It proclaims the attitude of John Grimbal to his enemy that thus suddenly confronted with the corpse of a man whom he believed in life, his first emotion should have betokened bitter disappointment and even anger. Will Blanchard’s secret, great or small, was safe enough for the present; and the hand stretched eagerly for revenge clutched air.

Convincing himself that Hicks was dead, Grimbal galloped off towards Belstone village, the nearest centre of civilisation. There he reported the facts, directed police and labourers where to find the body and where to carry it, and subsequently rode swiftly back to Chagford. Arrived at the market-place, he acquainted Abraham Chown, the representative of the Devon constabulary, with his news, and finally writing a brief statement at the police station before leaving it, Grimbal returned home.

Not until after dark was the impatient mother made aware of her son’s end, and she had scarcely received the intelligence before he came home to her—with no triumphant news of the Red House Farm, but dead, on a sheep-hurdle. Like summer lightning Clement’s fate leapt through the length and breadth of Chagford. It penetrated to the vicarage; it reached outlying farms; it arrived at Monks Barton, was whispered near Mrs. Blanchard’s cottage by the Teign, and, in the early morning of the following day, reached Newtake.

Then Will, galloping to the village while dawn was yet grey, met Doctor Parsons, and heard the truth of these uncertain rumours which had reached him.

“It seems clear enough when Grimbal’s statement comes to be read,” explained the medical man. “He had arranged a meeting with poor Hicks on Oke Tor, and, when he went to keep his appointment, found the unfortunate man lying under the rocks quite dead. The spot, I must tell you, was near a target of the soldiers at Okehampton, and John Grimbal first suspected that Hicks, heedless of the red warning flags, had wandered into the line of fire and been actually slain by a projectile. But nothing of that sort happened. I have seen him. The unfortunate man evidently slipped and fell from some considerable height upon his head. His neck is dislocated and the base of the skull badly fractured.”

“Have you seen my poor sister?”

“I was called last night while at Mrs. Hicks’s cottage, and went almost at once. It’s very terrible—very. She’ll get brain fever if we’re not careful. Such a shock! She was walking alone, down in the croft by the river—all in a tremendously heavy dew too. She was dry-eyed and raved, poor girl. I may say she was insane at that sad moment. ‘Weep for yourself!’ she said to me. ‘Let this place weep for itself, for there’s a great man has died. He was here and lived here and nobody knew—nobody but his mother and I knew what he was. He had to beg his bread almost, and God let him; but the sin of it is on those around him—you and the rest.’ So she spoke, poor child. These are not exactly her words, but something like them. I got her indoors to her mother and sent her a draught. I’ve just come from confining Mrs. Woods, and I’ll walk down and see your sister now before I go home if you like. I hope she may be sleeping.”

Will readily agreed to this suggestion; and together the two men proceeded to the valley.

But many things had happened since the night. When Doctor Parsons left Mrs. Blanchard, she had prevailed upon Chris to go to bed, and then herself departed to the village and sat with Mrs. Hicks for an hour. Returning, she found her daughter apparently asleep, and, rather than wake her, left the doctor’s draught unopened; yet Chris had only simulated slumber, and as soon as her mother retreated to her own bed, she rose, dressed, crept from the house, and hastened through the night to where her lover lay.

The first awful stroke had fallen, but the elasticity of the human mind which at first throws off and off such terrible shocks, and only after the length of many hours finally accepts them as fact, saved Chris Blanchard from going mad. Happily she could not thus soon realise the truth. It recurred, like the blows of a sledge, upon her brain, but between these cruel reminders of the catastrophe, the knowledge of Clement’s death escaped her memory entirely, and more than once, while roaming the dew alone, she asked herself suddenly what she was doing and why she was there. Then the mournful answer knelled to her heart, and the recurrent spasms of that first agony slowly, surely settled into one dead pain, as the truth was seared into her knowledge. A frenzied burst of anger succeeded, and under its influence she spoke to Doctor Parsons, who approached her beside the river and with tact and patience at length prevailed upon her to enter her home. She cursed the land that had borne him, the hamlet wherein he had dwelt; and her mother, not amazed at her fierce grief, found each convulsive ebullition of sorrow natural to the dark hour, and soothed her as best she could. Then the elder woman departed a while, not knowing the truth and feeling such a course embraced the deeper wisdom.

Left alone, her future rose before Chris, as she sat upon her bed and saw the time to come glimmer out of the night in colours more ashy than the moonbeams on the cotton blind. Yet, as she looked her face burned, and one flame, vivid enough, flickered through all the future; the light on her own cheeks. Her position as it faced her from various points of view acted upon her physical being—suffocated her and brought a scream to her lips. There was nobody to hear it, nobody to see the girl tear her hair, rise from her couch, fall quivering, face downward, on the little strip of carpet beside her bed. Who could know even a little of what this meant to her? Women had often lost the men they loved, but never, never like this. So she assured herself. Past sorrows and fears dwindled to mere shadows now; for the awful future—the crushing months to come, rose grim and horrible on the horizon of Time, laden with greater terrors than she could face and live.

Alone, Chris told herself she might have withstood the oncoming tribulation—struggled through the storms of suffering and kept her broken heart company as other women had done before and must again; but she would not be alone. A little hand was stretching out of the loneliness she yearned for; a little voice was crying out of the solitude she craved. The shadows that might have sheltered her were full of hard eyes; the secret places would only echo a world’s cruel laughter now—that world which had let her loved one die uncared for, that world so pitiless to such as she. Her thoughts were alternately defiant and fearful; then, before the picture of her mother and Will, her emotions dwindled from the tragic and became of a sort that weeping could relieve. Tears, now mercifully released from their fountains, softened her bruised soul for a time and moderated the physical strain of her agony. She lay long, half-naked, sobbing her heart out. Then came the mad desire to be back with Clement at any cost, and profound pity for him overwhelmed her mind to the exclusion of further sorrow for herself. She forgot herself wholly in grief that he was gone. She would never hear him speak or laugh again; never again kiss the trouble from his eyes; never feel the warm breath of him, the hand-grip of him. He was dead; and she saw him lying straight and cold in a padded coffin, with his hands crossed and cerecloth stiffly tying up his jaws. He would sink into the silence that dwelt under the roots of the green grass; while she must go on and fight the world, and in fighting it, bring down upon his grave bitter words and sharp censures from the lips of those who did not understand.

Before which reflection Death came closer and looked kind; and the thought of his hand was cool and comforting, as the hand of a grey moor mist sweeping over the heath after fiery days of cloudless sun. Death stood very near and beckoned at the dark portals of her thought. Behind him there shone a great light, and in the light stood Clem; but the Shadow filled all the foreground. To go to her loved one, to die quickly and take their mutual secret with her, seemed a right and a precious thought just then; to go, to die, while yet he lay above the earth, was a determination that had even a little power to solace her agony. She thought of meeting him standing alone, strange, friendless on the other side of the grave; she told herself that actual duty, if not the vast love she bore him, pointed along the unknown road he had so recently followed. It was but justice to him. Then she could laugh at Time and Fate and the juggling unseen Controller who had played with him and her, had wrecked their little lives, forced their little passions under a sham security, then snapped the thread on which she hung for everything, killed the better part of herself, and left her all alone without a hand to shield or a heart to pity. In the darkness, as the moon stole away and her chamber window blackened, she sounded all sorrow’s wide and solemn diapason; and the living sank into shadows before her mind’s accentuated and vivid picture of the dead. Future life loomed along one desolate pathway that led to pain and shame and griefs as yet untasted. The rocks beside the way hid shadowy shapes of the unfriendly; for no mother’s kindly hand would support her, no brother’s stout arm would be lifted for her when they knew. No pure, noble, fellow-creature might be asked for aid, not one might be expected to succour and cherish in the great strait sweeping towards her. Some indeed there were to look to for the moment, but their voices and their eyes would harden presently, when they knew.

She told herself they must never know; and the solution to the problem of how to keep her secret appeared upon the threshold of the unknown road her lover had already travelled. Now, at the echo of the lowest notes, while she lay with uneven pulses and shaking limbs, it seemed that she was faced with the parting of the ways and must make instant choice. Time would not wait for her and cared nothing whether she chose life or death for her road. She struggled with red thoughts, and fever burnt her lips and stabbed her forehead. Clement was gone. In this supreme hour no fellow-creature could fortify her courage or direct her tottering judgment. Once she thought of prayer and turned from it shuddering with a passionate determination to pray no more. Then the vision of Death shadowed her and she felt his brief sting would be nothing beside the endless torment of living. Dangerous thoughts developed quickly in her and grew to giants. Something clamoured to her and cried that delay, even of hours, was impossible and must be fatal to secrecy. A feverish yearning to get it over, and that quickly, mastered her, and she began huddling on some clothes.

Then it was that the sudden sound of the cottage door being shut and bolted reached her ear. Mrs. Blanchard had returned and knowing that she would approach in a moment, Chris flung herself on the bed and pretended to be sleeping soundly. It was not until her mother withdrew and herself slumbered half an hour later that the distracted woman arose, dressed herself, and silently left the house as we have said.

She heard the river calling to her, and through its murmur sounded the voice of her loved one from afar. The moon shone clear and the valley was full of vapoury gauze. A wild longing to see him once more in the flesh before she followed him in the spirit gained upon Chris, and she moved slowly up the hill to the village. Then, as she went, born of the mists upon the meadows, and the great light and the moony gossamers diamonded with dew, there rose his dear shape and moved with her along the way. But his face was hidden, and he vanished at the first outposts of the hamlet as she passed into Chagford alone. The cottage shadows fell velvety black in a shining silence; their thatches were streaked, their slates meshed with silver; their whitewashed walls looked strangely awake and alert and surrounded the woman with a sort of blind, hushed stare. One solitary patch of light peered like a weary eye from that side of the street which lay in shadow, and Chris, passing through the unbolted cottage door, walked up the narrow passage within and softly entered.

Condolence and tears and buzz of sorrowful friends had passed away with the stroke of midnight. Now Mrs. Hicks sat alone with her dead and gazed upon his calm features and vaguely wondered how, after a life of such disappointment and failure and bitter discontent, he could look so peaceful. She knew every line that thought and trouble had ruled upon his face; she remembered their coming; and now, between her fits of grief, she scanned him close and saw that Death had wiped away the furrows here and there, and smoothed his forehead and rolled back the years from off him until his face reminded her of the strange, wayward child who was wont to live a life apart from his fellows, like some wild wood creature, and who had passed almost friendless through his boyhood. Fully he had filled her widowed life, and been at least a loving child, a good son. On him her withered hopes had depended, and, even in their darkest hours, he had laughed at her dread of the workhouse, and assured her that while head and hands remained to him she need not fear, but should enjoy the independence of a home. Now this sole prop and stay was gone—gone, just as the black cloud had broken and Fate relented.

The old woman sat beside him stricken, shrivelled, almost reptilian in her red-eyed, motionless misery. Only her eyes moved in her wrinkled, brown face, and reflected the candle standing on the mantelpiece above his head. She sat with her hands crooked over one another in her lap, like some image wrought of ebony and dark oak. Once a large house-spider suddenly and silently appeared upon the sheet that covered the breast of the dead. It flashed along for a foot or two, then sat motionless; and she, whose inclination was to loathe such things unutterably, put forth her hand and caught it without a tremor and crushed it while its hairy legs wriggled between her fingers.

To the robbed mother came Chris, silent as a ghost. Only the old woman’s eyes moved as the girl entered, fell down by the bier, and buried her face in the pillow that supported her lover’s head. Thus, in profound silence, both remained awhile, until Chris lifted herself and looked in the dead face and almost started to see the strange content stamped on it.

Then Mrs. Hicks began to speak in a high-pitched voice which broke now and again as her bosom heaved after past tears.

“The awnly son of his mother, an’ she a widow wummon; an’ theer ’s no Christ now to work for the love of the poor. I be shattered wi’ many groans an’ tears, Chris Blanchard, same as you be. You knawed him—awnly you an’ me; but you ’m young yet, an’ memory’s so weak in young brains that you’ll outlive it all an’ forget.”

“Never, never, mother! Theer ’s no more life for me—not here. He’s callin’ to me—callin’ an’ callin’ from yonder.”

“You’ll outlive an’ forget,” repeated the other. “I cannot, bein’ as I am. An’, mind this, when you pray to Heaven, ax for gold an’ diamonds, ax for houses an’ lands, ax for the fat of the airth; an’ ax loud. No harm in axin’. Awnly doan’t pitch your prayers tu dirt low, for ban’t the hardness of a thing stops God. You ’m as likely or onlikely to get a big answer as a little. See the blessin’ flowin’ in streams for some folks! They do live braave an’ happy, with gude health, an’ gude wives, an’ money, an’ the fruits of the land; they do get butivul childer, as graws up like the corners of the temple; an’ when they come to die, they shut their eyes ’pon kind faaces an’ lie in lead an’ oak under polished marble. All that be theers; an’ what was his—my son’s?”

“God forgot him,” sobbed Chris, “an’ the world forgot him—all but you an’ me.”

The old woman shifted her hands wearily.

“Theer’s a mort for God to bear in mind, but ’t is hard, here an’ there, wheer He slips awver some lowly party an’ misses a humble whisper. Clamour if you want to be heard; doan’t go with bated breath same as I done. ’T was awnly a li’l thing I axed, an’ axed it twice a day on my knees, ever since my man died twenty-three year agone. An’ often as not thrice Sundays, so you may count up the number of times I axed if you mind to. Awnly a li’l rubbishy thing you might have thought: just to bring his fair share o’ prosperity to Clem an’ keep my bones out the poorhouse at the end. But my bwoy ’s brawk his neck by a cruel death, an’ I must wear the blue cotton.”

“No, no, mother.”

“Ess. Not that it looks so hard as it did. This makes it easy—” and she put her hand on her son’s forehead and left it there a moment.

Presently she continued:

“I axed Clem to turn the bee-butts at my sister’s passing—Mrs. Lezzard. But he wouldn’t; an’ now they’ll be turned for him. Wise though the man was, he set no store on the dark, hidden meaning of honey-bees at times of death. Now the creatures be masterless, same as you an’ me; an’ they’ll knaw it; an’ you’ll see many an’ many a-murmuring on his graave ’fore the grass graws green theer; for they see more ’n what we can.”

She relapsed into motionless silence and, herself now wholly tearless, watched the tears of Chris, who had sunk down on the floor between the mother and son.

“Why for do you cry an’ wring your hands so hard?” she asked suddenly. “You’m awnly a girl yet—young an’ soft-cheeked wi’ braave bonny eyes. Theer’ll be many a man’s breast for you to comfort your head on. But me! Think o’ what’s tearin’ my auld heart to tatters—me, so bleared an’ ugly an’ lonely. God knaws God’s self couldn’t bring no balm to me—none, till I huddle under the airth arter un; but you—your wound won’t show by time the snaw comes again.”

“You forget when you loved a man first if you says such a thing as that.”

“Theer’s no eternal, lasting fashion o’ love but a mother’s to her awn male childer,” croaked the other. “Sweethearts’ love is a thing o’ the blood—a trick o’ Nature to tickle us poor human things into breeding ’gainst our better wisdom; but what a mother feels doan’t hang on no such broken reed. It’s deeper down; it’s hell an’ heaven both to wance; it’s life; an’ to lose it is death. See! Essterday I’d ’a’ fought an’ screamed an’ took on like a gude un to be fetched away to the Union; but come they put him in the ground, I’ll go so quiet as a lamb.”

Another silence followed; then the aged widow pursued her theme, at first in the same dreary, cracked monotone, then deepening to passion.

“I tell you a gude wife will do ’most anything for a husband an’ give her body an’ soul to un; but she expects summat in return. She wants his love an’ worship for hers; but a mother do give all—all—all—an’ never axes nothin’ for it. Just a kiss maybe, an’ a brightening eye, or a kind word. That’s her pay, an’ better’n gawld, tu. She’m purty nigh satisfied wi’ what would satisfy a dog, come to think on it. ’T is her joy to fret an’ fume an’ pine o’ nights for un, an’ tire the A’mighty’s ear wi’ plans an’ suggestions for un; aye, think an’ sweat an’ starve for un all times. ’T is her joy, I tell ’e, to smooth his road, an’ catch the brambles by his way an’ let ’em bury their thorns in her flesh so he shaa’n’t feel ’em; ’t is her joy to hear him babble of all his hopes an’ delights; an’ when the time comes she’ll taake the maid of his heart to her awn, though maybe ’t is breakin’ wi’ fear that he’ll forget her in the light of the young eyes. Ax your awn mother if what I sez ban’t God’s truth. We as got the bwoys be content wi’ that little. We awnly want to help theer young shoulders wi’ our auld wans, to fight for ’em to the last. We’ll let theer wives have the love, we will, an’ ax no questions an’—an’ we’ll break our hearts when the cheel ’s took out o’ his turn—break our hearts by inches—same as I be doin’ now.”

“An’ doan’t I love, tu? Weern’t he all the world to me, tu? Isn’t my heart broken so well as yours?” sobbed Chris.

“Hear this, you wummon as talks of a broken heart,” answered the elder almost harshly. “Wait—wait till you ’m the mother of a li’l man-cheel, an’ see the shining eyes of un a-lookin’ into yourn while your nipple’s bein’ squeezed by his naked gums, an’ you laugh at what you suffered for un, an’ hug un to you. Wait till he’m grawed from baby to bwoy, from bwoy to man; wait till he’m all you’ve got left in the cold, starved winter of a sorrowful life; an’ wait till he’m brought home to ’e like this here, while you’ve been sittin’ laughin’ to yourself an’ countin’ dream gawld. Then turn about to find the tears that’ll comfort ’e, an’ the prayers that’ll soothe ’e, and the God that’ll lift ’e up; but you won’t find ’em, Chris Blanchard.”

The girl listened to this utterance, and it filled her with a sort of weird wonder as at a revelation of heredity. Mrs. Hicks had ever been taciturn before her, and now this rapid outpouring of thoughts and phrases echoed like the very speech of the dead. Thus had Clement talked, and the girl dimly marvelled without understanding. The impression passed, and there awoke in Chris a sudden determination to whisper to this bereaved woman what she could not even tell her own mother. A second thought had probably changed her intention, but she did not wait for any second thought. She acted on impulse, rose, put her arms round the widow, and murmured her secret. The other started violently and broke her motionless posture before this intelligence.

“Christ! And he knawed—my son?”

“He knawed.”

“Then you needn’t whisper it. There’s awnly us three here.”

“An’ no others must knaw. You’ll never tell—never? You swear that?”

“Me tell! No, no. To think! Then theer’s real sorrow for you, tu, poor soul—real, grawin’ sorrow tu. Differ’nt from mine, but real enough. Yet—”

She relapsed into a stone-like repose. No facial muscle moved, but the expression of her mind appeared in her eyes and there gradually grew a hungry look in them—as of a starving thing confronted with food. The realisation of these new facts took a long time. No action accompanied it; no wrinkle deepened; no line of the dejected figure lifted; but when she spoke again her voice had greatly changed and become softer and very tremulous.

“O my dear God! ’t will be a bit of Clement! Had ’e thought o’ that?”

Then she rose suddenly to her feet and expression came to her face—a very wonderful expression wherein were blended fear, awe, and something of vague but violent joy—as though one suddenly beheld a loved ghost from the dead.

“’T is as if all of un weern’t quite lost! A li’l left—a cheel of his! Wummon! You’m a holy thing to me—a holy thing evermore! You’m bearin’ sunshine for your summertime and my winter—if God so wills!”

Then she lifted up her voice and cried to Chris with a strange cry, and knelt down at her feet and kissed her hands and stroked them.

“Go to un,” she said, leaping up; “go to Clem, an’ tell un, in his ear, that I knaw. It’ll reach him if you whisper it. His soul ban’t so very far aways yet. Tell un I knaw, tu—you an’ me. He’d glory that I knawed. An’ pray henceforrard, as I shall, for a bwoy. Ax God for a bwoy—ax wi’out ceasin’ for a son full o’ Clem. Our sorrows might win to the Everlasting Ear this wance. But, for Christ’s sake, ax like wan who has a right to, not fawning an’ humble.”

The woman was transfigured as the significance of this news filled her mind. She wept before a splendid possibility. It fired her eyes and straightened her shrivelled stature. For a while her frantic utterances almost inspired Chris with the shadow of similar emotions; but another side of the picture knew no dawn. This the widow ignored—indeed it had not entered her head since her first comment on the confession. Now, however, the girl reminded her,—

“You forget a little what this must be to me, mother.”

“Light in darkness.”

“I hadn’t thought that; an the gert world won’t pity me, as you did when I first told you.”

“You ban’t feared o’ the world, be you? The world forgot un. ’T was your awn word. What’s the world to you, knawin’ what you knaw? Do ’e want to be treated soft by what was allus hell-hard to him? Four-and-thirty short years he lived, then the world beginned to ope its eyes to his paarts, an’ awnly then—tu late, when the thread of his days was spun. What’s the world to you and why should you care for its word, Chris Blanchard?”

“Because I am Chris Blanchard,” she said. “I was gwaine to kill myself, but thought to see his dear face wance more before I done it. Now—”

“Kill yourself! God’s mercy! ’T will be killing Clem again if you do! You caan’t; you wouldn’t dare; theer’s black damnation in it an’ flat murder now. Hear me, for Christ’s sake, if that’s the awful thought in you: you’m God’s chosen tool in this—chosen to suffer an’ bring a bwoy in the world—Clem’s bwoy. Doan’t you see how’t is? ’Kill yourself’! How can ’e dream it? You’ve got to bring a bwoy, I tell ’e, to keep us from both gwaine stark mad. ’T was foreordained he should leave his holy likeness. God’s truth! You should be proud ’stead o’ fearful—such a man as he was. Hold your head high an’ pray when none’s lookin’, pray through every wakin’ hour an’ watch yourself as you’d watch the case of a golden jewel. What wise brain will think hard of you for followin’ the chosen path? What odds if a babe’s got ringless under the stars or in a lawful four-post bed? Who married Adam an’ Eve? You was the wife of un ’cordin’ to the first plan o’ the livin’ God; an’ if He changed His lofty mind when’t was tu late, blame doan’t fall on you or the dead. Think of a baaby—his baaby—under your breast! Think of meetin’ him in time to come, wi’ another soul got in sheer love! Better to faace the people an’ let the bairn come to fulness o’ life than fly them an’ cut your days short an’ go into the next world empty-handed. Caan’t you see it? What would Clem say? He’d judge you hard—such a lover o’ li’l childer as him. ’T is the first framework of an immortal soul you’ve got unfoldin’, like a rosebud hid in the green, an’ ban’t for you to nip that life for your awn whim an’ let the angels in heaven be fewer by wan. You must live. An’ the bwoy’ll graw into a tower of strength for ’e—a tower of strength an’ a glass belike wheer you’ll see Clem rose again.”

“The shame of it. My mother and Will—Will who’s a hard judge, an’ such a clean man.”

“‘Clean’! Christ A’mighty! You’d madden a saint of heaven! Weern’t Clem clean, tu? If God sends fire-fire breaks out—sweet, livin’ fire. You must go through with it—aye, an’ call the bwoy Clem, tu. Be you shamed of him as he lies here? Be you feared of anything the airth can do to you when you look at him? Do ’e think Heaven’s allus hard? No, I tell ’e, not to the young—not to the young. The wind’s mostly tempered to the shorn lamb, though the auld ewe do oftentimes sting for it, an’ get the seeds o’ death arter shearing. Wait, and be strong, till you feel Clem’s baaby in your arms. That’ll be reward enough, an’ you won’t care no more for the world then. His son, mind; who be you to take life, an’ break the buds of Clem’s plantin’? Worse than to go in another’s garden an’ tear down green fruit.”

So she pleaded volubly, with an electric increase of vitality, and continued to pour out a torrent of words, until Chris solemnly promised, before God and the dead, that she would not take her life. Having done so, some new design informed her.

“I must go,” she said; “the moon has set and dawn is near. Dying be so easy; living so hard. But live I will; I swear it, though theer’s awnly my poor mad brain to shaw how.”

“Clem’s son, mind. An’ let me be the first to see it, for I feel’t will be the gude pleasure of God I should.”

“An’ you promise to say no word, whatever betides, an’ whatever you hear?”

“Dumb I’ll be, as him theer—dumb, countin’ the weeks an’ months.”

“Day’s broke, an’ I must go home-along,” said Chris. She repeated the words mechanically, then moved away without any formal farewell. At the door she turned, hastened back, kissed the dead man’s face again, and then departed, while the other woman looked at her but spoke no more.

Alone, with the struggle over and her object won, the mother shrank and dwindled again and grew older momentarily. Then she relapsed into the same posture as before, and anon, tears bred of new thoughts began to trickle painfully from their parched fountains. She did not move, but let them roll unwiped away. Presently her head sank back, her cap fell off and white hair dropped about her face.

Fingers of light seemed lifting the edges of the blind. They gained strength as the candle waned, and presently at cock-crow, when unnumbered clarions proclaimed morning, grey dawn with golden eyes brightened upon a dead man and an ancient woman fast asleep beside him.

John Grimbal, actuated by some whim, or else conscious that under the circumstances decorum demanded his attendance, was present at the funeral of Clement Hicks. Some cynic interest he derived from the spectacle of young Blanchard among the bearers; and indeed, as may be supposed, few had felt this tragic termination of his friend’s life more than Will. Very genuine remorse darkened his days, and he blamed himself bitterly enough for all past differences with the dead. It was in a mood at once contrite and sorrowful that he listened to the echo of falling clod, and during that solemn sound mentally traversed the whole course of his relations with his sister’s lover. Of himself he thought not at all, and no shadowy suspicion of relief crossed his mind upon the reflection that the knowledge of those fateful weeks long past was now unshared. In all his quarrels with Clement, no possibility of the man breaking his oath once troubled Will’s mind; and now profound sorrow at his friend’s death and deep sympathy with Chris were the emotions that entirely filled the young farmer’s heart.

Grimbal watched his enemy as the service beside the grave proceeded. Once a malignant thought darkened his face, and he mused on what the result might be if he hinted to Blanchard the nature of his frustrated business with Hicks at Oke Tor. All Chagford had heard was that the master of the Red House intended to accept Clement Hicks as tenant of his home farm. The fact surprised many, but none looked behind it for any mystery, and Will least of all. Grimbal’s thoughts developed upon his first idea; and he asked himself the consequence if, instead of telling Blanchard that he had gone to learn his secret, he should pretend that it was already in his possession. The notion shone for a moment only, then went out. First it showed itself absolutely futile, for he could do no more than threaten, and the other must speedily discover that in reality he knew nothing; and secondly, some shadow of feeling made Grimbal hesitate. His desire for revenge was now developing on new lines, and while his purpose remained unshaken, his last defeat had taught him patience. Partly from motives of policy, partly, strange as it may seem, from his instincts as a sportsman, he determined to let the matter of Hicks lie buried. For the dead man’s good name he cared nothing, however, and victory over Will was only the more desired for this postponement. His black tenacity of purpose won strength from the repulse, but the problem for the time being was removed from its former sphere of active hatred towards his foe. How long this attitude would last, and what idiosyncrasy of character led to it, matters little. The fact remained that Grimbal’s mental posture towards Blanchard now more nearly resembled that which he wore to his other interests in life. The circumstance still stood first, but partook of the nature of his emotions towards matters of sport. When a heavy trout had beaten him more than once, Grimbal would repair again and again to its particular haunt and leave no legitimate plan for its destruction untried. But any unsportsmanlike method of capturing or slaying bird, beast, or fish enraged him. So he left the churchyard with a sullen determination to pursue his sinister purpose straightforwardly.

All interested in Clement Hicks attended the funeral, including his mother and Chris. The last had yielded to Mrs. Blanchard’s desire and promised to stop at home; but she changed her mind and conducted herself at the ceremony with a stoic fortitude. This she achieved only by an effort of will which separated her consciousness entirely from her environment and alike blinded her eyes and deafened her ears to the mournful sights and sounds around her. With her own future every fibre of her mind was occupied; and as they lowered her lover’s coffin into the earth a line of action leapt into her brain.

Less than four-and-twenty hours later it seemed that the last act of the tragedy had begun. Then, hoarse as the raven that croaked Duncan’s coming, Mr. Blee returned to Monks Barton from an early visit to the village. Phoebe was staying with her father for a fortnight, and it was she who met the old man as he paddled breathlessly home.

“More gert news!” he gasped; “if it ban’t too much for wan in your way o’ health.”

“Nothing wrong at Newtake?” cried Phoebe, turning pale.

“No, no; but family news for all that.”

The girl raised her hand to her heart, and Miller Lyddon, attracted by Billy’s excited voice, hastened to his daughter and put his arm round her.

“Out with it,” he said. “I see news in ’e. What’s the worst or best?”

“Bad, bad as heart can wish. A peck o’ trouble, by the looks of it. Chris Blanchard be gone—vanished like a dream! Mother Blanchard called her this marnin’, an’ found her bed not so much as creased. She’ve flown, an’ there’s a braave upstore ’bout it, for every Blanchard’s wrong in the head more or less, beggin’ your pardon, missis, as be awnly wan by marriage.”

“But no sign? No word or anything left?”

“Nothing; an’ theer’s a purty strong faith she’m in the river, poor lamb. Theer’s draggin’ gwaine to be done in the ugly bits. I heard tell of it to the village, wheer I’d just stepped up to see auld Lezzard moved to the work’ouse. A wonnerful coorious, rackety world, sure ’nough! Do make me giddy.”

“Does Will know?” asked Mr. Lyddon.

“His mother’s sent post-haste for un. I doubt he ’m to the cottage by now. Such a gude, purty gal as she was, tu! An’ so mute as a twoad at the buryin’, wi’ never a tear to soften the graave dust. For why? She knawed she’d be alongside her man again ’fore the moon waned. An’ I hope she may be. But ’t was cross-roads an’ a hawthorn stake in my young days. Them barbarous ancient fashions be awver, thank God, though whether us lives in more religious times is a question, when you see the things what happens every hour on the twenty-four.”

“I must go to them,” cried Phoebe.

“I’ll go; you stop at home quietly, and don’t fret your mind,” answered her father.

“Us must all do what us can—every manjack. I be gwaine corpse-searchin’ down valley wi’ Chapple, an’ that ’mazin’ water-dog of hisn; an’ if ’t is my hand brings her out the Teign, ’t will be done in a kind, Christian manner, for she’s in God’s image yet, same as us; an’ ugly though a drownin’ be, it won’t turn me from my duty.”

Succeeding upon the tumultuous incidents of Clement’s death and Chris Blanchard’s disappearance, there followed a period of calm in the lives of those from whom this narrative is gleaned. Such transient peace proved the greater in so far as Damaris and her son were concerned, by reason of an incident which befell Will on the evening of his sister’s departure. Dead she certainly was not, nor did she mean to die; for, upon returning to Newtake after hours of fruitless searching, Blanchard found a communication awaiting him there, though no shadow of evidence was forthcoming to show how it had reached the farm. Upon the ledge of the window he discovered it when he returned, and read the message at a glance:

“Don’t you nor mother fear nothing for me, nor seek me out, for it would be vain. I’m well, and I’m so happy as ever I shall be, and perhaps I’ll come home-along some day.—CHRIS.”

On this challenge Will acted, ignored his sister’s entreaty to attempt no such thing, and set out upon a resolute search of nearly two months’ duration. He toiled amain into the late autumn, but no hint or shadow of her rewarded the quest, and sustained failure in an enterprise where his heart was set, for his mother’s sake and his own, acted upon the man’s character, and indeed wrought marked changes in him. Despite the letter of Chris, hope died in Will, and he openly held his sister dead; but Mrs. Blanchard, while sufficiently distressed before her daughter’s flight, never feared for her life, and doubted not that she would return in such time as it pleased her to do so.

“Her nature be same as yours an’ your faither’s afore you. When he’d got the black monkey on his shoulder he’d oftentimes leave the vans for a week and tramp the very heart o’ the Moor alone. Fatigue of body often salves a sore mind. He loved thunder o’ dark nights—my husband did—and was better for it seemin’ly. Chris be safe, I do think, though it’s a heart-deep stroke this for me, ’cause I judge she caan’t ’zactly love me as I thought, or else she’d never have left me. Still, the cold world, what she knaws so little ’bout, will drive her back to them as love her, come presently.”

So, with greater philosophy than her son could muster, Damaris practised patience; while Will, after a perambulation of the country from north to south, from west to east, after weeks on the lonely heaths and hiding-places of the ultimate Moor, after visits to remote hamlets and inquiries at a hundred separate farmhouses, returned to Newtake, worn, disappointed, and gloomy to a degree beyond the experience of those who knew him. Neither did the cloud speedily evaporate, as was most usual with his transient phases of depression. Circumstances combined to deepen it, and as the winter crowded down more quickly than usual, its leaden months of scanty daylight and cold rains left their mark on Will as time had never done before.

During those few and sombre days which represented the epact of the dying year, Martin Grimbal returned to Chagford. He had extended his investigations beyond the time originally allotted to them, and now came back to his home with plenty of fresh material, and even one or two new theories for his book. He had received no communications during his absence, and the news of the bee-keeper’s death and his sweetheart’s disappearance, suddenly delivered by his housekeeper, went far to overwhelm him. It danced joy up again through the grey granite. For a brief hour splendid vistas of happiness reopened, and his laborious life swept suddenly into a bright region that he had gazed into longingly aforetime and lost for ever. He fought with himself to keep down this rosy-fledged hope; but it leapt in him, a young giant born at a word. The significance of the freedom of Chris staggered him. To find her was the cry of his heart, and, as Will had done before him, he straightway set out upon a systematic attempt to discover the missing girl. Of such uncertain temper was Blanchard’s mind at this season, however, that he picked a quarrel out of Martin’s design, and questioned the antiquary’s right to busy himself upon an undertaking which the brother of Chris had already failed to accomplish.

“She belonged to me, not to you,” he said, “an’ I done all a man could do to find her. See her again we sha’n’t, that’s my feelin’, despite what she wrote to me and left so mysterious on the window. Madness comed awver her, I reckon, an’ she’ve taken her life, an’ theer ban’t no call for you or any other man to rip up the matter again. Let it bide as ’t is. Such black doin’s be best set to rest.”

But, while Martin did not seek or desire Will’s advice in the matter, he was surprised at the young farmer’s attitude, and it extracted something in the nature of a confession from him, for there was little, he told himself, that need longer be hidden from the woman’s brother.

“I can speak now, at least to you, Will,” he said. “I can tell you, at any rate. Chris was all the world to me—all the world, and accident kept me from knowing she belonged to another man until too late. Now that he has gone, poor fellow, she almost seems within reach again. You know what it is to love. I can’t and won’t believe she has taken her life. Something tells me she lives, and I am not going to take any man’s word about it. I must satisfy myself.”

Thereupon Blanchard became more reasonable, withdrew his objections and expressed a very heartfelt hope that Martin might succeed where he had failed. The lover entered methodically upon his quest and conducted the inquiry with a rigorous closeness and scrupulous patience quite beyond Will’s power despite his equally earnest intentions. For six months Martin pursued his hope, and few saw or heard anything of him during that period.

Once, during the early summer, Will chanced upon John Grimbal at the first meeting of the otter hounds in Teign Vale; but though the younger purposely edged near his enemy where he stood, and hoped that some word might fall to indicate their ancient enmity dead, John said nothing, and his blue eyes were hard and as devoid of all emotion as turquoise beads when they met the farmer’s face for one fraction of time.

Before this incident, however, there had arisen upon Will’s life the splendour of paternity. A time came when, through one endless night and silver April morning, he had tramped his kitchen floor as a tiger its cage, and left a scratched pathway on the stones. Then his mother hasted from aloft and reported the arrival of a rare baby boy.

“Phoebe ’s doin’ braave, an’ she prays of ’e to go downlong fust thing an’ tell Miller all ’s well. Doctor Parsons hisself says ’t is a ’mazing fine cheel, so it ban’t any mere word of mine as wouldn’t weigh, me bein’ the gran’mother.”

They talked a little while of the newcomer, then, thankful for an opportunity to be active after his long suspense, the father hurried away, mounted a horse, and soon rattled down the valleys into Chagford, at a pace which found his beast dead lame on the following day. Mighty was the exhilaration of that wild gallop as he sped past cot and farm under morning sunshine with his great news. Labouring men and chance wayfarers were overtaken from time to time. Some Will knew, some he had never seen, but to the ear of each and all without discrimination he shouted his intelligence. Not a few waved their hats and nodded and remembered the great day in their own lives; one laughed and cried “Bravo!” sundry, who knew him not, marvelled and took him for a lunatic.

Arrived at Chagford, familiar forms greeted Will in the market-place, and again he bawled his information without dismounting.

“A son ’tis, Chapple—comed an hour ago—a brave li’l bwoy, so they tell!”

“Gude luck to it, then! An’ now you’m a parent, you must—”

But Will was out of earshot, and Mr. Chapple wasted no more breath.

Into Monks Barton the farmer presently clattered, threw himself off his horse, tramped indoors, and shouted for his father-in-law in tones that made the oak beams ring. Then the miller, with Mr. Blee behind him, hastened to hear what Will had come to tell.

“All right, all right with Phoebe?” were Mr. Lyddon’s first words, and he was white and shaking as he put the question.

“Right as ninepence, faither—gran’faither, I should say. A butivul li’l man she’ve got—out o’ the common fine, Parsons says, as ought to knaw—fat as a slug wi’ ’mazin’ dark curls on his wee head, though my mother says ’tis awnly a sort o’ catch-crop, an’ not the lasting hair as’ll come arter.”

“A bwoy! Glory be!” said Mr. Blee. “If theer’s awnly a bit o’ the gracious gudeness of his gran’faither in un, ’twill prove a prosperous infant.”

“Thank God for a happy end to all my prayers,” said Mr. Lyddon. “Billy, get Will something to eat an’ drink. I guess he’s hungry an’ starved.”

“Caan’t eat, Miller; but I’ll have a drop of the best, if it’s all the same to you. Us must drink their healths, both of ’em. As for me ’tis a gert thing to be the faither of a cheel as’ll graw into a man some day, an’ may even be a historical character, awnly give un time.”

“So ’tis a gert thing. Sit down; doan’t tramp about. I lay you’ve been on your feet enough these late hours.”

Will obeyed, but proceeded with his theme, and though his feet were still his hands were not.

“Us be faced wi’ the upbringing an’ edication of un. I mean him to be brought up to a power o’ knowledge, for theer’s nothin’ like it. Doan’t you think I be gwaine to shirk doin’ the right thing by un’, Miller, ’cause it aint so. If ’twas my last fi’-pun’ note was called up for larnin’ him, he’d have it.”

“Theer’s no gert hurry yet,” declared Billy. “Awnly you’m right to look in the future and weigh the debt every man owes to the cheel he gets. He’ll never cost you less thought or halfpence than he do to-day, an’, wi’out croakin’ at such a gay time, I will say he’ll graw into a greater care an’ trouble, every breath he draws.”

“Not him! Not the way I’m gwaine to bring un up. Stern an’ strict an’ no nonsense, I promise ’e”

“That’s right. Tame un from the breast. I’d like for my paart to think as the very sapling be grawin’ now as’ll give his li’l behind its fust lesson in the ways o’ duty,” declared Mr. Blee. “Theer ’s certain things you must be flint-hard about, an’ fust comes lying. Doan’t let un lie; flog it out of un; an’ mind, ’tis better for your arm to ache than for his soul to burn.”

“You leave me to do right by un. You caan’t teach me, Billy, not bein’ a parent; though I allow what you say is true enough.”

“An’ set un to work early; get un into ways o’ work so soon as he’s able to wear corduroys. An’ doan’t never let un be cruel to beastes; an’ doan’t let un—”

“Theer, theer!” cried Mr. Lyddon. “Have done with ’e! You speak as fules both, settin’ out rules o’ life for an hour-old babe. You talk to his mother about taming of un an’ grawing saplings for his better bringing-up. She’ll tell ’e a thing or two. Just mind the slowness o’ growth in the human young. ’T will be years before theer’s enough of un to beat.”

“They do come very gradual to fulness o’ body an’ reason,” admitted Billy; “and ’t is gude it should be so; ’t is well all men an’ women ’s got to be childer fust, for they brings brightness an’ joy ’pon the earth as babies, though ’t is mostly changed when they ’m grawed up. If us could awnly foretell the turnin’ out o’ childern, an’ knaw which ’t was best to drown an’ which to save in tender youth, what a differ’nt world this would be!”

“They ’m poor li’l twoads at fust, no doubt,” said Will to his father-in-law.

“Ess, indeed they be. ’T is a coorious circumstance, but generally allowed, that humans are the awnly creatures o’ God wi’ understandin’, an’ yet they comes into the world more helpless an’ brainless, an’ bides longer helpless an’ brainless than any other beast knawn.”

“Shouldn’t call ’em ‘beastes’ ’zactly, seem’ they’ve got the Holy Ghost from the church font ever after,” objected Billy. “’T is the differ’nce between a babe an’ a pup or a kitten. The wan gets God into un at christenin’, t’ other wouldn’t have no Holy Ghost in un if you baptised un over a hunderd times. For why? They ’m not built in the Image.”

“When all’s said, you caan’t look tu far ahead or be tu forehanded wi’ bwoys,” resumed Will. “Gallopin’ down-long I said to myself, ‘Theer’s things he may do an’ things he may not do. He shall choose his awn road in reason, but he must be guided by me in the choice.’ I won’t let un go for a sailor—never. I’ll cut un off wi’ a shillin’ if he thinks of it.”

“Time enough when he can walk an’ talk, I reckon,” said Billy, who, seeing how his master viewed the matter, now caught Mr. Lyddon’s manner.

“Ess, that’s very well,” continued Will, “but time flies that fast wi’ childer. Then I thought, ‘He’ll come to marry some day, sure’s Fate.’ Myself, I believe in tolerable early marryin’s.”

“By God! I knaw it!” retorted Mr. Lyddon, with an expression wherein appeared mingled feelings not a few; “Ess, fay! You’m right theer. I should take Time by the forelock if I was you, an’ see if you can find a maiden as’ll suit un while you go back-along through the village.”

“Awnly, as ’tis better for the man to number more years than the wummon,” added Billy, “it might be wise to bide a week or two, so’s he shall have a bit start of his lady.”

“Now, you’m fulin me! An’ I caan’t stay no more whether or no, ’cause I was promised to see Phoebe an’ my son in the arternoon. Us be gwaine to call un Vincent William Blanchard, arter you an’ me, Miller; an’ if it had been a gal, us meant to call un arter mother; an’ I do thank God ’bout the wee bwoy in all solemn soberness, ’cause ’tis the fust real gude thing as have falled to us since the gwaine of poor Chris. ’Twill be a joy to my mother an’ a gude gran’son to you, I hope.”

“Go home, go home,” said Mr. Lyddon. “Get along with ’e this minute, an’ tell your wife I’m greatly pleased, an’ shall come to see her mighty soon. Let us knaw every day how she fares—an’—an’—I’m glad as you called the laddie arter me. ’Twas a seemly thought.”

Will departed, and his mind roamed over various splendid futures for his baby. Already he saw it a tall, straight, splendid man, not a hair shorter than his own six feet two inches. He hoped that it would possess his natural wisdom, augmented by Phoebe’s marvellous management of figures and accounts. He also desired for it a measure of his mother’s calm and stately self-possession before the problems of life, and he had no objection that his son should reflect Miller Lyddon’s many and amiable virtues.

He returned home, and his mother presently bid him come to see Phoebe. Then a sudden nervousness overtook Will, tough though he was. The door shut, and husband and wife were alone together, for Damaris disappeared. But where were all those great and splendid pictures of the future? Vanished, vanished in a mist. Will’s breast heaved; he saw Phoebe’s star-bright eyes peeping at him, and he touched the treasure beside her—oh, so small it was!

He bent his head low over them, kissed his wife shyly, and peeped with proper timidity under the flannel.

“Look, look, Will, dearie! Did ’e ever see aught like un? An’ come evenin’, he ’m gwaine to have his fust li’l drink!”

The child brought all a child should bring to Newtake, though it could not hide the fact that Will Blanchard drifted daily a little nearer to the end of his resources. But occasional success still flattered his ambition, and he worked hard and honestly. In this respect at least the man proved various fears unfounded, yet the result of his work rarely took shape of sovereigns. He marvelled at the extraordinary steadiness with which ill-fortune clung to Newtake and cursed when, on two quarter-days out of the annual four, another dip had to be made into the dwindling residue of his uncle’s bequest. Some three hundred pounds yet remained when young Blanchard entered upon a further stage of his career,—that most fitly recorded as happening within the shadow of a granite cross.

After long months of absence from home, Martin Grimbal returned, silent, unsuccessful, and sad. Upon the foundations of facts he had built many tentative dwelling-places for hope; but all had crumbled, failure crowned his labours, and as far from the reach of his discovery seemed the secret of Chris as the secrets of the sacred circles, stone avenues, and empty, hypaethral chambers of the Moor. Spiritless and bitterly discouraged, he returned after such labours as Will had dreamed not of; and his life, succeeding upon this deep disappointment, seemed far advanced towards its end in Martin’s eyes—a journey whose brightest incidents, happiest places of rest, most precious companions were all left behind. This second death of hope aged the man in truth and sowed his hair with grey. Now only a melancholy memory of one very beautiful and very sad remained to him. Chris indeed promised to return, but he told himself that such a woman had never left an unhappy mother for such period of time if power to come home still belonged to her. Then, surveying the past, he taxed himself heavily with a deliberate and cruel share in it. Why had he taken the advice of Blanchard and delayed his offer of work to Hicks? He told himself that it was because he knew such a step would definitely deprive him of Chris for ever; and therein he charged himself with offences that his nature was above committing. Then he burst into bitter blame of Will, and at a weak moment—for nothing is weaker than the rare weakness of a strong man—he childishly upbraided the farmer with that fateful advice concerning Clement, and called down upon his head deep censure for the subsequent catastrophe. Will, as may be imagined, proved not slow to resent such an attack with heart and voice. A great heat of vain recrimination followed, and the men broke into open strife.

Sick with himself at this pitiable lapse, shaken in his self-respect, desolate, unsettled, and uncertain of the very foundations on which he had hitherto planted his life, the elder man existed through a black month, then braced himself again, looked out into the world, set his dusty desk in order, and sought once more amidst the relics of the past for comfort and consolation. He threw himself upon his book and told himself that it must surely reward his pains; he toiled mightily at his lonely task, and added a little to man’s knowledge.

Once it happened that the Rev. Shorto-Champernowne met Martin. Riding over the Moor after a visit to his clerical colleague of Gidleigh, the clergyman trotted through Scorhill Circle, above northern Teign, and seeing a well-known parishioner, drew up a while.

“How prosper your profound studies?” he inquired. “Do these evidences of aboriginal races lead you to any conclusions of note? For my part, I am not wholly devoid of suspicion that a man might better employ his time, though I should not presume to make any such suggestion to you.”

“You may be right; but one is generally unwise to stamp on his ruling passion if it takes him along an intellectual road. These cryptic stones are my life. I want to get the secret of them or find at least a little of it. What are these lonely rings? Where are we standing now? In a place of worship, where men prayed to the thunder and the sun and stars? Or a council chamber? Or a court of justice, that has seen many a doom pronounced, much red blood flow? Or is it a grave? ’T is the fashion to reject the notion that they represent any religious purpose; yet I cannot see any argument against the theory. I go on peeping and prying after a spark of truth. I probe here, and in the fallen circle yonder towards Cosdon; I follow the stone rows to Fernworthy; I trudge again and again to the Grey Wethers—that shattered double ring on Sittaford Tor. I eat them up with my eyes and repeople the heath with those who raised them. Some clay a gleam of light may come. And if it does, it will reach me through deep study on those stone men of old. It is along the human side of my investigations I shall learn, if I learn anything at all.”

“I hope you may achieve your purpose, though the memoranda and data are scanty. Your name is mentioned in the Western Morning News as a painstaking inquirer.”

“Yet when theories demand proof—that’s the rub!”

“Yes, indeed. You are a knight of forlorn hopes, Grimbal,” answered the Vicar, alluding to Martin’s past search for Chris as much as to his present archaeologic ambitions. Then he trotted on over the river, and the pedestrian remained as before seated upon a recumbent stone in the midst of the circle of Scorhill. Silent he sat and gazed into the lichens of grey and gold that crowned each rude pillar of the lonely ring. These, as it seemed, were the very eyes of the granite, but to Martin they represented but the cloak of yesterday, beneath which centuries of secrets were hidden. Only the stones and the eternal west wind, that had seen them set up and still blew over them, could tell him anything he sought to know.

“A Knight of Forlorn Hopes,” mused the man. “So it is, so it is. The grasshopper, rattling his little kettledrum there, knows nearly as much of this hoary secret as I do; and the bird, that prunes his wing on the porphyry, and is gone again. Not till some Damnonian spirit rises from the barrow, not till some chieftain of these vanished hosts shall take shape out of the mists and speak, may we glean a grain of this buried knowledge. And who to-day would believe ten thousand Damnonian ghosts, if they stirred here once again and thronged the Moor and the moss and the ruined stone villages with their moonbeam shapes?

“Gone for ever; and she—my Chris—my dear—is she to dwell in the darkness for all time, too? O God, I would rather hear one whisper of her voice, feel one touch of her brown hand, than learn the primal truth of every dumb stone wonder in the world!”