Sam Bonus appeared the incarnation of red Devon earth, built up on solid beef and mutton. His tanned face was framed in crisp black hair that no razor had ever touched; his eyes were deep-set and bright; his narrow brow was wrinkled, not with thought, but as the ape’s. A remarkably tall and powerful frame supported Sam’s little head. He laboured like a horse and gave as little trouble, triumphed in feats of brute strength, laughed at a day’s work, never knew ache or pain. He had always greatly admired Blanchard, and, faced with the tempting bait of a florin a week more than his present wage, abandoned Monks Barton and readily followed Will to the Moor. His defection was greatly deplored, and though Will told Mr. Blee what he intended beforehand, and made no secret of his design to secure Sam if possible, Billy discredited the information until too late. Then the miller heard of his loss, and, not unnaturally, took the business ill.
“Gormed if it ban’t open robbery!” declared Mr. Blee, as he sat and discussed the matter with his master one evening, “an’ the thankless, ill-convenient twoad to go to Blanchard, of all men!”
“He’ll be out of work again soon enough. And he needn’t come back to me when he is. I won’t take him on no more.”
“’Twould be contrary to human nature if you did.”
“Human nature!” snapped the miller, with extreme irritation. “’Twould puzzle Solomon to say what’s come over human nature of late days.”
“’Tis a nut wi’ a maggot in it,” mused Billy: “three parts rotten, the rest sweet. An’ all owing to fantastic inventions an’ new ways of believin’ in God wi’out church-gwaine, as parson said Sunday. Such things do certainly Play hell with human nature, in a manner o’ speakin’. I reckon the uprising men an’ women’s wickeder than us, as sucked our mothers in quieter times afore the railroads.”
“Bonus is such a fule!” said Mr. Lyddon, harking back to his loss. “Yet I thought he belonged to the gude old-fashioned sort.”
“I told un he was out in his reckoning, that he’d be left in the cold bimebye, so sure as Blanchard was Blanchard and Newtake was Newtake; but he awnly girned his gert, ear-wide girn, an’ said he knawed better.”
“To think of more gude money bein’ buried up theer! You’ve heard my view of all ground wi’ granite under it. Such a deal ought to have been done wi’ that thousand pound.”
“Oughts are noughts, onless they’ve strokes to ’em,” declared Billy. “’Tis a poor lookout, for he’m the sort as buys experience in the hardest market. Then, when it’s got, he’ll be a pauper man, with what he knaws useless for want o’ what’s spent gettin’ it. Theer’s the thought o’ Miss Phoebe, tu,—Mrs. Blanchard, I should say. Caan’t see her biding up to Newtake nohow, come the hard weather.”
“’Wedlock an’ winter tames maids an’ beastes,’” said Mr. Lyddon bitterly. “A true saw that.”
“Ess; an’ when ’tis wedlock wi’ Blanchard, an’ winter on Dartymoor, ’twould tame the daughter of the Dowl, if he had wan.”
Billy laughed at this thought. His back rounded as he sat in his chair, his head seemed to rise off his lower jaw, and the yellow frill of hair under his chin stood stiffly out.
“He’s my son-in-law; you ’pear to forget that, Blee,” said Mr. Lyddon; “I’m sure I wish I could, if ’twas even now an’ again.”
Thereupon Billy straightened his face and cast both rancour and merriment to the winds.
“Why, so he be; an’ grey hairs should allus make allowance for the young youths; though I ain’t forgot that spadeful o’ muck yet, an’ never shall. But theer’s poison in bwoy’s blood what awnly works out of the brain come forty. I’m sure I wish nothing but well to un. He’s got his saving graces, same as all of us, if we could but see ’em; an’ come what may, God looks arter His awn chosen fules, so theer’s hope even for Blanchard.” “Cold consolation,” said Mr. Lyddon wearily; “but’t is all we’ve got. Two nights since I dreamt I saw un starvin’ on a dunghill. ’T was a parable, I judge, an’ meant Newtake Farm.”
Below Newtake Farm the river Teign wound, with many a foaming fall and singing rapid, to confluence with her twin sister in the valley beneath. Here, at a certain spot, above the forest and beneath the farm, stood Martin Grimbal on a bright afternoon in May. Over his head rose a rowan, in a soft cloud of serrated foliage, with clusters of grey-green flower buds already foretelling the crimson to come; about his feet a silver army of uncurling fronds brightened the earth and softened the sharp edges of the boulders scattered down the coomb. Here the lover waited to the music of a cuckoo, and his eyes ever turned towards a stile at the edge of the pine woods, two hundred yards distant from him.
The hour was one of tremendous possibilities, because Fate had been occupied with Martin through many days, and now he stood on the brink of great joy or sorrow. Clement Hicks had never spoken to him. During his quarrel with Chris, which lasted a fortnight, the bee-keeper purposely abstained from doing her bidding, while after their reconciliation every other matter in the world was swallowed up for a time in the delight of renewed love-making. The girl, assuming throughout these long weeks that Martin now knew all, had met him in frank and kindly spirit on those occasions when he planned to enjoy her society, and this open warmth awoke renewed heart for Grimbal, who into her genial friendship read promise and from it recruited hope. His love now dominated his spiritual being and filled his life. Grey granite was grey granite only, and no more. During his long walks by pillar-stone, remote row, and lonely circle, Chris, and Chris alone, occupied his brain. He debated the advisability of approaching Will, then turned rather to the thought of sounding Mrs. Blanchard, and finally nerved himself to right action and determined to address Chris. He felt this present heart-shaking suspense must be laid at rest, for the peace of his soul, and therefore he took his courage in his hands and faced the ordeal.
That day Chris was going up to Newtake. She had not yet settled there, though her brother and Sam Bonus were already upon the ground, but the girl came and went, busying her fingers with a hundred small matters that daily increased the comfort of the little farm. Her way lay usually by the coomb, and Martin, having learned that she was visiting Will on the occasion in question, set out before her and awaited her here, beside the river, in a lonely spot between the moorland above and the forest below. He felt physically nervous, yet hope brightened his mind, though he tried to strangle it. Worn and weary with his long struggle, he paced up and down, now looking to the stile, now casting dissatisfied glances upon his own person. Shaving with more than usual care, he had cut his chin deeply, and, though he knew it not, the wound had bled again since he left home and ruined both his collar and a new tie, put on for the occasion.
Presently he saw her. A sunbonnet bobbed at the stile and Chris appeared, bearing a roll of chintz for Newtake blinds. In her other hand she carried half a dozen bluebells from the woods, and she came with the free gait acquired in keeping stride through long tramps with Will when yet her frocks were short. Martin loved her characteristic speed in walking. So Diana doubtless moved. The spring sunshine had found Chris and the clear, soft brown of her cheek was the most beautiful thing in nature to the antiquary. He knew her face so well now: the dainty poise of her head, the light of her eyes, the dark curls that always clustered in the same places, the little updrawing at the corner of her mouth as she smiled, the sudden gleam of her teeth when she laughed, and the abrupt transitions of her expression from repose to gladness, from gladness back again into repose.
She saw the man before she reached him, and waved her bluebells to show that she had done so. Then he rose from his granite seat and took off his hat and stood with it off, while his heart thundered, his eye watered, and his mouth twitched. But he was outwardly calm by the time Chris reached him.
“What a surprise to find ’e here, Martin! Yet not much, neither, for wheer the auld stones be, theer you ’m to be expected.”
“How are you, Chris? But I needn’t ask. Yes, I’m fond of the stones.”
“Well you may be. They talk to ’e like friends, seemingly. An’ even I knaw a sight more ’bout ’em now. You’ve made me feel so differ’nt to ’em, you caan’t think.”
“For that matter,” he answered, leaping at the chance, “you’ve made me feel different to them.”
“Why, how could I, Martin?”
“I’ll tell you. Would you mind sitting down here, just for a moment? I won’t keep you. I’ve no right to ask for a minute of your time; but there’s dry moss upon it—I mean the stone; and I was waiting on purpose, if you’ll forgive me for waylaying you like this. There’s a little thing—a big thing, I mean—the biggest—too big for words almost, yet it wants words—and yet sometimes it doesn’t—at least—I—would you sit here?”
He was breathing rather hard, and his words were tripping. Managing his voice ill, the tones of it ran away from bass to shrill treble. She saw it all at a glance, and realised that Martin had been blundering on, in pure ignorance and pure love, all these weary weeks. She sat down silently and her mind moved like light along the wide gamut of fifty emotions in a second. Anger and sorrow strove together,—anger with Clem and his callous, cynic silence, sorrow for the panting wretch before her. Chris opened her mouth to speak, then realised where her flying thoughts had taken her and that, as yet, Martin Grimbal had said nothing. Her unmaidenly attitude and the sudden reflection that she was about to refuse one before he had asked her, awoke a hysteric inclination to laugh, then a longing to cry. But all the anxious-visaged man before her noted was a blush that waved like auroral light from the girl’s neck to her cheek, from her cheek to her forehead. That he saw, and thought it was love, and thanked the Lord in his clumsy fashion aloud.
“God be praised! I do think you guess—I do think you guess! But oh, my dear, my dear, you don’t know what ’s in my heart for you. My little pearl of a Chris, can you care for such a bear of a man? Can you let me labour all my life long to make your days good to you? I love you so—I do. I never thought when the moment came I should find tongue to speak it, but I have; and now I could say it fifty thousand times. I’d just be proud to tie your shoe-string, Chris, my dear, and be your old slave and—Chris! my Chris! I’ve hurt you; I’ve made you cry! Was I—was I all wrong? Don’t, don’t—I’ll go—Oh, my darling one, God knows I wouldn’t—”
He broke off blankly and stood half sorrowful, half joyous. He knew he had no right as yet to go to the comfort of the girl now sobbing beside him, but hope was not dead. And Chris, overcome by this outpouring of love, now suffered very deep sorrow, while she turned away from him and hid her face and wept. The poor distracted fool still failed to guess the truth, for he knew tint tears are the outcome of happiness as well as misery. He waited, open-mouthed, he murmured something—God knows what—then he went close and thought to touch her waist, but feared and laid his hand gently on her shoulder.
“Don’t ’e!” she said; and he began to understand and to struggle with himself to lessen her difficulty.
“Forgive me—forgive me if you can, Chris. Was I all wrong? Then I ought to have known better—but even an old stick like me—before you, Chris. Somehow I—but don’t cry. I wouldn’t have brought the tears to your eyes for all the world—dense idiot I am—”
“No, no, no; no such thing ’t all, Martin. ’Tis I was cruel not to see you didn’t knaw. You’ve been treated ill, an’ I’m cryin’ that such a gude—gude, braave, big-hearted man as you, should be brought to this for a fule of a gal like me. I ban’t worthy a handshake from ’e, or a kind word. An’—an’—Clem Hicks—Clem be tokened to me these two year an’ more. He’m the best man in the world; an’ I hate un for not tellin’ ’e—an’—an’—”
Chris sobbed herself to the end of her tears; and the man took his trial—like a man. His only thought was the sadness his blunder had brought with it for her. To misread her blush seemed in his humility a crime. His consistent unselfishness blinded him, for an instant at least, to his own grief. He blamed himself and asked pardon and prepared to get away out of her sight as soon as possible.
“Forgive me, Chris—I needn’t ask you twice, I know—such a stupid thing—I didn’t understand—I never observed: but more shame to me. I ought to have seen, of course. Anybody else would—any man of proper feeling.”
“How could ’e see it with a secret chap like him? He ought to have told ’e; I bid un speak months since; an’ I thought he had; an’ I hate un for not doing it!”
“But you mustn’t. Don’t cry any more, and forget all about it. I could almost laugh to think how blind I’ve been. We’ll both laugh next time we meet. If you’re happy, then I’ll laugh always. That’s all I care for. Now I know you ’re happy again, I’m happy, too, Chris—honour bright. And I’ll be a friend still—remember that—always—to you—to you and him.”
“I hate un, I say.”
“Why, he didn’t give me credit for being such a bat—such a mole. Now I must be away. We’ll meet pretty soon, I expect. Just forget this afternoon as though it had never been, even though it’s such a jolly sunny one. And remember me as a friend—a friend still for all my foolishness. Good-by for the present. Good-by.”
He nodded, making the parting a slight thing and not missing the ludicrous in his anxiety to spare her pain. He went down the valley, leaving her sitting alone. He assumed a jaunty air and did not look round, but hastened off to the stile. Never in his most light-hearted moments had he walked thus or struck right and left at the leaves and shrubs with such a clumsy affectation of nonchalance. Thus he played the fool until out of sight; then his head came down, and his feet dragged, and his walk and mien grew years older than his age. He stopped presently and stood still, staring upon the silence. Westering sunlight winnowed through the underwood, splashed into its sombre depths and brightened the sobriety of a grey carpet dotted with dead cones. Sweet scents floated downward upon the sad whisper that lives in every pine forest; then came suddenly a crisp rattle of little claws and a tiny barking, where two red squirrels made love, high aloft, amid the grey lichens and emerald haze of a great larch that gleamed like a green lamp through the night of the dark surrounding foliage.
Martin Grimbal dropped his stick and flung down his body in the hushed and hidden dreamland of the wood. Now he knew that his hope had lied to him, that the judgment he prided himself upon, and which had prompted him to this great deed, was at fault. The more than common tact and delicacy of feeling he had sometimes suspected he possessed in rare, exalted moments, were now shown vain ideas born from his own conceit; and the event had proved him no more subtle, clever, or far-seeing than other men. Indeed, he rated himself as an abject blunderer and thought he saw how a great overwhelming fear, at the bottom of his worship of Chris, had been the only true note in all that past war of emotions. But he had refused to listen and pushed forward; and now he stood thus. Looking back in the light of his defeat, his previous temerity amazed him. His own ugliness, awkwardness, and general unfitness to be the husband of Chris were ideas now thrust upward in all honesty to the top of his mind. No mock modesty or simulated delicacy inspired them, for after defeat a man is frank with himself. Whatever he may have pretended before he puts his love to the test, however he may have blinded himself as to his real feelings and beliefs before he offers his heart, after the event has ended unfavourably his real soul stands naked before him and, according to his character, he decides whether himself or the girl is the fool. Grimbal criticised his own audacity with scanty compassion now; and the thought of the tears of Chris made him clench one hand and smash it hard again and again into the palm of the other. No passionate protest rose in his mind against the selfish silence of Clement Hicks; he only saw his own blindness and magnified it into an absolute offence against Chris. Presently, as the sunlight sank lower, and the straight stems of the pines glimmered red-gold against the deepening gloom, Martin retraced the scene that was past and recalled her words and actions, her tears, the trembling of her mouth, and that gesture when the wild flowers dropped from her hand and her fingers went up to cover her eyes. Then a sudden desire mastered him: to possess the purple of her bluebell bouquet. He knew she would not pick it up again when he was gone; so he returned, stood in that theatre of Fate beneath the rowan, saw where her body had pressed the grass, and found the fading flowers.
Then he turned to tramp home, with the truth gnawing his heart at last. The excitement was over, all flutter of hope and fear at rest. Only that bitter fact of failure remained, with the knowledge that one, but yesterday so essential and so near, had now vanished like a rainbow beyond his reach.
Martin’s eyes were opened in the light of this experience. John came into his mind, and estimating his brother’s sufferings by his own, the stricken man found room in his sad heart for pity.
Under conditions of spring and summer Newtake Farm flattered Will’s hopes not a little. He worked like a giant, appropriated some of that credit belonging to fine weather, and viewed the future with very considerable tranquillity. Of beasts he purchased wisely, being guided in that matter by Mr. Lyddon; but for the rest he was content to take his own advice. Already his ambition extended beyond the present limits of his domain; already he contemplated the possibility of reclaiming some of the outlying waste and enlarging his borders. If the Duchy might spread greedy fingers and inclose “newtakes,” why not the Venville tenants? Many besides Will asked themselves that question; the position was indeed fruitful of disputes in various districts, especially on certain questions involving cattle; and no moorland Quarter breathed forth greater discontent against the powers than that of which Chagford was the central parish.
Sam Bonus, inspired by his master’s sanguine survey of life, toiled amain, believed all that Will predicted, and approved each enterprise he planned; while as for Chris, in due time she settled at Newtake and undertook woman’s work there with her customary thoroughness and energy. To her lot fell the poultry, the pair of fox-hound puppies that Will undertook to keep for the neighbouring hunt, and all the interior economy and control of the little household.
On Sundays Phoebe heard of the splendid doings at Newtake; upon which she envied Chris her labours, and longed to be at Will’s right hand. For the present, however, Miller Lyddon refused his daughter permission even to visit the farm; and she obeyed, despite her husband’s indignant protests.
Thus matters stood while the sun shone brightly from summer skies. Will, when he visited Chagford market, talked to the grizzled farmers, elaborated his experience, shook his head or nodded it knowingly as they, in their turn, discussed the business of life, paid due respect to their wisdom, and offered a little of his own in exchange for it. That the older men lacked pluck was his secret conviction. The valley folk were braver; but the upland agriculturists, all save himself, went in fear. Their eyes were careworn, their caution extreme; behind the summer they saw another shadow forever moving; and the annual struggle with those ice-bound or water-logged months of the early year, while as yet the Moor had nothing for their stock, left them wearied and spiritless when the splendour of the summer came. They farmed furtively, snatching at such good as appeared, distrusting their own husbandry, fattening the land with reluctance, cowering under the shadow of withered hopes and disappointments too numerous to count. Will pitied this mean spirit and, unfamiliar with wet autumns and hard winters on the high land, laughed at his fellow-countrymen. But they were kind and bid him be cautious and keep his little nest-egg snug.
“Tie it up in stout leather, my son,” said a farmer from Gidleigh. “Ay, an’ fasten the bag wi’ a knot as’ll take ’e half an hour to undo; an’ remember, the less you open it, the better for your peace of mind.”
All of which good counsel Blanchard received with expressions of gratitude, yet secretly held to be but the croaking of a past generation, stranded far behind that wave of progress on which he himself was advancing crest-high.
It happened one evening, when Clement Hicks visited Newtake to go for a walk under the full moon with Chris, that he learnt she was away for a few days. This fact had been mentioned to Clement; but he forgot it, and now found himself here, with only Will and Sam Bonus for company. He accepted the young farmer’s invitation to supper, and the result proved unlucky in more directions than one. During this meal Clem railed in surly vein against the whole order of things as it affected himself, and made egotistical complaint as to the hardness of life; then, when his host began to offer advice, he grew savage and taunted Will with his own unearned good fortune. Blanchard, weary after a day of tremendous physical exertion, made sharp answer. He felt his old admiration for Clem Hicks much lessened of late, and it nettled him not a little that his friend should thus attribute his present position to the mere accident of a windfall. He was heartily sick of the other’s endless complaints, and now spoke roughly and to the point.
“What the devil’s the gude of this eternal bleat? You’m allus snarlin’ an’ gnashin’ your teeth ’gainst God, like a rat bitin’ the stick that’s killin’ it.”
“And why should God kill me? You’ve grown so wise of late, perhaps you know.”
“Why shouldn’t He? Why shouldn’t He kill you, or any other man, if He wants the room of un for a better? Not that I believe parson’s stuff more ’n you; but grizzlin’ your guts to fiddlestrings won’t mend your fortune. Best to put your time into work, ’stead o’ talk—same as me an’ Bonus. And as for my money, you knaw right well if theer’d been two thousand ’stead of wan, I’d have shared it with Chris.”
“Easy to say! If there had been two, you would have said, ’If it was only four’! That’s human nature.”
“Ban’t my nature, anyway, to tell a lie!” burst out Will.
“Perhaps it’s your nature to do worse. What were you about last Christmas?”
Blanchard set down knife and fork and looked the other in the face. None had heard this, for Bonus, his meal ended, went off to the little tallet over a cattle-byre which was his private apartment.
“You’d rip that up again—you, who swore never to open’ your mouth upon it?”
“You’re frightened now.”
“Not of you, anyway. But you’d best not to come up here no more. I’m weary of you; I don’t fear you worse than a blind worm; but such as you are, you’ve grawed against me since my luck comed. I wish Chris would drop you as easy as I can, for you’m teachin’ her to waste her life, same as you waste yours.”
“Very well, I’ll go. We’re enemies henceforth, since you wish it so.”
“Blamed if you ban’t enough to weary Job! ’Enemies’! It’s like a child talkin’. ’Enemies’! D’you think I care a damn wan way or t’other? You’m so bad as Jan Grimbal wi’ his big play-actin’ talk. He’m gwaine to cut my tether some day. P’r’aps you’ll go an’ help un to do it! The past is done, an’ no man who weern’t devil all through would go back on such a oath as you sweared to me. An’ you won’t. As to what’s to come, you can’t hurt a straight plain-dealer, same as me, though you’m free an’ welcome to try if you please to.”
“The future may take care of itself; and for your straight speaking I’ll give you mine. Go your way and I’ll go my way; but until you beg my forgiveness for this night’s talk I’ll never cross your threshold again, or speak to you, or think of you.”
Clement rose from his unfinished food, picked up his hat, and vanished, and Will, dismissing the matter with a toss of his head and a contemptuous expiration of breath, gave the poet’s plate of cold potato and bacon to a sheep-dog and lighted his pipe.
Not ten hours later, while yet some irritation at the beekeeper’s spleen troubled Blanchard’s thoughts as he laboured upon his land, a voice saluted him from the highway and he saw a friend.
“An’ gude-marnin’ to you, Martin. Another braave day, sure ’nough. Climb awver the hedge. You’m movin’ early. Ban’t eight o’clock.”
“I’m off to the ‘Grey Wethers,’ those old ruined circles under Sittaford Tor, you know. But I meant a visit to you as well. Bonus was in the farmyard and brought me with him.”
“Ess fay, us works, I tell ’e. We’m fightin’ the rabbits now. The li’l varmints have had it all theer way tu long; but this wire netting’ll keep ’em out the corn next year an’ the turnips come autumn. How be you fearin’? I aint seen ’e this longful time.”
“Well, thank you; and as busy as you in my way. I’m going to write a book about the Dartmoor stones.”
“’S truth! Be you? Who’ll read it?”
“Don’t know yet. And, after all, I have found out little that sharper eyes haven’t discovered already. Still, it fills my time. And it is that I’m here about.”
“You can go down awver my land to the hut-circles an’ welcome whenever you mind to.”
“Sure of it, and thank you; but it’s another thing just now—your brother-in-law to be. I think perhaps, if he has leisure, he might be useful to me. A very clever fellow, Hicks.”
But Will was in no humour to hear Clement praised just then, or suggest schemes for his advancement.
“He’m a weak sapling of a man, if you ax me. Allus grumblin’, an’ soft wi’ it—as I knaw—none better,” said Blanchard, watching Bonus struggle with the rabbit netting.
“He’s out of his element, I think—a student—a bookish man, like myself.”
“As like you as chalk’s like cheese—no more. His temper, tu! A bull in spring’s a fule to him. I’m weary of him an’ his cleverness.”
“You see, if I may venture to say so, Chris—”
“I knaw all ’bout that. ’Tis like your gudeness to try an’ put a li’l money in his pocket wi’out stepping on his corns. They ’m tokened. Young people ’s so muddle-headed. Bees indeed! Nice things to keep a wife an’ bring up a fam’ly on! An’ he do nothin’ but write rhymes, an’ tear ’em up again, an’ cuss his luck, wi’out tryin’ to mend it. I thought something of un wance, when I was no more ’n a bwoy, but as I get up in years I see the emptiness of un.”
“He would grow happy and sweeter-hearted if he could marry your sister.”
“Not him! Of course, if it’s got to be, it will be. I ban’t gwaine to see Chris graw into an auld maid. An’ come bimebye, when I’ve saved a few hunderd, I shall set ’em up myself. But she’s makin’ a big mistake, an’, to a friend, I doan’t mind tellin’ ’e ’tis so.”
“I hope you’re wrong. They’ll be happy together. They have great love each for the other. But, of course, that’s nothing to do with me. I merely want Hicks to undertake some clerical work for me, as a matter of business, and I thought you might tell me the best way to tackle him without hurting his feelings. He’s a proud man, I fancy.”
“Ess; an’ pride’s a purty fulish coat for poverty, ban’t it? I’ve gived that man as gude advice as ever I gived any man; but what’s well-thought-out wisdom to the likes of him? Get un a job if you mind to. I shouldn’t—not till he shaws better metal and grips the facts o’ life wi’ a tighter hand.”
“I’ll sound him as delicately as I can. It may be that his self-respect would strengthen if he found his talents appreciated and able to command a little money. He wants something of that sort—eh?”
“Doan’t knaw but what a hiding wouldn’t be so gude for un as anything,” mused Will. There was no animosity in the reflection. His ill-temper had long since vanished, and he considered Clement as he might have considered a young, wayward dog which had erred and brought itself within reach of the lash.
“I was welted in my time hard an’ often, an’ be none the worse,” he continued.
Martin smiled and shook his head.
“Might have served him once; too late now for that remedy, I fear.”
There was a brief pause, then Will changed the conversation abruptly.
“How’s your brother Jan?” he asked.
“He’s furnishing his new house and busy about the formation of a volunteer corps. I met him not long since in Fingle Gorge.”
“Be you friends now, if I may ax?”
“I tried to be. We live and learn. Things happened to me a while ago that taught me what I didn’t know. I spoke to him and reminded him of the long years in Africa. Blood’s thicker than water, Blanchard.”
“So ’tis. What did he make of it?”
“He looked up and hesitated. Then he shook his head and set his face against me, and said he would not have my friendship as a gift.”
“He’s a gude hater.”
“Time will bring the best of him to the top again some day. I understand him, I think. We possess more in common than people suppose. We feel deeply and haven’t a grain of philosophy between us.”
“Well, I reckon I’ve allus been inclined to deep ways of thought myself; and work up here, wi’ nothing to break your thoughts but the sight of a hawk or the twinkle of a rabbit’s scut, be very ripening to the mind. If awnly Phoebe was here! Sometimes I’m in a mood to ramp down-long an’ hale her home, whether or no. But I sweats the longing out o’ me wi’ work.”
“The day will soon come. Time drags with me just now, somehow, but it races with you, I’ll warrant. I must get on with my book, and see Hicks and try and persuade him to help me.”
“’Tis like your big nature to put it that way. You’rn tu soft-hearted a man to dwell in a house all alone. Let the dead stones bide, Martin, an’ look round for a wife. Theer’s more gude advice. Blamed if I doan’t advise everybody nowadays! Us must all come to it. Look round about an’ try to love a woman. ’T will surprise ’e an’ spoil sleep if you can bring yourself to it. But the cuddlin’ of a soft gal doan’t weaken man’s thews and sinews neither. It hardens ’em, I reckon, an’ puts fight in the most poor-spirited twoad as ever failed in love. ’Tis a manly thing, an’ ’boldens the heart like; an’, arter she’s said ‘Yes’ to ’e, you’ll find a wonnerful change come awver life. ’Tis all her, then. The most awnself8 man feels it more or less, an’ gets shook out of his shell. You’ll knaw some day. Of course I speaks as wan auld in love an’ married into the bargain.”
“You speak from experience, I know. And is Phoebe as wise as you, Will?”
“Waitin’ be harder for a wummon. They’ve less to busy the mind, an’ less mind to busy, for that matter.”
“That’s ungallant.”
“I doan’t knaw. ’Tis true, anyway. I shouldn’t have failed in love wi’ her if she’d been cleverer’n me.”
“Or she with you, perhaps?”
“P’r’aps not. Anyway as it stands we’m halves of a whole: made for man and wife. I reckon I weern’t wan to miss my way in love like some poor fules, as wastes it wheer they might see’t wasn’t wanted if they’d got eyes in their heads.”
“What it is to be so wise!”
Will laughed joyously in his wisdom.
“Very gude of ’e to say that. ’Tis a happy thing to have sense enough. Not but we larn an’ larn.”
“So we should. Well, I must be off now. I’m safe on the Moor to-day!”
“Ess, by the looks of it. Theer’ll likely come some mist after noon, but shouldn’t be very thick.”
So they parted, Blanchard having unconsciously sown the seed of an ugly crop that would take long in reaping. His remarks concerning Clement Hicks were safe enough with Martin, but another had heard them as he worked within earshot of his master. Bonus, though his judgment was scanty, entertained a profound admiration for Will; and thus it came about, that a few days later, when in Chagford, he called at the “Green Man” and made some grave mischief while he sang his master’s praises. He extolled the glorious promise of Newtake, and the great improvements already visible thereon; he reflected not a little of Will’s own flamboyant manner to the secret entertainment of those gathered in the bar, and presently he drew down upon himself some censure.
Abraham Chown, the police inspector, first shook his head and prophesied speedy destruction of all these hopes; and then Gaffer Lezzard criticised still more forcibly.
“All this big-mouthed talk’s cracklin’ of thorns under a potsherd,” hesaid. “You an’ him be just two childern playin’ at shop in the gutter, an’ the gutter’s wheer you’ll find yourselves ’fore you think to. What do the man knaw? Nothin’.”
“Blanchard’s a far-seein’ chap,” answered Sam Bonus stoutly. “An’ a gude master; an’ us’ll stick together, fair or foul.”
“You may think it, but wait,” said a small man in the corner. Charles Coomstock, nephew of the widow of that name already mentioned, was a wheelwright by trade and went lame, owing to an accident with hot iron in youth.
“Ax Clem,” continued Mr. Coomstock. “For all his cranky ways he knaws Blanchard better’n most of us, an’ I heard un size up the chap t’other day in a word. He said he hadn’t wit enough to keep his brains sweet.”
“He’m a braave wan to talk,” fired back Bonus. “Him! A poor luny as caan’t scrape brass to keep a wife on. Blanchard, or me either, could crack un in half like a dead stick.”
“Not that that’s anything for or against,” declared Gaffer Lezzard. “Power of hand’s nought against brain.”
“It gaws a tidy long way ’pon Dartymoor, however,” declared Bonus. “An’ Blanchard doan’t set no ’mazin’ store on Hicks neither, if it comes to words. I heard un say awnly t’other forenoon that the man was a weak saplin’, allus grumblin’, an’ might be better for a gude hiding.”
Now Charles Coomstock did not love his cousin Clement. Indeed, none of those who had, or imagined they had, any shadow of right to a place in Mary Coomstock’s will cared much for others similarly situated; but the little wheelwright was by nature a spreader of rumours and reports—an intelligencer, malignant from choice. He treasured this assertion, therefore, together with one or two others. Sam, now at his third glass, felt his heart warm to Will. He would have fought with tongue or fist on his behalf, and presently added to the mischief he had already done.
“To shaw ’e, neighbours, just the man he is, I may tell ’e that a larned piece like Martin Grimbal ackshually comed all the way to Newtake not long since to ax advice of un. An’ ’twas on the identical matter of this same Hicks. Mr. Grimbal wanted to give un some work to do, ’bout a book or some such item; an’ Will he ups and sez, ‘Doan’t,’ just short an’ straight like that theer. ‘Doan’t,’ he sez. ‘Let un shaw what’s in un first’; an’ t’other nodded when he said it.”
Having now attested his regard for the master of Newtake, Sam jogged off. He was pleased with himself, proud of having silenced more than one detractor, and as his little brain turned the matter over, his lips parted in a grin.
Coomstock meanwhile had limped into the cottage where Clement lived with his mother. He did not garble his news, for it needed no artistic touch; and, with nice sense of his perfect and effective instrument, he realised the weapon was amply sharp enough without whetting, and employed the story as it came into his hand. But Mr. Coomstock was a little surprised and disappointed at his cousin’s reserve and self-restraint. He had hoped for a hearty outburst of wrath and the assurance of wide-spreading animosity, yet no such thing happened, and the talebearer presently departed in some surprise. Mrs. Hicks, indeed, had shrilled forth a torrent of indignation upon the sole subject equal to raising such an emotion in her breast, for Clem was her only son. The man, however, took it calmly, or appeared to do so; and even when Charles Coomstock was gone he refused to discuss the matter more.
But had his cousin, with Asmodeus-flight, beheld Clement during the subsequent hours which he spent alone, it is possible that the wheelwright had felt amply repaid for his trouble. Not until dawn stole grey along the village street; not until sparrows in the thatch above him began their salutation to the morning; not until Chagford rookery had sent forth a harmonious multitude to the hills and valleys did Clement’s aching eyes find sleep. For hours he tossed and turned, now trembling with rage, now prompted by some golden thread in the tangled mazes of his mind to discredit the thing reported. Blanchard, as it seemed, had come deliberately and maliciously between him and an opportunity to win work. He burnt to know what he should do; and, like a flame of forked light against the sombre background of his passion, came the thought of another who hated Blanchard too. Will’s secret glowed and gleamed like the writing on the wall; looking out, Hicks saw it stamped on the dark earth and across the starry night; and he wished to God that the letters might so remain to be read by the world when it wakened. Finally he slept and dreamed that he had been to the Red House, that he had spoken to John Grimbal, and returned home again with a bag of gold.
When his mother came to call him he was lying half uncovered in a wild confusion of scattered bed-clothes; and his arms and body were jerking as a dog’s that dreams. She saw a sort of convulsion pinch and pucker his face; then he made some inarticulate sounds—as it were a frantic negation; and then the noise of his own cry awakened him. He looked wildly round and lifted his hands as though he expected to find them full.
“Where is it? Where is it? The bag of money? I won’t—I can’t—Where is it, I say?”
“I wish I knawed, lovey. Dream-gawld, I’m afeared. You’ve bin lying cold, an’ that do allus breed bad thoughts in sleep. ’Tis late; I done breakfast an hour ago. An’ Okehampton day, tu. Coach’ll be along in twenty minutes.”
He sighed and dragged the clothes over himself.
“You’d best go to-day, mother. The ride will do you good, and I have plenty to fill my time at home.”
Mrs. Hicks brightened perceptibly before this prospect. She was a little, faded woman, with a brown face and red-rimmed, weak eyes, washed by many years of sorrow to the palest nondescript colour. She crept through the world with no ambition but to die out of the poorhouse, no prayer but a petition that the parish might not bury her at the end, no joy save in her son. Life at best was a dreary business for her, and an occasional trip to Okehampton represented about the only brightness that ever crept into it. Now she bustled off full of excitement to get the honey, and, having put on a withered bonnet and black shawl, presently stood and waited for the omnibus.
Her son dwelt with his thoughts that day, and for him there was no peace or pleasure. Full twenty times he determined to visit Newtake at once and have it out with Will; but his infirmity of purpose acted like a drag upon this resolution, and his pride also contributed a force against it. Once he actually started, and climbed up Middledown to reach the Moor beyond; then he changed his mind again as new fires of enmity swept through it. His wrongs rankled black and bitter; and, faint under them, he presently turned and went home shivering though the day was hot.
Above Chagford rise those lofty outposts of Dartmoor, named respectively Nattadown and Middledown. The first lies nearer to the village, and upon its side, beneath a fir wood which crowns one spur, spread steep wastes of fern and furze. This spot was a favourite one with Clement Hicks, and a fortnight after the incidents last related he sat there smoking his pipe, while his eyes roved upon the scene subtended before him. The hill fell abruptly away, and near the bottom glimmered whitewashed cots along a winding road. Still lower down extended marshy common land, laced with twinkling watercourses and dotted with geese; while beyond, in many a rise and fall and verdant undulation, the country rolled onwards through Teign valley and upwards towards the Moor. The expanse seen from this lofty standpoint extended like a mighty map, here revealing a patchwork of multicoloured fields, here exhibiting tracts of wild waste and wood, here beautifully indicating by a misty line, seen across ascending planes of forest, the course of the distant river, here revealing the glitter of remote waters damaskeened with gold. Little farms and outlying habitations were scattered upon the land; and beyond them, rising steadily to the sky-line, the regions of the Moor revealed their larger attributes, wider expanses, more savage and abrupt configurations of barren heath and weathered tor. The day passed gradually from gloom to brightness, and the distance, already bathed in light, gleamed out of a more sombre setting, where the foreground still reflected the shadows of departing clouds, like a picture of great sunshine framed in darkness. But the last vapours quickly vanished; the day grew very hot and, as the sky indicated noon, all things beneath Clement’s eyes were soaked in a splendour of June sunlight. He watched a black thread lying across a meadow five miles away. First it stretched barely visible athwart the distance green; in half an hour it thickened without apparent means; within an hour it had absorbed an eighth part at least of the entire space. Though the time was very unusual for tilling of land, Hicks knew that the combined operations of three horses, a man, and a plough were responsible for this apparition, and he speculated as to how many tremendous physical and spiritual affairs of life are thus wrought by agents not visible to the beholder. Thus were his own thoughts twisted back to those speculations which now perpetually haunted them like the incubus of a dream. What would Will Blanchard say if he woke some morning to find his secret in John Grimbal’s keeping? And, did any such thing happen, there must certainly be a mystery about it; for Blanchard could no more prove how his enemy came to learn his secret than might some urban stranger guess how the dark line grew without visible means on the arable ground under Gidleigh.
From these dangerous thoughts he was roused by the sight of a woman struggling up the steep hill towards him. The figure came slowly on, and moved with some difficulty. This much Hicks noted, and then suddenly realised that he beheld his mother. She knew his haunt and doubtless sought him now. Rising, therefore, he hastened to meet her and shorten her arduous climb. Mrs. Hicks was breathless when Clement reached her, and paused a while, with her hand pressed to her side, before she could speak. At length she addressed him, still panting between the syllables.
“My heart’s a pit-pat! Hurry, hurry, for the Lard’s sake! The bees be playin’9 an’ they’ll call Johnson if you ban’t theer directly minute!”
Johnson, a thatcher, was the only other man in Chagford who shared any knowledge of apiarian lore with Clement.
“Sorry you should have had the journey only for that, mother. ’Twas so unlikely a morning, I never thought to hear of a swarm to-day. I’ll start at once, and you go home quietly. You’re sadly out of breath. Where is it?”
“To the Red House—Mr. Grimbal’s. It may lead to the handlin’ of his hives for all us can say, if you do the job vitty, as you ’m bound to.”
“John Grimbal’s!”
Hicks stood still as though this announcement had turned him into stone.
“Ess fay! Why do ’e stand glazin’ like that? A chap rode out for ’e ’pon horseback; an’ a bit o’ time be lost a’ready. They ’m swarmin’ in the orchard, an’ nobody knaws more ’n the dead what to be at.”
“I won’t go. Let them get Johnson.”
“‘Won’t go’! An’ five shillin’ hangin’ to it, an’ Lard knaws what more in time to come! ‘Won’t go’! An’ my poor legs throbbin’ something cruel with climbin’ for ’e!”
“I—I’m not going there—not to that man. I have reason.”
“O my gude God!” burst out the old woman, “what’ll ’e do next? An’ me—as worked so hard to find ’e—an’ so auld as I am! Please, please, Clem, for your mother—please. Theer’s bin so little money in the house of late days, an’ less to come. Doan’t, if you love me, as I knaws well you do, turn your back ’pon the scant work as falls in best o’ times.”
The man reflected with troubled eyes, and his mother took his arm and tried to pull him down the hill.
“Is John Grimbal at home?” he asked.
“How shude I knaw? An’ what matter if he is? Your business is with the bees, not him. An’ you’ve got no quarrel with him because that Blanchard have. After what Will done against you, you needn’t be so squeamish as to make his enemies yourn.”
“My business is with the bees—as you say, mother,” he answered slowly, repeating her words.
“Coourse ’tis! Who knaws a half of what you knaw ’bout ’em? That’s my awn braave Clem! Why, there might be a mort o’ gude money for a man like you at the Red House!”
“I’ll go. My business is with the bees. You walk along slowly, or sit down a while and get your breath again. I’ll hurry.”
She praised him and blessed him, crying after him as he departed,—“You’ll find all set out for ’e—veil, an’ gloves, an’ a couple of bee-butts to your hand.”
The man did not reply, but soon stumbled down the steep hill and vanished; then five-and-twenty minutes later, with the implements of his trade, he stood at the gate of the Red House, entered, and hastened along the newly planted avenue.
John Grimbal had not yet gone into residence, but he dwelt at present in his home farm hard by; and from this direction he now appeared to meet the bee-keeper. The spectacle of Grimbal, stern, grave, and older of manner than formerly, impressed Hicks not a little. In silence, after the first salutation, they proceeded towards an adjacent orchard; and from here as they approached arose an extravagant and savage din, as though a dozen baited dogs, each with a tin kettle at his tail, were madly galloping down some stone-paved street, and hurtling one against the other as they ran.
“They can stop that row,” said Hicks. “’Tis an old-fashioned notion that it hurries swarming, but I never found it do so.”
“You know best, though beating on tin pots and cans at such a time’s a custom as old as the hills.”
“And vain as many others equally old. I have a different method to hurry swarming.”
Now they passed over the snows of a million fallen petals, while yet good store of flowers hung upon the trees. June basked in the heart of the orchard and a delicious green sweetness and freshness marked the moment. Crimson and cream, all splashed with sunlight, here bloomed against a sky of summer blue, here took a shade from the new-born leaves and a shadow from branch and bough. To the eye, a mottled, dimpled glory of apple-blossom spread above grey trunks and twisted branches, shone through deep vistas of the orchard, brightened all the distance; while upon the ear, now growing and deepening, arose one sustained and musical susurration of innumerable wings.
“You will be wise to stay here,” said Hicks. He himself stopped a moment, opened his bag, put on his veil and gloves, and tucked his trousers inside his stockings.
“Not I. I wish to see the hiving.”
Twenty yards distant a play of light and glint and twinkle of many frantic bees converged upon one spot, as stars numerically increase towards the heart of a cluster. The sky was full of flying insects, and their wings sparkled brightly in the sun; though aloft, with only the blue for background, they appeared as mere dark points filling the air in every direction. The swarm hung at the very heart of a little glade. Here two ancient apple-trees stood apart, and from one low bough, stretched at right angles to the parent stem, and not devoid of leaves and blossoms, there depended a grey-brown mass from which a twinkling, flashing fire leaped forth as from gems bedded in the matrix. Each transparent wing added to the dazzle under direct sunlight; the whole agglomeration of life was in form like a bunch of grapes, and where it thinned away to a point the bees dropped off by their own weight into the grass below, then rose again and either flew aloft in wide and circling flight or rushed headlong upon the swarm once more. Across the iridescent cluster passed a gleam and glow of peacock and iris, opal and mother-of-pearl; while from its heart ascended a deep murmur, telling of tremendous and accumulated energy suddenly launched into this peaceful glade of apple-blossom and ambient green. The frenzy of the moment held all that little laborious people. There was none of the concerted action to be observed at warping, or simultaneous motion of birds in air and fishes in water; but each unit of the shining army dashed on its own erratic orbit, flying and circling, rushing hither and thither, and sooner or later returning to join the queen upon the bough.
The glory of the moment dominated one and all. It was their hour—a brief, mad ecstasy in short lives of ceaseless toil. To-day they desisted from their labours, and the wild-flowers of the waste places, and the old-world flowers in cottage gardens were alike forgotten. Yet their year had already seen much work and would see more. Sweet pollen from many a bluebell and anemone was stored and sealed for a generation unborn; the asphodels and violets, the velvet wallflower and yellow crocuses had already yielded treasure; and now new honey jewels were trembling in the trumpets of the honeysuckle, at the heart of the wild rose, within the deep cups of the candid and orange lilies, amid the fairy caps of columbines, and the petals of clove-pinks. There the bees now living laboured, and those that followed would find their sweets in the clover,—scarlet and purple and white,—in the foxgloves, in the upland deserts of the heather with their oases of euphrasy and sweet wild thyme.
“Is it a true swarm or a cast?” inquired John Grimbal.
“A swarm, without much question, though it dawned an unlikely day for an old queen to leave the hive. Still, the weather came over splendid enough by noon, and they knew it was going to. Where are your butts? You see, young maiden queens go further afield than old ones. The latter take but a short flight for choice.”
“There they are,” said Grimbal, pointing to a row of thatched hives not far off. “So that should be an old queen, by your showing. Is she there?”
“I fancy so by the look of them. If the queen doesn’t join, the bees break up, of course, and go back to the butt. But I’ve brought a couple of queens with me.”
“I’ve seen a good few drones about the board lately.”
“Sure sign of swarming at this season. Inside, if you could look, you’d find plenty of queen cells, and some capped over. You’d come across a murder or two as well. The old queens make short work of the young ones sometimes.”
“Woman-like.”
Hicks admitted the criticism was just. Then, being now upon his own ground, he continued to talk, and talk well, until he won a surly compliment from his employer.
“You’re a bee-master, in truth! Nobody’ll deny you that.”
Clement laughed rather bitterly.
“Yes, a king of bees. Not a great kingdom for man to rule.”
The other studied his dark, unhappy face. Trouble had quickened Grimbal’s own perceptions, and made him a more accurate judge of sorrow when he saw it than of yore.
“You’ve tried to do greater things and failed, perhaps,” he said.
“Why, perhaps I have. A man’s a hive himself, I’ve thought sometimes—a hive of swarming, seething thoughts and experiences and passions, that come and go as easily as any bees, and store the heart and brain.”
“Not with honey, I’ll swear.”
“No—gall mostly.”
“And every hive’s got a queen bee too, for that matter,” said Grimbal, rather pleased at his wit responsible for the image.
“Yes; and the queens take each other’s places quick enough, for we’re fickle brutes.”
“A strange swarm we hive in our hearts, God knows.”
“And it eats out our hearts for our pains.”
“You’ve found out that, have you?” asked John curiously.
“Long ago.”
“Everybody does, sooner or later.”
There was a pause. Overhead the multitude dwindled while the great glimmering cluster on the tree correspondingly increased, and the fierce humming of the bees was like the sound of a fire. Clement feared nothing, but he had seen few face a hiving without some distrust. The man beside him, however, stood with his hands in his pockets, indifferent and quite unprotected.
“You will be wiser to stand farther away, Mr. Grimbal. You’re unlikely to come off scot-free if you keep so close.”
“What do I care? I’ve been stung by worse than insects.”
“And I also,” answered Clement, with such evident passion that the other grew a little interested. He had evidently pricked a sore point in this moody creature.
“Was it a woman stung you?”
“No, no; don’t heed me.”
Clement was on guard over himself again. “Your business is with bees”—his mother’s words echoed in his mind to the pulsing monotone of the swarm. He tried to change the subject, sent for a pail of water, and drew a large syringe from his bag, though the circumstances really rendered this unnecessary. But John Grimbal, always finding a sort of pleasure in his own torment, took occasion to cross-question Clement.
“I suppose I’m laughed at still in Chagford, am I not? Not that it matters to me.”
“I don’t think so; an object of envy, rather, for good wives are easier to get than great riches.”
“That’s your opinion, is it? I’m not so sure. Are you married?”
“No.”
“Going to be, I’ll wager, if you think good wives can be picked off blackberry bushes.”
“I don’t say that at all. But I am going to be married certainly. I’m fortunate and unfortunate. I’ve won a prize, but—well, honey’s cheap. I must wait.”
“D’ you trust her? Is waiting so easy?”
“Yes, I trust her, as I trust the sun to swing up out of the east to-morrow, to set in the west to-night. She’s the only being of my own breed I do trust. As for the other question, no—waiting isn’t easy.”
“Nor yet wise. I shouldn’t wait. Tell me who she is. Women interest me, and the taking of ’em in marriage.”
Hicks hesitated. Here he was drifting helpless under this man’s hard eyes—helpless and yet not unwilling. He told himself that he was safe enough and could put a stop on his mouth when he pleased. Besides, John Grimbal was not only unaware that the bee-keeper knew anything against Blanchard, but had yet to learn that anybody else did,—that there even existed facts unfavourable to him. Something, however, told Hicks that mention of the common enemy would result from this present meeting, and the other’s last word brought the danger, if danger it might be, a step nearer. Clement hesitated before replying to the question; then he answered it.
“Chris Blanchard,” he said shortly, “though that won’t interest you.”
“But it does—a good deal. I’ve wondered, some time, why I didn’t hear my own brother was going to marry her. He got struck all of a heap there, to my certain knowledge. However, he ’s escaped. The Lord be good to you, and I take my advice to marry back again. Think twice, if she’s made of the same stuff as her brother.”
“No, by God! Is the moon made of the same stuff as the marsh lights?”
Concentrated bitterness rang in the words, and a man much less acute than Grimbal had guessed he stood before an enemy of Will. John saw the bee-keeper start at this crucial moment; he observed that Hicks had said a thing he much regretted and uttered what he now wished unspoken. But the confession was torn bare and laid out naked under Grimbal’s eyes, and he knew that another man besides himself hated Will. The discovery made his face grow redder than usual. He pulled at his great moustache and thrust it between his teeth and gnawed it. But he contrived to hide the emotion in his mind from Clement Hicks, and the other did not suspect, though he regretted his own passion. Grimbals next words further disarmed him. He appeared to know nothing whatever about Will, though his successful rival interested him still.
“They call the man Jack-o’-Lantern, don’t they? Why?”
“I can’t tell you. It may be, though, that he is erratic and uncertain in his ways. You cannot predict what he will do next.”
“That’s nothing against him. He’s farming on the Moor now, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Where did he come from when he dropped out of the clouds to marry Phoebe Lyddon?”
The question was not asked with the least idea of its enormous significance. Grimbal had no notion that any mystery hung over that autumn time during which he made love to Phoebe and Will was absent from Chagford. He doubted not that for the asking he could learn how Will had occupied himself; but the subject did not interest him, and he never dreamed the period held a secret. The sudden consternation bred in Hicks by this question astounded him not a little. Indeed, each man amazed the other, Grimbal by his question, Hicks by the attitude which he assumed before it.
“I’m sure I haven’t the least idea,” he answered; but his voice and manner had already told Grimbal all he cared to learn at the moment; and that was more than his wildest hopes had even risen to. He saw in the other’s face a hidden thing, and by his demeanour that it was an important one. Indeed, the bee-keeper’s hesitation and evident alarm before this chance question proclaimed the secret vital. For the present, and before Clement’s evident alarm, Grimbal dismissed the matter lightly; but he chose to say a few more words upon it, for the express purpose of setting Hicks again at his ease.
“You don’t like your future brother-in-law?”
“Yes, yes, I do. We’ve been friends all our lives—all our lives. I like him well, and am going to marry his sister—only I see his faults, and he sees mine—that’s all.”
“Take my advice and shut your eyes to his faults. That’s the best way if you are marrying into his family. I’ve got cause to think ill enough of the scamp, as you know and everybody knows; but life’s too short for remembering ill turns.”
A weight rolled off Clement’s heart. For a moment he had feared that the man knew something; but now he began to suspect Grimbal’s question to be what in reality it was—casual interrogation, without any shadow of knowledge behind it. Hicks therefore breathed again and trusted that his own emotion had not been very apparent. Then, taking the water, he shot a thin shower into the air, an operation often employed to hasten swarming, and possibly calculated to alarm the bees into apprehension of rain.
“Do wasps ever get into the hives?” asked Mr. Grimbal abruptly.
“Aye, they do; and wax-moths and ants, and even mice. These things eat the honey and riddle and ruin the comb. Then birds eat the bees, and spiders catch them. Honey-bees do nothing but good that I can see, yet Nature ’s pleased to fill the world with their enemies. Queen and drone and the poor unsexed workers—all have their troubles; and so has the little world of the hive. Yet during the few weeks of a bee’s life he does an amount of work beyond imagination to guess at.”
“And still finds time to steal from the hives of his fellows?”
“Why, yes, if the sweets are exposed and can be tasted for nothing. Most of us might turn robbers on the same terms. Now I can take them, and a splendid swarm, too—finest I’ve seen this year.”
The business of getting the glittering bunch of bees into a hive was then proceeded with, and soon Clement had shaken the mass into a big straw butt, his performance being completely successful. In less than half an hour all was done, and Hicks began to remove his veil and shake a bee or two off the rim of his hat.
John Grimbal rubbed his cheek, where a bee had stung him under the eye, and regarded Hicks thoughtfully.
“If you happen to want work at any time, it might be within my power to find you some here,” he said, handing the bee-master five shillings. Clement thanked his employer and declared he would not forget the offer; he then departed, and John Grimbal returned to his farm.