Part 30
The day was the first of the week, and Myles, finding that no immediate plan entered his mind under the risen sun, turned homeward to breakfast, then announced a determination to take himself upon the Moor for a tramp alone. Thither he proposed to carry his new-found peace, and, once there, he knew that a final and just decision would reach him from his counsellors of the granite and west wind. After dinner he set forth to spend some hours face to face with the central fastnesses. A dog--his great red setter--accompanied him, and the beast was far less easy at heart than the man, for storm threatened, and since dawn sign upon sign had accumulated of electric disturbances on high. Thunder had growled about for some days, yet night was wont to dispel the gloom.
"Gert bouldering clouds, maister," said Churdles Ash, who met Myles setting forth. "A savage, fantastic sky out Cosdon way, and reg'lar conjuring time up-long in the elements."
Thus this man unconsciously echoed a hoary superstition, that lightning and thunder are the work of malevolent spirits.
But Myles, for once much mistaken, saw no immediate promise of storm. To the north remote banks of low cloud, with edges serrate and coppery, sulked above the distant sea, and all manner of cloud shapes--cumulus, stratus, and lurid nimbus--were flung and piled together, indicating unusual turmoil aloft; but similar threats had darkened several recent noons, and Stapledon, in a mood most optimistic, trusted the weather and foretold the storm would delay for many hours until its purple heart was full to the bursting.
"Exmoor will hold it back as like as not," he said.
Ash, however, believed that he knew better; and it was certain that the red dog did. A silence not natural to the time of day spread and deepened; and the wind came to life strangely at corners and cross-roads, sighed and eddied, then died again.
The farmer, with his thoughts busier than his eyes, strode swiftly onward, for he pictured himself as coming to great definite resolutions at some spot hid in the heart of the heather, bosomed deep upon the inner loneliness, beyond the sight of cattle and the sound of bellwether. He desired to reach a region familiar to him, lying afar off to the south of Cranmere, that central matrix of rivers. Here the very note of a bird was rare and signs of animate life but seldom seen. The pad-marks of some mountain fox upon the mire, or a skeleton of beast, clean-picked, alone spoke of living and dead creatures; sometimes a raven croaked and brooded here; sometimes, from a great altitude above the waste, fell cry of wild fowl that hastened to some sequestered estuary or fruitful valley of waters afar off.
Such stations brought sure content and clarity of mind to this man; they rested his spirit and swept foregrounds of small trouble clean away until he found himself at the altar of his deity in mood for worship. It was only of late that the magic of the Moor had failed him, and now, with new peace in his heart, its power for good awakened, and he knew right well that solution of the problem before him lay waiting his advent in the solitudes.
Over Scor Hill he passed, among the old stones that encompassed each supreme experience of his life with their rugged circle; then, his leathern leggings dusted to yellow by the ripe pollen of the ling, he walked onward over a splendour of luminous pink, crossed northern Teign under Watern, proceeded to Sittaford Tor, and, steadily tramping westward, left man and all trace of man behind him. The unmarked road was familiar, and every gaunt hill-crest about him stood for a steadfast friend. He crossed the infant Dart; he ploughed on over the heavy peat hags, seamed and scarred, torn and riddled by torrents; he leapt from tussock to ridge, and made his way through gigantic ling, that rose high above his knees. Cranmere he discarded, and now his intention was to reach the loneliest and sternest of all these stern and lonely elevations. He beheld the acclivities of Great and Little Kneeset and other mountain anchorites of the inner Moor; he passed the huge mass of Cut Hill by the ancient way cleft into it, and from thence saw Fur Tor's ragged cone ahead, grassy and granite-crowned. Stapledon had walked with great speed by the shortest route known to him, yet suddenly to his surprise a darkness as of evening shadowed him, and, lifting his head, he looked around upon the sky, to regret instantly a preoccupation that had borne him forward with such unthinking speed.
Strange phenomena were manifesting themselves solemnly; and they offered opportunity to note the difference between natural approach of night and the not less natural but unaccustomed advent of a night-black storm from the north. Darkness gathered out of a quarter whence the mind is not wont to receive it. A sudden gloom descended upon the traveller from Cranmere, and under its oncoming the Moor heads seemed massed closer together---massed and thrust almost upon the eye of the onlooker in strange propinquity each to other. A part of the sky's self they seemed--a nearer billow of cloud burst from the rest, toppled together like leaden waves on the brink of breaking, then suddenly frozen along the close horizon--petrified in horror at tremendous storm shapes now crowding above them.
On every side heath and marsh soaked up vanishing day, and were nothing brightened by it. The amethyst of the ling spread wan and sickly upon this darkness; only the granite, in studs and slabs far-strewn, gathered up the light and reflected a fast-waning illumination from the southern sky. One sheep-track, which Stapledon now traversed, was similarly luminous, where the narrow pathway wound like a snake and shone between sulky heather ridges, dark as the air above them. Over this region, now to a timid heart grown tenebrous and appalling in its aspect, pale lightning glared and, still remote, came the growl and jolt of thunders reverberating above distant granite. As yet no rain broke from the upper gloom, and the Moor retained its aspect of sentient and vigilant suspense. All things were still clear cut, and to the eye abnormally adjacent. Like some incarnate monster, that cowered under its master's uplifted lash, the desert seemed; and the granite teeth of it snarled through the heather, and shone steel-blue in the lightning, while a great storm stretched its van nearer and nearer. Yet no breath stirred a grass blade, and between the intermittent thunder from on high, a silence, tense and unbroken by the murmur of an insect, magnified the listening man's heart-beat into a throbbing upon his ear.
Stapledon now perceived from the congested accumulations of the sky that a tempest of rare severity must soon have him at the heart's core of it. He increased his pace therefore, and broke into a run. To turn was futile, and he hurried forward upon Fur Tor, wherein some niche or rocky crevice might offer shelter. Such a spot he knew to the lee of the great hill; and now he stumbled forward, while the black edge of the thunderstorm billowed and tumbled to the zenith, and swallowed up the daylight as it came.
Upon a tremendous gale, still unfelt at earth-level, the clouds hurtled in precipices, in streaming black wisps and ribbons, and in livid solitary patches over the pallor of dying light behind them. Then, half-way up Fur Tor, as he stood panting to regain breath, the wanderer felt the wind at last. A hot puff struck his hotter cheek, then another and another, each cooler and stronger than the first. His dog whimpered and crawled close; there ran a sigh and a shiver through the heath; grass blades and fragments of dead things floated and whirled aloft upon little spiral wind-spouts; vague, mysterious, and solemn--carried from afar, where torrential rains and hail were already churning the mosses and flogging stone and heath--there came the storm murmur, like a tramp of approaching hosts, or the pulsing of pinions unnumbered.
A grey curtain suddenly absorbed and obliterated the purple horizon, and softened the sharp details; lightning stabbed through and seared the watcher's sight, while thunder immediately above his head wounded the ear like discharge of ordnance. He ran for it, having difficulty to see his way. The vanguard of the wind buffeted him; the riot above his head deafened him; the levin dazed his senses; then by good chance that spot he sought was reached, and he crept into a stony hollow opening upon the south-east--a natural cave among the clatters of the tor, where two masses of stone stood three yards apart, and a block falling upon them from above made a pent-house nearly weather-proof. Growing heather and fern filled the interstices, and the spot resembled a large natural kistvaen of the sort not seldom discovered in the old Moorland barrows, where Stone men laid the dust of their heroic dead.
Hither came the raging spirit of this tempest and looked into the eyes of Myles Stapledon. Then, at the moment of its prime fury, when the very roots of the land were shaking, and its living pelt of heath and rush seemed like to be stripped from its quivering carcase by the hail, did Stapledon pluck a way to peace through future action. Ever curious, he picked up the ice morsels, noted how the hailstones, frozen and frozen again in some raging upper chamber of the air, were all cast in like mould of twin cones set base to base; and then, from this observation, his mind turned to the twin life of a man and woman united indissolubly. Out of the uproar came a voice to him, and where the tors tossed thunder back and forth, until it died among their peaks, the watcher caught a message affirming his own heart in its sudden determination.
The simplicity of his conclusion struck him as sure criterion of its justness; and a mind possessed of one humorous trait, one faint perception of the ludicrous, had been surprised into some ghost of laughter before the idea, had surely smiled--even in a hurricane--before the inevitable contrast between its past long intervals of mental misery and this bald, most unromantic finger-post pointing to peace. True, no decision had been possible before Honor's determination was made known and the nature of the final problem defined; but now, under all this turmoil of sky and groan of earth, from his hot mind came a course of action, right and proper every way, reasonable and just to each of the three souls involved, yet most unromantic and obvious. He stumbled, in fact, upon the manifest alternative alluded to by Yeoland at their last meeting. As the master of Godleigh would not depart therefrom, Stapledon decided that he and Honor must leave Bear Down. That the labour of his brain-toil and deep searching should produce no more notable birth than this mouse of a plan, that the stupendous storm should have uttered no greater thing, appeared small matter to tempt one smile from Myles. Indeed, he forgot the weather and all other questions save this step ahead of him, for upon nearer examination it appeared not at all simple, but both complex and intricate. Retreat was the total of his intention; there appeared no other way to conquer this difficulty than by flying from it. He convinced himself that justice demanded this step, because one must depart from Little Silver, and his interests in that region could by no means be compared with those of Christopher Yeoland.
Justice to Honor faced him; but Bear Down was less to her than Godleigh to the owner, and never had Stapledon known his wife to manifest the patrimonial ardour of the man. Leaving of her old home, therefore, would be no excessive sorrow to her, and the fact that such a course must impoverish them was not likely to count for much with husband or wife. His mind ranged forward already. The fair weather within it laughed at the elemental chaos around him. There was sunshine in his heart, and the whole force and centre of the storm failed to cloud that inner radiance. He thought of the future, and in spirit plunged over seas to the child-countries of the motherland, that he might seek amongst them a new environment for his life and Honor's--a new theatre for work. But from such flights to the far West and South he returned upon these austere regions that now stretched around him, and his heart much inclined to familiar scenes on the fringe of the Moor hard by the place where he was born.
Long he reflected until the night or the storm merged into true dusk, and day closed untimely. The thunder passed, and the rain floods, having persisted far beyond Stapledon's experience of such electric tempests, began to lessen their volume. Yet heavy downfalls steadily drove across the twilight; the wind sank to a temperate gale, and, below him, mists arose from the new-made swamps, and woke, and stretched their tentacles, and crept through desolation round about the footstool of the tor.
A space of five wild leagues now separated Myles from his home, and he stood night-foundered in the very capital of the central waste. Alive to the concern his absence must occasion, he yet hesitated but a moment before declining the ordeal of a return journey. The man was too experienced to enter upon such a hazard. He knew that radical changes had overtaken the low marshes since he traversed them; that the quaking places over which he had progressed by leaping from tussock to tussock were now under water; that great freshets had borne the least rivulets above their banks, and that an element of danger must await any attempt to retrace his way until the morning.
Viewed in the light of his new content, this tribulation looked trumpery enough. He lighted a pipe, regretted his small dinner, and sorrowed more for his hungry dog than himself, in that the great beast was denied consolation of tobacco or the stimulant of an exalted heart.
Mapping the Moor in his mind, Stapledon considered every possible way to food and shelter. He knew more than the actual roads or ridges, streams or natural tracks and thoroughfares of beasts; for the inhabiting spirit and essence of Dartmoor was his--a reward of lifelong service. He possessed some of that instinct of the dogs and birds and ponies born to these conditions. Like them, he rarely erred, yet, like them, he often felt, rather than recognised danger--if danger was abroad; while he knew that widest experience and shrewdest natural intuition are not always proof against those perils that may spring into activity by day or night in these tenantless, unfriended wastes.
Fur Tor stands near the heart of the Devonshire moorland. It is a place not easy to reach at all times, and impossible to depart from under the conditions now obtaining. Water-springs unknown had burst their founts, and the central sponges were overflowing in deep murmurs from the hills. Time must elapse, hours--the number of which would depend upon future weather--must pass by before any possibility of Stapledon's retreat. His mind drew pictures of the nearest human habitations around him and the means by which they might be reached. Five miles away, by the western fork of Dart, was "Brown's house"--a ruined abode of one who had loved the Moor as well as Myles and built his dwelling upon it. Only shattered stones stood there now; but further south, by Wistman's wood of dwarf and ancient oaks, a warrener dwelt in a cabin on the hillside. Yet a network of young rivers and a cordon of live bogs extended between that haven and Myles. Tavy's stream encircled him with its infant arms and wound between him and safety beyond the forest boundaries. Approach to Mary Tavy or Princetown was also impracticable, and, after very brief deliberations, the wanderer decided that nothing could be done until the morning. This conclusion he announced aloud to his dog--a pleasantry indicative of his happy mind, for such an action from Stapledon's standpoint looked a considerable jest.
Soon the man piled stones before the entrance of his hiding-place, filled a draughty gap with fern and heather, and made himself as comfortable as the circumstances allowed. Great content was in his heart, and when, near midnight, the clouds passed, the moon rose and painted with silver the waters spread below, with frosted silver the fog that rolled above them, he deeply felt the silence and peace, their contrast with the frenzy of the past storm; he roamed in thought through the unutterable silence of that moonlit loneliness; and presently he slept, as he had not seldom slumbered on the high land in time past--within some ruined hut circle, or where the wolves, through long, primeval nights, once howled around Damnonian folds.
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*A SOUND OF SUFFERING*
Stapledon slept well, and, awakening with the light, found himself strengthened and refreshed. The stiffness consequent on a hard bed soon passed as he rose, stretched himself, strode sharply here and there to restore circulation, and drank of the morning air. Sunlight warmed him, and his thoughts turned homeward. He thought first of descending to Two Bridges and the hospitality that would there await him; but the day was so brilliant after the storm, and in his waking mood he felt so well furnished with strength, that he abandoned this project and determined to tramp back to Little Silver. He tightened his belt on his empty stomach, lighted a pipe, and set his face for home. It was nearly seven o'clock when he started, and, allowing for all reasonable interruptions of progress--incidents inevitable after the storm--he believed that it would be possible to make the shepherd's cot at Teign Head under Watern Tor long before midday.
His road of the previous evening he found quite impassable, and it was nearly nine o'clock before he fairly escaped from the labyrinth of deep waters and greedy bog now spread about Fur Tor. The task of return indeed proved far more difficult than he had anticipated, for the present harmonious contentment of his mind, despite hunger, induced an optimism rare enough in Myles at any time. But experience came to his aid, and he set to work soberly to save his strength for a toilsome journey.
It is unnecessary to describe the many turnings of a tortuous way followed at mercy of the unloosened waters. Chance ultimately willed the man to Watern--a craggy fastness familiar enough to him, yet somewhat removed out of the direct course he had planned. But Teign's birthplace was overflowing, and, to avoid morasses beneath Sittaford, he had tended northerly and so found himself not far from the tremendous and stratified granite ledges that approach the magnitude of cliffs on Watern's crown.
Weary enough by this time, and surprised to find himself somewhat weakened from unusual exertions and lack of food, Myles paused to rest a little while on the northern side of the crags. Here was grateful shadow, and he reposed in the damp rushes, and felt his heart weary and his head aching. His dog similarly showed weariness, but knew the horizon-line easterly hid Bear Down, and marvelled why the master should call this halt, within three miles of home.
Then, pleasantly conscious that the worst of his difficult enterprise was over, Myles Stapledon suddenly heard a sound of suffering. There fell upon his ear reiterated and hollow meanings, that might be expressions of pain from man or beast. Some creature in an extremity of physical grief was certainly near at hand; so he rose hastily, that he might minister to the tortured thing, while his dog barked and ran before him.
And here it is necessary to leave the man for a period of brief hours, for ancillary matters now merge into our main theme at this--the climax of the record.
*CHAPTER XIV.*
*FROM WORDS TO BLOWS*
Honor by no means enjoyed such easy sleep as her husband after the thunderstorm; indeed it can scarcely be said concerning her night's rest that it held slumber. The tempest and a belief that Myles was alone in its midst, brought very real terror to her; nor did she win much comfort from her uncle's reiterated assurance that no ill could touch Myles Stapledon upon Dartmoor.
"Return he won't for certain until morning," declared the blind man. "Full of thought he went his way and forgot to raise a weather eye until suddenly surprised by the storm. Its loosened torrents cut him off on the high land and drowned his way home, no doubt; but whatever part of the waste he's upon, 'tis familiar ground to him, and he'll know the nearest way to shelter and doubtless take it."
In his mind, however, the speaker felt a cloud. He was alarmed rather for the storm that he believed might have burst within Stapledon's heart than for any chance accident of sudden tempest from without. Quite ignorant of the last phase of the other's trial; unaware that Myles had passed the point of highest peril and now approached happiness once more, old Endicott only suspected that this man had reached the climax of his tribulation, and believed Stapledon's long and lonely expedition was undertaken that he might wrestle with his fate and determine some final choice of way. Herein he judged rightly, but he knew not the modified enigma that lay before Myles upon that journey to the desert, and remained wholly unaware that the major problem stood solved. Thought upon the matter took Endicott along dark ways; he remembered words spoken long ago; and for once a mind usually most luminous in appraisement of human actions, deviated from the truth. Such a mistake had mattered little enough; for Mark was no harbinger of gloomy suspicions, and never word of his had made sorrow more sad or deepened any wound; but a time came when his conviction, supported by apparent evidence, was confirmed in his own mind; and from thence cruel chances willed that it should escape from him to another's keeping, should hasten night over a life scarcely advanced to its noon.
A morning of almost extravagant splendour followed upon the storm, and the soaked world under sunshine fortified human spirits unconsciously, wakened hopes and weakened fears in the breast of Honor. She walked out before breakfast, and upon the way back to Bear Down met Christopher Yeoland.
He was full of his own concerns, for the lightning had fallen upon Godleigh, slain certain beasts, and destroyed two ancient trees; but, hearing of Stapledon's absence, Christopher forgot his troubles, mentioned various comforting theories, and promised to ride far afield after breakfast upon the Moor.
"He'll probably come back a roundabout way and drive from Moreton," said Yeoland; "but there's a ghost of a chance that he may walk direct, after having put in a night at a cot or one of the miners' ruins. In that case he'll be starving and wretched every way. So I'll take a flask and some sandwiches. Poor beggar! I'm sorry for him; still he knows the Moor as well as we know our alphabet, so there's very little need for anxiety."
But the news of the thunderbolt in Godleigh Park by no means tended to make Honor more content, and she returned home in tribulation despite the sunshine. After breakfast she went out alone, and Christopher, true to his promise, made a wide perambulation on horseback; while others, who had planned no special pleasure for their holiday, also assisted the search, some upon ponies and some upon foot. Yet no news had reached Bear Down by midday, and then Christopher Yeoland arrived, after a ride of twenty miles.
"A good few wanderers I met and accosted--Moor men out to look after their beasts and see what harm last night was responsible for--but I saw nothing of Myles," he said. "Gone far down south, depend upon it. He'll be here in the course of the evening. And it's rum to see the flocks, for the storm has washed them snow-white--a beautiful thing. The hills are covered with pearls where the sheep are grazing. You can count every beast in a flock three miles off."