Part 31

Yeoland lunched at the farm, then trotted homeward; but Collins and Pinsent, though they had travelled far that morning, set out again after dinner, being privately pressed to do so by Mark Endicott.

Elsewhere, true to his word, the man Gregory Libby repaired to riverside that he might meet Sally and her sister, and settle that great matter, once and for all, at a spot quite bathed in sunlight and little framed to harbour broils, though an ideal tryst for lovers. Libby was first to arrive, and after waiting for five minutes a twinge of fear shadowed his mind. The deed before him looked difficult and even dangerous at this near approach. Gregory, therefore, decided to slink by awhile and hide himself where he might note the sisters' arrival without being immediately observed. They would doubtless prove much amazed each at sight of the other; they would demand an explanation; and then he would come forth and confront them.

He concealed himself with some care, put out his pipe, that the reek of it might not betray him, and settled down to watch and hear from a position of personal safety.

Sally was the first to arrive--very hot and somewhat out of spirits, as it seemed, because the way was rough for a woman, and her green Sunday dress had suffered among the bilberries, while a thorn still smarted in her hand. Libby saw her sit down, ruefully regard her gown, and then fall to sucking at her wounded finger.

There followed a period of silence, upon which broke a slow rustle, and Sally's eyes opened very widely as another woman, cool and collected, appeared within the glade. But Margery also became an embodiment of surprise as her sister rose and the two confronted each other. Then it was that a heartless rascal, from his secure concealment, felt disposed to congratulate himself upon it. He stood two inches shorter than Sally Cramphorn, and he realised that in her present formidable mood the part he had planned might prove difficult to play.

"Merciful to me! What be you doin' in this brimbley auld plaace?" asked the elder girl abruptly.

"My pleasure," answered Margery with cold reserve. "'Pears you've comed a rough way by the looks of you. That gown you set such store by be ruined wi' juice of berries."

'"Your pleasure'! Then perhaps you'll traapse off some place else for your pleasure. I'm here to meet a--a friend of mine; an' us shaan't want you, I assure 'e."

Margery stared, and her face grew paler by a shade.

"By appointment--you--here? Who be it, then, if I may ax?"

"You may not. Mind your awn business."

"I will do, so soon as I knaw it. Awnly it happens as I'm here myself to meet a friend, same as you--an'--an'--is it Henery Collins you'm come to see? You might tell me if 'tis."

"Shaan't tell you nothin'--shaan't underman myself to talk to 'e at all. I'm sick of 'e. You'm spyin' 'pon me, an' I won't have it."

"Spyin' on a fule! Do 'e thinks I care a farthin'-piece what you do or what trash you meet? I'll be plain, anyways, though you'm 'shamed of your company whoever 'tis, by the looks of it. I'm here to meet Greg Libby; so I'll thank you to go!"

"Him?"

"Ess--him. He's a right to ax me to meet him wi'out your leave, I s'pose?"

"No fay, he haven't! No right at all, as I'll soon larn him."

Margery blazed.

"An' why for not, you gert haggage of a woman? Who be you to have the man 'pon your tongue--tell me that?"

"Who be I? I be his gal, that's who I be--have been for months."

"You damn lyin' cat! _Your_ man! He'm mine--mine! Do 'e hear? An' us be gwaine to be axed out in church 'fore summer's awver."

"Gar! you li'l pin-tailed beast--dreamin'--that's what you be--sick for un--gwaine mad for un! We'm tokened these months, I tell 'e; an' he'll tell 'e same."

Awed by such an exhibition, and amazed at rousing greater passions in others than he himself was capable of feeling, Gregory sank closer and held his breath.

"'Tis for you to ax him, not me, you blowsy gert female," screamed Margery, now grown very white. "Long he's feared you was on a fule's errand. He knaws you, an' the worth of you. An' he an' faither's friends again, thanks to me. An' he'm not gwaine to marry a pauper woman when he can get one as'll be well-to-do. You--you--what's the use of you but to feed pigs an' wring the necks of fowls for your betters to eat? What sober man wants a slammockin' gert awver-grawn----?"

A scream of agony cut short the question, for Sally beside herself at this outburst, and but too conscious through her rage that she heard the truth, set her temper free, flew at her sister like a fiend, and scratched Margery's face down from temple to chin with all the strength of a strong hand and sharp nails. Blood gushed from this devil's trident stamped into a soft cheek, and the pain was exquisite; then the sufferer, half blinded, bent for a better weapon, picked up a heavy stone, and flung it at close quarters with her best strength. It struck Sally fairly over the right eye, and, reeling from this concussion, she staggered, held up for a moment, then gave at knee and waist and came down a senseless heap by the edge of the water.

Margery stared at this sudden work of her hands; she next made some effort to wipe the blood off her face, and then hastened away as fast as she could. Mr. Libby also prepared to fly. For the unconscious woman at his feet he had no thought. He believed that Sally must be dead, and the sole desire in his mind was to vanish unseen, so that if murder had been done none could implicate him. He determined not to marry Margery, even if she escaped from justice, for he feared a temper so ferocious upon provocation. Gregory, then, stole away quickly, and prepared to perambulate round the farm of Batworthy, above the scene of this tragic encounter, and so return home secretly.

But circumstances cut short his ambition and spoiled his plan. When Margery left her sister, she had not walked far before chance led her to Henry Collins. He was on the way to the Moor once again, that he might pursue search for Stapledon, when Margery's white face, with the hideous wales upon it, her shaking gait and wild eyes, arrested him. He stopped her and asked what had happened.

"I've fought my sister an' killed her," she said; "killed her dead wi' a gert stone. She'm down to the river onder Batworthy Farm; an' if 'twas to do awver again, I'd do it."

He shrank from her, and thought of Sally with a great heart-pang.

"Wheer be she? For God's love tell me quick."

"Down below the fishing notice-board, wi' her head in the watter. She'm dead as a nail, an' I'm glad 'twas I as cut her thread, an' I'm----"

But he heard only the direction and set off running. So it came about that Gregory Libby had not left the theatre of the tragedy five minutes when Collins reached it, and saw all that made his life worth living lying along procumbent beside Teign. One of Sally's arms was in the river, and the stream leapt and babbled within six inches of her mouth. Her hair had fallen into the water, and it turned and twisted like some bright aquatic weed a-gleaming in the sun.

Even as Henry approached the woman moved and rolled nearer the river; but its chill embrace helped to restore consciousness, and she struggled to her side, supported herself with one arm and raised the other to her head.

Mr. Collins praised the Almighty. He cried--

"God's grace! God's gudeness! Her ban't dead! Glory be to Faither, Son an' Ghost--her'm alive--poor, dear, darlin' maid!"

Then he fished Sally from the stream, and hugged her closer to himself than necessary in the act. Next he set her with her back against a tree, and presently she opened her eyes and sighed deeply, and gazed upon Henry with a vacant stare. Then Sally felt warm blood stealing from her forehead to the corner of her mouth, and put up her hand to the great contusion above her eye, and remembered. Collins, seeing that her eyes rolled up, and fearing another fainting fit for her, dipped his Sunday handkerchief in the river and wiped her face.

"A gashly auld bruise, sure enough; but it haven't broke your head bones, my dear woman; you'll recover from it by the blessing o' the Lard."

She became stronger by degrees, and memory painted the picture of the past with such vivid colours that a passionate flush leapt to her cheek again.

"Blast him! The dog--the cruel wretch--to kindiddle me so--an' play wi' her same time. What had I done but love him--love him wi' all my heart? To fling us together that way, so us might tear each other to pieces! I wish I could break his neck wi' my awn hands, or see him stringed up by it. I'll--I'll--wheer's Margery to? Not gone along wi' him?"

"No. I met her 'pon the way to home. She reckons she've killed you."

"An' be happy to think so, no doubt. I sclummed her faace down--didn't I?"

"Doan't let your rage rise no more. You've had a foot in the graave for sartain. Be you better? Or shall I carry 'e?"

She rose weakly, and he put his arm around her and led her away. They moved along together until, coming suddenly above the ridge of the hill, Mr. Libby appeared within two hundred yards of them. He had made his great detour, and was slipping stealthily homeward, when here surprised.

Sally saw him and screamed; whereupon he stopped, lost his nerve, and, turning, hastened back towards the Moor.

"Theer! the snake! That's him as fuled me an' brawk my heart, an' wouldn't care this instant moment if I was dead!"

"'Tis Greg Libby," said Collins, gazing at the retreating figure with great contempt. "A very poor fashion o' man as I've always held."

But Sally's mind was running forward with speed.

"Did you ever love me?" she asked suddenly, with her eyes on the departing hedge-tacker.

"You knaw well enough--an' allus shall so long as I've got sense."

"Then kill him! Run arter un, if it takes e' a week to catch un, an' kill un stone dead; an' never draw breath till you've a-done it."

Mr. Collins smiled like a bull-dog and licked his hands.

"You bid me?"

"Ess, I do; an' I'll marry you arter."

"Caan't kill un, for the law's tu strong; but I'll give un the darndest dressin' down as ever kept a man oneasy in his paarts for a month o' Sundays. If that'll comfort 'e, say so."

"Ess--'twill sarve. Doan't stand chatterin' 'bout it, or he'll get off."

Henry shook his head.

"No, he won't--not that way. The man's afeared, I reckon--smells trouble. He's lost his small wits, an' gone to the Moor, an' theer ban't no chance for escape now."

"Let un suffer same as he've made me--smash un to pieces!"

"I'll do all that my gert love for 'e makes reasonable an' right," said Collins calmly. Then he took off his coat and soft hat, and asked Sally if she was strong enough to carry them back to the farm for him.

"'Tis the coat what you sat upon to Godleigh merry-making, an' I wouldn't have no harm come to it for anything."

She implored Henry to waste no more time, but hurry on the road to vengeance; for Mr. Libby was now a quarter of a mile distant, and his retreating figure already grew small. Collins, however, had other preparations to make. He took a knife from his pocket, went to a blackthorn, hacked therefrom a stout stick, and spoke as he did so.

"Doan't you fret, my butivul gal. Ban't no hurry now. Us have got all the afternoon afore us. 'Tis awnly a question of travellin'. Poor gawk--he've gone the wrong way, an' theer won't be no comin' home till I've had my tell about things. You go along quick, an' get Mrs. Loveys to put a bit of raw meat to your poor faace; an' I'll march up-along. 'Twill be more'n raw meat, or brown paper'n vinegar, or a chemist's shop-load o' muck, or holy angels--to say it wi'out disrespect--as'll let Greg lie easy to-night. Now I'm gwaine. Us'll have un stugged in a bog directly minute, if he doan't watch wheer he'm runnin' to, the silly sawl."

*CHAPTER XV.*

*WATERN TOR*

Desperate was the flight, deliberate the pursuit of Gregory Libby. He had started without more purpose than that of a hare at first death-knell from hounds, and now, too late, he realised that by heading directly for the open Moor, his enemy must get the opportunity he needed to make a capture. Mr. Libby indeed was lighter and fleeter than Henry Collins, and at a mile or two the bigger man had stood no chance, but now, with Dartmoor before them, the question was one of endurance, and in that matter Henry held the advantage. He would lumber along in pursuit until dark, if necessary, and it was impossible for the other to hide from him. But the probable result of capture lent Libby wings. He pushed forward, yet wasted precious breath by cursing himself for a fool as he ran. Across the wastes, where old-time miners streamed for tin, he went, and gained a little as he did so. Then it struck him that at climbing his slighter build would win great advantage, so he headed for the rocky foot-hills of Watern Tor. The extra labour told upon Gregory's lungs, however; he had soon been running for half an hour--a performance without parallel in his career--and he found that hoped-for vantage of ground by no means crowned his supreme effort. Henry came along with a steady shamble. He was blowing like a roaring horse, but his huge chest proved equal to the strain, and he grinned to find himself steadily decreasing the gap between his stick and Sally's enemy. Presently the fugitive caught his foot in a rabbit hole, fell, and hit his shins on stone. He groaned and swore, for the accident cost him fifty yards, and quite shook his scanty pluck. His breath began to come hard, and he felt his heart flogging against his ribs very painfully. A mist filled his eyes, and it was lurid and throbbed with a red pulse at every stride. Nervous twitchings overtook him, and his knees and elbows jerked spasmodically. He grew unsteady and giddy, fell again, and then got upon his feet once more. Turning to avoid a bog, and splashing through the fringe of it, he still kept running, but his pace was dwindling to a slow trot, and his force was spent. Now he could hear the other snort within a hundred yards of him.

Then Mr. Collins hazarded a request.

"Stop!" he bawled. "Best to draw up, for I be gwaine to give 'e worst walloping ever you had, an' 'tis awnly puttin' off the hour."

But Libby did not answer. Terror added a last impetus, and he reached the summit of the hill, under those low precipices of granite that surmount it. Here rises a huge mass of stratified rock, beside which a smaller fragment, the Thirlestone named, ascends like a pinnacle, and stands separated at the summit by a few feet only from the main mass. Moved by physical fear and a desire to get as far as possible from Collins and the blackthorn, did Gregory struggle hither, and over rough granite steps crawled and jumped on to the great crown of the tor. A last effort took him to the top of the Thirlestone, and there, stranded between earth and sky, at an elevation of some forty feet from the turf below, he assumed a very tragical attitude. Frightened sheep leapt away from the granite plateau, and bounded down, sure-footed, from the northern ledges, where they found cool shadows. Bleating, they regained the earth, and so scampered off as Henry, his man safe, stopped to blow and recover necessary energy. For the victim there was no escape; the path to the summit of Thirlestone was the sole way back again. Turning up his sleeves the pursuer advanced from ledge to ledge until only the dizzy aperture between the pinnacle and its parent tor separated him from Mr. Libby. To stride across would be the work of a moment; but Collins felt haste was unnecessary. He sat down, therefore, recovered his wind, and volunteered some advice.

"Best come down-along wi' me quiet. I caan't do what I be gwaine to do on this here gert rock. Us might fall awver an' break our necks."

"If you move a step towards me, God's my witness I'll jump off an' slay myself; an' 'twill be brought home against you as murder," declared Libby. "S'elp me I will; an' who are you to do violence against me, as never hurt you in word or deed?"

"Us won't talk 'bout that. I've got to larrup 'e to the point wheer 'twould be dangerous to give 'e any worse; an' I be gwaine to do it, because I knaw you desarve it--never no chap more. So come awver an' us'll get back to the grass."

"What for do 'e want to bruise a man 'cause a rubbishy gal be vexed wi' un? Females is allus wrong-headed an' onreasonable. You ain't heard the rights, I'll swear."

"An' ban't likely to from such a gert liar as you, I reckon. Come awver, will 'e, an' shut your damn mouth!"

"I'll jump--I'll jump an' kill myself!"

But the other knew his man too well. Even Henry's customary caution did not interfere between him and instant action now.

"You ban't built to do no such reckless deed," he answered calmly. "You wouldn't be in such a boilin' fright of a thrashin' else. I'm sick of the sight of your snivelling, yellow face an' rabbit mouth--lyin', foxin' varmint that you be!"

He strode across the gap, and Mr. Libby, abandoning all thought of self-destruction, merely dropped where he stood and grovelled.

"I'll give 'e money--anything I've got--a gawlden pound--two--five! Doan't--doan't for Christ's love! 'Tis tu hurtful, an' me a orphan, an' weak from my youth. Oh--my God--it'll kill me--you'll do murder if you touch me--it'll----"

At this point, and during a pause in the scuffling and screaming of the sufferer, circumstances very startling were forced upon the attention of both men. Collins had made the other rise and get back to the tor, at risk of falling to earth if he refused the jump. He had then gripped Gregory by the collar, and was cautiously dragging him down the granite ledges to earth, when a strange noise stayed his progress. It was the same sound that had arrested Stapledon upon his homeward way.

"Gude Lard!" exclaimed Collins, dropping the other as he spoke; "theer's somebody groanin' horrid near by. God send it ban't maister!"

They listened, and the mournful cry of suffering was repeated.

It seemed to rise from the heart of the great cliff on which they stood, and while in measure human, yet vibrated with the mechanical resonance of a beast's voice. Collins returned to the summit, crept towards its edge, and peered over where the tor terminated in abrupt western-facing cliffs. Then the mystery was explained, and he saw a dying creature beneath him. Midway between his standpoint and the turf below there stretched a narrow ledge or shelf, weathered out through the centuries, and upon this excrescence lay a mortally injured sheep. The poor brute--probably scared by flash of lightning or roar of thunder overnight--had made a perilous leap and broken both forelegs in its tremendous descent. Now, helpless, in agony and awful thirst, it lay uttering mournful cries, that grew fainter as the sun scorched life out of it.

But Collins, attracted by a barking, gazed beyond, and his eyes filled with active concern at sight of a thing, motionless and distorted as a scarecrow, upon the rocks and turf below. Beside it a red setter sat and barked. Then the creature rose and ran round and round, still barking. Collins knew the broad shape below, and the brown, upturned face. He nearly fell forward, then turned, leapt to safety, and, forgetting the other man, hastened down to earth.

And there he found Myles Stapledon, unconscious if not a corpse. Upon his open eyes was peace, and the Death that must have looked into them had lacked power to leave there any stamp of terror or impress of fear. He had fallen backwards and so remained, supine. No visible violence marked his pose, yet a general undefined distortion pervaded it.

"God's holy will!" murmured the living man to himself. "An' he heard the same cry as us did, an' quick to end the sorrow of the beast, tried to get to un. Cruel plain; but 'twas no job for a gert, heavy piece like him. An' he slipped, an' failed backward on the bones of his neck 'fore he could say the words."

Libby shivered at the other's elbow.

"Be you sure he'm truly dead?" he asked

"The gen'leman's warm, but the faace of un tells death, I be feared; an' his niddick's scatted in somethin' awful. But the dog do think he's alive by the looks of un; an' such things is awften hid from us an' shawed to beastes."

"Please God he've enough heat in un to bring back life."

"It may be so. Anyway, 'tis for us to be doin'. I'll bide along wi' un, an' you slip it back quicker'n you comed. Run for your life, or his'n, to the farm, an' tell what's failed, an' send folks here an' a man 'pon a hoss for a doctor, an' bid 'em bring brandy."

Collins spoke with extraordinary passivity. He received this tremendous impression with grief indeed, but no shock. Fear before any plain, daylight event, however horrible, his nature was incapable of suffering; only the night unnerved him.

"Go!" he said. "Doan't stand starin', an' keep out of Missis Stapledon's way, but see the men. An' tell Pinsent, or the bwoy, to bring a gun along wi' 'em. 'Twas his dyin' deed to try an' put thicky sheep out of sufferin'; an' I'll see 'tis done my awn self, for respect of the man."

Gregory answered nothing, but departed. In the excitement of this event he forgot his own pending discomfiture and escape. But he remembered these things half-way back to Little Silver. Then he had time for personal satisfaction.

"'Tis a ill wind as blaws gude to none," he thought.

And the other ordered the body of his master in seemly pose, and placed a pillow of fern under the battered skull, and sat down and waited. Not all the mellow sunset light could bring warmth to the face of Myles Stapledon. An evening wind blew over the Moor; the mist, generating and growing visible at close of day, stole here and there, and spread silver curtains, and wound about her familiar playthings of granite. She hid the heath, and transformed the stone, brushed by the living, and glazed the placid eyes of the dead.

With profound respect, but no active emotion of sorrow, Henry Collins sat and watched; yet bitter mourning did not lack, for the great red dog still ran up and down, nosed his master, then lifted up his voice and howled as the cold truth struck into him. His wonderful eyes imaged a world of misery and his face showed agonies far more acute than the moonlike countenance of the man.

But Collins had come correctly to the truth, and, in his speech, accurately described an incident that here, upon thresholds of renewed hope and peace, had ended the days of Myles Stapledon.

At sudden cry from a brute in pain above him, Myles climbed Watern, realised the sheep's sad plight, and immediately essayed to throw it down, that its miseries might be ended. But at unguessed personal disadvantages, from a protracted fast and recent physical exertions, the man over-estimated his strength, nor took account of the serious difficulties attending such a climb. Half-way to the ledge, he grew suddenly giddy, and, for the first time, realised that though he might descend, return must be for him impossible. A desperate effort to get back proved futile; he slipped, struggled, slipped again, and found his hands and arms powerless to serve or save. And then he heard the unexpected Message and knew that his hours were told.

Now he slept where he had fallen, below the unchanging granite. His life was done with; its tribulations and sunrise of new hope alike quenched. Yet no pang of mental sorrow marked his dead face, and physical suffering was likewise absent from it. The man lay calm of feature, contented of aspect. His eyebrows were arched and normal, his hands were unflexed. One had guessed that he made no effort to question the mandate, but rather, in a phrase of Aurelius, had yielded up life with serenity complete as His who issued the discharge.