Chapter 46

THE END OF THE FIGHT

Will Blanchard was of the sort who fight a losing battle,

"Still puffing in the dark at one poor coal, Held on by hope till the last spark is out."

But the extinction of his ambitions, the final failure of his enterprise happened somewhat sooner than Miller Lyddon had predicted. There dawned a year when, just as the worst of the winter was past and hope began to revive for another season, a crushing catastrophe terminated the struggle.

Mr. Blee it was who brought the ill news to Monks Barton, having first dropped it at Mrs. Blanchard's cottage and announced it promiscuously about the village. Like a dog with a bone he licked the intelligence over and, by his delay in imparting the same, reduced his master to a very fever of irritation.

"Such a gashly thing! Of all fules! The last straw I do think. He's got something to grumble at now, poor twoad. Your son-in-law; but now--theer--gormed if I knaw how to tell 'e!"

Alarmed at this prelude, with its dark hints of unutterable woe, Mr. Lyddon took off his spectacles in some agitation, and prayed to know the worst without any long-drawn introduction.

"I'll come to it fast enough, I warn 'e. To think after years an' years he didn't knaw the duffer'nce 'twixt a bullock an' a sheep! Well--well! Of coourse us knawed times was tight, but Jack-o'-Lantern be to the end of his dance now. 'T is all awver."

"What's the matter? Come to it, caan't 'e?"

"No ill of the body--not to him or the fam'ly. An' you must let me tell it out my awn way. Well, things bein' same as they are, the bwoy caan't hide it. Dammy! Theer's patches in the coat of un now--neat sewed, I'll grant 'e, but a patch is a patch; an' when half a horse's harness is odds an' ends o' rope, then you knaw wi'out tellin' wheer a man be driving to. 'T is 'cordin' to the poetry!--

"'Out to elbows, Out to toes, Out o' money, Out o' clothes.'

But--"

"Caan't 'e say what's happened, you chitterin' auld magpie? I'll go up village for the news in a minute. I lay 'tis knawn theer."

"Ban't I tellin' of 'e? 'Tis like this. Will Blanchard's been mixin' a bit of chopped fuzz with the sheep's meal these hard times, like his betters. But now I've seed hisself today, lookin' so auld as Cosdon 'bout it. He was gwaine to the horse doctor to Moreton. An' he tawld me to keep my mouth shut, which I've done for the most paart."

"A little fuzz chopped fine doan't hurt sheep."

"Just so. 'Cause why? They aint got no 'bibles' in their innards; but he've gone an' given it same way to the bullocks."

"Gude God!"

"'Tis death to beasts wi' 'bibles.' An' death it is. The things caan't eat such stuff' cause it sticketh an' brings inflammation. I seed same fule's trick done wance thirty year ago; an' when the animals weer cut awpen, theer 'bibles' was hell-hot wi' the awfulest inflammation ever you heard tell of."

"How many's down? 'Twas all he had to count upon."

"Awnly eight standin' when he left. I could have cried 'bout it when he tawld me. He 'm clay in the Potter's hand for sartain. Theer's nought squenches a chap like havin' the bailiffs in."

"Cruel luck! I'd meant to let him be sold out for his gude--but now."

"Do what you meant to. Doan't go back on it. 'Tis for his gude. 'Twas his awn mistake. He tawld me the blame was his. Let un get on the bed rock. Then he'll be meek as a worm."

"I doubt it. A sale of his goods will break his heart."

"Not it! He haven't got much as'll be hard to paart from. Stern measures--stern measures for his everlastin' welfare. Think of the wild-fire sawl of un! Never yet did a sawl want steadin' worse'n his. Keep you to the fust plan, and he'll thank'e yet."

Elsewhere two women--his wife and sister--failed utterly in well-meaning efforts to comfort the stricken farmer. Presently, before nightfall, Mrs. Blanchard also arrived at Newtake, and Will listened dully with smouldering eyes as his mother talked. The veterinary surgeon from Moreton had come, but his efforts were vain. Only two beasts out of five-and-twenty still lived.

"Send for butcher," he said. "He'll be more use than I can be. The thing is done and can't be undone."

Chris entered most closely into her brother's feelings and spared him the expressions of sorrow and sympathy which stung him, even from his mother's lips, uttered at this crisis. She set about preparing supper, which weeping Phoebe had forgotten.

"You'll weather it yet, bwoy," Mrs. Blanchard said.

"Theer's a little bit as I've got stowed away for'e; an' come the hay--"

"Doan't talk that way. 'Tis done with now. I'm quite cool'pon it. We must go as we'm driven. No more gropin' an' fightin' on this blasted wilderness for me, that's all. I be gwaine to turn my back 'pon it--fog an' filthy weather an' ice an' snow. You wants angels from heaven to help 'e, if you're to do any gude here; an' heaven's long tired o' me an' mine. So I'll make shift to do wi'out. An' never tell me no more lies 'bout God helpin' them as helps themselves, 'cause I've proved it ban't so. I be gwaine to furrin' lands to dig for gawld or di'monds. The right build o' man for gawld-seekin', me; 'cause I've larned patience an' caan't be choked off a job tu easy."

"Think twice. Bad luck doan't dog a man for ever. An' Phoebe an' the childer."

"My mind's made up. I figured it out comin' home from Moreton. I'm away in six weeks or less. A chap what's got to dig for a livin' may just as well handle his tools where theer's summat worth findin' hid in the land, as here, on this black, damned airth, wheer your pick strikes fire out o' stone twenty times a day. The Moor's the Moor. Everybody knaws the way of it. Scratch its faace an' it picks your pocket an' breaks your heart--not as I've got a heart can be broken."

"If 'e could awnly put more trust in the God of your faithers, my son. He done for them, why shouldn't He do for you?"

"Better ax Him. Tired of the fam'ly, I reckon."

"You hurt your mother, Will, tellin' so wicked as that."

"An' faither so cruel," sobbed Phoebe. "I doan't knaw what ever us have done to set him an' God against us so. I've tried that hard; an' you've toiled till the muscles shawed through your skin; an' the li'l bwoy took just as he beginned to string words that butivul; an' no sign of another though't is my endless prayer."

"The ways of Providence--" began Mrs. Blanchard drearily; but Will stopped her, as she knew he would.

"Doan't mother--I caan't stand no more on that head today. I'll dare anybody to name Providence more in my house, so long as 'tis mine. Theer's the facts to shout out 'gainst that rot. A honest, just, plain-dealin' man--an' look at me."

"Meantime we're ruined an' faither doan't hold out a finger."

"Take it stern an' hard like me. 'Tis all chance drawin' of prize or blank in gawld diggin'. The 'new chums,' as they call 'em, often finds the best gawld, 'cause they doan't knaw wheer to look for it, an' goes pokin' about wheer a skilled man wouldn't. That's the crooked way things happen in this poor world."

"You wouldn't go--not while I lived, sure? I couldn't draw breath comfortable wi'out knawin' you was breathin' the same air, my son."

"You'll live to knaw I was in the right. If fortune doan't come to you, you must go to it, I reckon. Anyways, I ban't gwaine to bide here a laughing-stock to Chagford; an' you'm the last to ax me to."

"Miller would never let Phoebe go."

"I shouldn't say 'by your leave' to him, I promise'e. He can look on an' see the coat rottin' off my back in this desert an' watch his darter gwaine thin as a lath along o' taking so much thought. He can look on at us, hisself so comfortable as a maggot in a pear, an' see. Not that I'd take help--not a penny from any man. I'm not gwaine to fail. I'll be a snug chap yet."

The stolid Chown entered at this moment.

"Butcher'll be up bimebye. An' the last of em's failed down," he said.

"So be it. Now us'll taake our supper," answered his master.

The meal was ready and presently Blanchard, whose present bitter humour prompted him to simulate a large indifference, made show of enjoying his food. He brought out the brandy for his mother, who drank a little with her supper, and helped himself liberally twice or thrice until the bottle was half emptied. The glamour of the spirit made him optimistic, and he spoke with the pseudo-philosophy that alcohol begets.

"Might have been worse, come to think of it. If the things weren't choked, I doubt they'd been near starved. 'Most all the hay's done, an' half what's left--a load or so--I'd promised to a chap out Manaton way. But theer't is--my hand be forced, that's all. So time's saved, if you look at it from a right point."

"You'm hard an' braave, an' you've got a way with you 'mong men. Faace life, same as faither did, an' us'll look arter Phoebe an' the childer," said Chris.

"I couldn't leave un," declared Will's wife. "'T is my duty to keep along wi'un for better or worse."

"Us'll talk 'bout all that later. I be gwaine to act prompt an' sell every stick, an' then away, a free man."

"All our furniture an' property!" moaned Phoebe, looking round her in dismay.

"All--to the leastest bit o' cracked cloam."

"A forced sale brings nought," sighed Damaris.

"Theer's hunderds o' pounds o' gude chattels here, an' they doan't go for a penny less than they 'm worth. Because I'm down, ban't no reason for others to try to rob me. If I doan't get fair money I'll make a fire wi' the stuff an' burn every stick of it."

"The valuer man, Mr. Bambridge, must be seen, an' bills printed out an' sticked 'pon barn doors an' such-like, same as when Mrs. Lezzard died," said Phoebe. "What'll faither think then?"

Will laughed bitterly.

"I'll see a few's dabbed up on his awn damned outer walls, if I've got to put 'em theer myself. An' as to the lists, I'll make 'em this very night. Ban't my way to let the dust fall upon a job marked for doin'. To-night I'll draw the items."

"Us was gwaine to stay along with 'e, Will," said his mother.

"Very gude--as you please. Make shake-downs in the parlour, an' I'll write in the kitchen when you'm gone to bed. Set the ink an' pen an' paper out arter you've cleared away. I'm allowed to be peart enough in matters o' business anyway, though no farmer o' course, arter this."

"None will dare to say any such thing," declared Phoebe. "You can't do miracles more than others."

"I mind when Ellis, to Two Streams Farm, lost a mort o' bullocks very same way," said Mrs. Blanchard.

"'Tis that as they'll bring against me an' say, wi' such a tale in my knawledge, I ought to been wiser. But I never heard tell of it before, though God knows I've heard the story often enough to-day."

It was now dark, and Will, lighting a lantern, rose and went out into the yard. From the kitchen window his women watched him moving here and there; while, as he passed, the light revealed great motionless, rufous shapes on every hand. The corpses of the beasts hove up into the illumination and then vanished again as the narrow circle of lantern light bobbed on, jerking to the beat of Will's footsteps. From the window Damaris observed her son make a complete perambulation of his trouble without comment. Then a little emotion trembled on her tongue.

"God's hand be lifted 'gainst the bwoy, same as 't was 'gainst the patriarch Job seemin'ly. Awnly he bent to the rod and Will--"

"He'm noble an' grand under his sorrows. Who should knaw but me?" cried Phoebe. "A man in ten thousand, he is, an' never yields to no rod. He'll win his way yet; an' I be gwaine to cleave to un if he travels to the other end o' the airth."

"I doan't judge un, gal. God knaws he's been the world to me since his faither died. He'm my dear son. But if he'd awnly bend afore the A'mighty breaks him."

"He's got me."

"Ess, an' he'm mouldin' you to his awn vain pride an' wrong ways o' thinking. If you could lead un right, 't would be a better wife's paart."

"He'm wiser'n me, an' stronger. Ban't my place to think against him. Us'll go our ways, childern tu, an' turn our backs 'pon this desert. I hate the plaace now, same as Will."

Chris here interrupted Phoebe and called her from the other room.

"Wheer's the paper an' ink to? I be setting out the things against Will comes in. He axed for 'em to be ready, 'cause theer's a deal o' penmanship afore him to-night. An' wheer's that li'l dictionary what I gived un years ago? I lay he'll want it."