Part 10

So Cobbledick started for the mine, walking with difficulty. The constraint of the garments encasing his nether limbs was to him as great as that caused by Saul's armour to David. David, finding he could not go in this, put it off him. Grizzly was less wise; he waddled on in suffering and constraint, and was caught and thrown occasionally by the spurs that dangled at his bare heels. The gorse scratched his shins, usually protected by hay-bands; but he heeded not these inconveniences. With his head in the air, one arm akimbo, and the hand holding the riding-whip resting on his hip, he strutted on, wishing, and yet fearing to be seen--desirous of admiration, and yet shy of the reception he might meet with from those accustomed to see him half-naked.

He mounted a flat slab of granite, and, taking off his hat, bowed and waved it, as he had seen old Tramplara salute distinguished and wealthy visitors to Ophir. Imitation is strong in the savage and in the idiot. By the help of this faculty the social world gets on without jars, for there are savages and idiots in all ranks of life, and the deeper their savagery and their idiocy the more pronounced is the development of their imitative powers. They copy the manners of those around them, simulate their breeding and virtues, and so disguise their nature and pass muster. Social education consists in the training of neophytes what to copy and what to disregard in the bearing and manners of those with whom they associate. But such as are left without instructors pick up and imitate all that they ought to avoid, and overlook what they should copy. Thus it is that servant maids reproduce in themselves the pretences and follies of their mistresses, and not their thrift and good sense; and the butler apes his master's vices and eschews his virtues.

Left alone in the den, lying on the fern, with the smoke of the peat fire and the reek of stewing vegetables filling it, Herring opened his eyes and looked about him.

It was some time before he recognised where he was, and then he was unable to account for his being there. The evening was stealing on, the sun was setting; there was a glow of golden light outside the door, and a streak of yellow glory came from a notch in the stone at the back of the table, unfilled with moss. Herring's head was painful, and all his limbs ached. He could scarce move his arms; they were sprained and bruised. He tried to stand up, but the effort gave him torture, and he was forced to lie down again. He was, however, satisfied that he was sound in limb, though sprained and bruised. He could close his hands and move his feet. Then he thought of the events that had recently taken place. He could follow the thread to one point--after that it was broken off. He had borrowed a horse at Bridestowe, he had ridden hard in pursuit of Sampson Tramplara--and then ensued darkness and a blank.

Had Sampson shot him? He tore open his shirt and felt; there was no wound. He felt his head; it was not bandaged.

How came he in the den of the Cobbledicks? As he was puzzling over this question, the entrance was darkened, and Joyce entered, carrying a fowl by the legs. The moment she saw that he was conscious, she uttered a cry of joy, and was at his side, on her knees, grasping his hands, with tears and flashes of delight in her eyes.

'Oh, maister! the dear maister! you be alive and not going to sleep away dead! You can see who be here--your own poor Joyce. Right glad I be to see the life in your eyes and the blood in your cheeks again. Oh, glory rallaluley! I be joyful! I could sing my heart up over my lips, and away through this great covering stone.'

'Joyce!' said Herring, 'I do not understand. What is the meaning of this? How came I here?'

'Sure, my maister, it were I as brought you here. The young Cap'n Sampson Tramplara would ha' killed'y, but I fought 'n for'y, and I were too much for 'n. You mended my arms and made them strong, and they were strong enough to keep 'n off from killing of you. He'd ha' done it. He had that in his hand would ha' scatted your head all to smash, and he were about to do it, but I were too strong for he, thanks be to you for mending of me up. Glory rallaluley!'

'But how came I here, Joyce?'

'Sure enough, because I brought'y in a waggon as grand as a king. Sure,' she said, laughing and crying in one breath, 'I never went on nothing but my own bare feet afore, and but for the grandness, I'd rather walk any day. But I could not ha' carried you thus far. That were why I were forced to hire a waggon. Not but as though I wouldn't ha' done it. I'd ha' carried you the world over in my airms, if I could, and never let you drop till I died. But--Loramussy! what have become of your clothes? By the blue blazes! this be vaither's doing.'

'Joyce, how did this take place? I cannot understand.'

'The horse were throwed and you with him. Cap'n Sampson had put a gate across the road; and you rode quite innocent like right on to it. After you were down, he came out from behind the hedge, and would ha' killed you, but your own poor Joyce were there, and her fought 'n, and her tore at 'n. He might ha' cut her flesh off her bones, and scat her bones, but her'd not hev let 'n hurt you no more.'

Then she seized his hands in a paroxysm of joy and covered them with kisses, and pressed them to her beating heart. 'It were I, your own Joyce, as saved'y.'

See what self-respect will do--how it lifts out of the slough! Once Joyce had licked his hand like a dog. Now she had learned her own worth, she had battled for and saved his dear life; and her pride had heaved her from the low estate of bestiality to the level of a human being. She kissed his hand, she no longer licked it. That marked a distinct stride in civilisation.

'But,' she added, as she knelt over him, still holding his hand to her bosom, and looked out of her wet and burning eyes into his face, 'it were none for Joyce, nor for Miss Cicely, I did all this--it were for you and the Whiteface.'

Joyce loved him; her love for him filled her whole dim soul with light. She was perfectly humble; she knew she was a poor savage, and as widely removed from him on one side as she was from the fox or badger on the other. There was no self-seeking in her love. It was in this simple, pure, unselfish devotion that the human soul broke into flame and transformed Joyce. She looked up to Herring as she might to a star; she had no thought of attaining to either. It was enough for her to look up and be led by the light each shed on her way.

Her father was also transformed externally, but remained the same low brute at heart. There was no outer change in the girl, the same foul rags, only more ragged than before, the same dishevelled wretchedness of aspect; but within, all was different. God spake, and there was light.

Herring looked up at her, wondering, but still much confused; his head could not endure much thought. She was swaying herself from side to side, still holding his hand between hers in her bosom; and the tears ran down her tanned cheeks and fell over him--a soft and soothing rain, a rain bearing balm and blessing. She had raised her eyes, and her lips moved.

'What are you saying, Joyce?' he asked, thinking she was speaking to him, but that he could not hear.

'I were saying nort to you,' she said; 'I do not know hardly what I were saying, but my heart were that nigh to bursting wi' joy, that I felt I must speak--but not to you--sure I didn't know to whom I were speaking and saying that I were so happy as I never was afore and never will be again. And I tried to say glory rallaluley turned backsy-foremost but the words wouldn't out, and I just cried for gladness, and looked up--that were all.'

'What is that noise?' asked Herring.

'What?' she asked, dropping his hand and listening.

There were shouts and cries approaching. Then the crash of a stone against the supporters of the table. Next moment in dashed old Grizzly, without the hat, wild with alarm, and threw himself on the ground, where he tore off his coat and neckcloth, waistcoat and breeches, and, screaming with rage and terror, threw each article, as it came off, in the faces of the men that peered in at the entrance.

'Take mun! take mun! I will none of 'em! I will never have none o' the sort again.'

His legs were torn and bleeding. One was smeared with white to the knee, the other was of its natural tan.

Some of the miners had seen Cobbledick engaged in adorning his shins with whitewash, dressed out in his borrowed garb, and had set upon him with jeers. He had fled and been pursued.

'I'll hev none of it never more,' he cried, and swore horribly. 'Give me my rags again.'

That was the end of the transformation of Grizzly. But the transformation of Joyce, which was from within, was more enduring.

*CHAPTER XXXIV.*

*HERRING'S STOCKINGS.*

Joyce was unable to retain Herring. Those who had pursued her father saw him lying in the old cromlech, and the secret was out. Moreover, she herself began to see that it was not possible for her to keep him in the den. Her father's behaviour, when left in charge of the patient, had shown her how utterly untrustworthy he was, and Joyce could not always be there.

Ophir had exerted a deteriorating effect on Grizzly. He had become idle; he had learned to beg; he had acquired a taste for rum. He expected Joyce to do everything for him, that he might lounge away his time about the mine, repeating his parrot story to the visitors, putting the dust into the water, and watching them find it.

Old Tramplara and young Sampson had given him money, and the workmen, supposed all to be sworn abstainers, had indulged him from their bottles of cold alcoholic tea. Like a savage brought suddenly into association with civilised man, he learned their vices, and unlearned none of his own brutality.

When it was known at West Wyke that John Herring was lying ill under the Giant's Table, Mr. Battishill and Cicely sent to have him removed to their house, and poor Joyce offered only a faint, though sullen, resistance. She knew she could not keep him, but she was reluctant to lose him. She knew that it was good for him to go, and she did violence to her own heart in suffering him to be carried away. She followed him to the doorway of West Wyke, holding his hand, and without taking her eyes off him.

'Come, Joyce,' said Cicely, 'you have been so good and devoted hitherto, that you had best remain as nurse. Come in and attend to Mr. Herring till he is well.'

But Joyce shook her head.

'I'll not go under no hellens [slates], or I should smother,' she said. 'Where be you a-going to take 'n to?'

'We shall put him in that room,' answered Cicely, indicating the window.

'There'll be a light there of nights, I reckon. I shall see 'n. And of day, when vaither don't want nort a-doing, I'll just hop over and sit down outside, in thicky corner o' the garden wall.' Then Joyce grasped Herring's hand in both hers, and the tears filled her eyes. 'It were I, your poor Joyce, as saved you. You'll not forget that, will'y now?'

Then she turned away, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Cicely looked after her. Joyce did not turn back; she walked on with her peculiar free stride, her head down, and her arm across her face.

Herring had been jarred and contused by his fall, and he suffered greatly for a few days. Every movement caused pain. The doctor visited him, and insisted on quiet, and that his head should be kept cool and his mind unoccupied.

The news of Mr. Trampleasure's death and of Sampson's evasion were not communicated to him till it was seen that he troubled his mind about the result of the exposure of Ophir. Nothing could be done, at least by him, in the matter.

Every day Joyce came and sat in a nook of the garden against the wall, looking up at the window. Her hands were unoccupied; she could neither knit nor sew. She platted her fingers about one knee and remained in the corner as still as though carved out of stone, almost as rugged as though cut out of granite. Herring's bed was near the window, and he went to the casement, and leaning on the sill looked forth and spoke to her. Then her eyes, in which a strange wistfulness had risen up, lighted, and she smiled. She had brought him something, a little bunch of late wild flowers, some coral lichen daintily folded in green moss, a cluster of blackberries, old and inedible, but the sole cluster she could find. These little gifts she would intrust to no one to convey to Herring. No other hand should touch them and divert from him the something which went out from her with them. When he came to the window and looked out, she threw them up at him with so sure an aim that the bunch of borage and crane's-bill, the sprig of heather, or the blackberries, always reached his open hand.

This devotion of Joyce was embarrassing to Herring. As he lay in his bed he thought about her, whether something could not be done to bring her out of her rude life. He spoke his thoughts to Cicely, and she promised co-operation.

Next day, Cicely took a chair into the garden, and seated herself beside Joyce. The poor girl did not seem pleased with the visit, she had rather be alone.

'I do not think you will see Mr. Herring to-day, Joyce. His head is worse, and he will not be able to rise and speak to you from the window.'

'Why don't he get well faster?' asked Joyce. 'He'd ha' been right by this time wi' me.'

'Well, certainly, you treated him very well. He tells me you gave him capital boiled chicken. How did you manage to get that?'

'I took her,' answered Joyce.

'You stole it!' exclaimed Cicely. 'From whom?'

'From you. I know'd the young maister must have 'n, and so I took 'n. If he'd hev chanced to want milk, I'd ha' milked anybody's cow for 'n. If he'd ha' wanted your head, I'd ha' cut 'n off for him--my own likewise, for that matter. Would you?'

'I do not think I would, Joyce.'

'Then he ought to hev been with us out to the Giant's Table, not here.'

'You profess great readiness to do anything for him, Joyce. He was speaking to me about you yesterday, and wishing I could teach you something.'

'I don't want no teaching of nort,' said Joyce, sullenly.

'But would you not like to learn to knit?'

'No,' answered Joyce, 'I don't want to larn nort. What do'y knit with them long sticking pins?'

'Stockings, Joyce.'

'Vaither don't wear none; I don't, neither. Them's no good to us.'

Then the upper casement opened and Herring leaned out.

'What, Joyce!' he called; 'is Miss Cicely teaching you to knit? That is right. You are going to knit my stockings for me in future. I promise you I will wear none but those of your knitting.'

'Give me the pins,' said Joyce, vehemently. 'I'll larn.'

'Go back, Mr. John,' said Cicely; 'you know you are forbidden to rise to-day. Go back, or you will be worse to-morrow.'

'Is the maister not getting better?' asked Joyce, anxiously.

'He is; but his recovery is slow. His head has been injured, and we must take care that there be no relapse. We can pray to God for him, Joyce.'

The girl looked round full in her face inquiringly.

'Will that make 'n well?'

'I trust so.'

'Better than the doctor's medicine?'

'It helps the doctor to cure him.'

'I know nothing about it,' said Joyce. 'Did the maister pray for me when I were scat?'

Cicely could not take on herself to answer.

'I be sure he did,' said Joyce, confidently. 'Why did I ax you about it? If that would hev made me well, he'd a done it. You don't know the maister as I do.'

'Do you know about God?' asked Cicely.

'See there, now!' exclaimed Joyce, with animation, 'that be 'zackly what the maister once axed of I; and I sed, Sure I do, I see 'n every day when it bain't raining and there be no clouds. I reckon I thought he meant the sun. But I know better now, and I'll tell'y how I comed to know. Thicky night as the maister were thrown down and hurted by Cap'n Sampson, I thought he were sure to die in my airms. And I felt then that I must say something and ax some one for help--some one as wouldn't want to take 'n away from me. It weren't the sun as I spoke to, for the sun had gone down. I don't know 'zackly what and where he was I called to, but I knowed very well he were up where the sun be by daytime, but he as I mean were there o' night time ekally well. Then, after that, when the young maister were able to open his eyes and speak, I were that lifted up with gladness that my heart were nigh to starting, and I could do nort but cry tears, and tell he as I mean--but I don't know a mite who he be--how glad I were. I know very well he weren't the sun, for, you sees, the sun were then a-sinking, and I never gave 'n a thought for a minute to look at 'n. I looked right up, up, up; and there were over me the great covering table stone, and I seemed to go right through thicky and see above the clouds as well, and the stars, and I'm blessed if I know where to. I be no skollard I can say nort but glory rallaluley and kinkum-kum.'

'Kinkum-kum!' repeated Cicely, with a puzzled look.

'Sure--what else? I reckon he begins with Our Vaither, and he goes on to kinkum-kum; but I know nort more nor that. I ha' heard the Methody vellers a say it at their meetings on the moor.'

Cicely laughed; she could not help it--she was tickled.

'You have made a comical muddle of it,' she said, and turned her head to conceal her amusement.

'I don't know, and I don't care,' said Joyce, doggedly. 'He heard it, up there, when I said it, that I knows, sure-ly; and he didn't laugh, that I knows also.'

'Shall I teach you what it really is?'

'No,' said Joyce, resentfully; 'you laugh. If it be good for me, I'll ax the young maister to larn me when he be well. I sed them same words to he once--what make you giggle--and he didn't laugh; he didn't even smile, but I saw that in his eyes was more like tears. However, the words be good as they be, and I sez them scores and scores of times by day and by night, thinking of him as is sick, and he up there;' she pointed with her finger--not to the window, but far, far above it. 'He as I knows nort about, don't laugh, but listens, just as the maister listened when I said them to he at first; and he takes off his hat, as did the maister.'

'I wish I could persuade you to come indoors, Joyce. It is cold out here, the wind blows keenly over the garden wall, and I cannot remain here.'

'I bain't cold,' said Joyce; 'you can go in, I don't want'y here. I'll bide here alone a bit. But I'll larn the knitting and make the maister his stockings. I will, sure. He sed he'd never wear none but what I made, and what he sez he sticks to.'

A few days later Herring came down. He was now much better, though still stiff and bruised. His mind was perfectly clear, and he was impatient of his confinement.

'Mr. Battishill,' said he, 'now is our opportunity; Ophir is done, and Upaver begins. I will make a bid for the plant of Ophir, and remove it to the silver lead. I will rent Upaver of you, and mine there on my own account.'

'Very well,' answered Mr. Battishill, 'I can say with the shepherd in the "Winter's Tale," "Now, bless thyself, I meet with things dying, thou with things new-born." I was set on Ophir; you never doubted in Upaver.'

'You forget, sir, you were the finder of the silver lead.'

'Ah, yes; but I was drawn aside by the glitter of the gold of Ophir. I am sorry for Ophir, too. It was a dream of splendour. But again, with Paulina, "To the noble heart, what's gone and what's past help, should be past grief."'

'You have been at your Shakespeare, sir, whilst I have been upstairs.'

'To whom else should I go, John? "For I do love that man," said rare Ben Jonson of him; and who that has mind and heart does not say the same. Shakespeare is the common and personal friend of humanity. By the way, John, there are some letters for you. We would not let you have them before now, as, no doubt, they are on business--they come from Launceston.'

Herring looked at them. Their purport is already known. They were from the directors of Ophir.

'If Miss Cicely will write for me a letter about the machinery at Ophir, I will sign it,' he said; 'we had better secure it at once. I knew that Ophir would fail, and that was the reason why I did not hurry to get machinery for the silver lead. Now we shall secure the entire plant under half-price.'

'Oh, John, how far further ahead you see than do I! But you are calculating on working the mine yourself. How can you combine a mineralogical captaincy with military duties?'

'I have sold out,' said Herring, slightly colouring.

'Sold out, my boy! sold out after having been in the army only a few years! That is a very rash and inconsiderate proceeding.'

'I could hardly help myself,' he answered. 'I got into trouble. When the accident to Mr. Strange and his daughter took place I was on my way to Exeter to rejoin my regiment. I had been summoned back. I could not desert the Countess Mirelle, with her father dead and without a protector; and so I wrote to my Colonel for a short extension of leave. He refused it; but addressed his reply to Welltown, my little place in Cornwall, to which he had written before. At Welltown my presence here was unknown, and the letter was forwarded to Exeter, and it lay at my quarters till I went there, which, as you know, was not for some time. When I got to Exeter at last, I found that my neglect had got me into a serious scrape. Not only so, but the regiment was at Portsmouth, under immediate orders to sail for Honduras. I had difficulty in exchanging. Moreover, I felt that I must be here, to superintend the working of the silver lead mine; so I sold out.'

'John,' exclaimed Mr. Battishill, 'it is all very fine your pretending that interest in the icy Countess and enthusiasm over a mine detained you. Nothing of the sort. You found us in trouble and unable to help ourselves, and so you sacrificed your own prospects for the sake of pulling us through.' He pressed the young man's hand. 'I owe you a debt I can never repay.'

Mr. Battishill did not know all. He knew nothing of Mirelle's diamonds consigned to Herring's trust. He entertained no suspicion of the interest Herring felt in that cold and haughty girl. He little dreamed that Herring had taken on himself the double office of guardian angel to Mirelle as well as to the house of Battishill. He did not suppose that even care for that poor savage, Joyce, had mingled with the other motives in deciding the young man on abandoning his military career.

When Herring came out of doors for the first time, he found Joyce in the garden awaiting him. She was crying and laughing for joy.

'Maister,' she said, 'you will keep your word about them stockings.'

'Certainly,' he replied with a smile. 'I give you three months in which to learn to knit, and after that I will wear no stockings but those of your knitting.'

'Good-bye,' she said abruptly.

'Whither are you going?'

'To larn to knit,' she answered.

*CHAPTER XXXV.*

*BEGGARY.*

Hope is hard to kill. One last desperate effort Orange made to recover the Captain. That same night, whilst Mirelle was writing to John Herring, Orange wrote to Trecarrel, but her letter was not as brief as that of Mirelle.