CHAPTER V
Before the snows melted and the first month of the new year had passed by, John Aggett and his master’s son were friends no more.
Of Timothy it may be recorded that he fought fiercely, then with waning strength, and finally succumbed and lost his battle. By slow degrees his intimacy with Sarah grew. Neither sought the other; but love dragged them together. The man hid it from his small world, or fancied that he did so; the girl blushed in secret and knew that what she had mistaken for love was mere attachment—an emotion as far removed from her affection for Timothy as the bloodless moonbeams from the flush of a rosy sunrise. A time came, and that quickly, when she could deceive herself no longer, and she knew that her life hung on her lover, while the other man was no more than a sad cloud upon the horizon of the future.
Frosts temporarily retarded the thaw, and Timothy and Sarah walked together at evening time in a great pine wood. A footpath, ribbed and fretted with snakelike roots, extended here, and moving along it they sighed, while the breath of the great trees bore their suspirations aloft into the scented silence. One band of orange light hung across the west and the evening star twinkled diamond-bright upon it, while perpendicularly against the splendour sprang the lines of pine trunks, dimmed aloft with network of broken and naked boughs, merging above into a sombre crown of accumulated foliage. Cushions of dead needles were crisp under foot and the whisper of growing ice tinkled on the ear.
“’Tis vain to lie—at least to you an’ to myself. I love ’e, Tim; I love ’e wi’ all my poor heart—all—all of it.”
Her breath left her red lips in a little cloud and she hung her head hopelessly down.
“God can tell why such cruel things happen, dearest. Yet you loved him too—poor chap.”
“Never. ’Tis the difference ’tween thinkin’ an’ knowin’—a difference wide as the Moor. I never knowed love; I never knowed as theer was such a—but this be wicked talk. You’ve winned the solemn truth out o’ me; an’ that must content ’e. I never could ax un to give me up—him so gude an’ workin’ that terrible hard to make a home for me.”
“What will the home be when you’ve got it? Some might think it was better that one should suffer instead of two.”
“I couldn’t leave him, out of pity.”
“You must think of yourself, too, Sarah—if not of me. I hate saying so, but when your life’s salvation hangs on it, who can be dumb? John Aggett’s a big-hearted, honest man; yet he hasn’t our deep feelings; it isn’t in him to tear his heart to tatters over one woman as I should.”
“Us can’t say what deeps a man may have got hid in him.”
“Yes, but we can—in a great measure. John’s not subtle. He’s made of hard stuff and sensible stuff. I’ll fathom him at any rate. It must be done. He shall know. God forgive me—and yet I don’t blame myself very much. I was not free—never since you came into my life and filled it up to the brim. He saw the danger. I confess that. He warned me, an’ I bade him fear nothing. I was strong in my own conceit. Then this happened. The thing is meant to be; I know it at the bottom of my being. It was planned at creation and we cannot alter it if we would.”
“’Tis well to say that; but I reckon poor Jan thought the same?”
“I’ll see him; I’ll speak with him man to man. He must give you up. Oh, if I could change places with him and find myself a labourer just toiling to make a home for you, I’d thank the Lord on my knees!”
“I wish I’d never seen either of ’e, for I’ve awnly made the both of ’e wretched men. Better I’d never drawed breath than bring this gert load of sorrow upon you an’ him.”
“You can’t help it; you’re innocent, and the punishment must not fall upon your shoulders. You love me better than Aggett; and that he must know in justice to himself—and us.”
“Then his life be ruined an’ his cup bitter for all time.”
“I don’t think so, Sarah. You misjudge him. And even if this must be so, it is only Fate. I will speak to him to-night.”
“Leave it a little while. I’m fearful to trembling when I think of it. ’Tis I must tell him, not you. ’Tis I must tell him I’m not faithful an’ beg for forgiveness from him. An’ if he struck me down an’ hurted me—if he killed me—I’d say ’twas awnly fair punishment.”
“He never would lift a finger, even in his rage.”
“Jan? Never—never. A fiery soul, but so soft-hearted as a li’l cheel. Ess fay, ’tis from me he should hear it, if he must.”
“It would be better that I should do this.”
Before they reached the stile, that stood under the great beech tree, each loving coward had prayed the other to leave the task alone; and finally both promised to do nothing for a short space. Then into the light they came, and Sarah, glancing upward, saw dim letters and a lovers’ knot like sad eyes staring from the tree trunk.
As a matter of fact, there existed no great need to impress the situation upon John Aggett. The man, if slow-witted, was not blind, and, indeed, agile enough of intellect where Sarah was concerned. For many days he had hesitated to read the change in her. His visits to her had been marked by gloomy fits of taciturnity, by short speeches, abrupt leave-takings, by distrust in his eyes, by rough mumbled sentences she could not catch, by outbursts of affection, by sudden hugs to his heart, by searching, silent scrutiny of her features and numberless reiterations of one question. He never wearied to hear her declare that she loved him; his only peace of mind was in the moments of that assurance daily repeated; and he approached to absolute subtlety in appraisement of Sarah’s voice and vocal inflection as she made answer. Until the present, her affirmation of love had rung truly upon his ear; now he felt a shadow behind the words and steeled himself to the change. Her lips said one thing; her voice and eyes another. He grew slowly to believe the signs and to realise that she loved him no more, or if a little, so little that she did not mind lying to him.
Over this earthquake in his life he brooded bitterly enough, yet the stroke of it, upon first falling, was in some measure broken by his knowledge of Timothy’s interview with Gammer Gurney. A fatalistic resignation arose from this recollection and manifested itself, for the brief space of a week, in John’s attitude to his fate. But as the nature of all he had lost and how he had lost it beat upon his brain, a great agony of reality soon caused him to brush the white witch and her predictions out of the argument; they were factors too trivial to determine the careers of men and women; and thus, from beneath the smoke of his brief apathy appeared a consuming fire, and the man’s passionate nature cried for a speedy and definite end to his torments.
Work upon the land was suspended under frost; but from the great barn in Bellever Barton came daily a hurtling of flails where threshing of barley kept the hands busy for many hours in each brief day. The flails gleamed like shooting stars across the dusty atmosphere of the barn, and when the sunlight entered, a sort of delicate golden cloud hung in the air, only to sink slowly away upon cessation of labour. Timothy Chave, too, laboured here. For something to occupy him he swung a flail with the rest, and made the old hands think better of themselves and their skill within sight of his clumsy efforts. Then it happened that Aggett, awake to an opportunity, suddenly desisted from work, pulled on his coat and accosted his rival. But he spoke for Tim’s ear alone and challenged no general attention.
“Set down your drashel an’ come an’ speak wi’ me a minute t’other side the yard.”
“Certainly, John, if you wish it.”
A moment later the meeting that Sarah had dreaded came about; but the results of it were of a sort not to have been anticipated. Aggett went straight to the point of attack and his temper suffered from the outset before the more cultured man’s attitude and command of words.
“You knaw full well what I’ve got to say before I sez it, I judge. I see in your face you know, Timothy Chave.”
“Yes, I do. It’s about Sarah. Things that must happen, must happen. I’m glad you’ve broached this subject, Aggett. Well, it stands thus; we are not our own masters always, unfortunately.”
“You can say that an’ look me in the face calm as a stone, arter what passed between us six weeks ago?”
“Six weeks—is that all?”
“Ess fay, though more like six years to me—six years o’ raging, roasting hell. Why do ’e bide here? Why do ’e take walks along wi’ she—skulking in the woods away from honest eyes like a fox? You’ve lied to me—”
“Don’t speak quite so loud, John. I cannot help the past. It was not my doing. I never sought out Sarah. We are all tools in the hand of Fate or Providence, or whatever you like to call it; we are puppets and must dance to the tune God is pleased to play. We’re not free, any of us—not free to make promises or give undertakings. Doesn’t this prove that we’re slaves to a man? I love Sarah Belworthy with all my heart and soul. That is not a sin. There is nothing in the world for me but her. I’m frank enough to you now; and if I lied before, it was because I thought I could control what was to come. I tried to keep my word. I turned from her path many times. I begged to be allowed to go away from the Moor, but my father would not suffer me to change my mind again. I swear I did my best; but loving is another matter. I might as easily have promised not to breathe as not to love her.”
“Words! An’ her—an’ me—?”
“It’s cursedly hard. God knows I don’t find it easy to answer you. But think: picture yourself in her place. Imagine that you found a woman you loved better than Sarah.”
“’Tis allus lifting of the burden on to other folks’ shoulders wi’ you. I ban’t agwaine to imagine vain things at your bidding. Dost hear me? I want the plain truth in plain speech. But that’s more’n you could give me, I reckon. The question I’ve got to ax, my girl’s got to answer. An’ I call her ‘my girl,’ yet, until I hear from her awn lips she ban’t my girl no more. Then—then—Christ knaws what—”
“If there’s any sort of satisfaction on earth, I’d give it to you. I know better than you can tell me that I’m a weak man. And I’ve hated myself for many days when I thought of you; but there it is—a fact beyond any mending.”
“Get out of her life, if you’re honest, an’ doan’t whine to me ’bout things being beyond mendin’! Go! Turn your back on her an’ let the dazzle of ’e fade out of her eyes an’ out of her mind. You knaw so well as me, that it ban’t beyond mendin’. She promised to marry me ’fore ever she seed the shadow of you; an’ you knawed it from the fust moment you set eyes on her; an’ yet you went on an’ sinked from manhood into this. You’m a whole cowardice o’ curs in the skin o’ one man, damn you!”
“You do right to curse. You will never feel greater contempt for me than I do for myself. I cannot go away. It is impossible—wholly above my strength. And the position is beyond mending, despite what you say—both for Sarah and for me. It is no crime in her to love me; the fault is mine, and if I had sworn on my hope of salvation to you, I should have broken my oath as I did my promise. Measure my punishment—that is all you can do; and I won’t flinch from it.”
“She loves you—better’n what she do me? It’s come to that; an’ you ax me to measure your punishment! You pitiful wretch! You know you’m safe enough now. She loves you better’n me. Theer’s your safety. ‘Struth! I could smash your bones like rotten wood, an’ you know it; but she loves you better’n me; an’ who be I to crack her painted china wi’ my rough cloam? I doan’t love her no less—anyways not so little as to bruise you, an’ that you knowed afore you spoke. Get out o’ my sight an’ may worse fall on you than ever I would bring. May the thing you’ve done breed an’ bite an’ sap the heart out of ’e like a canker worm; may it bring thorns to your roses, an’ death to your hopes, an’ storms to your skies; may it fill your cup wi’ gall an’ bend your back afore your time an’ sting you on your death-bed. May it do all that, an’ more, so as you’ll mind this hour an’ know if I’d scatted your lying brains abroad an’ killed ’e, ’twould have been kinder than to let you live!”
“I have deserved your hardest words; but forgive her—now that you yield her up; forgive her if ever you loved her, for the fault was none of hers.”
“You can think for her, can ’e? You can stand between me an’ her to shield her against the man as would have faced fire an’ water an’ all hell’s delights for her ever since she was a li’l dinky maid! You ax me to forgive her—you? Christ A’mighty! she’m a lucky woman to have a man of your metal to stand up for her against me!”
“I didn’t mean that, Aggett; only I feared—”
“Doan’t I love her tu, you smooth-faced fule? Do ’e think one hair of her ban’t so precious to me as to you? Do ’e think because she’ve took your poison I’m mazed tu? I’ve got to live my life wi’out her; I’ve got to bide all my days wi’out her—that’s enough. But she’d have loved me still if she could. Ban’t her sin that you poured magic in her cup; ban’t her sin that she won’t wear glass beads no more now she thinks she’ve found a strong o’ di’monds.”
“You’re a better man than I am, John; you make me see what I’ve done; you make me wish I was dead.”
“Liar! Don’t prate no more to me. I hate the filthy sight of ’e, an’ the sound of thy oily tongue. I’d swing for ’e to-morrow, an’ keep my last breath to laugh with; but for she. Tell her—no, that I’ll do myself. I’ll tell her; an’ no call for you to fear as your fine name will get any hard knocks. I’ll never soil my mouth with it more arter to-day.”
He departed, and the other, in misery and shame, stood and watched him return to the threshing-floor. Yet, as the unhappy spirit who has sacrificed his life to a drug and creeps through shame and contumely back and back to the poison, counting nothing as vital that does not separate him therefrom, so now the man felt that Sarah Belworthy was his own and told himself that his honour, his self-respect, his fair repute were well lost in exchange for this unexampled pearl.
CHAPTER VI
At nightfall John Aggett visited the cottage of the Belworthys, but Sarah was from home for the day and he had a few words with her mother instead. That astute woman was well informed of affairs, and the romance now proceeding had long been the salt of her life, though she pretended no knowledge of it. In common with her husband, she hoped for glory from a possible union between the cot of Belworthy and the homestead of the Chaves. But these ambitions were carefully hidden from sight. All the smith said, when the matter was whispered, amounted to a pious hope that the Lord would look after his own—meaning Sarah; but presently it behooved both parents to stir in the matter, when they learned of the subsequent meeting between their daughter and John Aggett. A very unexpected determination on the girl’s part resulted from that occasion, and the matter fell out in this way.
Before seeing John again, Sally had lengthy speech with her new sweetheart, and he, a little dead to the danger of so doing, detailed at length his conversation with the cowman and explained the complete nature of his rival’s renunciation. This narrative set Timothy in a somewhat sorry light, and the fact that he unconsciously bore himself as a victor added to the unpleasant impression conveyed. Had Tim declared his own sorrow and shame, blamed himself and acknowledged John’s greatness with wholehearted or even simulated praise, the girl had accepted the position more readily; but as it was, young Chave, whose fear of rousing her pity for John rendered him less eloquent upon that theme than he felt disposed to be, by this very reticence and oblivion touching the other’s profound sorrow, awoke that pity he desired to stifle. Indeed, his story moved Sarah unutterably. While her love for Tim was the light of her life, yet at this juncture her nature forced her to turn to the first man, and now she held herself guilty of wickedness in her treatment of him. An instinct toward abstract justice, rare in women, uplifted her in this strait; the stricken man clung to her mind and would not be banished. Even before Timothy’s subsequent abasement and self-accusations, she could not forget the past or live even for an hour in the joy of the present. The very note of triumph in her loved one’s voice jarred upon her. It was, therefore, with feelings painfully mingled and heart distracted by many doubts that Sarah met John Aggett at last.
He was harsh enough—harsh to brutality—and for some subtle reason this attitude moved her to the step he least expected. Softness and kind speech might have sent Sarah weeping to Timothy after all; but the ferocity, despair and distraction of the big flaxen man confirmed her in a contrary course of action. She put her hands into his, cried out that, before God, she was his woman for all time, and that his woman she would remain until the end. John Aggett strangled his reason upon this loving declaration—as many a stronger spirit would have done. He told himself that his gigantic love might well serve for them both; he caressed the wanderer in love and called upon Heaven to hear his thanksgivings. New rosy-fledged hope sprang and soared in his heart at this unhoped blessing, and for a few blissful days light returned to his face, elasticity to his step. He had steeled his soul to part with her; he had told himself the worst of the agony was over, but in reality the girl had come back into his life again before the real grief of his loss had bitten itself into his mind. Now, despite the inner whisper that told him his joy rested on the most futile foundations possible, he took her back as he had resigned her—in a whirlwind of emotion. And he assured himself that, having once yielded her up, neither men nor God could reasonably ask him to do so again.
Mrs. Belworthy it was who first penetrated the false pretence and mockery of the new understanding. Upon the strength of that discovery she communicated in secret with Timothy Chave, and bade him cultivate patience and be of good cheer despite the darkness of appearances. Sarah, indeed, shewed by no sign that she desired to turn from her bargain again; but the emptiness and aridity of these renewed relations could not be hidden. Even John grasped the truth after a fortnight of hollow lovemaking. He tried to reawaken the old romance, to galvanise a new interest into the old hopes and plans; but Sarah’s simulation too often broke down despite her best endeavours. Tears filled her eyes even while she clung most fiercely to him; her parents murmured their regrets that John should persist in ruining her life. Indeed, Mrs. Belworthy did more than murmur; she took an occasion to speak strongly to the cowman; yet he shut his eyes to the truth and blundered blindly on, straining every nerve and racking his brain to discover means whereby Sarah might be won back to the old simple ways, to her former humility of ambition and simplicity of thought. But any restoration of the past conditions was impossible, for her mind had much expanded in Timothy’s keeping; and this fact did Aggett, by slow and bitter stages, at length receive and accept. With heart the sorer for his temporary flicker of renewed happiness, he tore himself from out a fool’s paradise and abandoned hope and Sarah once for all.
“’Tis vain to make believe any more,” he said to her. “God knows you’ve tried your hardest, but you ban’t built to throw dust in a body’s eyes. Your bread’s a-been leavened wi’ tears these many days, an’ your heart’s in arms against the falling out of things. ’Tis natural as it should be so. We’ve tried to come together again an’ failed. Us can do no more now.”
“Leave ’e I won’t; if you beat me away from ’e like a dog, like a dog I’ll come back again.”
“Leave me you must, Sally. I ban’t gwaine to spoil your butivul life for all time wi’ my love, though you come wi’ open arms an’ ax me to. Go to un free, an’ take my solemn word as I’ll rage against him no more. I’ll know you’m happy then; an’ that must be my happiness. I’ll never forget you comed twice to me o’ your own free will.”
“You’m a gude man—a gert saintly man—an’ God knows why I be so pitiful weak that anything born should have come between us, once I’d promised.”
“Many things comes between the bee an’ the butt, the cup an’ the lip, men an’ women folks an’ their hopes o’ happiness. Please God you’ll fare happy wi’ him.”
“I don’t deserve it, if theer’s any justice in the sky.”
“Theer ban’t to my knowledge. Pray God He’ll be gude to ’e—then I’ll forgive the man. An’ the world won’t come to me for his character whether or no.”
She protested and wept; he was firm. For a little hour his lofty mood held and he completed the final act of renunciation before he slept. Knowing full well that Chave would never hear the truth from Sarah, he laid wait for him that night and met him in Postbridge at a late hour.
The men stood side by side in the empty, naked road that here crossed Dart by a pack-saddle bridge. The night was rough and cold but dry, and the wind wailing through naked beeches, the river rattling harshly over its granite bed, chimed in unison with the recent sorrow of Timothy’s heart. When Sarah announced her determination, the youth had threatened self-destruction and foretold madness. Neither one thing nor the other happened, but he was sufficiently miserable and his sufferings had by no means grown blunted on this night as he plodded wearily through the village.
Aggett, moving out of the darkness, recognised his man and spoke.
“Come you here—on to the bridge,” he said abruptly. “Theer us’ll be out o’ the way o’ the world, an’ can sit ’pon the stones an’ I can say what’s to say.”
“There is nothing to talk about between us. If you knew how much I have suffered and am still suffering, you’d spare me more words.”
“Aw jimmery! You’m a poor whinin’ twoad—too slack-twisted for any full-grown woman, I should have reckoned. But your luck be in. She comed back to me for duty; now she’m gwaine back to you for love.”
“Does she know her own mind, John?”
“Ess fay, an’ allus did arter you come.”
Now Aggett briefly explained the events of the past fortnight and his own determination concerning Sarah, while the younger man felt his blood wake from its sleep and race again through his veins. His treasure had not been lost and life was worth living yet. He had tact sufficient to make no comments upon the story. He spared John Aggett many words. But he gazed once or twice at the other’s heaving breast and wild eyes and told himself that the cowman was a being altogether beyond his power to understand. Then he crept away as quickly as he could and did not sleep until he had spoken with Sarah. On this occasion his account of events was framed in words of most meek and humble sort. He awarded Aggett full measure of praise, while upon himself he heaped sufficient obloquy, feeling that he could very well afford to do so as a price for this return to paradise.
CHAPTER VII
Now thundered upon John Aggett the full flood of his griefs at highest water-mark. Until this time hopes had alternated with fears, possibilities of recovered joy with the thought of utter loss. Then he had possessed Sarah’s promises and the consciousness that in his hands, not another’s, lay the future. But now John had departed out of her life for good and all, and the great act of self-renunciation was complete. To the highest-minded and noblest soul something in the nature of anti-climax must have followed upon this action. That one capable of so great a deed and such unselfish love possessed ample reserves of self-command and self-control to live his life henceforward on the same high plane by no means followed. Having by his own act insured the highest good for the woman he loved, John Aggett’s subsequent display sank far below that standard and indeed embraced a rule of life inferior to his usual conduct. A supreme unconcern as to what might now await him characterised his actions. As a lighthouse lamp illuminates some horror of sea and stone, so his notable deed shone in a sorry setting, for John Aggett’s existence now sank as much below its usual level of indifferent goodness as his relinquishment of Sarah Belworthy, for love of her, had risen above it. Until the present his attachment to the girl and hope of happiness had made him a hard-working man, and since his engagement he had laboured with the patience of a beast and counted weariness a delight as the shillings in his savings-box increased. Now incentive to further work was withdrawn, he abated his energies, lacking wit to realise that upon sustained toil and ceaseless mental occupation his salvation might depend. His final departure from Bellever Barton was brought about as the result of a curious interview with his master.
To Farmer Chave, young Timothy, now reestablished with Sarah, had come to break the news of his betrothal. But no parental congratulation rewarded the announcement. Mr. Chave knew every man and woman in Postbridge, and was familiar with the fact that the blacksmith’s daughter had long been engaged to his cowman. That his son and heir should favour a labourer’s sweetheart was a galling discovery and provoked language of a sort seldom heard even in those plain-speaking times. Finally the father dismissed his son, bade him get out of sight and conquer his calf-love once and for all or hold himself disinherited. A little later he acted on his own shrewd judgement and held converse with Sarah’s original suitor.
John was milking as the farmer entered his cow-yard, and a flood of sunlight slanted over the low byre roofs and made the coats of the cattle shine ripe chestnut red.
“Evenin’ to ’e, Aggett. Leave that job an’ come an’ have a tell wi’ me. I wants to speak to ’e.”
“Evenin’, maister. I’ll milk `Prim’ dry, ’cause she do awnly give down to me. Milly can do t’others.”
Farmer Chave waited until the cow “Prim” had yielded her store, then he led the way to an empty cow-stall—dark, cool and scented by its inhabitants. Across the threshold fell a bar of light; without, a vast heap of rich ordure sent forth delicate sun-tinted vapour; close at hand the cows stood waiting each her turn, and one with greatly distended udder lowed to the milkmaid.
“Look you here, Jan Aggett, you’m for marryin’, ban’t ’e? Didn’t you tell me when I took you on as a you was keepin’ company wi’ blacksmith’s purty darter?”
“’Twas so, then.”
“Well, I’m one as likes to see my hands married an’ settled an’ getting childer ’cordin’ to Bible command. What’s your wages this minute?”
“You’m on a wrong tack, maister. Sarah Belworthy an’ me be out. Theer’s nought betwixt us more.”
Mr. Chave affected great indignation at this statement.
“’Struth! Be you that sort?”
John reflected a moment before answering. He suspected his master must know the truth, but could not feel certain, for Mr. Chave’s manner suggested absolute ignorance.
“Us changed our minds—that’s all.”
“You say so! When a girl changes her mind theer’s generally another string to her bow. Either that, or she’s tired of waiting for the fust.”
“It might be ’twas so,” said John, falling into the trap laid for him. “A maid like her can’t be expected in reason to bide till such as me can make a home for her. I doan’t blame her.”
“Well, if that’s the trouble, you can go right along to her this night an’ tell her theer’s no cause to keep single after Eastertide. Yeo and his wife do leave my cottage in Longley Bottom come then, an’ instead of raisin’ your wages as I meant to do bimebye, I’ll give ’e the cot rent free. A tidy li’l place tu, I warn ’e, wi’ best part of an acre o’ ground, an’ only half a mile from the village. Now be off with ’e an’ tell the girl.”
Aggett gasped and his eyes dimmed a moment before the splendid vision of what might have been. It took him long to find words and breath to utter them. Then he endeavoured to explain.
“You’m a kind maister, God knows, an’ I’d thank ’e year in an’ year out wi’ the sweat o’ my body for such gudeness. But the thing can’t be, worse luck. Best I tell ’e straight. ’Tis like this: Sally have met another chap—a chap built o’ softer mud than what I be. An’ he’m more to her than me, an’—”
“God A’mighty! An’ you stand theer whining wi’ no more spirit than a auld woman what’s lost her shoe-string! A chap hath kindiddled the maid from ’e? Another man hath stole her? Is that what you mean?”
John grew fiery red, breathed hard and rubbed his chin with a huge fist.
“Ban’t the man I cares a curse for. ’Tis the girl.”
“Rubbishy auld nonsense! ’Tis woman’s play to show ’e the worth of her. They’m built that way an’ think no man can value ’em right unless he sees they’m for other markets so well as his. Do ’e know what that vixen wants ’e to do? Why, she’s awnly waiting for ’e to give t’other chap a damn gude hiding! Then she’ll cuddle round again—like a cat arter fish. I know ’em!”
John’s jaw dropped before this sensational advice. Now he was more than ever convinced that his master knew nothing of the truth. It appeared to him the most fantastic irony that a father should thus in ignorance condemn his son to such a sentence. Then Aggett put a question that shewed quickening of perception.
“If ’twas your own flesh an’ blood, what would ’e say?”
“Same as I be sayin’ now. Burned if I’d blame any man for sticking to his own.”
“It be your son,” declared John, shortly.
“I know it,” answered the other. “That’s why I’m here. You’m not the fule you look, Jan, an’ you know so well as I can tell ’e this match ban’t seemly nohow. I ban’t agwaine to have it—not if the Lard Bishop axed me. An’ I tell you plain an’ plump—me being your master—that you must stop it. The girl’s your girl, an’ you must keep her to her bargain. An’ you won’t repent it neither. Marry her out of hand an’ look to me for the rest. An’ if a word’s said, send him as sez it to me. I’ll soon shut their mouths.”
“Ban’t the folks—’tis her. She do love your son wi’ all her heart an’ soul—an’ he loves her—onless he’s a liar.”
“Drivel! What does he know about love—a moon-blind calf like him? I won’t have it, I tell ’e. He’s gone his awn way to long! Spoiled by his fule of a mother from the church-vamp[70] onward till he’ve come to this bit of folly. It’s not to be—dost hear what I say?”
“I hear. Go your ways, maister, an’ prevent it if you can. I’ll not meddle or make in the matter. Sally Belworthy have chosen, an’ ban’t me as can force her to change her mind.”
“More fule her. An’ between the pair of ’e, she’ll find herself in the dirt. ’Tis in a nutshell. Will ’e take the cottage an’ make her marry you? I lay you could if you was masterful.”
“Never—ban’t a fair thing to ax a man.”
“Best hear me through ’fore you sez it. If you’m against me in this, you can go to hell for all I care. If you won’t help me to keep my son from disgracing me an’ mine, you’m no true man, an’ I doan’t want ’e any more to Bellever Farm. ’Tis a wife an’ a home rent free ’pon wan side, an’ the sack on the other. So you’d best to make choice.”
“I’ll go Saturday.”
“Of all the ninnyhammers ever I saw! You gert yellow-headed cake, can’t you see you’m spoilin’ your awn life? Or was it that t’other side offered ’e better terms? If that’s so, you won’t get ’em, because Tim Chave’ll be a pauper man the day he marries wi’out my leave.”
The farmer stormed awhile longer, but presently he stamped off and Aggett returned to his mother. Then, as he had angered Mr. Chave, so did his own parent enrage him. She protested at his folly, and implored him to carry out his master’s wish while opportunity remained to do so. He was strong against it until the old woman went on her knees to him and wept. Then he lost his temper and cursed the whole earth and all thereon for a cruel tangle that passed the understanding of man to unravel.
Later in the evening he revisited the village and before ten o’clock returned intoxicated to his home.
CHAPTER VIII
From that day forward John Aggett exhibited a spectacle of reckless indifference to circumstances and a manner of life lightened only by occasional returns to sobriety and self-command. As to how it fared with Timothy and Sarah he cared not. Others ceased to speak of the matter in his presence, and thus it happened that he went in ignorance of events for the space of five weeks. During that period he loafed at the “Green Man” Inn until his money was spent, then returned to dwell with his mother.
Meantime Timothy Chave’s romance was prospering ill, despite his rival’s endeavour to make the way easy. Other obstacles now confronted him, and though Sarah was happy and well content to live in the delight of each hour with her lover, Tim found delay less easily borne and struggled to change Mr. Chave’s attitude toward his desires. But it proved useless, and the young man chafed in vain. He assured Sarah that his father was merely an obstinate elder and would surely be won to reason in good time; but the full significance of her engagement with Timothy, as his father viewed it, she did not know and never would have heard from Tim’s lips. There happened, however, an accidental meeting between Sarah and Farmer Chave himself, and this brushed all mystery or doubt from the girl’s mind, opened her eyes to the gravity of Tim’s actions and left her face to face with the truth.
One day Sarah, on foot, with her face set homeward, observed Farmer Chave riding back from Widecombe to Postbridge on a big bay horse. He saw her, too, eyed her narrowly and slackened speed, while she wished the road might open and swallow her from his sight. But there was no escape, so she curtseyed and wished Mr. Chave a very good evening. He returned the salute and seeing, as he believed, a possibility of setting all right on the spot by one great master-stroke, attempted the same.
“Ah, my girl, Belworthy’s darter, ban’t ’e? A peart maid an’ well thought on, I doubt not. Be you gwaine home-along?”
Sarah’s heart fluttered at this genial salutation. “Ess, maister,” she said.
“Then I’ll lighten your journey. I haven’t got the double saddle, but you’m awnly a featherweight an’ can ride pillion behind me an’ save your shoes.”
The mode of travel he suggested was common enough in those days, but such a proposal from Tim’s father frightened Sarah not a little. Her first thought was for herself, her second for her sweetheart, and she nerved herself to refuse the farmer’s offer.
“I’m sure you’m very kind, sir, but—”
“No ‘buts.’ Here’s a stone will make a splendid upping stock, an’ `Sharky’ can carry the pair of us without knowing his load be increased. Up you get! Theer’s plenty of room for my fardels in front o’ the pommel. Us won’t bate our pace for you, I promise. Now jump! Whoa, bwoy! Theer we are. Just put your arms around my flannel waistcoat an’ doan’t be shy. ’Tis well I met ’e, come to think on’t, for I wanted a matter o’ few words.”
Soon they jogged forward, the big horse taking little account of Sarah’s extra weight. At length they crossed Riddon Ridge and passed Dart at a ford, where Sarah had to hold up her toes out of the reach of the river. Then, as they rode along the foothills of Bellever, the farmer spoke suddenly.
“My life’s been wisht of late days along wi’ taking thought for my son Tim. You’ve heard tell of un? You see, ’tis my wish to have un mated wi’ his cousin. But I’m led to onderstand as theer’s a maiden up-long he thinks he likes better; an’ her name’s same as yours, Sarah Belworthy.”
“Oh, Maister Chave, I do love un very dear, I do.”
“So you done to that yellow man, Jan Aggett.”
“’Tweern’t the same. When Maister Timothy comed, I seed differ’nt.”
“Doan’t shake an’ tremble. You’ll never have no reason to fear me. Tell me how ’twas. Jan gived ’e up—eh?”
“Ess, he did.”
“Why for?”
“For love of me.”
“Ah! Now that was a brave fashion deed. I allus thought a lot of the man, an’ I’m sorry you’ve sent un to the Devil, wheer they tell me he’s bound of late days.”
“He’m a gude man, an’ I wish to God as something could be done to bring him back in the right road.”
“Ess fay! An’ you’m the one as would have to look the shortest distance to find a way to do it, Sarah. A gude example that man, for all his foolishness since. Loved ’e well enough to leave ’e—for your own gude, he did—eh?”
“God bless him for doin’ it.”
“Why doan’t ’e go back to him?”
“I cannot, I cannot now.”
“Well, man’s love be greater than woman’s by the look of it. What girl would have done same as that man done? What girl would give up a man for love of him, an’ even leave un for his gude? Not one as ever I heard tell of.”
“Many an’ many would for that matter. What’s a sacrifice if your love be big enough?”
“Be yours? That’s the question I’d ax ’e.”
Sarah’s heart sank low; Mr. Chave felt her shiver and the hands clasped over his thick waistcoat tremble. Looking down, he saw her fingers peeping out of woollen mittens; and upon one, sacred to the ring, a small gold hoop appeared with a coral bead set therein.
Sarah did not answer the last pointed question, and Farmer Chave continued:—
“I know you’ve promised to be wife to my son some day, an’ I know he’ve taken partickler gude care to hide from you my view of the question. But you must hear it, for your awn sake as well as his an’ mine. I’ve nothin’ against you, Sarah, nothin’, an’ less than nothin’, for I like you well an’ wish to see you so gude as you’m purty an’ so happy as you’m gude; but I know my son for a lad of light purposes an’ weak will an’ wrong ambitions. Ban’t enough iron in un; an’ the maid I’m set on for un have got a plenty backbone to make up for his lack. Her he’s to wed in fulness o’ time, if I’ve any voice left in affairs; an’ if he doan’t, ’tis gude-bye to Bellever for him, an’ gude-bye to more’n that. So theer he stands, Sarah, an’ you’d best to hear what it means. Maybe you thought you was makin’ choice between a labourin’ man an’ a gentleman, between a pauper an’ a young chap wi’ his pockets full o’ money. But ban’t so, I assure ’e. ’Tis the gentleman’ll be the pauper if he marries you; but John Aggett—why, I offered un my cottage in Longley Bottom free o’ rent from the day as your banns was axed in marriage wi’ un to Widecombe Church! That’s the man as gived ’e up for love of ’e. An’ ban’t you so strong as him?”
“Tu gude he was—tu gude for the likes o’ me.”
“Well, as to t’other, though he’s my son, blamed if I think he’s gude enough. But that’s neither here nor theer. The question ban’t what sort of love he’s got for you; but what sort you’ve got for him. Do ’e follow my meanin’? I doan’t storm or rave, you see—tu wise for that. I only bid you think serious whether your feeling for Timothy’s the sort to ruin him, or to save him from ruin. ’Tis a hard choice for ’e, but we’m all faaced wi’ ugly puzzles ’pon the crossways o’ life. Now you know my ’pinions, you’ll do what’s right, or you’m not the girl I think ’e.”
“I must give un up for all time?”
“Best not put it that way. Doan’t drag my rascal of a bwoy in the argeyment. Say to yourself, ‘I must mate him as I promised to mate—him that’s wastin’ his life an’ gwaine all wrong for love o’ me.’ ’Tis plain duty, woman, looked at right. Not that I’d rob ’e of the pleasure of knowin’ you’d done a gert deed if you gived Tim up; but t’other’s the man as you’ve got to think of; an’, if you do this gude thing, ’tis just similar as he done for you. Wi’ Jan Aggett be your happiness wrapped up, if you could see it. An’ Jan’s much more like to go well in marriage harness than my son be, or I doan’t know carater.”
“I’ll try, I’ll try. It’s more than I’ve heart or strength for, but I’ll try, Maister Chave. I’ll try to do right by both of them.”
“Who could say fairer? An’ here’s the lane to blacksmith’s, so I’ll drop ’e. An’ give your faither my respects an’ tell un I want un to-morrow to the farm.”
After Sarah had dismounted the farmer spoke again.
“Take to heart what I’ve said to ’e, an’ remember that to please me won’t be a bad action from a worldly side. Go back to Jan Aggett, Sarah Belworthy; that’s my advice to you, an’ angels from heaven couldn’t give ’e no better, ’cause theer ban’t room for two ’pinions. Now let me hear what metal you’m made of, an’ that afore the week be out. So gude night.”
The man trotted off with knees stiff and elbows at right angles to his body; the girl entered her home; and that night, tossing and turning wearily, thrice she decided to give up her lover and thrice determined to take no definite step until she had again seen and spoken with Timothy. But her heart told her that such a course was of all the weakest. Presently she assured herself that many plans might be pursued and that wide choice of action lay before her. Then John Aggett chiefly occupied her thoughts. To go back to him now appeared absolutely impossible. He had given her up, at a cost even she but dimly guessed, and to return into his troubled life again struck her as a deed beyond measure difficult and dangerous.
Long she reflected miserably on the sorrow of her lot; then, in the small hours of morning and upon the threshold of sleep, Sarah determined to let another judge of her right course of conduct and dictate it to her.
“’Twas the white witch, Gammer Gurney, as foretold Tim would marry me that terrible night,” she thought. “Then ’tis for she to say what I should do an’ what I shouldn’t do. If ’tis ordained by higher things than men-folk as I’m to have Tim, what’s the use o’ weeping ’cause Farmer Chave wishes differ’nt?”
There was a sort of comfort in this philosophy; but her grey eyes closed upon a wet pillow as she slept, to wake with sudden starts and twitches from visions in great aisles of gloom, from dim knowledge of horrors hidden behind storm-clouds, from the murmur of remote callings and threatenings and cries of woe, from all-embracing dread begotten of a heavy heart, and an outlook wholly dreary and desolate.
CHAPTER IX
With morning light Sarah’s decision to visit Gammer Gurney was still strong in her, and she determined to call upon the white witch before another nightfall. It was this enterprise that precipitated affairs and brought their end within sight.
Upon the evening that saw Sarah riding pillion with Farmer Chave, John Aggett had met the curate of Postbridge—one Reverend Cosmo Hawkes. The parson, who was a keen sportsman, came across John upon the Moor and improved his occasion to such good purpose that Aggett’s ears tingled before the man of God had done with him. They returned together, and on the way home Mr. Hawkes, with admirable pertinacity, so hammered and pounded the erring labourer, that he alarmed him into frank regret for his evil ways. The reckless and unhappy young man was steadied by his minister’s forcible description of what most surely awaits all evil livers; and when Mr. Hawkes, striking while the iron was hot, undertook to get Aggett good and enduring work at Ashburton, John promised to comply and to reform his bad courses from that day forth. The decision come to, he spent his last hours of freedom in folly. That night he drank hard, and when deep measures had loosened his tongue, explained to numerous “Green Man” gossips the thing he proposed to do. Afterward, when the overdose of drink in him had turned to poison, hope died again and his mother, listening fearfully at his door, heard him muttering and cursing and growling of death as the only friend left to him. In the morning he was oppressed by the immediate prospect of breathing the same air with Sarah Belworthy no more. He alternated between savage indifference and stubborn fatalism. In the first mood he was minded to depart at once; in the second he felt disposed to seek out Tim Chave and let the brute in him have its fling. He itched for batterings in the flesh. But he visited Postbridge, obtained the letter of introduction from Mr. Hawkes, and then seriously set himself to the task of preparing for departure. He told his mother that he would return within a fortnight, and she rejoiced, feeling his temporary absence a light evil as compared with his present life. But the truth, that he was leaving home not to return, she never suspected. All preliminary matters arranged, John Aggett bade farewell, lifted his bundle and set out, after an early dinner, for Ashburton, and as he passed Sarah Belworthy’s home and saw the straggling village of Postbridge sink into the naked web of the woods, a dark inclination mastered him again and passions that craved outlet in violence clouded down stormily upon his soul. But resolutely he carried his turmoil of thoughts along at the rate of four miles an hour, and quickly passing beside the river southward, approached Yar Tor and the road to Ashburton. Then, as there appeared the spectacle of Gammer Gurney’s cottage, standing in its innocent humility and forlorn loneliness upon the Moor edge, John observed a woman ahead of him and realised that the last familiar face his eyes would rest upon must be Sarah Belworthy’s. Guessing her errand, he slackened his pace that she might reach the cottage and disappear without knowledge of his presence; but as he walked more slowly, so did Sarah, though quite unconscious of the fact her old lover was at hand; and presently, to his astonishment, the girl stopped altogether, hesitated, and sat down by the wayside on a boulder. A determination not to avoid her now influenced Aggett. He approached, and, as he reached her and stood still, Sarah grew very pale and shewed some fear.
“You, Jan! An’ settin’ forth ’pon a journey by the look of it. Wheer be gwaine?”
“Out of this, anyway.”
“For long?”
“Can’t say as to that. I ban’t myself of late days—not my own man as I used to be. God knows wheer my changed temper’s like to drive me in the end.”
“’Tis the same with me, Jan. I doan’t know my duty no clearer now than afore. I’m torn to pieces one way an’ another, an’ theer won’t be much left o’ me worth any man’s love come bimebye. Sometimes I think I’ll run right away next giglet-market[84] to Okehampton, come Our Lady’s Day, an’ hire myself out to the fust as axes, an’ never set eyes on this place more.”
“Ban’t ’e happy yet, then? What more do ’e want?”
“My love’s a curse wheer it falls. I loved ’e an’ brought ’e to bad ways; an’ Tim—I’ve set his nearest an’ dearest against un. I seed Farmer Chave essterday, an’ he urged me by the Book to give un up.”
“’Struth! He said that, did he? But you didn’t fall in wi’ it, I reckon, else you wouldn’t be here now?”
“’Tis all to difficult for the likes o’ me. What’s a poor maiden to do? If I takes Tim, he’ll be a ruined man, ’cordin’ to his father.”
“’Twas a mean, cowardly trick to threaten ’e.”
“But plain truth—I could see that. A terrible tantara theer’ll be in Bellever if he braves the anger of Farmer. I’ve prayed an’ prayed—Lard He knows how I’ve prayed—‘pon it, but—”
“Prayers won’t help ’e; leastways, they didn’t me. I’ve lifted up far-reachin’ prayers in my time, I promise you, Sarah,—the best I could; but never no answer,—never so much as a Voice in the night to help a chap.”
“You done right to pray an’ you was led right, though you didn’t know it. An’ you’m well thought of for what you’ve done still, despite your fallin’ away arterward.”
“Never mind ’bout me. I be gwaine far ways off, an’ so like’s not us’ll never set eyes ’pon each other more. For me, I’d so soon end all as not. But for mother I should have got out of it afore now, for I ban’t feared o’ dyin’, an’ would go out o’ hand this minute. But you? Can’t the man help ’e? Do he know your fix? What the devil be he made of? Sugar?”
“He doan’t know yet that I’ve spoken wi’ his faither. An’ he’ve been careful to hide that his folks was against me. I s’pose ’tis natural they should be so.”
“Ess—not knowin’ you.”
“An’ in my gert quandary I was gwaine in to Mother Gurney here. She’s juggled wi’ my life afore, seemin’ly, an’ if any knows what’s to be the end of it, ’tis her, I should think. I want to hear what’s right an’ proper. I’m so weary of my days as you. Life an’ love be gall-bitter this way. Oh, Jan, can’t ’e say nought to comfort me? ’Tis more’n I can bear.”
She was hysterical, and he flung down his bundle and sat beside her and tried to bring some peace to her spirit. His heart was full for her and he spoke eagerly. Then he saw the gold and coral on her finger and stopped talking and put his elbows on his knees and his big sandy head down on his hands.
“’Twas what you done, ’twas same as what you done,” she said. “You left me for love of me; why can’t I leave Tim for love of him?”
“’Tis axin’ a woman to much.”
A long silence reigned. Wind-blown ponies stamped and snorted close at hand, and from a window in the neighbouring cottage a sharp eye watched the man and woman. Gammer was counting the chances of a customer, possibly two.
Fired with a glimmer of the hope that can never perish while the maid is free, John Aggett argued the advantages of obedience to Farmer Chave. He felt himself base in this, but Sarah was under his eyes, within reach of his arm. Her hot tears were on his hand.
“’Tis for you I be thinkin’, though you might say ’twas two words for myself an’ but one for you. I wants your sorrow turned into joy, Sally, if it’s a thing can be done. Leave me out—theer—now I’m not thinkin’ for myself at all. Leave me out, an’ leave him out, an’ bide a maid till the right man finds ’e. I lay he haven’t crossed your path yet. Give young Chave up for your own sake, if not his, an’ look life in the face again free.”
He continued fitfully in this strain, quenching his own dim hope remorselessly as he spoke, and she, hearing little save the drone of his voice, occupied herself with her own thoughts. Her emotions toward John Aggett had never much changed. Her love for Tim, being a feeling of different quality, had left her temperate if sincere regard for John unmoved. Possibly his own action in the past had rendered her more kindly disposed to him than before. There certainly existed in her mind a homespun, drab regard for him, and circumstances had not changed it.
Now as he strengthened her determination to give up her lover for her lover’s good, and despite the bitterness of her spirit before the sacrifice, she could find some room in her mind for the man before her. To-day the presence of Sarah awoke the finest note in John. His first dim hope was extinguished; he soared above it, resolutely banished any personal interest in the problem now to be solved, and assumed that Sarah had similarly obliterated him from all considerations of the future. But it was not so.
Presently the girl declared her mind to be made up and promised that she would break off her engagement. For a moment the other showed hearty satisfaction, then his forehead grew wrinkled.
“One thing mind,” he said. “My name must not crop up no more in this. Ban’t that I fear anything man can do, but theer’ll be no weight to what you sez onless you make it clear ’tis your own thought. ’Tis you I care about—an’ ’tis him you care about. I be gude as gone a’ready. ’Twas mere chance throwed us together, an’ none need know ’bout it.”
She was silent awhile, then put her hand out to him.
“I do owe you more’n ever a maid owed a man, I reckon.”
He took and held the hand extended.
“You cannot help what’s past and gone. Just call me home to your mind now an’ again—that’s all I ax ’e. Now I must be movin’, for I’ve got long ways to go to-day.”
Even in her misery she took a mournful pleasure in her power to command.
“Sit down an’ bide till I bid you go,” she said.
He obeyed, resumed the seat from which he had risen and tied and untied his bundle, but did not speak.
“If us could call back a year an’ begin livin’ all over again, Jan.”
He looked down at her, puzzled.
“A man would give his soul to go back a bit sometimes; but that’s about the awnly thing God A’mighty’s self can’t do, I reckon. ’Tis more’n His power to give back essterday.”
“He can do it His own way. He can help us poor unhappy creatures to forget.”
“So can a pint of old ale; not but them around about a man mostly looks to it that the raw of sorrow shan’t heal tu quick for want of callin’ to mind.”
“Jan, I’m gwaine to give him up. I have given him up for all time. I shall allus love him, Jan, because I must. But that is all. An’ you—you mustn’t go out into the world an’ wander ’pon the airth an’ maybe never come home no more through fault of mine. Ban’t fair as two men should break theer hearts an’ have theer days ruined for one worthless woman. What I am, I am; what I felt for you, Jan, I feel—no more, no less. ’Tisn’t I loved you less than I always did, but him more. If ’tis unmaidenly so to say, rebuke me, Jan.”
Thus she deliberately came into his life again for the third time, and he was overwhelmed. And yet his answer was one of almost savage fierceness. Joy shook him, too,—a sort of incredulous joy, as when one dreams rare things, yet knows that one dreams. The mingled emotions of the time upset his self-control, induced a sort of tense excitation and rendered his voice indistinct, hollow, mumbling as that of a man drunken or cleft in palate.
“That! That! You say that to me—arter all these long, long days! To come back now! God in Heaven, what a puppet dance ’tis! Now here, now theer—be your heart so light as thistledown? I doan’t know wheer I stand; I’m mazed as a sheep this minute. An’ you’d come back to me now?”
“I would, Jan. I will.”
“An’ live man an’ wife to the li’l lew cot offered us by the gudeness of Farmer?”
“No, not that. I couldn’t do that. You’ve a heart soft enough to understand. I’ll go with ’e, wheer you be gwaine—ay, this very day I will. But I can’t bide here. I must get away from—from mother, an’ faither, an’ all. Then us can send a packet to ’em from far off. Anywheer but Postbridge, Jan.”
“You’m in honest, sober, Bible earnest, Sarah?”
“God’s my witness, I be.”
“Then He’s my witness, tu, that I stand here a new man—an’ not shamed o’ the crumbs from t’other’s table. You to come back! ’Tis more’n my deserts—such a drunken swine as I’ve been since—”
He paused a moment, then his manner changed suddenly and he gripped the girl’s arm so hard and glared so wildly that Gammer Gurney from her window feared a serious quarrel and nearly rushed out to separate them.
“Mind this, then,” he said, with harsh intensity. “Mind this, now; you’m my whole life again,—body, an’ bones, an’ blood, an’ soul,—from this moment onwards. Theer’s gwaine to be no more changing now—no more altering your mind—or, by Christ, I won’t answer for myself. I ban’t so strong o’ will as I was, an’ since you’ve comed to me of your own free will, mine you’ll be till death ends it; an’ Lard help them as try to keep us apart now. Lard help ’em an’ deliver ’em from me. You’ve come, an’ I trust ’e—trust ’e same as I trust the sun to rise. But if you throw me over again, I’ll— No matter to speak on that. Awnly I’ll be true as steel to ’e; an’ you must play your part an’ look over your shoulder no more. You’ve spoke out o’ your heart, me out o’ mine; so let it be.”
She was alarmed at this outburst, uttered with almost brutal energy and in loud accents. But it served its purpose and impressed her vacillating spirit with the impossibility of any further changes.
“We’ve been up an’ down, him an’ me, full long enough,” continued Aggett. “Now, thanks be to a just God as I’d nearly forgot, you’ve come back to me an’ I could crow like a marnin’ cock to think it. An’ now what’ll please ’e to do? Will ’e come along o’ me this minute?”
“Ess—no—not now; but to-night I might. I must go home an’ put together a few things an’ pack up others. I can send along to home for my li’l box later.”
“To-night, then. An’, come next Sunday, us’ll be axed out in church at Ashburton straightway. Come to think, ’twould be better for you to bide along wi’ your folk until I be ready for ’e a week or two hence.”
“No—I—” She was going to confess that she could not trust herself, but feared his eyes.
“Why for not?”
“I won’t stop here without you. I’ll come. They can hear the truth after I have gone.”
“To-night, then,” he said.
“Wheer shall I meet ’e to?”
“By the beech—you know. Through the woods be the nearest road for us. To the gert beech, wheer I set our letters in a love knot. No better place. Theer I’ll come, an’ theer I’ll count to see ’e when the moon rises over the hill. An’ doan’t ’e keep me waitin’—not a moment, not the atom of a moment! I’ve gone through enough, an’ my brain spins yet to think o’ the past. Suffer more I can’t—no more at all. You’ll be sorry to your dying day if you’m late. Better never come than that. My head be full o’ strange things at this wonnerful happy happening,—strange things,—but I’ll say no more than bid you be to the beech by moon-rise, if ’tis true that you love me an’ not false. Be theer—or you’ll awnly repent it once, Sarah, an’ that’s so long as you do live arter.”
He exhibited little love now and less tenderness. It almost appeared that a mind long familiar with darkness was unable to accept and understand the light suddenly shed upon it. A note of impending catastrophe sounded in his words, seemed shadowed in his wild eyes.
“You fright me,” said Sarah. “You doan’t take me as I hoped you would. You ban’t your old self, yet. How should you be for that matter? ’Tis only poor second-hand goods I’m bringing to ’e.”
“Not so. ’Tis what I had first promise of. I’ll be all a man can be to ’e—all I should be. Forgive me for harsh words; but I be dazed wi’ this gert come-along-o’-it. I’ve been sore let for many days, an’ ’twill take time to make me see wi’ the old eyes when the brains in my head grow sweet an’ cool again, an’ the poison works out of ’em.”
They talked a little while longer, then the white witch from her chamber window saw them turn and together retrace their steps.
CHAPTER X
That highest hope, long abandoned, should thus suddenly return within his reach, staggered John Aggett, and went far to upset the man’s mental equilibrium. Indeed, it had been but a little exaggeration to describe his mind as, for the time, unhinged. The splendour of his changed position dazed him. Joy and bewilderment strove for mastery, and from a medley of poignant sensations was bred the passionate desire of possession, and a wild hunger to secure for his own what had been withheld so long.
Sarah Belworthy, for her part, experienced great turbulence of conflicting fears. Her mind was fixed, yet had something in it of absolute terror, as she reflected upon the recent interview. She had offered herself to him as a sudden inspiration; and now, retracing that fevered scene, John Aggett’s frenzy of demeanour alarmed her much, for it was a revelation of the man she had not encountered until then. Presently an answer came to her puzzled mind—a solution of a sort that made the blood surge hotly to Sarah’s face. Could it be that she had offered herself where she was wanted no more? Had John’s chivalry alone been responsible for his ready undertaking to receive her back? She nearly screamed in the silence of her little chamber at this thought; she desisted from her labour of preparation and flung herself upon her bed in secret shame. But reason quickly banished the fear. She remembered the man’s intoxication of joy, his delirious thanksgiving. She felt her bosom sore where he had hugged her to himself and praised the God of Justice. Next she retraced his subsequent display of passion, his extravagant utterances and threats. She realized very fully that he held the pending crisis as one of vital magnitude and knew that he was strung to a pitch far beyond any that previous experience of him had exhibited or revealed to her. She determined to give him no cause for further excitement and so returned to her work, wondering the while what this ingredient of fear might be that had entered into her emotions concerning him.
Anon her thoughts passed to the other man, and the last struggle began. For his own salvation she was leaving him, but with natural human weakness she much desired that he should know of her great sacrifice in the time to come. That Timothy should pursue his life in ignorance of the truth after she had departed was a terrible thought to Sarah; but, since to see him again appeared out of the question, there remained a possibility that he would deem her faithless and worthless to the end. She knelt and prayed that the nature of the thing she had done might be revealed to him in fulness of time; and then her mind grew active in another direction and she marvelled why she had thrown herself back into her first lover’s arms and not taken his advice to remain free of both. Her feelings toward Aggett eluded all possibility of analysis or understanding. She fled from them to the task of setting her small possessions in order and packing her basket for the forthcoming departure.
Sarah could not write, and she was unable therefore to leave any message for her parents. Their anxiety must endure for the space of a day and night, but might then be allayed. She pictured herself dictating a letter to the scrivener at Ashburton, and wondered what she should put in it.
As the time approached and the day died, the vision of Timothy grew clearer and more clear. She saw his grief and indignation, his sorrow and dismay; she knew every line in his face which would contract, every furrow that would be deepened, at this event; and she speculated drearily upon his course of action and shivered at the possibility of a meeting between the men. Her distraction did not obscure the drift of John’s last words, or blind her to the importance of keeping tryst at the beech, for he had made it clear that some disaster must overtake them if she delayed her coming beyond the rising of the moon. It wanted twenty minutes to eight when Sarah started to meet the partner of her future life; and as her destination was only a short half-mile distant, she allowed ample time to reach it.
Meantime Aggett had passed down the hill five minutes sooner. It was a night of broken clouds. Rapid motion in the direction of the zenith seemed imparted to the stars, as scattered vapour, driven before a light northwesterly breeze, passed across them. With ascending movement, the moon would presently mount a silvery stairway of clouds and pass swimming upward across one scattered tract of darkness to the next. The nocturnal world beneath was full of soft light and sweet spring scent. Nature’s busy fingers moved about those duties men see not in the act. From umbels of infant chestnut leaves she drew the sheaths, loosed the folds of primroses and wood anemones, opened the little olive-coloured buds of the woodbine’s foliage, liberated the chrysoprase spears of the wild arums from the dry earth. A fern owl whirred and wheeled about a blackthorn tree that stood alone near Aggett’s cottage door. Green leaves now clothed it, where a few weeks earlier blossoms had made the tree snow white. The spring green of field and forest and hedgerow looked wan under the increasing light of the eastern horizon; valleyward a mist, born of recent rain, wound sinuously and shimmered opalescent, while above all loomed a background of night-hidden Moor. Viewed at this distance the waste returned no spark or twinkle from the sky, but extended, darkly and gigantically, along the horizon and made the upper chambers of the air shine out the brighter for its own dimensionless obscurity.