CHAPTER XXVIII

ALTERNATIVES

Pasco had left the room and the house. His anger with Kate was obscured by his unrest as to his own condition. What could he do? He must meet the bill for the wool, he must pay for the Brimpts timber before he removed any of it, or forfeit what had already been spent over felling the trees. He must pay the coal merchant’s account, or bailiffs would be put into the house.

He went into his stores and observed the contents of his warehouse. There was wool on the upper storey, coal was lodged below. Above stairs all the space was pretty well filled with fleeces.

Then he went to his stable, and looked at his cob, then into the covered shed that served as coach-house. He put his hand in his pocket, pulled out the key, and opened the back of the cart. The shavings he had put in were there still. He could not carry them into the house now, whilst Zerah was engaged with Kate. Besides, he would not require so much kindling matter within doors. Where should he bestow it?

Suspecting that he heard a step approach, Pasco hastily closed the flap of the cart, and went to the front of the shed. No one was there. He returned to the shed and reopened the box of the cart, and filled his arms with shavings, came out and hastily ran across with them to his warehouse.

Then he came back on his traces, carefully picking up the particles that had escaped him. There remained more in his dog-cart. Would it do for him to run to and fro, conveying the light shavings from shed to warehouse? Might it not attract attention? What would a customer think were he to come for coals, and find a bundle of kindling wood among them? What would neighbours think at the light curls caught by the wind and carried away over the fields?

He went hastily back to the warehouse and collected the bundle he had just taken there, and brought it all back in a sack, and rammed this sack into the box of his cart; and then went again to the stores, and raked the coals over the particles of shavings that remained.

Then Pasco harnessed his cob, and drove away to the little town of Newton. A craving desire had come over him to see again the new public-house erected in the place of that which had been burnt. He had no clear notion why he desired to see it.

As he drove along, he passed the mill, and Ash, the miller, who was standing outside his house, hailed him.

“By the way, Pepperill—sorry to detain you; there is a little account of mine I fancy has been overlooked. Will you wait?—I will run in and fetch it; my Rose—she does all the writing for me, I’m a poor scholard—she has just made it out again. It was sent in Christmas, and forgot, I s’pose, then again Lady-Day, and I reckon again overlooked. You won’t mind my telling of it, and if you could make it convenient to pay”—

“Certainly, at once,” answered Pasco, and thrust his hand into his pocket and drew it forth empty. “No hurry for a day or two, I reckon? I find I have come away without my purse.”

“Oh no, not for a day or two; but when it suits you, I shall be obliged.”

“Will to-morrow do?”

“Of course. I say, Pepperill, your brother-in-law is a right sort of a man.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Giving up his cottage to that poor creetur, Jane Redmore.”

“I do not understand you.”

“What—have you not heard? There was like to be a proper mess. Farmer Pooke wanted Roger’s cottage for his new man, and so she, poor soul, had to turn out. There was no help for it. She had no notion where to go, and what to do. A lost sort of creetur I always thought, and now that Roger is away and not to be found, and what wi’ the death of her little maid, gone almost tottle (silly). Her had to clear out, and folks was nigh mazed to know what to do wi’ her, when your niece, Kitty Alone, came and said as how her father Jason gave his cottage till Jane Redmore could settle something.”

“I never heard a word of this till this moment,” said Pasco. “When did it happen?”

“To-day—not long ago. Jane Redmore is in Jason Quarm’s house now. Kate gave her the key.”

Pepperill grew red, and said, not looking Ash in the face, but away at the ears of his horse, “I don’t like this—not at all. We ought to get rid of Redmore and all his belongings. You are not safe in your house, your mill is not safe, I am not safe, with that firebrand coming and going amongst us—and come and go he will so long as his wife and children be here. He were mighty fond of they.”

“Roger will do you no harm. Your people have been good to him.”

“What! do you call Jason ‘my people’?”

“Jason and Kitty have housed his wife.”

“It don’t follow that he loves me. I set the men in pursuit of him at Dart-meet, and he knows it, and hates me. I live in fear of him as long as he is uncaught.”

The miller shrugged his shoulders. “Roger is not so bad, but Farmer Pooke did try him terrible. I won’t detain you. You’ll mind and pay that little account, will you not—to-morrow?”

“Yes—certain.”

Then Pepperill drove on. He passed a man in a cart, and the man did not salute him. In fact, the way was narrow, and the fellow was careful that the wheels should clear, and had not leisure to look at and touch his hat to Pasco. But Pepperill regarded the omission as an intentional slight. He was in an irritable condition, and when shortly after he drove before a cottage, and the woman in the doorway, hushing her child, did not address him, or answer his address, his brows knitted and he swore that everyone was against him. His disturbed and anxious mind longed for recognition, flattery, to give it ease, and unless he received this from everyone, he suspected that there was a combination against him, that a wind of his difficulties had got abroad, and that folk considered he was no longer worth paying attention to.

There were not many on the road, and he acted capriciously towards those few. Some he greeted, others he passed without notice. He fancied he detected a sneer in the faces of such as returned his salutation or a purposeful lessening of cordiality. On reaching the new inn at Newton, his heart was full of anger against all mankind.

The host did not receive him with cordiality, as he expected; he looked out at the door and went in again with a hasty nod.

In the yard Pasco cautiously opened his gig-box when the ostler was not looking and drew out a halter, then, hastily closed the flaps, and, extending the cord, said, “I’m not going to stay many minutes; don’t take the cob out of harness. Let him stand and eat a bite, that is all.”

Then Pepperill went into the inn and called for a glass of ale.

“Halloa, Pepperill!” said a cheery voice, and Coaker moved up to him at the table. “How are you? Sold the wool yet? I hear there is a rise.”

Pepperill drew back and turned blood-red; this was the man to whom he owed so much money—the man to whom he had given the bill that was dishonoured.

“No, I haven’t sold,” answered Pasco surlily.

“I advise you not to. You’ll make something yet. That Australian wool won’t go down with our weavers. It’s not our quality, too fine, not tough enough. Hold back, and you will make your price.”

“That is all very well for you to say, but”— Pasco checked himself. What was on his lips was—"It is ready-money I need, not a profit a few months hence."

“There’s good things coming to you yet,” continued Coaker. “I heard on the moor that your brother-in-law has near on made a sale of the Brimpts oaks.”

“He has?”

“Yes; there has been a timber merchant from Portsmouth come there. He wanted the Okehampton oaks, but was too late, they had been picked up, so he came on to Dart-meet, and I reckon now it is only about price they are haggling, that is all.” Coaker dropped his voice and said, “There’s an awkwardness about that bill of yours. Nay, don’t kick out; I won’t be so terrible down on you just for a fortnight or three weeks. I’ll let you turn that timber over first if you will be sharp about it. There, don’t say I’m down on you. A fortnight or three weeks I give you.”

Pasco held up his head, but the sudden elation was damped by the thought that he could not remove any of the timber till the covenanted price had been paid for it, and whence was this money to come? Money he must have to enable him to hold on with the wool till it fetched a better price, and to dispose of the oaks he had felled on the moor, to enable him to escape the scandal and humiliation of having the bailiffs put in his house by the coal merchant.

But then, in the event of a certain contingency which loomed before Pasco’s inner eye, there would be no wool to be disposed of, it would have been reduced to—even to himself he would not complete the sentence. Would that matter? The insurance would more than cover the loss, and he would be able to dispose of the oak.

“Will you have a pipe?” asked Coaker, and after having stuffed his tobacco into his bowl, he produced a match-box and struck a light with a lucifer. At the period of this tale lucifer matches were a novelty. The tinder-box was in general use for domestic purposes, and men carried about with them small metal boxes, armed with a steel side, containing amadou and flint, for kindling their pipes and cigars.

“What do you call that?” asked Pepperill, observing the proceedings of the farmer.

“Ah! I reckon this be one of the finest inventions of the times. Have you never seen or read of this yet? It is better than the phosphorus bottle, and than Holmberg’s box. Look here. This little stick has got some chemical stuff, sulphur and something else, phosphorus, I believe, at the end; all you have to do is to rub, and the whole bursts into flame.”

Pepperill took the box, turned it over, opened it, looked at and smelt the matches.

“Are they terrible expensive?” he asked musingly.

“Oh no. There, as you are curious about it, I’ll give you the box, and you can show it to your missus.”

Pasco put out his hand to shake that of Coaker. It was cold and trembled.

The devil was playing a game with him. He was offering him a reprieve from his embarrassments, and at the same time thrusting him forward to the accomplishment of the evil deed on which he brooded, and was placing in his hands the means of executing it.

Pasco sank into deep thought, looking at the match-box and playing with it, now opening, then shutting it.

“I’m depriving you of it,” he said.

“Not a bit. I have a dozen. They are just brought in from London and are selling off amazin’ fast at Ashburton. In a week they’ll be all over the country and the tinder boxes chucked away.”

“Are they dangerous—I mean to carry about with one?” asked Pasco.

“Not a bit. There is no fire till you strike it out.”

Then Pepperill again fell into meditation. He put the box into his pocket, and sat looking before him into space, speechless.

Suddenly a shock went through his frame. He had been touched on the arm by Coaker.

“What is it?” he asked, with quivering lips.

“Look at the landlord,” said the farmer in an undertone, with his hand to his mouth. “Do you know what folks say of him?”

Pasco asked with his eyes. He could not frame the words with his lips.

“They do say that he set fire to the old place, so as to get the insurance money for rebuilding in grand style.”

“A tramp did it—got into the cellar,” said Pasco in a whisper.

“Nobody never saw thickey tramp come, and sure and sartain nobody never saw him go. I don’t believe in the tramp. He did it himself.”

“You should not speak that unless sure of it,” said Pepperill, thrusting back his chair. “You have no evidence.”

“Oh, evidence! Folks talk, and form their opinion.”

“Talk first and form opinions after on the idle chatter—that’s about it.”

Pasco stood up. He was alarmed. He was afraid he had not fastened the box of his dog-cart. The flap might have fallen, and then the interior would be exposed to view; and what would the ostler, what would anyone think who happened to come into the stable-yard and saw what constituted the lading of his cart? His hand had shaken as he turned the key, after bringing out the halter; almost certainly in his nervousness he had imperfectly turned it. He could not rest. He went out into the yard and looked at his dog-cart. It was closed. He tried the key. The lock was fast.

“Put the cob in,” said he to the ostler, and he returned, much relieved, to the house.

Coaker had departed. Pepperill called for another glass of ale, and found interest in observing the landlord. That man had set fire to his tavern so that he might construct an hotel. He seemed cheery. He was not bowed down with consciousness of guilt. His voice was loud, his spirits buoyant. He looked Pepperill full in the eyes, and it was the eyes of Pepperill that fell, not those of the landlord.

“I wonder,” considered Pasco, “whether he did do it, or did not? If he did not, it is just as bad as if he did, for people charge him with it all the same. No one will believe he is innocent. Suppose he did it—and I reckon it is most likely—well, Providence don’t seem to ha’ turned against him; on the contrary, it is a showering o’ prosperity over him. P’r’aps, after all, there ain’t no wrong in it. It was his own house he burnt. A man may do what he will with his own.” He put resolutely from him the thought of fraud on the insurance company. What was a company? Something impersonal. Then Pepperill rose, paid for his ale, and went forth. As he jumped into the dog-cart, the ostler held up the halter.

“Will you give me the key and I will put it inside?” asked the man.

“No, thank you—hand it to me.”

The ostler gave him the halter, and Pepperill fastened it to the splashboard and drove on. He had attached it hastily, carelessly, and before long the rope uncoiled and hung before him. His eyes were drawn to it.

“What would come to me if the bailiffs were put into the house, and Coombe Cellars were sold over my head to pay what I owe?”

Pasco was a man who could live only where he was esteemed, looked up to, and where he could impose on underlings and brag among equals. The idea of being in every man’s mouth as “gone scatt”—a ruined man—was intolerable. “I would die rather than that,” he exclaimed aloud, and put his hand to the halter to twist it and knot it again.

It was a sin to commit suicide. His life was his own, but he could not take that. His storehouse with his stores was his own. Would it be wrong for him to destroy that? Better that than his own life. There were but two courses open to him. He must either use the halter for his own neck and swing in the barn, or recover himself out of the insurance money on his stores. He drove on brooding over this question, arguing with his conscience, and presently he held up his head. He saw that his life was too precious to be thrown away. What would Zerah do without him? He must consider his wife, her despair, her tears. He had no right to make her a widow, homeless. Were he to die—that would not relieve the strain. The sale would take place just the same, and Zerah be left destitute. Pepperill held up his head. He felt virtuous, heroic; he had done the right thing for the sake of his dear wife, made his election, and saw a new day dawning—dawning across a lurid glare.