John Aggett passed from the embrace of the night wind into the denser atmosphere of the woods beneath. A stream brawled beside him and ran before the cottage of the Belworthys. Here he dawdled a moment, half in hope to meet Sarah; but he felt confident that she was in reality before him and would be waiting ere now at the beech. Proceeding downward, he passed a young man leaning against a gate. The youth stood quite motionless, and over his shoulder Aggett observed widespreading grass-lands. Upon the expanse of dim green, parallel bars of faint light between equal tracts of gloom indicated that a roller had been passed regularly over the field to better its promise of future hay.
The man turned, and John, knowing the other for Timothy Chave, guessed that he awaited a companion. Instant rage set his blood racing; the veins in his neck and forehead bulged; the muscles of hand and arm hardened, but he kept in shadow and passed upon the farther side of the road where the stream ran. Timothy said “good night” in the voice of one who does not recognise him to whom he speaks; but Aggett returned no answer and, satisfied that he had not been recognised, soon passed out of earshot. His mind was now darker than the shadows of the pine trees, fuller of brooding whispers than their inky tops; but he fought against foreboding with the full strength of his will, set presentiment of evil behind him, and lifted his voice and spoke aloud to cheer himself.
“Her’ll be down-along; her’ll surely be down-along, dear heart, waitin’ for me. She knows nought about the chap standin’ theer. It can’t be. She’m strong set to follow, for ’tis the road of her own choosin’.”
He proceeded to the spot where Sarah had first promised herself to him. The beech bole shone ghost grey; as yet no copper-coloured bud-spike had opened and aloft the thickening traceries, still spotted by a few seed-cases of last year’s mast, shewed in wonderful black lace-work against the silver sky. Sarah Belworthy was not visible, and Aggett felt a mighty dread tightening at his stomach, like hands. He threw down his bundle and stick. Then he listened awhile, only to hear the jolt and grind of a wood-sledge proceeding down the hill. He looked about him, calculated that it yet wanted ten minutes to moon-rise, then struck a light with a flint, puffed it into flame and sought idly for the initials and lover’s knot that he had set upon the beech. His work had suffered little since its first completion; but now it vanished, for, upon some sudden whim, the man fetched out his knife, obliterated the inscription with a few heavy gashes, pared all away, and left nothing but a raw white blaze upon the bark. His own downcast condition puzzled him. Now, albeit within five minutes of his triumph, now, while each moment was surely bringing Sarah to him on tripping feet, he grew more morose and ill at ease. It was the thought of the other standing at the gate. Once more John talked to himself aloud to cheer his spirit. “Curse the fule—standin’ so stark as a mommet[100] to fright pixies. Her won’t stop for him—never. Her’ll come; her’s promised.”
He repeated the words over and over again like a parrot; but a voice, loud as his own, answered him and mocked him out of the darkness. His life and its futility reeled before him, like phantasmagoria upon the night. He stamped and swore to disturb the visions; but as he waited and listened for Sarah’s coming, the past took visible shape again and summoned pictures of days gone by, when he went wool-gathering with little Sally on the Moor. No sound broke the silence, no footfall gladdened his heart. And then there floated out the moon over the black billows of the horizon. Very slowly its silver ascended into the sky and rained splendour upon the nocturnal earth. The hour of moon-rise was numbered with time past and the world rolled on.
Great floods of passion drowned the man. He flung himself upon the earth and beat the young green things with his clenched hands. The smell of bruised primroses touched his nostrils and in the spirit he saw Sarah Belworthy again bearing a great nosegay of them. She moved beside him through a bygone April; her laugh made music through the spring woods; her lips were very red; and round her girl’s throat hung a little necklace of hedge-sparrow’s eggs, blue as the vernal sky.
Aggett arose, rubbed the earth from his knuckles and began to tighten the thong he wore about his waist. But the leather under his hands suddenly challenged his mind, and he took off the belt and examined it.
“Her never loved me—never—never,” he said to the night. “To leave me arter what I said—to leave me now knowin’—’Tis enough. I be tired—I be weary of the whole earth. Her lied to me through it all; but I won’t lie to she.”
He flung down the belt, then picked it up again and removed a little bag that was fastened to it and contained a few shillings in silver. This he placed beside his bundle. Then he flung the long snaky coil of the girdle upon the ground and stood staring at it.
Elsewhere, Sarah, hastening down the hill five minutes after John had noted Timothy at the gate of the hayfield, similarly saw and recognised him. His presence reminded her of a fact entirely forgotten during the recent storm and stress. He was there by appointment and eager to hear the first rustle of his sweetheart’s approach. Now her heart flogged at her breast and she felt her knees weaken. But she kept steadily on with averted face and instinct quick to find concealment in every shadow. She drew her hood about her and walked upon the grass by the wayside.
The man heard and turned, waking from a reverie. He saw his sweetheart even as she passed him by.
“Sally! It is Sally!” he cried.
She did not answer, though his voice shook her to the well-springs of her life; and he, supposing that she was about some lover’s pretty folly, laughed joyously and came after her. Then she hastened the more, and he did likewise.
“A starlight chase! So be it, sweetheart; but you’ll have to pay a heavy penalty when I catch you!”
Still she could not speak; then, perceiving that he must speedily overtake her, she found her tongue.
“For Christ’s sake, doan’t ’e follow me! ’Tis life—life an’ death. Ban’t no time for play. Turn back, Tim, turn back if you ever loved me.”
Her tone alarmed him and he hesitated a moment, then came steadily on again, calling to Sarah to stop.
“Tell me what’s amiss—quick—quick, dear one! Who should help you in the whole world but your Tim?”
Now her quick brains had devised a means of possible escape. The stream that ran by the road here passed immediately under a high hazel hedge, and the bank had been torn down by cattle at one point. Upon the other side of this gap extended a narrow meadow at the fringe of young coppice woods. Once within this shelter Sarah felt she might be safe. But there was not a moment to lose, for Tim had now approached within fifteen yards of her. A thousand thoughts hastened through the girl’s mind in those fleeting moments, and not the least was one of indignation against her pursuer. She had bid him stay in the name of Christ, yet he paid no heed, but blundered on, dead to consequences, ignorant of the awful evil for which he might be responsible if he restrained her. To leap the stream was Sarah’s first task—a feat trifling by day, but not so easy now that night had sucked detail from the scene and banished every particular of the brook’s rough course. Here its waters chattered invisible; here they dipped under young grasses and forget-me-nots; here twinkled out only to vanish again, engulfed by great shadows. The girl sped upon her uneven way, marked the gap ahead and in her haste, mistaking for light a grey stone immediately before her at a little bend in the stream, leapt forward, struck her feet against granite, and, falling, spread her hands to save herself. But, despite this action, her forehead came violently against the stone and her left foot suffered still more severely. She struggled to recover and rise, while her basket tumbled into the stream, scattering small, precious possessions on the water. With a desperate effort Sarah actually regained her feet, but only to lose consciousness and be caught up in Tim Chave’s arms as she fell again.
Then it was her pursuer’s turn to suffer; though rapid action relieved him of some anxiety and occupied his mind. The place was very lonely, the girl apparently dead. For half an hour he sought to revive her; then she opened her eyes and lifted them to the moon; and by slow stages of broken thoughts took up the thread of her life again.
“Thank God—thank God, my darling! If you only knew what I have endured! I thought you had killed yourself and the terror of it has made me grow old. What, in Heaven’s name, were you doing to run from me like that?”
She put up one hand to her head and uttered a shivering sigh, but as yet lacked the power to speak. Beneath her hair was a terrible bruise, and she felt that something stabbed her eyes and made them flash red fiery rings into the cold silver of the moonlight.
“Speak,” he said, “just one little word, my treasure—just one word, so that I may know my life has come back to me.”
Then she spoke, slowly at first, with increased speed as her memory regained clearness.
“No—no—no. Not to Tim—not back to Tim. I remember. I fell running away from ’e. You sinned a gert sin to come arter me when I bade ’e in Christ’s name to let me abide. Help me now—now ’fore ’tis to late. ’Tis the least you can do an’ theer’s a man’s life hanging to it for all I know. Say nothin’; ax nothin’; help me—help me quick to go to un.”
“To whom, Sarah? You’re dreaming, lovey. Who should I take you to—your father? But I’m here—Timothy—an’ thank God I was. What frightened you so? Like a moonbeam you went and nearly broke your neck and my heart together—‘pon my honour you did.”
“Help me,” she said. “Give over talkin’, for it ban’t the time. You’ll know how ’twas some day. I’ve prayed solemn as you should know. Let me go down-along quick—quicker’n lightning—or it may be too late. Wheer’s my basket gone? I had a li’l basket. An’ allus b’lieve I loved ’e—b’lieve it to the end of the world.”
“As if I ever doubted it! Now let me carry you right home, my little wounded bird. The sooner the better.”
“No, I tell ’e. Help me to my feet—now this instant minute, if you doan’t want me to go mad! Theer’s things hid—terrible things! I must go. He won’t wait for me; he swore it. Down to the gert beech he bides—Jan—Jan Aggett! Oh, help me, my own love; help me, Tim, for my body’s weak an’ I can’t rise up without ’e.”
“To him—help you to him!”
“I mean it. I can’t tell you nothin’. For the love of the Lard, doan’t talk no more. Oh, if I thwart un!”
She struggled desperately, like a trapped animal that sees dog or man approaching; and he helped her to stand, though now he scarcely knew what he did. Then the pang of a dislocated bone in her foot pierced the girl and she cried aloud and sank back breathless and faint with pain.
“I can’t go to un, so you must. Hasten, hasten, if ever you loved me, an’ mend the gert wrong you’ve done by bringing me to this. Speed down to the beech at the corner o’ the woods an’ tell Jan Aggett what have fallen out. Never mind me; my foot ban’t no account; but Jan—him—tell un I’m here against my will. Shout aloud through the peace o’ the night as you’m coming to un from me.”
Still he hesitated until her voice rose in a high-pitched shriek of impatience and she tore her hair and beat her breast. Then he departed and even ran as she screamed to him to go faster.
Once fairly started, Timothy made the best of his way to Postbridge for a doctor and man’s aid to carry Sarah to her home. At the dripping well beside the stile he stopped a moment and shouted his rival’s name till the woods echoed; but no answer came and he ran on, gasping, to the village.
Fifteen minutes later Timothy returned to the hill with a medical man and two labourers. Investigation proved that Sarah Belworthy had not been very gravely injured, though her mind was evidently suffering from some serious shock. She asked for Aggett on Tim’s return and, being assured that he had left the beech tree before her messenger reached it, she relapsed into silence. Soon the slight dislocation in her foot was reduced and she lay in comfort on the pallet that she had thought to press no more.
CHAPTER XI
A small boy, playing truant from his dame’s school, discovered the nature of John Aggett’s final action. The lad, seeking for those elements of mystery and adventure never absent from a wood, found both readily enough, where a great beech stood at the precincts of the pine forest. First a bundle in a red handkerchief with a stout stick lying beside it made the explorer peep fearfully about for the owner. Then he found him; and the small boy’s eyes grew round, his hair rose under his cap and his jaw fell. Lifted but a few inches above his head, and hanging by the neck from a great limb of the beech, was a man weary of waiting for a woman who could not keep her word.
In the earth they laid John Aggett, at the junction of cross-roads not far from his mother’s home; and they handled his clay roughly and, cutting a blackthorn stake from the tree by his cottage door, buried the man with old-time indignities and set no mark upon his grave.
For two years Sarah and Timothy were strangers after that night; then Farmer Chave passed to his ancestors and Tim found himself lord of Bellever Barton and a free man. In course of time he won the girl back—indeed little effort was needed to do so. Their wedded life is not recorded and may be supposed to have passed peacefully away. A son’s son now reigns in the place of his yeoman fathers; and his grandparents lie together under the grass of Widecombe churchyard. There, for fifty years an antique monument has risen above them, and a fat cherub puffed at a posthorn; but to-day gold lichens threaten to obliterate the manifold virtues of Timothy Chave and his lady as set forth on slanting stone.
And the other man rests lonely under the sloe tree; for its green wood grew and flourished to the amazement of those who set it there. Yet the purple harvest of that haggard and time-fretted thorn men still bid their children leave upon the bough; for the roots of it wind in the dust of the unholy dead, and to gather the flower or pluck the fruit would be to beckon sorrow.
‘CORBAN’
“’Tis a question which to drown,” said Mr. Sage.
He smoked his churchwarden and looked down between his knees where a mother cat was gazing up at him with green eyes. She purred, rolled half on her back and opened and contracted her forepaws with pleasure, while she suckled two kittens.
Mr. Sage’s daughter—a maiden of twelve—begged him to spare both squeaking dabs of life.
“They’m so like as two peas, faither—braave li’l chets both. Doan’t ’e drown wan of ’em,” she said.
“Thicky cat’s been very generous of chets in her time,” declared Mr. Sage. “If such things had ghostesses, you might see a whole regiment of ’em—black an’ white, tabby an’ tortoiseshell—down-along by the river come dark.”
“Even I shouldn’t be feared of a chet’s ghostie,” declared little Milly Sage.
But she had her way. One kitten, when it could face the world alone, was given to a friend who dwelt some miles distant at Princetown; the other grew into a noble tom of bold tabby design and genial disposition. His mother, feeling him to be her masterpiece, passed gently out of life soon after her son reached cat’s estate. She had done her duty to the feline community, and Milly mourned for her a whole week. But Mr. Sage did not mourn. He much preferred the young tom, and between the cat and the old man, as years passed by, there waxed a friendship of remarkable character.
“I call un ‘Corban,’” said Mr. Sage, “’cause he was a gift—a gift from my little girl when she was a little ’un. ’Twas her own ram cat, you mind, but as the creature growed up, it took that tender to me that Milly said as it must be mine; an’ mine ’tis; an’ what he’d do wi’out me, or what I’d do wi’out he, be blessed if I know.”
He spoke to his next-door neighbour and personal crony, Amos Oldreive, a gamekeeper and river-watcher for many years. Now this man was honourably retired, with a small pension and a great rheumatism, the reward of many a damp night on behalf of the salmon in Dart’s ancient stream.
At Postbridge these old people dwelt—a hamlet in the heart of Dartmoor—a cluster of straggling cots beside the name-river of that region, where its eastern branch comes tumbling through the shaggy fens beneath Cut Hill. Here an elderly, disused, packhorse bridge crosses Dart, but the main road spans its stream upon a modern arch hard by. The lives of Sage and Oldreive had passed within twenty miles of this spot. The keeper knew every tor of the waste, together with the phases of the seasons, and the natural history of each bird and beast and fish sacred to sporting. His friend’s days were also spent in this desolate region, and both ancients, when necessity or occasion drove them into towns, felt the houses pressing upon their eyes and crushing their foreheads and the air choking them. At such times they did their business with all speed, and so returned in thankfulness to the beech-tree grove, the cottages and those meadowlands of Postbridge by Dart, all circled and cradled in the hills.
Noah Sage and his next-door neighbour quarrelled thrice daily, and once daily made up their differences over a glass of spirit and water, sometimes consumed in one cottage, sometimes in the other. Their conditions were very similar. Noah had an only daughter; Amos, an only son; and each old man, though both had married late in life, was a widower.
The lad and lass, thus thrown together, came naturally to courtship, and it was a matter understood and accepted that they should marry when young Ted Oldreive could show a pound a week. The course of true love progressed uneventfully. Milly was plain, if good health, good temper and happy, honest eyes can be plain; while Ted, a sand-coloured and steady youth of a humble nature, leaning naturally upon distinction of classes for his peace of mind, had not a rival or an enemy in the world. Mr. Sage held him a promising husband for Milly, and Ted’s master, appreciating the man’s steadfast qualities, gave promise of the desired number of shillings weekly when Ted should have laboured for another six months at the Vitifer tin mines near his home.
Little of a sort to set down concerning these admirable folks had arisen but for the circumstance of the cat ‘Corban.’ Yet, when that beast had reached the ripe age of eight years and was still a thing of beauty and a cat of mark at Postbridge, he sowed the seeds of strife, wrecked two homes, and threatened seriously to interfere with the foundation of a third.
It happened thus: gaffer Oldreive, by reason of increasing infirmities, found it necessary to abandon those tramps on the high Moor that he loved, and to occupy his time and energies nearer home. Therefore he started the rearing of young pheasants upon half an acre of land pertaining to his lease-hold cottage. The old man built his own coops and bred his own hens, as he proudly declared. Good money was to be made by one who knew how to solve the difficulties of the business, and with greatly revived interest in life, Amos bought pheasants’ eggs and henceforth spent his time among his coops and foster mothers. The occupation rendered him egotistical, and his friend secretly regretted it; nor would he do likewise when urged to make a similar experiment.
“Doan’t want no birds my side the wall,” he said. “I’ve got a brave pig or two as’ll goody into near so much money as your pheysants; an’ theer’s ‘Corban,’ he’d make short work of any such things as chicks.”
Oldreive nodded over the party wall and glanced, not without suspicion, at ‘Corban,’ who chanced to be present.
“Let ’em taste game an’ it grows ’pon ’em like drink ’pon a human,” he said.
‘Corban’ stretched his thighs, cleaned his claws on a block of firewood, and feigned indifference. As a matter of fact, this big tabby tom knew all about the young pheasants; and Mr. Oldreive knew that he knew.
Sage, on the other hand, with an experience of the beast extending from infancy, through green youth to ripe prime, took it upon him to say that this cat was trustworthy, high-minded and actuated by motives he had never seen equalled for loftiness, even in a dog.
The old keeper snorted from his side of the wall.
“A dog! You wouldn’t compare thicky, green-eyed snake wi’ a dog, would ’e?”
“Not me,” answered the other. “No dog ever I knawed was worthy to wash his face for un. An’ he’m no more a green-eyed snake than your spaniel, though a good deal more of a gen’leman.”
“Us won’t argue it then, for I never knawed any use for cats myself but to plant at the root of a fruit-bearin’ tree,” said Mr. Oldreive, cynically.
“An’ I never seed no use for dogs, ’cept to keep gen’lefolks out of mischief,” answered Sage, who was a radical and no sportsman. He puffed, and grew a little red as he spoke.
Here, and thus, arose a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand. Noah Sage stumped indoors to his daughter, while ‘Corban’ followed with pensive step and a general air as though one should say, “I forgive, but I can’t forget.”
Three days later Mr. Oldreive looked over the wall, and his neighbour saw him, and put a hasty foot on some feathers.
“Marnin’, Sage. Look here—what I wants to knaw be, whether your blasted cat have took wan o’ my phaysants, or whether he haven’t?”
“Might have, might not, Amos. Better ax un. Here he be.”
Green-eyed innocence marked the fat round face of ‘Corban.’ He leapt upon the wall and saluted the breeder of pheasants with open-hearted friendship.
“What be onder your heel, neighbour?”
“Why—a bit of rabbit’s flax ’twas, I think. My sight ban’t so good as of old nowadays.”.
“Rabbit’s flax! ’Tis a phaysant’s feathers! Get away, you hookem-snivey Judas, or I’ll hit ’e over the chops!”
This last threat concerned ‘Corban,’ who was rubbing his whiskers against Mr. Oldreive’s waistcoat.
The ancient Sage puffed out his cheeks and grew as red as a rose.
“Ban’t the way to speak to any respectable, well-thought-upon domestic animal, an’ you knaw it, Amos.”
“Domestic!” echoed Mr. Oldreive, bitterly. “About so domestic as a auld red fox I sent off wi’ a flea in his ear two nights since. Domestic! He pretends to be to gain his private ends. Just a savage, cruel, awnself [119] beast of prey, an’ no better. Can’t shutt foxes, ’cause they’m the backbone of England; but I can shutt cats an’—an’—”
“Stop theer!” roared the other ancient. He trembled with passion; his under jaw chattered; he lifted his legs up and down and cracked the joints of his fingers.
“To think I’ve knawed ’e all these years an’ never seed through to the devilish nature of ’e! ’Tis sporting as makes men all the same—no better’n heathen savages.”
The other kept calm before this shattering criticism.
“Whether or no, I doan’t breed these here phaysants for fun, nor yet for your cat’s eatin’. No call to quarrel, I should hope. But keep un his own side the wall if you please, else he’s like to have an onrestful time. I give ’e fair warning.”
“Perhaps you’d wish for me to chain un up?”
“Might be better—for him if you did.”
“I doan’t want you in my house to-night,” said the owner of ‘Corban’ suddenly. “You’ve shook me. You’ve shook a friendship of more’n fifty year standing, Amos Oldreive, an’ I can’t abear to look upon your face again to-day.”
“More shame to you, Noah Sage! If you reckon your mangy cat be more to you than a gude Christian neighbour, say so. But I ban’t gwaine to fall down an’ worship thicky varmint—no, not for twenty men, so now you knaw.”
“So much for friendship then,” answered Noah Sage, wagging his head.
“So much for a silly auld fool,” replied Amos Oldreive, rather rudely; and they left it at that, and each turned his back upon his neighbour.
Not a word was exchanged between them for three days; then the keeper sent in a message by Milly, who trembled before her parent as she delivered it.
“Mr. Oldreive sez that ‘Corban’ have killed two more of his li’l game-birds, faither. An’ he sez that if so be as he goes for to catch puss in theer again, he’ll shutt un! Doan’t ’e look so grievous gallied, dear faither! I’m sure he never could do it after bein’ your friend fifty year, though certainly he was cleanin’ his gun when he spoke to me.”
“Shutt the cat! If he do, the world shall ring with it, God’s my judge! Shutt my cat—red-handed, blood-sucking ruffian! Shutt my cat; an’ then think to marry his ginger-headed son to my darter! Never! the bald pelican. You tell him that if a hair o’ my cat be singed by his beastly fowling-piece, I’ll blaze it from here to Moretonhampstead—ess fay, I will, an’ lock him up, an’ you shan’t marry his Ted neither. Shutt my—Lord! to think as that man have been trusted by me for half a century! I cream all down my spine to picture his black heart. Guy Fawkes be a Christian gen’leman to un. Here! ‘Corban’! ‘Corban’! ‘Corban’! Wheer be you to, cat? Come here, caan’t ’e, my purty auld dear?”
He stormed off, and Milly, her small eyes grown troubled and her lips drawn down somewhat, hastened to tell Ted Oldreive the nature of this dreadful discourse.
“He took it very unkid,” she said. “Caan’t deny as poor faither was strung up to a high pitch by it. Such obstinate, saucy auld sillies as both be. An’ if faither’s cat do come to harm, worse will follow, for he swears I shan’t have ’e if Mr. Oldreive does anything short an’ sharp wi’ ‘Corban.’”
Ted scratched his sandy locks as a way to let in light upon slow brains.
“’Tis very ill-convenient as your cat will eat faither’s game-birds,” he said; “but knawin’ the store your auld man sets by the gert hulkin’ tabby, I’m sure my auld man never would ackshually go for to shutt un.”
“If he does, ’tis all off betwixt you an’ me—gospel truth. Faither’s a man as stands to his word through thunder,” declared Milly. “An’ I ban’t of age yet, so he can keep me from you, an’ he will if Mr. Oldreive kills ‘Corban.’”
“Tu late for that,” answered Ted, very positively. “The banns was up last Sunday, as your faither well knaws. An’ who be he to stand against an anointed clergyman in the house of the Lard? Us was axed out to Princetown for the first time last Sunday; an’ I get my pound a week after midsummer, as I’ve told your faither. Then us’ll take that cottage ’pon top of Merripit Hill, an’ auld men must fight theer awn battles, an’ us shall be out o’ earshot, thank God.”
“Us be meeting trouble halfway, I hope,” she answered. “I’m sure I’ll keep a eye ’pon ‘Corban’ day an’ night so far as I can; but you knaw what a cat is. They’ve got theer own ideas an’ theer own affairs to look arter. Why, if you set p’liceman ’pon ’em, they’d only laugh at un. ‘Corban’s’ a cat as be that independent in his ways. He’ll brook no meddlin’ with—’specially of a night.”
“Well caution un, for he’ve got a ’mazin’ deal of sense. I hope he won’t be overbold for his skin’s sake, ’cause my faither’s every bit so much a man of his word as Mr. Sage; an’ what he says he’ll stick to. He’ve had to shutt a gude few score o’ cats in his business; an’ he’ll add your tabby to the reckoning, sure as Judgement, if any more of his phaysants be stolen.”
Thus, with common gloom of mind, the lovers separated and the clouds thickened around them. Their parents were no longer upon speaking terms, and tragedy hung heavy on the air. Then, in the deep and dewy silence of a June night, with Dart murmuring under the moon and the new-born foliage of the beech trees whispering their silky song, there burst upon the nocturnal peace vile uproar of gunpowder. Somebody had fired a gun, and the noise of it woke a thousand echoes and leapt with reverberations thrice repeated along the stone crowns of Hartland and Stannon and huge Broad Down.
Gaffer Sage rushed to his window, but could see nothing more than a puff of white smoke rising lazily under the moon. Trembling with dark misgivings, he crept back to bed, but slept no more. ‘Corban’ usually came to the old man’s chamber at dawn, when Milly opened the house; but though she was stirring before five o’clock on the following morning, no ‘Corban’ bolted into the cottage when she unbarred the door; no familiar friend padded and purred “Good morning” to Mr. Sage; neither did ‘Corban’ appear at breakfast—a course very unusual with him.
Noah could not eat his meal for anxiety. He pushed away his tea, rose and walked into the garden. Upon the other side of the wall Amos Oldreive was casting grain to his young pheasants.
“Where’s my cat to?” asked Noah Sage, bluntly. “I heard your gun explode last night. Did you shutt un? I’ve a right to knaw.”
Mr. Oldreive was clearly nervous and ill at ease, his sallow face needing wiping before he replied. But his eyes shone defiance; he pointed at the pheasants ere he answered.
“A month ago there was four dozen of ’em,” he said; “now theer be ezacally three dozen an’ two. An’ as for your cat, maybe I have shutt un, an’ maybe I have not, so now.”
“You ought to be stringed up for it, you grizzly, auld, crook-back coward! I knaw very well you done it; an’ you’ll awnly be sorry once, and that’s for ever. Doan’t suppose you’ve heard the last of this. But I must take thought afore I gets upsides with you.”
He turned, went into the house and spoke to Milly. The man had aged strangely in five minutes, his voice grew squeaky and unsteady.
“He’ve—he’ve shutt un. He’ve shutt my cat!”
Then Mr. Sage took his stick an’ walked out upon the Moor to reflect and to consider what his life would be without his treasure. He wept a little, for he was not a man of strong intellect. Then his painful tears were scorched up, and he breathed threatenings and slaughter.
He tramped back to Postbridge with a mind made up, and bawled his determination over the party-wall at Amos Oldreive’s back.
“Your son shan’t have my darter now—not if he travels on his naked knees from here to Exeter for her. No darter of mine shall marry the child of a dirty murderer! That’s what you be; an’ all men shall knaw it; an’ I pray God your birds’ll get the pip to the last one among ’em, an’ come they grows, I pray God they’ll choke the man as eats ’em; an’ if I weern’t so auld an’ so weak in the loins, be gormed if I wouldn’t come over the wall this minute an’ wring your skinny neck, you cruel, unlawful beast!”
Mr. Oldreive looked round and cast one glance at a spot ten yards’ distant, where the black earth looked as though newly upturned, near an apple tree. But he said not a word, only spat on his hands and proceeded with his digging.
A dreadful week passed, and Mr. Sage’s mingled emotions and misfortunes resulted in an attack of gout. He remained singularly silent under this trial, but once broke into activity and his usual vigour of speech when his old friend sent him a dozen good trout from Dart, and a hope that his neighbour would let bygones be bygones. These excellent fish, despite his foot, Mr. Sage flung one by one through his bedroom window into Amos Oldreive’s front garden; for what were trout to him with no ‘Corban’ to share them?
Behind the scenes of this tragedy Ted and Milly dwelt dismally on their own future. He clung to it that if the banns could but be asked a third time without interference, Mr. Sage was powerless; Milly, however, believed that she knew better.
“I be only eighteen,” she explained, “an’ faither’s my guardian to do as he will with me until I come of age.”
So they were troubled in secret until a sudden and amazing solution to the great problem came within a week of ‘Corban’s’ exit. The only apparent way to be Ted’s wife was opened through lying, and Milly rose to the necessary heights of untruth without a pang. She felt that good must come of her evil conduct—good not only to herself, but to her unhappy father. His bereavement had cost him dear. He still preserved a great, tragical silence, but from time to time hinted of far-reaching deeds when his foot should be strong enough to bear him up.
There came a day when Milly walked to Princetown, and, entering into the house of certain friends there, rubbed her eyes and stood astounded and open-mouthed before the spectacle of ‘Corban.’ It was no feline apparition that she saw, but a live cat, with bold tabby markings of alternate rabbit-brown and black—a cat with strong, flat nose, cold and healthy; four good, well-defined tiers of whisker on either side of his countenance; green eyes, that twinkled like the twin lamps of a little train when seen by night, and a tail of just proportion and brave carriage.
“Lard save us!” cried Milly; “however did ’e come by this here cat, Mrs. Veale? I had Mr. Oldreive’s own sacred word as he’d shutt un dead an’ buried un onder his apple tree.”
“That’s our butivul puss; an’ you should knaw how us come by it if anybody do, my dear, for you bringed it here in a basket from Postbridge when you was a li’l maid six year agone.”
Milly’s active mind was working too rapidly to allow of any reply for some moments. Then she told Mrs. Veale of the recent tribulation at home, and in ten minutes an obvious plot was hatched between them.
“’Tis a peace-loving cat, an’ if you butter its paws an’ treat it a bit generous in the matter of food, ’twill very likely settle down along with you. Of course, you shall have un for such a Christian purpose as to bring them two dear auld men together again. An’ the more cheese you can spare un, the more like he is to bide with you.”
So Mrs. Veale; and Milly answered:—
“‘Corban’ was fond o’ cheese, tu, an’ his mother afore him! ’Twas a family failing, no doubt.”
She scanned the cat narrowly and it mistook her attention for admiration, and purred in a soft, guttural, elderly way, and bent itself into a bow against her knee and showed much natural goodness.
“So like t’other as two peas!” declared Milly, not remembering that she had made exactly the same remark when this cat and its late brother were born. “Faither’s sight ban’t strong enough to part ’em if awnly this one behaves well,” she added.
It was decided that the girl should come early on Sunday morning for her tabby peacemaker, and meantime Mr. Oldreive and his son were to be acquainted with the plot. As for Amos, he was an easy man, and had not slain his neighbour’s poaching cat excepting under grave provocation. Ever since the deed he had regretted it, but he had never confessed to the actual crime excepting in the ears of Milly and Ted. Nobody had officially announced the death of his cat to Mr. Sage. Therefore, Milly hoped he would accept the stranger as his own, and suffer peace to return amongst them. The Oldreives, much cowed by Noah’s attitude and frightened by his illness, gladly promised to do all they might for his daughter, and when Sunday came, she started for Princetown after an early breakfast and left her father behind her. He was in better health again, and she noticed, as an unusual circumstance, that he appeared very full of his own affairs upon that morning, and clearly desired her room more than her company.
With a heavy basket she set off homeward by nine o’clock. Inside the wickerwork a new ‘Corban,’ after protesting once or twice at the narrowness of its quarters, curled round nose to tail, abandoned itself to the freaks of chance and digested an ample breakfast.
But midway between Princetown and Postbridge, where the road traversed the high Moor and stretched like a white thread between granite hills and glimmering marsh-lands, from whence the breeding plover called, Milly nearly dropped her basket. For along the way, in a borrowed market-cart behind his own brown pony, came her father.
“Why, where on airth be you drivin’ to, my auld dear?” she asked; and Mr. Sage, puffing and growing very red, made answer:—
“I be gwaine up-long to Princetown to holy worship.”
Now this was an action absolutely unparalleled. “To church! What for?”
“If you must knaw, ’tis that I may forbid your banns wi’ Ted Oldreive. No use to fret nor cry. I be firm as a rock ’pon it; an’ I be gwaine to deny them banns afore the face of the Lord an’ the people.”
“Why ever should ’e do such a cruel thing, dear faither?”
“Because no blood o’ mine be gwaine to mix wi’ that murdering villain’s.”
“He never told you he shot ‘Corban.’”
“D’you doubt it? Don’t the whole of Dartmoor know it?”
“Let me get up in the cart an’ sit beside you,” said Milly. “I want for you to look in this here basket.”
She leapt from the step to the driving-seat beside her father; then opened the basket. Grateful for this sudden light and air, her burden gazed out, yawned, showed perfect teeth, black lips, and a pink mouth; then jumping boldly on to Mr. Sage’s scanty lap, rubbed against him and purred deeply, while its upright tail brushed his chin.
“God’s goodness!” cried the old man, and nearly fell out into the road.
“Somebody must have took un to Princetown,” said Milly, outwardly calm though her heart beat hard. “Theer I found un none the worse, poor twoad. Now he’s twice ‘Corban,’ dear faither, an’ twice my gift to ’e.”
The old man was entirely deceived, as anybody even of keen sight might well have been. The curious friendship of the cat also aided his delusion. He stroked it, and it stood up and put its front paws upon his necktie and rubbed noses.
“Glory be! Now us’ll go home-along,” said Mr. Sage.
His dim eyes were dimmer for tears; but he could not take them off the creature. His hands also held it close. Milly picked up the reins and turned the brown pony homeward, much to his surprise and joy.
And ‘Corban’ II., as though ’specially directed by Providence, played its part nobly, and maintained the imposition. Mr. Sage begged Amos Oldreive’s pardon, and Amos, for his part, calmed his conscience by assuring Noah that henceforth his cat was more than welcome to a young pheasant whenever it had a mind to one. A little strangeness on the part of the returned wanderer seemed natural in Mr. Sage’s opinion. That he had apparently developed one or two new habits was also reasonable in a cat with as much new experience of the world. And meantime the wedding preparations were pushed on.
At the end of the week Ted Oldreive came home from Vitifer for Sunday; and he expressed joy at the sight of ‘Corban,’ once more the glory of his old haunts.
But the young man’s face changed when Noah and the cat had departed in company, and a look of frank alarm made Milly tremble before danger.
“Why, what’s amiss, sweetheart?” she asked, nervously. “All danger be past now, an’ the creature’s settled down as homely an’ pleasant as need be.”
“Matter enough,” said Ted; “’tis a ewe cat!”
“A ewe cat! Oh, Ted, doan’t say that!”
“’Tis so; an’ God send her doan’t have chets ’fore we’m married, else Postbridge won’t hold your dear faither—nor Dartymoor neither.”
“A PICKAXE, AND A SPADE, A SPADE”
CHAPTER I
Nearly two hundred years ago, when Miser Merle departed from life, his little corner of earth took heart and breathed again. Not that he had raised any very mighty mound of gold to stand between himself and the sunshine, but, according to his power, he had followed the traditional road of those similarly cursed, and though the circumstances of his life, as innkeeper of a small hostelry at Two Bridges by Dart on the Devon moors, made any huge accumulation impossible, none the less he was a right miser in grain, and died without a tear to balance his two thousand pounds of money. Some heartily cursed him on his unknown way; not one pretended to mourn his passing.
His wife was long dead—starved with cold on a winter night, so certain gossips loved to tell; his son the miser had driven out of England, and subsequent rumours of the young man’s death troubled him not at all.
So it came about that, when the “Ring o’ Bells” was masterless, an obscure maiden, who had dwelt there since Mrs. Merle’s demise, found herself possessor of all the money, for Miser Merle left no will. Minnie Merle was his orphaned niece, and when the old man’s unhappy partner shuffled off, he bethought him of this girl. As a relation, lacking friends or position, she would come without wages. So, from the position of domestic servant in a Plymouth tradesman’s family at three pounds a year, Minnie was exalted to be the handmaid of Miser Merle without remuneration of any kind.
“A man’s own flesh and blood,” he said, when first she came, “will understand, but I don’t want to poison your regard for me with money, or reduce you to the level of a hireling. You are my niece; you and Nicholas Merle, in the North Country, are all the kindred left to me now that my wife has been taken.”
So Minnie settled at the “Ring o’ Bells,” and, being young and healthy, survived conditions that had thrust her aunt untimely into the grave. The old man never trusted his niece again after a day upon which he caught her helping two hungry tramps to bread and cheese, because Minnie’s idea of a pennyworth was far more liberal than Mr. Merle’s; but she stayed at the inn, encouraged to the dreary necessity by local friends, who hinted to her, behind her uncle’s back, that such self-denial must in the long run find itself rewarded.
Then the Miser, who would not put on a pair of new boots while an old pair hung together, went through a long day wet-footed, and so received his death-blow. His last conscious utterance was a frantic petition to the medical man from Plymouth, when that worthy told him how all hope was vain.
“Then you did ought to take half fees,” he gasped. “As an honest man, so you did; an’ God’s my witness that, if you don’t, I’ll never give you no peace after I’m took!”
But the physician had a material soul, feared nothing, and held out for his bond after the patient’s departure. Minnie Merle, now a young woman of three-and-twenty, reigned at the “Ring o’ Bells,” and, with sense scarcely to have been expected from one of such youth and peculiar experience, she did wisely as maiden hostess of the little tavern. Albeit not lavish, she gave better value for money than Mr. Merle had given; the inn grew in popularity with the moor-men; and romance of an exciting nature hung about the place, because many husbands were in the air for Minnie, and as yet she had given no sign that the happy man was chosen. To discuss the subject with the woman herself was not possible for men, but Tibby Trout, an ancient gammer who cooked at the “Ring o’ Bells,” enjoyed the complete confidence of her mistress, and all that Minnie desired to publish she merely murmured into Tibby’s ear. The intelligencer had seventy years of experience behind her, and was considered even more artful than old.
Tibby enjoyed to serve in the bar, as a change from the kitchen; and at such times, when her mistress was not by, she would discourse, mete praise and blame, waken hope here, here chasten a mind grown too confident.
“Be it true, Aaron French, as you told a chap to Moreton that you knawed how the cat would jump?” she asked, on a night when the bar was full.
Aaron, a sand-coloured and a sanguine man, grew hot and laughed.
“Why,” he said, “a chap may put wan an’ wan together without any harm.”
“No harm except to hisself. The wan an’ wan you’m putting together in your foolish head—well, her may have named your name thoughtful-like now an’ again, but not these many days now. In fact, you’d best to say nought about her to anybody, for you’m awnly like to look a fule come presently if you do. That man at your elbow might explain if he would.”
Aaron French turned upon the labourer whom Tibby indicated, and sudden anger shook his high-pitched voice into a squeak.
“This be your work, then, Elias Bassett,” he said, furiously. “You to dare! You—the most penniless chap ’pon Dartymoor!”
The young man addressed regarded Aaron without emotion. Elias stood a head taller than his rival, was ten years younger, and very much poorer; but he had a handsome face, a sturdy body, and a stout right arm.
“You’m a silly poult,” he said contemptuously. “As if a sandy-headed little monkey like you would take any maiden onless he wanted her money. An’ Mistress Merle have got two pounds for every one of yours. As for me, I doan’t care a cuss for the stuff, and wish to God ’twas all drownded in Dart. All men know that I kept company with her afore her uncle died, never knowin’ as she was gwaine to have his ill-got money; an’ I wish her never had got it; for then her might have looked at me very like. But when it comed out her was up to her neck in gold, so to say, I knowed it must stand between us, and that a gamekeeper weren’t no husband for her.”
“You seed yourself as others seed you—an’ that’s a very rare thing,” said another man.
“All the same, you’re a zany for your pains,” declared the old woman, who had learned what she desired to learn. “You kept company with missus—you say so. Then ’twas her place, not yours, to say what was to be done after she was lifted up in the land. I doan’t mean for a moment that she’d look at a velveteen coat, so you needn’t fox yourself as you’ve got any chance at all with her—yet her did, careless-like, name your name to me among other chaps as didn’t ’pear to have learnt any manners in their bearin’ toward women.”
A strong pulse stirred Elias Bassett’s slow nature and made him stare at the withered old woman.
“No call to glaze like a gert bull wi’ your eyes so round as pennies,” she said. “An’ what’s more, you needn’t take no comfort from what I’ve told ’e. I reckon her ban’t for no Dartymoor market. Wi’ her mort o’ money an’ dearth o’ years, her can very well wait awhile wi’out jumping at the first clodpole among ’e as offers.”
At this moment a strange man came among them and the subject was dropped for that time, before the interesting spectacle of a face unfamiliar to all present.
The new arrival carried himself as one superior to his company. He was booted and spurred, held in one hand a pair of holsters, in the other a riding-whip. He gave no general salute to those present, neither did he order refreshment, but casting one quick glance about him, addressed himself to Gammer Trout and asked to see the mistress of the inn.
Nicholas Merle was a big, clean-shorn man, with bright eyes, quick movements, and the assertive manner of one accustomed to have his way. There was no contempt in his attitude to the folk assembled, but he took it for granted that he exceeded them in importance, even as his interests rose above their own; and not one among them questioned the assumption.
“Acquaint Mistress Merle that I am come—her cousin Nicholas from Yorkshire.”
Tibby curtseyed and went to do his bidding, while the new arrival out-stared each man present in turn, then went to the peat fire and kicked it.
“Give ’e gude day,” said Elias Bassett, in a friendly tone. “I daresay now this here lonesome auld Moor do seem but a wisht, pixy-ridden place to a gen’leman like you be.”
“It is very well, my good fellow—a little contracted, that is all. The wolds are more spacious, but a gentleman might make a living here if others would but let him. Does anybody with a fat purse ride this way?”
Elias and his companions stared, and the lower jaw of Mr. French fell until he appeared imbecile. Yet the stranger’s cynical hint brought up his listeners a little more on to a level with him. Their virtue owed it to itself to stand as high as his confessed or pretended rascality.
“That sort of talk leads to a hemp collar, mister,” murmured Bassett; but Merle shook his head.
“Mere talk leads nowhere,” he answered. “It is the fashion of you clowns to take a jest in earnest. But have no fear. I am not come among you with any such purpose as the road. To-day I have ridden from Exeter and, since leaving Moretonhampstead, saw nought but carrion crows and a fox or two. This place tempts no man to dishonesty. I can see upon your faces that you scarce know the meaning of the word.”
Gammer Tibby returned, and Merle, nodding in a friendly way to all present, followed her through the bar to the private chambers behind it. Then, hardly had the horseman clanked from sight, when Ostler Joe Mudge appeared with his mouth full of news.
“Wheer be the gen’leman to? Not here? Then I can speak. Aw jimmery, what a hoss—if ’tis a hoss! Never seed the like in all my years! Come an’ catch sight for yourselves, sawls, for you’ll never believe me. Eyes like a human, an’ a body all so bright as brimstone, to the last hair in the tail of un!”
While the loafers inspected a big horse of unusual colour, Nicholas Merle introduced himself to his cousin. They had never met before, and a deep interest and instant friendship wakened in Minnie’s breast for the only relation she possessed in the world. He was a tall, resolute man of thirty-five, with strange oaths and fatherly manner. He declared that chance alone brought him so far south, and that being at Exeter he had determined with himself to see his relations.
“Not until I reached Moreton did I hear of our uncle’s death; then I should have come no farther, but I knew of your existence, and thought I would at least get a memory of you. And a very pleasant memory it will be, Cousin, for you’re the queen of the Dartmoors, I hear, and so you should be. I never want to see a prettier maid.”
But these statements, despite the speaker’s convincing utterance and bluff manner of discourse, were by no means true. Nicholas Merle, chancing upon a journal nearly a year old, had read therein of his miser uncle’s passing; and he knew that only one life stood between him and the dead man’s fortune. So he forsook his usual haunts, to the satisfaction of better men, and galloped westward to look into the matter for himself.
CHAPTER II
Within less than a week of the young man’s arrival at the “Ring o’ Bells,” Minnie was heartily grieved that she had commissioned Mrs. Trout to hint a hope in Elias Bassett’s ear. She and the gamekeeper had indeed been close friends before her uncle’s death, and it troubled her that after the change in her fortunes Elias avoided the old intimacy and feared to be with her alone. Yet she admired him still, and more than ever, contrasted him with those who hummed about her like hungry wasps, since her prosperity. Now, however, to her secret shame, Minnie Merle began to see that she had dropped the handkerchief too soon. Upon the very day—within the actual hour—that Bassett received his polite hint, a greater than Bassett burst upon the vision of Minnie, and soon she hung on her cousin’s words, quite dazzled by the dashing manners of him, reduced to daily blushes by his gallant address and courtly fashion of love-making.
These things, however, Elias did not perceive; nor did the newcomer dazzle him. When the coach from Exeter to Plymouth left a box for Mr. Merle, and he blossomed forth next Sunday in russet and plum-colour, Bassett called him a popin-jay; and the keeper killed Minnie’s old friendship at a breath by telling her in round terms, with the forceful periods of that time, that her cousin was either less than he proclaimed himself, or more.
“Not a plain-dealer, an’ you’ll live to know it. Ban’t natural to bring chapter an’ verse to everything a man speaks, same as he does. No honest man wants a cloud of witnesses to his least act or word. He goes in fear for all his noise.”
“His way may not be ours, Mr. Bassett, but we’re a good deal behind the times, and it does not become you or any other man to call my cousin in question. He is very superior and genteel, I’m sure, and as for honesty, I never met a more honest man.”
“Ess fay, an’ you have; an’ you’ll find it out after you’m married to un, if not afore,” said Elias, bluntly.
Minnie flamed and frowned angrily upon the speaker.
“That’s a very rude speech, and I never expected to hear you say such a thing.”
“Wish to God I could say different. I’d tell a lot more against your cousin if I didn’t love you wi’ all my heart an’ soul; but, being so set upon you, I can’t speak with a free mind, so I’ll speak nought. Doan’t ’e be vexed wi’ me, my dear woman. You know right well as I’d go ’pon my naked knees from here to Lunnon town to do your pleasure. Awnly I ban’t blind, an’ I see how this dashing chap’s bold front have cowed us all round about. Love of you would keep a man true an’ honest if ’twas in the nature of un so to be, an’ I doan’t say but Nicholas Merle be right at root; but I mislike un, ’cause I’m very jealous for you, Minnie Merle, an’ I pray you’ll take your time an’ not jump into his arms fust moment he axes you to marry him, as he surely means to do come presently.”
The girl grew a little soothed before this soft answer.
“I’m sure you mean very well, Elias Bassett, an’ I’ll remember what you say, for it’s a foolish softness toward me that makes you say it. We’m auld friends ever since I came to Two Bridges, an’ I doan’t think no worse of you for speaking your mind. But you’m quite out o’ bias. Such a dashing man as my cousin do carry himself civil an’ polite to all, because he can’t help it. ’Tis his smooth custom. He wouldn’t think of me as a wife. Why should he—a maiden so rough of speech an’ manner? An’ li’l enough to look at, I’m sure, to an eye as have often been filled by town-bred girls. Doan’t ’e fret, theer’s a gude man. He’m awnly biding along wi’ us because he likes the strong air an’ the Devonshire cream an’ honey. He’ll be off as he came—all of a sudden some fine day, no doubt.”
But Bassett shook his head, and, indeed, facts presently proved that he was right, the girl mistaken. Nicholas made no haste to depart from the Moor. He took mighty rides over it upon his brimstone-coloured horse; he endeavoured to win the friendship of all men, and nearly succeeded, for he was generous and a good sportsman—sure credentials to the regard of the folk. Only Bassett and another here and there maintained a stubborn and doglike mistrust. Nor were the sceptics free of reasons for their attitude. Elias was laughed at as a man ousted from hope by a better-equipped rival, and the fact that his undue bitterness was naturally set to the account of defeated love, chastened his tongue; but in truth Mr. Bassett’s regard for Minnie had little to do with his emotion. He was an honest man, and not prejudiced overmuch against young Merle by their relations. Nevertheless he had a lodged loathing against him, read craft into his apparent candour, secret policy into his open-handedness, simulation into his great affectation of being fellow-well-met with all. A lad of no imagination, Bassett none the less went heavily in this matter, and was oppressed with the sense of evil at hand. A dull premonition, to which he lent himself reluctantly, spread events in their sequence before him ere they fell out.
Then accident presented him with a solid fact, and that fact, as is the nature of such things, opened the door to many problems. But some weeks before the day that his acquired knowledge set young Bassett’s brains upon the whirl, there had happened the foreseen, and Minnie was engaged to be married to her cousin. Liquor ran free on the evening of the great news, and few were those who left the “Ring o’ Bells” in silence and sobriety. Elias at least was not among them, for, faced with the engagement, he abandoned his antagonism in a sort of despair, told himself that it was idle to fight fate, single-handed, and so drank Minnie’s health far into the night and went home to his mother’s cottage as drunk as any man need desire or deplore to be.
The time was then late summer, and the wedding was fixed to take place at Widecombe in November. This matter determined, life pursued its level way, and Nicholas Merle, who appeared to have no business or affairs that called him elsewhere, dwelt on at the “Ring o’ Bells,” enjoyed the best that the inn could furnish him, and spent his time between courting his cousin, in a manner much to her taste, and riding far afield over the land. Sometimes she accompanied him on her Dartmoor pony, sometimes he went alone.
There came a day in the bar when Gammer Trout was able to furnish the company with a morsel of news.
“Master Merle got a packet by the mail essterday,” she said. “Fust as ever he’ve had since he comed; an’ not to his taste neither. ’Twill call him off, for he set his teeth and frowned when he read it, an’ said as he must be gone in a week an’ wouldn’t be back much afore the wedding.”
“Who might the packet have come from?” enquired Aaron French; but Tibby could not tell. She believed in her future master and gave the man a short answer.
“That’s his business. Us all have our troubles.”
“I be the last to speak anything but praise of the gen’leman,” declared Aaron. “Yet he is a man of mystery, an’ his goings an’ comings work upon no rule that a plain head can figure out to itself.”
“Done a purpose,” declared Joe Mudge; “nought goes home to a maiden’s heart like mystery. ’Tis meat an’ drink to a fansical female. A fellow do bulk large in the innocent eyes of women folk if they think he’ve got a hidden side to un—a side as nought but the moon do know.”
They returned to the subject of the packet; and then it fell out that, within half an hour of that time, the great fact already alluded to faced Elias Bassett, and an accident thrust the fortunes of a man and a woman into his hands.
As he left the “Ring o’ Bells” a little later, his mind upon the packet, Nicholas Merle himself set out on horseback, and galloped away in a direction that the keeper pursued more slowly on foot. And as he viewed the receding figure, a speck of white suddenly fluttered into the air behind it and fell upon the moor-path. Ignorant of his loss, the rider went forward, and Bassett, convinced that he had seen the identical object of recent discussion, marched along his way. His purpose, arrived at hastily, was to pick up the letter, conceal it, and give it to Minnie with the frank advice that she would do well to read it; but in the event he did no such thing, for as he stooped to gather up the paper, a thud of hoofs came to his ear and he saw that Nicholas Merle had discovered his loss and was returning to make it good if possible.
He dropped the writing unseen, a flash of wisdom leading to that course; but he did not do so until two words had chanced to fall upon his eyes—two words of such tremendous significance that they quite dazed the mind of Elias.
“Dear husband—”
He read that much, then moved quickly away from the letter and pretended to be picking and eating blackberries a hundred yards distant, as Merle rode past him with his eyes straining to right and left of the way. The rider banished his care and cracked a jest with Bassett; then, looking backward, without appearing to do so, Elias saw Merle dismount and clutch up his letter. A moment later he resumed his ride, and went whistling along upon his great, bright horse.
CHAPTER III
The first inclination of Elias Bassett was to meet his rival, man to man, and settle this outrage by force of arms; but after four-and-twenty-hours with himself he decided against that course. To do the best for Minnie without afterthought for his own gain was now the keeper’s duty. He put himself resolutely out of the question, and even debated whether he should impart his discovery to another, and so stand aloof from the necessary deed; but his nature would not go so far along with him. He was a man faced with a rascal and an enemy, and that rascal must be unmasked by him, not another. The work before him was in itself so congenial that to delay proved difficult. Therefore Elias quickly planned his course of action, and the hour for it. Yet he was disappointed, for on the morning of a day that he had fixed to confront Merle and break the evil news to Minnie, Nicholas himself departed unexpectedly. He was to be absent until the time of the wedding.
Upon this circumstance Bassett pondered through another day, then suddenly strange matters hurried his decision and anger opened his lips.
Returning by night to the hamlet of Two Bridges over the high Moor, Elias met Minnie Merle alone walking quickly toward the lonely gorges of West Dart, where the river roars and echoes under Wistman’s primeval wood of oaks. Darkness was already come, but a moon hidden under low clouds made all clear. Only the river, full after a freshet, filled the silence with ebb and flow of watery music, that waxed and waned upon the wind. The lonely wood, shunned even by day and held a haunted region by night, huddled there like a concourse of misshapen goblins. Huge planes of shattered granite sank from the hills to the river valley, and the red fox and shining adder alone found a home in this fantastic forest of humped, twisted and shrivelled trees. But to Minnie the desolate spot was good. She associated it with her lover; there, when the sunlight shone and little blue butterflies danced above the briars, Nicholas had asked her to marry him; and now, under gathering night, it was upon a secret errand connected with her cousin that she stole along when the keeper met her, to their common surprise.
“A strange hour for a walk, sure enough!” he said. “What wonnerful secret be taking you on the Moor at this time of night?”
“It be a secret,” she answered, “so ax me no more about it, an’ go on your way.”
“I’ll tell you another secret for yours, Minnie Merle. Wheer be you gwaine so quick?”
“To Wistman’s Wood—that much I’ll let you know—no more. Now go your way, Elias, like a gude man.”
“Ban’t you feared?”
“Not of Wistman’s Wood. ’Tis nought but a cluster of honest old trees.”
“Well, I’ll come along with you.”
“An’ I won’t let you. Three’s no company.” Elias stared and shifted his walking-stick from one hand to the other.
“Gwaine to meet somebody?”
“Why not?”
“What would your young man say?”
Minnie laughed.
“Since you ax, I think I may answer that he’d say I was in the right. Now you know enough—tu much. Leave me—I won’t have you go another yard with me.”
“I do know tu much for my peace,” he said; “but ’tis you who don’t know enough. I’ve waited a longful time to speak, but now I’ll do it, though I break your heart. Better that than ruination. This man—Nicholas Merle—he’m married, an’ that packet he got—’twas from his ill-served wife.”
“You coward; you liar; you wicked, venomous snake!” cried out Minnie. “To stand theer afore your Maker an’ hatch that lie for the ear of a loving woman! Oh! I wish I was a man; I’d tear—but he shall—he shall—he shall know it this night!”
Her passion revealed her secret. She saw what she had done, grew a little calmer and explained.
“This is the last time I’ll ever foul my breath with your name, Elias Bassett; but since you’ve surprised this out of me, I must say more. If you’ve a shadow of honour, you’ll keep a secret I swore not to reveal to a soul, yet have now revealed in anger to you. The fault was yours. When my true love went away, he told me that I might find to-day a letter in a secret spot known to both of us far away upon the Moreton road. I went there—rode my pony out this morning—and a letter waited me. I tell you these things that you shall breed no more lies against him or me. In that note he told me that he should be at Wistman’s Wood to-night at a familiar spot I wot very well. And he is to let me into gert news. Wonnerful things have happened to him. But he is supposed to be far away, and that he is tarrying here is my secret. And now you have surprised it out of me. At least I can trust you not to breathe of this to any living soul if ever you loved me.”