Part 28

"An' lower down he's at 'em again. Hark to this: 'Art thou bound to a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.' I reckon most men doan't need to be told that last. Then theer's another bracing word further on. Parson Scobell preached 'pon it awnly last month. Ephesians, fifteenth of five: 'See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fules, but as wise.'"

"Tu strong for a lady," said Mr. Ash.

"Not so, Churdles. I'm the last to say or set a hand to any awver-bitter speech. 'Tis what her wants to awpen her butivul eyes, an' shaw her the right road, same as them 'twas fust writ for. An' here--same chapter: 'Wives, submit yourselves to your awn husbands, as unto the Lard.' Ban't tawld to submit theerselves to young, flauntin' bachelors, you see; an' then it says how women should hold theer awn men in special reverence."

"Theer's the twinge, an' I'd have 'e put that in for sartain," declared Churdles. "If her reverenced un, her wouldn't go about in high-wheeled, cranky dog-carts with t'other. Ess, put that down; together wi' any light hint against the lust of the flaish, so long as you can find it set out in parlour language."

Mr. Cramphorn took pencil and paper to his task; and Gaffer Ash, with the help of a round candlestick, drew a shaky circle in the middle of a sheet of foolscap. "Our names will all stick around," he said; "an' in the midst Jonah will set chapter an' verse. Perhaps ten verses might be enough to right the wrong, an' if you'm quick, Cramphorn, us'll get it in a henvelope an' addressed to missis, then slip it off to bed an' leave the manifestation 'pon the table against her comes home."

"More respectful to send it through the post," ventured Collins; and Churdles admitted that it might be so.

"P'raps you'm right theer, Henery. Ess, for sure you be; an' you'm gwaine into Chaggyford wi' the cart fust thing to-morrow, so you can post it theer; then 'twill come wi' all the dignity of the mail," he said.

Jonah finished his pious task and wrote his name; Churdles Ash, who had only learned to write in middle-age, set down a shaky signature, half schoolboy's, half senile in its wavering line; Pinsent wrote a laboured but well-regulated hand, and Mr. Collins also subscribed, yet with such uneasiness that one might have imagined he was signing his own death-warrant.

"Even now I'd like to hear Maister Endicott 'pon it," he murmured. "If he was against it, I'd never willingly countenance the step."

"He'm wan of the family; an' whenever was it knawn as a female gived credit to them of her awn blood for sense?" inquired Jonah. "Why, 'tis last thing they think of. No; us o' the land will send this here for gude or evil. We'm doin' our duty an' shan't be no worse thought of. She'm a wonnerful woman--a queen among 'em at her best--always was so--an' she'll think the better of us for this transaction."

"She'm just the sort to put a bit on our wages if the 'round robin' worked to her betterment--a most grateful woman," said Sam Pinsent, who from doubt had suddenly sprung to the extremity of hope.

"Ess--an' if her didn't, he would, so like as not," declared Gaffer Ash. "If this sets all right an' makes 'em happy an' sensible an' onderstandin', in the name of the Lard and of Paul, how much smoother 'twill be for all parties!"

"An' if all works well an' nobody don't do nothin'," suggested Pinsent, "it might be a question whether us shouldn't send in another to remind 'em of theer well-wishers. However, that's in the future."

"'Twould be like sendin' in a bill, an' not to be dreamt of," answered Cramphorn. "'Tis awnly a small-fashioned mind as would think of such a thing."

Pinsent retorted; but at that moment footsteps and voices warned the company. Pipes were relighted; the Bible was placed in the dresser-drawer; wide innocence sat upon each brown face; and, like lead within the breast pocket of Henry Collins, reposed the 'round robin' destined, as all hoped, to such notable issues.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*RED DAWN*

The admonition culled from Paul was duly posted, and henceforth Collins avoided his mistress with utmost care, while Pinsent, fear again overtaking him, did likewise. Cramphorn, on the contrary, itched to hear or see some definite result of his daring, while as for the ancient Ash, he went unmoved upon his way. To tell truth, the missive made an impression as deep as any of those responsible for it could have desired; but they never knew of its results, for the outgrowth of them was swept away by greater concerns. When Honor first received the "round robin," she felt amused; then she became annoyed; and, lastly, she grew anxious. The sort of men responsible for this audacity she understood, and she was aware the action sprang from honest purpose and most laudable intent. Cramphorn, the master spirit, worshipped her with high devotion, and she knew it; for the rest, they had but done as he bid them. The selected quotations, which Honor carefully consulted, were not indeed apposite, yet had this value, that they showed her how present relations appeared in the eyes of an ignorant, though impartial countryside. She was astounded at such an uncharitable and painful mistake; yet, seeing that the error existed, and was probably widespread, the wife felt thankful to know it. She fluctuated between contempt and anger, then finally fell back upon a condition of real concern. First she thought of showing the paper to Myles, but feared that his lack of humour might prompt him to austere treatment of her censors. To speak to Christopher was out of the question, and Honor, after some demur, decided that her uncle should know. From him she expected full measure of sympathy in her embarrassment, but she was disappointed of this hope.

"Very interesting and instructive," said the old man, after his niece had begun in laughter and ended with recitation of every text to which the document referred; "very interesting. So we may learn from the mouths of babes and sucklings."

"I ought to be cross with them. Fancy Cramphorn so greatly daring, despite his feudal instincts!"

"Shows how much and how deeply the man must have felt constrained to act. You say you should be cross. Why? They only try to give you some practical light. There's a great, deep goodwill behind this."

"But it is such nonsense."

"They don't think so."

"Surely you're not going to take it seriously, Uncle Mark?"

"Most seriously; and so do you, though you pretend to laugh--as if I didn't know every note in your laughter, like every note in a ring of bells. It is serious. You cannot defy simple, wholesome usage and custom for ever."

"But who has a right to speak while Myles is silent? If I hurt him, he would tell me. He is quite himself again."

"Shows how little you know him, for all your love of him. You are hurting him, and my ear tells me more than all your senses can tell you. He lives in a dreary hell and speaks out of it. I can almost see his face when I hear his voice."

"I'm always thinking of him."

"Yes, with a moiety of your thoughts. It isn't allowed one woman to make two men wholly happy--else you might succeed. But you're only following the old, stale road and making two men wholly miserable. Any fool in a petticoat can manage as much. That's the foundation your present content is built upon. There's awful wickedness in it, to my mind; and double-distilled sin coming from such as you, because you're not a fool at all, but have sense enough to profit by experience. You must be aware that Myles is a wretched man; and, though you may not think it, Yeoland knows very well he's living in a wrong atmosphere--a mere shadow of happiness. Better far you make one happy, out-and-out, than keep each miserable. One has got to smart, and the sooner you decide which, the better for both."

"That you should ever speak so!"

"You've fallen away much of late--in mind and conduct I mean. Your fine, sharp instincts are grown blunter. You can live this mean, half-and-half life; and you don't understand, or you won't. There's no passion in it, I do think, and I suppose you can go on being fond of two men without disgracing Endicott breed; but I'll speak plainly, since it's vital I should. Men are different. They're not built to go on mooning with a talking doll for ever. Even Christopher Yeoland is made of flesh and blood. A woman may be all mind; a man never is. Now, what are you, and what are you doing? You're a married woman, and you're ruining the life of about the worthiest man I've been happy to meet since my own brother--your dear father--died. End it--if Yeoland hasn't got strength and determination sufficient to do so. Tell him your mind; be true to your husband, and bid the man go--if he is a man."

Honor Stapledon listened to this grave rebuke with a heaving breast.

"You call that justice! You would ask him, after all he has suffered and endured, to go away from his own? You would coldly bid him turn his back on all that makes life worth living for him--Godleigh?"

"Without the least remorse, if he can't stop decently."

"To judge so vilely! If you cannot understand and appreciate the fact that Christopher isn't made of common clay, then the case is hopeless."

"Coarse clay or china clay, he's a callous, cruel devil to do what he is doing; and you can tell him so from me."

"I'm only sorry that you so hatefully misunderstand Christo."

For once the blind man let his anger run over. It had been boiling for many days, and now, before this attitude in Honor, he could restrain the explosion no more.

"Damn Christo!" he said. "Damn him for a poor, white-livered, whole cowardice of curs rolled into one! Your husband's worth a wilderness of his sort, and you ought to know it, and--there, I'll not say more. I blamed Myles first for being jealous of nought; now I blame him no more. Reason is with him. And though this boneless thing doesn't know better, you ought to, if only to credit your stock. What's come to you? What's sapped up all your old sense and self-respect?"

She stared at his wrath as at a new experience.

"I am unchanged," she answered, "though all the rest of my little world is going mad it seems. I have been misled and mistaken, if you are right, though I am not sure at all that you are. Certainly I thought after his illness, and the things he said to me then, that Myles was looking at this matter from my own rational stand-point. He grew sensible again--the old, wise Myles. But if you are correct in this monstrous belief, Myles must have set my mind at rest at the cost of his own peace. Yet could he hide that from me?"

"Not if your eyes were as they used to be. There must be no more rest at any rate--neither rest nor peace--till I'm proved right and the case is righted, or I'm shown wrong, when I'll not be backward in begging for forgiveness. Only remember, it's got to come from you--this clearing up. Myles will do nothing while he thinks your happiness is in blossom; he'll go on silently fretting his soul sour; and t'other will do nothing--that I'll swear to--unless a pitchfork be taken to him. Enough said now. Have it out with your husband, and first put yourself in his place so far as your knowledge of him allows. Look out of his eyes, and try to feel what this means to such a man--ay, or any other man worth calling one."

"I will think of what you say. At least, you are right when you tell me that I have degenerated. Happiness means degeneration, I suppose."

"You're the last leaf of an old tree, and I'd have you live beautifully, and make a good end, and leave a fragrant memory to your children."

"He's the last of his line, too--Christopher."

"That rests with him probably. It is well that he should be if he's no more than appears. But I have done, and am cool again. I'm sorry if I've hurt you. I love you better far than anything in the world, yet you've given me cause for deep mourning of late days."

Honor prepared to speak, but did not do so. She looked at her uncle's wrinkled, grey face and blind eyes, bent down, kissed him on the forehead, and then hastened away without any more words.

While the matter of this serious speech was in his wife's mind, it chanced that Stapledon and the Squire of Godleigh met after the dawn hour, each being led to the same spot upon his homeward way. Neither had seen the other for some weeks, and by mutual exchange of thought, a common subject leaped to the mind of each.

Myles had been upon Kes Tor to see the sunrise; Christopher was returning from a further point; and now in the valley beneath Batworthy Farm they met, where Teign, touched with ruddy gold of the morning, wound murmuring along. Upon one bank the hill rose sharply under silver birch, mountain ash, oak, and concourse of tall pines; to the north more gradual acclivities of shaggy moor extended, and these were broken into leek-green beds of sphagnums, and gemmed with ruddy sundews, where springs opened or rivulets wound with little bubbling whispers to the river. A red dawn scattered the stream with stars and sparks reflected from low eastern clouds above the sunrise; and this radiance, thrown upward from the water, touched the under-leaf of the alders, where they hung above the stream and slashed the shadows with sanguine light. A spirit, sweet, fresh and dewy as any naiad, dwelt here; the place was bedecked with mossy greens and olives, duns and transparent velvet-browns, all softened and swept with the purest opaline blue, by contrast of dawn shadows with dawn fire. Rock shapes upon the river-bed, perfect in their relations of colour and of form, made most harmonious medley of manifold planes. They were touched by sunshine, modelled to the outlines of their mosses by great violet shadows spread between flame-lances from on high, blended by ripple and shimmer of reflected light from the river, broken in mass by the green rushes and tall grasses, by the dancing briar, its point under a waterfall, by the snowy blossoms of great umbel-bearers, and by the majestic foliage of king fern. Teign splashed and spouted crystal-bright through this display of forms and colours, and there was pleasant music of water and murmur of new-born leaves, while red light came and went through the dawn purity, soaked each dingle with misty gold, and chequered the river with many shades of ambers and agates and roses agleam together.

"Sons of the young morning--you and I! This is our hour, and we suck life from the risen day," said Christo, extending a hand to the other as they met at stream-side.

"Rain's coming," answered Myles; "and this splendour will be drowned long before noon."

"Then let us make the most of it. I'm glad we met here. A happy place to talk in, with fair things to fill one's eyes."

"What is there to talk about? I'm afraid our interests are too widely separated."

"Well, that will do for a start. I want to talk, if you'll listen. Frankly, Stapledon, we are not what we might be each to the other. I wish I understood you better. There's hardly a man in the world that I regard more deeply. Yet I know right well you don't echo the sentiment. We grow less intimate daily, instead of better friends. Yet we're bound together in a sort of way by the past, however distasteful that may be to you. At least I should say we must be. And so many common interests--say what you please to the contrary. Both fairly intelligent and intellectual, both prone to probe under the surface of things. What's the barrier? Frankly I have no idea. I thought at one time it might have to do with Honor; and so did Mr. Endicott. He talked to me with amazing vigour and plain choice of homely words. Yes, honestly, he made me feel like a criminal lunatic for about a week. Then, thank God, you recovered your health, and we met, and I saw at a glance that the old man was utterly wrong and had been engaged with a mare's nest. Yet there's a gulf between us, despite so much that we enjoy in common."

"Since you wish to speak of this, I say that there are some things that cannot be enjoyed in common."

Yeoland started.

"You mean that I was wrong, then, and Mr. Endicott right? But don't you see how infernally greedy and unreasonable you are? Either that, or you continue to misunderstand me of set purpose. I gave you Honor for your own; yet you grudge me my place at Godleigh--at the footstool of the throne you share with her. What do I rob you of? Do the birds rob you when they eat the crumbs fallen from your table? I cannot remotely judge of your attitude."

"That is true; but every other man can. And it may be that many do."

"Have you considered that this position you take is in some measure a reflection on your wife?"

"I have not, and if I had, I do not ask your criticism upon that."

"Well, I shall never see how you hold any ground for this ridiculous animosity, Stapledon; but for the sake of argument, you must be conceded a case. What is your exact grievance in English? The thing I have done I can do again: go; but before we imagine you bidding me to do so, or picture me as obeying, out of regard for Honor--before that climax, I say, consider what you are doing in common justice. By banishment you take from me every temporal and spiritual treasure worth living for. As I stand here, I believe I am a happy man--almost; happy in Godleigh; happy in renewed intercourse with Honor; happy--on my oath before Heaven--in the knowledge that she belongs to you. I may be unfinished and unfurnished--only half a man, as Mark Endicott didn't hesitate to tell me; but, such as I am, this hillside is my life, and, if you bade me depart from it and I went, then I should presently die."

Myles lifted his head and looked from under his brows half in contempt, half in dubiety.

"You're a slight thing to turn a man's hair grey--a slight thing on your own showing," he answered. "Can you dissect yourself so glibly and mean it? You parade your own emptiness without flinching. Yet you believe what you say, no doubt; and there may be truth in it, but not all the truth. I can't suppose you utterly abnormal in your attitude towards other people, just because you say you are."

"I say no such thing. It was Endicott who said so. I say that my view of life is very much more exalted and my standards higher than--yours, for instance. If you could understand my plane, you would understand me; but you can't. The aesthetic habit of mind is beyond your percipience."

"Then we can leave it out. You may deceive yourself with big words, nobody else. What are you going to do? That is the question. The fact that my peace of mind and my salvation are bound up in my wife is unfortunate, because I neither wish you to consider me, nor do I desire to be under any further obligation. But Honor is my wife, and, as that relationship is understood by common men, it carries with it definite limitations. She loves you, and never attempts to hide it. Her primitive nature is big enough to find room in her heart for us both; but my still more primitive nature can't tolerate this attitude. I'm not big enough to share her with anybody else, not big enough to watch her happier than the day is long in your company."

"You think soberly and honestly that the world grows too small for the three of us?"

"Little Silver does."

"We might toss up which of us blows his brains out."

"Try to feel as serious as I do, Christopher Yeoland. Try to look at the future of this woman's life, since you have approached me upon it."

"I do so, and I see a life not necessarily unhappy. A woman heroic enough to love two men deserves double share of happiness; don't you think so?"

"I suppose you're in earnest, though God knows it is not easy to argue with such a babbler."

"No, I'm not flippant. It is you who have got the perspective of this thing all wrong. If you were a little older, you would see how absurd it is to try and turn pure comedy into drama. If you were only a better judge of character--can't you understand that I'm incapable of tragedy? There's nothing hurting you, or going to hurt you, but your own narrow nature. When we're all white-headed--the day after to-morrow, or so--when we are all grown into the sere and yellow--you will be the first to laugh, through toothless gums, at this, and say that I was right."

"Well, we won't argue, because there's no solid ground where we can meet as a foundation for any possible sort of understanding. You take such a view of life and its responsibilities as I should have supposed impossible for a reasonable being. We're different to the roots, and, materialist though I am, I recognise, a million times more deeply than you can, the demands of this existence and the need to justify it. Now listen, and then we will part: I tell you that in my judgment as her husband, my wife's ultimate happiness and content and mental health will be more nearly assured if you go out of her life than if you stop in it. I ask you to go out of it. I recognise all that this demand means, especially as coming from me to you. You'll gauge the depth of my convictions that I can bring myself to ask you so much--for her sake, not mine."

"You want me to turn my back upon Godleigh?"

"I do; as that is apparently the only way you can turn your back on Bear Down."

"You have no right to ask such a thing."

"Under the circumstances I consider that I have."

"There is another alternative."

"I cannot see it then."

"You will though, before you sleep to-night. I shall not suggest it to you; but such a level-headed man as you are must presently see it for himself. I say I shall not propose it, because my peace of mind is not at stake. As a matter of fact, you're arguing for yourself now, though you fancy you are speaking for Honor. She's very nearly happy, and would be perfectly so if you were. It is your five-act drama manner and general tragic bearing that make her feel more or less downcast. And I am also happy. Now, consider; if I clear out, you'll be joyous again; I shall be in doleful dumps, of course, and Honor----?"

"Well?"

"Don't you know? She can't help loving us both. She can't alter that now, poor girl. If she knows I'm miserable, she certainly won't be happy.'

"You are making your position clear to me. She is not unhappy now, though my life is dark; but if your peace of mind was spoiled, then hers would suffer too.

"It may appear egotistical, but I think that nearly defines the situation."

"Which is to say that you are more to her than I am?"

"Remorseless logic, but--no; I don't assert that for a second. You are her husband. Such a delicate question should not be raised."

"It is raised, and she must decide it."

"My dear Stapledon, let us have no brutality. Do try to catch a little of her big, pure spirit. We may both learn from her. These earthly wranglings would shock her immeasurably."

"You won't leave this place?"

"Not unless Honor asks me to do so, and without inspiration. Now, good-bye. To think of the sweet air we've wasted in such futilities! You're right about the rain. Look away south."

Yeoland rose from the mossy stone whereon he had pursued this matter, and quickly disappeared; Myles also moved upon his way. Great slate-coloured ledges of cloud were already sliding upwards from the Moor, and it was raining by the time the farmer returned home to his breakfast.

*CHAPTER X.*

*A MAN OF COURAGE*