Part 3

Mr. Scobell, the Vicar of Little Silver, often said, concerning Mark Endicott, that he was as much the spiritual father of the hamlet as its parson. Herein he stated no more than the truth, for the blind man stood as a sort of perpetual palliative of human trouble at Bear Down; in his obscure, night-foundered passage through the world, he had soothed much sorrow and brought comfort to not a few sad, primitive hearts in the bosoms of man and maid. He was seventy years old and knew trouble himself; for, born to the glory of light, he had been blind since the age of thirty, about which period the accident of a bursting gun destroyed his right eye. The other, by sympathetic action, soon became darkened also; and Mark Endicott endured the full storm-centre of such a loss, in that he was a man of the fields, who had depended for his life's joy on rapid movement under the sky; on sporting; on the companionship of horse and dog and those, like himself, whose lives were knit up in country pursuits. He had dwelt at Bear Down before the catastrophe, with his elder brother, Honor Endicott's father; and, after the affliction, Mark still remained at the farm. He was a bachelor, possessed small means sufficient for his needs, and, when the world was changed for him, cast anchor for life in the scene of his early activities. Before eclipse the man had been of a jovial, genial sort, wholly occupied with the business of his simple pleasures, quite content to remain poor; since loss of sight he had fallen in upon himself and developed mentally to an extent not to have been predicted from survey of his sunlit youth. Forty years of darkness indeed ripened Mark Endicott into an original thinker, a man whose estimate of life's treasures and solutions of its problems were broad-based, tolerant, and just. If stoical, his philosophy was yet marked by that latter reverence for humanity and patience with its manifold frailties that wove courses of golden light into the decaying fabric of the porch, and wakened a dying splendour in those solemn and austere galleries ere the sun set upon their grey ruins for ever. Epictetus and Antonine were names unknown to him, yet by his own blind road he had groped to some of their lucid outlook, to that forbearance, fearless courage, contempt of trifles and ruthless self-estimate an emperor learned from a slave and practised from the lofty standpoint of his throne. Mark Endicott appraised his own conduct in a spirit that had been morbid exhibited by any other than a blind man; yet in him this merciless introspection was proper and wholesome. The death of his sight was the birth of his mind, or at least the first step towards his intellectual education. Seeing, the man had probably gone down to his grave unconsidered and with his existence scarcely justified; but blind, he had accomplished a career of usefulness, had carved for himself an enduring monument in the hearts of rustic men and women. He was generally serious, though not particularly grave, and he could tolerate laughter in others though he had little mind to it himself. His niece represented his highest interest and possessed all his love. Her happiness was his own, and amongst his regrets not the least centred in the knowledge that he understood her so little. Mark's own active participation in affairs extended not far beyond speech. He sat behind his leathern screen, busied his hands with knitting great woollen comforters for the fishermen of Brixham, and held a sort of modest open court. Often, during the long hours when he was quite alone, he broke the monotony of silence by talking to himself or repeating passages, both sacred and secular, from works that gave him satisfaction. Such were his reflections that listeners never heard any ill of themselves, though it was whispered that more than one eavesdropper had overheard Mr. Endicott speak to the point. His quick ear sometimes revealed to him the presence of an individual; and, on such occasions, the blind man either uttered a truth for that particular listener's private guidance, or published an opinion, using him as the intelligencer. It is to be noted also that Mark Endicott oftentimes slipped into the vernacular when talking with the country people--a circumstance that set them at ease and enabled him to impart much homely force to his utterances. Finally of him it may be said that in person he was tall and broad, that he had big features, grizzled hair, which he wore rather long, and a great grey beard that fell to the last button of his waistcoat. His eyes were not disfigured though obviously without power of sight.

Honor made a hearty meal and then departed to continue preparations for her cousin's visit. In two days' time he was arriving from Tavistock, to spend a period of uncertain duration at Bear Down. The bright afternoon waned; the shadows lengthened; then there came a knock at the outer door of the kitchen and Henry Collins entered. He had long been seeking for an opportunity to speak in private with Mr. Endicott; and now his face brightened from its usual vacuity to find that Mark was alone.

"Could I have half a word, maister, the place bein' empty?"

"You're Collins, the new man, are you not?"

"Ess, sir; Henery Collins at your sarvice; an' hearin' tell you'm ready to give your ripe judgment wheer 'tis axed an' doan't grudge wisdom more'n a cloud grudges rain, I made so bold--ess, I made that bold like as to--as to----"

"What is it? Don't waste breath in vain words. If I can give you a bit of advice, it's yours; an' take it or leave it as you mind to."

"I'll take it for sure. 'Tis this then: I be a man o' big bones an' big appetite, an' do handle my share o' vittles braavely; but I do allus get that cruel hot when I eat--to every pore as you might say--which swelterin' be a curse to me--an' a painful sight for a female, 'specially if theer's like to be anything 'twixt you an' she in the way of keepin' comp'ny. An' if theer ban't no offence, I'd ax 'e what I should take for't."

Mr. Endicott smiled.

"Take less, my son; an' don't swallow every mouthful as if the devil was arter you. Eat your meat an' sup your drink slow."

"Ban't a calamity as caan't be cured, you reckon?"

"Nothing at all but greediness. Watch how your betters take their food an' see how the women eat. 'Tis only gluttony in you. Remember you're a man, not a pig; then 'twill come right."

Mr. Collins was greatly gratified.

"I'm sure I thank 'e wi' all my heart, maister; for 'twould be a sorry thing if such a ill-convenience should come between me an' a bowerly maid like Sally Cramphorn, the out-door girl."

"So it would then," assented the elder kindly; "but no need--no need at all."

Collins repeated his sense of obligation and withdrew; while elsewhere that identical young woman who now began to distract the lethargic solidity of his inner life was herself seeking advice upon a deep matter touching heart's desire. Soon after five o'clock Sally escaped from the supervision of her jealous parent, and started upon a private and particular errand through leafy lanes that led northerly from the farm and skirted the Moor in that direction. Presently she turned to the left, where a gate marked the boundaries of common land and arrested cattle from straying on to the roads. Here, dipping into a little tunnel of living green, where hazels met over a watercourse, Sally proceeded by a moist and muddy short cut to her goal. It was a cottage that rose all alone at a point where the Moor rippled down to its hinder wall and a wilderness of furze and water-meadow, laced with rivulets and dotted with the feathers of geese, extended in front. A dead fir tree stood on one side of the cot, and the low breast-work of granite and peat that separated a little garden from the waste without was very strangely decked with the vertebrae of a bygone ox. The bones squatted imp-like in a row there--a spectacle of some awe to those who knew the significance of the spot. Upon the door were nailed many horse-shoes, and walls of red earth or cob, painted with whitewash and crowned by venerable and moss-grown thatch, formed the fabric of the cottage. Upon fine days this mural surface displayed much magic of varied colour; it shone cool in grey dawns, hot at noon, delicate rose and red gold under such brief gleams of sunset light as the Moor's ragged mane permitted to reach it. Stone-crops wove mellow tints into the rotting thatch above, and the moss cushions of dark and shining green were sometimes brushed and subdued by a haze or orange veil thrown over them by the colour of their ripe seed-vessels. In the garden grew many herbs, knowledge of whose potency their owner alone possessed, and at one corner arose the golden spires of great mullein--a flower aforetime called "hag's taper" and associated with witches and their mystic doings. Here the tall plant towered, like a streak of flame, above pale, widespread, woolly leaves; and it was held a sign and token of this wise woman's garden, for when the mullein flowered she had proclaimed that her herbs and simples were most potent. Then would such of her own generation as remained visit ancient Charity Grepe in her stronghold; while to her also came, with shamefaced secrecy, young men and maidens, often under cover of darkness, or in the lonely hour of winter twilights.

"Cherry," as old Charity was most frequently called, had openly been dubbed a witch in times past. She recollected an experience, now near fifty years behind her, when rough hands had forced open her jaws to seek those five black spots observed upon the roof of a right witch's mouth; she knew also that the same diabolic imprint is visible upon the feet of swine, and that it indicated the point where unnumbered demons, upon Christ's command, once entered into Gadara's ill-omened herd. Since then, from a notoriety wholly sinister, she had acquired more seemly renown until, in the year of grace 1870, being at that date some five or six years older than the century, Mother Grepe enjoyed mingled reputation. Some held her a white witch, others still declared that she was a black one. Be that as it may, the old woman created a measure of interest in the most sceptical, and, like the rest of her vanishing class, stood as a storehouse of unwritten lumber and oral tradition handed on through generations, from mother to daughter, from father to son. The possessor and remembrancer of strange formularies and exorcisms, she would repeat the same upon proper occasion, but only after a solemn assurance from those who heard her that they would not commit her incantations to any sort of writing. In her judgment all virtue instantly departed from the written word.

At this season of her late autumn, the gammer was entering upon frosty times, for, under pressure of church and school, the world began to view her accomplishments with indifference. Yet the uncultured so far bowed to custom and a lustre handed down through half a century as to credit Cherry with some vague measure of vaguer power. Little Silver called her the "wise woman," and granted her all due credit for skill in those frank arts that pretend to no superhuman attribute. It is certain that she was familiar with the officinal herbs of the field. She could charm the secrets and soothing essences from coriander and anise and dill--with other of the umbel-bearing wild folk, whose bodies are often poison, whose seeds are little caskets holding carminative and anodyne. Of local plants she grew in her garden those most desirable, and there flourished peppermint, mother-o'-thyme, marjoram, and numerous other aromatic weeds. With these materials the old woman made shift to live, and exacted trifling sums from the mothers of Little Silver by preparing cordials for sick children; from the small farmers and credulous owners of live stock, by furnishing boluses for beasts.

Sally Cramphorn, however, had come on other business and about a widely different sort of potion. She was among those who respected Cherry's darker accomplishments, and her father himself--a man not prone to praise his fellow-creatures--openly confessed to firm belief in Mother Grepe's unusual powers.

The old woman was in her garden when Sally arrived. It had needed sharp scrutiny to observe much promise of wisdom about her. She was brown, wrinkled and shrivelled, yet exhibited abundant vitality and spoke in a voice that seemed musical because one expected the reverse. Her eyes alone challenged a second glance. They were black, and flashed in the twilight. Dame Grepe's visitor, a stranger to shyness, soon explained the nature of the thing desired. With blushes, but complete self-possession in all other respects, she spoke.

"'Tis 'bout the matter of a husband, Cherry; an' you'm so wise, I lay you knaw it wi'out my tellin' you."

"Ess--you be wife-auld in body; but what about the thinking part of 'e, Sally Cramphorn? Anyway I wonder you dare let your mind go gadding arter a male, seeing what fashion o' man your faither is."

Sally pouted.

"That's the very reason for it I reckon. What gal can be happy in a home like mine?"

"A man quick to think evil--your faither--a vain man--a man as scowls at shadows an' sees gunpowder treason hid behind every hedge--poor fule!"

"So he do then; an' ban't very nice for a grawed woman like me. If I lifts my eye to a chap's face, he thinks I be gwaine to run away from un; an' there ban't a man in Little Silver, from Squire Yeoland to the cowboy at the farm, as he've got a tender word for."

"I knaw, I knaw. Come in the house."

Sally followed the old woman into her cottage, and spoke as she did so.

"It's hard come to think on it, 'cause I'm no more against a husband than any other gal. 'Tis awnly that they'm feared of the sound 'pon theer tongues as gals won't awn up honest they'd sooner have husbands than not. Look at missis--she'll find herself a happy wife bimebye if squire do count for anything."

"Be they much together?"

"Ess fay--allus!"

The old woman shook her head.

"A nature, hers, born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards. Fine metal, but easy to crack by fire. She comed to me wance--years agone--comed half in jest, half in earnest; an' I tawld her strange things to her fortune tu--things as'll mean gert changes an' more sorrow than joy when all's acted an' done. Full, fair share of gude an' bad--evil an' balm--an' her very well content to creep under the green grass an' rest her head 'pon the airth come fulness of time."

"Lor, mother! You do make me all awver creepy-crawly to hear tell such dreadful things," declared Miss Cramphorn.

"No need for you to fear. You'm coarser clay, Sally, an' won't get no thinner for love of a man. An' why should 'e? Pray for a fixed mind; an' doan't, when the man comes beggin', begin weighing the blemishes of un or doubtin' your awn heart."

"Never, I won't--and my heart's fixed; an' I be so much in love as a gal can be an' hide it, Cherry."

"I knaw, I knaw. 'Tis Greg Libby you wants," answered the sibyl, who had observed certain hay-makers some hours earlier in the day.

"Ess, I do then, though you'm the awnly living sawl as knaws it."

"Doan't he knaw it?"

"Not a blink of it. He'm a wonnerful, dandified man since he come from Lunnon."

"Be he gwaine to do any more work?"

"Not so long as his clothes bide flam-new, I reckon. Ban't no call for un to. An' I love un very much, an' do truly think he loves me, Cherry. An', in such things, a little comin'-on spirit in the man's like to save the maid much heart-burnin'; an' I minded how you helped she as was Thirza Foster, in the matter of Michael Maybridge, her husband now. 'Tis pity Gregory should bide dumb along of his backward disposition."

"A love drink you're arter! Who believes in all that now?"

"I mind how you made Maybridge speak, whether or no, an' I'll give 'e half-a-crown for same thing what you gived Thirza."

It was growing dusk. Gammer Grepe preserved silence a moment, then rose and lighted a candle.

"Half-a-crown! An' I've had gawld for less than that! Yet times change, an' them as believed believe no more. It all lies theer. If you believe, the thing have power; if not, 'tis vain to use it."

"I do b'lieve like gospel, I assure 'e. Who wouldn't arter Thirza?"

"Then give me your money an' do what I bid."

She took the silver, spat upon it, raised her hand, and pointed out of the window.

"Do 'e see thicky plant in the garden theer, wi' flowers, like to tired eyes, starin' out of the dimpsy light? 'Tis a herb o' power. You'll find un grawin' wild on rubbish heaps an' waste places."

She pointed where a clump of wild chamomile rose with daisy-like blossoms pallid in the twilight.

"Ess, mother."

Then the wise woman mouthed solemn directions, which Sally listened to as solemnly.

"Pick you that--twenty-five stalks--at the new moon. Then pluck off the flowers an' cast 'em in the river; but the stalks take home-along an' boil 'em in three parts of half a pint o' spring watter. Fling stalks away but keep the gude boiled out of 'em, an' add to it a drop more watter caught up in your thimble from a place wheer forget-me-not do graw. Then put the whole in a li'l bottle, an' say Lard's Prayer awver it thrice; and, come fust ripe chance, give it to the man to drink mixed in tea or cider, but not beer nor other liquor."

With the ease of an artist Cherry improvised this twaddle on the spot, and the girl, all ears and eyes, expressed great thankfulness for such a potent charm, bid the gammer farewell, and hastened away.

*CHAPTER IV.*

*THE KISS*

Some days later Christopher Yeoland was returning from the village of Throwley to Little Silver, by a road that winds along the flank of the Moor. He carried a basket in which reposed a young collie pup. Himself he wanted no such thing, but the little beast came of notable stock, possessed a special value, and seemed worthy of Honor. Among those delights represented by his engagement was the facility it afforded for giving of presents. He had already sketched on paper the designs of many engagement rings. A circle of gold with diamonds and emeralds in it was his vague intention; while his visions of how he should come at such a jewel were still more doubtful. This man possessed great power in the direction of dreams, in projecting the shadows of pleasant things and winning happiness from these conceits despite their improbability. Love of beauty was a characteristic in him, but otherwise he could not be described as sensual. Beauty he adored; yet delight of the eye appeared to suffice him. His attitude towards the opposite sex is illustrated by an event now to be described.

The day was done and the hour of rest had come upon the workers. Labouring folk moved through the long July twilight upon their own concerns, as private pleasure or business led them; and now, under the huge shadow of the Moor, there unfolded a little drama, slight enough, yet reflecting sensibly upon the future concerns of those who played in the scene. Christopher Yeoland, his mind quite full of Honor, overtook Sally Cramphorn in the valley, and being upon friendly terms with all the countryside, marched awhile beside her. He allowed no social differences at any time to obtain between him and a pretty face. Sally was good to see, and as for Yeoland, of late days, chiefly by reason of an exceeding honour that the mistress of Bear Down had done him, he felt pliable, even reverential before all things feminine, for her dear sake. He was not of that sort who find all other women sink into shadows after the unutterable One has joined her fate with his for evermore; but, contrariwise, the possession of Honor heightened his interest in her sex. He might have been likened to a bee, that indeed loved clover before all else, yet did not disdain a foxglove or purple lupin upon occasion. So he walked beside Sally and contemplated her proportions with pleasure, watched her throat work and the rosy light leap to her cheek as he praised her.

In Sally's heart was a wish that Greg Libby might see her with such a courtier; but unfortunately a very different person did so. Mr. Cramphorn, with an ancient muzzle-loading gun at full-cock and a fox-terrier under the furzes ahead of him, was engaged in stalking rabbits a few hundred yards distant. His keen eye, now turning suddenly, rested upon his daughter. He recognised her by her walk and carriage; but her companion, in that he bore a basket, deceived Mr. Cramphorn. Full of suspicion and growling dire threats in his throat, Jonah forgot the rabbits for this nobler game. He began stalking the man and woman, skulked along behind the hazels at the common edge, and presently, after feats of great and unnecessary agility, found himself snugly hidden in a lofty hedge immediately beneath which his daughter and her escort must presently pass.

Meanwhile, she strolled along and soon recovered her self-possession, for Yeoland was in no sense awe-inspiring. The young woman had now come from securing a priceless thimbleful of water that bathed the roots of forget-me-nots. She carried this magic liquid concealed in a little phial; the rest of the ingredients were hidden at home; and she hoped that night to brew the philtre destined for Mr. Libby.

"Sally," said Christopher, "I'll tell you a great piece of news. No, I won't; you must guess it."

She looked up at him with a knowing smile on her red mouth.

"You'm gwaine to marry missis, sir--be that it?"

"You gimlet of a girl! But, no, you never guessed--I'm positive you didn't. Somebody told you; Miss Endicott herself, perhaps."

"None told me. I guessed it."

"How jolly of you! I like you for guessing, Sally. It was a compliment to us."

"I doan't knaw what you mean by that, sir."

"No matter. You will some day, and feel extremely flattered if people congratulate you before you've told them. If you simply adore one girl, Sally, you love them all!"

"Gude Lard! Ban't so along wi' us. If we'm sweet in wan plaace, we'm shy in t'others."

"Only one man in the world for you, then?"

"Ess--awnly wan."

"He's a lucky chap. Mind that I know all about it in good time, Sally. You shall have a fine wedding present, I promise you--whatever you like, in fact."

"Things ban't come to that yet; though thank you kindly, sir, I'm sure."

"Well, they will."

"He haven't axed ezacally yet."

"Ass! Fool! Dolt! But perhaps he's in mortal fear of you--frightened to speak and not able to trust his pen. You're too good for him, Sally, and he knows it."

"I be his awn order in life, for that matter."

"I see, I see; it's this hidden flame burning in you that made you so quick to find out our secret. I love you for it! I love every pretty face in Devonshire, because my lady is pretty; and every young woman on Dartmoor, because my lady is young. Can you understand that?"

"No, I caan't," confessed Sally. "'Tis fulishness."

"Not at all. At this moment I could positively hug you--not disrespectfully, you know, but just out of love--for Miss Endicott."

"It do make a man dangerous seemin'ly--this gert love of a lady."

"Not at all. Far from it. It draws his claws. He goes in chains. Did anybody ever dare to hug you, Sally?"

"No fay! Should like to have seed 'em!"

"You wouldn't have minded one though?"

"Caan't say, as he never offered to."

"D'you mean he's never even kissed you, Sally?"

"Wance he axed if he might."

"'Axed'! And of course you said 'No' like any other girl would?"

"Ess, I did."

"Fancy asking!"

"What should he have done then?"