Chapter 18

LOGIC

As Mr. Blee looked out upon a grey morning, the sallows leaping from silver to gold, from bud to blossom, scattered brightness through the dawn, and the lemon catkins of the hazel, the russet tassels of alders, brought light along the river, warmth into the world. A bell beat five from Chagford Church tower, and the notes came drowsily through morning mists. Then quick steps followed on the last stroke of the hour and Will stood by Billy's side in Monks Barton farmyard. The old man raised his eyes from contemplation of a spade and barrow, bid Blanchard "Good morning" with simulated heartiness, and led the way to work, while Will followed, bringing the tools. They passed into a shrubbery of syringa bushes twenty yards distant, and the younger man, whose humour had been exceedingly amiable until that moment, now flushed to his eyes before the spectacle of his labour.

"Do 'e mean that Miller's got nothin' for me to do but this?"

"Plenty, plenty, I 'sure 'e; but that ban't your business, be it? Theer's the work, an' I'd rather 'twas yourn than mine. Light your pipe an' go ahead. Not a purty job, more 'tis; but beggars mustn't be choosers in this hard world."

Billy bolted after these remarks. He heard a growl behind him, but did not look round. Half an hour later, he crept back again by a circuitous route, watched Will awhile unseen, then stole grinning away to milk the cows.

The young man, honestly thunderstruck at the task planned for him, judged that thinking would not mend matters, and so began to work quickly without stopping to reflect. But his thoughts could not be controlled, any more than his disposition changed. A growing consciousness of deep and deliberate insult surged up in him. The more he brooded the slower he worked, and finally anger mastered determination. He flung down his spade, saluted a red sunrise with the worst language at his command, and strode down to the river. Here, for some time and until blue smoke began to climb from the kitchen chimney of the farm, Will paced about; then with a remarkable effort returned to his task. He actually started again, and might have carried the matter to completion; but an evil demon was abroad, and Billy, spying the young man at work anew, reappeared.

"You'm makin' poor speed, my son," he said, viewing the other's progress with affected displeasure.

It proved enough, for Will's smouldering fires were ready to leap at any fuel.

"Go to blue, blazing hell!" he cried. "You'm at the bottom of this business, I'll lay a pound. Get out o' my sight, you hookem-snivey auld devil, or I'll rub your dirty ginger poll in it, sure's death!"

"My stars! theer's crooked words! Do 'e try an' keep tighter hand on your temper, Blanchard. A man should knaw hisself anyways 'fore he has the damn fulishness to take a wife. An' if you ax me--"

Mr. Blee's remarks were here brutally arrested, for the contents of Will's spade saluted his furrowed features, and quite obliterated the old man. He fled roaring, and the other flung his spade twenty yards away, overturned his wheelbarrow, and again strode to the river. He was fairly bubbling and boiling now, nor did the business of cleaning gaiters and boots, arms and hands, restore him to peace. A black pig gazed upon him and grunted as he came up from the water. It seemed to him a reincarnation of Billy, and he kicked it hard. It fled screaming and limping, while Will, his rage at full flood, proceeded through the farmyard on his way home. But here, by unhappy chance, stood Mr. Lyddon watching his daughter feed the fowls. Her husband ran full upon Phoebe, and she blushed in a great wave of joy until the black scowl upon his face told her that something was amiss. His evident anger made her start, and the involuntary action upset her bowl of grain. For a moment she stood motionless, looking upon him in fear, while at her feet fought and struggled a cloud of feathered things around the yellow corn.

"If you've done your job, Will, may'st come and shaake Phoebe by the hand," said Mr. Lyddon nervously, while he pretended not to notice the other's passion.

"I haven't done it; and if I had, is a scavenger's hand fit to touch hers?" thundered Blanchard. "I thought you was a man to swear by, and follow through thick an' thin," he continued, "but you ban't. You'm a mean, ill-minded sawl, as would trample on your awn flesh an' blood, if you got the chance. Do your awn dirty work. Who be I that you should call on me to wallow in filth to please your sour spite?"

"You hear him, you hear him!" cried out the miller, now angry enough himself. "That's how I'm sarved for returnin' gude to his evil. I've treated un as no man else on God's airth would have done; and this is what I gets. He's mad, an' that's to speak kind of the wretch!"

The young wife could only look helplessly from one to the other. That morning had dawned very brightly for her. A rumour of what was to happen reached her on rising, but the short-lived hope was quickly shattered, and though she had not seen him since their wedding-day, Phoebe was stung into bitterness against Will at this juncture. She knew nothing of particulars, but saw him now pouring harsh reproaches on her father, and paying the miller's unexampled generosity with hard and cruel words. So she spoke to her husband.

"Oh, Will, Will, to say such things! Do 'e love me no better 'n that? To slight dear faither arter all he's forgiven!"

"If you think I'm wrong, say it, Phoebe," he answered shortly. "If you'm against me, tu--"

"'Against you!' How can you speak so?"

"No matter what I say. Be you on his side or mine? 'Cause I've a right to knaw."

"Caan't 'e see 'twas faither's gert, braave, generous thought to give 'e work, an' shaw a lesson of gudeness? An' then we meet again--"

"Ess fay--happy meetin' for wife an' husband, me up to the eyes in--Theer, any fule can see 'twas done a purpose to shame me."

"You're a fule to say it! 'Tis your silly pride's gwaine to ruin all your life, an' mine, tu. Who's to help you if you've allus got the black monkey on your shoulder like this here?"

"You'm a overbearin', headstrong madman," summed up the miller, still white with wrath; "an' I've done with 'e now for all time. You've had your chance an' thrawed it away."

"He put this on me because I was poor an' without work."

"He didn't," cried the girl, whose emotions for a moment took her clean from Will to her father. "He never dreamed o' doin' any such thing. He couldn't insult a beggar-man; an' you knaw it. 'Tis all your ugly, wicked temper!"

"Then I'll take myself off, an' my temper, tu," said Will, and prepared to do so; while Mr. Lyddon listened to husband and wife, and his last hope for the future dwindled and died, as he heard them quarrel with high voices. His daughter clung to him and supported his action, though what it had been she did not know.

"Caan't 'e see you're breakin' faither's heart all awver again just as 'twas mendin'?" she said. "Caan't 'e sing smaller, if 'tis awnly for thought of me? Doan't, for God's love, fling away like this."

"I met un man to man, an' did his will with a gude thankful heart, an' comed in the dawn to faace a job as--"

"'Tweren't the job, an' you knaw it," broke in Mr. Lyddon. "I wanted to prove 'e an' all your fine promises; an' now I knaw their worth, an' your worth. An' I curse the day ever my darter was born in the world, when I think she'm your wife, an' no law can break it."

He turned and went into the house, and Phoebe stood alone with her husband.

"Theer!" cried Will. "You've heard un. That was in his heart when he spoke me so fair. An' if you think like he do, say it. Lard knaws I doan't want 'e no more, if you doan't want me!"

"Will! How can you! An' us not met since our marriage-day. But you'm cruel, cruel to poor faither."

"Say so, an' think so; an' b'lieve all they tell 'e 'gainst your lawful husband; an' gude-bye. If you'm so poor-spirited as to see your man do thicky work, you choosed wrong. Not that 'tis any gert odds. Stop along wi' your faither as you loves so much better 'n me. An' doan't you fear I'll ever cross his threshold again to anger un, for I'd rather blaw my brains out than do it."

He shook and stuttered with passion; his eyes glowed, his lips changed from their natural colour to a leaden blue. He groped for the gate when he reached it, and passed quickly out, heedless of Phoebe's sorrowful cry to him. He heard her light step following and only hastened his speed for answer. Then, hurrying from her, a wave of change suddenly flowed upon his furious mind, and he began to be very sorry. Presently he stopped and turned, but she had stayed her progress by now, and for a moment's space stood and watched him, bathed in tears. At the moment when he hesitated and looked back, however, his wife herself had turned away and moved homewards. Had she been standing in one place, Will's purposes would perchance have faded to air, and his arm been round her in a moment; but now he only saw Phoebe retreating slowly to Monks Barton; and he let her go.

Blanchard went home to breakfast, and though Chris discovered that something was amiss, she knew him too well to ask any questions. He ate in silence, the past storm still heaving in a ground-swell through his mind. That his wife should have stood up against him was a sore thought. It bewildered the youth utterly, and that she might be ignorant of all details did not occur to him. Presently he told his wrongs to Chris, and grew very hot again in the recital. She sympathised deeply, held him right to be angry, and grew angry herself.

"He 'm daft," she said, "an' I'd think harder of him than I do, but that he's led by the nose. 'Twas that auld weasel, Billy Blee, gived him the wink to set you on a task he knawed you'd never carry through."

"Theer's truth in that," said Will; then he recollected his last meeting with the miller's man, and suddenly roared with laughter.

"'Struth! What a picter he was! He agged an' agged at me till I got fair mad, an'--well, I spiled his meal, I do b'lieve."

His merriment died away slowly in a series of long-drawn chuckles. Then he lighted his pipe, watched Chris cleaning the cups and plates, and grew glum again.

"'Twas axin' me--a penniless chap; that was the devil of it. If I'd been a moneyed man wi'out compulsion to work, then I'd have been free to say 'No,' an' no harm done. De'e follow?"

"I'm thankful you done as you did. But wheer shall 'e turn now?"

"Doan't knaw. I'll lay I'll soon find work."

"Theer's some of the upland farms might be wanting harrowin' an' seed plantin' done."

"Who's to Newtake, Gran'faither Ford's auld plaace, I wonder?"

"'Tis empty. The last folks left 'fore you went away. Couldn't squeeze bare life out of it. That's the fourth party as have tried an' failed."

"Yet gran'faither done all right."

"He was a wonnerful man of business, an' lived on a straw a day, as mother says. But the rest--they come an' go an' just bury gude money theer to no better purpose than the gawld at a rainbow foot."

"Well, I'll go up in the village an' look around before Miller's got time to say any word against me. He'll spoil my market if he can, I knaw."

"He'd never dare!"

"I'd have taken my oath he wouldn't essterday. Now I think differ'nt. He never meant friendship; he awnly wanted for me to smart. Clem Hicks was right."

"Theer's Mr. Grimbal might give 'e work, I think. Go an' ax un, an' tell un I sent 'e."

A moment later Chris was sorry she had made this remark.

"What be talkin' 'bout?" Will asked bluntly. "Tell un _you_ sent me?"

"Martin wants to be friends."

"'Martin,' is it?"

"He axed me to call un so."

"Do he knaw you'm tokened to Clem?"

"Caan't say. It almost 'peared as if he didn't last time he called."

"Then sooner he do the better. Axed you to call un 'Martin'!"

He stopped and mused, then spoke again.

"Our love-makin's a poor business, sure enough. I've got what I wanted an', arter this marnin', could 'most find it in me to wish my cake was dough again; an' you--you ain't got what you want, an' ban't no gert sign you will, for Clem's the weakest hand at turnin' a penny ever I met."

"I'll wait for un, whether or no," said Chris, fiercely. "I'll wait, if need be, till we'm both tottling auld mumpheads!"

"Ess; an' when Martin Grimbal knaws that is so, 'twill be time enough to ax un for work, I dare say,--not sooner. Better he should give Clem work than me. I'd thought of him myself, for that matter."

"I've axed Clem to ax un long ago, but he won't."

"I'll go and see Clem right away. 'Tis funny he never let the man knaw 'bout you. Should have been the first thing he tawld un."

"Perhaps he thought 'twas so far off that--"

"Doan't care what he thought. Weern't plain dealin' to bide quiet about that, an' I shall tell un so."

"Well, doan't 'e quarrel with Clem. He'm 'bout the awnly friend you've got left now."

"I've got mother an' you. I'm all right. I can see as straight as any man, an' all my brain-work in the past ban't gwaine to be wasted 'cause wan auld miller fellow happens to put a mean trick on me. I'm above caring. I just goes along and remembers that people has their failings."

"We must make allowance for other folk."

"So us must; an' I be allus doin' it; so why the hell doan't they make allowance for me? That's why I boil awver now an' again--damn it! I gets nought but kicks for my halfpence--allus have; an' I won't stand it from mortal man much longer!"

Chris kept her face, for Will's views on conduct and man's whole duty to man were no new thing.

"Us must keep patient, Will, 'specially with the auld."

"I be patient. It 'mazes me, looking back, to see what I have suffered in my time. But a man's a man, not a post or a holy angel. Us wouldn't hear such a deal about angels' tempers either if they'd got to faace all us have."

"That's profanity an' wickedness."

"'Tis truth. Any fule can be a saint inside heaven; an' them that was born theer and have flown 'bout theer all theer time, like birds in a wood, did ought to be even-tempered. What's to cross'em?"

"You shouldn't say such things!"

Suddenly a light came into his eyes.

"I doan't envy 'em anyway. Think what it must be never to have no mother to love 'e! They 'm poor, motherless twoads, for all their gold crowns an' purple wings."

"Will! whatever will 'e say next? Best go to Clem. An' forget what I spoke 'bout Martin Grimbal an' work. You was wiser'n me in that."

"I s'pose so. If a man ban't wiser 'n his sister, he's like to have poor speed in life," said Will.

Then he departed, but the events of that day were still very far from an end, and despite the warning of Chris, her brother soon stood on the verge of another quarrel. It needed little to wake fresh storms in his breast and he criticised Clement's reticence on the subject of his engagement in so dictatorial and hectoring a manner that the elder man quickly became incensed. They wrangled for half an hour, Hicks in satirical humour, Will loud with assurances that he would have no underhand dealings where any member of his family was concerned. Clement presently watched the other tramp off, and in his mind was a dim thought. Could Blanchard forget the past so quickly? Did he recollect that he, Clement Hicks, shared knowledge of it? "He's a fool, whichever way you look at him," thought the poet; "but hardly such a fool as to forget that, or risk angering me of all men."

Later in the day Will called at a tap-room, drank half a pint of beer, and detailed his injuries for the benefit of those in the bar. He asked what man amongst them, situated as he had been, had acted otherwise; and a few, caring not a straw either way, declared he had showed good pluck and was to be commended; But the bulky Mr. Chapple--he who assisted Billy Blee in wassailing Miller Lyddon's apple-trees--stoutly criticised Will, and told him that his conduct was much to blame. The younger argued against this decision and explained, with the most luminous diction at his command, that 'twas in the offering of such a task to a penniless man its sting and offence appeared.

"He knawed I was at low ebb an' not able to pick an' choose. So he gives me a starvin' man's job. If I'd been in easy circumstances an' able to say 'Yes' or 'No' at choice, I'd never have blamed un."

"Nonsense and stuff!" declared Mr. Chapple. "Theer's not a shadow of shame in it."

"You'm Miller's friend, of coourse," said Will.

"'Tis so plain as a pike, I think!" squeaked a hare-lipped young man of weak intellect who was also present. "Blanchard be right for sartain."

"Theer! If soft Gurney sees my drift it must be pretty plain," said Will, in triumph.

"But as 'tis awnly him that does, lad," commented Mr. Chapple, drily, "caan't say you've got any call to be better pleased. Go you back an' do the job, like a wise man."

"I'd clear the peat out o' Cranmere Pool sooner!" said Will.

And he turned homewards again, wretched enough, yet fiercely prodding his temper when it flagged, and telling himself repeatedly that he had acted as became a man of spirit and of judgment. Then, upon a day sufficiently leaden and dreary until that moment, burst forth sudden splendours, and Will's life, from a standpoint of extreme sobriety in time, instantly passed to rare brightness. Between the spot on the highway where Chris met him and his arrival at home, the youth enjoyed half a lifetime of glorious hopes and ambitions; but a cloud indeed shadowed all this overwhelming joy in that the event responsible for his change of fortune was itself sad.

While yet twenty yards from her brother Chris cried the news to him.

"He's dead--Uncle--he went quite sudden at the end; an' he'm to lie to Chagford wi' gran'faither an' gran'mother."

"Dead! My God! An' I never seed un more! The best friend to me ever I had--leastways I thought so till this marnin'."

"You may think so still."

"Ess, so I do. A kind man inside his skin. I knawed un better'n most people--an' he meant well when he married me, out of pure love to us both."

"He's left nobody no money but Mrs. Watson and you."

"If 'tis five pound, 'tis welcome to-day; an' if 'tis five shillin', I'll thank un an' spend it 'pon a ring to wear for un. He was a gude auld blid, an' I'm sorry he's gone."

"Will, Uncle's left 'e a thousand pound!"

"What! You'm jokin'."

"Solemn truth. 'Tis in mother's letter."

A rush of joy lighted up the young man's face. He said not a word; then his eyes grew moist.

"To think as he could have loved a daft fule like me so well as that! Me--that never done nothin'--no, not so much as to catch a dish of trout for un, now an' again, when he was here."

"You couldn't, bein' water-keeper."

"What matter for that? I ought to have poached for un, seein' the manner of man he was."

He kept silence for a while, then burst out--

"I'll buy the braavest marble stone can be cut. Nobody shall do it but me, wi' doves or anchors or some such thing on it, to make it a fine sight so long as the world goes on."

"Theer's plenty room 'pon the auld slate, for that matter," said Chris.

"Damn the auld slate! The man shall have white marble carvings, I tell 'e, if I've got to spend half the money buying 'em. He b'lieved in me; he knawed I'd come to gude; an' I'm grateful to un."

During the evening Will was unusually silent and much busied with thought. He knew little of the value of money, and a thousand pounds to his mind represented possibilities wholly beyond the real power of that sum to achieve. Chris presently visited the vicarage, and after their supper, brother and sister sat late and discussed the days to come. When the girl retired, Will's thoughts for a moment concerned themselves with the immediate past rather than the future; and then it was that he caught himself blankly before his own argument of the morning. To him the force of the contention, now that his position was magically changed, appeared strong as before. A little sophistry had doubtless extricated him from this dilemma, but his nature was innocent of it, and his face grew longer as the conclusion confronting him became more clear. From his own logic--a mysterious abstraction, doubtless--he found it difficult to escape without loss of self-respect. He still held that the deed, impossible to him as a pauper, might be performed without sacrifice of dignity or importance by a man of his present fortune. So the muddle-headed youth saw his duty straight ahead of him; and he regretted it heartily, but did not attempt to escape from it.

Ten minutes later, in his working clothes, he set out to Monks Barton, carrying an old horn lantern that had swung behind his father's caravan twenty years before. At the farm all lights were out save one in the kitchen; but Will went about his business as silently as possible, and presently found the spade where he had flung it, the barrow where he had overthrown it in the morning. So he set to work, his pipe under his nose, his thoughts afar off in a golden paradise built of Uncle Ford's sovereigns.

Billy Blee, whose attic window faced out upon the northern side of the farm, had gone to bed, but he was still awake, and the grunt of a wheelbarrow quickly roused him. Gazing into the night he guessed what was doing, dragged on his trousers, and hurried down-stairs to his master.

The miller sat with his head on his hand. His pipe was out and the "night-cap" Phoebe had mixed for him long ago, remained untasted.

"Guy Fawkes an 'angels! here's a thing! If that Jack-o'-lantern of a bwoy ban't back again. He'm delvin' theer, for all the world like a hobgoblin demon, red as blood in the flicker of the light. I fancied't was the Dowl hisself. But 't is Blanchard, sure. Theer's some dark thought under it, I'll lay, or else he wants to come around 'e again."

His master doubted not that Billy was dreaming, but he went aloft and looked to convince himself. In silence and darkness they watched Will at work. Then Mr. Blee asked a question as the miller turned to go.

"What in thunder do it mean?"

"God knaws, I doan't. The man or bwoy, or whatever you call un, beats me. I ban't built to tackle such a piece as him. He's took a year off my life to-day. Go to your bed, Billy, an' let un bide."

"Gormed if I wouldn't like to slip down an' scat un ower the head for what he done to me this marnin'. Such an auld man as me, tu! weak in the hams this ten year."

"But strong in the speech. Maybe you pricked him with a bitter word, an'--theer, theer, if I ban't standin' up for the chap now! Yet if I've wished un dead wance, I have fifty times since I first heard tell of un. Get to bed. I s'pose us'll knaw his drift come to-morrow."

Mr. Lyddon and Billy retired, and both slept ere Will Blanchard's work was done. Upon its completion he sought the cold nocturnal waters of the river, and then did a thing he had planned an hour before. Entering the farmyard, he flung a small stone at Phoebe's window in the thatch, then another. But the first had roused his wife, for she lay above in wakefulness and sorrow. She peeped out, saw Blanchard, knew him in the lantern light, and opened the window.

"Will, my awn Will!" she said, with a throbbing voice.

"Ess fay, lovey! I knawed you'd sleep sweeter for hearin' tell I've done the work."

"Done it?"

"Truth."

"It was a cruel, wicked shame; an' the blame's Billy Blee's, an' I've cried my eyes out since I heard what they set you to do; an' I've said what I thought; an' I'm sorry to bitterness about this marnin', dear Will."

"'T is all wan now. I've comed into a mort of money, my Uncle Ford bein' suddenly dead."

"Oh, Will, I could a'most jump out the window!"

"'T would be easier for me to come up-long."

"No, no; not for the world, Will!"

"Why for not? An' you that lovely, twinklin' in your white gownd, an' me your lawful husband, an' a man o' money! Damned if I ain't got a mind to climb up by the pear-tree!"

"You mustn't, you mustn't! Go away, dear, sweet Will. An' I'm so thankful you've forgiven me for being so wicked, dear heart."

"Everybody'll ax to be forgiven now, I reckon; but you--theer ban't nothin' to forgive you for. You can tell your faither I've forgived un to-morrow, an' tell un I'm rich, tu. 'T will ease his mind. Theer, an' theer, an theer!"

Will kissed his hand thrice, then vanished, and his wife shut her window and, kneeling, prayed out thankful prayers.

As her husband crossed Rushford Bridge, his thought sped backward through the storm and sunshine of past events. But chiefly he remembered the struggle with John Grimbal and its sequel. For a moment he glanced below into the dark water.

"'T is awver an' past, awver an' past," he said to himself. "I be at the tail of all my troubles now, for theer's nought gude money an' gude sense caan't do between 'em."