Front matter (continued 5)

"A happy wife--so happy as any woman ever can hope to be, who--who--"

Her thought broke off. She envied the mare at water's edge. The pot-bellied old matron stood still, and only moved her tail backwards and forwards to keep off the flies. The foal galloped around her--playing as children will.

"So happy as any wife can hope to be, who has no child."

Margaret made herself finish the sentence; for everything that happened to her now revolved upon it. She explained the least little cloud or shadow of cloud thus; she referred the least impatience or short word to the same cause. There was no rift, no failure of understanding, no lessening of love--so the wife assured herself--but she must do her duty. She must not much longer delay to bring to David the thing his soul most desired.

Her thoughts ran unduly upon this theme, and her own anxiety seemed like to stand between her and her object. She exaggerated the truth; out of a natural and innate diffidence she imagined a condition of mind in her husband which did not exist. David indeed desired children and expected them; but he was in no violent hurry, and had not as yet even entertained the possibility of having none. When she mentioned the matter, he consoled her and blamed her for giving it a thought. In reality, the thing in their lives that she marked and deplored and thus explained, belonged to a far different and deeper cause. After love's fever certain differences of temperament began slowly and steadily to declare themselves. There was no radical change in David; but his self-absorption increased with his prosperity--a circumstance inevitable. For comradeship and for sympathy in business he had Rhoda; and her understanding of dumb animals so much exceeded Margaret's, that brother and sister unconsciously made common cause and seemed to live an inner life and develop personal interests from which Margaret found herself in some measure excluded. None could be blamed. The thing simply so fell out; and as yet not one of the three involved perceived it. David and Rhoda were full of his enterprises, and she did much man's work afield for him and advanced his welfare to the best of her strength and sense. Margaret shopped, cooked, mended clothes, and made ready for the others in the intervals of work. She relieved her sister-in-law of much sewing and other toil that Rhoda might have the more leisure to aid David. This woman, indeed, was unlike most women, and for that reason she did not clash with Margaret as much as another might have.

Rhoda Bowden had struck an observer from without as an exotic creature, who homed here by accident, but who by right belonged to no dwelling made with hands. A sister of the deep green glade was she--a denizen of the upland wilderness and the secret antre. She followed the train of Selene. The silver light and the domain of nocturnal dew were hers. Silence was her familiar; from her own brother she hid a part of her days and her nights. And of the varied aspects of her mistress, the moon, Rhoda shared not a few. The young of beasts seemed her special care and joy.

"The tender whelps, new-dropped, of creatures rude,"

found a ready friend in her; but while thus gracious to all the lesser things that shared her place in time, this girl revealed for humanity, beyond her brother, but little love. She was zealous for him, but to other men she stood as heretofore: in an attitude enigmatic, tending to aloofness. Margaret, however, had yet to be convinced that she was not to be won.

To women Rhoda's aspect of late was made more widely manifest. Out of her own virginal fount of feeling no drop of sympathy with the unvirginal could flow; and the thing that Dorcas had accomplished was above all measure infamous, treacherous to womankind, beyond hope of pardon in her eyes. Had the power to do so rested with Rhoda, she had swept her sister out of life; and in her mind this yielding wanton, and her husband, and her new-born baby were already as objects dead and banished from existence.

Margaret's thoughts now centred on Rhoda and she lost sight of her own misty tribulations. Two great problems awaited solution, and with the optimism of a large heart this woman hoped yet to solve them. She wanted to see Rhoda a wife; and she wanted to see her reconciled to Dorcas. The one achievement might depend upon the other. Let Rhoda once wed, and there must come understanding into her life.

Margaret had spoken often, with tact and warmth, of Bartley Crocker; and she had been helped in a very valuable quarter, as it seemed, for David also considered the man as among his closest friends at this season. There had recently been some talk between them of a sort specially interesting to David, for Bartley was attracted, or declared himself attracted, by the prospect of leaving England to farm in Canada, and the information he had gathered together respecting that wider world of the Colonies could not fail to be of interest to Bowden. At David's invitation Bartley had spent a Sunday afternoon recently at 'Meavy Cot'; and Madge was now at Crazywell to tell the lover what had followed his visit.

She waited yet half an hour; then Bartley appeared on the hither bank of the pool, looked about him a while, caught sight of Madge's sunbonnet, and approached her. So busy with her own thoughts was she that she did not see him until he was beside her: then she rose and bade him find some shade.

"The sun's that fierce I must get out of it," she said.

Thereupon he took her to a little glen close at hand--a lip through which the pool sometimes overflowed in winter--and under a white-thorn they sat down together, while Margaret, looking at the golden furzes in front of her, spoke to him.

"I do believe the gorse be going brown already. Just a little gladness we get from it, then 'tis gone again, like a candle blown out."

"What a thought! You're down, I see. No use saying you're not. And of late you've been like this more than once. 'Tis for me to talk to you to-day, I think. 'Tis for me to tell you what I saw last Sunday at 'Meavy Cot,' not for you to tell me what fell out after I was gone."

"I'm cheerful enough--only wisht to spend such a long day away from David. He's to Tavistock again. He's terrible hopeful of some work there; but I hardly think he'll get it--hasn't been well enough eggicated, I fancy. Though clever enough, I'm sure."

"He don't know everything, however."

"Who does?"

"He don't know a thing or two that even I could teach him."

"Such as upholstering?"

"Just so. I upholster chairs--at least I know how to. And you upholster David's life--make it easy and comfortable and soft at the edges. But what about your life, Madge?"

"Well, what about it, Bartley?"

"I suppose 'tis infernal impudence of me," he said. "All the same I'm an old friend and one good turn deserves another. You're trying to help me to get what I want; I wonder if I could help you a bit here and there?"

"Whatever do you mean? And what did you see at our home that makes you say such a curious thing?"

"'Tisn't what I saw, but what I didn't see. But there, what on God's earth am I saying? 'Tisn't to you I should speak."

"Go on and tell me."

"I can't, for I can't give it a name. Only somehow--look here, I'm a fool to touch this. I'm talking too soon. I must wait and see a bit more. You can't have your mind in two places at once, Madge. I'm not myself of late and very likely I fancy things. You'd reckon I had enough to think about without mixing up myself in other people's business. But you are different to everybody else. I feel we've been hunting in couples of late, and so your good's mine."

"How you run on! And that wild. I don't know now what you're talking about, you silly chap."

"More do I. I only know two things for certain. And one is that my mother is worse, and the other is that your sister-in-law was jolly interested in what I said about Canada. Did you mark that?"

"She was. The wildness and bigness of the land would draw her to it. I meant to tell you. After you'd gone--but I am so sorry about your dear mother. I thought last week that she seemed a little better."

"No--not really. It's got to be. God knows that if talking would mend her, I'd talk for a year. But it won't. So go on about Rhoda, please."

"Well, she didn't say much herself, but she listened to my husband after you'd left us, and when he asked her joking whether she'd like Canada, she said quite seriously that she would. 'Twas the great size and wildness of the place took her mind. 'To think of them woods and the wonderful creatures in 'em!' she said. And when David thought how fine 'twould be to have a bit of ground pretty near as big as all Dartymoor for your own, she nodded and her eyes shone."

"But she couldn't go out walking all alone of a night there," said Bartley. "There are bears, I believe, and Indians, too, for all I know. But very like she'd take to them--bears and Indians both. I daresay now one of them grimy, naked-faced men with their features looking as though they were cut out of stone, and a hat of hawks' feathers, would please her better than ever I shall."

Margaret laughed.

"You must persevere," she said. "You must be patient too. After she refused you she was more than common silent for a month. She thought a lot about it and went afield more than usual with nought but dogs for company. Keep at her, but don't ax again just yet. Time ban't ripe."

"D'you think if I was to offer to go to Canada and make her mistress of a mile or two of it, that she'd be more like to say 'yes?'"

"'Tis a great question that, and I won't answer 'yes' or 'no.' 'Tis very difficult to guess what's passing in her mind, for her face don't alter like most faces. 'Tis more the light in her eye tells you."

Mr. Crocker nodded.

"I've marked that. Her lips and brow don't play and lift like yours. She keeps her mouth shut and her eyebrows steady. But her eyes talk more than her lips. She likes me--I do honestly think that, Madge."

"I'm glad of it. I've gone as near as I dare to asking her what she thinks of you, and I've sung your praises--not from myself, mind, but as an echo to David. But she gives no sign. She listens and her face don't alter. I'll do all I dare, but with such a maiden we must be very nice. If she thought I was on your side, trying to help you to get her, she'd never forgive me."

"I know how clever you are. And David's not against it neither; though I can't expect him to wish such a thing, for she's as good as a couple of men to him. In fact, no two would do what she does for him. Hirelings can't work like them that labour for love. She'd make a model wife for an open air man. And if I win her, Madge, 'twill be farming without a doubt, for a shop would be no use to her--nor to me neither, for that matter."

Margaret laughed out loud at the idea of her sister-in-law in a shop.

"Nought will ever tame her down to that," she said. "'Twas a pity you learnt the upholstering business, Bartley. It didn't lift you in her eyes, I'm afraid."

"Let her say 'yes,' and I'll learn what she pleases that'll help to make a living. I'd very well like to go to Canada and grow apples and corn."

"So would she, I do think--if she could get to care enough about you."

"Why shouldn't she? A maiden can always find one chap that's good enough to marry, and I'm sure she'll not meet with a better in these parts."

"I'm very sure she won't."

"Well, then, I've a right to expect her to give in. There's nobody else? You can honestly say there's nobody else, Madge?"

"There's always somebody else where a pretty girl be wife-old," she answered. "In the case of Rhoda--well, it seems absurd--it is absurd--too absurd to be true, and yet I won't deny there's something in it."

"You mean that bearded antic of a Snell?"

"He's very much gone on Rhoda in his cautious, lizard sort of a way. He looks at her in church."

"Yes, like a cow looks at a passing coach. Surely that slow-witted, knock-kneed shadow of a man can't interest Rhoda?"

"Such things ban't easily explained, but it's true that he's about the only male that ever keeps her talking. I wouldn't say that he ever dreams of such a thing as marriage, but--"

"Good Lord--marriage! I'd so soon expect to see him a bishop as a husband. What now can it be that she likes in poor Simon? I wish I knew, for I'd try to copy it."

"I've oft wondered. 'Tis something in the air of him that makes her feel easy and friendly."

"I wish he'd got the wit to tell me how he does it."

"He doesn't know--no more does she. But there 'tis. She can suffer him; she can even talk about him."

"Try and see what the trick is, Madge. Ask Simon to tea and watch 'em together. What do they speak about?"

"I'll do what I can. She was a bit ruffed with Simon last week, however."

"Angered with him! That's a bad sign, if she could be interested enough in such a shadow as Simon as to be cross with him. She've never been cross with me--not since we made it up."

"She was angry because Mr. Snell has got rather friendly of late with Billy and Dorcas Screech. Their house is near his work and he drops in sometimes, I believe. He told Rhoda that the baby was very like its grandmother to Ditsworthy Warren, and Rhoda flared up and answered that she'd thank him never to name it to her again."

"Another mystery in her. If I ever have any luck with her, the first thing will be to make her a bit kinder to women, Madge."

"She's kind enough; but to say it without feeling, she's narrow and she hates the mother business. She never will be fond of childer, I'm afraid, Bartley."

"Then we shall be of one mind there anyway. I don't like 'em either--never did and never shall."

"Wait and see. You'll change from all that nonsense."

Suddenly Bartley started.

"Talk of--there goeth Rhoda by the footpath yonder."

"So she is! Fancy that. I'll call her. She's on her way to Ditsworthy till evening. But I thought she'd gone long ago."

Bartley whistled and a solitary fox-terrier, who was the woman's companion, rushed over to see what was doing. He recognised Margaret and stopped; then he turned, held up a paw and waited to see whether Rhoda was coming after him.

Madge called and Rhoda came to them. Mr. Crocker greeted her with friendship and Margaret asked where she had been.

"I fell in with your brother," she said. "Bart was up over rounding up some ponies. Him and your father have got ten ponies for Princetown fair and they hope great things from them. But they'll not do so well as David's--they ain't so forward as our three."

"A lucky chance this," declared Bartley. "I'm just going up to Ditsworthy myself to see Mrs. Bowden. My dear mother's weaker and she wants to have a talk with her old friends before 'tis too late."

"I'll tell mother for you," said Rhoda. "Only last Sunday she was wondering if Mrs. Crocker would care for to see her."

"I must tell her myself and carry back her message to my mother," answered the crafty lover. His parent had expressed no desire whatever to see Sarah Bowden; but the excuse came as an inspiration to the man.

Rhoda said nothing and he spoke again.

"Perhaps if you are going that way, you won't be offended if I walk along with you?"

She shook her head, implying that he was welcome.

"I've gathered a bit more about the backwoods and the life out in the Dominion of Canada, you must know. And I was wondering if, among all your brothers, there might not be one, or perhaps two, as would like to make their fortunes there. 'Tis a pity for all to bide on the Moor."

"So I think," said she. "For men to be cooped up, like chickens on a run, is a vain thing. I'd much wish for to see them go out in the world a bit--same as other young men."

"If your brother Drake had been spared, I'm sure he'd have gone," said Crocker, with a twinkle of the eye.

Madge saw the jest, but Rhoda quite failed to do so.

"That's so silly as mother," she said. "But I should like to see Nap and Wellington under articles to some trustworthy farmer in them parts. 'Twould make men of 'em. The whole family can't be rabbit-catchers."

This common sense impressed Bartley not a little. It was another side of Rhoda, familiar enough to Margaret, but not to him.

They departed now together and Margaret heard Rhoda laugh as they went. Such an exceedingly rare sound cheered her not a little. It rang like a hopeful augury, and she rejoiced for Bartley's sake and went home happy.

CHAPTER XI

REPROOF

Life is an unconscious effort on the part of the individual to get the world to see him at his own valuation; and some by force of will partially achieve it; and some by preciousness of attributes are justly appraised above their own self-estimate. David Bowden was respected and counted a man of weight--a rising man, a man whose honesty, industry, and sense achieved increasing prosperity, and whose justice and goodness of heart robbed his success of bitterness to all save base minds. But Margaret's character, so largely different, won open love. The folk nodded appreciation when her name was mentioned and old eyes brightened at it. Sympathy from her own brimming cup poured over; and the people, perceiving this couple from the outer standpoint, declared that no such happy diversity of qualities ever before mingled to make a perfect union.

But it was not quite the union of the moss and the stone; where the hard is made lovely by the soft and, in return, establishes a sure, enduring foothold for it. There were permanent disparities in the texture of their characters that neither could alter and neither could suffer without pain. David frequently failed to see Madge's point of view: she was constitutionally unable to harden her nature that she might accept his attitude. Out of this disability grew hunger and dearth in the woman's spirit, discomfort on the part of the man. He tried, as far as his nature would let him, to bridge the gulf; and she came to the other side and held out her hands to him. Sometimes they touched for a glad moment, but only thus briefly; and despite his deep affection and her passionate worship, these vital constituents of character stood between them, deep-rooted in attributes beyond the power of love to overthrow. Unconsciously he bruised her; unconsciously she aggravated him. His native spirit held the wider outlook of her charity and lenity as weakness. Sin and the sinner were closely allied in his judgment; therefore her tolerance, her magic ingenuity of excuse for error, her clemency and her patience with folly puzzled him. She had a genius for identifying herself with those the world forgot or shunned. She was a champion of failures; and her attitude to the sick, the wretched, and the outcast sometimes troubled David.

On one occasion she caught an evil from a house full of sickness and brought it home, so that David, too, fell ill and was from his work for three days. When the doctor came and bade him keep within doors, he turned on his wife, and for the first time she saw him angry with her. The incident passed; the sting lasted a long while. Her attitude to Dorcas won a milder reprimand; but here she was obstinate and asserted her own liberty of action. She visited Dorcas; rejoiced in her happiness and content, and congratulated her on the reformation she had achieved in her husband. But David held off and waited to see Billy Screech return to his irregular ways; while Rhoda kept her word and saw her sister no more.

It happened that David found his wife on an afternoon in autumn going to the house of Mr. Screech with a basket on her arm. She never openly irritated him by visiting his sister under his eyes, though her friendship with Dorcas was not hidden; but now it chanced that husband and wife unexpectedly met. She was on foot and he rode. She smiled and stopped. He nodded and asked where she was going with a full basket.

"Not to they Fosters, Madge? There's some bad catching sickness there, and I won't have it. I can't afford no more of that nonsense."

"I'm going to see Dorcas."

"What for?"

"Because her li'l chap's queer. Nothing at all, David--only a bit of a tissick on the chest. And I've made up some cautcheries[#] after a recipe of mother's for him. And this here's a bit of that big, blue-vinnied cheese as you said we never should be able to eat. 'Tis a pity to waste it."

[#] Physic.

"Anything else?"

"No--except a pint of whortleberries what I gathered yesterday; and a couple of they pigs' trotters for your sister."

"Can't they pick their own whortleberries?"

"Dorcas be a thought poorly herself. There's another little one coming a'ready."

He frowned and sat still on his horse, looking straight between its ears.

"Always swarm where they ban't wanted--like bees," he said. Then he turned to Margaret.

"Give me that food. Let Screech buy his own cheese. I'm going up over to see my mother. I'll carry it to her."

He held out his hand and she took the cheese from her basket and gave it to him.

"And no more of this, my dear. I'm not going to keep other people's children--because I haven't got none of my own. And don't you never think so, Madge; because if you do, you'll think wrong. Good-bye for the present. Don't think 'tis hard: 'tis only sense."

He put the food in his pocket and rode on; she stood and watched him; then her lips parted a little and as she pressed them together tears started from her eyes. There was none to see and she made no effort to restrain her sorrow. Her face was still tear-stained when two men overtook her and Bartley Crocker, with Billy Screech, bade her good-day. Billy was in a hurry and had to call at his home on the way elsewhere. He dearly liked Margaret and now, hearing that she was on the way to see Dorcas, took her basket for her. Mr. Screech rapidly passed out of sight and she was left alone with Bartley.

He spoke at once.

"What's amiss?" he said. "You've been crying."

"Nonsense!"

"I daresay it was. Still, you have. And if 'twas nonsense, you can tell me so much the easier."

"Some silly trifle. You oughtn't to have taken any note of it."

"I've just met David--going up to Ditsworthy. He must have passed you. Well, well--no business of mine, Madge. I'll say nought and ask you to forgive me for being so bold as to see. Only I'm different to other people. We've got such a lot of secrets--you and me."

Instantly she confided in him.

"I know 'tis nought but your soft, silly heart, Bartley. We'm too much alike here and there, you and me. But David's always right, and I do vex him with my foolish ways--too well I know it. I can't be so firm and just as him. God knows I try; but my mind ban't built in his manly pattern. I'm all for forgiving everybody and being friendly with everybody. He says I'm no better than a spaniel to fawn, but--"

"Don't," said Mr. Crocker. "Don't tell me no more, Madge. I quite understand. 'Tis the man's nature to be firm and stern, same as it is yours to be soft and gentle. You've got to meet one another. He must try and be soft, and you must try and be hard. I don't suppose either of you can succeed; but if you try--and yet what silly rummage I be talking!"

"I vexed him rather sharp a moment ago."

"Look here!" he exclaimed. "In a bit of a cloud like this, Rhoda ought to be the very one living creature of all others to put everything right. Don't you see that with her sort of nature--as firm as David and yet a woman--she ought to be able to see both sides and just speak the very word and do the very thing to make all go smooth and happy?"

"I'm sure she would if she could," answered Margaret at once. "Rhoda and me are capital friends nine days out of ten. But of course she's more like David than me."

"I heard Screech say she was David in petticoats; but that's only rude, foolish nonsense. She's a woman, and she must have a woman's softness and gentleness and understanding for women hidden away in her--a clever, beautiful creature like her."

The lover spoke and Margaret did not contradict him. Bartley, though he could arrive at fairly accurate estimates of character as a rule, proved blind where Rhoda Bowden was concerned. He had judged her better in the past; but now he only loved her and erred accordingly.

"Trust to her; tell her," he advised. "She can do anything with David."

And Margaret, knowing perfectly well that Billy Screech's opinion of her sister-in-law was the more correct, yet took some heart of hope from Mr. Crocker's advice and promised him to do as he suggested.

"But what am I to waste your time?" she asked. "Such a happy woman as I be. To see such a foreign thing as a tear on my cheek! No wonder you was surprised. 'Twas all about nothing really and I'm ashamed of myself. Now let's talk of you. When be you coming up again to tell us more about Canada?"

"I've forgot all about it," he answered. "The question is, when am I going to ask Rhoda to go there with me? I feel 'twill be do or die next time. But I can't wait much longer. Then there's my mother. She'll be gone by October, they say. 'Tis curious how she hankers after that man, Charles Moses, now. And I'm sure he's terrible kind. Comes in when he can and reads the Bible to her by the hour. Mr. Merle's very good too. But she'd rather have Moses than anybody."

"There's you."

"Yes--me first, poor dear. I've scraped the skin off my throat, as you can hear. I was reading to her till three o'clock this morning. Then, thank God, she got off to sleep."

They had reached the home of Dorcas and there parted. Margaret went in and Mr. Crocker, with a resolution recently made and carefully concealed from her, proceeded towards Sheepstor.

He had decided to speak to David, and since, knowing himself tolerably well, he guessed that time might very easily destroy this intention, Bartley proceeded then and there to the way by which Bowden would return to his home. In a dingle not very far from Dennycoombe he waited, and after two lonely hours, during which he considered the probable futility of his intention, David came along.

He was in good spirits and asked his old adversary to return home with him for a cup of tea.

"I know you'll need no second bidding," he said, "for my wife have told me about your fancy for Rhoda, and though I can't further it, I'll not stand in the way if 'tis to be. You'd better come and tell her some more about foreign parts: she likes that better than courting. If any man ever wins her, 'twill have to be a wild man of the woods, I reckon."

Crocker, pleased that David was in a mood so easy, nerved himself to a dangerous task. He had decided to do no less than try and light Bowden's imagination. This on any subject had been a difficult feat; but since the man's own wife was the matter, Bartley felt that he could hardly have attempted anything less likely to succeed or more likely to end in tribulation. Indeed, as soon as his mouth was open he regretted his unwisdom; but it was then too late to draw back and he proceeded. Chance inspired him to make an excellent case and speak with very genuine discretion; but David was a long time silent and the other feared that he had done more harm than good.

"'Tis well we met," he began, "for I want to speak to you, David. And 'tis a kicklish subject at first glance; but not at second. I mean Margaret. You know very well I wanted to marry her once, and you know she loved you better far and you won her. But though she never would have taken me for a husband, yet I've been close as a brother to her all my life, and she's fond of me too in her way."

"I know it," said Bowden. "And why not? Fond she is, else she wouldn't take so much trouble to try and get Rhoda to have you."

"Exactly so. And now I'm coming to the tricky place in our talk. I met Margaret a bit agone--mind, I'm talking like her brother might--and she was crying. Just after leaving you it was, David. I asked her what was amiss, and she told me 'twas all her weak nonsense. Then it come out--as a sister to a brother. She'd vexed you and she was cut to the heart about it. She loves the ground you walk on, David; and when she don't hit it off with you--when you look black at her--'tis like holding back water from a flower. By God, she droops!"

"Crying, you say?"

"Had been, and couldn't hide it. You'd never have known it; but I said to myself, 'that man don't guess what he is to her, or that a cold word frets her like a wound.' Be angry with me if you like, Bowden, and tell me to mind my own business. I'll take it now--now that I've told you."

David stopped and got off his horse.

"I'm not angry," he said. "The question is, what have you told me? I'll thank you to say it again; and don't fear to use clear words. I like 'em best."

"The point is that, busy as you are and up to the eyes in affairs and beasts and money-making in general, you've missed a lot in Madge that's worth finding out. And you must find it out if you want her to be a happy woman."

"What don't I know?"

"You don't know how to humour her."

"A sane, grown-up woman don't want humouring, surely?"

"Every woman that ever was born wants humouring. Think now. Don't you humour Rhoda? Don't even Rhoda do and say things you can't fathom now and again? Don't you give in to her against your own better knowledge now and then--for the sake of pleasing her and so that she may the quicker do as you want her to do next time? Be honest--don't you?"

Bowden looked at the other with surprise and nodded.

"Lord! How you know the ins and outs of 'em!"

"Not me. No man ever can. We just glimpse a bit here and there. But this I know; patience is the first virtue with women. Patient, as a spider, we've got to be when the fly is a female. Now Margaret feeds on one thing, and if you hold it back you starve her. That's sympathy, Bowden--just a natural, tender sort of feeling such as you don't hold back even from a cow that's just dropped a dead calf and had her trouble for nought. I'll say it in a word and trust your large sense and justice not to be angered. You're not so kind as you might be to Margaret. 'Tis summed up in that, and I ask you to forgive me for saying it. I've nought to gain, and everything to lose by losing your friendship. I wouldn't have spoken such a strong thing for any less serious reason than her happiness. And now you can tell me to go about my business if you please, and I'll gladly go."

"Wait a bit and hear me," answered the other. "I can see, fixed up as you are, and hoping what you hope, that it wasn't all fun for you to say this to me. You're not the sort of man as ever goes across the road to teach other people or meddle with them. And that's why I've listened so patient to you. Some--most men--I'd have stopped at the first word; because most men be very fond of giving advice and lifting themselves above their neighbours; and that sort I very soon put in their place if they talk to me. But you don't offer your opinions unasked as a rule, and you've knowed my wife since she was a baby, and you'm a thought like her here and there--a softness there is in your nature. 'Twas pointed out after our fight."

"I said that very word to her to-day," answered Bartley. "'Tis because I'm rather the same pattern as she that I can feel so sharp about this as even to risk your friendship by speaking. She'd die for you; but would you die for her, David? Well, yes, without doubt you would; but do what's harder. Try to do the little, twopenny-halfpenny, every-day sort of things for her that'll show her she's never out of your thought."

The other had retired into his own mind and failed to hear this admonition. His intellect moved much more slowly than Crocker's, and he was now retracing an incident.

"To show you the softness of her," he said, "I may tell you that when you was coming to see us, she begged me to take down the fight-colours--the two handkerchers you might have seen hanging in shiny wood frames one on each side of the parlour looking-glass in my house. She said that it would hurt your feelings cruel to see the signs of the battle there, and I think even Rhoda looked a sort of question with her eyes at me. 'But no,' I said. 'He's not a fool. 'Twill be no pain to him to see 'em.' And I wouldn't take 'em down. Rhoda saw it my way; but Margaret kept on to the end that 'twas not a proper thing--'specially as you came at my invitation to tea. Yet, of course you didn't mind seeing your fogle there?"

"Not a bit in the world. A very natural and proper place for it. But don't it show what stuff she's made of--Margaret, I mean?"

"It do," admitted David. "I thank you for saying these things to me. I'm not above learning from any man or woman either."

"Learn from her then. You can't learn from a better. Be out of bias with her no more."

"I'll have a tell with Rhoda about it. 'Tis the little silly things, as you say, that please women. I do big things when I can, you must know. There was another twenty pound put out at interest for her last month. But she didn't take much delight seemingly in a valuable matter like that. She thanked me loving enough, but not as though she knowed what it means to earn and to save twenty pounds."

"She'd sooner you took her back a bunch of they wild strawberries out of the hedge than all the money in Tavistock," declared Bartley. "Foolish, if you like, but take my word for it, David. She's built in that particular way. Try it."

Bowden laughed.

"If any man had told me that I should ever listen to such a lot of sense from you, I'd have judged him mad," he answered. "Yet here it has come about, and I thank you, honest, for trying to do me a good turn. And succeeding too. I'll see how a little silliness will work. Perhaps a holiday come the next revel. Good-bye--unless you'll drop in for a bite."

"Next week, perhaps. But there's a lot of trouble afore me just now. My mother--"

"You're welcome when you please to come," concluded Bowden, and re-mounted, full of his own thoughts. It was characteristic that when the other mentioned his dying parent, he said nothing. He had heard, but the ready word made no effort to leave his lips. He was for the moment quite occupied with his own business. Crocker left his old antagonist very full of thought and, when the younger was out of sight, Bowden, at a sudden whim, took his advice literally, dismounted again and tethered his horse. Then he ranged about and gathered a great bunch of wood-strawberries that clustered in a dewy hedge and shone ruby-red in the level sunset light along the lane.

They would have been a very real and deep joy to Margaret; she must have been the nearer to his heart that night by the tie of that simple thought; but such an act was foreign to his nature. He fell to thinking how really and practically to please her, and in the light of definite and weighty deeds, this piece of sentiment looked in his eyes so exceedingly foolish, that he flung the berries away impatiently long before he reached home.

What would anybody have said, he asked himself, had they seen the busy and prosperous David Bowden carrying along rubbish from the hedge-row, like a child playing truant from Sunday school?

That night, after Margaret had gone to bed, he talked with Rhoda concerning her, and Rhoda was deeply interested and anxious to fall in with his purposes. David mentioned the source of his inspiration, and finding that he showed no anger against Bartley Crocker, his sister took the same attitude. They strove very steadily henceforth to please Madge, and to understand the things that were good to her. They tried hard, and in a measure succeeded; for Margaret was quick to mark their efforts and gather happiness from them. Yet the attempt could not largely avail; because sympathy, without imagination to light its way, can only grope in the dark and, groping, perish.

CHAPTER XII

THE COURAGE OF MR. SNELL

The instinct which drew Simon Snell towards Rhoda Bowden--the instinct which, exemplified in her, suffered the advance without active discomfiture--while slight and subtle, was none the less real. There was that in this simple soul which suited the woman; or if such an expression is too strong, she found him more easily endured than any other man. Most girls fled instinctively from Simon. The dullest found him dull; the least humourous found his beard a jest; the worst educated discovered that they possessed wider knowledge than he. Yet Rhoda, who was not stupid, who was handsome and who enjoyed a measure of sense, could accede something to this egregious man that she denied all others. She did not spurn him and she did not find his companionship a joke or a bore. On the other hand, she did not seek him and made no attempt to better their acquaintance.

Simon, for his part, developed similar and even stronger sentiments; and he had wit sufficient to perceive that any increase of friendship must come from him.

He debated the matter in his mind with oriental deliberation; and he consumed several months on the great problem of whether he should or should not ask Rhoda to take a walk with him during some Sunday afternoon. His inclinations varied, and occasionally he believed that to walk with her was desirable; but more often he feared that such an action would be too definite and must commit him. Moreover, he felt extremely doubtful as to Rhoda's reply and, thanks to a spark of imagination in his character not to have been suspected, he believed that if she said 'no,' he would feel very uncomfortable.

She met him on a day when the first opinion was uppermost, and almost before he knew it, Mr. Snell had succeeded in asking Rhoda if she would take a stroll with him upon the following Sunday afternoon. She replied without emotion that she was engaged to dinner with her parents at Ditsworthy.

"The next then," faltered Mr. Snell. As he spoke, he determined with himself that in thus pressing himself upon her, he had gone too far, and he prepared to leave her. To his surprise, however, Rhoda agreed.

"If 'tis a fine afternoon Sunday week, I'll come. But not if 'tis pouring torrents," she said.

"I'll be to your house at three of the clock," he answered.

Then he left her and found himself in great agitation. This was the most audacious thing that he had ever done. He felt proud and alarmed by turns. As the day approached he heartily hoped that it might be wet; but it arrived clear, cold, and fine. Therefore he went forth in his Sunday clothes, reached his destination too soon and waited out of sight behind a stone, until his watch told one minute to the appointed hour.

Rhoda was ready for him and they set off together up the valley. From his cottage door David watched them and smiled grimly. His sister had not mentioned her appointment, and both Margaret and her husband were exceedingly surprised.

"It can't surely be that poor Mr. Snell--?" said Madge.

"Anything can be," he answered; "but 'tis hard to believe. On the whole--no. It amounts to nought. Look at the way Simon carries his legs--that loose from the thigh--that loose and wandering, as though they belonged to a Guy Fawkes!"

"'Tis a most amazing thing, David, what different sort of people sometimes have something in 'em that draws them together willy-nilly. But Hartley!"

"'Tis no good looking that way," he answered with decision. "I sounded her as to the man a bit ago, as I promised. She's got no fancy that way, Madge, and the sooner he knows it the sooner he'll stop wasting his time."

Meanwhile Mr. Snell walked beside Rhoda and talked of the amazing number of water rats in the leat. Presently he lifted the theme to poultry, and then, returning to the water, detailed the exact manner of his professional labours. She said little but listened to his statement of facts. His mind was only constituted to assert crude happenings. He had no ideas, no theories, and few opinions.

"You can see the tower of Princetown church very clear from here," he said; "but if a mist comed over, it would be hidden."

She admitted that this was so.

"A gentleman stopped in our best bedroom and parlour a year back," continued Simon; "and his custom was to paint pickshers. And once I comed this way and he was painting pretty near where we be standing now. And I made so bold as to look, and then I made so bold as to talk, because the gentleman axed me what I thought of it. 'You've left out the church tower,' I says to him. 'Yes,' he says, ''twasn't like I was going to stick such a beastly, ugly thing as that in the middle of they hills.' So he left it out, though to my eye 'twas the most interesting sight to be seen."

"Did he make his pickshers for pleasure, or did he get anything by them?" asked Rhoda.

"He lived by 'em. He said to me once that there were one or two sane men in the world who bought everything he liked to paint. 'Twas a very curious speech to my ear. And to be honest with you, I didn't like his pickshers--messy and half done to my eye--very different to the pickshers you see on grocers' almanacs, where everything, to the hairs on a horse's tail, be worked out to a miracle."

"Have 'e seen they pickshers that David got to Tavistock?" she asked.

Mr. Snell had seen them; but with a great and sudden access of cunning he replied in the negative. He expected her to invite him home to do so; but she did not.

A silence fell until they came to a clapper bridge of rather narrow dimensions.

"Shall I hand you over, miss, or would you rather go alone?" he inquired.

But Rhoda had crossed before he finished the question.

The church-tower seemed to draw his eyes like a magnet, and after further silence Mr. Snell began to talk about it again.

"'Tis a very wonderful and curious thing that the old prisoners made thicky pile," he said. "You might not know it, but so it was in ancient days."

"Very sad for them, because they was foreigners," ventured Rhoda.

"Exactly so. 'Twould be a very sad thing to have a wife and family and be shut away from them."

"Yes."

"Very sad without a doubt."

"Yes."

Mr. Snell next ventured on a great generality.

"I don't think 'tis a very good plan for fighting men to marry," he said.

"Perhaps not."

"Because, if they get the worst of it, and get shot dead or taken prisoners, or any such like misfortune, their children and females have to suffer."

Rhoda did not answer.

"'Tis a deep question, if you come to think of it, miss, who ought to be married and who ought not to be married."

"There's a lot married as had better not be," she declared.

"I quite agree, I quite agree," answered Simon; "and you might even go so far as to say there's a lot might be married who ain't."

"There's a lot don't want to be, I believe."

"Women, I grant you. I do think here and there you'll find a woman who won't change the single state, along of experience with married sisters, or babies, or cross-grained men, or what not; but us was telling to 'The Corner House' a bit back along, and it seemed the general idea that there comes a time in every manly mind when the chap cries out for a wife. Should you think that might be so?"

"How should I know?"

"Beg pardon, I'm sure. Perhaps 'twas a silly question to put to a young woman. No offence, I hope?"

"Yes, it was a silly question."

"Sorry, I'm sure, and I hope you'll overlook it. But, when I ax myself if ever it was so with me--but perhaps it don't interest you?"

She considered before answering, then replied:

"I don't much care what men think, but if you want to tell me, tell me."

"Not at all--far from it, I'm sure. For that matter I couldn't tell you very easy. I haven't been throwed much with the female kind."

"So much the better for you very like."

"I quite agree--as a general thing; but, however--" he broke off and looked at his watch.

"My word, only four o'clock! Who'd have thought it?" he exclaimed.

"In my case I've been throwed a lot with men," said Rhoda.

"So you have, and no doubt you'll understand 'em pretty well. In fact, you're as brave as most men. I'm sure now you are braver than me."

"Ban't you brave then?"

"I'm brave by fits and starts," said Mr. Snell. "With cattle, yes; with horses, no. When I was a little nipper, not above twelve or thirteen year old, a wicked horse got me down and bit my shoulder to the bone. He'd have killed me in another moment, but the Lord sent a man with a pitchfork and I was saved. But I feared a horse from that day, and if I could show you my shoulder, which, of course, I wouldn't offer for to do, you'd see how I was mangled by the teeth of him."

"Some horses be as uncertain as dogs, and they've got terrible long memories--better than ours sometimes."

"No doubt you know, so full of learning about four-footed things as you be."

"We'll turn now, please."

"Certainly. Us have come a longer way than I thought to. But you step out something wonderful."

"I like walking."

"So do I--nothing better. I go along ten miles of the leat six days a week, winter and summer. You might be surprised to know that I go more than three thousand miles in the year. 'Twas done out in figures by Mr. Mattacott all quite correct."

They had turned, and now walked a considerable way in absolute silence. Then a neighbour came in sight, and Mr. Snell grew nervous.

"There's that clacking creature, Mary Main. She haven't seed us yet. If you'd rather for me to go away afore she does--?"

"Yes, if you like."

"It might be better--unless-- Well, here's good-bye then for the present, and I'm very thankful to you for walking--very thankful and no less."

"Us have had a nice walk."

"I quite agree, I'm sure; and thank you kindly; if I get over this here wall I can pick up the leat yonder; and to see me by the leat will be an everyday sight for anybody."

"Yes, it will."

He hurried off, and Mary Main, when she met Rhoda alone as usual, had no idea of her recent great adventure.

What impression the walk with Simon left in the girl's mind none ever knew; but Mr. Snell felt mildly elated by the achievement, though he told nobody about it. He was secretive, and his own mother knew nothing of his thoughts. Indeed, she was scarcely aware that he did think. Rhoda, too, confided in none but her brother. She said nothing about her amusement, and when Margaret openly asked her if she had enjoyed it, she did not answer the question, but replied with some other matter. It happened thus.

"Did you like Mr. Snell's opinions?" asked her sister-in-law, as Rhoda took off her hat and came to the tea-table.

"They horned sheep have all gone down in a crowd from the high ground, and they want to be driven back, which I'll do after I've had a cup of tea and changed my clothes," said the other.

Six weeks later there fell out an unfortunate incident which went far to extinguish the slightly closer understanding that had obtained between these women since Bartley Crocker met David. By ill-fortune Madge annoyed Rhoda exceedingly, and her brother was also implicated. Mr. Snell, however, suffered most in the sequel. With great circumspection he had avoided Rhoda for a month after their walk, then he met her and proposed another.

"'Twill have to be short, for the evenings close in so," she said.

"I like the dark so well as you, however," he assured her.

"I only like the dark alone," she answered.

"How coorious! I only like it in company," he declared. "But, if you'm willing, I'll be so bold as to call at the cot half after two come Sunday week."

"I shall be home that day. I dare say my sister-in-law will come too."

"As to her--" began Mr. Snell, then he checked himself. "She's a very nice woman; in fact, you'd have to look a long way further than Sheepstor parish to find her equal," he declared. And then he went his way, dimly conscious that he had chosen his words awkwardly.

When he arrived Rhoda was ready, but Margaret had a cold in her face, and the other had not asked her to join the party. Mr. Snell's appearance came as a surprise, and David spoke.

"Why, here's Simon again! So 'tis him you be prinked up in that new hat for, Rhoda!"

Margaret laughed despite herself, and the virgin flushed; but with anger.

"Look at her roses!" said David, whose Sunday dinner had left him in an easy mood. Then his sister instantly restored him to seriousness.

"How dare you!" she cried. "How dare you laugh, Margaret, or you say such things, David? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. I won't see the man! Never again will I see him! 'Tis you coarse creatures ought to blush--not me!"

She left them, went to her room, and refused to descend though Margaret came up and pleaded with her.

"Tell him to go," was all that Rhoda said.

Mr. Snell was placidly regretful to hear that Rhoda had a headache.

"The headache is a very painful thing; but she'll soon be rids of it," he said. "Us was going for a walk, but 'tis not of any consequence. I can go just as easy alone. Or I needn't go at all, come to think of it."

He went to the gate, hesitated, and returned.

"When she comes down house again, you might give her my respects," he said; "and if 'tis her stomach that is out of order, there's nothing better than a little cold onion broth without salt, taken when the organs all be empty."

"I'll tell her," promised Margaret, and Mr. Snell shuffled off.

He walked over the exact ground of the former peregrination and recalled the former topics very accurately.

"I shall leave it now till well on into the new year," he told himself; "then, if my feelings be so fierce and fiery as they seem to be at present, I might offer for to go walking again. There's nought like a walk for helping a male to see into the female mind. 'Twas Crocker, I remember, who said in the bar that if you could get a girl to laugh at your jokes, 'twas a great thing done. But 'twill have to be something out of the common funny to make that woman laugh. And as to making a joke--I don't know I'm sure."

CHAPTER XIII

RHODA PASSES BY

A great uncertainty prevailed above Margaret Bowden, where she sat on the lofty side of Lether Tor before noon and waited to meet Bartley. The aerial doubt was reflected on earth in shadows and darkness shot with fitful light; an increasing opacity threatened rain; yet, where the vapours crowded most gloomily and massed their hooded cowls, light and wind would break their conclaves and scatter them upon the humid bosom of the Moor. Through this welter, sunshafts fell and flashed over the grey and russet of the wilderness.

A sort of mystery belonged to the day seen in its huge encounter between cloud legions and the light of heaven. Strange things might have been happening within the penetralia of the fog-banks, where they drove through the valleys gloomily. There was an air of mighty preparation, of imminent explosion, of forces stealthily taking stand and making ready to declare themselves in elemental encounter between the armies of the sun and the rain. Light and darkness joined battle, and Mother Earth lowered heavily, in mood to welcome the victory of her own innumerable cloud children. The sobriety of the hour increased. The distant details of the land faded; the tors ascended solemn and purple above the grey.

Yet, through loopholes in the driving fog, the sun still shot his arrows strongly and, where they fell, there broke forth fire on dene and dingle, and small roof-tree isolated in the loneliness. The watcher marked a sudden shaft sweep the vale of Kingsett with a besom of light, while another radiant gleam broke the clouds, descended upon her old home, and set the far-off whitewash glimmering like a jewel at the throat of Dennycoombe.

Now the high lands southerly shone for a moment; now the ragged crest of Sheep's Tor was glorified with a nimbus of light, that revolved in a broad, wet fan, and then shut up again, as the clouds thrust between sun and earth.

In process of time, as the war swept hither and thither, there grew a cheerful hope in Madge's mind that the clouds might be beaten. When all seemed lost and new vapours gathered even to her feet, she saw the upper heaven shine with sudden access of glory. It collected in close, dazzling centres; it pierced and riddled the fog beneath with silver that warmed into gold. And then the earth, that had taken service with storm and lifted her dark bosom to welcome rain--the faithless earth paid court to the conqueror and welcomed him with beauty. No longer she sulked; no longer the tors and hog-backed hills answered the dark strata of the sky with greater darkness, and spread beneath the sullen colours of the clouds a face still more sullen. Instead they donned a brighter aspect; while banderoles of blue unfurled aloft in the widening rents of the cloud rack. A great wind gathered strength, scattered the mists, and drove them flying down the hills; there fell warmth on the watcher's cheek; the world smoothed out her granite wrinkles, smiled, and reflected the azure of heaven upon her manifold stony faces, her water-ways and plains. Light conquered and upon the skirts of the defeated fog there burnt cold fires and glimmered the iris.

This transformation and overthrow of the day's dark prophecy much heartened Madge. The victory of sunshine lifted her spirits unconsciously. She grew happier with the unfolding serenity of the hour; and she was singing to herself when Bartley Crocker arrived.

Of late not seldom they had met unseen in lonely places, far afield. Sometimes she waited for him by the great menhir of Thrushel Coombe; sometimes at Plym Steps; sometimes in spots even more remote, haunted by the heron and the shadows of clouds. But during the past fortnight Margaret had only seen Mr. Crocker on one occasion, when she called to know of his mother's fading health. Then he made the present appointment; and now, as she sang, he climbed up through the wild clitters of Lether Tor to keep it.

"Go on," he said. "I heard you long afore you saw me. 'Tis pleasant to my ear; for nought be singing just now but the robins."

"I was cheered somehow when the sun mastered the fog."

"How's Rhoda?"

"Very well. She'll come this way herself presently, by Nosworthy bridge."

"Mr. Snell called again?"

"Not again. 'Tis a pity you can't see a bit more of Rhoda, however."

"My mother wouldn't let me out of her sight at the last."

"Well I know it, poor dear. How does she find herself to-day, Bartley?"

"A bit strange, no doubt; but with my father to show her the new place. She's dead."

"Dead! Oh, Bartley!"

"Yes--thank God. Faded out at four o'clock yesterday morning. Flickered out just the same as a night-light flickers out. Wavers and shakes--then steadies down again--then gets brighter than ever--then grows dim--slowly, slowly, till there's nought but a bead of fire left. And then a flash, and then--gone. And your eyes think it's there still; but it isn't."

"Dear Bartley, I'm so sorry for you."

"Are you? But I know you are. Not many else will be--not many but me and my Aunt Susan. She's torn to the heart. I couldn't stand no more of it."

"I'll see your aunt to-morrow. I'll see her to-day."

"She'll thank you. Make it to-morrow. My dear mother wasn't a very much sought after woman--too wise for that, I expect. But you could comfort her sister. Nobody else will trouble about her."

"To-night I shall go down."

"The funeral's on Tuesday. Would you put her to the west where the big holly tree is, or under the sunny wall where the slates of the Moses family all stand?"

"She'd have liked to be buried by her husband. She told me so."

"I know; but 'tisn't convenient. He lies at Honiton, and 'twould cost a King's ransom to take her there. But I asked her almost the last thing, and she thought and shook her head. Past caring then."

"Me and David will be at the funeral--I can promise for myself, and I'm pretty sure he'll go."

"D'you think you could get Rhoda to come? D'you think I might go so far as to ask her to come?"

"I'm sure she'd go if she thought it would give anybody any pleasure."

"Not pleasure exactly. You might almost say 'twas business more than pleasure. Don't think I'm hard-hearted and all that sort of thing; but when you're in love like I am--everything--even the funeral of his own mother--is used by a man to his advantage, if it can be. To feel like I feel for Rhoda makes me as hard as a millstone for everything else. I want her at the funeral; because if she sees me there burying my dear mother, it may bring a pinch of softness to her. I've planned to get her there if 'tis possible."

Margaret stared at him in wonder.

"Don't think me daft. I'm suffering enough; but 'tis man's way to look on ahead. And I can't look on ahead into nothing. I've grown to feel to Rhoda that she's got to marry me. And yet 'tis idle to pretend that I've much right to be hopeful. What's the best news about her?"

"There's no news, unless her long, lonely walks be news. She must think of something when she takes 'em. She can't talk to the dogs all the time. Her mind can't be empty, can it?"

"Certainly not," Mr. Crocker assured her. "She must be travelling over something in her brain, if 'tis only the joneys on the mantel-shelf in your parlour. But it isn't about me and Canada she thinks, I reckon. Canada, perhaps, but not me."

"I will say this: there's no unfriendliness in her. I never hear her speak a word against any man, bar William Screech. And I go in hopes that she'll forgive even him and Dorcas."

"She'd forgive 'em right enough if she was married to me. Anyway, when my dear mother's laid to her rest, after a few days are past, I shall ask Rhoda again. The time has come to do it."

"I think it has."

"Will she be along with you at Christmas?"

"No," answered Margaret. "'Tis ordained that we all go to Ditsworthy for Christmas dinner. 'Tis a longful time since David was to home, and his mother has planned this."

"Well, you must ask me a bit later. Or I'll try to get David to bid me come and eat along with you after New Year. I may tell you this: David wouldn't make any objection."

"None--none at all."

Bartley began to spare a little thought from himself for Margaret. He had often wondered whether his plain hints to her husband brought any fruit for her. To-day he was in a high-strung and somewhat emotional mood; therefore he did not shirk the subject as usual; but prepared to plunge into it.

"Let's get down the hill," he said. "We'll go so far as Nosworthy bridge together, if that's not drawing you too much out of your way."

"'Twill suit very well," she answered. "I want to meet Rhoda, and she'll be fetching back by the bridge afore long."

"You'll be hungry."

"No; I've got a bit of bread and cheese in my pocket. You can have half, if you mind to."

He shook his head.

"Can't eat to-day. 'Twill be a fast day in my life for evermore."

"Dear Hartley, I don't say much. Who can say anything to the purpose against such a loss? But I do feel for you."

"I know it, Madge. Nobody'll feel for me like you. Give me your hand. 'Tis a thought steep here; but it leads to the best road to the bottom."

He helped her down the crooked acclivities, and in half an hour they were at the bridge beneath.

Here Meavy opens her arms, and shutting them again, creates a little island. The waters join once more below and sing and foam under the ivy-mantled span of one grey arch. To-day naked boughs thrust up from the drooping red mat of the brake-fern, and the leaves of the willows were reduced to a mere yellow sparkle of yellow on the boughs. Only the greater furze laid a heavy green in great masses on the harmony of winter colours.

Bartley led the way by mossy stones beside a backwater where dead leaves danced.

"We'll sit on the island," he said, "while you eat your food. There's an old hurdle there, and I'll put my coat over it for you."

A few moments later they were talking about Margaret's self, and she felt her heart flutter somewhat at this sudden and very unexpected change of subject.

"D'you mind what you told me some time since, Madge?" he asked. "At least it can't be said you told me; but, between the lines of things that you spoke, I somehow pieced together a sort of feeling you wasn't as happy as you'd a right to be."

"How can you think so? I'm sure--"

"Well, anyway, it got into my stupid head, and as luck would have it I fell in with David a bit after I'd left you. You must remember the day, Madge. It's idle to pretend you've forgot."

"Yes, I remember. I was down-daunted and silly. You oughtn't to have thought twice about my feeble grumbling."

"You didn't grumble. Another person would have marked nothing in what you said; but I know you so well--quick as lightning I am where you are concerned, or any woman I care about. And I talked to David."

She started and stared at him.

"Then I'm very angry indeed with you, Bartley."

"Are you? Well, he wasn't. There's few more sensible, clever chaps knocking about than your husband. Like a flash I opened his eyes, and he thanked me for doing it. Thanked me, mind you."

"Opened his eyes! Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean I opened his eyes. He's a terrible busy man and I'm a terrible lazy one. And 'tis no use being lazy if you can't use your time to do the busy folk a good turn. Fools would say 'twas interference; but not a wise man like David."

"What did you tell him?"

"Say you forgive me."

"It depends what you said."

"It depends on the result of what I said. I told David that I reckoned he was--well--too busy. I said he dropped you out of his life a bit too much and didn't humour you enough. I told him plump out that he wasn't so kind as he might be. Now you're properly angered with me, no doubt; but just think if you've a right to be."

She was silent, and her flush faded and her eyes fixed on him and grew puzzled.

"'Twas only because I knew him so well and his straight, just way that I dared," he continued. "And now you've got to say if that talk did harm or good. And if it did harm, heap hard words on me; but if it did good--"

She put out her hand impulsively, but not until a silent minute had sped. During the moments she retraced the past and remembered what had surprised her and made her happier. Then she stretched out her hand and clasped his.

"Good came of it," she said.

"If that's so, I've gained something to-day as well as lost something, Madge."

"David--it shows what he is, Hartley."

"Yes. He's high above anything small or mean."

She continued to reflect. It was impossible to say much more on the subject, and, indeed, the brightest that could be said was spoken. The wife, though she knew that her husband had long since resumed his old absorbed attitude and found less and less leisure for amenity and tenderness, could not whisper this outside her own heart.

"It was good and brave of you," she said. "And dear David belongs to the large-souled sort of men that ban't above learning even on such a sacred, secret business as his wife. But he knew you had known me ever since I was a little girl."

Bartley nodded.

"So long as you can tell me that good came of it, I'm content. Now leave it. Eat your lunch and then I must go. And strive to bring 'em both--Rhoda and David--to the funeral."

"All Sheepstor will surely go."

She brought her food from her pocket and he watched her eat some little sandwiches made of bread and cheese. Their backs were turned to Nosworthy bridge, but they were quite visible from it.

"There's more here than I want," she said. "I wish you'd take some."

The whimsical child in the man, even on this dark day, broke loose.

"Feed me," he said. "Don't think I'm a fool for asking; but feed me. I mean it. 'Twill comfort me. I'm cruel miserable, though not to the eye."

Of old she remembered his follies and fancies.

"When you was young you was always like a little, silly, petted bird or puppy," she said, smiling.

"So I often am still--and especially when I'm down on my luck. There's no dear, silly mother to pet me no more and make me chirrup again. How she would do it! Feed me, Madge."

She held a sandwich to his mouth.

"One more."

"Here's four more. Eat 'em quick. And then I must get going."

One by one she put the morsels of food to his lips, and laughed at him, in spite of herself, while she did so. Then he thanked her and declared that he was much the better and happier for her charity.

"Mother's in heaven," he said. "And I'm going to her again some day. If a man believes that really, and doesn't only fool himself to think he believes it, 'tis the greatest comfort of all. And I didn't ought to be miserable to-day, and I'm damned if I will be."

"Of course you believe it. So do I--heart and soul--and so do every true, faithful Christian creature."

"Of course. Didn't you say you counted to meet Rhoda here?"

"Yes--'tis time she came by."

"I shall pass her going back; and I'll tell her you're at the bridge waiting for her. Good-bye, Madge; and the Lord bless you for the kind things you've said to me."

"And thank you, too, Bartley, for--for--"

"That was nought."

He helped her back from the island to the road; then he left her and went his way in expectation of meeting Rhoda at every turn. But he did not meet her, because she had already passed by.

She had flitted swiftly over the bridge; but stricken to passivity by a sudden and astounding sight--she had stood a moment upon the farther side. She had then gone forward without disturbing those who astonished her.

Therefore Margaret and Mr. Crocker were wholly unaware that Rhoda Bowden had seen her sister-in-law not only putting food into the man's mouth, but also laughing at him while he ridiculously imitated the fluttering action of a fledgling bird.

Rhoda gasped and slipped her foot once or twice from sheer absorption of mind as she proceeded homeward. She considered this spectacle in the light of news just gleaned at Sheepstor.

"And the man's mother not much more than cold in her grave-clothes!" she thought.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

MYSTERY

The company at 'The Corner House' had divided into two groups, and each was concerned with a separate subject. Mr. Shillabeer himself, with Bartley Crocker, Mr. Moses, Simon Snell, and Bart Stanbury, discussed a strange phenomenon that had of late startled the dwellers at Sheepstor; while, with their backs to this throng, Ernest Maunder, his friend Timothy Mattacott, and Billy Screech whispered together upon a private problem.

"The thing can be explained in a word," said Moses; "there be amongst us some high-minded, religious creature that have got hold of this way of advertising the Truth. He have said to himself, 'There's nought like a gate to catch the eye of the passer-by.' And so, where a gate happens to stand by the wayside, he have gone by night and painted up a Bible truth. Farmer Chave found 'Prepare to meet thy God' on his bullock byre yesterday morning, and there's 'Eternity'--just that one solemn word--on every second gate betwixt here and Meavy."

"He's come out our way, too, since last week," said Bart Stanbury. "There be a text up over on the moor-gate above our house: 'Now is the accepted time.'"

Young Stanbury was courting a girl at Nosworthy Farm, near his home, and this text, staring out of the dawn-lit desert, had come to him with the force of a direct command. But he made no mention of its private significance in his affairs.

"The party means well enough," declared Hartley. "There's no doubt about that. And it can't be denied that coming upon these solemn things all of a sudden makes men and women think. The puzzle is to know who's doing it."

"Some of the people that own the gates don't like it, however," said Simon Snell. "Farmer Bassett, out to Yellowmead, says 'tis a form of trespass and battery to write on a man's gatepost; and it don't bring you any more within the law because you write up Scripture. The man stuck up 'Let there be light' on Mr. Bassett's big gate--the one going into his four-acre field--and Bassett was cruel vexed and said as how he'd let light into the chap himself if ever he caught him."

"And he's cleaned his gate with sand-paper," added young Stanbury.

"'Tis written on again since then," said Mr. Shillabeer. "I was that way not long since, and there's words written there again--namely, 'God is Love.'"

"Strange thing is that Ernest Maunder on his nightly rounds should have never catched the man," mused Crocker.

"Not at all," explained Mr. Moses. "The man no doubt knows the way of Ernest's beat as well as Ernest himself do, and avoids him. They were saying yesterday that it might even be parson's self; but of course that's a rash and silly idea. His reverence is as much interested in it as anybody--especially since he found 'The Lord loveth a cheerful giver' on his own back-garden door--the one that leadeth out into the lane. He holds that the man means well; all the same, he wants him catched and stopped."

"What could be done to him if they did lay hold on him?" asked Reuben Shillabeer.

"Why, there you beat me," answered Moses. "I'm sure I don't know. The lord of the manor might talk to him; but I don't think any law has been broken, whereas 'tis certain many people have been made to think about religion in consequence."

"My mother for one," asserted Mr. Snell. "She came across 'After death the Judgment' 'pon a broken paling out Yennadon Down way, and it turned her faint on the instant and made her very unwell. But 'twas all to the good, as she herself declared two days afterwards. The man's doing a very proper work, whoever the man is."

"With a pot of blacking and letters cut out of tin he does it," said Bartley Crocker. "It ought to be pretty easy to find him out. He must have been round here only a day or two ago. I see he's been busy at the bottom of your paddock, 'Dumpling.'"

"Yes," admitted Mr. Shillabeer. "He knows a bit about everybody. 'Swear not at all' he put up on my fence, down the bottom end of my cabbage plot. That ought to be a lesson to us in this bar, for, try as I will, the crooked words slip out among you."

"I quite agree," said Mr. Snell. "I catched myself saying 'damn' to a young dog only yesternight. And no fault of the dog."

"If we was all as careful as you, no great harm would come to the parish," answered Charles Moses. "For my part, swearing never drew me. I found I could be righteously angry without it, and also forcible of speech."

"Some fall back upon it as natural as drink," asserted Bartley, "though 'tis certainly no sign of strength to put in swear words."

"Yet Sir Guy Flamank, his honourable self, be a great hand with them," argued Snell. "I've heard him in the hunting field use the most terrible parts of speech you can imagine--though not when ladies was out, I admit that."

"Take my good friend, David Bowden," said Bartley. "No man ever yet heard him use an oath. And yet, by all accounts, nobody gets his way quicker with smooth words."

Mr. Shillabeer nodded.

"Without a shade of unkindly feeling against the man, I could wish he wasn't quite so own-self, all the same," he said. "That wrapped up heart and soul in work and money-making, that he haven't eyes for anything else in the earth."

Mr. Crocker looked round about him.

"What you say is gospel truth, 'Dumpling.' We're all friends here, I believe--friends to 'em both. Therefore none will think it anything but kindness in us to be sorry about 'em."

"I met Margaret a while back," said Mr. Shillabeer. "My wife was terrible fond of her when she was a mere strip of a girl. We had some talk together, and--there 'twas. I'd give my whiskers to make 'em go along a thought happier; and yet when you say the word, she'll have nought of it and tell you there never was a happier, luckier creature."

"In a way that's true," declared Bartley, "but in another way 'tis false. What did you say to her, Reuben?"

"To be plain," answered Mr. Shillabeer, guiltily, "I was full of rather gloomy thoughts along of it being the death-day of the wife. And I said, in my darkness, that self-slaughter might not be all bad, if a man had outlived his value. And she reproved me--yes, she said the word in season."

"You oughtn't to think of such things, Shillabeer," declared Mr. Moses.

"I know it, Charles; yet thoughts will come over the mind unbidden. But leave that."

"As to David, he's easier to talk sense to than you might think," added Crocker. "I risked it once, and he took it in a very manly spirit that made me respect him more than ever. But I doubt he's forgotten it all long ago. Why for don't you try, Moses? You're a light among us and carry the weight of the church on your shoulders. Catch the man coming out one Sunday and go a bit of the way back-along with him, and some of us will take Madge and Rhoda out of earshot."

"No," answered the shoemaker. "Don't ask me to attempt any such a thing. You can't alter it, and they can't alter it. 'Tis in them: they're built so. Just a pinch of salt makes or mars a stew, and just a pinch of character makes or mars a home. If we even knew exactly what 'twas, we couldn't alter it. You can't pull out a bit of human nature, like a hollow tooth. Just an over-seasoning of pepper in a man, or a pinch of softness in a woman, may spoil all. It takes terrible little to wreck a home, and I've known large tragedies rise up out of nought but a taste."

"That's true," declared Bartley. "A man with a failing, or a fancy, as wouldn't count against him in one woman's eyes, may come to eternal smash on it if he happens to wed with another woman. 'Tis the little twists of character that lead to the biggest troubles, as the acorn breeds the oak."

Mr. Shillabeer obliged with an instance.

"I knowed a very good Christian girl who was a moderate drinker and never dreamed of taking a thimble too much afore she married. And she never would have done so afterwards, but for the bad luck of her husband being a furious teetotaller. I've seed that man talk about drink till you'd think he was blind drunk himself! And so he was--drunk with rage at the thought of there being such a thing as drink in the universe. And what come of it? She took to drink, that woman did, driven to it, you might say, out of sheer spite; and the man catched his only son market merry at ten years old; and he dashed him to the earth in his righteous indignation and broke the poor child's arm in two places."

"'Tis just the sort of thing that happens every day," declared Charles Moses, mournfully. "But, please God, with the Bowden pair, they are both too sensible to drift apart. 'Tis a terrible sad thing to see husband and wife lost, as it were--each feeling along alone, trying to find the man or the woman they loved and married, and not finding 'em. For why? Because each have gone back to themselves, and put off all that hoodwinking toggery they was hidden in during the courting time. We talk about being disguised in drink, Reuben Shillabeer, but we ought to talk about being disguised in love also. There's nought makes a man act further from his true self than wanting to win a woman."

"'Tis supposed to bring out the best of us; but I'm with you there; I don't know that it does," said Bartley.

Mr. Snell stared.

"For my part, though you might say such a man as me hasn't the right to lift his voice afore such a learned person like you, Mr. Moses, yet I do believe in love. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've felt it more than here and there--back and forward, like rheumatism, according to the state of the blood and the season of the year; but when it comes, it makes me more valiant without a doubt; and that's to the good."

Mr. Crocker looked at his rival. Then he opened his mouth to speak; and then he shut it again and kept silence.

Elsewhere Mattacott, Maunder, and William Screech debated a great matter. They argued now as to whether Mr. Shillabeer should hear the secret, and the policeman advised against it.

"An honest and an upright man, outside prize-fighting," he said; "but in this you can't expect him to take sides. We are all his customers--Bart Stanbury just as much as Mattacott here; therefore I say, 'keep the thing from him.'"

"And from everybody," added Mattacott. "If it get's out, all's marred. The fewer hear of it, the better; and I hope you won't tell your wife, Billy."

Mr. Screech laughed.

"That shows how little you know of the world, Timothy. Why, 'twas my wife had the brilliant thought! She knowed Mattacott wanted for to marry Jane West, and I told her how another man was after Jane also, and that she couldn't decide between 'em. Then says Dorcas--quick as a needle, that woman--'Jane believes in all that rummage about Crazywell. So what Mattacott have got to do is to plan to get her that way come next Christmas Eve; and he've got to lie hid; and when he sees her, he've got to shout out the name of t'other chap; and Jane will think 'tis the spirits; and she'll fancy t'other chap is bound to die afore the year's out; so he'll be no good to her whether she likes him or not. Then, of course, she'll take Mattacott.' Those were her very words, as near as I can call 'em home. And when did you hear a cleverer thing?"

"'Tis terrible clever," confessed Mattacott. "But Jane West wouldn't never go up past the pool alone on Christmas Eve for a hundred pounds; so us must plan somehow for somebody to go along with her. 'Tis a very tricky business to be drawn into a plot."

"All be fair in love," said Mr. Maunder; "else, of course, I couldn't countenance any such a plan. But the matter is outside the law and therefore I'm not called to take any steps--especially as I very much want to see Mattacott get the woman. He's the wrong side of forty now, and 'tis more than time he was suited, if it is to be."

Mr. Mattacott looked across jealously at the innocent Bart Stanbury.

"He's too young for her even if she'd have him," he said. "'Tis his sandy hair and his blue, silly eyes have made her think twice about him."

"Keep to business," interrupted Billy Screech. "Now it's agreed we get the girl to Crazywell come Christmas Eve next; and that's nearly two months off, so we've got plenty of time to cabal against Bart. The first question is, who shall take her to Crazywell on the day?"

They all frowned over this problem; then Screech solved it brilliantly.

"Why, Bart hisself, to be sure! What better could happen? He hears his doom come up out of the water; and of course, even if they was tokened, he'd have to release her after that. Any man would have to do it."

They applauded and Mattacott was especially enthusiastic. But the policeman acknowledged a doubt.

"It don't strike you as too terrible a thing?" he asked. "For my part, as a tender man, though guardian of law and order, I can't think we should let the fellow hear his own fate. He might believe it and go mad. Stranger things have happened."

"Have no fear: he won't believe it," said Mr. Screech. "'Tis her that will believe it, and 'tis her that we want to believe it."

"A fine stroke certainly--to make Bart hear it himself," admitted Maunder; "that is, if I've got your word for it the man won't be hurt in his mind by such an adventure."

"That's settled then; and now there's the great question of who does the spirit," continued Screech. "Of course, 'tis Mattacott's job--not mine; yet I must point out that his voice is not well suited to the deed."

"I wouldn't do it for anything," said Mattacott. "I'm nought at a pinch; and if 'twas thrust upon me to do it, fifty to one but I should go and lose my head and very like shout out the wrong name, or some such foolishness."

"'Tis true," said Maunder. "With all your good gifts, Timothy, you're the very man to make a mess of this. Besides, your voice will surely betray you."

"I ax this here chap to do it," said Mattacott, turning to Screech himself. "Maunder, no doubt, would do it for me, as my lifelong friend; but he's a government servant and his time is not his own. Therefore I ax Billy; and, if it goes right, I'll pay him down a crown; and if it don't go right, I'll pay half-a-crown; and who can say fairer?"

"So far so good then," summed up Billy; "and I'm bound to say I think you're right. I can put a hollow sound into my voice and bring it up from my boots, in a way that would make any girl go goose-flesh if she heard me after dark on a common week-day, not to name Christmas Eve at Crazywell. Leave that to me when the time cometh. Now the next thing is, what shall I say?"

"Nought but the man's name," advised Ernest Maunder; "the less you say the awfuller 'twill be."

"Just 'Bart Stanbury! Bart Stanbury!' twice," whispered Mattacott. "You'll be snug hid in a fuzz bush, of course; and once you mark that she's heard you, you can slip off home as quick as need be to prove 'twasn't you, if anything comes to be said about it after."

Billy nodded.

"Just so; but I mustn't say 'Bart' Stanbury," he explained. "You see the man's christening name is 'Bartholomew,' and the spirit wouldn't know as we called him 'Bart' for shortness. The full name must be spoken, and that I shall do. So there 'twill be, and Jane West will believe that the man's booked for death afore another year be out."

Mr. Mattacott showed a little emotion on Stanbury's account, but Billy overruled his qualms. The matter was allowed to drop and a diversion threw the two groups together and turned conversation into a former topic.

Ellas Bowden came in, cold and rosy, out of the night.

"Evening, souls!" he said. "On my way up-along and thought I'd give the pony five minutes and myself a drop out of the special bottle. What's the best news?"

"'Tis for you to tell us what's the latest, master," said Bartley.

"The latest," answered Mr. Bowden, "is this: that pious blade with his blacking brush and his Bible have been up over! Ess fay; Nap and Wellington runned in with the news after daylight. There's no gates up my way except my own; but he'd fastened 'pon that, and there it was. I heard a dog bark last night, but 'twas dark as pitch and no good looking out the window."

"And what might he have chosen for you?" asked Ernest Maunder.

"The solemn words, 'Jesus wept,'" answered Elias. "A drop more water to this, Shillabeer, if you please. Yes, he'd writ those deep words there. Can't say exactly why he put them in particular; but they drive the love of the Lord into the mind and make a man religious, no doubt. Not that I'm ever anything else, when you come to the bottom of me, I hope."

"The thought that the Redeemer of mankind shed tears is a very sad thought, however," declared Mr. Moses. "And yet not all sad, if I make my meaning clear, because it brings Him nearer to us on the human side; and the nearer, the better."

"Very well put, Charles," said Reuben Shillabeer. "The nearer the better, I'm sure."

"Upon the rocks in the warrens too--so the boys tell me," continued the master of Ditsworthy. "The busy man have set up a good text or two here and there. I doubt he'll take to writing 'em life-size upon the tors next."

"That's a great idea, now!" declared Shillabeer. "Then everybody passing by could catch the Word. In fact, none could miss it if the letters was big enough."

"For that matter, if I may say so," argued Mr. Moses, "the tors be the word of God a'ready, and nought out of the Bible could make 'em grander than they be. Not that this curious man thinks so. Without a doubt he'd write great Bible news across the moon's self, if he could only find a ladder long enough to reach her; and a brush big enough for the work."

CHAPTER II

A PESSIMIST

Three days before Christmas and an hour before dusk, Mr. Shillabeer, gun in hand, called at Coombeshead Farm, and Constance Stanbury opened the door for him.

"I'm that finger-cold," he said, "that I thought as I might make so free as to drop in and warm myself a bit afore going back."

"And welcome. Come in; come in. My husband will be home in a few minutes, so you'll have a bit of male company. We women be that chuckle-headed."

"No, no! Won't hear you run yourself down," said the 'Dumpling,' gallantly. "There's no better company in these parts than your company, and very few women be in it for sense alongside of you."

"Tea or cider?" she asked.

"A drop of tea, if 'tis making. And I'll leave a bird, if you'll please to accept it. The plovers are on the Moor very plenty. A hard winter's in store."

"Each be harder than the last nowadays," she answered. "And thank you, I'm sure. A plover's pretty eating, but too good for the likes of us."

"Don't you say that. You'm like me--take yourself too humble; but 'tis a mistake. People in the world always pull us a peg lower than our own conceit of ourselves. So we should screw up a peg higher--to be ready for 'em. How's Margaret? You'll never hear no two opinions about her--such an angel as she be."

"Yes," admitted Constance; "and I'm much feared that she's got more in common with the angels than us could wish. 'Tis coming over me worse and worse; and over her, too, poor lamb."

"What ever do you mean?" he asked. Then he walked to the fire, removed his right gaiter and rubbed his huge leg where the strap had pressed too hardly upon it.

"My Madge is not like every girl you meet," said Mrs. Stanbury.

"Wish there was more of the same pattern."

"And I'm terrible jealous for her--I'll fight the world for her, like a hen with one chick; because her vartues are her own, and her faults she got from me."

"Faults!--who ever heard tell of her faults?"

"I take no credit in her beautiful goodness," continued the mother. "But I take shame in her softness. Too soft and gentle and yielding she is for this world, and the people in it. And, as her parent, I'm savage--savage as a wild cat, down in my secret heart--when I see people don't understand. 'Tis me they ought to blame, not she."

Mr. Shillabeer stared. His fingers were spread and a saucer of tea smoked upon them.

"You do amaze me; but I'll make bold to say you'm all wrong for once. 'Tis her softness that people take joy in. Always wanting to do for others--always putting herself on one side."

"A few may see her goodness," admitted Mrs. Stanbury; "but what's the use of that if them nearest to her can't see? Her own husband haven't got no patience with her now and again; and, mind you, I don't blame him--such a common-sense, hard man as him. And Rhoda the same. 'Tis their natures to take a practical stand."

"Don't be downcast," urged the publican. "Drink a dish of your own tea and look on the bright side. 'Tis rather odd I should say that, seeing I've never been known to look on the bright side myself since my wife died. David's a very good chap, and nobody thinks higher of him than me; but he's just an everyday man--wise and businesslike and honest. There's nought in him would make Margaret a beautifuller character than she is. Us don't want for her to be hard and business-like, I'm sure."

"'Tis what her husband wants is the thing, not what we want," explained Mrs. Stanbury.

"If he wants finer than she, he wants better bread than is made with wheat," declared the old prize-fighter; "and if he can't see the shining vartue and wonder of that woman's heart, he must be blind as well as busy."