Front matter (continued 2)

"Nature was kind to those early folk."

"Kind! Not kinder than I to my cattle."

"They were happier than you and I, nevertheless. Happier, because nearer the other end of her chain. They had less intelligence, less capacity for suffering."

"That's a theory of Christopher's. He often wishes that he had been born thousands of years ago."

"Not since you promised to marry him," said Myles, with unusual quickness of mind.

"Perhaps not; but he's a savage really. He declares that too much work is done in the world—too much cutting and tunnelling and probing and tearing Nature's heart out. He vows that the great Mother must hate man and resent his hideous activity and lament his creation."

"One can imagine such a thing."

"And Christo says there is a deal of nonsense talked about the dignity of work. He got that out of a book, I believe, and took the trouble to remember it because the theory suited his own lazy creed so perfectly."

For once Myles Stapledon laughed.

"I do admire him: a natural man, loving the wine of life. We have more in common than you might think, for all that I'm no sportsman. I respect any man who will rise with the birds for sheer love of a fair dawn."

"Your rule of conduct is so much more strenuous, so much sterner and greyer," she said, "The cold rain and the shriek of east winds in ill-hung doors are nothing to you. They really hurt him."

"Temperament. Yet I think our paths lead the same way."

Honor laughed in her turn.

"If they do," she declared, "there are a great many more turnpike gates on your road than upon Christopher's."

CHAPTER VI.

ANTHEMIS COTULA

As Myles Stapledon proceeded at the stirrup of his cousin their conversation became more trifling, for the girl talked and the man was well content to listen. She entertained him with a humorous commentary on the life of the Moor-edge and the people who went to compose it. She pointed to stately roofs bowered in forests and expatiated on the mushroom folk who dwelt beneath them.

"My Christo is not good enough for these! I'm a mere farmeress, and wouldn't count, though I do trace my ancestors back to Tudor times. Yet you might have supposed a Yeoland could dare to breathe the same air as Brown, Jones, and Robinson. Don't you think so? What are these great men?"

"Successful," he said, not perceiving that she spoke ironically.

"Ah! the god Success!"

"Don't blame them. Money's the only power in the world now. Birth can't give splendid entertainments and pose as patron of the local institutions and be useful generally and scatter gold—if it has no gold to scatter. The old order changes, because those that represent it are mostly bankrupt. But money has always been the first power. Now it has changed hands—that's all the difference. A few generations of idleness and behold! the red blood has got all the money; the blue blood has none."

"Poor blue blood!"

"They are nothing to you—these people. They pay proper suit and service to the god that made them; they know the power of money, the futility of birth. What is the present use of old families if they represent nothing but bygone memories and musty parchments? Rank is a marketable commodity to be bought and sold—a thing as interesting and desirable to many as old china or any other fad of the wealthy. That they can understand, but poor commoners!—why, it isn't business. Don't you see?"

"Christo's ancestors were a power in the land before this sort of people were invented."

"They were invented. If you look back far enough, you'll see that plenty of your ancient houses sprang from just this sort of people. Only their way to power and prosperity was more romantic then. Now they merely risk their health and eyesight grubbing for half a lifetime at desks in offices or in a bad climate; then they risked their lives under some Devon Drake or Raleigh upon unknown seas, or the field of battle. Our present methods of fortune-making are just as romantic really, only it will take another age, that looks at this from a bird's-eye point of view, to see it. Every dog has his day, and romance always means yesterday. It is summed up in that. I'll wager the neglect of the wealthy doesn't worry Yeoland."

"No, he laughs."

"They are too sordid to understand a man living his life and content to do so. It isn't business."

Honor laughed.

"No—they have the advantage of him there. Yet I do wish he wasn't so lazy."

But Stapledon felt that he could not speak upon that question, so the subject dropped.

They had now left the Moor and were descending to the valley and the river below. A magpie, like a great black and white butterfly, passed with slow flutter before them; there was a drone and gleam of shining insects in the air; and upon the sunny hedge-banks many oaks dripped with the fat sweetness of the aphides until the steep way beneath was darkened in patches as though by rain.

"D'you hear them?" asked Honor. "The twin Teigns! They meet at the bridge beneath us. They know they are going to meet, and they begin to purr and sing to one another. They will rush into each other's arms in a minute. I love to see them do it."

Forward went her surefooted pony, and Myles, striding now on one side, now upon the other, with his eyes in the rich fabric of the hedges, fell a little way behind. When he caught his cousin up again she saw that he had been picking wild flowers. A smile trembled on her lips, for the little blossoms looked out of place—almost ridiculous—in this stolid man's great hand. Honor thought there was a pathetic appeal in the eyes of the summer speedwells and dog-roses, a righteous indignation in the bristling locks of the ragged-robins that he held; but, assuming that the bouquet was designed for her, she concealed her amusement. Then her mind ranged to another aspect of this action, and she found the man's simplicity appeal to her. He did not offer Honor the flowers, but added others to them; named each hedge blossom; showed with frank interest how the seeds of the wood-sorrels sprang away and scattered at a touch; appeared entirely interested by the unconsidered business and beauty of a Devon lane. These concerns, so trivial to Honor's eye, clearly wakened in Stapledon an interest and enthusiasm as keen as any pertaining to humanity.

They proceeded through the valley woods, past the great beech of the proposal, whose secret inscription was discreetly turned away from the high road, and then travelled towards Chagford, hard by the ancient mill of Holy Street—once a happy haunt of artists, to-day denied to all men. Here Honor pointed out the broken head of an old religious relic that formed part of a hedge upon their right hand.

"Market Cross," she said. "It used to be in Chagford until a worthy clergyman rescued it and set it here."

The fragment was of similar character to the granite round about it and shared with the component wall a decoration of mosses, fern, nettle, ivy, and brambles. Upon the stone itself was a rough incised cross, and the whole appeared to occupy this humble place with peaceful propriety. Myles viewed the fragment closely, then, moved by an idea, thrust his bouquet between its arms and passed on.

"I thought they were for me," said Honor.

"No," he answered. "I picked them without a particular object."

They went forward again, traversed Chagford Bridge, and so, by dell and hamlet, hill and valley, returned towards Little Silver and began to breast the great acclivity to Bear Down.

At the foot of this steep climb one Doctor Courteney Clack met them. He was a plump, genial soul of five-and-forty, and love of sport with lack of ambition combined to anchor him in this remote region. He had little to do and so much the more leisure for rod and horse. But to-day he was walking, and his round, clean-shorn face showed him to be remarkably warm.

"Not at the races, Doctor? How extraordinary!"

"Sheer evil fortune, Miss Endicott. A most inconsiderate young person."

"Mrs. Ford?"

"Exactly so. Nature has no sympathy with sportsmen. Christo is to tell me everything. He also has charge of a five-pound note. So I enjoy the sport in spirit."

Hurried footsteps interrupted the conversation, and a boy was seen running at top speed down the hill.

"It's Tommy Bates from home!" cried Honor. "What on earth does he want to go at that pace for?"

"Me probably," said Doctor Clack. "Nobody ever runs in Little Silver, unless it's to my house."

The medical man was right, and Tommy announced that a labourer had fallen suddenly sick in the hayfield and appeared about to perish.

"Sunstroke for certain," declared the medical man. "If it's not asking too much, Miss Endicott, I would suggest that I borrowed your pony. It will take me up the hill a great deal faster than I can walk, and time may be precious."

Honor immediately dismounted, and Doctor Clack, with great entertainment to himself, sat side-saddle, and uttering a wild whoop sent the astounded pony at the hill in a manner both unfamiliar and undignified. He was soon out of sight; and Tommy, after winning back his breath, explained the nature of the disaster and gave the name of the sufferer.

An hour earlier in the day, those workers of Bear Down already seen, were assembled about their dinner beside the majestic bulk of the last rick. All was now gathered in and the evening would see conclusion of a most satisfactory hay-harvesting. With their bread and onions, cheese and cold puddings the labourers speculated upon the worth of the crop.

"I'm thinking 'twill go in part to fat the pocket of a lazy man," said Henry Collins, who knew of the recent scene between Christopher Yeoland and Mr. Cramphorn, and had his reasons for ingratiating the latter.

"Lazy an' worse. Look at my eye!" growled Jonah. "If it weren't for missis, I'd have laid him in clink afore now—vicious rip as he is! He'll never trouble Satan to find him a job. Born to the gallows like as not."

He dropped his voice and turned to Churdles Ash.

"I seen Cherry Grepe," he said. "She's took my money to be even with un. I didn't ax no questions, but 'twill go hard with un afore very long."

Mr. Ash pursed his lips, which were indeed always pursed from the fact of there being no teeth to mention behind them. He did not answer Jonah's dark news, but spoke upon the main question.

"Come to think of it, a honest scarecrow do more work in the world than him," he declared.

"No more gude than a bowldacious auld dog-fox," said Henry Collins.

"Worse," replied Jonah. "Such things as foxes an' other varmints be the creation of the Lard to keep the likes of Christopher Yeoland out o' mischief. But him—the man hisself—what can you say of wan as have got a sawl to save, an' behaves like a awver-fed beast?"

"A butivul soarin' sawl," assented Samuel Pinsent. "But wheer do it soar to? To kissin' honest gals on the highways by all accounts."

Mr. Cramphorn's dark visage wrinkled and twisted and contracted.

"Blast the viper! But I gived un a hard stroke here an' theer, I warn 'e. Might have killed un in my gert wrath, but for t'other. Walloped un to the truth of music I did—philandering beast! 'Tis pearls afore swine, missis to mate with him."

"Fegs! You'm right theer. I've said afore an' I'll say again that she should have bided longer an' tried for her cousin. He'm worth ten of t'other chitterin' magpie; an' ban't feared o' work neither," declared Mr. Ash.

"Wait!" murmured Jonah darkly and with mystery in his voice. Then he whispered behind his hand to the ancient. "Cherry Grepe had a gawlden half-sovereign! I knaw what's in that woman, if she's pleased to let it out. Bide an' see. An' her didn't burn the chap in a wax image stuffed with pins for nought! 'That'll do the trick presently,'[#] her said. So wait an' watch, Churdles, same as I be doin'."

[#] Presently = immediately.

Mr. Ash looked uneasy, but answered nothing. Then came a sudden interruption.

Sally was serving at the cider barrel and had just poured out a horn of sweet refreshment for a thirsty man. It was Mr. Libby, who, in working clothes to-day, had condescended to manual labour once more. Time being an object with the hay, Mr. Cramphorn offered the youth a week's employment, so, much to the secret satisfaction of one who loved him, Mr. Libby became enrolled. Now the supreme moment was at hand, and while Sally laughed, her heart throbbed in a mighty flutter and beat painfully against a little bottle in her bosom. It contained the philtre, now to be exhibited on the cold heart of Gregory. Danger indeed lurked in this act, but Sally felt steeled to it and well prepared to hazard any reasonable risk. Only the previous evening she had seen Mr. Libby and her sister very close together in the gloaming. Moreover, her father had babbled far and near of the incident on the moorland road, and certain men and women, to her furious indignation, had not hesitated to hint that only an unmaidenly and coming-on spirit could culminate in such tribulation.

Now she passed for one instant behind the rick, drew forth the phial, took out its cork with her teeth and poured the potion into Mr. Libby's horn of cider. Gregory, his holiday airs and graces set aside, thanked the girl, gave a grateful grunt of anticipation, and drained the beaker at a draught.

"That's better!" he said. Then he smacked his lips and spat. "Theer's a funny tang to it tu. 'Twas from the cask—eh?"

"Ess, of course; wheer should it be from?" said Sally. Then she fluttered away, scarcely seeing where she walked.

The boy, Tommy Bates, was sitting beside Libby, and a moment later he spoke.

"Lard, Greg! what's tuke 'e? You'm starin' like a sheep."

"Doan't knaw, ezacally. I'm—I'm——"

"You'm gone dough-colour, an' theer's perspiration come out 'pon 'e so big as peas!" cried candid Tommy.

"I'm bad—mortal bad—'struth, I be dyin' I b'lieve! 'Tis here it's took me."

He clapped his hands to his stomach, rolled over on the ground and groaned, while his companion hastened to cry the catastrophe.

"Greg Libby's struck down! He'm thrawin' his life up, an' wrigglin' an' twistin' like a gashly worm!"

"Ah, I seed un wi'out his hat," said Mr. Ash calmly.

"A bit naish an' soft, I reckon; comes o' not standin' to work," spoke Henry Collins contemptuously.

"Or might be tu much cider," suggested Pinsent.

Without undue haste they strolled over to the sufferer. His head was in Sally's lap, and she screamed that he was passing away before their eyes.

"Put the poll of un off your apern, will 'e!" snapped Mr. Cramphorn. "Give awver hollerin', an' get on your legs, an' run home to Mrs. Loveys for the brandy. The man's took a fit seemin'ly. An' you, Bates, slip it down the hill for Doctor Clack. Loose his shirt to the throat, Collins, and drag un in the shade."

Jonah's orders were complied with, and soon, brandy bottle in hand, Mrs. Loveys hastened to the hay field with Sally sobbing behind her. But meantime Nature had assisted Mr. Libby to evade the potion, and a little brandy soon revived his shattered system. He was sitting up with his back against the hayrick describing his sensations to an interested audience when Doctor Clack arrived. The physician, who loved well the sound of his own voice, lectured on the recumbent Libby as soon as he had learnt particulars.

"First let me assure you all that he's in no danger—none at all," he began. "Nature is more skilful, more quick-witted, more resourceful than the most learned amongst us. Even I, beside Nature, am as nothing. I should have ordered an emetic. Behold! Nature anticipates me and takes all the necessary steps. Really one might have suspected a case of Colica Damnoniensis—which doesn't mean a damned stomach-ache, as you might imagine, having no Latin, but merely 'Devonshire Colic'—an old-time complaint—old as cider in fact—but long since vanished. It was caused by the presence of deleterious substances, or, as you would describe it more simply, dirt, in the apple-juice; and those eminent men, Doctor John Huxham and Sir George Baker, arrived at the conclusion some hundred years ago that the ailment arose from presence of lead in the cider vats. Nowadays such things cannot happen; therefore, to return to our friend here, we must seek elsewhere for an explanation of his collapse. Whatever he was unfortunate or unwise enough to partake of has happily been rejected by that learned organ, the human stomach—so often wiser than the human head—and my presence ceases to be longer necessary. A little more brandy and water and our friend will be quite equal to walking home."

Myles and Honor had now reached the scene, and the mistress of Endicott's insisted that a cart should convey Gregory to his mother. The unconscious victim of love therefore departed making the most of his sufferings.

Sally also withdrew from the toil of the day, retired to her little bedroom in Mr. Cramphorn's cottage near Bear Down, and wept without intermission for a space of time not exceeding two hours. She then cheered up and speculated hopefully upon the future.

To explain these matters it need only be said that, like many a better botanist before her, the girl had mistaken one herb of the field for another, and, instead of gathering innocent wild chamomile, collected good store of mayweed—a plant so exactly like the first to outward seeming that only most skilled eyes detect the differences between them. Thus, instead of receiving the beneficent and innocuous Matricaria chamomilla, Mr. Libby's stomach had been stormed by baleful Anthemis cotula, with the results recorded.

CHAPTER VII.

A BADGER'S EARTH

While Myles Stapledon played a busy part at the farm and found ample outlet for his small capital, ample occupation for his energies, Honor roamed dreaming through the August days with Christopher. As for Myles, he was a practical farmer and soon discovered what Mark Endicott had anticipated, that no mean possibilities lurked in Bear Down. The place indeed cried out for spending of money and increase of stock, but it promised adequate return upon outlay—a return at least reasonable viewed from the present low estate and reduced capabilities of English land. Stapledon was not hungry for any immediate or amazing profit, but Endicott's seemed certain to produce a fair interest upon the two thousand pounds he embarked there; he liked the farm and he was satisfied. At his cousin's particular desire, Myles stayed to see the money spent according to his will. Some of it went in building; and bygone beauties of old ripe thatches and cob walls that crumbled their native red through many coats of mellow whitewash, now vanished, yielding place to bricks, blue slates, and staring iron. A new atmosphere moved over the stagnation of Endicott's and the blind man settled into a great content.

The mistress had other matters to fill her thoughts, and, as the autumn approached, private concerns wholly occupied her. For Honor was more frank with herself than is possible to a soul that lacks humour; and a problem now rose ahead of her beyond the solution of days and nights; a mystery that developed, deepened, heightened, until it became a distraction and a trouble. Yet there was laughter in it, but of a sub-acid sort, neither wholesome nor pleasant.

Once in position of proud possessor, Christopher Yeoland exhibited no further alarm and but little apparent eagerness in the matter of his united future with Honor. Marriage appeared to be the last thing in his thought, and the temperament of the man at this crisis became visible and offered matter of comment for the most cursory observers. The fact of delay suited Honor well enough in reality, for she had little intention or desire to marry immediately, but that Christopher should be of this mind piqued her. His perfect equanimity before the prospect of an indefinite engagement secretly made Honor somewhat indignant. It did not become her lover in her eyes. He was not indifferent, that she knew; he was not cold, that she hoped; but his temper in this perfect readiness to postpone matrimony showed him to Honor in a new sidelight. Naturally enough she did not understand the trait, though it was characteristic; and her discomfort existed in a vague sense that his attitude, so much the reverse of a compliment to her, must have been awakened by some deficiency in herself. That the imperfection lay in him she did not imagine; that his love was a little anæmic in a positive direction she could not be supposed to suspect. Intellectually at least Christopher always sufficed, and Honor's uneasiness usually evaporated when in his company, though it was prone to take shape and substance again when absent from him. He always spoke of marriage as a remote goal—wholly desirable indeed—but approached by such pleasant ways that most rambling and desultory progress thereto was best; and, though entirely of his mind, it is a fact that the girl felt fluctuations of absolute annoyance that this should be his mind.

From which cause sprang secret laughter, that was born of fretfulness, that died in a frown.

Other trouble, of a sort widely different, also appeared upon Honor's horizon. After a period of supreme command, to find another enjoying almost like share of obedience and service at Bear Down seemed strange. But with absolute unconsciousness Myles Stapledon soon blundered into a prominence at Endicott's second only to her own. Nor was his position even second in some directions. Labouring folk follow a strong will by instinct, and Myles was striking such a dominant note of energy, activity, despatch in affairs, that the little community came presently to regard him as the new controller of its fortunes. Stapledon's name was upon the lips of the people more often than Honor's; even Jonah Cramphorn, whose noblest qualities appeared in a doglike and devout fidelity to the mistress, found Myles filling his mind as often as the busy new-comer filled his eye. At such times, in common with Churdles Ash and any other who might have enough imagination to regret an impossibility, Jonah mourned that it was Yeoland rather than Stapledon who had won his mistress's heart.

But the latter, full of business and loving work as only those love it who have devoted life thereto, overlooked the delicacy of his position at various minor points; and with sole purpose to save his cousin trouble he took much upon himself. It was sufficient that she said nothing and Mark Endicott approved. Once he offered to pay the hands at the accustomed hour of noon on Saturday; whereupon Honor blushed, and, becoming aware that he had hurt her, Myles expressed contrition with the utmost humility and heaped blame upon his blunder.

"It was only to save you trouble," he concluded.

"I know it; you are always doing so," she answered without irony. "But pay-day—that's the farmer's work."

Her answer, though not intended to do anything of the sort, forcibly reminded Myles that he had but a limited interest in Bear Down.

"Be frank," he said. "I'm such a thick-skinned fool that I may have blundered before and hurt you and never known it. Do not suffer me to do so again, Honor. I'm only very jealous for you and all that is yours."

"You are a great deal too kind to me, Myles, and have done more than I can find words to thank you for. You are the good genius here. I don't like to think of the loneliness we shall feel when you go from us."

"I'm not going yet awhile, I promise you," he answered.

Honor indeed appreciated her cousin's goodness fully, and, after this incident, had no more occasion to deplore his tact. She only spoke truth when affirming regret at the possibility of his departure. Her earliest sensations of oppression in his society had passed upon their walk over the Moor. From that moment the woman began to understand him and appreciate the strenuous simplicity of him. Sometimes he looked almost pathetic in his negations and his lonely and forlorn attitude towards the things of Hope; at others he rose into a being impressive, by that loneliness—a rare spirit who, upon "inbred loyalty unto Virtue, could serve her without a livery," and without a wage. Thus seen he interested Honor's intellect, and she speculated upon the strength of his armour if Chance called upon him to prove it. Not seldom she found herself in moods when a walk and a talk with Myles invigorated her; and she told her heart that such conversations made her return to Christopher with the greater zest, as an olive will reveal the delicate shades of flavour in fine wine. She assured herself of this fact repeatedly, until the reiteration of the idea caused her conscience to suspect its truth. She wilfully shut her eyes to its absurdity for a month, then changed her simile. Now she fancied that Christopher and Myles must impart an intellectual complement to one another, in that their qualities differed so extremely.

The result of this attitude was inevitable upon a woman of Honor's temperament. Comparison being impossible, she began to contrast the two men. One could be nothing to her; the other she had promised to marry; and even in the midst of her critical analysis she blamed herself, not without reason, in that her love for Christopher had no power to blind her. She asked herself bitterly what an affection was worth that could thus dwell in cold blood upon a lover's weaknesses. She answered herself that it was Christopher's own fault. She felt glad that he was what he was. His defects looked lovable; and only in the rather chilly daylight thrown by Stapledon's characteristics did Christo's blemishes appear at all. Then Honor grew very angry with herself, but tried to believe that her anger was directed against Myles. She flew upon him savagely to tear him to pieces; she strove furiously, pitilessly to strip him to his soul; but she was just between the ebullitions of anger, and, after her hurricane onset, the lacerated figure of her cousin still stood a man. He was difficult to belittle or disparage by the nature of him. One may trample a flower-bed into unlovely ruin in a moment; to rob a lichen-clad rock of its particular beauty is a harder and a lengthier task. Granted that the man was ponderous and lacking in laughter, he could yet be kind and gentle to all; granted that he appeared oppressed with the necessity of setting a good example to the world, yet he was in earnest, of self-denying and simple habit, one who apparently practised nothing he did not preach. She turned impatiently away from the picture of such admirable qualities; she told herself that he was little better than a savage in some aspects, a prig in all the rest. Yet Honor Endicott had lived too close to Nature to make the mistake of any lengthened self-deception. Myles was living a life that would wear, as against an existence which even her green experience of the world whispered was irrational; and though the shrewdness of Stapledon appeared a drab and unlovely compound beside Christopher's sparkling philosophy, yet Honor knew which stood for the juster views of life and conduct. One represented a grey twilight, clear and calm if wholly lacking any splendid height of hue; the other promised wide contrasts, tropical sunshine, and probable tempests. Not a little in the sobriety of the first picture attracted her; but she was none the less well pleased to think that she had already decided for the second. Herein she followed instinct, for her nature was of the sort that needed variable weather if intellectual health was to be her portion.

Yet these dissimilar men, as chance willed it, proved excellent friends, and, from the incident of their first meeting, grew into a sufficiently warm comradeship. Myles found himself gasping a dozen times a day before the audacities of Christopher. Sometimes indeed he suspected Yeoland's jewels of being paste; sometimes he marvelled how a professed Christian could propound certain theories; sometimes also he suspected that the Squire of Godleigh spoke truer than he knew. Christopher, for his part, welcomed the farmer, as he had welcomed any man whose destiny it was to lighten Honor's anxiety. That the new-comer was putting a couple of thousand pounds into Endicott's proved passport sufficient to Yeoland's esteem. Moreover, he liked Myles for other reasons. They met often in the fields and high places at dawn, and from standpoints widely different they both approached Nature with love. Christopher took a telescopic survey, delighted in wide harmonies, great shadows, upheavals of cloud, storms, sunsets, rivers overflowing and the magic of the mist. He knew the name of nothing and shrank from scientific approach to natural objects—to bird or bud or berry; but he affected all the wild animate and inanimate life of his woods and rivers; he was reluctant to interfere with anything; he hated the mournful echo of a woodman's axe in spring, though each dull reverberation promised a guinea for his empty purse. Stapledon, on the contrary, while not dead to spacious manifestations of force, was also microscopic. He missed much that the other was quick to glean, but gained an intimate knowledge of matters radical, and, being introspective, dug deeper lessons out of Devon hedgerows and the economy of Dartmoor bogs than Yeoland gathered from the procession of all the seasons as displayed in pomp and glory under the banner of the sun.

On a day when as yet no shadow had risen between them; when as yet Myles contemplated his cousin's engagement without uneasiness, and Christopher enjoyed the other's ingenuous commentary upon Honor's rare beauty of mind and body, they walked together at sunset on the high lands of Godleigh. Above the pine trees that encircled Yeoland's home and rose behind it, an offshoot from the Moor extended. Deep slopes of fern and grass, mountain ash and blackthorn, draped the sides of this elevation, and upon the crown of a little hill, sharing the same with wild ridges and boulders of stone, spread ruins and lay foundations of a building that had almost vanished. A single turret still stood, ceiled with the sky, carpeted with grass; and all round about a glory of purple heather fledged the granite, the evening scent of the bracken rose, flames of sunset fire touched stones and tree-tops, and burnt into the huge side of distant Cosdon Beacon, until that mountain was turned into a mist of gold.

"There would be a grand sky if we were on the Moor to-night," said Christopher; "not one of the clear, cloudless sort—as clean and uneventful as a saint's record—but what I call a human sunset—full of smudged splendour and gorgeous blots and tottering ruins, with live fire streaming out of the black abysses and an awful scarlet pall flung out to cover the great red-hot heart of the sun as he dips and dips."

"A sunset always means to-morrow to me."

"You're a farmer. Nothing ever means to-morrow to me."

"I can't believe that, Yeoland—not now that you've won Honor."

Christopher did not answer, but walked on where many an acre of fern spread over the southern face of the slope.

"Here you are," he said presently, indicating a burrow and a pile of mould. "Tommy Bates found it when he was here picking sloes and told me about it. I won't be sure it isn't a fox myself; though he declares the earth to be a badger's."

"Yes, I think that dead white grass means a badger. He brought it up from the valley."

"Then Tommy was right and I'm glad, for any distinguished stranger is welcome on my ground. What does the brute eat?"

"Roots and beech mast for choice. But he's carnivorous to the extent of an occasional frog or beetle; and I'm afraid he wouldn't pass a partridge's nest if there were eggs in it."

"That's a black mark against the beggar, but I'll pretend I don't know it."

They strolled forward and Myles kept his eyes upon the ground, while Christopher watched the sunset.

"It's a singular puzzle, the things that make a man melancholy," said the latter suddenly. "Once I had a theory that any perfect thing, no matter what, must produce sadness in the human mind, simply out of its perfection."

"A country life would be a pretty miserable business if that was so—with the perfect at the door of our eyes and ears all day long."

"Then I discovered that it depended on other considerations. Love of life is concerned with it. Youth saddens nobody; but age must. Our love of life wakes our sorrow for the old who are going out of it. 'Tis the difference between a bud and a withered blossom. Sunrise makes no man sad. That's why you love it, and love to be in it, as I do. The blush of dawn is like the warm cheek of a waking child—lovely; but sunset is a dying thing. There's sadness in that, and the more beautiful, the more sad."

"I cannot see anything to call sad in one or other."

"No, I suppose you can't; you've got such a devilish well-balanced mind."

A faint shadow of annoyance if not absolute contempt lurked in the tones of the speech; but Stapledon failed to see it.

"I wish I had," he answered. "There are plenty of things in Nature that make a man sad—sounds, sights, glimpses of the eternal battle under the eternal beauty. But sadness is weakness, say what you will. There's nothing to be sentimental about really. It's because we apply our rule of thumb to her; it's because we try to measure her wide methods by our own opinions on right and justice that we find her unjust. I told Honor something of this; but she agrees with you that Nature's quite beyond apology, and won't be convinced."

"You've told her so many things lately—opened her eyes, I'm sure, in so many directions. She's as solemn as an owl sometimes when I'm with her. Certainly she doesn't laugh as often as she used to."

Myles was much startled.

"Don't say that; don't say that. She's not meant to take sober views—not yet—not yet. She's living sunlight—the embodiment of laughter, and all the world's a funny picture-book to her still. To think I should have paid for the pleasure she's brought me by lessening her own! I hope you're utterly wrong, Yeoland. This is a very unquieting thought."

The man spoke much faster than usual, and with such evident concern that Christopher endeavoured to diminish the force of his speech.

"Perhaps I'm mistaken, as you say; perhaps the reason is that we are now definitely engaged. That may have induced gravity. Of course it is a solemn thing for an intelligent girl to cast in her lot with a pauper."

But Myles would not be distracted from the main issue.

"Her laughter is characteristic—marvellously musical—part of herself, like bells are part of a fair church. Think of making a belfry dumb by a deliberate act! Honor should always be smiling. A little sister of the spring she seems to me, and her laughter goes to my heart like a lark's song, for there's unconscious praise of God in it."

Yeoland glanced at the other.

"You can be sentimental too, then?"

"Not that, but I can be sad, and I am now. A man may well be so to think he has bated by one smile the happiness of Honor."

"Sorry I mentioned it."

"I'm glad. It was a great fault in me. I will try desperately to amend. I'm a dull dog, but I'll——"

"Don't, my dear chap. Don't do anything whatever. Be yourself, or you won't keep her respect. She hates shams. I would change too if I could. But she'd be down on me in a second if I attempted any reformation. The truth is we're both bursting with different good and brilliant qualities—you and I—and poor Honor is dazzled."

Stapledon did not laugh; he only experienced a great desire to be alone.

"Are you going to wait for the badger?" he asked, as they turned and retraced their way.

"Good Lord, no! Are you?"

"Certainly. It's only a matter of hours at most. I can sit silent in the fern with my eyes on the earth. I thought you wanted to see him."

"Not an atom. It's enough for me that he's here in snug quarters. My lord badger will show at moonrise, I expect. You'd better come down to the house and have a drink after the manifestation."

He tramped away; his footfall faded to a whisper in the fern; and Myles, reaching a place from which the aperture below was visible, settled himself and took a pipe from his pocket from habit, but did not load or light it. He had an oriental capacity for waiting, and his patience it was that had won much of his curious knowledge. A few hours more or less under the stars on a fine summer night were nothing but a pleasure to him. Rather did he welcome the pending vigil, for he desired to think, and he knew that a man may do so to best purpose in the air.

Once out of sight Christopher also stopped awhile and sat down upon a rock with his face uplifted. The rosy sky was paling, and already a little galaxy of lights afar off marked the village of Chagford, where it stood upon its own proper elevation under the Moor. Thus placed, in opposition to the vanished sun, detail appeared most clearly along the eastern hills and valleys. Cot, hamlet, white winding road stood forth upon the expanse, and while Christopher Yeoland watched the dwindling definition on earth there ascended a vast and misty shield of pearl into the fading sky. Through parallel bands of grey, like a faint ghost, it stole upwards into a rosy after-glow. Then the clouds faded, and died, and wakened again at the touch of the moon, as she arose with heightened glory and diminished girth, to wield a sceptre of silver over sleep. There descended then the great silence of such places, the silence that only country dwellers understand, the silence that can fret urban nerves into absolute suffering. Bedewed fern-fronds gathered light, and flung it like rain across the gloom, and brought far-reaching peace and contentment to the mind of Christopher. He dreamed dreams; he rose in spirit through the moony mist—a dimensionless, imponderable, spirit thing, ready to lose himself in one drop of diamond dew, hungry to fill high heaven and hug the round moon to his heart. For a little season he rejoiced in the trance of that hushed hour; then the moment of intoxication vanished, and he rose slowly and went his way.

The other man, after long waiting, was also rewarded. From beneath him, where he sat, there came at last a sound and a snuffling. The badger appeared, and the moonlight touched his little eyes and gleamed along his amber side-streaks as he put up his nose, sniffed the air with suspicion, stretched himself, scratched himself, then paddled silently away upon his nightly business through the aisles of the fern.

CHAPTER VIII.

OUT OF THE MIST

The calm awakened of moonlight, as quickly died, and Christopher Yeoland found himself in some uneasiness when he thought of his love. Whereon he based this irritation would have been difficult to determine, but a variety of small annoyances conspired to build it. These trifles, separately, laughter could blow away at a breath, but combined they grew into a shadow not easily dispelled. Already the name of Myles had oftener sounded upon Honor's lips than seemed necessary, even when Stapledon's position and importance at Bear Down were allowed; and now her name similarly echoed and re-echoed in the utterances of her cousin. Still Christopher smiled in thought.

"It's the novelty of him after me. I'm a mere rollicking, irresponsible brook—only good to drink from or fish in—for ideas; he's a useful, dreary canal—a most valuable contrivance—smooth, placid, not to say flat. Well, well, I must shake Honor up; I must——"

He reflected and debated upon various courses though immediate marriage was not included amongst them. But a fortnight later the situation had developed.

Honor and Christopher were riding together over the Moor; and, albeit the physical conditions promised fair enough until sunset-time, when both man and woman turned homewards very happy, yet each had grown miserable before the end, and they parted in anger upon the heathery wastes where northern Teign and Wallabrook wind underneath Scor Hill. For the weather of the high land and the weather of their minds simultaneously changed, and across both there passed a cloud. Over against the sunset, creeping magically as she is wont to creep, from the bosom of the Moor and the dark ways of unseen water, arose the Mist Mother. She appeared suddenly against the blue above, spread forth diaphanous draperies, twined her pearly arms among the stocks and stones and old, wind-bent bushes of the waste. Catching a radiance from the westering sun, she draped the grey heads of granite tors in cowls of gold; she rose and fell; she appeared and vanished; she stole forward suddenly; she wreathed curly tendrils of vapour over sedge and stone, green, quaking bog, still waters, and the peat cuttings that burnt red-hot under the level rays of the sun. Great solitary flakes of the mist, shining with ineffable lustre of light, lessened the sobriety of the heath; and upon their dazzling hearts, where they suddenly merged and spread in opposition to the sun on the slope of western-facing hills, there trembled out a spectral misty circle—a huge halo of colourless light drawn upon the glimmering moisture. Within it, a whitethorn stood bathed in a fiery glow without candescence; and from beneath the tree some wild creature—hare or fox—moved away silently and vanished under the curtain, while a curlew cried overhead invisible. The riders reined up and watched the luminous frolics of the Mist, where she played thus naked, like an innocent savage thing, before them.

"These are the moments when I seem to glimpse antique life through the grey—wolf-skins and dark human skins, coarse faces, black hair, bead-bright eyes, strange speech, the glimmer of tents or rush thatches through the mist. These, and the bark of dogs, laughter of women, tinkle of stone on stone, where some Damnonian hunter fabricates his flints and grunts of the wood-bears and the way to kill them."

"Always dreaming, dearest. I wonder what you would have done in those days? Did the Damnonians have Christos too?"

"Undoubtedly. I should have been a bard, or a tribal prophet, or something important and easy. I should have dreamed dreams, and told fortunes, and imparted a certain cultured flavour to the lodge. I should have been their oracle very likely—nice easy work being an oracle. In it you'll find the first dawn of the future art of criticism."

"Creation is better than criticism."

"That's your cousin, I'll swear! The very ring of him. No doubt he thinks so. Yet what can be more futile than unskilful creation? For that matter the awful amount of time that's wasted in all sorts of futile work."

"You're certainly sincere. You practise the virtues of laziness as well as preach them," said Honor without amusement.

"I do; but there's not that old note of admiration at my theories in your voice of late, my angel girl."

"No, Christo; I'm beginning to doubt, in a fleeting sort of way, if your gospel is quite the inspired thing you fancy it."

"Treason! You live too much in the atmosphere of honest toil, sweetheart. And there's hardly a butterfly left now to correct your impressions."

"No; they are all starving under leaves, poor things."

"Exactly—dying game; and the self-righteous ant is counting his stores—or is it the squirrel, or the dormouse? I know something or other hoards all the summer through to prolong his useless existence."

Honor did not answer. Then her lover suddenly remembered Myles, and his forehead wrinkled for a moment.

"Of course I'm not blind, Honor," he proceeded, in an altered tone. "I've seen the change these many days, and levelled a guess at the reason. Sobersides makes me look a weakling. Unfortunately he's such a real good chap I cannot be cross with him."

"Why should you be cross with anybody?"

"That's the question. You're the answer. I'm—I'm not exactly all I was to you. Don't clamour. It's true, and you know it's true. You're so exacting, so unrestful, so grave by fits lately. And he—he's always on your tongue too. You didn't know that, but it's the case. Natural perhaps—a strong personality, and so forth—yet—yet——"

"What nonsense this is, Christopher!"

"Of course it is. But you don't laugh. You never do laugh now. My own sober conviction is this; Stapledon's in love with you and doesn't know it. Don't fall off your pony."

"Christopher! You've no right, or reason, or shadow of a shade for saying such a ridiculous thing."

"There's that in your voice convinces me at this moment."

"Doesn't he know we're engaged? Would such a man allow himself for an instant——?"

"Of course he wouldn't. That's just what I argue, isn't it? He stops on here because he doesn't know what's happened to him yet, poor devil. When he finds out, he'll probably fly."

"You judge others by yourself, my dearest. Love! Why, he works too hard to waste his thoughts on any woman whatsoever. Never was a mind so seldom in the clouds."

"In the clouds—no; but on the earth—on the earth, and at your elbow."

"He's nothing of the kind."

"Well, then, you're always at his. Such a busy, bustling couple! I'm sure you're enough to make the very singing birds ashamed. When is he going?"

"When his money is laid out to his liking, I suppose. Not yet awhile, I hope."

"You don't want him to go?"

"Certainly I don't; why should I?"

"You admire him in a way?"

"In a great many ways. He's a restful man. There's a beautiful simplicity about his thoughts; and——"

"And he works?"

"You're trying to make me cross, Christo; but I don't think you will again."

"Ah! I have to thank him for that too! He's making you see how small it is to be cross with me. He's enlarging your mind, lifting it to the stars, burying it in the bogs, teaching you all about rainbows and tadpoles. He'll soak the sunshine out of your life if you're not careful; and then you'll grow as self-contained and sensible and perfect as he is."

"After which you won't want me any more, I suppose?"

"No—then you'd only be fit for—well, for him."

"I don't love you in these sneering moods, Christo. Why cannot you speak plainly? You've got some imaginary grievance. What is it?"

"I never said so. But—well, I have. I honestly believe I'm jealous—jealous of this superior man."

"You child!"

"There it is! It's come to that. I wasn't a child in your eyes a month ago. But I shall be called an infant in arms at this rate in another month."

"He can't help being a sensible, far-seeing man, any more than you can help being a——"

"Fool—say it; don't hesitate. Well, what then?"

Honor, despite her recent assertion, could still be angry with Christopher, because she loved him better than anything in the world. Her face flushed; she gathered her reins sharply.

"Then," she answered, "there's nothing more to be said—excepting that I'm a little tired of you to-day. We've seen too much of one another lately."

"Or too much of somebody else."

She wheeled away abruptly and galloped off, leaving him with the last word. One of her dogs, a big collie, stood irresolute, his left forepaw up, his eyes all doubt. Then he bent his great back like a bow, and bounded after his mistress; but Yeoland did not attempt to follow. He watched his lady awhile, and, when she was a quarter of a mile ahead, proceeded homewards.

She had chosen a winding way back to Bear Down, and he must pass the farm before she could return to it.

The man was perfectly calm to outward seeming, but he shook his head once or twice—shook it at his own folly.

"Poor little lass!" he said to himself. "Impatient—impatient—why? Because I was impatient, no doubt. Let me see—our first real quarrel since we were engaged."

As he went down the hill past Honor's home, a sudden fancy held him, and, acting upon it, he dismounted, hitched up his horse, and strolled round to the back of the house in hope that he might win a private word or two with Mark Endicott. Chance favoured him. Tea drinking was done, and the still, lonely hour following on that meal prevailed in the great kitchen. Without, spangled fowls clucked their last remarks for the day, and fluttered, with clumsy effort, to their perches in a great holly tree, where they roosted. At the open door a block, a bill-hook, and a leathern gauntlet lay beside a pile of split wood where Sally Cramphorn had been working; and upon the block a robin sat and sang.

Christopher lifted the latch and walked through a short passage to find Honor's uncle alone in the kitchen and talking to himself by snatches.

"Forgive me, Mr. Endicott," he said, breaking in upon the monologue; "I've no right to upset your reveries in this fashion, but I was passing and wanted a dozen words."

"And welcome, Yeoland. We've missed you at the Sunday supper of late weeks. How is it with you?"

"Oh, all right. Only just now I want to exchange ideas—impressions. You love my Honor better than anybody else in the world but myself. And love makes one jolly quick—sensitive—foolishly so perhaps. I didn't think it was in me to be sensitive; yet I find I am."

"Speak your mind, and I'll go on with my knitting—never blind man's holiday if you are a blind man, you know."

"You're like all the rest in this hive, always busy. I wonder if the drones blush when they're caught stealing honey?"

"Haven't much time for blushing. Yet 'tis certain that never drone stole sweeter honey than you have—if you are a drone."

"I'm coming to that. But the honey first. Frankly now, have you noticed any change in Honor of late days—since—well, within the last month or two."

Mr. Endicott reflected before making any answer, and tapped his needles slowly.

"There is a change," he said at length.

"She's restless," continued Christopher; "won't have her laugh out—stops in the middle, as if she suddenly remembered she was in church or somewhere. How d'you account for it?"

"She's grown a bit more strenuous since her engagement—more alive to the working-day side of things."

"Not lasting, I hope?"

"Please God, yes. She won't be any less happy."

"Of course Myles Stapledon's responsible. Yet how has he done it? You say you're glad to see Honor more serious-minded. Well, that means you would have made her so before now, if you could. You failed to change her in all these years; he has succeeded in clouding her life somehow within the space of two months. How can you explain that?"

"You're asking pithy questions, my son. And, by the voice of you, I'm inclined to reckon you're as likely to know the answers to them as I am. Maybe more likely. You're a man in love, and that quickens the wits of even the dullest clod who ever sat sighing on a gate, eating his turnip and finding it tasteless. I loved a maid once, too; but 'tis so far off."

"Well, there's something not wholly right in this. And they ought to know it."

"Certainly they don't—don't guess it or dream it. But leave that. Now you. You must tackle yourself. The remedy lies with you. This thing has made you think, at any rate."

"Well, yes. Honor isn't so satisfied with me as of old, somehow. Of course that's natural, but——"

"She loves you a thousand times better than you love yourself."

"And still isn't exactly happy in me."

"Are you happy in yourself? She's very well satisfied with you—worships the ground you walk on, as the saying is—but that's not to say she's satisfied with your life. And more am I, or anybody that cares about you. And more are you."

"Well, well; but Myles Stapledon—this dear, good chap. He's a—what? Why, a magnifying glass for people to see me in—upside down."

"He thinks very little about you, I fancy."

"He's succeeded in making me feel a fool, anyhow; and that's unpleasant. Tell me what to do, Mr. Endicott. Where shall I begin?"

"Begin to be a man, Yeoland. That's what a woman wants in her husband—wants it unconsciously before everything. A man—self-contained, resolute—a figure strong enough to lean upon in storm and stress."

"Stapledon is a man."

"He is, emphatically. He knows where he is going, and the road. He gets unity into his life, method into his to-morrows."

"To-morrow's always all right. It's to-day that bothers me so infernally."

"Ah! and yesterday must make you feel sick every time you think of it, if you've any conscience."

"I know there isn't much to show. Yet it seems such a poor compliment to the wonderful world to waste your time in grubbing meanly with your back to her. At best we can only get a few jewelled glimpses through these clay gates that we live behind. Then down comes the night, when no man may work or play. And we shall be an awfully long time dead. And what's the sum of a life's labour after all?"

"Get work," said Mark, "and drop that twaddle. Healthy work's the first law of Nature, no matter what wise men may say or poets sing. Liberty! It's a Jack-o'-lantern. There's no created thing can be free. Doing His will—all, all. Root and branch, berry and bud, feathered and furred creatures—all working to live complete. The lily does toil; and if you could see the double fringe of her roots above the bulb and under it—as I can well mind when I had eyes and loved the garden—you'd know it was so. There's no good thing in all the world got without labour at the back of it. Think what goes to build a flash of lightning—you that love storms. But the lightning's not free neither. And the Almighty's self works harder than all His worlds put together."

"Well, I'll do something definite. I think I'll write a book about birds. Tell me, does Honor speak much of her cousin?"

"She does."

"Yet if she knew—if she only knew. Why, God's light! she'd wither and lose her sap and grow old in two years with Stapledon. I know it, in the very heart of me, and I'd stake my life on it against all the prophets. There's that in close contact with him would freeze and kill such as Honor. Yes, kill her, for it's a vital part of her would suffer. Some fascination has sprung up from the contrast between us; and it has charmed her. She's bewitched. And yet—be frank, Mr. Endicott—do you believe that Stapledon is the husband for Honor? You've thought about it, naturally, because, before she and I were engaged, you told me that you hoped they might make a match for their own sakes and the farm's. Now what do you say? Would you, knowing her only less well than I do, wish that she could change?"

The other was silent.

"You would, then?"

"If I would," answered old Endicott, "I shouldn't have hesitated to say so. It's because I wouldn't that I was dumb."

"You wouldn't? That's a great weight off my mind, then."

"I mean no praise for you. I should like to chop you and Stapledon small, mix you, and mould you again. Yet what folly! Then she'd look at neither, for certain."

"Such a salad wouldn't be delectable. But thank you for heartening me. I'm the husband for your niece. I know it—sure as I'm a Christian. And she knew it a month ago; and she'll know it again a month hence, I pray, even if she's forgotten it for the moment. Now I'll clear out, and leave you with your thoughts."

"So you've quarrelled with her?"

"No, no, no; she quarrelled with me, very properly, very justly; then she left me in disgrace, and I came to you, hoping for a grain of comfort. I'm a poor prattler, you know—one who cannot hide my little dish of misery out of sight, but must always parade it if I suspect a sympathetic nature in man or woman. Good-bye again."

So Christopher departed, mounted his horse, and trotted home in most amiable mood.

CHAPTER IX.

THE WARNING

There was a custom of ancient standing at Bear Down Farm. On working days the family supped together in a small chamber lying off the kitchen, and left the latter apartment to the hands; but upon Sunday night all the household partook at the same table, and it was rumoured and believed that, during a period of two hundred years, the reigning head of Endicott's had never failed to preside at this repast, when in residence. Moreover, the very dishes changed not. A cold sirloin of beef, a potato salad, and a rabbit pie were the foundations of the feast; and after them followed fruit tarts, excepting in the spring, with bread and cheese, cider and small beer.

Two days after Honor's quarrel with Christopher, while yet they continued unreconciled, there fell a Sunday supper at which the little band then playing its part in the history of Endicott's was assembled about a laden board. But matters of moment were astir; a wave of excitement passed over the work folk, and Myles, who sat near the head of the table on Honor's left, observed a simultaneous movement, a whispering and a nodding. There were present Mr. Cramphorn and his daughters, who dwelt in a cottage hard by the farm; Churdles Ash, Henry Collins, the red-haired humorist Pinsent, and the boy Tommy Bates. Mrs. Loveys took the bottom of the table; Mark Endicott sat beside his niece, at her right hand.

A hush fell upon the company before the shadow of some great pending event. The clatter of crockery, the tinkle of knives and forks ceased. Then Myles whispered to Honor that a speech was about to be delivered, and she, setting down her hands, smiled with bright inquiry upon Mr. Cramphorn, who had risen to his feet, and was darting uncomfortable glances about him from beneath black brows.

"D'you want to tell me anything, Cramphorn?" she inquired.

"Ma'am, I do," he answered. "By rights 'tis the dooty of Churdles Ash, but he'm an ancient piece wi'out gert store o' words best o' times, an' none for a moment such as this; so he've axed me to speak instead, 'cause it do bring him a wambliness of the innards to do or say ought as may draw the public eye upon un. 'Tis like this, mistress, we of Endicott's, here assembled to supper, do desire to give 'e joy of your marriage contract when it comes to be; an' us hopes to a man as it may fall out for the best. Idden for us to say no more'n that; an' what we think an' what we doan't think ban't no business but our awn. Though your gude pleasure be ours, I do assure 'e; an' the lot of us would do all man or woman can do to lighten your heart in this vale o' weariness. An' I'm sure we wants for you to be a happy woman, wife, mother, an' widow—all in due an' proper season, 'cordin' to the laws o' Nature an' the will o' God. An' so sez Churdles Ash, an' me, an' Mrs. Loveys, an' my darters, an' t'others. An' us have ordained to give e' a li'l momentum of the happy day, awnly theer's no search in' hurry by the look of it, so as to that—it being Henery Collins his thought—us have resolved to bide till the banns be axed out. 'Cause theer's many a slip 'twixt the cup an' the lip, 'cordin' to a wise sayin' of old. An' so I'll sit down wishin' gude fortune to all at Endicott's—fields, an' things,[#] an' folk."

[#] Things = stock.

Mr. Cramphorn and his friends had been aware of Honor's engagement for three months; but the bucolic mind is before all things deliberate. It required that space of time and many long-winded, wearisome arguments to decide when and how an official cognisance of the great fact might best be taken.

The mistress of Bear Down briefly thanked everybody, with a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye; while the men and women gazed stolidly upon her as she expressed her gratitude for their kindly wishes. When she had spoken, Mr. Cramphorn, Collins, and Churdles Ash hit the table with their knife-handles once or twice, and the subject was instantly dismissed. Save in the mistress and her uncle, this incident struck not one visible spark of emotion upon anybody present. All ate heartily, then Honor Endicott withdrew to her parlour; Mrs. Loveys and Cramphorn's daughters cleared the table.

The men then lighted their pipes; Mark Endicott returned to his chair behind the leathern screen; the deep settle absorbed Churdles Ash and another; Jonah took a seat beside the peat fire, which he mended with a huge "scad" or two from the corner; and the customary Sunday night convention, with the blind man as president or arbiter, according to the tone of the discussion, was entered upon. Sometimes matters progressed harmoniously and sleepily enough; on other occasions, and always at the instance of Mr. Cramphorn, whose many opinions and scanty information not seldom awoke an active and polemical spirit, the argument was conducted with extreme acerbity—a circumstance inevitable when opposing minds endeavour to express ideas or shades of thought beyond the reach of their limited vocabularies.

To-night the wind blew hard from the west and growled in the chimney, while the peat beneath glowed to its fiery heart under a dancing aurora of blue flame, and half a dozen pipes sent forth crooked columns of smoke to the ceiling. Mr. Cramphorn, by virtue of the public part he had already taken in the evening's ceremonial, was minded to rate himself and his accomplishments with more than usual generosity. For once his suspicious forehead had lifted somewhat off his eyebrows, and the consciousness of great deeds performed with credit cast him into a spirit of complaisance. He lightly rallied Churdles Ash upon the old man's modesty; then, thrusting his mouth into the necessary figure, blew a perfect ring of smoke, and spat through it into the fire with great comfort and contentment.

Gaffer Ash replied in a tone of resignation.

"As to that," he said, "some's got words and some hasn't. For my paart, I ban't sorry as I can't use 'em, for I've always thanked God as I was born so humble that I could live through my days without never being called 'pon to say what I think o' things in general an' the men an' women round about."

"Least said soonest mended," commented Pinsent.

"Ess fay! 'Tis the chaps as have got to talk I be sorry for—the public warriors and Parliament men an' such like. They sweat o' nights, I reckon; for they be 'feared to talk now an' again, I'll wager, an' be still worse 'feared to hold theer peace."

"You're pretty right, Ash," said Mr. Endicott. "It takes a brave man to keep his mouth shut and not care whether he's misunderstood or no. But 'tis a bleating age—a drum-beating age o' clash and clatter. Why, the very members of Parliament get too jaded to follow their great business with sober minds. If a man don't pepper his speeches with mountebank fun, they call him a dull dog, and won't listen to him. All the world's dropping into play-acting—that's the truth of it."

"I didn't make no jokes howsoever when I turned my speech 'fore supper," declared Mr. Cramphorn; "an' I'm sure I'd never do no such ondacent thing in a set speech. Ban't respectful. Not but what I was surprised to find how pat the right word comed to me at the right moment wi'out any digging for un."

"'Tis a gert gift for a humble man," said Mr. Ash.

"A gift to be used wi' caution," confessed Jonah. "When you say 'tis a gift, last word's spoken," he added, "but a man's wise to keep close guard awver his tongue when it chances to be sharper'n common. Not as I ever go back on the spoken word, for 'tis a sign of weakness."

Myles Stapledon laughed and Mr. Cramphorn grew hot.

"Why for should I?" he asked.

"If you never had call to eat your words after fifty years o' talkin', Jonah, you're either uncommon fortunate or uncommon wise," declared the blind man. "Wise you are not particular, not to my knowledge, so we must say you're lucky."

The others laughed, and Jonah, despite his brag of a tongue more ready than most, found nothing to say at this rebuke. He made an inarticulate growl at the back of his throat and puffed vigorously, while Henry Collins came to the rescue.

"Can 'e tell us when the weddin's like to be, sir?" he inquired of Stapledon, and Myles waited for somebody else to reply; but none did so.

"I cannot tell," he answered at length. "I fancy nothing is settled. But we shall hear soon enough, no doubt."

"I suppose 'tis tu inquirin' to ax if you'll bide to Endicott's when missis do leave it?" said Samuel Pinsent.

"Well—yes, I think it is. Lord knows what I'm going to do. My home's here for the present—until—well, I really cannot tell myself. It depends on various things."

There was a silence. Even the most slow-witted perceived a new revelation of Stapledon in this speech. Presently Churdles Ash spoke.

"Best to bide here till the time-work chaps be through wi' theer job. Them time-work men! The holy text sez, 'Blessed be they as have not seed an' yet have believed'; but fegs! 'tis straining scripture to put that on time-work. I'd never believe no time-work man what I hadn't seed."

"Anybody's a fool to believe where he doesn't trust," said Mark Endicott. "You open a great question, Ash. I believed no more or less than any other chap of five-an'-twenty in my young days; but, come blindness, there was no more taking on trust for me. I had to find a reason for all I believed from that day forward."

"Was faith a flower that grew well in the dark with you, uncle?" inquired Myles, and there was a wave of sudden interest in his voice.

"Why, yes. Darkness is the time for making roots and 'stablishing plants, whether of the soil or of the mind. Faith grew but slowly. And the flower of it comes to no more than this: do your duty, and be gentle with your neighbour. Don't wax weak because you catch yourself all wrong so often. Don't let any man pity you but yourself; and don't let no other set of brains than your own settle the rights and wrongs of life for you. That's my road—a blind man's. But there's one thing more, my sons: to believe in the goodness of God through thick and thin."

"The hardest thing of all," said Stapledon.

Mr. Cramphorn here thought proper to join issue. He also had his own views, reached single-handed, and was by no means ashamed of them.

"As to the A'mighty," he said, "my rule's to treat Un same as He treats me—same as we'm taught to treat any other neighbour. That's fair, if you ax me."

"A blasphemous word to say it, whether or no," declared Ash uneasily. "We ban't teached to treat folks same as they treat us, but same as we wish they'd treat us. That's a very differ'nt thing. Gormed if I ban't mazed a bolt doan't strike 'e, Jonah."

"'Tis my way, an' who's gwaine to shaw me wheer it fails o' right an' justice?"

"A truculent attitude to the Everlasting, surely," ventured Myles, looking at the restless little man with his hang-dog forehead and big chin.

"Who's afeared, so long as he'm on the windy side o' justice? I ban't. If God sends gude things, I'm fust to thank Un 'pon my bended knees, an' hope respectful for long continuance; if He sends bad—then I cool off an' wait for better times. Ban't my way to return thanks for nought. I've thanked Un for the hay for missus's gude sake a score o' times; but thank Un for the turmits I won't, till I sees if we'm gwaine to have rain 'fore 'tis tu late. 'No song, no supper,' as the saying is. Ban't my way to turn left cheek to Jehovah Jireh after He's smote me 'pon the right. 'Tis contrary to human nature; an' Christ's self can't alter that."

"'Tis tu changeable in you, Cramphorn, if I may say it without angering you," murmured Collins.

"Not so, Henery; ban't me that changes, but Him. I'm a steadfast man, an' always was so, as Mr. Endicott will bear witness. When the Lard's hand's light on me, I go dancin' an' frolickin' afore Him, like to David afore the ark, an' pray long prayers week-days so well as Sundays; but when He'm contrary with me, an' minded to blaw hot an' cold, from no fault o' mine—why, dammy, I get cranky tu. Caan't help it. Built so. 'Pears to me as 'tis awnly a brute dog as'll lick the hands that welts un."

"What do 'e say to this here popish discoorse, sir?" inquired Churdles Ash; and Mark answered him.

"Why, Jonah only confesses the secret of most of us. We've got too much wit or too little pluck to tell—that's all the difference. He's blurted it out."

"The 'state of most of us'?" gasped Mr. Collins.

"Surely, even though we don't own it to our innermost souls. Who should know, if not me? It makes a mighty difference whether 'tis by pleasant paths or bitter that we come to the throne of grace. Fair weather saints most of us, I reckon. I felt the same when my eyes were put out. God knows how I kept my hands off my life. I never shall. Before that change I'd prayed regular as need be, morn and night, just because my dear mother had taught me so to do, and habit's the half of life. And after my eyes went the habit stuck, though my soul was up in arms and my brain poisoned against a hard Providence. And what did I do? Why, regular as the clock, at the hour when I was used to bless God, I went on my knees and lifted my empty eyes to Him and cursed Him. 'Twas as the psalmist prayed in his awful song of rage: my prayer was turned into sin. I did that—for a month. And what was the price He paid me for my wickedness? Why, He sent peace—peace fell upon me and the wish to live; and He that had took my sight away brought tears to my eyes instead. So I reached a blind man's seeing at the last. I've lived to know that man's misty talk and thought upon justice is no more than a wind in the trees. Therefore Jonah is in the wrong to steer his life by his own human notion of justice. There's no justice in this world, and what fashion of stuff will be the justice in the next, we'll know when we come to get it measured out, not sooner. One thing's sure: it's not over likely to be planned on earthly models; so there's no sight under heaven more pitiful to me than all mankind so busy planning pleasure parties in the next world to make up for their little, thorny, wayside job in this."

"The question is, Do we matter to the God of a starry night?" asked Stapledon, forgetting the presence of any beyond the last speaker. "We matter a great deal to ourselves and ought to—I know that, of course," he added. "We must take ourselves seriously."

Mark laughed and made instant answer.

"We take ourselves too seriously, our neighbours not seriously enough. It's the fault of all humans—philosophers included."

"An' I be sure theer's immortal angels hid in our bones, however," summed up Mr. Ash.

"If so, good," answered Stapledon with profound seriousness. "But thought won't alter what is by the will of God; nor yet what's going to be. The Future's His workshop only. No man can meddle there. But the present is ours; and if half the brain-sweat wasted on the next world was spent in tidying the dirty corners in this one—why, we might bring the other nearer—if other there be."

"You'll know there's another long before your time comes to go to it, my son," said the blind man in a calm voice. Then the tall clock between the warming-pans struck ten with the sonorous cadence and ring of old metal. At this signal pipes were knocked out and windows and doors thrown open; whereupon the west wind, like the voice of a superior intellect, stilled their chatter with sweet breath, soon swept away the reek of tobacco, and brought a blast of pure air through the smoke. All those present, save only Myles and Endicott, then departed to their rest; but these two sat on awhile, for the old man had a hard thing to say, and knew that the moment to speak was come.

"How long are you going to stop here?" he asked suddenly.

"I can't guess. I suppose there's no hurry. I've really not much interest anywhere else. Why do you ask?"

"Because it's important, lad. Blind folks hear such a deal. And they often know more than what belongs to the mere spoken word. There's an inner and an outer meaning to most speech of man, and we sightless ones often gather both. It surprises people at times. You see we win nothing from sight of a speaking mouth or the eyes above it. All our brain sits behind our ear; there's no windows for it to look out at."

"You've surprised me by what you have gleaned out of a voice, uncle."

"And I'm like to again. Not pleasantly neither. I've thought how I'd found something on your tongue long ago; but I've kept dumb, hoping I was mistaken. To-night, my son, there's no more room for doubt."

"This is a mystery—quite uncanny."

"I don't know. 'Tis very unfortunate—very, but a fact; and you've got to face it."

"Read the riddle to me," said Stapledon slowly. His voice sounded anxious under an assumption of amusement.

"Do you remember after supper how Pinsent asked you whether you would stop on here when his mistress was married? You answered that the Lord knew what you were going to do. Now it was clean out of your character to answer so."

"I hope it was; I hope so indeed. I was sorry the moment afterwards."

"You couldn't help yourself. You were not thinking of your answer to the question, but the much more important thing suggested by the question. That's what made you so short: the thought of Honor's marriage."

"I own it," confessed the other. A silence fell; then Mark spoke again more gravely.

"Myles, you must clear out of here. I'm blind and even I know it. How much more such as can see—you yourself, for instance—and Honor—and Christopher Yeoland."

Stapledon's brow flushed and his jaw set hard. He looked at the sightless face before him, and spoke hurriedly.

"For God's sake, what do you mean?"

"It's news to you? I do think it is! And it has come the same way to many when it falls the first time. The deeper it strikes, the less they can put a name to it. But now you know. Glance back along the road you've walked beside Honor of late days. Then see how the way ahead looks to you with her figure gone. I knew this a week ago, and I sorrowed for you. There was an unconscious tribute in your voice when you spoke to her—a hush in it, as if you were praying. Man, I'm sorry—but your heart will tell you that I'm right."

A lengthy silence followed upon this speech; then the other whispered out a question, and there was awe rather than terror in his tone.

"You mean I'm coming to love her?"

"I do—if only that. Remember what you said the first day you came here about the false step at the threshold."

"But she is another man's. That has been familiar knowledge to me."

"And you think that fact can prevent a man of honour from loving a woman?"

"Surely."

"Not so at all. Love of woman's a thing apart—beyond all rule and scale, or dogma, or the Bible's self. The passions are pagans to the end—no more to be trusted than tame tigers, if a man is a man. But passions are bred out nowadays. I don't believe the next generation will be shook to the heart with the same gusts and storms as the last. We think smaller thoughts and feel smaller sentiments; we're too careful of our skins to trust the giant passions; our hearts don't pump the same great flood of hot blood. But you—you belong to the older sort. And you love her—you who never heard the rustle of a petticoat with quickened breath before, I reckon. You're too honest to deny it after you've thought a little. You know there's something seething down at the bottom of your soul—and now you hear the name of it. Go to bed and sleep upon that."

Stapledon remained mute. His face was passive, but his forehead was wrinkled a little. He folded his arms and stared at the fire.

"God knows I wish this was otherwise," continued Mark Endicott. "'Twould have been a comely and a fitting thing for you to mate her and carry on all here. So at least I thought before I knew you."

"But have changed your opinion of me since?"

"Well, yes; I did not think so highly of you until we met and got to understand each other. But I doubt if you'd be a fit husband for Honor. There's a difference of—I don't know the word—but it's a difference in essentials anyway—in views and in standpoint. Honor's a clever woman to some extent, yet she takes abundant delight in occasional foolishness, as clever women often do. 'Tisn't your fashion of mind to fool—not even on holidays. You couldn't if you tried."

"But she is as sober-minded as I am at heart. Under her humorous survey of things and her laughter there is——"

"I know; I know all about her."

"We had thought we possessed much in common on a comparison of notes now and again."

"If you did, 'tis just what you wouldn't have found out so pat at first sight. There's a great gulf fixed between you, and I'm not sorry it is so, seeing she's another man's. Yeoland looks to be a light thing; I grant that; but I do believe that he understands her better than you or I ever could. I've found out so much from hearing them together. Moreover, he's growing sober; there's a sort of cranky sense in him, I hope, after all."

"A feather-brain, but well-meaning."

"The last leaf on an old tree—even as Honor is."

"At least there must be deep friendship always—deep friendship. So much can't be denied to me. Don't talk of a great gulf between us, uncle. Not at least a mental one."

"Truly I believe so, Myles."

"We could bridge that."

"With bridges of passing passion—like silver spider-threads between flowers. But they wouldn't stand the awful strain of lifelong companionship. You've never thought what that strain means in our class of life, when husband and wife have got to bide within close touch most times till the grave parts them. But that's all wind and nothing. She's tokened to Yeoland. So no more need be spoken on that head. You've got to think of your peace of mind, Stapledon, and—well, I'd best say it—hers too. Now, good-night. Not another word, if you're a wise man."

Mark Endicott was usually abroad betimes, though not such an early riser as Myles, and on the following morning, according to his custom, he walked in the garden before breakfast. His pathway extended before the more ancient front of Bear Down, and in summer, at each step, he might stretch forth his hand over the flower border and know what blossom would meet it. Now there fell a heavy footfall that approached from the farmyard.

"Good morning," said Stapledon, as he shook Mark by the hand.

"Good morning, my lad."

"I'm going on Saturday."

Mr. Endicott nodded, as one acknowledging information already familiar.

"Your loss will fall heavily on me," he said, "for it's not twice in a month of Sundays that I get such a companion spirit to chop words with."

CHAPTER X.

THREE ANGRY MAIDS

Upon the day that Myles Stapledon determined with himself to leave Little Silver, Christopher's patience broke down, and he wrote to Honor concerning their protracted quarrel. This communication it pleased him to begin in a tone of most unusual severity. He struck the note in jest at first, then proceeded with it in earnest. He bid his lady establish her mind more firmly and affirm her desires. He returned her liberty, hinted that, if he so willed, he might let Godleigh Park to a wealthy Plymouth tradesman, who much desired to secure it, and himself go abroad for an indefinite period of years. Then, weary of these heroics, Christopher became himself on the third page of the note, expressed unbounded contrition for his sins, begged his sweetheart's forgiveness, and prayed her to name a meeting-place that he might make atonement in person. With joke and jest the letter wound to its close; and he despatched it to Bear Down upon the following morning.

Mr. Gregory Libby happened to be the messenger, and of this worthy it may be said that, while now a person well-to-do in the judgment of Little Silver, yet he displayed more sense than had been prophesied for him, kept his money in his purse, and returned to his humble but necessary occupation of hedge-trimming. He was working about Godleigh at present, and being the first available fellow-creature who met Yeoland's eye as he entered the air, letter in hand, his temporary master bid Gregory drop gauntlet and pruning-hook that he might play postman instead for a while.

The youth departed then to Endicott's under a personal and private excitement, for his own romance lay there, as it pleased him to think, and he was conducting it with deliberate and calculating method. Libby found himself divided between the daughters of Mr. Cramphorn, and, as those young women knew this fact, the tension between them increased with his delay. Upon the whole he preferred Sally, as the more splendid animal; but the man was far too cunning to commit himself rashly. His desires by no means blinded him, and he looked far ahead and wondered with some low shrewdness which of the maids enjoyed larger part of her father's regard, and which might hope for a lion's share of Jonah's possessions when the head-man at Bear Down should pass away. In this direction Mr. Libby was prosecuting his inquiries; and the operation proved difficult and delicate, for Cramphorn disliked him. Margery met the messenger, and gave a little purr of pleasure as she opened the kitchen door.

"Come in, come in the kitchen," she said; "I'm all alone for the minute if you ban't feared o' me, Mr. Libby."

"Very glad to see you again," said Gregory, shaking her hand and holding it a moment afterwards.

"So be I you. I heard your butivul singing to church Sunday, but me, bein' in the choir, I couldn't look about to catch your eye."

"Wheer's Sally to?" he asked suddenly, after they had talked a few moments on general subjects.

The girl's face fell and her voice hardened.

"How should I knaw? To work, I suppose."

"I awften wonder as her hands doan't suffer by it," mused Libby.

"They do," she answered with cruel eagerness. "Feel mine."

She pressed her palms into his, considering that the opportunity permitted her so to do without any lack of propriety. And he held them and found them soft and cool, but a thought thin to his taste. She dropped her eyelids, and he looked at her long lashes and the thick rolls of dark hair on her head. Then his eyes ranged on. Her face was pretty, with a prim prettiness, but for the rest Margery wholly lacked her sister's physical splendours. No grand curves of bosom met Mr. Libby's little shifty eyes. The girl, indeed, was slight and thin.

He dropped her hand, and she, knowing by intuition the very matter of his mind, spoke. Her voice was the sweetest thing about her, though people often forgot that fact in the word it uttered. Margery had a bad temper and a shrewish tongue. Now the bells jangled, and she fell sharply upon her absent sister. She declared that she feared for her; that Sally was growing unmaidenly as a result of her outdoor duties. Then came a subtle cut—and Margery looked away from her listener's face as she uttered it.

"Her could put you in her pocket and not knaw you was theer. I've heard her say so."

Mr. Libby grew very red.

"Ban't the way for a woman to talk about any chap," he said.

"Coourse it ban't. That's it with she. So much working beside the men, an' killin' fowls, an' such like makes her rough an' rough-tongued. Though a very gude sister to me, I'm sure, an'——"

She had seen Sally approaching; hence this lame conclusion. The women's eyes met as the elder spoke.

"Wheer's faither to, Margery? Ah! Mr. Libby—didn't see you. You'm up here airly—helpin' her to waste time by the look of it."

"Theer's some doan't want no help," retorted the other. "What be you doin' indoors? Your plaace is 'pon the land with the men."

"Wheer you'd like to be, if they'd let 'e," stung the other; "but you'm no gude to 'em—a poor pin-tailed wench like you."

"Ess fay! Us must have a brazen faace an' awver-blawn shape like yourn to make the men come about us! Ban't sense—awnly fat they look for in a female of coourse!" snapped back Margery; and in the meantime the cause of this explosion—proud of his power, but uneasy before the wrath of women—prepared to depart. Fortune favoured his exit, for Honor appeared suddenly at the other end of the farmyard with some kittens in her hands and a mother cat, tail in air, marching beside her and lifting misty green eyes, full of joy.

Libby turned therefore, delivered his letter, and was gone; while behind him voices clashed in anger, one sweet, one shrill. Then a door slammed as Margery hastened away upon a Parthian shot, and her sister stamped furiously, having no word to answer but a man's. Sally immediately left the house and proceeded after the messenger; but a possibility of this he had foreseen, and was now well upon his way back to Godleigh. Sally therefore found herself disappointed anew, and marked her emotions by ill-treating a pig that had the misfortune to cross her stormy path.

Another woman's soul was also in arms; and while Margery wept invisible and her sister used the ugliest words that she knew, under her breath, their mistress walked up and down the grass plot where it extended between the farm and the fields, separated from the latter by a dip in the land and a strange fence of granite posts and old steel rope.

Honor had now come from seeing Myles Stapledon. Together, after breakfast, they had inspected a new cow-byre on outlying land, and, upon the way back, he told her that he designed to return to Tavistock at the end of that week. Only by a sudden alteration of pace and change of foot did she show her first surprise. Then she lifted a questioning gaze to his impassive face.

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, why not? I've been here three months and there is nothing more for me to do—at any rate nothing that need keep me on the spot."

"There's still less for you to do at Tavistock. You told me a month ago that there was nothing to take you back. You've sold the old house and let the mill."

"It is so; but I must—I have plans—I may invest some money at Plymouth. And I must work, you know."

"Are you not working here?"

"Why, not what I call work. Only strolling about watching other people."

Honor changed the subject after a short silence.

"Did you see Christopher on Sunday? I thought you were to do so?"

"Yes; the linen-draper from Plymouth has been at him again. He's mad about Godleigh; he makes a splendid offer to rent it for three years. And he'll spend good money upon improvements annually in addition to quite a fancy rent."

"Did you advise Christopher to accept it?"

"Most certainly I did. It would help to lessen his monetary bothers; but he was in one of his wildly humorous moods and made fun of all things in heaven and earth."

Honor tightened her lips. Their first great quarrel, it appeared, was not weighing very heavily on her lover.

"He refused, of course."

"He said that he would let you decide. But he vows he can't live out of sight of Godleigh and can't imagine himself a trespasser on his own land. He was sentimental. But he has such an artist's mind. 'Tis a pity he's not got some gift of expression as an outlet—pictures or verses or something."

"That can have nothing to do with your idea of going away, however, Myles?" asked Honor, swinging back to the matter in her mind.

"Nothing whatever; why should it?"

"I don't want you to go away," she said; and some passion trembled in her voice. "You won't give me any reason why you should do so, because there can be none."

"We need not discuss it, cousin."

"Then you'll stop, since I ask you to?"

"No, I cannot, Honor. I must go. I have very sufficient reasons. Do not press me upon that point, but take my word for it."

"You refuse me a reason? Then, I repeat, I wish you to stay. Everything cries out that you should. My future prosperity cries out. It is your duty to stay. Apart from Bear Down and me, you may do Christopher much good and help him to take life more seriously. Will you stay because I ask you to?"

"Why do you wish it?" he said.

"Because—I like you very much indeed; there—that's straightforward and a good reason, though you're so chary with yours."

She looked frankly at him, but with annoyance rather than regard in her eyes.

"It is folly and senseless folly to go," she continued calmly, while he gasped within and felt a mist crowding down on the world. "You like me too, a little—and you're enlarging my mind beyond the limits of this wilderness of eternal grass and hay. Why, when Providence throws a little sunshine upon me, should I rush indoors out of it and draw down the blinds?"

He was going to mention Christopher again, but felt such an act would be unfair to the man in Honor's present mood. For a moment he opened his mouth to argue the point she raised, then realised the danger and futility. Only by an assumption of carelessness amounting to the brutal could he keep his secret out of his voice. And in the light of what she had confessed so plainly, to be less frank himself was most difficult. Her words had set his heart beating like a hammer. His mind was overwhelmed with his first love, and to such a man it was an awful emotion. It shook him and unsteadied his voice as he looked at her, for she had never seemed more necessary to him than then.

"Don't be so serious," he said. "Your horizon will soon begin to enlarge with the coming interests. I've enjoyed my long visit more than I can tell you—much more than I can tell you; but go I must indeed."

"Stop just one fortnight more, Myles?"

"Don't ask it, Honor. It's hard to say 'No' to you."

"A week—a little week—to please me? Why shouldn't you please me? Is it a crime to do that? I suppose it is, for nobody ever thinks of trying to."

"I cannot alter my plans now. I must go on Saturday."

"Go, then," she said. "I'm rewarded for being so rude as to ask so often. I'm not nearly proud enough. That's a distinction you've not taught me to achieve with all your lessons."

She left him, but he overtook her in two strides, and walked at her right hand.

"Honor, please listen to me."

"My dear cousin, don't put on that haggard, not to say tragic, expression. It really is a matter of no moment. I only worried you because I'm spoiled and hate being crossed even in trifles. It was the disappointment of not getting my way that vexed me, not the actual point at question. If you can leave all your interests here without anxiety and trust me so far—why, I'm flattered."

"Hear me, I say."

"So will the whole world, if you speak so loud. What more is there to hear? You're going on Saturday, and Tommy Bates shall drive you to Okehampton to catch the train."

"You're right—and wise," he said more quietly. "No, I've nothing to say."

Then he made a ghastly effort to be entertaining.

"And mind, Honor, I shall be very sharp if my cheque does not come each quarter on the right day. A hard taskmaster I shall be, I promise you."

"Don't, Myles," she answered instantly, growing grave at his simulated merriment.

A few minutes afterwards she left him, sought out the squeaking kittens to calm her emotions, presently deposited them in a sunny corner with their parent, and, taking Christopher's letter, walked out again upon the grass.