“The best white heather grows on the far side of the Artillery Range,” said Beatrice, “where we can’t go. There used to be some along the side of this shoulder.”
They tramped and climbed, with their eyes fixed upon the dwarf gorse and the endless beds of pink, but they found no white heather, and somehow this seemed to Burrough the culminating stroke of ill-fortune. At length Beatrice gave a cry. She was kneeling among the heather and had parted a thick tuft. She pointed in triumph to something that was within.
“Won’t that do?” she called.
Burrough came up. He looked into the hole that her hands had made, and perceived a somewhat pale and ghastly sprig of bloom, which was certainly white, but a ghostly and unnatural white.
“It will not do,” he said.
“Why not? It’s the right colour. I’m going to pick it anyhow, and wear it, and fancy it’s the real thing.”
“You can’t wear it,” Burrough said, a trifle bitterly. “It’s a little freak, an abortion—just the very thing you hate.”
“It’s pretty,” she declared.
“It’s a fraud and a delusion,” Burrough went on, mentally comparing himself to the unhealthy looking sprig. “It’s pink heather really. It has become bleached by being shut in so that the light couldn’t reach it. If you pick it you will see it gradually becoming pink in the sunshine—blushing with shame at its deceit.”
“I’ll leave it,” said Beatrice. “It shan’t blush for me. Do things turn white when they are always in the dark?”
“Flowers do,” he replied. “It is the sun which colours them, and the stronger the sun the richer the colour. In winter the flowers are white. In early spring they are pale yellow or pale blue. Then the sun becomes powerful and we get the high colours.”
“And yet people believe they can live out of the sunshine,” Beatrice cried. “They think it healthy to be bleached like this poor little sprig of heather. I’ll trample the bush down so that it will get some sunshine. Why can’t people be sensible and learn they want sun and rain and wind upon them, day and night, just as the flowers want them? Just think of all the people working now in slums and shops and offices, out of the air and sunshine, getting white and sickly like this poor little bit of heather, which ought to have been pink but couldn’t be, because it was smothered. I should like to take them all, and drop them here upon the moor, and say, ‘Get pink, you idiots! Get pink’!”
“Don’t call them idiots,” said Burrough gently. “Many cannot help themselves.”
“They can,” she cried. “They prefer the smokes and smuts to the wind and sunshine. I dare say this bit of heather has been chuckling to itself, because it was inside the bush. It didn’t care about the dark. It didn’t care about being pale and sickly. It was better than being cut to pieces by the wind. That’s what it says, the idiot. I think I’ll pull it to pieces. Yes, people are idiots,” she went on, having worked herself into quite a pretty state of indignation. “Our villagers go away because they want to get bleached in a nice dark slum. They leave the cliffs and moors because they hate them—idiots: they hate the granite, the gorse, the bracken, the wind, and sun, and sea; and they pine for the smokes and smuts, the fog, the stench, the filth of a dark room, in a warm court, up an airless slum, in a sunless town.”
Beatrice had dropped upon the heather and was lying in a bath of pink foam supporting herself upon her elbow. She did not look at her companion much, because she could not help thinking him rather an eyesore with that ugly bandage twisted about his head, and covering the upper part of his face leaving only the left eye visible. She disliked herself for the thought, but there was no resisting it. Decidedly he was ugly and somewhat out of place upon that heather-strewn slope of moor.
“Are we going any further?” asked Burrough, when he saw she did not seem inclined to move.
“We shan’t find the white heather. It’s too early in the year. Let’s sit here and bathe in flowers and sunshine. I think the air upon Dartmoor is the finest in the world—even better than that upon Trendreen Hill. There the air is rather too salt. Here it’s sweet with heather and gorse, with just a suspicion of the sea. I should like to die like this, up near the clouds, upon a bed of heather in full bloom, with the sun beating full upon me. I should feel that I was going to join the pixies.”
“I believe your Kingdom of Heaven is the Cornish coast,” Burrough remarked, with a rather dreary smile.
“I don’t ask for anything better,” she said. “But I’m going to see the world change before I become a pixy. I have made up my mind to live until I’m well over a hundred. I think I shall do it. It’s nonsense people saying they don’t want to live to a great age. They go on saying it until they reach their last illness, and then it’s everything they possess for just one more day in this lovely world. I come of a long-lived family. I’m a descendant of Dolly Pentreath, who was the last to speak the Cornish language. My father died young, but that was owing to a fall from his horse. He was a parson, you know,” she went on, admitting her companion for the first time into family secrets. “There wasn’t a finer sportsman in Cornwall, and he kept a curate to do the work.”
Burrough had settled himself beside her, but he was not so near as he might have been. He had an uncomfortable feeling that she was making conversation to entertain him. She was being kind because she was sorry for him. She was not finding any actual pleasure in his society. He could not venture upon any of those overt acts of love, the sight of which disturbed Miss Pentreath so greatly. He was in an equivocal position. He remembered how she had recently exposed the sprig of disfigured heather to the light, and then had destroyed it as being unfitted to survive. He knew he was about to expose his features to the light before her, and he wondered whether she would use him as she had used the heather.
“You are not attending to my words,” Beatrice said, lifting her head indolently. “I am wasting them upon the moorland air. I will speak no more.”
“Then it’s my turn,” Burrough said, rousing himself from thought, and trying to imagine that the little god of Hope was on his way back. “If you will sit up a little and lean forward——”
“I won’t sit up, neither will I lean forward,” said she.
“Just for a minute,” he pleaded.
“No, nor yet for a second, nor for any vulgar fraction of the same.”
“You are idle,” he reproved her. “You ought to be ashamed——”
“I am. I blush for my idleness. But I’d rather blush and be ashamed than sit up.”
“Then I must describe what I want you to look at. What can you see from there?”
“The firmament, two larks, and a big feather-bed cloud,” said she.
“If you were to turn over,” he suggested.
“Well, then! Now I behold ponies, as big as toy terriers, upon the side of Cawsand. I hear the river dashing below in its everlasting hurry. And I feel a bit of heather tickling my nose.”
“If you were to sit up——”
“Which is declined.”
“You would see round the curve of the shoulder,” he went on. “You would see into the cleave, and up the gorge, and at the end of all things my little stone cot.”
“Like a star at the end of a telescope,” she said. “I can imagine it. Someone said you ought to be sent to prison for six months as a punishment for building such a thing to the eternal detriment of the landscape.”
“Could you imagine yourself there?” he asked.
“Not in the least,” she laughed. “It’s much too small for a person of my expanding spirits.”
“I have tried to make it nice,” he said somewhat plaintively. “I painted the interior myself, and I chose white and green for the sitting-room, because nothing looks better, and I thought it might please somebody else one day. The big bedroom is in white and blue, and I painted bunches of forget-me-nots upon the door-panels. You haven’t seen that room. It’s never been occupied yet. I was keeping it——”
“I have seen it,” said Beatrice quickly. “I roamed about the place when you were blown up.”
“Did you like it?”
“Yes, it’s pretty, and such a contrast stepping off the moor into a snuggery.”
“Then I planted bushes and creepers, but they don’t get much chance owing to the winds. Still, I’ve got some honeysuckles in flower, and the ivy is creeping up the walls. It’s so lonely there. In winter it’s too wild, and in summer too quiet. In November the wind is always rushing across the moor, and the water roaring down the gorge beneath my windows. Then the rains come, and bring down cart-loads of sand and gravel; and the woodwork swells until not a door or window will shut, and they flap and bang day and night. And Peter and I sit and listen, and wonder what is coming next.”
“Don’t you have any romances?” said Beatrice, who was feeling uncomfortable. “Don’t you ever hear knocks and noises?”
“Plenty. The wind cries and calls, and the ponies come down to find shelter and kick at my door.”
“They’re not all ponies,” said the girl blithely. “The little people are sorry for you, and they come round sometimes to invite you to one of their parties. You should go with them, and if you are nice, they might show you where to find the crocks of gold.”
“Sometimes during the long winter evenings, I feel as though I could imagine anything,” he said.
“Do let’s be cheerful,” cried Beatrice, as she began to rise from her bed of heather in unpleasant apprehension of what might be coming. “We are hooting at each other like a pair of owls. ‘Tu-whit’ says you, ‘Tu-whoo’ says I. We haven’t found any white heather, but we haven’t looked very furiously.”
Her voice died away into a gasp, and Burrough looking round saw that her face was pale. Her eyes were strained upon him, and there was fear in them, and something which was rather more unpleasant than fear; her lips were tight together, and her chin quivered. Then she withdrew her gaze from him, and he fancied she did so with a shudder.
“Why! what’s the matter?” he exclaimed.
“Ough! the beastly thing,” said Beatrice rather unsteadily. “It must have been a viper. It glided just by my hand.”
As she spoke Burrough felt the wind blowing upon his face, and it seemed to him cold. In a moment he realised that the sensation was caused by the breeze touching his face upon that part of it which had been covered. He put up his hand. The bandage had slipped down.
Beatrice began to talk some wild nonsense, but her tongue soon flagged. Then she declared she could see her aunt walking beside the leat which conveyed water to the village, and she thought she would like to run across and join the lonely lady.
“Our paths lie in opposite directions,” she said somewhat significantly. “I can just catch auntie if I run. Good-bye. I’m sorry we haven’t found any white heather.”
Burrough said nothing until she turned to go. He had readjusted the bandage as well as he could. He was glad that she had discovered the truth. But when he saw she was about to leave him the horror of the past came upon him again, and he dreaded lest she might be leaving him for ever.
“May I see you this evening?” he faltered. “After dark. And then.…”
He broke off, not knowing how to finish.
“It will be light,” Beatrice said. “There’s still a moon. Yes, walk towards the village about nine. I’ll meet you upon Brynamoor.”
When Burrough came into his lonely cottage the first thing that struck him was the silence. Usually the wind was sighing and moaning; the water was roaring down the gorge beneath his windows. Inside two clocks were ticking and chattering like a pair of magpies; and Peter Grimalkin, Crown Prince of Cats, was purring upon the lounge. But there was not a sound that evening. There was not even a breeze upon the moor, not enough to make a moan. There was scarcely any water coming down the gorge, certainly far too little to raise a roar. The clocks had stopped, which was only natural, as Burrough had forgotten to wind them. Peter, generally over-punctual to meals, was absent, having left the impression of his body upon a cushion as a sort of hint he would return anon. The silence and loneliness were together more than Burrough could endure. He went out, leaned against his favourite rock, and presently began to offer serious advice to that portion of his personality which was inclined to break out into revolt. “Now, look here, old chap,” he said, addressing the top of his boot. “You’ve been making a fool of yourself lately, and you’ve been knocked out. No more weakness. Sit up straight and take your punishment like a little man. Beatrice is not for you. She’s been very kind and nice—I won’t say she hasn’t flirted a bit, but that’s her way—and she’s given you more happiness than you deserved; and now—well, now she’s going away, and you’ve got to stop here and make a living. I warned you right along you had no chance. There’s all the difference in the world between a gentleman on granite and a gentleman on clover. You’re on the granite, and always will be, and she’s on the clover. If you hadn’t been broken up by that shell it would have been just the same. You were a miserable creature to try and deceive her, and of course she’s angry, and would naturally hate you, even if you weren’t more than twice as ugly as wall-eyed Kellaway. You’ll get over this all right, and settle down the same as ever. It’s only a weak fool who permits his life to be spoilt by a love affair. You must remember that love, matrimony, companionship, are merely incidents of life. What a man does, his work, his actions, his influence—those make up his life.”
This was very sound philosophy, and suited Burrough’s case admirably. He went on to assure himself that if Beatrice were to become his they would soon grow tired of one another; they might even quarrel, and separate in mutual disgust. Of course he wanted her, but that was not so much because he loved her, as because she was beyond him. He was so convinced that Beatrice had not been intended for him in any case, that he searched for Peter to impart the information to that indifferent creature. Peter, however, was in none of his usual haunts.
Burrough decided he might feel lonely presently. There was always his work, which he had neglected for so long. He would devote himself in earnest to that, now that he had burst all the bubbles of pleasure within reach. He had finished the frivolous chapter of his life. The next chapter was to be solid work. There is nothing a man cannot accomplish by hard work. To-morrow—Avanti! Stones and sermons. The granite of Dartmoor should yield gold. The primitive structures of the moor should be dealt with as they had never been before. He would run up the gamut of stone-age architecture from menhir and dolmen to the beehive hut. And the answer of a gratified public would be the answer of the commoner, who was accused of destroying a cromlech to make the wall of his new-take. “What’s the good of ’en? The Almighty put they stoanes there for use. So I cracked ’en up and used ’en.” That commoner was a member of the public. He had no reverence for cromlech or hut circle. He had the practical side of life to attend to, so he “cracked ’en up and used ’en.” The public in general have a sentimental side, but stone-memorials do not enter into it. They would say of Burrough’s book, more elegantly, perhaps, but none the less shrewdly, “What’s the good of ’en?”
Burrough felt proud of himself. He was displaying courage, self-restraint, and determination. He had made up his mind to forget Beatrice, and had no doubt he would succeed. Still he felt lonely; so he walked about the furze-bushes and stone-clatters, calling for Peter; and receiving no answer he went indoors, lighted his stove, wound up his clocks, and reflected that “making happy” was the literal meaning of the name Beatrice.
Evening came at last, warm and cloudy. A silvery light above the tors hinted at the presence of the moon behind the canopy. The heather ceased to blush, and the bloom of the gorse became misty. A nightjar down the gorge appeared to imagine itself a blacksmith, and made horrible noises accordingly. The last cartload of peat had jolted in from bogland. The stone-yard was silent, and the workers were gathered together in Eastaway’s bar-room to sing ballads with the moormen. Burrough heard them singing as he made his way towards Brynamoor.
There was pure white mountain mist hanging along the cleave. The lonely watcher could see the undulating lines of the high moor on one side, and on the other portions of the tors like mediæval castles lying in ruins. It was hard to believe that misty fabric was composed of immense granite blocks piled one above the other. Those blocks were faint pencillings upon the sky. The upper part of the moor was a cloud, a creation of moist air—but a breeze passed, the mist was shaken out like the folds of a robe, then settled into a filmy sheet, blending substance with shadow, melting the granite masses into ghost-clouds. As Burrough walked on, another change occurred. The moon appeared, and in a moment nothing that was indefinite remained. The village sycamores cast lace-like shadows. The lines became sharp, the rugged outlines of ruined tors were clear-cut. There was no sense of mystery. The mist had been poetical, the silvery glow sentimental; but there was something cold and pitiless about the moonlight.
Two figures wandered upon Brynamoor. Beatrice had brought her aunt, for which kindly act the little lady was grateful. She enjoyed being with her niece. It made her feel young; also it made her feel wicked. “I shall have to bail you out of the police-court some day,” Beatrice had said to her relative, during an evening’s diversion in London, when the little lady, conscious that no one knew her, had announced her intention “to persevere in dissipation for the rest of the night.”
Beatrice was pale, frightened, unhappy, when she saw Burrough approaching. She had already forgiven his deceit, which was in a manner complimentary to her. She admired his courage when she perceived that he had at last removed his bandage. But one glance at his terribly disfigured features was sufficient. It was worse even than she had feared. He made a terrifying spectacle in the moonlight. That light which idealised her own bizarre face added deformity to his. She felt the same kind of shrinking dread which the one-legged fisherman had inspired her with as a child.
“That Mr. Burrough! How shocking!” Miss Pentreath whispered.
Burrough came up and joined them. He saw Beatrice shrink slightly, and avert her eyes when she greeted him, so he turned the brim of his hat to conceal his damages, and placed himself at her right hand; while Miss Pentreath simpered something about the moonlight, and said she wished very much she could recall some poetry she had learnt in her—at least a year or so ago.
“Shall we go into the copse?” Beatrice suggested, nodding in the direction of a gate set within the stone hedge.
“Certainly not. There are snakes, and things that creep, jump, and bite,” cried Miss Pentreath. “Besides, it’s muddy, and I have on my thin shoes and lace stockings.”
“I want to go and pick flowers. I like picking them by moonlight,” the girl went on. “They are all alike by this light; you can only distinguish them by smell. Don’t you like the smell of wild flowers?” she asked Burrough, but without looking up at him.
“They smell of the open air,” she cried when he had answered in the affirmative. “I hate the smell of cultivated flowers; they smell of disinfectants and hospitals.”
“This girl runs wild when she finds the first primrose,” said Miss Pentreath.
“It’s the first sign of spring,” Beatrice explained. “Every winter I have a horrible dread lest by some terrible accident there should be no spring or summer. When I see the first primrose I know we’re all right; so I pounce upon it and eat it.”
“Why do you eat it?” asked Burrough in his grave, low voice.
“Primitive instinct, I suppose. It’s my way of expressing supreme satisfaction. If you will wait here five minutes,” Beatrice went on, pinching her aunt’s arm slily, “Mr. Burrough and I will go into the copse, as I must and will have a handful of the white orchids, which, if gathered by moonlight, are a sure protection against evil-eye, convulsions, change of weather, and a host of other things—a sort of pixy patent-medicine, in fact. Sit you here, auntie, and think of your sins, while I go to secure the means of rendering myself proof against the spells and enchantments of all the black witches between Tamar and Sennen Cove.”
“But I don’t like stopping here by myself,” protested the little lady.
“Bogey won’t run away with you,” laughed Beatrice. “I shan’t be gone more than five minutes—which may mean a quarter of an hour. If you see or hear anything frightful, light the furze. When I see the glow I will run.”
“Suppose I’m bitten by a viper?”
“Bite him back, dear,” cried Beatrice, and ran to join Burrough, who was pacing moodily towards the hedge with its mantle of ferns and stonecrop.
He swung open the gate. Beatrice slipped through, and, lifting her short skirts, hurried across the rough ground as though she desired to escape from him. When he turned from the gate she was a dozen yards in front. He hurried after her, and, with a laugh, she began to run. She jumped a water-course and sped on, and was actually gaining upon him, when she stopped short, made some strange movements, and then began to hop with one foot off the ground.
“I’m beaten,” she called. “What chance have we who run in skirts? I’ve been and kicked my foot through the flounce of my petticoat.”
There was a gnarled oak close by, so she hopped thrice, and, leaning against it, disengaged her foot. Some inches of flimsy white material fluttered about the grass, and she tried to tear it off, but failed; so, looking up with a laughing face, she begged for a knife.
As Burrough approached she put out her hands suddenly.
“I must say it at once—I’m sorry, so sorry,” she said, softly. “I know why you didn’t tell me now. You thought it might turn out better than it has done. I am so sorry. I can’t think of anything else to say. But we shouldn’t have blended, perhaps. Here, lend me your knife, please. It’s all right, isn’t it? I’m not Beatrice—I was only Beatrice for a little—the evening we went swaling and that night in the ruin. The rest of the time I was Bill. I wanted to be Bill always, only you wouldn’t let me. I am Bill now, and you are Jack. We were at school together, you know. Don’t you remember how we used to cheek the masters?”
Burrough’s single eye was fixed upon the torn flounce. He did not dare to look at her lest he should see her shiver again when she saw his disfigurement. He drew the brim of his hat still more down.
“What are you doing?” cried she. “No, you must not cut it off; you might forget I am just Bill—your old pal, Billy P. Please let me do it; you forget. It’s just a silly trick of mine, this masquerading in frills and flounces. I’m really—yes, a horrid, beery fisherman, and I chew tobacco, and I swear and beat my wife, and I’ve got a little fishing-smack at St. Sennen—the ‘Stormy Petrel,’ by Bill Pentreath—and they call me ‘cap’n’ down there. I wonder you know such people.”
“It’s all right, Bill; I don’t forget,” said Burrough bravely.
“Gi’e us yer knife then, Jack. I wants to trim these ’ere duds o’ mine,” said Beatrice delightedly.
“She doesn’t care,” he thought. “It is nothing to her.”
“Let me do it, Bill,” he pleaded.
“Ah, well,” said she, with a distinctly feminine sigh.
But when Burrough was upon his knees at those tiny feet, the fragrant petticoat in his hands, his knuckles against the warm, strong ankle, he lost, not all, but a part of his self-restraint; and this fact was communicated to him less through his senses than by means of Beatrice’s voice saying reproachfully, although more softly than she had intended—
“Jack, thee’rt a gurt fool!”
“It’s done—it’s off!” he cried, somewhat hoarsely, perhaps, but still strongly, holding the pretty scented trifle out.
“I’ll get the missis to sew it on,” laughed she; but there were tears in her eyes had he known it. She admired his courage and his strength the more; his courage in that he had not been yet weaker, his strength in conquering what weakness there was. Those kisses were warm upon her pretty ankle.
“Jack, we mustn’t stop,” she hurried on. “There’s auntie waiting, and she’s nervous by herself. I thought it would be wise to bring her, and then—well, you know. You’ve been a good boy, Jack, very good; and Bill’s proud of you. Now look—look down into the copse!”
Burrough turned slowly and stupidly. He saw hundreds of white spikes springing from the lush grass below. They were orchid blooms nodding sleepily in the enchanted moonlight.
“I must have some,” she said, and went down into the lush grass, which reached her knees, regardless of wet feet and damaged lace; for she was careless of her pretty clothes, and perhaps she wanted to cool that burning ankle in the swamp.
“Come and help,” she called. “We must hurry; there are clouds coming up over the moon, and if it’s dark on Brynamoor auntie will scream.”
Burrough went down and helped, keeping some distance from her. He was thankful when a gauzy veil was drawn across the moon, making Beatrice a ghostly figure and concealing his deformity from her. He could hardly see the white spikes of the orchids; they were confused with the cotton sedge.
In the meantime the girl was chattering:
“Shine, bright moon, or you’ll break the spell. There are drunkards here. They ought to have done flowering by now. They are very late drunkards.” She was referring to a few marsh-marigolds which displayed their yellow cups at the edge of the swamp. “It is a shame to call them drunkards, even if they are always drinking. They only drink water, but perhaps bog-water is rather rich and heady. And here! Are these ghastly little things forget-me-nots? Yes, they are.”
As she spoke a glow of red light came across the copse. Light clouds drifted overhead, there was a noisy crackling, and the air became full of sparks.
“Auntie has fired Brynamoor,” cried Beatrice. “There she sits upon her rock, singing as she watches the world burning. She thinks the five minutes are up.”
They came up from the copse. Burrough tried to hang back, because he felt there was much he would like to say, if he could find the words, and the courage to utter them; but Beatrice pressed on towards the gate, obviously anxious to bring the scene to a close.
“Peter has gone,” he exclaimed at last. “I am alone now.”
“Gone!” said Beatrice. “Hoisted Blue Peter? Weighed his little anchor? Walked his own chalks, without a last paw-shake, or a valedictory mew?”
“I have not seen him all day. He never came in this evening. He has always been punctual to his meals.”
“I knew how it would be,” said Beatrice. “A messenger came last night to tell him that the old king his father had passed away, and that he was king of all the cats. Of course he would have to go at once, or some pretender might have seized the crown. He won’t forget you. He’ll send you the Crown Prince to bring up. Some morning you’ll find a fine black kitten lost among the heather by your door. You can take him in and call him Moses.”
“Peter was my only companion,” he went on sadly.
“He will come back,” said Beatrice. “Of course he will. Cats are fearful profligates. They go away for sprees of a week, then sneak home like prodigal sons to be fed up and pampered.”
They were at the gate. The stone hedge concealed them from Miss Pentreath, who was strutting nervously beside the glowing furze. Burrough stopped with his hand upon the catch, and turned suddenly to face the girl with a fond whisper of her name.
“Your bad memory,” she laughed. “Not Beatrice, but Bill. Remember me as Bill. Write to me as Bill—and like me as Bill.”
After that he could do nothing. There was no doubt that was her final answer. The moon was out again, and he stood revealed; and Miss Pentreath had sighted her niece and was coming towards them with quite unreasonable haste.
When Burrough returned to his cottage beside the gorge Peter had not returned. He went almost immediately to bed, reminding himself again that love and matrimony, and even the disappearance of a favourite cat, were merely incidents of life. He consoled himself with the thought that he would see Beatrice for another two weeks, listen to her chatter, visit with her their little kingdom by the river, and feel the enchantment of her presence. During the fourteen days much might happen. She liked him, and therefore she might accustom herself to his disfigurement. She might cease to be Bill of the copse, and become again Beatrice of Blissland, Beatrice of the tiny footprint and the golden hairpin.
The next morning Willum came up the cleave with gun and dogs and the letter-bag. He was very late, and his temper was bad. He explained these facts by informing Burrough, whom he met among the rocks searching for Peter, that the two ladies had cut short their visit, and had upset his mother by ordering an early breakfast, and annoyed himself by sending him out still earlier to order the carriage so that they might catch the first west-bound train.
It was not often that Mrs. Cobbledick had an idea, but when one did come she made the most of it. The idea of her life was butter, not that made by others—she had repeatedly refused to grease her boots with that—but her own. It would be impossible to lay too much emphasis upon the butter. The produce of her churn was in Mrs. Cobbledick’s eyes the final triumph of art. It was not butter as other people, fools mostly, understood by the word. On Saturdays she drove her pony to great-market or little-market, as the case might be, with a basket of her precious butter. Sometimes she brought it back untouched. She said the townsfolk were not worthy of her butter. They did not understand it. They had not been educated up to it. Therefore she had refused to sell any to them. She had chosen rather to give it away to the suffering poor. It was not always that the suffering poor would accept the gift. They said it was bad butter.
Enthusiasm hardly entered into Willum’s unemployed existence. Profound meditation with his back against a wall, the rise or fall in price of liquors containing alcohol, the breeding of spaniels, the courting of various young women, assorted ecclesiastical duties, an inquiry into the study of the Chinese language, the shooting of rabbits—such were the occupations which filled the scholar’s days. Yet even Willum felt pride in his mother’s butter, believing it was all that she claimed for it. The glory of that butter was reflected upon him as the son of its creator. When escorting visitors through the village he would dismiss Norman architecture and Saxon pounds with a few ill-chosen inaccuracies in order that he might indicate the linhay, which Mrs. Cobbledick used for her dairy, with the impressive statement, “Mother makes her butter there.”
Even single-minded persons have secondary ideas, which may appear uppermost when the main idea is quiescent. And if butter was the pride of Ann’s life—apart from her son, who, however near and dear to her, was necessarily a thing somewhat outside and a non-essential to the oleaginous destiny for which she had been selected—the secondary idea was undoubtedly her tombstone. When she found herself lodgerless the tombstone, which was hidden away at the back of Eastaway’s shed, became a reproach to her. It was her desire by day and her oppression by night. Gradually the idea entered into her—started by an evil dream, induced possibly by partaking too heartily of butter which could not otherwise be disposed of—that she would die one day. There was nothing very original in that, but it suggested a double grave ungraced by any memorial. Regarding Willum senior that mattered little, because he had no niche in the local temple of fame, although there was a rumour that he had once drunk eighteen pints of ale at a sitting and had sung a different song over each pint. Such a distinction, however, had been claimed by others. This dread lest the tombstone might not be erected preyed upon Ann. Even the graves of the mighty are liable to be forgotten in the absence of any suitable memorial. The connection between main and secondary ideas was spontaneous. The descent from butter to tombstone was sudden and inevitable. Without a record in stone future generations might search in vain for the resting-place of Ann Cobbledick, the last of the butter-makers.
Remote as it may appear from the main idea, the lingering disease with which fancy and fondness on her part, and inclination and laziness on his, had attached to Willum was the direct cause of Ann taking action towards the acquisition of the tombstone for which Eastaway quite properly demanded cash. Obviously Willum was failing rapidly. He leaned against the wall for longer intervals; his hands were in his pockets more frequently than ever; he went less upon the moor; and listlessness had become with him a distressing feature. Mrs. Cobbledick considered that if Willum preceded her no attention would be given to the already weedy corner of the churchyard which she hoped in due time to occupy. The tombstone would probably be broken up and used for building purposes; and the record, with which she proposed to dazzle the eyes of dairymaids and housewives yet unborn, would never be published.
Things came to a crisis when the resident doctor, who maintained a small sanatorium just outside the village, stopped Mrs. Cobbledick and informed her in a friendly way that Willum was a man of unusually robust constitution, and went on to suggest that he should be made to devote himself to something more profitable than loafing. Ann was furious at the suggestion. She knew perfectly well what had prompted it. Everybody was against her, owing to the fame of her butter, to say nothing of her cream and cheeses; and as for Willum, they hated him because he was “scholardly.” And now the doctor wanted to make her believe Willum was strong and well out of mere malice and hatred. It was a trick to deprive her of fame, to cheat her out of the tombstone. He wanted to delude her into the belief that Willum would outlive her and do justice to her memory, while the truth was, Willum was withering day by day, and could not last much longer, and when he was gone she would be left with no one to fight her battles; and the tombstone would slip out of her grasp at the last moment.
“Willum! Come here. I want ye,” she called from the linhay.
The scholar was leaning against the wall in an ungraceful attitude of self-abandonment. The most prominent and equally distasteful idea suggested by his mother’s shrill command was one which implied motion.
“Do ye be careful,” called Ann. “Poor Willum! He be that feeble,” she informed her churn. “Shall I come and give ye an arm, old dear?”
Willum was awake by this time. He informed his mother that he was still able to walk unaided, and proceeded to gratify and obey her by shuffling carefully across the road.
“Willum, you’ve been working. You be all nohow,” said Ann.
Her son denied the first statement with some warmth. The latter, he admitted, was substantially correct. Mrs. Cobbledick at once issued her revised version of the doctor’s indictment, and Willum listened with some dismay. He knew he was perfectly strong and well; and he lived in constant dread of Ann’s discovery of that fact. He interpolated a fit of coughing between his mother’s questions, and was immediately reassured that Ann at least would steadfastly refuse to countenance any undertaking which might have for its object his own initiation into the first principles of manual labour.
“Do ye sit down,” cried Ann, indicating the peat-stack. “And look ye, Willum, you mun bide in the village. I wun’t have ye trampesing Dartmoor and coming home carpsy-like. You mun bide quiet. Take a spuneful o’ cream, old dear. ’Twill ease the cough a bitty.”
Willum swallowed the cream, and declared himself so much relieved that Mrs. Cobbledick heaped the spoon again to repeat the process. Then the scholar settled himself comfortably upon the peat-stack, lighted his pipe, and gave every indication of passing into a state of somnolence until such time as a meal might be awaiting him; while Ann delivered herself of opinions regarding the cream and butter made by other people, which, as she averred many times each day, being a woman to whom one figure of speech was enough for a lifetime, she would not use to grease the axles of her pony-cart. Her remarks suggested naturally butter as a fine art, and her mind became uplifted to the primary idea, upon which she dilated until Willum’s breathing suggested unconsciousness. Therefore Ann’s mind became depressed to the secondary idea. The unfinished and unpaid-for tombstone loomed large, to the momentary exclusion of dairy produce. She roused Willum and enlightened him as to the state of her mind regarding Eastaway, and went on to inform him that desire for the tombstone spoilt and embittered her entire existence. A man of Willum’s learning might, she considered, suggest means by which the tombstone could be acquired without the degradation of paying for it.
Willum’s instincts were primitive. The only plan that suggested itself to him was to enter the shed, remove the memorial, and place it in the churchyard. Once in consecrated ground, it would be safe. He declared that a special Act of Parliament would be required before it could be removed; and as churchwarden he should oppose any such arbitrary proceeding. However, the objections to purloining the tombstone were many. It could not be done secretly; it would require a horse and cart, together with a gang of conspirators, armed with crowbars, and fortified with beer.
“It mun be paid for,” decided the scholar. “Eastaway be cruel hard on folk. Wanted me to work for ’en. Said if I worked for three weeks he’d give us the tombstone. Knew a day’s work would kill me.”
“The doctor put ’en up to it. ’Twas a plot to get ye out of the way,” said Ann bitterly. “They hates I for the butter. They reckons they could du what they likes wi’ you dead and gone, and me a lone woman. Willum, I be going to have the tombstone, and I be going to get the butter put on ’en, but I b’ain’t going to pay for ’en.”
“I mun go round wi’ a paper,” said Willum.
The scholar had said nothing wiser in his life. It was in fact an inspiration, and Ann was so enraptured that she bounded across the linhay, and seizing her son’s sandy head between her buttery hands, kneaded it in her joy. But the question was at once suggested: who would head the paper?
“Mr. Yeoland—he’ll head ’en wi’ two shillun. I’ll make ’en,” said Willum.
“Ain’t there no one wi’ a title?” Ann suggested.
“There’s a ‘sir’ up to Tor Down, wi’ two ugly maidens his darters. They don’t think much of ’en, ’cause he gets his money out o’ soap. If it had been beer, now, or pigs, us might have got ’en to head the paper.”
Mrs. Cobbledick agreed that the unpopularity of the saponaceous knight rendered him ineligible to head the subscription list. Other names were mentioned, only to be dismissed. No allusion was made to Burrough. Men who live in tiny cottages with tin roofs are obviously not to be honoured with the first place upon lists of any sort. His name would appear somewhere about the bottom. It was decided that Mr. Yeoland should be awarded the privilege of starting the paper.
That afternoon Willum went the round, having first stipulated with his mother that any surplus money collected by his endeavours should be retained by him and disposed of as he should think fit. He went first to the vicarage, entered without ceremony, and discovered old Y. seated in his dining-room, which was about the only apartment proof against wind and rain, chuckling over a cheap illustrated newspaper.
“Wait a moment,” the old fellow mumbled, when his lay-reader entered. “There’s no hurry. I’ll come in a minute. I’d forgotten it was Sunday.”
“It ain’t Sunday, sir. I’ve come to ask ye for a piece of paper,” said Willum, “and pen and ink. Shall I take ’em, sir?”
“Yes, take them,” muttered old Y., profoundly thankful that he was not to be disturbed, and blissfully ignorant that he was supplying implements for his own torment.
Willum helped himself to what was necessary, scribbled painfully for some minutes, then approached the arm-chair, and handed the vicar a sheet of paper upon the top of which he had inscribed in his sprawling caligraphy, “Substraction List for Widdow Cobbledick’s Toomstune.”
“Eh, what’s this?” muttered the old man.
Willum explained, and added, “Shall I put down five shillun, sir?”
“No!” cried the vicar. “I’ve no money. I’ll give nothing. Yes, I will. I’ll give threepence.”
“Three shillun you mean, sir. Mother mun have it. She frets for ’en fearful.”
“I’ve got no money,” old Y. repeated. “I’ll give sixpence. You’ve spelt the words wrong. Substraction—it ought to be substriction. No, no! I’m getting old and forgetful. Subscription—that’s it. And you’ve spelt ‘widow’ wrong. You’ve put two ‘d’ ’s.”
“I’ll put ’en right, sir,” said Willum, taking the paper and proceeding carefully to add a third “d.”
The vicar did not notice the alteration when he held the paper again to his eyes.
“What does she want a trombone for?” he mumbled.
“Tombstune,” shouted Willum.
“Eh, tombstone. That’s a silly thing to worry about.”
Finally the vicar parted with half-a-crown, and Willum departed in triumph across the road in search of Eastaway. He saw no reason why the stonebreaker-publican should not subscribe. However, that worthy thought otherwise. While they were arguing the matter, a sergeant of artillery entered and called for refreshment, and Eastaway submitted the question to him. The soldier suggested a portion of the purchase money might be remitted, and in the same breath asked Willum what he drank.
“I drinks beer, sir,” replied the scholar thirstily.
“Let him drink it,” said the sergeant.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll knock off ten shillun,” said Eastaway generously, as he drew the beer. “I’m tired of seeing the stone. It’s no use to me. Took a man half a week to crack ’en, and been lying in the shed ever since. Give me a pound and take it. I’ve got to lose, whether you take it or whether you leave it.”
“That’s a fair offer,” said the sergeant.
Willum drained his mug and turned it upside down either as a proof of its emptiness, or, what was more probable, as a hint for more. Then he produced the paper, and passed it to the stonebreaker with instructions to sign, “Under Mr. Yeoland, Robert Eastaway, ten shillun.”
“More trouble than the stone’s worth,” the publican grumbled, as he bent his fingers for the unwelcome task of writing.
“You’re starting well,” said the sergeant. “Have some more beer?”
“I’ll try, sir,” said Willum genially.
“Let him try,” said the soldier.
Willum succeeded with some facility. He took the paper, glanced at the spidery characters which the stonebreaker had inscribed, and chuckled.
“Ten and ten be twenty,” he said. “Twenty shillun make one pound. Ain’t that right, sir?”
“Used to be when I was at school.”
“What are ye talking about? I’ve put down ten shillun,” said Eastaway gruffly.
“Ten shillun knocked off, ten shillun put down—that be twenty.”
“You’m a liar,” cried Eastaway excitedly. “Ain’t he a liar, sir?”
“Well,” muttered the sergeant, “if you don’t cheat him, he’ll cheat you. You can call that business.”
“I’ll show him business,” shouted the publican, who frequently lost his temper over money matters. “I’ll have that paper, and tear ’en up, and get even wi’ ’en.”
But Willum was already outside, flushed with success and two pints of beer. He did not go far. After visiting the stone-crackers in the yard, and collecting nothing from them, he returned to the door of the inn, accosted the sergeant, and cajoled a shilling out of him for the good cause.
Then Willum devoted himself to a careful canvass of the district. He visited the lodging-houses. He tracked unsuspecting persons upon the moor, and pushed the paper, which issued from his pocket dirtier and more crumpled each time, into their hands. Nobody was safe from him. Money accumulated in his pocket. Willum decided privately he would go round again next week for his own benefit. He could declare he had lost his geese and didn’t know where to find them, or he could say one of his ponies had been stugged in a bog. He did not possess any ponies, but the visitors would not know that. This going round with a paper suggested endless possibilities. An honest man might make a living that way.
Willum had amassed a sum of nineteen shillings by sheer audacity, when he met little Georgie Eastaway, known familiarly as “Cap and Breeches” on account of the undue prominence of these sartorial necessities, which had been handed down from father to son. The scholar charged the child with a message for his father. “Tell ’en I only wants one shilling more, and I be going to get it from Mr. Burrough. I’ll pay ’en the lot when I comes back.” Cap and Breeches promised to obey, and trotted off; while Willum marched stolidly over the moor to the cottage beside the gorge.
Burrough opened the door to him. Had Willum been less occupied with his own affairs, he might have noticed that the young man looked ill. With his best smile the scholar extended the crumpled sheet, and said, with the simplicity which had so far proved effectual, “For Mother’s tombstone.”
Burrough glanced hurriedly over the sheet, and muttered something under his breath which was not complimentary to the house of Cobbledick. Willum saw his lips move and had enough sense to perceive that the ejaculation was dental. His mouth made an ugly smile under his sandy moustache. He had no affection for Burrough, whom he regarded as a social inferior; neither had he forgotten that little affair of the “Chinese Bible.” Ignorance prevented him from saying anything on the subject, but he had an idea that Burrough had played him a trick.
“This is nothing whatever to do with me,” Burrough said impatiently.
“Mother mun have the stune,” replied Willum. “She wun’t give me no peace, and I thought I’d best come round wi’ a paper. ’Tis under the patronage of Mr. Yeoland.”
“It may be his affair, but it’s not mine. I can’t give you anything. There’s no end to these things. A boy came yesterday for a subscription to the Wesleyan Mission, another for the chapel tea. And now this tombstone. I should have thought your mother would have preferred to pay for such a thing herself. I notice none of the villagers have subscribed.”
“Mother be poor,” said Willum defiantly.
“Then you ought to work and support her,” Burrough replied warmly. “Of course it’s no affair of mine whether you work or not; but when you come and ask me to subscribe to your family memorial, I can only tell you plainly that the money ought to come out of your own pocket.”
Willum’s little foxy eyes became very malicious, and he reddened angrily. He had not expected this kind of treatment.
“I’ve never worked, and I ain’t a-going to,” he cried huskily.
“That’s your own look-out,” replied Burrough; and without another word he shut the door in the scholar’s face.
Willum delivered himself of various ugly noises when he found himself alone. Then he raised the knocker and rapped gently. There was no response, so he opened the door and pushed his head in. Burrough was seated at his writing-table amid books and papers.
“I was going to tell ye there was a note left,” he said smoothly. “The young lady left ’en, but Mother’s lost ’en. Mother’ll look for ’en again, and if ’tis found I’ll bring ’en in the morning.”
“Oh, very well,” said Burrough carelessly, without turning.
“You wun’t put your name on the paper?” Willum suggested.
“No, thank you.”
“All right, sir. Good-evening.”
With that Willum tramped away a very angry man.
When the scholar drew near his home he saw his mother looking out, and she hurried towards him in a state of much excitement to announce that the tombstone had been delivered. There it was, leaning against the side of the cottage, its unfinished inscription informing passers-by that beneath it reposed all that was mortal of the very person who was then gloating over it with garrulous delight.
“There be plenty of room for the butter. Look ye, Willum, the butter’ll go nice along here,” cried Ann. “How much did ye pay Eastaway for ’en?” she went on.
“Ain’t paid ’en nothing,” said the astonished Willum. “Only promised ’en.”
“Paid ’en nothing!” screamed Ann. “What made ’en send it, then? What made ’en send it? Dear life! Let’s get ’en into the parlour afore he sends for ’en back.”
It was lucky it was the cool of the evening. Had the incident occurred during the heat of the day, Mrs. Cobbledick might have been seized with apoplexy. To have secured the tombstone for nothing, to have defeated the vile avarice of the stonebreaker, to have paid him only with promises—this was indeed a triumph! And the victory had been won by the inimitable wisdom of Willum, her son.
The scholar admitted as much, although he was mystified; and he took care not to mention the nineteen shillings in his pocket. While his mother went for assistance to roll the tombstone into the parlour, he trudged off to the stone-yard, and meeting Charlie Eastaway’s waggoner, gathered from him some information, which was supplemented by the remarks of little Cap and Breeches, who was industriously cracking a whip hard by. Charlie, it appeared, had misunderstood the stonebreaker’s orders, which were that he should have the tombstone placed in the waggon when he had unloaded the granite brought down from the moor, and should hold himself in readiness to deliver the stone at Mrs. Cobbledick’s so soon as Willum should appear with the money, instead of which Charlie had set off at once with the tombstone and a couple of men to unload the same. Eastaway had just discovered what had been done, and was—so Charlie averred—still talking about it.
“Go in and pay ’en now. He’s in the bar. Go on, and I’ll stand a pint,” the waggoner pleaded.
“Not me,” said Willum, with no idea of dissipating the nineteen shillings so foolishly.
“He’ll take ye into court if ye don’t pay.”
“He wun’t. Not Eastaway. The law be expensive, and us be poor folk. He can’t get nothing out of we. He’s made a bad bargain, and Mother have made a good one. And so have I,” Willum concluded, working his fingers among the shillings and florins which lined his pocket.
More than a month passed before Burrough heard anything of Beatrice. During that time he worked as hard as he could. His days were singularly monotonous. The morning he occupied at his writing-table, trying to project himself into the stone age. He walked in the afternoon upon the moor, or to little Blissland, or through the copse where the flowers were beginning to fail. Beside the river the pink seed-pods of the asphodels announced autumn, and the red sundews were sinking in the bogs. The early evening he spent with prehistoric men in their hut circles; and then he sat by a peat fire, pipe in mouth, and thinking hard.
Peter had never come back. He had been seen returning, weak and thin, from a hunting expedition by Willum; and the scholar, recognising Burrough’s only companion, had put up his gun with a malicious twinkle in his foxy eyes and destroyed poor Peter. Burrough saw nobody except the moorman’s wife, who came in twice a week to clean up; and he was thinking seriously of disposing of her upon economic grounds. He had interviewed the doctor with a view to ascertaining whether his state of health would justify a return to London life, and the answer had been discouraging. For another two years at least it would be advisable for him to remain and harden upon the moor.
The note left by Beatrice with Mrs. Cobbledick had not been forwarded. Willum took care of that, and Burrough felt that he would only be making himself ridiculous by going to demand it with threats. The retort that it had been lost was unanswerable. He knew also it would be useless to apply to Ann for Beatrice’s address. Burrough had made a mistake in refusing to subscribe towards the tombstone, although he knew that the money collected by Willum had not been devoted to settling Eastaway’s claim, but had been expended by the rascally scholar in a trip to Plymouth. The only other person likely to be of use was Old Y. Burrough called upon the poor old man, to find him half-insane with dread at the thought of the approaching winter. The Vicar knew that Beatrice lived in Cornwall, near the Land’s End, he thought, but that was all the information he could give.
“Fine girl,” he mumbled. “Nice girl. Wish I was a young man. Find out where she lives. Go down there. I’ll come too.”
Then he collapsed into his chair and sobbed pitifully. He had not walked more than a hundred yards from his gate that summer, and he could not remember how long it was since he had been a railway journey.
“Don’t ye find it dull out there?” said Mrs. Eastaway, who was standing at her door as the young man passed on his way back to the gorge.
“Yes, very dull,” he replied; adding quickly with a touch of pride, “but it’s good for my health.”
“You should get another gentleman to come and live with you,” the woman went on. “My husband often says when he comes down with the granite it must be cruel lonely for you up there on Dartmoor among the winds and mists.”
“No one would stop with me,” said Burrough with a smile. “It’s too dull. People live in towns now, or within reach of them. They must have their pleasures every day.”
Mrs. Eastaway could not follow him there, as she had lived all her life upon the heights of the moor. The doctrine of perpetual pleasure was therefore beyond her understanding. Her next remark was one that any woman would have made.
“You ought to get married, sir. Is it true you are engaged to young Miss Pentreath? They say so in the village.”
Burrough shook his head, and raised a hand suggestively to his face while making a step forward, because that question made him anxious to get away into the mist which he could see coming up the cleave.
“Why, that’s nothing,” cried Mrs. Eastaway after him. “No young lady, as is a young lady, would notice that. Besides, sir, it’s getting better every time I see you. You’ll be looking the same as ever before long. Many a young man would change faces with you, I tell ye, sir.”
Burrough walked away rapidly. Reaching his cottage he hurried into his bedroom, and gazed intently into the glass. Certainly he was improving. The pure air and sunshine had done wonders for him: the forehead had practically healed, and the scar, if somewhat conspicuous, was at least not repulsive. But the eye-socket was. If the eye had only been spared everything might have been well with him.
As the Artillery Camp had not yet been disbanded, Burrough tramped across the moor upon the following day, and asked to see the surgeon. He was referred to the mess-house, and going there found the man he was seeking, an altogether different type from the doctor who had attended him after the accident. He was fussy, verbose, and optimistic. He knew all about Burrough’s case, of course, but gave him no chance to speak when he had once obtained a hint as to the object of his visit. A false eye? Certainly, it was the simplest thing in the world. And it was very effective, almost as good as the real thing. He might say quite as good. In some cases really an improvement upon Nature. Surgical art could repair ravages caused by time or accident in a marvellous manner. One got quite a poor opinion of Nature after a long course of operations. Science and art in combination were able to accomplish marvels, positive marvels. Such a little matter as teeth now—where was Nature? Nowhere in comparison with art. He strongly advised everyone to have their teeth out, the wretched teeth with which Nature had provided them, and an excellent set substituted by art. But in this case it was an eye—a new eye for an old. It would match the other? Yes, that was quite practicable, quite easy. He couldn’t wink at the girls, otherwise the false eye would look positively better than the other. Couldn’t see with it, of course. That was a pity, but art hadn’t quite attained to that pitch of excellence. He would see to it—delighted. The War Office would pay the expense, no doubt. Wouldn’t he sit down and have a brandy and soda, and talk about it? As a result of the subsequent monologue, for it could hardly have been called a conversation, Burrough received definite assurance that his personal appearance could be in some measure restored. The chatty surgeon was interested in the case, and said so at great length. Burrough went away in better spirits than he had enjoyed for weeks.
Then, at last, a note came from Beatrice. It was not a letter, merely a dozen lines on a small sheet of notepaper, inquiring after his health, hoping that his work was progressing, commenting upon the weather, but telling him nothing about herself. Everything connected with the note was a disappointment. It was badly written; the girl’s handwriting was neither tidy nor pretty; it was entirely unsympathetic, although she subscribed herself “your old pal, Bill.” It was just the sort of communication that might have been sent by one schoolboy to another.
No address was given. That was the unkindest cut. Perhaps she had forgotten. More probably she desired to conceal it. Possibly she had given it in the note left with the Cobbledicks, and was a little cold with “Jack” because he had not acknowledged that note. During their walks she had mentioned half the villages in Western Cornwall, but Burrough had never discovered which was the actual village where she lived.
The envelope was postmarked Sennen, which, as Burrough knew, was the usual abbreviation for St. Sennen Church-Town, the last village in England. He felt sure Beatrice did not live there. She was probably upon a visit with her wayward aunt. The thought at once occurred that he might go down there. He put it away from him, but it recurred with added force; and when that evening he was sitting alone in the lamplight, the wind upon the moor and the water in the gorge seemed to him to be singing in unison, and calling, “Go down!” He rose and shut the window, then drew the curtains close; but the wind and the water went on calling, “Go down!”
“I have not been away for more than a year,” he reflected. “A short trip would do me a lot of good. A sentimental journey into Cornwall would freshen me up and might furnish me with new ideas. And it may be my only chance of seeing Beatrice. If she gave me her address in the note she left behind, she must be thinking I have made up my mind not to correspond. She has written to me twice and I have not been able to answer. It is hardly likely she will write again.” It was then about nine o’clock. Burrough looked out and discovered a perfect night, although the wind was rushing down the cleave with its customary sad music. It was fairly light upon the moor; the stars were very bright; and he could just see the white water foaming in the gorge. It was too good a night to sleep through, he thought.
Then the vulgar nightjar lifted up his voice, and said in his coarse way that, if he wanted to be in St. Sennen Church-Town, he wouldn’t tuck his head under his wing, but he would just flap there right away, blow him tight if he wouldn’t. Burrough appreciated the statement. Why go to bed and dream unpleasantly? Why not go upon the open moor and flap his way towards the Land’s End? The westbound mail stopped at Okehampton before midnight. He could tumble a few things into a bag and walk across the moor, cross the river at Culliver’s Steps, strike up into the military road, which would be showing clearly in the starlight, pass over the Blackabrook by the military bridge, skirt the artillery camp, and so down to the station just in time to catch the mail.
Half-an-hour later the cottage was locked up and deserted. The wind and the water roared down the gorge, and the nightjar in the cleave continued his coarse observations upon things in general, much to the disturbance of decent birds trying to get some sleep. There was plenty of company for the nightjar: owls drifted about the tors; the gorge was filled with flying beetles: and the cleave was white with ghost-moths.
Burrough caught the mail and passed rapidly from the north of Dartmoor, through its Stannary Town on the Tavy, and down to its western boundary of Plymouth. The journey into Cornwall could not commence until some hours later; so he tramped through the silent streets, and coming out upon the starlit Hoe settled himself upon a seat which was not already occupied by waifs and strays. He felt singularly self-satisfied now that he had reached the west country London, where he could fancy himself a citizen of the world again. It was delightful to be away for a time from the moorland heights; to find himself surrounded by apparently endless streets of houses and yet to breathe sea air; to see the lights and hear the subdued noises, and at the same time to discern dimly the outline of rocks and the hulls of battleships. It was a pleasant change from the eternal gorse, heather, and bracken of his desolate home.
Altogether that was a happy and eventful night. Shortly before five o’clock the express drew out of North Road station, and crossing the Hamoaze at Saltash, conveyed the sentimental traveller for the first time in his life into Cornwall, and so to Liskeard in chilly lamplight and damp morning mist.
The sun was rising as the train drew into Truro, and the City of the Three Streets was bathed in a rosy light, which softened the granite buildings exactly as the mist had softened the granite tors when Burrough had set out to Brynamoor to find Beatrice that last time.
At Truro the garden-of-England scenery came to an end. Up to that point the country was richly wooded, and there was luxuriance in the ferns and hedgerows. There were orchards crowded with apple-trees. There should have been vineyards as in the old days. The green valleys of Lostwithiel, the smiling hills of St. Austell, were unlike anything else in the west country. England was left at Truro. Even the people were not English. The fishermen had the faces and the courtly manners of King Arthur’s knights, and the heavy yokel of English districts did not exist.
When the traveller saw the sun shining on the treeless district of the mines at Chacewater, he realised that it had been dark during his journey through the beautiful country. He had missed it all. And now it was light, so that he could see once more the rough heather and granite, the great bare stretches of country with its unworked tin-mines and patches of stunted pine. It looked very bare and desolate. The occasional cottages were squalid, and the stained granite churches seemed to be weary of withstanding the heavy storms which battered them so often. The scene grew wilder as the train swept on; trees and hedges were left behind; there were no more cornfields, nor cottages with bright flower gardens; the end was approaching, the Land’s End; and soon there would be nothing, except the granite and stunted gorse, and the foaming waste of sea. It was like a beautiful woman growing old; South Devon her youth; Eastern Cornwall her early married life; then at Truro middle age; and so on into the desolation and decay of old age. Burrough wondered whether he too had left behind the trees and flowers; whether he too had passed through the flowering woods and the luxuriant lanes; whether he might be coming, in more senses than one, to the untrodden wastes; to end at length among the cruel rocks and the stormy sea.
It was a waste which was not all a waste. Upon the magnesian soil grew the flesh-coloured Cornish heather, which no art short of witchcraft could induce to grow east of Truro. In the villages down below, accustomed to the roar of the sea, were semi-tropical plants; and the hydrangeas were bushes and the fuschias were trees. The wide sweeps of treeless land were still beautiful, and so was the air. It was the air after all that was the best. It was fresh and pure, and so soft that to breathe it into tender lungs made all the wide difference between pleasure and pain.
Respectable people had not breakfasted when Burrough reached Penzance. He found it difficult to believe that when the hands of the clock had last stood at half-past seven he had been in his cottage by the gorge, and had no idea of setting out upon a pilgrimage. But the shrine was still some miles away. He had no money to waste upon conveyances, so he struck into the good main road, and walked the eight miles to St. Sennen Church-Town with hardly a stop by the wayside.
It was not until reaching the village that he felt he had done foolishly. Nervous at the best of times, he felt doubly so when he walked in the crooked street, glancing half-defiantly at the villagers, and feeling extremely helpless and unwilling to accost any of them. There were a few visitors about the place. He saw an artist with a huge white umbrella; a mild-looking clergyman attempting to add the leaven of respectability to a rather noisy party; an elderly over-dresssd lady with a young and obviously persecuted companion; two youths with cheap cigars and ready-made clothes; and a regiment of very well-drilled children, officered by a nurse with the figure of a Falstaff and the face of a dragoon, including even the moustache. These and other curious objects of the Land’s End presented themselves to Burrough’s vision; but he saw nobody resembling Beatrice and her aunt.
The post-office being the information bureau of all villages, the traveller went thither. The woman in charge looked with suspicion at the nervous young man, who was wearing a rather unsightly patch over his right eye, but she answered his questions readily enough. “Yes, she knew Miss Beatrice Pentreath. Everyone in Western Cornwall knew her. No, she was not at Sennen, and had not been there all the year.”
“But I had a letter from her yesterday with the Sennen postmark,” said Burrough.
“I know you did,” said the woman. “Poltesco posted it. He were Miss Pentreath’s nurse, and he’m a fisherman and lives here,” she explained.
Seeing the wonder on his face, she went on, “Miss Pentreath warn’t like other young ladies, and her warn’t brought up like ’em. Her wouldn’t have a woman nurse, and as her were always out of doors they got Poltesco to nurse she. Her’s very fond of Poltesco, and he’d do anything for she.”
“Could I see him?” Burrough asked.
“He went out wi’ the fishing boats last night,” the woman answered.
“Well, then, if you don’t mind,” said Burrough awkwardly, “perhaps you would tell me where Miss Pentreath lives.”
This the woman refused to do in simple apologetic language, and Burrough could only admit that she was in the right. Evidently Beatrice did not want him to know where she lived. She was afraid he would come down and worry her, and she too was in the right, for that was exactly what he was trying to do then.
Suddenly a thought occurred to him. He was certain that the woman would tell Poltesco of his visit so soon as the fisherman returned, and would, moreover, describe his appearance, and record every word that he had said. He might communicate with Beatrice after all, and might, moreover, have the very message conveyed that he had come to deliver in person.
“You are quite right,” he said to the woman, making a step aside and pretending to adjust the patch. “Poltesco might not like it if you gave me Miss Pentreath’s address. You see I have had an accident. I have had the misfortune to lose an eye.”
“Dear life! There’s a cruel pity!” exclaimed the woman.
“It is nothing like so serious as was feared at first,” Burrough went on, still arranging the patch as an excuse for his remarks. “The wound has healed almost entirely, and I am about to have a false eye fitted. When that has been done, my appearance will be very much as it was before the accident. At least, so I am assured by the surgeon who is to perform the operation.”