WASTRALLS (continued 6)

"Well, do seem funny, sure, mother," he said as his wife made an end. "Nothin' 'scapes your eyes, I knaw."

But Mrs. Tom wanted more than generalities. "What should you do?"

"If 'e done it, 'twas tarr'ble wicked of'n."

"Tarr'ble, sure."

"But 'tis done now," he said slowly. "Poor S'bina can't be fetched back."

She caught at the suggestion. "I only wish she could then. 'Twould be a great blow for'n."

"Iss, 'twould, and any'ow if 'e've done what you think 'e 'av, she'll surely haunt'n."

"I don't believe 'e'll care even if 'e is haunted." In her desire for tangible punishment she showed a waning faith in other influences.

"No, p'raps 'e won't. But 'e knaw 'e've done it and the Lorrd knaw and 'e'll be brought to judgment."

"You think it'll come to light some day?" she asked eagerly.

"I dunno about that, God's ways bain't our ways."

"Well, what should you do about it?"

He considered. "I should 'old me tongue and say nothing about it, if I was you. 'Cos if't got to policeman's ears you'd be 'ad up for your words."

His caution, that of a law-ignoring folk who manage their own affairs and keep silence concerning them, did not satisfy her.

"But if he did do't," she persisted, "'e ought to be punished."

"You knaw, mother, there's no proof so 'tedn't no good to say anything about it."

"Well," she said sharply, "there's this—bottle's gone out of cupboard! What's become of it? I s'pose that won't be any proof? And Leadville seem to be very uneasy, but that won't be any proof uther? And I feel sure in me bones and veins 'e wanted for 'er to die, but that's no proof?"

Tom was not to be moved. "A still tongue," said he, "make a wise 'ead and anyway a craikin' tongue do often mean a sore one."

She gave up the attempt to influence him. "I s'pose then, I shall 'av to rest me 'eart content, but you've no idea 'ow desperate towards 'im I feel. Knowin', too, that 'e owes 'er everything, for what was 'e, nothing but a come-by-chance? And for 'im to serve 'er like 'e 'av!"

"I reckon 'e's like one of they cuckoos. They do say cuckoo hi-ists the other li'l birds out o' the nest."

She was paying but scant attention. "I don't feel I can bear to speak 'im civil. Tidn't," she added mysteriously, "for what 'e've done but for what 'e've tried to do. Doctor, 'e said she died of 'eart failure and I s'pose doctor ought to know."

Tom could not follow his wife's flying thought. "Well," he said in those rough full tones which contained the very body of sound, "I don't believe doctors knaw everything. If they did 'twould make a fine newspaper. Nobody told Dr. Derek about the cocoa. He thought she 'ad 'er supper as usual and then died off suddint in 'er sleep."

"Iss," said Mrs. Tom thoughtfully and passed a hand over Smut who, accepting the fact that her mistress was too much engrossed in making mouth-noises—the main occupation of human beings—to pet her, had climbed quietly back into her lap and gone to sleep. "Iss—doctor didn't know anything about the cocoa."

She, herself, knew more than any one but was disinclined to impart the knowledge. After all it was not the act that damned a man but the intention; and she did not want Tom to think Leadville less guilty than he seemed to her. She remained silent going back over their talk and, on the whole, she found it comforting. Tom, deprecating the idea of human interference, had given utterance to one pregnant sentence: "'E knaw 'e've done it and the Lorrd knaw and 'e'll be brought to judgment."

"Iss, the Lorrd knaw," she told herself, "and I can see as old chap won't 'av everything 'is own way; but I wanted more'n that, I—I wanted S'bina to git 'er own back." She hushed her vindictive longings with a common-sense reflection. "Well, don't s'pose she'd be any 'appier if she did."

CHAPTER XXII

As the funeral procession was to leave Wastralls at 1.30 P.M., by eleven that morning the road from Four Turnings was black with farmers' carts, with people from the hamlets of Church Town, of Shoppe and of Cottages, with people who had come from the distant towns of St. Columb and Wadebridge. For three generations Mrs. Byron's family had taken a leading part in the affairs of the district. The memory of man went back to Old Squire—a personality so pronounced that it had obliterated the more shadowy figures of its ancestry. From Old Squire, who had added acre to acre, to Sabina Byron the bold yet conservative farmer, was but a life and imagination had leaped it. Like her grandfather she was an outstanding figure, a woman of whom the countryside had been half proud, half envious. The lamentable tragedy of her accident, setting her apart from struggling humanity, had affected the popular opinion. Successful beyond the ordinary she had in a twinkling been reduced to helplessness and, before interest in her—the tenacious interest of the agricultural mind—had had time to wane, the last misfortune had overtaken her. The people would follow her to her grave, not only out of respect for the Rosevears, but as a protest against fate which, not content with the inevitable, the building up or the breaking down, must introduce into the affairs of man, a harsh caprice.

On ordinary occasions people approached Wastralls by way of the yard but this being one of ceremonial the visitors went past the blind wall at the end and up the weed-grown avenue of 'grubby elms.' The double-leaved door, studded with iron heads, stood hospitably open and, on the hearth, a hearth which had not been modernized, a pile of seasoned wood was burning. On the stone chequers of the floor lay some faded rugs, the colours of which were yet bright enough to throw the sombre figures of the mourners into relief. The dull Oriental reds made a strange setting for these men and women from whom work and time had stolen the young comeliness and who, in their harsh ill-fitting black, appeared so awkward and ill at ease. The proportions of the hall were good but man, who had dreamed it and set it up, seemed unworthy of it, a poorer thing than that which he had made.

Beyond the entrance hall the parlours, giving on the passage, showed also an inviting face. These rooms, owing to the thickness of their walls, the smallness and eastern aspect of the many-paned casements, were gloomy. They smelt, not of the sea but its pervading damp and of the mould which crept like leprosy over boot and book and furniture. In both, fires had been lighted but the smoke showed little liking for the damp chimneys and, in the grates, the sea-coal smouldered without flame. In the Big Parlour the best china, silver and glass had been set out and a meal laid; and the gleam of polished surface, the white glow of the freshly laundered damask, the colour of the plates and dishes made a pleasant impression. Mrs. Tom and Richbell, rising early, had helped to carry from the linhay the food piled on its shelves. Fowls were at one end of the table, beef and ham at the other and between stood mountains of splits, bowls of Cornish cream, junkets and cake and pastry. The mourners as they came in would help themselves and plates, with darkly bright knives and shining forks, were stacked in readiness. The Little Parlour had, as far as possible, been denuded of furniture; for the mourners after they had eaten, would form up there in couples, ready when the coffin should have been brought forth, to follow it.

Tom Rosevear had prophesied a large gathering and the event justified him. The many who could 'call cousin' with Sabina Byron came through the deep winding lanes to take part in her funeral and besides these persons—literally 'the mourners'—were a number who did not go up to the house but stood about on Trevorrick Sands, waiting. Though lacking the right conferred by kinship—and in the West you are not invited to a funeral, you go, if a relative, as a matter of course—they, too, would follow her and see her committed 'earth to earth'; and so numerous were they that it was said afterwards that the only person in Tregols parish who did not attend Mrs. Byron's funeral was an old 'bedlier' of the name of Hawken and she, poor soul, had been bedridden up 'in the teens of years.'

Byron had carried with him overstairs a mood of serenity and content; but when he awoke in the morning his mental weather had changed from Set Fair to an uncertain condition of the mercury which expressed itself in a heavy dull sensation at the pit of his stomach. Waves of excitement were flowing through him. This would be a great day. Before a crowd of witnesses—and already they were leaving their distant homes, crossing in the ferry from Rock, coming by train from Wadebridge, driving in from Treremborne and Trerumpford and Treginnegar—Sabina would be finally dispossessed of Wastralls. He who, for so long, had taken second place would come into his own. It was he who would receive them. They would eat his bread, follow him in the long procession, acknowledge him as a neighbour, as a kinsman and, above all, as the owner of the farm. To him, Sabina's funeral was a public ceremony. All men would see her laid to rest, or as he put it 'turned out'; all men would allow his right to enter into possession.

Wastralls! The thought of it was like wine running warmly through his body. Wastralls, his! His mind turned for a moment to the dreary waste of the past, he saw it stretching like the shifting sands of the coast-line to a grey horizon and, with a shudder, he came back. That was over. Thank God he had left those years behind; them and all that had to do with them. He acknowledged to himself, as he drew on his black clothes, that hitherto he had made no attempt to stand well with his neighbours. They had had hearts at ease while he had been gnawing his fingers in despite. It was his fault, nay not his but the fault of embittering circumstance, that he had no friends; but now that Wastralls was his, all this would be changed.

In spite of the warmth about his heart, in spite of his happy anticipations, when at last he found himself in the hall ready to receive the mourners, his courage began to ebb. The adventure was too crucial, meant too much to him. The sensation at the pit of his stomach which had been obliterated by those hot thrills of excitement, returned and in a more acute form. His feet grew cold and the occasion became an ordeal he could have wished were over.

The individuals, converging by train, by road, by ferry on Trevorrick were each an unknown quantity and he found that he was afraid of them and that, as the moments passed, he grew more and more afraid. As he stood by the hearth, listening for the sound of wheels which should announce the first arrival, his unstable nerves, working on his body, gave him a sensation of actual physical sickness. He turned to the chimney-piece and leaned his elbows on it, wondering how much longer he would be able to stand there.

Not far from him, her expressive face set in sober lines, Mrs. Tom Rosevear stood beside Mrs. Con. Their duty it was to receive the wives of the mourners and pass them on to Mrs. Bate who, as Stripper, would take them to pay the dead woman a last visit.

"I don't believe as you've been in to see poor S'bina," said Mrs. Tom to her companion. Byron's presence was disturbing to her and she spoke more by way of distracting her thoughts, than because she thought Betsy would care to pay the customary visit. "Why don't you go now before the rest come? There'll be plenty to do, directly."

Mrs. Con's stout body quivered a negative. "My dear life, I couldn't bear to see 'er. I should be picturin' of 'er everywhere if I did."

"Don't 'ee be so silly," encouraged the other. "I don't believe there's 'ardly any funeral in the parish but what I've seen them."

Mrs. Con sank her voice to a mysterious whisper. "'Av you never seed anything after, Isolda?"

"I never seed nothing worse then meself. More need to be afraid of the livin' than the dead."

"Well, my dear, you'm different to me. I'm that narvous if I was to see a body, I knaw I should ever after be fancying I seed its dead face."

A cart drove up to the open door and the Sowdens of Trerumpford, a childless couple who, even in that land of fat stockings were accounted well-to-do, came towards Byron. He had been for a moment in conversation with the undertaker who, the sixteen pairs of black gloves for the bearers in a parcel under his arm, was asking how soon it would be convenient for him to screw down the coffin.

"Mrs. Bate'll let you know," said Byron hastily and turned to shake old Sowden by the hand. Pleased that this important farmer should be the first to cross his threshold be showed it by his greeting; but to Beulah Sowden it made little difference how he was received. He was a little tight silent man, with glassy eyes and an unresponsive manner. Accepting Byron's cordiality with his usual reserve he left his wife, a faded person in a gooky bonnet, to offer their condolences. The Sowdens were come because Sabina Byron's mother had been cousin to Beulah and, as soon as the civilities incumbent on them had been duly observed, they stood aside to make room for others. Not a spark had Byron been able to strike from either. He glanced at them a little doubtfully as they went down the room. Was their reserve natural or assumed? They had uttered the customary phrases, in the customary way and their manner had been sufficiently friendly if a trifle, the least bit in the world, patronizing. It was difficult for him to grasp that, to the Sowdens and their like, the situation was in no way altered. He, though he had spent his life among them, must remain a 'foreigner.' Byrons they knew but he was no Byron, only a waif of the sea, who out of charity had been given the name.

In attending Sabina's funeral they were certainly accepting her husband as their host but they had the topsy-turvy feeling that her death had cancelled the connexion and that he, rather than she, had become the 'late lamented.' Under the politeness of their words had lurked a feeling that they were meeting him for the last time, that it would not be necessary to conceal much longer the faint hostility with which he inspired them. A fat inheritance had fallen to him, an inheritance which had belonged to men of their blood, and which they begrudged. The inheritance was land and they loved land, loved it more than money or any other possession. This man, who so civilly bade them welcome, was one who, pushing his way in by the gate of marriage, had seized what was more theirs than his. Unable to dispossess him they were yet wholly unable to reconcile themselves. The Sowdens had made way for the Bennett Trudgians of Wadebridge, cock-eyed father and a daughter so vivid that, though in black, she made a rainbow impression. They were followed by a voluminous widow, Mrs. Andrew of Gentle Jane. She had called at Hember for Gray and with Gray had come Jim Rosevear. Byron, when his glance fell on the three, forgot his fancy that he was on trial as a new neighbour. He shook hands with Mrs. Andrew and he looked at Gray; and, as he looked, instinct told him that, in some subtle way, the spirit those soft contours shrined had expanded. He shook the thought away. This was Gray and he had not seen her for a weary while but she was not changed. How could she be? His hand closed eagerly over hers and he searched her face for a response—the old response of answering blood; but her eyes were downcast resting, as it happened, on her own gloved hand. It was as if that little hand were part of a mystery which had all her attention.

The intriguing thought persisted. Gray, secret and pale, yet with a suggestion of unfolding petals, woke in Byron a curiosity as intense as it was anxious. What had happened to her? What experience, in which he had had no part, was she cherishing behind that veil of civil words and smiles? His jealousy, never long quiescent, woke.

Already, however, new arrivals were surging in over the threshold. The moment was unpropitious and already Gray had withdrawn her hand. He could not hope for any words with her till the funeral was over. He must rest his heart on the fact that at least she was there under his roof and must remain till he was free to go to her.

The hour was one of conflicting feelings, as numerous as the stones in Trevorrick River which, in summer, is all stones and in winter brings down yet more of them. Behind Gray stood Jim Rosevear and Byron turned on him the old lowering scowl. There was a score to settle! The dark colour purpled in his swarthy cheek but, though he clenched his fists, it was in order to keep the peace, not break it. The insult conveyed by Jim's accompanying Gray in the sight of everybody could not be immediately avenged.

"My 'ands is tied," he thought, "and 'e knaws 'e can come 'ere to-day. Wants a lesson, that one do."

"The bearers are in the kitchen," he said, pitching his voice on a loud note and pointing to the passage. If he could he would humiliate Jim, show the countryside this was a labourer who had come to the wrong door, who had not come as a mourner but for his half-crown, his meal, his pair of black gloves.

But in Rosevear he had met his match. "I'm 'ere as a mourner, not a bearer."

"Iss, my dear!" began Mrs. Andrew in a softly flowing voice and launched herself on a vague explanation in which the words 'Rosevear of Treketh and Dusha Rosevear who you know married Freathy Rosevear' and 'sister of Cap'n Josiah Rosevear of Fraddon,' occurred. Byron knew little about the ramifications of his wife's family but, remembering Jim was a Rosevear, came to the conclusion he must be some sort of cousin.

"Mourner?" he said but less confidently, "well——"

For all his wrath he must go gently. If he insulted Jim, if he uttered the words in his mind, "Well, relation or no, get out of my sight," he would offend Mrs. Andrew and who knew how many more.

Mrs. Tom, having disengaged herself from the Sowdens, came to the rescue. She had had no suspicion that Jim would stand on his rights and come to the funeral. These young people, the folly of them!

"Why, Gray, my dear, I've been expectin' you this long time. I'm so glad you're 'ere," and, placing herself between man and maid, she walked away with them.

When they reached the Big Parlour, however, she turned on the young man. "You ought not to 'ave come."

In Jim's eye was a dancing light. "Why couldn't I come? I 'bain't afraid of'n!"

"No," she retorted, "but this 'edn't a time for stirrin' up strife. You knaw 'e won't touch yer to-day."

"I'll give 'im the chance when they'm all gone if 'e like."

"Don't 'ee talk so fulish," and she thought with satisfaction that the young people would soon be on the road to Plymouth, out of harm's way. "You must think of Gray now. You men are so pig-'eaded as a cock in a fowls' pen."

Gray, who had fallen behind her mother, came up.

"You can settle with Uncle Leadville when we're back home," she said, with a little air of matronly authority which sat sweetly on her young face and which changed to a softer emotion the challenge in Jim's eyes.

"Must I now?" he said, bending over her.

"I don't want to go to Plymouth with no black eyes then," she answered poutingly.

"I'll leave old chap till after we've 'ad our..." his voice sank to a murmur and he led her away up the room, to a corner which the light from the deep-set windows hardly reached. For all the help that either would be, Mrs. Tom might as well have been without them. She smiled the realization of this to Richbell and the two, understanding that it rested with them to make good the deficiency, fell to work. The room was filling quickly and they were needed to cut beef and ham, fill cups from the big old-fashioned teapots and hand plates. Busy though she was, however, Mrs. Tom had a thought to spare for individual needs. Constantine Rosevear had entered in the wake of his three sons and was sitting under the window, staring into his hat. She thought he looked far from well. The little network of red in his cheeks had a purplish tinge and the light blue eyes had lost colour.

"'E's takin' it 'ard," she thought and went up to him.

"You'll 'av a bit o' dinner, Conny, won't yer?"

He shook his head. "'Twould choke me if I did."

"Oh, do 'ee try to eat a little bit." Con's feelings towards his cousin had always been for her an open book. After Sabina's accident, the miller had ceased coming to Wastralls; and Mrs. Tom had understood that this was not due to indifference but oversensitiveness. He could not endure to see the woman, whose strength and vitality he had all his life admired, reduced to helplessness.

"'Tis a long time," said Mrs. Tom sadly, "since you 'ad anything ter eat in this 'ouse."

He sighed. "It's been a very sad 'ouse since 'er accident."

"I'm sure 'twould be 'er wish for yer to 'av something."

"I knaw. She was very kind." Many a piece of well-paid work had come to him through Sabina but he was thinking of the woman herself. He was not an introspective man. He could not have explained even to himself, why the death of a person whom he rarely saw, should make so great a difference. "She was very kind," he repeated heavily, "but I don't want anything."

His three tall sons were at the table helping themselves; his wife, almost tidy for once in her new black—trust Betsy to have nothing put away for an occasion like the present—was talking to her brother, Mr. John Brenton of St. Eval. They looked pleased with themselves and fate; but the big miller, for all his comfortable girth and good broadcloth, was as one who had lost his grip.

Mrs. Tom, obliged by her hospitable duties to leave him for a little, carved and served and talked with the thought of him foremost in her mind. She was listening for a certain expected sound and, though her hearing was a little dulled, she did not miss it. The bearers, waiting in the kitchen, had been fed on simpler fare than that provided for the mourners. They were ready now and the irregular tramp of feet along the passage told her that they were coming to take up their burden. She went back to Con, for she could no longer trust herself to speak. The back of her throat ached with the tears she was trying to restrain. Sabina had been born in Wastralls, she had lived there all her days and now she was to be carried out. Con, too, felt the full poignancy of the moment. His eye met Mrs. Tom's a little wildly and he pulled at his neckcloth to loosen it. Sabina's place would know her no more. She was going and never would she come back to them. His heart was a wordless protest. He rose unsteadily and the two, the man who loved her, the woman who had been her friend, went into the hall.

At a Cornish funeral it is customary for the relatives to follow the coffin—which is carried on poles by eight bearers—in a certain order. Precedence is regulated by the degree of kinship and, to a certain extent, by age. With the exception of old folks who, unable to walk so far, follow in their gigs and carts, the mourners traverse the distance from house to graveyard on foot. The arrangement of these couples, with due regard to their individual claims, is a work requiring knowledge of the family ramifications and in this Tom Rosevear shone.

When his wife, followed by Con, came out she found the work of assigning their positions to the mourners was nearly finished. Couples lined one side of the hall and yet others were waiting in the Little Parlour. An air of sombre readiness pervaded the gathering. Henwood, carrying the black crickets on which the coffin was to stand, hurried out of the door. He planted them on a level space, the space which had been used for that purpose since death first recognized that Wastralls had become a human habitation. At a sign from her husband, Mrs. Tom went to the head of the procession. As Sabina's nearest relative it was her place to walk with Byron.

The door of the justice-room opened and the hinds, in dark suits and black ties, came out. The poles, which they held against their breasts, were slanted to allow for the narrowness of the opening and their faces wore a look of purpose. They were anxious to get the varnished and glittering coffin out of the room, round corners and through the hall, without hitch or stumble and the task seemed to them bristling with difficulties. They were thinking, not of what this long brightly decorated box contained but of the trust reposed in them.

Mrs. Tom pulled down her veil and, for a moment, leaned her weight on Constantine. To see Sabina carried feet foremost over the threshold of her home was too much for her powers of self-control and, behind the veil, her tears were flowing. Con, understanding but inarticulate, pressed her arm. They two were the real mourners; of all that concourse they alone would miss Sabina out of their daily lives. As the coffin was earned past, a shiver ran through the man's large body. With Sabina gone he, too, was in sight of the end. A week ago the thought would have troubled him but to it he was now indifferent. So does life, taking one by one the things we value, make us ready for its own putting off.

The bearers—and the sexton, once bullockman at Wastralls, was of their number—set the coffin down on the black crickets. Behind them the queue of mourners was receiving belated additions. Leadville had taken his place beside Mrs. Tom, her husband was behind him with Betsy, Constantine with Gray.

The day was calm with a tang of cold, a day when the gulls gathered in the new-ploughed fields and, the sea being still, the murmur of other waters could be heard. As the coffin was carried down the avenue under the low wind-bent branches, the sexton started a hymn. Many present being choir members, it was taken up at once and a volume of tuneful sound went before the procession up the lane.

Sleep on beloved, sleep and take thy rest,

Lay down thy head upon thy Saviour's breast;

I love thee well, but Jesus loves thee best—

Good night, good night, good night.

Mrs. Tom had walked in many a similar procession. Only that summer she had followed a brother to the grave and now, in obedience to Henwood's signal, she moved forward after the bearers. She was at the moment too much occupied with herself to realize that the long line was actually on its way. Once in the open air, however, and the chill freshness of the morning had its usual effect and, by the time the head of the black serpent was pushing past St. Cadic, she was sufficiently recovered to spare glance and thought—neither at all kindly—for the man keeping step with her.

For Byron the morning had been chequered. Some of the mourners, in particular those from a distance, had met him with an assumption of friendliness. Though a stranger he was now the owner of Wastralls and, in that capacity, they would meet him in the market-place and on public business. One or two of the wives expressed the hope that he would look in when passing. He was not only a substantial farmer but a widower and, on the whole, a man who filled the eye. Even Mrs. Tom, embittered and grudging, could not deny that at the head of the procession he looked well. By no means the tallest man present, his heavy dignified carriage made him appear bigger than he actually was. He walked, too, with a certain arrogance. The men who followed him were mentally lesser men and he was conscious of it. He was leading the way, was for the first time in his proper place. The errand on which he was bound did not occupy his attention. The coffin, when it passed him in the hall, had roused in him a queer inexplicable emotion, a fleeting sense of association, but not because of what it contained. Of Sabina he scarcely thought. She belonged to the past, that past on which he had definitely and thankfully turned his back. His face was towards the future, his mind was crowded with the brick and scaffolding of the edifice he hoped to rear; and he found in his breast such a consciousness of power that he was fain to give it expression by joining in the hymn.

"I love thee well, but Jesus loves thee best," he rumbled in his deep voice and Mrs. Tom, hearing him, stared. To her it was as if he were uttering blasphemies.

"The shirkin' old villain," she thought indignantly, "walkin' there as 'e belong to walk. I dunno 'ow 'e dare. Actually singin' in the hymn too, the two-faced dragon. 'Tis enough to bring a judgment on 'im, so it is."

Winding out of the valley between hedges which, though it was December, were still green, the procession came at last to Hilltop. Here the road made a wide bend. The grey tower of the church was in sight and the sexton, in order to toll the bell, took a short cut across the fields. Mrs. Byron, though a chapel-goer would be buried by the parson of the parish, laid beside Old Squire in the shadow of the church. To the people this ritual, which for them had lost its potency, was still part of the established order. The rector was appointed by powers outside their knowledge and had his place. They neither welcomed nor objected to him. He served his purpose.

Seen from above, the churchyard must have looked like a shallow vessel filling with ink. So numerous were the mourners that, after crowding the little old edifice to overflowing, they poured down the paths and over the grassy mounds. About the Rosevear graves the couples and groups had solidified into a mass. Their faces, like pink disks in a dark setting, were shadowed by their veils and their black headgear. They had turned towards the pit which had been digged; and the minds of all were occupied with thoughts, not of the resurrection but of the dampness and coldness of the body's last resting-place. Down in the earth, pressed down by a weight of mould and stones, shut away for ever from the fires and talk! During the night rain had fallen and the water had not yet soaked away through the stiff clay of the grave. It lay, covering the bottom, an inexpressibly dreary adjunct to the grey sides and crumbling verge. The mourners' hearts vibrated with pity for the woman who had looked her last on friendly faces, who was on her way to lie, rain-water below, saturated clods above, in the chill unfriendly bosom of the earth. When the coffin was brought out and 'Peace, Perfect Peace' was raised, they joined in with a sense of relief. It could not be that the Mrs. Byron, whom they all knew, was to lie there in the wet and the dark. With an optimism as indestructible, as logical, as hers had been, they promised themselves and her, not death but life.

As the signal was given to lower the coffin into the grave, out of the clouded sky fell a quavering dazzle of sunlight, omen to these heavy anxious hearts of better times in store. It fell on the brass handles, the name-plate, and the two curving rows of cut clasps, scintillating from the bright surfaces in a myriad tiny glints. Byron, standing between Tom and Constantine Rosevear at the head of the grave, noticed it, as did the others; and to him it was not only sunshine falling unexpectedly on a coffin but something personal to himself.

He had gone mechanically through the service, had glanced with disfavour at the wreaths and harps and other floral sacrifices, had even in his heart made ribald comment on 'Peace, Perfect Peace, with loved ones far away.' The mood of exultation in which he had left Wastralls had changed to one of slowly mounting irritation. This burying was after all a tedious business. The creak and strain of the ropes which indicated that the coffin was being let down drew from him a sigh of relief. In another minute he would be able to turn his back on this place of sepulture.

The flash of sunlight, however, had caught his eye and had done more than that. Its transient gleam had linked the fleeting sense of familiarity he had felt, when the coffin had been carried past him out of Wastralls, with other moments strung bead-like on the past. This was the shape, those the infinitesimal glimmers, which he had seen in visions. Again and again he had heard the hammer at work, seen the glint of polished wood, the curve of the cut clasps. The lid of Sabina's coffin! For years his dim familiar, it was now actual and present. He shivered as if a breath laden with the odours, the dank chill of the grave, had risen from its depths. That hammering—but it was not he who had knocked in nail after nail.

Byron forgot, in sudden curiosity, that curiosity with which the vision always inspired him, where he was and what he was doing. He must find out whether the lines had been completed to the last nail. Something of peculiar importance hung on this fact.

Con Rosevear, having moved a little, was now between him and the grave and, in the dark oblong, the coffin was sinking out of sight. A moment more and it would be too late. With one of the movements which, in a man of his age and bulk were so surprisingly quick, Byron thrust the other aside. The sun gleam had faded, the shadows of the wintry afternoon, the shadows of the pit were closing over the coffin. Byron, on the grassy verge, leaned forward in a perilous attempt to see and, to the bystanders, it seemed as if the man, driven crazy by grief, were about to throw himself into the grave. An emotional race, they were prepared for such manifestations but, even as they closed with Leadville, to pull him back into safety, they were conscious of surprise, of a new almost grudged respect. They had not thought him fond of his wife.

The sudden jerking of his arms, under the clutch of well-meaning but mistaken fingers, prevented Byron from satisfying himself as to whether the nails were all in place. This matter of the last nail had on a sudden assumed a terrible importance. If it had been hammered home he would be delivered from the obsession of this coffin which for so long he had seen in preparation. In the making of it he had had no part—and that was strange! Yes, all things considered it was very strange. He had never been able to think of his vision as an illusion. It was real and tangible but in some curious way out of reach. Now he had chanced upon it. Chance? He had been walking towards it all the time! He must know, however, whether the circles were complete, whether that last nail...

He flung off the arresting hands and made a further effort to see, but those busy with the ropes were using greater dispatch and others were thrusting themselves between the graveside and the man. His strength not being as the strength of ten he was forced to desist. Panting and wild-eyed, he stood debating with himself whether he would not make one more effort when Mrs. Tom, calling to him from behind, caught his attention.

"Come now," she said, thinking he must have been moved to this exhibition of feeling by a late remorse. "S'bina's gone and all the cryin' and grievin' in the world'll never get 'er back."

"S'bina?" he echoed and the eagerness faded from his face, leaving it curiously grey. "I wanted to see——"

He had turned his back on the grave and she noticed that his manner was preoccupied. "I wanted to make sure. Was..." he scanned her face with eyes which, as she said afterwards, should have warned her, "was the nails all drived in?"

"The nails?" repeated Mrs. Tom, wondering what he meant but anxious to humour him. "What be tellin' about? Of course they was drived in?" Did he think Sabina had not been properly screwed down?

Drawing her out of the wondering group he bent to her ear. "They never was all drived in before," he confided and looked at her inquiringly. He had failed to see but she, yes, she might have been more fortunate.

"Well, they are now, I knaw."

She spoke so confidently that he was convinced. "'Tis a good job then."

"Iss."

"If they'm drived in to the last one I shall never 'ear that 'ammerin' again."

"No," she said, "of course you won't."

He gave her a sidelong considering glance. "Did you 'ear it?"

She was still thinking of the screws. "No," she said with a shiver of distress. "I wasn't near enough. I—I was in the Big Parlour. But come on now, 'tis time for us to be goin' 'ome. They're fullin' in the grave."

He turned for a last longing look. "I should like to 'av seen for myself," he said grudgingly. He had forgotten why he was in the churchyard by an open grave, forgotten who lay in its depths, forgotten everything but the question as to whether the curving rows of cut clasps were complete to the last nail. The stones and clods were being shovelled on to the coffin, obliterating for ever the trifling handiwork of man, surrendering what could not be withheld. With a sigh of dissatisfaction, Leadville turned and, walking out of the churchyard, took the homeward road.

CHAPTER XXIII

On the opposite side of the road through Church Town was a little tavern, the only one in the parish at which spirits could be obtained. By this, drawn up and waiting, were a number of conveyances and, among them, the Wastralls cart. 'Uncle George,' more familiar than Byron with the routine of a funeral, had driven to meet him. The farmer, striding by, would have passed unseeing, but the old man stepped into the road.

"I be come for 'ee, maister."

For a moment, Byron gazed at the figure confronting him as if it were that of a stranger, then the mists cleared. He glanced round as if awakening from a dream and, climbing into the cart, took the reins. The experiences of the day, the unwonted crowd, the publicity, the return of the old obsession, had been fatiguing, and he was glad to ride. As he jogged along, letting Lady go as she pleased, his thoughts ran before him and he saw the evening as a time of blessed peace. These gigs and carts with which the road was thronged, these black-clad people, would then be gone and he would have the place to himself. Many of the mourners had, indeed, turned in the direction of their distant homes and, when he reached Towan Lane, yet others shouted a Good night but a goodly number were returning to Wastralls.

Those on foot had horses to 'tackle up' and men were waiting in the yard to help them. When Byron reached the gate, he remembered that he had a last duty to perform. He was tired of the people, he wished they would go home but he must not spoil the good impression he hoped he had made.

"You'd better come in, all of 'ee," he said in a tone of would-be heartiness, "and 'av a cup of tea."

A few refused, alleging the distance they had to go, but others and, among them, Sabina's nearest relatives, accepted the invitation. Between the hedges the afternoon air had been stagnantly warm but a sea-breeze was sweeping through the leafless boughs of the elms and its breath was cold. Gray Rosevear, walking demurely at her father's side, drew the open sides of her coat together and, with her little gloved hands, began to fasten them. She, too, wished the day over. For her it had been a long dreariness shot with unpleasant imaginings. Simple and devoted, caring for little but her home and the home-circle, her aunt's death was the first trouble she had known. Jim and her relationship to him, though they had unsealed a fount of deep emotion, though they possessed her to the exclusion of most other interests, had not influenced Sabina's claim. The last rosebud, the first snowdrops of Hember, had been laid by the weeping girl in her aunt's dead hand and, every year, faithful affection would place a similar offering on the mould that covered her. Gray would not forget and, when her children came, she would plant in their young memories the tradition of the splendid woman. She, herself, was of those who build a fire on the domestic altar, who keep it burning for the warmth and comfort and betterment of all who come within reach of its beams but who find no historian.

Let in over the door of Wastralls was a brown stone. On this had been cut a shield bearing the Rosevear arms. The winds of over a hundred years had breathed on this stone, crumbling the edges, smoothing the sharp surfaces. The charges were now nearly obliterated and Gray, glancing up as she walked towards the door, felt a twinge of regret. Wastralls, more than either Hember or St. Cadic, was the Rosevear home and now it would belong to Uncle Leadville. She did not, being so tender a little soul, actually grudge him the inheritance; but she felt sorry some arrangement could not have been made which would have left a Rosevear in possession. Jim, of course, if any relation, was a very distant one but there were her Uncle Con's boys. Tremain, the youngest, had thoughts of Canada. It would have been better if he could have remained at home and Uncle Leadville gone, oh, very much better.

Byron, leading the way up the drive, wondered whether Mrs. Bate would have the tea in readiness. He wanted to see the back of his guests, to be alone; and it was with a feeling of annoyance that he caught sight of an individual in parley at the open door. The stranger wore town clothes and was a tall thin man with reddish hair. Byron, supposing him to be a relative who, by mischance of travelling, had arrived too late, held out his hand. "'Oo be you?" said he, downright but friendly.

"Mr. Criddle," answered the stranger in a matter-of-fact tone, "of Messrs. Criddle and Nancarrow, of Wadebridge."

The name left Byron unenlightened. The ground was thick with Criddles but he had never heard they were related to the Rosevears. He began to think the man must have come on business, must be a traveller for machinery, or patent medicine, or manures.

"We've 'ad rather a busy day," he said, determining to get rid of him as soon as possible.

"So I understand," returned Mr. Criddle. "The news only reached me this morning, or I should have been over earlier; but there were arrangements to be made before I could leave."

Behind Byron, the mourners had been dragging wearily up the slope. To some of them, however, Criddle of Messrs. Criddle and Nancarrow, was a familiar figure; and his presence, promising fresh developments on a day which had been tame for lack of them, proved stimulating. Bent backs straightened and men quickened their steps, those who recognized Criddle giving whispered information to those with whom they walked. Byron, more mystified than ever, spoke with a touch of impatience. "Well, I'm sorry, but you must excuse me to-day."

Mr. Criddle's smile was reflected on the faces about. "I have brought the late Mrs. Byron's will," he explained.

Leadville could not have been more taken aback. For years, afraid lest his wife might make a will—not inimical to him, she loved him too well for that—but with provisions of which he might not altogether approve, he had kept a watch on her movements and, more particularly, on the trend of her thoughts. Once or twice, sounding her, he had said they ought to put their wishes into writing but she had shaken her bright head with "Time enough yet." He could have sworn he knew her simple mind from end to end and that, living from day to day, she had not troubled about the future.

"Her will?" he cried, bluffly incredulous. "She never made none."

"While Mrs. Byron was at the hospital she sent for me and had her will drawn up."

"She was too ill to 'tend to any wills."

"At first, yes."

Byron's incredulity was shaken. Believing Sabina too far on her way to the next world to have a thought for this, he had relaxed his watch. Had she taken advantage of his absence? He hesitated and, in smooth tones, the lawyer explained. "When she was getting better she sent for me, made her will and"—he tapped his pocket—"left it in my care."

The statement carried conviction. Byron could not but admit that, with regard to this will-making, Sabina had acted after her usual fashion. Once she saw the necessity for action she lost no time and, with her, 'eaten meat' was soon forgotten. Had her husband been at hand she would as a matter of course have told him of her intentions. He cursed the folly that had kept him away. "I think she ought to have let me knaw," he said uneasily. In her weak state of health, how was it likely she would be able to frame a sensible will?

Mr. Criddle was in a hurry. The train service between Wadebridge and Stowe was inadequate and, unless he used dispatch he might lose the last train. Drawing from his pocket a long blue-grey paper he glanced at the people waiting about. "No doubt the relatives of the late Mrs. Byron will wish to hear the will read."

On the document in plain black print was "Will of Mrs. Sabina Byron," and these words, pregnant with unknown far-reaching possibilities, sent a thrill through those present. Of all who had attended the funeral, these were the privileged, they were to have a first-hand knowledge of the provisions of Sabina's will and, if there should be dramatic developments, they would be on the spot. Leadville, looking to them for sympathy with him in his uneasiness, saw on their faces only curiosity and realized that they were indeed 'the relatives of the late Mrs. Byron.'

"You better come in 'ere," he said and led the way through the house. In the Big Parlour Sabina's most cherished possessions, porcelain painted by a Chinese hand which had long since lost its cunning, lacquer which has accompanied it overseas, old Georgian silver, dark above fine damask, had been set out; but Byron ignored the invitation of the open door. "There'll be more room out here in the kitchen," he said.

In placing themselves about the wide low room, it was noticeable that the mourners seated themselves in accordance with their standing and expectations. Byron, with a sharp assumption of ownership, placed Old Squire's chair at the head of the table and sat in it. Tom and Constantine Rosevear took the chairs on each side of him and Mr. Criddle sat at the end. Between them were the substantial farmers who had married Rosevear connexions or were themselves cousins, such men as old Sowden, John Jacka of Forth Dennis, Solomon Old, Tom Trebilcock. A group of young people. Con's three sons, the Hember girls and Hilda Trudgian, were clustered about the window-bench; while the older women, veils up and cloaks unfastened, sat by the fire.

In the hush of strained attention, the unfolding of the blue-grey paper made a sharp whisper of sound. "This is the last Will and Testament of me, Sabina Byron of Wastralls, Tregols Parish, in the Duchy of Cornwall, the wife of Leadville Byron."

After a few words of preamble came the first bequest. "I give, devise and bequeath to my dear husband, the said Leadville Byron, my property in trust securities, the income thereof to be paid to him during his life and, after his decease, to be divided between the children then living of my cousins Thomas Freathy Rosevear of Hember and Sydney Constantine Rosevear of St. Cadic in equal shares.

"The money on deposit at the bank and the balance standing in my name, I leave to the said Leadville Byron."

As he gathered the sense of these provisions, Leadville nodded a qualified approval. He and his wife, having lived well within their income, it was only right he should be left the money he had helped to save. He should, he thought, have been left the capital too but his main concern was with the ready money lying at the bank. He would need it to initiate the changes of which for so long he had dreamed and, while one tract of his mind was attending closely to the reading, another beheld the vision of an accomplished hope, the fields of Wastralls under intensive culture, the motors carrying produce to Truro, to Plymouth and yet farther afield, the steamers bearing it up the coast to Cardiff and other hungry towns. A dock could be blasted out of Morwen Cove, a stone quay built and, behind it, a row of up-to-date cottages. In a few years, with his energy, his ideas, he would have amassed capital—all the capital he needed.

"What money 'as she left then, sir?"

When Mr. Criddle moved, his linen made a rustling sound which was suggestive of withered leaves and this suggestion was carried further by his dry appearance and wooden gesture. Laying down the will, he looked over the top of his glasses at the inquirer and embarked on a statement.

"The late Mr. Freathy Rosevear, Mrs. Byron's grandfather, invested money in mines. For a time this investment was shaky and unsaleable but it recovered and is now paying a good dividend. As you are already aware, her father did not leave her much beyond the house and land. Since the property has been in her hands it has increased in value and the savings have been considerable. Altogether the income of about twelve thousand pounds, well invested, will come to you."

"And the money in the bank?"

"I inquired this morning." He consulted a notebook in which various sets of figures were entered. "Ah, yes, here it is. The late Mrs. Byron had three hundred pounds on deposit and a balance of a hundred and ninety pounds, eighteen shillings and tenpence."

Again Byron nodded but this time his satisfaction was unalloyed. Though his wife had always given him what he required he had not had any considerable sums at his disposal; and to find himself in possession of nearly five hundred pounds, to spend as he chose, also a regular income of about the same amount, gave him a feeling of opulence. Sabina, generous with her pence, had been reserved as to the sum total of her property. He had not guessed her savings to be so large.

The lawyer read on. A few small legacies were left to relatives—to Mrs. Isolda Rosevear, the linen in the big chest: to Constantine, the horse Sabina had been wont to ride about her fields: to the men who had been in her employment ten years, the sum of fifty pounds each; to those more newly come, a pound for each year of their service. Byron listened without heeding. With hands thrust deeply into his trousers pockets, with head sunk between his shoulders, he was awaiting the moment when the land—Wastralls itself—should be declared his and he could face this concourse of alien faintly hostile people with the accomplished fact. What did it matter who had the big strawberry roan that was eating his head off in the stable, or what became of a few sheets and table-cloths? He cared for nothing but the land, the five hundred acres which had been his, yet not his, for so long. The will would set all doubt as to its ownership at rest. Sabina had, after all, been wise to set her wishes down in black and white.

"The land, house and hereditaments of Wastralls," began the lawyer in his dry voice, each word clipped of sound and the whole giving the effect of a well-kept but withered hedge.

In his big chair at the head of the table Leadville stirred slightly, clenching his hands. At last!

"I will devise and bequeath the land house and hereditaments of Wastralls to my cousin, Gray Rosevear."

The up-turned attentive faces about the table, expressed for a moment only intense surprise. Leadville, leaning forward, made a husky hesitating sound—"What?"

In his precise voice, the lawyer re-read the bequest and about his words, as the information sank into people's minds, rose a little whisper of astonished comment.

"Gray?"

"Did 'ee ever 'ear the like?"

"Some's born lucky!"

"Well, Gray now."

A chair went over with a sudden crash and Leadville was on his feet. Before the slower-witted men had realized his purpose he had crossed the room, snatched the will out of Criddle's hand and, scattering the women, was at the fire. He meant to destroy it, to press it down among the logs, to hold it until it was burned to ashes. Flinging it on the wood, he glanced round for the poker but the Rosevears had begun to recover from the stupefaction into which his reckless action had thrown them. Tom had the lean strength of whipcord and Con that of a bull. As they closed with Byron, bearing him away from the fire, Mrs. Tom snatched up the paper and, pressing out the flame, ran back with it out of harm's way.

"I'm afeared 'tis a good bit burned," she said as she returned it to the lawyer but that individual looked at her calmly over the tops of his glasses.

"This is only a copy, Mrs. Rosevear. The will is in my safe at home."

His voice carried, and in spite of the general confusion, men smiled to themselves. Cunning chaps, these lawyers, up to snuff. Tom Rosevear, wiping a heated face, picked up Old Squire's chair and put it back at the head of the table. For the moment, with devils tearing at his heart, Byron stood in their midst, then, sullenly, he resumed his seat. Two heads could be knocked together but there were a dozen men in the room. Except for the relief to his feelings what would a fight advantage him? Moreover, as he had failed to burn the will, as in fact the will was not there to be burnt, he must take other measures. "She've left the land to me," he asserted violently.

At the time he drew up the will, Mr. Criddle had pointed out to his client that her husband might feel aggrieved at being passed over and she had given him her reasons for leaving Wastralls to a Rosevear. He had them in readiness.

"She made what she considered a proper provision for you, Mr. Byron, when she left you the money."

"Provision? Don't want none o' that. 'Tis the land I want."

"I understood from my client that you had never done any farming."

"Never 'ad the chance."

Mr. Criddle's sandy brows went up in expostulation. "Mrs. Byron told me you had been a sailor and that, after her marriage with you, she had suggested your renting land but that you had refused. I understood her to say she had even been willing to sink capital in buying some but you impressed her as not wishing to take the responsibility."

"She told you so?" began Byron and choked over the words. His tongue was not glib, he could not explain that he had been misrepresented and this inability, giving him a feeling of helplessness before this man of words, abated the violence of his mood. "A damned lie," he muttered, "a damned lie!"

From the group of women about the hearth, a voice cut into the discussion. "She thought," said Mrs. Tom, moved by her secret knowledge to a bitter word, "as she'd maybe live as long as 'er 'usband."

Mr. Criddle accepted this contribution with a little bend of the head. "She did. She said as much. She thought if she should predecease Mr. Byron he would, by that time, be too old to start farming on his own account."

Byron brushed this aside as irrelevant. He was becoming gradually conscious of meshes about his feet—meshes from which, however, he still thought he could escape. "But," he said and he believed it, "she can't leave the land to any one else, what's 'ers is mine."

"The law gives women the right to dispose of their property," returned the lawyer patiently. His mind was divided between Byron and the clock. A few minutes more and, if he were not to miss the train, he must start on the drive back.

"You don't mean," Byron was aghast but incredulous, "that the law gives 'er the right to leave the land away from me?"

"It does."

"The missus could do as she liked with the land?" began the unhappy man and there was such poignant anxiety in his tones that, even Mrs. Tom, angry and embittered, felt a qualm of pity. 'Poor old toad, too, he was taking it hard!'

"Yes!"

Sabina had had the power and she had used it, used it simply and without heart-searchings or artifice. The world was turning round with him, but he still had his hands on that which he had taken. In spite of will and lawyer he would hold to it. He felt that nothing could relax his grip, that the land was his from now on until time should make him more intimately a part of it, yet something was slipping from him—slipping——

He looked from face to face along the sides of the table, from Con, heavy and ruminative, to Beulah Sowden, whose glassy eyes stared unresponsive as ever and so to Tom Rosevear. The day was being driven out by the shadow hosts of evening but the faces were still distinct. The unhappy man searched them with the old, desperate, 'Who is on my side, who?'

"What good," said he in an urgent troubling voice, "what good would Wastralls be to Gray—a young maid?"

Being farmers all, their prejudices, their outlook, would put them against the will. They could not approve of land being left to a woman. Anything else but not land. Byron thought that with them to back him he might force the lawyer-fellow to see reason. After all, it was the men of the community who made the law and, if these would give it as their opinion that the will was unjust, was unnatural, it might be upset.

To a man, those to whom he made his appeal, were kind of heart. They were sorry for Byron. They would have been sorry for any one who stood to lose a fair farm, for any one whose hopes had been disappointed. They agreed, too, that it was a pity the land should have been left to a maid. Where they joined issue with Byron was in the universal feeling that the land belonged to Rosevears. Anything was better than that it should go out of the family. They would not help him to get the will upset. On the contrary.

The failure of his appeal sent a gust of fury through Byron. They would see him wronged and not lift a hand to prevent it? What matter? He would have it in spite of them. "The land's mine," he blazed and brought his fist down on the table, with a thump that jarred from every loose surface a protesting sound and threatened to split the thick wood. "'Tis mine and by 'itch or by crook I'll 'av it. A mistake's been made and—" he flung down the gage, "you do all knaw it 'as, but we'll 'av it put right."

The other men looked to Mr. Criddle for direction.

"I'm sorry," the lawyer said in his unimpassioned way, "that you should be disappointed, but the intention was clear and the will is properly executed. You will be only wasting time and money if you try to upset it."

Byron's mind was moving quickly. "The missus thought I should be old by the time she was taken," he argued. "I bain't old, I'm so young as any. There isn't a man 'ere can put it across me."

Into this atmosphere, already full of conflicting thought, of possibilities more ominous than any there suspected, Mrs. Tom threw a barbed and poisoned phrase. "S'bina 'ad no thought of dyin' and you knaw, Leadville, that she 'adn't."

He turned at the words. The corner by the hearth was growing dark but the firelight revealed a face here and another there. Mrs. Tom was on the outskirts of the group and in her accusing eyes and on her pale features was a writing Byron could and, for all his unwillingness, must read. Mrs. Tom was telling him that his secret was known to her and that in the provisions of the will she recognized the truth of her Tom's words. That for which Leadville had schemed and done evil, that was what, to the upholding of righteousness, he was to lose.

But the man was not yet broken to the acceptance of his fate. Mrs. Tom might suspect, she could not know. He turned to the lawyer with a movement that suggested the flicking off of a troublesome fly.

"I don't believe," he said, "that missus would leave it to Gray. She wouldn't do such a thing. How could she take Wastralls from me when I bin 'ere all me life? You've made the will out wrong."

As far as Mr. Criddle's experience went, a last will and testament never satisfied the survivors. It was unfortunate that Mrs. Byron's should have come into operation while her husband was still a comparatively young man; but, after all, he had the money and there were more farms than those in Trevorrick. To the poignant aspect of the matter he was blind.

"Mrs. Byron was quite clear on the point, in fact though she did not insist on it she told me she hoped that, when Miss Gray married, she would not change her name. Being Rosevear land, Mrs. Byron felt that Wastralls should belong to a Rosevear."

The younger people, grouped on and about the bench, whispered among themselves but Byron's voice overrode their murmurs. "I could call myself Rosevear," he offered eagerly, "the name's nothing."

"You 'aven't a name of your own, Mr. Byron," said Con in his slow heavy fashion, "and one name's so well as another to you."

"Iss," agreed the other impatiently, "a man's the same, whether 'e got one name as another."

"Those are the provisions of the will," continued Mr. Criddle, ignoring the suggestion. In his clipped voice he read to the end. Gray was left residuary legatee and Thomas Freathy Rosevear and Sydney Constantine Rosevear were to be the executors. "And lastly I revoke all former wills made by me, in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand."

CHAPTER XXIV

The lawyer, pressed for time, hurried over his farewells and, going out, pulled the door to behind him. The faulty latch failing to hold, the door swung back to fall with a little jingling clash against the post and this irritating sound, metallic and irregular, alone broke the hush of expectation that, with Mr. Criddle's departure, had fallen on the room.

His withdrawal, freeing this large family from the observation of a stranger, took from the members of it any self-consciousness they may have felt; and enabled them to give their whole attention to what was passing, to centre it, in fact, on Byron, on this man who, like a widow, was not to inherit the property but to be pensioned off with an annuity! The women about the hearth, the young people on the window-bench, the men at the table, all were wondering what Byron would say and do, whether, indeed, he quite understood.

He sat before them, with his broad shoulders hunched and a hand over his eyes, withdrawn and, though one of a crowd, solitary. Behind him rose the polished back of the old chair. He had placed it at the head of the table. He had sat in it to emphasize the fact of his ownership and there were those present who thought he had, by so doing, brought ill-luck on himself. He had stretched covetous hands to what Old Squire had set apart for his descendants and in his own way, at his own time, Old Squire, dead yet very much alive, had taken action. In the disposition of the property the people recognized his hand. Sabina had been the instrument of an older more imperious will. Rosevear land was for Rosevears. Those who had had it before this nameless wight came up out of the sea should keep it. Their grip was fixed on it, their roots went down to its rock foundations, they were of it, sprung from it, the living manifestations of it, while he—he who would have taken it from them—he was 'a foreigner.' He had no right, no part among them. As he was come, so would he go. The sea had spewed him up and in due time the earth would swallow him and the memory of him would perish.

The door banged at will, the latch catching and slipping like a nerveless hand. In the old chimneys of the old house, the drear December wind whined and entreated; and first one person then another began to stir and whisper.

In their cramped quarters under the window, the young people were responding to the faint calls of everyday life. Conscious of tension, of a something in the atmosphere that threatened and insisted, they glanced anxiously at the door. Its foolish rattling indecision suggested to them that it was open, that they had only to get up, take a quick step or two and it would provide a way of escape. Something, perhaps an appeal to their emotions, more likely a dull discussion was pending; and they were impatient to breathe fresh air, indulge in a little chaff and sweethearting, get back to the normal. The troubles of their seniors, the dark incomprehensible tragedy of Byron, were beyond their understanding. They were glad when their mothers and aunts began to move, to speak in restrained tones, to whisper of Isolda's linen, of Con's red roan and of the fifty pounds that would fall to high-shouldered George Biddick, the good old hind who had been on the farm for so many years, all the working years of a life. As they talked they fastened cloaks and pulled down veils, beginning as it were to move and so setting an example the young folks would be glad to follow.

The miller had been sitting, solid and motionless, at Byron's right hand. As the women began their tentative movements, he rose, drew a deep breath of relief and drifted in Mrs. Tom's direction. She gave him a pleasant word. "The 'awse, that S'bina give you, Con, 'll 'av a good 'ome with you."

"She knawed I liked Prince," the other said heavily. His eyes had been resting on his three sons and he now uttered a plain thought.

"Pity Gray wadn't a boy, seems a pity for the farm to go to a maid, still S'bina bin fair enough." Tom was S'bina's next of kin, and in choosing his eldest child to inherit Wastralls she had acknowledged his claim. Con, thinking of his hearty lads, regretted, while accepting, her decision.

Mrs. Tom did not take offence. "Iss!" she sighed, voicing her one grievance against fate, "I only wished I 'ad a boy..."

The young folk were frankly a little envious of Gray's good fortune and Jim Rosevear who, having taken to heart Mrs. Tom's mild scolding was standing a little behind the St. Cadic men, stooped to the girl's ear with a congratulatory word. Her eyes, as she answered him, were full of tears.

"Dear auntie! I had no idea she was goin' to give me the farm. I feel I ought to have done more for her."

"My tender dear, you done all you could do."

Upon this simple talk, born of a general willingness to be accommodating, to live and let live, broke an arresting voice. The sense of disaster, irremediable and dire, was slowly closing down on Byron; but, until he had done his utmost to escape, he would not admit he was in straits.

"I been thinkin'," he said, looking from Tom Rosevear to his cousin, "I been thinkin' if Gray 'as Wastralls p'raps she would like for me to stay on an' teel it for 'er. I've wanted the farm all along. I think 'tis very cruel to 'av it took away now; but—" he did not attempt to disguise his anxiety—"you can make it right for me if you like."

Tom had joined Constantine and, into the bearing of the two, though only so lately made executors, was crept a faint consciousness of their position. They had been placed in authority and they were used to wielding it. They stood together, listening gravely to the man's appeal, giving it, as far as appearances went, their consideration. In reality they were wondering how to avoid a direct refusal. That Byron should have set his heart on Wastralls seemed to them mere perversity. As well cry for the moon.

"I dunno," said Tom evasively. He did not want to hurt the man's feelings but he and Con had been put in charge of the property and were responsible to Sabina for its administration. "I dunno 'bout that. We shall 'av to think it over. What do you say, Constantine?"

"I think," said his more direct coadjutor, "I think the best way is to do as S'bina wished."

But Byron was unable to take a wrapped-up 'No' for an answer. "I was 'er 'usband," he pleaded and if he had addressed his words to the nether stone in St. Cadic Mill, they would have had as much effect. "I was 'er 'usband and I think she meant for me to 'av it, only there been a mistake made in the will."

Mrs. Tom who had been standing behind the two men took a step forward. "I know S'bina trusted you in everything——"

He caught at the words, turning eagerly, triumphantly on the executors. "There—I knaw she did."

"In everything else," pursued Mrs. Tom steadily, "besides Wastralls."

"Besides Wastralls?" he stammered.

"But that," and there was a note in her voice, a note of mingled grief and satisfaction which only Tom understood, "that, she said, you would never 'av."

Byron threw up his-hands in a wild gesture. "My good God! She must 'av been maäze or she wouldn't 'av done it. Surely you bain't goin' to let 'er fulish fancies take it away from me?"

Working adjacent farms, Sabina's cousins could not be blind to the fact that she and her husband had been at odds as to the management of Wastralls. They were, too, as averse to the changes he would have introduced as she could be. She had appointed them her executors. They would see her wishes were carried out. The disappointment to Byron, the crumbling of his hope, of something more intimate than hope, did not weigh with men intent on a plain duty.

Realizing that his appeal had as much effect on them as wind beating on a boulder, the other shifted his ground. As reasonable beings they must see he could be of use to them. "I'm here and I knaw every hitch and stitch of the place. Who'll take it on and work it for Gray? For certain she can't. She don't know a mangold from a turmit. She can't manage it by 'erself and 'er father can't do it. 'E got 'is own work to do."

The shadows had been encroaching and already it was growing difficult to distinguish one pale disk among the many faces from another. As Byron paused there was a movement among the young people and Jim Rosevear, bearing himself modestly, stepped up to the table.

"I reckon," he said, and the claim was put forward quietly and in a matter-of-fact voice, "I reckon I got the right now to work the land!"

Turning from the executors, Byron stared, speechlessly and in bewilderment, at the young man. To him, Jim was a hind whom he had lately dismissed and that he could be in any way concerned with Wastralls was impossible. Byron felt much as if a strange dog had found its way in at the door. "You?" he said. "What right 'av you to be 'ere? Didn't I tell yer, other day, to never put foot inside this 'ouse again?"

"Now then, now then!" interposed Constantine, big and authoritative as a London policeman. Those present felt he had the right to impose his will on them, that the ownership of Wastralls had passed from the one man to the other, that never more would Byron be in the position to drive out even a dog. "We'll 'av none of this, no quarrellin' 'ere."

Byron felt it, too, and his spirit revolted in a last frenzy of protest. He cursed Jim with a bitter concentrated curse but there was acceptance of his lot, of the calamity which had overtaken him, in the final, sullen, "Let'n clear out of this."

To Jim, as to the others, Byron was merely an angry, disappointed man. "The shoe's on the other foot," he cried, his spirits rising, the ready but provocative smile on his lips. "Come to that, 'tis for you to go, not me."

Byron swept out an annihilating arm. This gadfly, he would brush him off, silence him. "Cuss yer, get out of me sight."

But Jim, wheeling lightly, appealed to the executors. "I've a right to be 'ere?"

To Byron's confused surprise, Tom nodded briefly and Constantine, with a grunt of assent, admitted the claim. "What right 'av yer got then?" He realized that Jim must be settled with, before they could get back to the matter in hand—the farming of Wastralls. Byron still nursed a flicker of hope that he might be left as manager or bailiff, that this fate which was hovering would not be allowed to swoop.

Before Jim's light tongue could reel off the ready answer, Constantine interposed. "Let Gray speak," said he, probing among the shadows for his niece. "'Tis 'er land."

"Iss, come now, Gray," said her father encouragingly. "'Tis for you to say."

Never had Gray disputed her father's seldom-imposed will and now, though so reluctant that it seemed to her, her feet were leaden, she came to the table. Her heart was beating fast. The publicity, even this modified publicity of the family, was, to one of her retiring nature, very unwelcome; nevertheless she carried herself with a modest dignity. She had even a little air of confidence, as if in her bosom was a store of courage on which she could draw at will; and this confidence in one so timid, so unassuming, appeared as a grace. That day as, with colour in her cheeks and a steady light in her midnight eyes, Gray faced her redoubtable relative, she was at her finest and most desirable.

"Uncle Leadville," she began simply and the man shrank with a gesture of repudiation from the wounding title; but all her life he had been 'Uncle' to her and he would be so to the end. "Uncle Leadville, I'm sorry if what Aunt S'bina done is against your wish, but the land was hers and she could do what she liked with it. You know it has always belonged to her family and been worked, in the way that we are used to down here. I'm very sorry to go against you in anything but—" she paused and her serious steady gaze shifted from the dark face, watching her as a condemned man watches the sinking sun the night before he is shot, to Jim's blithe countenance; and, as it shifted, her eyes softened, filling with an expression no one in the room, not even Byron himself, could mistake, "but I think it's only right my husband should work the farm for me."

"My husband," Gray had said and when her voice ceased the words were still echoing through the room. They had fallen on Byron's ears, on his passionate craving heart as fall words of doom against which there is no appeal.

"Your 'usband?" he ejaculated but not because he had any doubt. We walk in twilight until light falls through a window and in that moment of revelation it did not need Gray's further words to enlighten him.

"We was married last Friday into Stowe."

To the Hember and St. Cadic Rosevears this was no news; but Mrs. Byron's death on the night of the wedding, the subsequent rush of work, the funeral, had prevented it from being bruited abroad. The more distant relatives looked at each other and at the young couple, surprised yet, on the whole, pleased. So Gray, sly puss, had picked her man and married him on the quiet. And who was he? Rosevear of Treketh's son. Not much money there but Mrs. Andrew of Gentle Jane was his auntie and very fond of him. Likely looking chap too! The maid had had her wits about her when she chose him; though, as things had turned out, she was more of a catch than he. And Sabina had probably known! She would be glad the maid was wedding a Rosevear, even though it was one of a different family. Well! well! They sent a sigh after vanished youth and prepared themselves to utter the kind commonplaces of congratulation. The connexion would be a satisfactory one. The young people would live in the old home and the Rosevear tradition be maintained. The hearts of the elders, accepting them as members of the family, blessed them to increase, a long line of stout descendants. The erratic genius, the Lucifer of a later day, was to be driven out that the old order might be continued, world without end. Amen.

Instinctively, though the words of congratulation were on their lips the people waited for Byron to take the initiative. They did not know what Gray's simple statement meant to him, had no suspicion that a dream-castle had been tumbled about his ears, the dream in which he had shrined hope and desire. Destroy these figments and you destroy the purpose of a life and, as a consequence, the will to live. Byron's dream had not been only of Gray, though she had been at the heart of it—the reddest hottest coal of the fire. He had dreamed too of his strength, that strength through which all else should be added unto him; and he was being gradually forced to see it as an illusion. Some one had been strong, but not he. Some one had given and withheld, had ordained what he should have, what he should go without, but it was not he. He thrust at the young people a question which seemed to them irrelevant.

"Did 'er knaw? Did S'bina knaw?"

That was the crucial point, the point by which his self-respect must stand or fall. Had Sabina done this thing or was it merely an unforeseen event?

"'Twas Aunt Sabina's wish for us to be married then, she made the arrangements." Gray was glad to make this known. She would not have people think that she had married without the countenance of her family and, in particular, of the aunt who had been so good to her. So much had happened since the morning of her wedding-day, she was so different a person from the shy and frightened girl who had driven out of Wastralls yard, that she had almost forgotten the menace of Byron's love. Uncle Leadville had been the ogre of her story but her marriage had changed the ogre back into a man and she could speak frankly to him of Aunt Sabina's part in what had been done. She was far from guessing that her simple words would take from him a last delusion; yet, as she spoke, she saw his face change and she wondered.

The people, too, were uneasily conscious that he had not taken the announcement of his niece's marriage as they would have expected. What was wrong? No whisper had ever linked her name with his, moreover, Sabina was but three days dead. They wondered over his grey strained face, his eyes which saw what was withheld from them and, into their wonder, crept a tinge of apprehension.

While they hesitated Byron flung into the silence—as a bomb is flung into a crowd—his bitter thought.

"I took 'er life and she've served me out for it."

A thrill ran through the listeners. With their Celtic perception they had been aware of half-seen forces and thoughts, of shadows moving remotely, of a background from which unforeseen events might issue. Not for a moment did they believe Byron's wild statement, they only realized he was, in some way unknown to them and beyond their guessing, a guilty man; and upon them began to press the feeling that a spirit was abroad, a spirit which, like clouds swept up from the rim of the sea, might be winged with unknown and ruinous possibility.

"She knawed," he said; and in his voice was awe and an emotion more poignant, more personal. Piercing the many veils he had found the ultimate, that ultimate which mercy hides. He understood at last that he had been living in a world of illusions and that Sabina, kindly, tolerant, had left him there. She had not taken them seriously, had not perhaps realized they were heady stuff which might give off the vapour of death. From start to cruel finish she had preserved her careless superiority, and now when he thought her bested had turned in her grave and laughed. By a word, scribbled in haste at an odd moment, she had made a mock of his pretensions, put him in his place. Secret humiliation is the black and bitter bread of which all shall eat but to be set at naught before his fellows breaks a man. "Like a twig in 'er 'ands I was," and he snapped his big fingers, like one snapping a stick in two. From the beginning Sabina had been the better man and his revolt had been as hopeless as that of a child.

"A life for a life," he muttered, using a phrase with which he was familiar, twisting a little its plain meaning. Sabina was taking from him, not his life but the fullness thereof, she was leaving him the vessel but leaving it irreparably damaged, like an old bucket through the holes of which the grass may grow.

Byron's eye rose to the gun suspended over the door. The feel of it would be comforting. It was his only possession. Sabina's money was nothing to him, let it go with the rest but the old gun...

It seemed to him far away. Between him and it rose, like an insuperable obstacle, the faces of the relatives. He saw in these faces always the eyes, the eyes that had witnessed his humiliation. Behind them were the brains that knew him now for what he was, a poor thing, futile, impotent. If he could but reach the old gun he would take it and he would go.

What an intolerable burden were the eyes!

Mrs. Tom, seeing Byron glance at the gun, hanging in its thongs over the lintel, misread his mind. She had been anxiously on the watch but by degrees had lost her fear that he was dangerous. To himself, perhaps, but no longer to others. Gray's marriage, presented as an accomplished fact, had done its work. No longer a wild desire, she was only a loss among others; but the sum total of these had been sufficient, Mrs. Tom thought, to bring home to the unhappy man his sin. Conscious of guilt, he might be driven to a further recklessness, might feel that, for such as he, was only the one way out. Knowledge is responsibility and Mrs. Tom was moved by her sense of justice to intervene. Byron should know the truth, that truth which she had kept even from Tom, which she had hidden in a fold of her mind, wrapping it up and putting it out of sight.

"Leadville," she said, leaning forward between her husband and his cousin and speaking without any premonition of the event she was precipitating, "rest yer 'eart content. She never drinked that cocoa that you meant for 'er to."

For a moment the burden of those intent eyes was lifted from Byron. The people turned towards Mrs. Tom. What was she saying? What lay between Byron and the woman whom only that afternoon they had committed to the earth? "I took 'er life," the man had said, flinging their curiosity a bone of fact. They were learning now that the bone had had meat on it.

"Never drinked it?" Byron did not evince any surprise at Mrs. Tom's knowledge, did not feel any. He was only conscious of his overwhelming need to escape—to escape from the eyes. His mind seized on this new fact, examining it with an anxious care. What was it to him? Would it show him the way out?

"No, 'twas that 'eavy supper. Doctor said so and it was. I saved the cocoa and 'tis out there in the jug."

On finding the drink untouched when tidying the room on the morning of Sabina's death, she had set it aside. Cocoa can be warmed up. Putting it on the linhay shelf she had not thought of it again until Leadville, walking in his sleep, had revealed the nature of the draught. Even then she had not thrown it away. It was evidence which might be needed. "'Tis out there still," and with a slight movement of the head she indicated the linhay. If she could convince Byron that he was not guilty of his wife's death, she might lessen for him his sense of overwhelming disaster, wring the black drop out of his remorse.

To the broken man only the irony of it came home and it came home so overwhelmingly that, in the bitterness of his spirit, he laughed. He had had a vision of Sabina hanging the sword of fate over his head, hanging it on the thread of her life, a thread which he, in a moment of amazing folly, had cut. But nothing of the sort had happened. Her dying was no tragedy of stealthy murder but the scrapping by nature of a worn-out organism. The memory of past emotion, of grizzly fears, of things tremendous and dire and sinister, passed before him—a procession of wraiths! They had had no foundation in fact, they had risen out of his mind, preposterous things, as preposterous as he. For what had he done? Nothing! Like a puppet, a creature of wire and paste-board, he had pranced and waved his arms. Never—not at the beginning, not during the long years of his servitude, not even when he had tried to burst his bonds, had he been anything but impotent. He had loved Wastralls—to no purpose! He had loved Gray and, while he dreamed, another had been at the wooing; even the crime he would have committed was fallen like a spent arrow at his feet. He had set out to prove himself the man of blood and iron who would force his way, through demon hosts and the flaming swords of heaven, to gain his ends; he who was destined to fight with shadows for a dream.

Sabina's death from heart-weakness after hard work and a heavy supper, was fate's last jest at his expense. Life had justified his wife's light estimate of his powers and he, who had believed himself able to control circumstance, had been proved harmless as a tame ranter in a booth. Futile, impotent! The tides of darkness were rising in the wide low room, were rising about the people, hiding all but the watching eyes. Leadville was conscious of coldness. A dark world and cold. Had he ever thought that he was young, that he was strong, that there was no man in Trevorrick who could 'put it across him'? That must have been long ago.

What a thing was this impotence! Like a brown shrivel in place of a nut-kernel it was rottenness but not dissolution. To live day after day through interminable time and see the spread of the black mould, to long for that last mercy of the mould! Life, the pricking life of kisses, the ecstasy of the first-born, the content of ripening, can become leprous, a thing to escape from at any cost. Damnation? Ay, a threat, the threat of ignorance. No hell that any future life may hold can equal what we know and, if the gate be open...

Isolda Rosevear had said, "I saved the cocoa, 'tis out there still," and, in the chambers of the man's distraught mind, the words echoed helpfully.

"Sabina left the cocoa a-purpose," he said and saw the way clear. "She left it——" For him too, as for all living creatures was hope, the hope of deliverance. In sudden haste, he turned and went out. Delay had been his curse but the need he was about to satisfy was so imperative that he did not stay even to complete his sentence.

On the linhay shelf, apart from other cloam, stood the brown high-girdled jug. Though the place was in darkness Byron's hand went out to it as unerringly as when he sought the blue phial in the wall cupboard: and, as he lifted it down, he heard with an eager thankfulness the sound of liquid swishing against the earthenware.

Sabina, knowing how much he could stand, had made ready for him a way of escape. "She left it for me," he said and, with a sob of relief, lifted the brown jug to his lips.

PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS, WEST NORWOOD, LONDON

* * * * * * * *

NEW NOVELS

THAT WHICH HATH WINGS. By Richard Dehan.

FIRST THE BLADE. By Clemence Dane.

THE WAR-WORKERS. By E. M. Delafield.

BEYOND. By John Galsworthy.

MISTRESS OF MEN. By Flora Annie Steele.

UNDER THE HERMES. By Richard Dehan.

THE NURSERY. By Eden Phillpotts.

SECRET BREAD. By F. Tennyson Jesse.

THE HAPPY GARRET. By V. Goldie.

MICHAIL; OR, THE HEART OF A RUSSIAN. By a Russian Lady.

A MUMMER'S WIFE. By George Moore.

THE CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG MAN. By George Moore.

DRIFTING (WITH BROWNE). By Byers Fletcher. Illustrated, 6s. net.

LEWIS SEYMOUR AND SOME WOMEN. By George Moore.

WOMAN GUIDES. By W. Shaw Heath.

THE GAMBLER. By Fyodor Dostoevsky.

THE FORTUNES OF RICHARD MAHONY. By H. H. Richardson.

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 21 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.2