CHAPTER XXIV

SHAVINGS

With five pounds in his pocket, Pepperill drove to Plymouth and on to Devonport. His moral courage was up again now he had gold to spend. When his purse was empty, his spirits, his tone of mind, became depressed and despairing. A very little—a few pounds—sufficed to send them up to bragging point. There was no limit to his self-complacency and assurance as he appeared at the dockyard.

His spirits, his consequence that had so risen, were doomed to sink when he learned that no oak, however good, was required. Okehampton Park, the finest, the most extensive in the county, had been delivered over by the impecunious owners to the woodman; thousands of magnificent trees, as ancient and as sound as those of Brimpts, had been felled. The market was glutted, oak of the best quality sold cheap as beech; and the Government had bought as much at Okehampton as would be needed for several years.

“That is the way with all Government concerns, stupidly managed by blunderheads. I can do business better with private firms. I know very well what this means—to grease the palms of the authorities. I am a man of principle—I won’t do it.” So said Pepperill, as he swung away from the dockyard. “Bah! I’ve always been a staunch supporter of Church and State, churchwarden and Tory. If the Government can’t oblige me when I want a little favour done, but must go to the cheapest shop, blow me if I don’t turn Whig—that’s not bad enough—roaring Radical, and cry, Down with the Constitution and the Crown! As for the Church, I don’t say as I’ll go in for disestablishment and disendowment just now. There is some benefit in an Established Church when it will accommodate one at a pinch with five pounds, and don’t press to have it returned till convenient.”

Pasco betook himself now to private firms of shipbuilders, but was unable to dispose of his timber. The mowing down of Okehampton Park had flooded the market with first-quality oak. One firm was inclined to deal with him, if he would draw the timber into Plymouth. Sanguine at this undertaking, he returned to Dart-meet to drive a bargain with some of the farmers on the moor for conveying the oak logs to the seaport town. He found that their charges were likely to be high. The way was long, the road hilly, in places bad. It would take them two days at least to convey each load, with a pair of horses, or a team of three, to Plymouth; and what was one load?—what, but a single log. Then there was the return journey, that might be done in a long day; but after three such days, the horses would not be fit for work on the fourth. A pair of horses was ten shillings; and for three days—that was five-and-twenty; but in reality three horses would be needed, and that would be thrice fifteen—two pounds five for each stick of timber before it was sold. As for the spray,—all the upper portion of the trees,—that would have to be disposed of on the spot; and Pepperill foresaw, with something like dismay, that he would get no price for it. The expense of carriage would deter all save moor farmers from purchasing, and they were so few in number, that the supply would exceed the demand, especially as they could have as much turf as they wanted for the cutting; and practically not sufficient would be got from the sale of the faggot wood to pay for the felling of the timber.

It is one of the peculiar features of England that our roads are absolutely without any of the facilities which modern engineering would yield to travellers on wheels. Our ancient highways were those struck out by packmen, and when wheeled conveyances came into use, the carriages had to scramble over roads only suitable for pack-horses. In France and Germany it is otherwise, there modern road-engineering has made locomotion easy. The main arteries of traffic ascend and descend by gentle gradients, and make sweeps where a direct course would be arduous and exhaustive of time.

Now the road from Dart-meet, a main thoroughfare over the moor, might be carried along the river-bank, with a gentle fall of a hundred feet in the mile, for six miles. But instead of that, it scrambles for a mile up a hogsback of moor, nearly five hundred feet in sheer ascent, then comes down to the Dart again; then scrambles another ridge, and then again descends to the same river. Nothing could be easier than to have a trotting road the whole way; but in mediæval times packmen went up and down hill; consequently we in our brakes, and landaus, and dog-carts must do the same; not only so, but the transport of granite, peat, wool, and the oaks from the felled forest was rendered a matter of heavy labour and great cost. Pepperill saw that it was quite hopeless to expect to effect any dealings on the Ashburton side, on account of the tremendous hills that intervened.

With rage and mortification at his heart, he sought for his brother-in-law, and could not find him. He was told that Quarm had gone to Widdecomb. Some repairs were to be done in the church, the parsonage was to be rebuilt, and he was going to ascertain whether oak timber would be required there, and how much, and whether he could dispose of some of the wood of Brimpts for this object.

He could not wait for Quarm. He wanted to be home. He was to convey Kate to Coombe Cellars—it had been so arranged. His wife was impatient for her return, had begun to discover what a useful person in the house Kate was. Moreover, the moor air had done what was required of it, had restored health to the girl’s cheeks.

In rough and testy tone, Pepperill told his niece to put together her traps and to jump up beside him.

“You’ve had play enough at our expense,” he growled. “Your aunt has had to hire a girl, and she’s done nothing but break, break—and she’s given Zerah cheek—awful. Time you was back. We can’t be ruined just because your father wants you to be a lady, and idle. We’re not millionaires, that we can afford to put our hands in our pockets and spend the day loafing. If your father thinks of bringing you up to that, it’s a pity he hasn’t made better ventures with his money.” After a pause, with a burst of rancour, “His money! _His_ money, indeed! it is mine he plays games with, it is my hard-earned coin he plays ducks and drakes with—chucks it away as though I hadn’t slaved to earn every groat.”

As he talked, he worked himself up into great wrath; and like a coward poured forth his spite upon the harmless child at his side, because harmless, unable to retaliate. He was accustomed to hear his wife find fault with Kate, and now he followed suit. We all, unless naturally generous, cast blame on those who are beneath us; on our children, our servants, the poor and weak, when we are conscious of wrong within ourselves, but are too proud for self-accusation. It has been so since Adam blamed Eve for his fall, and Eve threw the blame on the serpent.

“I don’t hold with holiday-making,” said Pasco. “It is all very well for wealthy people, but not for those who are workers for their daily bread. I might ha’ been, and I would ha’ been, an independent man, and a gentleman living on my own means, but for your father. He’s been the mischief-maker. He has led me on to speculate in ventures that were rotten from root to branch, and all my poor savings, and all that your aunt Zerah has earned by years of toil—it is all going—it is all gone. There are those workmen cutting down the oak, they are eating my silver, gorging themselves on my store, and reducing me and Zerah to beggary. To the workhouse—that’s our goal. To the workhouse—that is where your father is driving us. What are you staring about you for like an owl in daylight?”

“Oh, uncle,” answered Kate in a voice choked with tears, “I have been so happy on the moor, and it is all so beautiful, so beautiful—a heaven on earth; and I was only looking my last—and saying good-bye to it all.”

“Not listening to what I said?”

“Indeed I was, and I was unhappy—and what you said made me feel I should never come back here, and I must work hard now for Aunt Zerah. There was no harm in my looking my last at what I have loved and shall not see again! It is so beautiful.”

“Beautiful? Gah!” retorted Pasco. “A beastly place. What is beautiful here? The rocks? The peat? The heather? Gah! It is all foul stuff—I hate it. What are you hugging there as if it were a purse of gold?”

“Oh, uncle, it is something I love so! The schoolmaster sent it me by Mr. Fielding. It’s only a book.”

“A book? of what sort? Let me see.”

Kate reluctantly produced the cherished volume.

“Pshaw!” said Pasco, rejecting it with disgust. “Poetry—rotten rubbish—I hate it. It’s no good to anyone, it stuffs heads with foolery. I wish I was king, and I’d make it a hanging matter to write a line of poetry and publish it. It’s just so much poison. No wonder you don’t like work, when you read that vile, unwholesome trash.”

Kate hastily folded up the volume and replaced it in her bosom.

“No wonder you and your father encourage vagabonds and incendiaries if you read poetry.”

“Father did not help Roger Redmore to escape,” said Kate. “It was I who rolled down the stones. Father came up when he had already got away to a hiding-place. I, and I alone, did it.”

“More shame to you! You’re a bad girl, a vicious girl, and will come to no good.”

He continued grumbling and snarling and harping on his grievances, and, for some while, jerking out spiteful remarks. Presently he relapsed into silence, and let the tired cob jog along till he reached a point where, near Holne, roads branched: one went down the hill to Ashburton without passing through the village, the other went round by the church and village inn. Here Pasco drew up, uncertain which road to take. There was not much difference in the distance. The direct way was the shorter, but by not more than half a mile, whereas the other afforded opportunity for refreshment.

At this point was a carpenter’s shop. The workman was not there, but he had left his shop open, and outside was a great pile of shavings.

As Pasco sat ruminating, doubtful which way to take, his eye rested for some while on the shavings. Presently, without a word, he got out of the conveyance, let down the back of the cart, collected as many shavings as he could carry, and thrust them in, under the seat. He went back to the pile, took as many more as he thought would suffice, and crammed the body of the cart with them. Then, still without speaking, he shut the back, remounted, and drove down the shortest way—the steep hill, the direct road to Ashburton that avoided the village.

“Uncle!” said Kate, after a while.

Pepperill started, as though he had been stung. “Bless me!” he exclaimed; “I had forgotten you were here.”

“Uncle,” pursued the girl, “you know my dear mother left a little money, a few hundred pounds, for me. And my father is trustee, and he has charge of it, and has invested it somewhere for me. If you are in difficulties, and really want money, I am sure you are heartily welcome to mine. I will ask my father to let you have the use of it. I cannot do other—you and Aunt Zerah have been very kind to me.”

“Yes, that we have, and been to tremendous expense over your keep; and there was your education with Mr. Puddicombe, and the doctor’s bill coming in, and the medicines; and there has been your clothing—and you have always eaten—awful. That costs money, and ruins one. Yes, you are right, you couldn’t do other. I had not thought of that. But I don’t know what your father will say.”

“In a very few years I shall be old enough to have it as my own to do with as I like. I do not think that my father will object to its being employed as I wish. And I know it will be quite safe with you.”

“Oh, perfectly safe, safe as in the Bank of England. I’m one of your sound men. Sound, and straight, and square, all round—everything you can desire, you know. Everyone trusts me. A man of substance, a man of means—and with a head for business.”

“I will ask father when I see him.”

“That is right. It will be a little relief. You are a good girl, I always said you were, and had your heart in the right place. You will write to your father to-morrow.”

Pasco Pepperill was comparatively genial, even boastful, on the rest of the way. When he arrived at Coombe Cellars, his wife heard the wheels and came to the door. She received Kate without cordiality, and took her husband’s little bag of clothes he had taken with him. Kate carried hers in her hand.

“Anything in the cart? Shall I open?” asked Zerah.

“Nothing—absolutely nothing. Leave the cart alone,” answered Pasco hastily. “Nothing at all.”

Pepperill drew his horse away, unharnessed it, and ran the dog-cart into the coach-house. Then he stood for a moment musing, and looking at it. Presently he turned his back, locked the door, and left his conveyance undischarged of its load of shavings.

“I may chuck ’em away, any time,” said he, “or give ’em to Zerah to kindle her kitchen fire with, or”— He did not finish the sentence, even in thought.