Front matter

BY

EDEN PHILLPOTTS

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

NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1908

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

Published, October, 1908

CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER

Crepuscule

Warren House

Harmony in Russet

Coombeshead

The Virgin and the Dogs

The Host of 'The Corner House'

Dennycoombe Wood

In Pixies' House

The Dogs of War

Some Interviews

Mr. Fogo is Shocked

For the Good Cause

The Fight

BOOK II

'Meavy Cot'

Bartley Doubtful

Preparations

The Wedding

Arrival of Rhoda

Repulse

Eylesbarrow

Triumph of Billy Screech

Common Sense and Beer

Crazywell

Reproof

The Courage of Mr. Snell

Rhoda Passes By

BOOK III

Mystery

A Pessimist

The Voice from the Pool

Points of View

End of a Romance

Virgo--Libra

A Sharp Tongue

Under the Trees

Darkness at 'The Corner House'

Third Time of Asking

Bad News of Mr. Bowden

Rhoda and Margaret

The Search

David and Rhoda

Night Tenebrious

BOOK I

THE VIRGIN IN JUDGMENT

CHAPTER I

CREPUSCULE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes--ten shillings."

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

"Not twelve?"

"No."

The ancient made a sound that indicated disappointment and annoyance.

"And the price of the halter?"

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

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

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

"No."

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

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

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

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

"It did ought to have been twelve!"

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

CHAPTER II

WARREN HOUSE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER III

HARMONY IN RUSSET

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Very like they will," said David.

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

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

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

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

"Couldn't tell you."

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

"No, thank you."

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

Bartley tried again.

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

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

"It isn't," she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rhoda it was who spoke after a very lengthy peace.

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

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

"That's true," Rhoda admitted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No bad news, I hope?"

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IV

COOMBESHEAD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"David be terrible fond of her."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bartley winked at Madge.

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

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

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

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

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

He stalked away, calm, solemn, inane.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why not?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But we're all at home."

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

"We've all got our different qualities."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What does David say?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Of course--David."

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

"Thank you kindly," he said.

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

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

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

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

"Never better," answered young Bowden.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Stanbury smiled faintly.

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

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

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

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

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

"We drink it every day," said David.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bart grinned.

"He be after Madge--eh?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

David laughed.

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER V

THE VIRGIN AND THE DOGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Just so," said Elias.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs. Stanbury rose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, you might say so."

Elias uttered one of his sudden chuckles.

"What be laughing at?" asked his wife.

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

CHAPTER VI

THE HOST OF 'THE CORNER HOUSE'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A labourer laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Shillabeer regarded David with some professional interest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VII

DENNYCOOMBE WOOD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His slow voice steadied her emotion and calmed them both.

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

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

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

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

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

"Whatever do you mean?"

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

[#] Errish = Stubble.

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

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

She was silent and he spoke again.

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

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

"Then you'll take me!"

"And proud and happy to."

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

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

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

David laughed.

"To be frank, she do."

"And no man living good enough for herself."

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