got his second wind. He was strong and still confident, but the sight of his right eye grew much impaired. After a time the pace quickened, but when they began to fight in earnest, the round was Hartley's own. David received all the hits, and one on the mouth nearly floored him. At the end they closed and Bowden was thrown. Both still went to their corners without help.

Five and six to one were betted on Crocker, and even Fogo felt sanguine. But he had time to take close stock of his man and noticed that Crocker was weaker.

In the next round the men closed almost instantly and went down, David undermost.

"All Dartmoor to a lark-sod on our chap!" said Mr. Shillabeer. "Go in and finish him, Bartley. Only get on his left peeper again and the shutters will be up. The right's done for."

"I can do it, but I'm frightened to--might blind him for life," answered the fighter; and 'Frosty-face' was frantically expostulating at this mistaken sentiment at the call of 'time.'

Heavy counter hits were exchanged in this round and Bartley's left ear was again visited. Blood sprang from it in answer to the blow and for a moment he was dazed; then he hit David heavily on the neck and jaw. A rally followed and Bartley used his legs and got away. At the end Crocker hit out with his left and caught David on his sound eye. The blow was well timed and Bowden nearly fell. A moment later they closed and wrestled long for the fall. Neither won it decisively, but they went down together. Both were weak after this round and both, for the first time, were carried to their corners. Rhoda and her father lifted David swiftly and neatly.

Bowden began the next round and hit Bartley with right and left on the chest, but he made no impression though the blows were hard. Crocker, on the contrary, while lacking much force, yet planted one hit to purpose on Bowden's left eye. This stroke evidently caused great pain for, despite himself, David's hands went up to his face. Then it seemed that he began to realise his peril, for he fought desperately and showed tremendous energy and renewed strength. A blow on the ribs made Bartley wince, but others as heavy missed him and his returns went over David's shoulder. Towards the end of the round, however, Crocker, catching the other as he advanced, and timing his right better than usual, sent Bowden clean off his legs with a flush hit on the mouth. It was the first knock-down blow in the battle, and Fogo waited with desperate anxiety and fervent hope that Bowden might not come up to time. But Rhoda and her father achieved the feat. Within the regulation eight seconds after time was called, David stood at the scratch. He was very shaky, but cheerful. He grinned out of his distorted features as Bartley approached and said, "Now I'm going to get some of my own back, Crocker."

Fogo, during the respite, had given his man brandy and implored him to try and finish before his strength was gone. The opportunity to administer a final blow had come. Bowden was shaken, and for the moment very weak. Alive to the situation, Crocker did his best; but now the man's own nature came between him and the necessity of execution. As he grew more feeble a vein of sheer sentimentality in his character asserted itself. For the moment he could not strike the bruised, bloody and defenceless eyes of the enemy. His gorge rose at the act. Between the rounds he had been watching Rhoda with a sort of vague, unreal interest. In his increased weakness, the whole business appeared like a dream out of which only Rhoda clearly stood. He admired her immense courage and pictured her secret emotions as round succeeded round, and she saw David's face being battered from all semblance of humanity.

Nevertheless, Crocker began this--the tenth round--with a determination to let it be the last. He hit out of distance but eventually struck Bowden on the nose. The blow was not heavy, but David went down and was carried to his corner.

Bartley stared across at his foe, while Fogo attended to him. He saw Rhoda sponge the other's face and speak to him. Then David laughed. The expression of amusement was hideous on his countenance in its present condition. Fogo kept speaking, but when he stood at the scratch Crocker quite forgot the last advice he had received. It was clear now that David was fighting for strength, and each round in the next five saw him go down at the least legal provocation. Some shouted scorn at him, but he paid no heed. He was hit several times during these rounds and did little in return; but once he visited Bartley's damaged ear, and once he got a good cross-buttock and fell heavily on his man.

Seeing Elias and Rhoda busy with David's hand after the thirteenth round, Shillabeer whispered that the enemy's left was gone; but he erred as the sequel proved. Bowden had only cut himself on Bartley's teeth.

Fogo, however, still felt satisfied, because it seemed clear that even if Crocker could not finish his task, he would be able to stay until Bowden went blind. David's right eye had long since closed and the left was beginning to vanish. Another blow would probably complete the work of obliteration and leave Crocker with victory. Both men's faces were much swollen and disfigured, but both were still game and both were cheerful. Bartley, however, began to get slow and his ear was causing him much dizziness. It had swollen to horrible dimensions.

Snow now fell briskly and the ring had become very slippery.

The sixteenth bout found David busiest. He rushed in right and left, and a good ding-dong round was fought in which advantage only came to Bartley at the end. Then, after receiving some heavy body-blows, he got on to Bowden's lip, split it and drenched the man's face with blood. In the close they both went down, David, as usual, undermost. Both were carried to their corners and both were weak.

In the next round David tried to upper-cut Crocker, but missed, and was knocked down by a blow on the throat.

Elias asked his son if all was well with him, and David nodded. Rhoda gave him the brandy bottle and he rinsed his mouth, but did not drink any. Fogo did all that his knowledge suggested for Bartley, but knew that he was growing weak very rapidly. It remained to be seen whether Crocker's strength or David's eyesight would last longest.

In the eighteenth round Bartley began the fighting and with immense impetuosity dashed in right and left on the face. He tried for the eye, but just missed it and caught heavily on the body. And then fortune smiled in earnest on David, and as the other came again to finish his enemy at any cost, Bowden caught him with crushing force on the left cheek. Chance timed the blow to perfection. It was by far the heaviest hit in the fight, and the effect at this juncture proved terrific. The tremendous blow seemed to go all over the side of Crocker's face. It brought the blood gushing from his mouth and nose; and it dropped him in a heap.

A shout of consternation rose from the younger man's friends, and Mr. Fogo and Shillabeer picked up Bartley, while David, cheered by the yells of his supporters, walked, with Rhoda guiding him, to his corner. It was now the turn of the Bowdens to wait the call of time with anxiety; but Fogo got his man to the scratch, though all fight was out of him. David could still see but he had lost the power of calculating distances. He struck thrice in the air; then he hit Crocker, where he stood dazed with his hands down, and dropped him.

The crisis had come and Mr. Fogo kept back Bartley till the last available moment, while on the other side Rhoda led David to the scratch, for he could no longer see it. A blow now was likely to settle the matter; but the one man was too weak to strike, the other too blind to make sure of hitting. Two more rounds were fought in this manner and Fogo fancied that Bartley had a little recovered from the effects of his terrible punishment; but the return of strength did not serve him. In the twenty-second and final round Bowden--fortune still smiling--hit Crocker heavily with a round arm on the ear and the younger man fell unconscious. Fogo and Shillabeer picked him up and did what they could, but Bartley knew nothing. His head had swollen in an extraordinary manner from the smashing stroke in the eighteenth round, and it was that blow which had put 'paid' to his account. David walked to the scratch with Rhoda's help and waited to hear time called. He had, it seemed, snatched victory at the last moment and now it was his battle as surely as it had been Bartley's after the ninth round. The referee cried 'time,' the eight seconds crawled past, and 'Frosty-face,' with a word not to be chronicled, threw up the sponge. Bartley Crocker was deaf to the call. Indeed, he remained unconscious for another five minutes.

The fight had lasted about three quarters of an hour.

Then a roar rose round the ring and a hundred men and boys crowded in upon it. Many hastened away at once to avoid possible future trouble. Rhoda threw her emotions into one kiss that she pressed upon her brother's mangled mouth; then, rosy as her name, she walked up to the colours, unfastened them with unshaking, ensanguined hands, and tied them round David's neck. Many cheered her; and some fell in love with her from that moment. David, for his part, asked to be led to Bartley, and when, with the referee's assistance, the beaten man had recovered consciousness, Bowden held out his hand and Crocker took it.

By this time the winner was stone blind. His party stopped on the ground only a few minutes, during which Mr. Fogo, as became a poet and a man of imagination, insisted on shaking hands with Rhoda Bowden.

"Woman," he said, "you're a wonder. I've never seen the like in seventy years; and I hope I never shall again."

Then David was led to the cart and, with his sister, three of his brothers and his father, drove off to Ditsworthy. A cheering mob of fifty men and boys accompanied him half way; the Stanburys--father and son--walked for some distance beside the vehicle, while one or two energetic spirits ran on ahead with tidings of victory for Mrs. Bowden and her daughters, Sophia and Dorcas.

Snow fell heavily now and detail was vanishing under it.

Mr. Fogo had no difficulty in explaining the defeat to the Fancy. He threw light upon the situation, while Mr. Shillabeer and others carried Bartley to 'The Corner House' in a large wheelbarrow and put him to bed.

"'Twas just such a hit as the Tipton gave Tass Parker in their last fight--to compare small things with great," said Fogo. "When a man's shaky, a smack like that is a receipt in full. A pretty finish, but it ought never to have come to it. Bowden was beat half an hour ago, and if our chap hadn't been so milk-hearted, he'd be the winner this minute. If he'd had a bit of the other's kill-devil in him, 'twould have been all over long ago. He fought better and wrestled better; but there it was--the human nature in him couldn't punish, though the fight depended on it and t'other man was blind. He was never meant for a fighting man--more the dancing master turn of mind."

"Very fond of the ladies, I believe," said Timothy Mattacott.

"So I've found; and if that amazing girl with the chin had been in his corner with me instead of the 'Dumpling,' I believe that Crocker would have won," declared 'Frosty.'

At this moment there hastened frantically down a hill from the south certain devoted peacemakers. Bartley's relatives had learned at the vicarage that Mr. Merle and others were gone at break of day to the pike by Ringmoor Down, and they had struggled upward with the fatal truth. Now it happened that these deceived upholders of the law came full upon Mr. Fogo and a select company, on their way to the inn. Whereupon the clergyman thrust among them and stood before Mr. Fogo, his face dark as a mulberry with rage.

"You infamous scoundrel!" he shouted. "What is the meaning of this?"

The old man stared blankly and unknowingly before him. Not a spark of recognition lighted his eagle features.

"I don't quite understand," he answered; then he turned to his friends.

"Who may these snowy gentlemen be?" he asked. "His reverence seems to be a little put out. But he's got a kind expression of countenance. If they wanted to see the mill, they ought to have started a bit earlier."

But then Mr. Fogo saw Mrs. Crocker approaching and he did not hesitate to run with his bodyguard about him.

Snow began to fall in earnest at last. Heavier and heavier it came, until Sheepstor and the churchyard and the bull-ring, with hills and valleys round about, vanished under a silent, far-flung cloth of silver. After all the riot and life, noise and blood-letting, peace fell like a pall at noon. The folk kept their cottages. Only at 'The Corner House' persisted a mighty din and clatter of tongues, while the larder and many bottles were emptied, the barrels were heavily drawn upon and the battle was fought and lost again a dozen times before nightfall.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

'MEAVY COT'

On a day in summer, David Bowden wandered up the higher valleys of Meavy and stopped in a little dingle where the newborn river tumbled ten feet over a great apron of granite into a pool beneath. In four separate threads the stream spouted over this mossy ledge, and then joined her foaming forces below. Grey-green sallows thronged the top of this natural weir and the wind flashed a twinkle of silver into their foliage as the leaves leapt and turned. Low hills sloped to this spot and made a natural nest. Black Tor and Harter ascended at hand, and on the horizon northerly Princetown's stern church tower rose against the sky. Beside the pool, wherein Meavy gathered again her scattered tresses, an old ruin stood; and round about the dwelling-places of primæval man glimmered grey upon the heath.

David Bowden had chosen this spot for his home, and his reason was the shattered miner's cottage of Tudor date that rose there. Four-square, crowned with heather and fretted with pennyworts and grasses, stone-crop, grey lichens and sky-blue jasione, the old house stood. Broken walls eight feet high surrounded it; an oven still gaped in one angle, and the wide chimney-shaft now made a green twilight of dewy ferns and mosses. Bowden crept into the ruin and looked about him, as he had already done many times before. At his feet lay old moulds hollowed out of the granite; and where molten tin once ran, now glittered water caught from the last shower.

Since first he found the place, David, with his scanty gift of imagination, had pictured a modern cottage rising on these venerable foundations. And soon the thing was actually to happen. He knew that the hearth whereon his feet now stood would presently glow again with fires lighted by Margaret's hands; he thought of white wheaten loaves baking in the oven; he almost smelt them; and he saw above this loneliness the thin blue ringlets of peat smoke that soon would rise and curl on the west wind's fingers and tell chance wanderers that a home lay hidden by water's brink in the glen beneath. The place was very sequestered, very remote from all other habitations; and he liked it the better for that. Here was such privacy as the man desired. Margaret would do her shopping at Princetown; and since she knew scarcely anybody there, the chances of gossip and vain conversation were small. His ambition was a life far from trivial social obligations and the talk of idle tongues. He desired opportunity to pursue success without distractions and waste of time. Whether this home might suit the sociable Margaret, he did not pause to consider. As for Rhoda, she would certainly be of his mind.

The facts that most impressed Bowden at the moment were certain loads of lime and sand, together with granite boulders, water-worn, from the stream bed close at hand. Materials for his house were already collected and the building of it was to begin during the following week. It would need five or six months to finish, and Bowden proposed to be married and settled in his future home before another Christmas came.

While he sat here now, slowly, stolidly planning the future and waiting for Margaret to meet him, certain black-faced, horned sheep approached, drew up at a safe distance and lifted their yellow eyes to him inquiringly. David returned their regard with interest, for they were his own.

Presently came Margaret and he kissed her, then pointed with satisfaction to the preparations.

"They've kept their word, you see. Next week our house is to be started. There's a good bit of pulling down to do first, however. And Sir Guy have given way about that ruined spot t'other side the stream. It's going to be built again for a lew place for stock; and I'm to pay two pound a year more rent."

"'Twill be good for the kennel," said Madge. "Rhoda tells me as you'll have five or six dogs at the least for her to watch over, not counting 'Silky' here."

'Silky' had grown from puppyhood into adolescence. He was now a beautiful but a spoiled spaniel, who never wandered far from his mistress.

Bowden looked down and shook his head at 'Silky,' where he sat with his nose between his fore-paws at Margaret's feet.

"A good dog ruined," he said. "If you was to do the proper thing, you'd let me shoot it. 'Twill never be any manner of use here."

"He'll be of use to me, David. I should miss him cruel now."

"God send you don't bring up the childer so, when they come, Madge."

"No childer of yours will ever be spoilt," she said.

"I hope not. And I hope they don't prove of wayward nature; for that sort's a thorn in the parent's side. Take Dorcas now--so different to the rest of us as you can think. Light-minded and a chatterer--colour and mind both different. I hope as I'll never have a red child, Madge."

"I'm very fond of Dorcas. She's the happiest of you all, anyway--light-minded or not. Only her father sees her good points. I don't think, David, that you rate her high enough."

"I know her very well--light-minded and a laugher," he repeated. "And now there's that insolent chap, Screech, after her; and he had the cheek to talk to faither and mother about it, and offer to take her--a beggarly man, with none to say a good word for him--a man that have lived on his widowed mother all his days, and haven't even got regular work, but picks up an uneven living where he can."

"What did your father answer?"

"Sent him away with a flea in his ear! There was a few high words, and then I seed my gentleman marching off across Ringmoor, and Dorcas with her apron to her eyes. 'Better bide single all your days than marry an out-at-elbows good-for-nought like that,' I told her; but, of course, she knowed better, and said he was all he should be, and that her life would be gall and wormwood without him."

"Your father's not one to be flouted."

"He is not; and Dorcas knows it very well. Us shan't hear no more about the chap."

"She'll tell me, however."

"Mind you speak sense to her then, Madge. Don't go pitying her. You're too prone to pity every mortal thing that's in trouble, or thinks it is. You know as well as any one that Billy Screech is a bad and lazy man. You know that he's not built to make any female a good husband. Therefore tell her so."

"I hope she'll soon find a better to make her forget him."

"I hope she won't then. She've got Sophia's poor luck before her eyes. Better for a woman not to wed at all than wreck her life in it. Dorcas is better at home in my judgment. Nought but a tramp would fancy such a homely creature as her."

"You're wrong there, David. A girl's face isn't everything. But no brother ever yet knew what his sisters were worth."

"'Tis you who are wrong to say that," answered David. "I know their virtues very well. Sophia was far too good for her husband, and Rhoda--well, never was a better than her--a marvel of a woman."

"She is--yet the men keep off. But her heart's so warm and soft as any woman's, I daresay."

"Men generally want something less fine and high-minded," said David. "Something weaker and wilfuller than Rhoda. They are frighted of her. She makes 'em see how small they are, if you can understand that."

"She does. So strong and fearless. Looks through men and women with those eyes of hers. Yet you wouldn't have her bide a maiden into old age surely, David? There's men good enough--even for Rhoda."

Not a spark of spite marked the speech, and Madge only meant what she said.

"We must find her a husband, David!"

He shook his head doubtfully.

"A kicklish business. She's not the sort to let others do that work for her. She've got no use for a man in my opinion. There's only one male as ever I saw her eye follow for a yard, and that, if you please, be the leat-keeper, Simon Snell."

Madge laughed.

"Poor Mr. Snell! I can't picture him ever daring to lift his eyes to Rhoda."

"No more can't I," agreed David. "And don't you breathe what I've told you to Rhoda, for I may be wrong, and, right or wrong, she'd never forgive even me for saying it. She'll be happy enough here with us, and if a husband comes--come he will. But I don't want him to come in a hurry."

"Such a lover of the night as she is!" declared Margaret. "Never was a stranger girl in some ways, I think--to say it lovingly. Give her a dog or two and nightfall, and off she'll tramp to meet the moonrise. Whatever do she do out in the dark, David?"

"Blest if I can answer that. She've got her secrets--like everything else that goeth in petticoats, no doubt. But few enough secrets from my ear, I reckon. 'Twas always a great desire in her to be out by night, and more'n once faither whipped her, when she was a dinky little maid, because she would go straying in the warrens when she ought to have been in bed, and fright her mother nigh to death. I've axed her many a time about it, but she can't or won't offer reasons. It pleases her to see the night creatures at their work, I suppose. She'll tell you things that might much surprise you about the ways of the night, and what happens under it."

"She likes the moon better than the sun, I believe. Sometimes I'm tempted to think her blood's cold instead of hot, David."

"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen her kiss my smashed face after the fight last winter;--no, nor heard her when she spoke of Bartley Crocker kissing hers."

"I believe Bartley would marry her joyfully," said Margaret; but David doubted it.

"Not him--not after what she said to him in the Pixies' House, and after what I said to him in the bull-ring. No man ever paid dearer for a kiss than him, I reckon. But very good friends now, thank God. But my brother-in-law--no. He'll never come to be that. He don't want Rhoda and Rhoda don't want him."

"He told me that well he knew he'd have beat you, if Rhoda had been o' his side."

"I daresay that's true."

They sat together in the theatre of their future life, and Madge brushed David's hair away from his right ear. The organ was slightly larger than the other and she shook her head discontentedly.

"'Twill never be just so beautiful as the left one," she said.

He laughed.

"What do it matter so long as I can hear with it?"

"And your dear eyelid will droop for ever."

"Yes, but the eye behind be all right. Bartley's got his mark too--where I hit him that last time."

"He's coming up one evening to see this place. Not but he knows it well enough already. He told me that the valley under Harter up along and beyond be nearly always good for a snipe at the season of the year."

"A pity he don't come and lend a hand here, if 'twas only mixing mortar. 'Twould be something for him to do. How any living being can waste his life like that man is a mystery and a shame."

"Always happy too," said Madge. "He've got a very kind heart, David."

"I know that--else he'd have licked me instead of my licking him. Don't think I bear the man any ill-will--far from it. We're real good friends and he's very clever by nature. I'm only sorry he can't find man's work. He've larned a trade now, then why don't he use it?"

The conversation shifted to their house presently and Madge declared her longing to see it grow.

"And what be us to call the place?" she asked.

"I thought of 'Black Tor Cottage,'" he said, "since Black Tor's just above us."

But Madge little liked the name.

"'Black' ban't a comely word for a home," she said. "Think again, David."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"'Tis only the name of the tor," he answered; "black or white be no more than words."

"Call it 'Meavy Cot,'" she said. "'Tis an easy name for folks to bring to mind, and I'd sooner my home was called after the river than they great stones up over, though I daresay I'll get very fond of them too."

"So be it," he answered. "'Meavy Cot' is the name! and I hope that a good few prosperous years be waiting for us in it. But if ever I come to be Moorman of this quarter, I might have to leave it."

"You'll do greater things than that some day, David."

"I hope I shall," he answered; "but to be Moorman is a very good stepping-stone, mark you."

CHAPTER II

BARTLEY DOUBTFUL.

A great drake waddled out from the yard of Mrs. Crocker's dwelling, and some white ducks followed him. The male bird was grey, but his head shone with the rich black-green of the fir trees behind him on the hill and the light of these metallic and glittering feathers made a fine setting for his brown eyes. He marched to the stream, put down his bill and tasted the water; he then threw up his bill again, quacked an order to set forth, and so floated away with the current, while his household followed after. Under the little bridge they went, and the drake, screwing round his head, cast an upward glance at the parapet as he passed by. There he might have marked a familiar figure, for Bartley Crocker, with his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth, sat and talked to a woman who stood beside him. Their position was public, but the subject of their discourse might have been considered confidential. For the woman the revelation he now made opened a desirable possibility. The man spoke half in jest, yet it seemed clear that he found himself perfectly serious and meant all that he said on the main question.

"Set down your basket, Madge, and listen. I'll carry it along for you presently; but I can't talk and walk together--not when the subject is so large. Where are you going?"

"Over to they old Elfords down at Good-a-Meavy. They be terrible poor, you know, and he's fallen ill and the pair of 'em was pretty near starving last week. One of the Bowden boys--Wellington, I think it was--called there, and he told his father; and of course the matter was looked to. I'm just taking them a thing or two, till the old man can get out again."

"'Tis only putting off the workhouse."

"Maybe--yet a good thing to put it off. They'll be too old to smart soon; and then it won't matter."

"How's Rhoda Bowden?" he asked suddenly.

"Very well, so far as I know."

"I've hardly seen a wink of her since I came back. Yet somehow, Madge, I find her terrible interesting."

"She's a fine character, Bartley."

"Well, when I went up to Barnstaple for three months after the fight, I did two things: I learned a trade, as you know, and I thought a lot off and on of Rhoda Bowden."

"Yes."

"'Tis something to be anything at all. Now, if anybody asks what I am, I can say I am an upholsterer. My uncle was well pleased for me to learn the business, and a very nice girl helped me how to do it. But, somehow, while I looked at her clever hands I thought of Rhoda Bowden."

"You ought to tell Rhoda, then--not me."

"Why should I? It's all ridiculous nonsense, of course; but you see I can't forget the peculiar way we were flung together. If you'd seen her after I kissed her! A princess couldn't have raged worse. Then--at the fight--time and again I tried to catch her eye; but never once she looked at me--always busy with David. Did you hear that she came down two nights after, all by herself, through the snow, to ask my mother how I was faring?"

"No!"

"She did; but nobody ever heard it--not even David, I believe. She told my mother not to mention it; and mother began to give her a piece of her mind; but she didn't wait for that."

"'Tis just like her. Something got hold of her to do it, no doubt, while she was walking through the night. She feels kindly to all sorts of dumb things; but she don't often show any interest in humans--except David, of course."

"If I was a dog now, she and me would be very good friends--eh?"

"Not a doubt of it. Anyway this is terrible interesting to me, Bartley--for more reasons than you'd guess. David and I were telling together only a week agone. I said that when we were married, we must set to and find Rhoda a husband; but David felt a bit doubtful about it."

"Well he may be!"

"You think that too?"

"I'm going to scrape acquaintance with her when you're married. Mind I don't say 'twill go very far. I'm a bit frightened of her yet, and 'twouldn't be very clever to offer marriage to a female that makes you feel frightened. But a man must get a wife some day or other, I suppose, and my mother's at me morning, noon and night to find one."

"You do tell me wonderful things!"

"But for the Lord's sake keep 'em dark. I can trust you--and only you. You've been a rare brick where I was concerned all your life, and 'tis very hard we couldn't have been married, as I shall always think whoever takes me. Still, you'll have to go on wishing me well."

"Yes, indeed."

"Say no more about it then. 'Tis only a moonshiney fancy at best, and very like I'd hate the woman if I knew her better--hate her as much as she does me. You know what a fool I am about 'em. I always see her sponging the blood off David's face and always catch myself wishing she'd been doing the same for mine. But I should have felt the same silly wish about any girl, no doubt."

"There's not another girl that ever I heard about would have done it."

"I know--and I ask myself if that's to praise her or to blame her. To hear my mother--"

"Better hear David. She didn't do it for fun, I can tell you. Not to me--not to no woman--did she ever tell what she felt afterwards; but she did tell David; and he says that she didn't know where she was for the first four rounds, and that once or twice after, when it looked like David being beat, that 'twas all she could do by sticking her nails into herself to keep herself from dashing out to help David against you."

Bartley nodded admiringly.

"I believe it," he said. "I saw it in her face."

"And now I must get on," declared Madge. "Can't waste no more time along with you to-day."

"I'll walk up over then and carry your basket," he answered. "When are you going to be married?"