Part 7

"Treason! You live too much in the atmosphere of honest toil, sweetheart. And there's hardly a butterfly left now to correct your impressions."

"No; they are all starving under leaves, poor things."

"Exactly--dying game; and the self-righteous ant is counting his stores--or is it the squirrel, or the dormouse? I know something or other hoards all the summer through to prolong his useless existence."

Honor did not answer. Then her lover suddenly remembered Myles, and his forehead wrinkled for a moment.

"Of course I'm not blind, Honor," he proceeded, in an altered tone. "I've seen the change these many days, and levelled a guess at the reason. Sobersides makes me look a weakling. Unfortunately he's such a real good chap I cannot be cross with him."

"Why should you be cross with anybody?"

"That's the question. You're the answer. I'm--I'm not exactly all I was to you. Don't clamour. It's true, and you know it's true. You're so exacting, so unrestful, so grave by fits lately. And he--he's always on your tongue too. You didn't know that, but it's the case. Natural perhaps--a strong personality, and so forth--yet--yet----"

"What nonsense this is, Christopher!"

"Of course it is. But you don't laugh. You never do laugh now. My own sober conviction is this; Stapledon's in love with you and doesn't know it. Don't fall off your pony."

"Christopher! You've no right, or reason, or shadow of a shade for saying such a ridiculous thing."

"There's that in your voice convinces me at this moment."

"Doesn't he know we're engaged? Would such a man allow himself for an instant----?"

"Of course he wouldn't. That's just what I argue, isn't it? He stops on here because he doesn't know what's happened to him yet, poor devil. When he finds out, he'll probably fly."

"You judge others by yourself, my dearest. Love! Why, he works too hard to waste his thoughts on any woman whatsoever. Never was a mind so seldom in the clouds."

"In the clouds--no; but on the earth--on the earth, and at your elbow."

"He's nothing of the kind."

"Well, then, you're always at his. Such a busy, bustling couple! I'm sure you're enough to make the very singing birds ashamed. When is he going?"

"When his money is laid out to his liking, I suppose. Not yet awhile, I hope."

"You don't want him to go?"

"Certainly I don't; why should I?"

"You admire him in a way?"

"In a great many ways. He's a restful man. There's a beautiful simplicity about his thoughts; and----"

"And he works?"

"You're trying to make me cross, Christo; but I don't think you will again."

"Ah! I have to thank him for that too! He's making you see how small it is to be cross with me. He's enlarging your mind, lifting it to the stars, burying it in the bogs, teaching you all about rainbows and tadpoles. He'll soak the sunshine out of your life if you're not careful; and then you'll grow as self-contained and sensible and perfect as he is."

"After which you won't want me any more, I suppose?"

"No--then you'd only be fit for--well, for him."

"I don't love you in these sneering moods, Christo. Why cannot you speak plainly? You've got some imaginary grievance. What is it?"

"I never said so. But--well, I have. I honestly believe I'm jealous--jealous of this superior man."

"You child!"

"There it is! It's come to that. I wasn't a child in your eyes a month ago. But I shall be called an infant in arms at this rate in another month."

"He can't help being a sensible, far-seeing man, any more than you can help being a----"

"Fool--say it; don't hesitate. Well, what then?"

Honor, despite her recent assertion, could still be angry with Christopher, because she loved him better than anything in the world. Her face flushed; she gathered her reins sharply.

"Then," she answered, "there's nothing more to be said--excepting that I'm a little tired of you to-day. We've seen too much of one another lately."

"Or too much of somebody else."

She wheeled away abruptly and galloped off, leaving him with the last word. One of her dogs, a big collie, stood irresolute, his left forepaw up, his eyes all doubt. Then he bent his great back like a bow, and bounded after his mistress; but Yeoland did not attempt to follow. He watched his lady awhile, and, when she was a quarter of a mile ahead, proceeded homewards.

She had chosen a winding way back to Bear Down, and he must pass the farm before she could return to it.

The man was perfectly calm to outward seeming, but he shook his head once or twice--shook it at his own folly.

"Poor little lass!" he said to himself. "Impatient--impatient--why? Because I was impatient, no doubt. Let me see--our first real quarrel since we were engaged."

As he went down the hill past Honor's home, a sudden fancy held him, and, acting upon it, he dismounted, hitched up his horse, and strolled round to the back of the house in hope that he might win a private word or two with Mark Endicott. Chance favoured him. Tea drinking was done, and the still, lonely hour following on that meal prevailed in the great kitchen. Without, spangled fowls clucked their last remarks for the day, and fluttered, with clumsy effort, to their perches in a great holly tree, where they roosted. At the open door a block, a bill-hook, and a leathern gauntlet lay beside a pile of split wood where Sally Cramphorn had been working; and upon the block a robin sat and sang.

Christopher lifted the latch and walked through a short passage to find Honor's uncle alone in the kitchen and talking to himself by snatches.

"Forgive me, Mr. Endicott," he said, breaking in upon the monologue; "I've no right to upset your reveries in this fashion, but I was passing and wanted a dozen words."

"And welcome, Yeoland. We've missed you at the Sunday supper of late weeks. How is it with you?"

"Oh, all right. Only just now I want to exchange ideas--impressions. You love my Honor better than anybody else in the world but myself. And love makes one jolly quick--sensitive--foolishly so perhaps. I didn't think it was in me to be sensitive; yet I find I am."

"Speak your mind, and I'll go on with my knitting--never blind man's holiday if you are a blind man, you know."

"You're like all the rest in this hive, always busy. I wonder if the drones blush when they're caught stealing honey?"

"Haven't much time for blushing. Yet 'tis certain that never drone stole sweeter honey than you have--if you are a drone."

"I'm coming to that. But the honey first. Frankly now, have you noticed any change in Honor of late days--since--well, within the last month or two."

Mr. Endicott reflected before making any answer, and tapped his needles slowly.

"There is a change," he said at length.

"She's restless," continued Christopher; "won't have her laugh out--stops in the middle, as if she suddenly remembered she was in church or somewhere. How d'you account for it?"

"She's grown a bit more strenuous since her engagement--more alive to the working-day side of things."

"Not lasting, I hope?"

"Please God, yes. She won't be any less happy."

"Of course Myles Stapledon's responsible. Yet how has he done it? You say you're glad to see Honor more serious-minded. Well, that means you would have made her so before now, if you could. You failed to change her in all these years; he has succeeded in clouding her life somehow within the space of two months. How can you explain that?"

"You're asking pithy questions, my son. And, by the voice of you, I'm inclined to reckon you're as likely to know the answers to them as I am. Maybe more likely. You're a man in love, and that quickens the wits of even the dullest clod who ever sat sighing on a gate, eating his turnip and finding it tasteless. I loved a maid once, too; but 'tis so far off."

"Well, there's something not wholly right in this. And they ought to know it."

"Certainly they don't--don't guess it or dream it. But leave that. Now you. You must tackle yourself. The remedy lies with you. This thing has made you think, at any rate."

"Well, yes. Honor isn't so satisfied with me as of old, somehow. Of course that's natural, but----"

"She loves you a thousand times better than you love yourself."

"And still isn't exactly happy in me."

"Are you happy in yourself? She's very well satisfied with you--worships the ground you walk on, as the saying is--but that's not to say she's satisfied with your life. And more am I, or anybody that cares about you. And more are you."

"Well, well; but Myles Stapledon--this dear, good chap. He's a--what? Why, a magnifying glass for people to see me in--upside down."

"He thinks very little about you, I fancy."

"He's succeeded in making me feel a fool, anyhow; and that's unpleasant. Tell me what to do, Mr. Endicott. Where shall I begin?"

"Begin to be a man, Yeoland. That's what a woman wants in her husband--wants it unconsciously before everything. A man--self-contained, resolute--a figure strong enough to lean upon in storm and stress."

"Stapledon is a man."

"He is, emphatically. He knows where he is going, and the road. He gets unity into his life, method into his to-morrows."

"To-morrow's always all right. It's to-day that bothers me so infernally."

"Ah! and yesterday must make you feel sick every time you think of it, if you've any conscience."

"I know there isn't much to show. Yet it seems such a poor compliment to the wonderful world to waste your time in grubbing meanly with your back to her. At best we can only get a few jewelled glimpses through these clay gates that we live behind. Then down comes the night, when no man may work or play. And we shall be an awfully long time dead. And what's the sum of a life's labour after all?"

"Get work," said Mark, "and drop that twaddle. Healthy work's the first law of Nature, no matter what wise men may say or poets sing. Liberty! It's a Jack-o'-lantern. There's no created thing can be free. Doing His will--all, all. Root and branch, berry and bud, feathered and furred creatures--all working to live complete. The lily does toil; and if you could see the double fringe of her roots above the bulb and under it--as I can well mind when I had eyes and loved the garden--you'd know it was so. There's no good thing in all the world got without labour at the back of it. Think what goes to build a flash of lightning--you that love storms. But the lightning's not free neither. And the Almighty's self works harder than all His worlds put together."

"Well, I'll do something definite. I think I'll write a book about birds. Tell me, does Honor speak much of her cousin?"

"She does."

"Yet if she knew--if she only knew. Why, God's light! she'd wither and lose her sap and grow old in two years with Stapledon. I know it, in the very heart of me, and I'd stake my life on it against all the prophets. There's that in close contact with him would freeze and kill such as Honor. Yes, kill her, for it's a vital part of her would suffer. Some fascination has sprung up from the contrast between us; and it has charmed her. She's bewitched. And yet--be frank, Mr. Endicott--do you believe that Stapledon is the husband for Honor? You've thought about it, naturally, because, before she and I were engaged, you told me that you hoped they might make a match for their own sakes and the farm's. Now what do you say? Would you, knowing her only less well than I do, wish that she could change?"

The other was silent.

"You would, then?"

"If I would," answered old Endicott, "I shouldn't have hesitated to say so. It's because I wouldn't that I was dumb."

"You wouldn't? That's a great weight off my mind, then."

"I mean no praise for you. I should like to chop you and Stapledon small, mix you, and mould you again. Yet what folly! Then she'd look at neither, for certain."

"Such a salad wouldn't be delectable. But thank you for heartening me. I'm the husband for your niece. I know it--sure as I'm a Christian. And she knew it a month ago; and she'll know it again a month hence, I pray, even if she's forgotten it for the moment. Now I'll clear out, and leave you with your thoughts."

"So you've quarrelled with her?"

"No, no, no; she quarrelled with me, very properly, very justly; then she left me in disgrace, and I came to you, hoping for a grain of comfort. I'm a poor prattler, you know--one who cannot hide my little dish of misery out of sight, but must always parade it if I suspect a sympathetic nature in man or woman. Good-bye again."

So Christopher departed, mounted his horse, and trotted home in most amiable mood.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*THE WARNING*

There was a custom of ancient standing at Bear Down Farm. On working days the family supped together in a small chamber lying off the kitchen, and left the latter apartment to the hands; but upon Sunday night all the household partook at the same table, and it was rumoured and believed that, during a period of two hundred years, the reigning head of Endicott's had never failed to preside at this repast, when in residence. Moreover, the very dishes changed not. A cold sirloin of beef, a potato salad, and a rabbit pie were the foundations of the feast; and after them followed fruit tarts, excepting in the spring, with bread and cheese, cider and small beer.

Two days after Honor's quarrel with Christopher, while yet they continued unreconciled, there fell a Sunday supper at which the little band then playing its part in the history of Endicott's was assembled about a laden board. But matters of moment were astir; a wave of excitement passed over the work folk, and Myles, who sat near the head of the table on Honor's left, observed a simultaneous movement, a whispering and a nodding. There were present Mr. Cramphorn and his daughters, who dwelt in a cottage hard by the farm; Churdles Ash, Henry Collins, the red-haired humorist Pinsent, and the boy Tommy Bates. Mrs. Loveys took the bottom of the table; Mark Endicott sat beside his niece, at her right hand.

A hush fell upon the company before the shadow of some great pending event. The clatter of crockery, the tinkle of knives and forks ceased. Then Myles whispered to Honor that a speech was about to be delivered, and she, setting down her hands, smiled with bright inquiry upon Mr. Cramphorn, who had risen to his feet, and was darting uncomfortable glances about him from beneath black brows.

"D'you want to tell me anything, Cramphorn?" she inquired.

"Ma'am, I do," he answered. "By rights 'tis the dooty of Churdles Ash, but he'm an ancient piece wi'out gert store o' words best o' times, an' none for a moment such as this; so he've axed me to speak instead, 'cause it do bring him a wambliness of the innards to do or say ought as may draw the public eye upon un. 'Tis like this, mistress, we of Endicott's, here assembled to supper, do desire to give 'e joy of your marriage contract when it comes to be; an' us hopes to a man as it may fall out for the best. Idden for us to say no more'n that; an' what we think an' what we doan't think ban't no business but our awn. Though your gude pleasure be ours, I do assure 'e; an' the lot of us would do all man or woman can do to lighten your heart in this vale o' weariness. An' I'm sure we wants for you to be a happy woman, wife, mother, an' widow--all in due an' proper season, 'cordin' to the laws o' Nature an' the will o' God. An' so sez Churdles Ash, an' me, an' Mrs. Loveys, an' my darters, an' t'others. An' us have ordained to give e' a li'l momentum of the happy day, awnly theer's no search in' hurry by the look of it, so as to that--it being Henery Collins his thought--us have resolved to bide till the banns be axed out. 'Cause theer's many a slip 'twixt the cup an' the lip, 'cordin' to a wise sayin' of old. An' so I'll sit down wishin' gude fortune to all at Endicott's--fields, an' things,[#] an' folk."

[#] Things = stock.

Mr. Cramphorn and his friends had been aware of Honor's engagement for three months; but the bucolic mind is before all things deliberate. It required that space of time and many long-winded, wearisome arguments to decide when and how an official cognisance of the great fact might best be taken.

The mistress of Bear Down briefly thanked everybody, with a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye; while the men and women gazed stolidly upon her as she expressed her gratitude for their kindly wishes. When she had spoken, Mr. Cramphorn, Collins, and Churdles Ash hit the table with their knife-handles once or twice, and the subject was instantly dismissed. Save in the mistress and her uncle, this incident struck not one visible spark of emotion upon anybody present. All ate heartily, then Honor Endicott withdrew to her parlour; Mrs. Loveys and Cramphorn's daughters cleared the table.

The men then lighted their pipes; Mark Endicott returned to his chair behind the leathern screen; the deep settle absorbed Churdles Ash and another; Jonah took a seat beside the peat fire, which he mended with a huge "scad" or two from the corner; and the customary Sunday night convention, with the blind man as president or arbiter, according to the tone of the discussion, was entered upon. Sometimes matters progressed harmoniously and sleepily enough; on other occasions, and always at the instance of Mr. Cramphorn, whose many opinions and scanty information not seldom awoke an active and polemical spirit, the argument was conducted with extreme acerbity--a circumstance inevitable when opposing minds endeavour to express ideas or shades of thought beyond the reach of their limited vocabularies.

To-night the wind blew hard from the west and growled in the chimney, while the peat beneath glowed to its fiery heart under a dancing aurora of blue flame, and half a dozen pipes sent forth crooked columns of smoke to the ceiling. Mr. Cramphorn, by virtue of the public part he had already taken in the evening's ceremonial, was minded to rate himself and his accomplishments with more than usual generosity. For once his suspicious forehead had lifted somewhat off his eyebrows, and the consciousness of great deeds performed with credit cast him into a spirit of complaisance. He lightly rallied Churdles Ash upon the old man's modesty; then, thrusting his mouth into the necessary figure, blew a perfect ring of smoke, and spat through it into the fire with great comfort and contentment.

Gaffer Ash replied in a tone of resignation.

"As to that," he said, "some's got words and some hasn't. For my paart, I ban't sorry as I can't use 'em, for I've always thanked God as I was born so humble that I could live through my days without never being called 'pon to say what I think o' things in general an' the men an' women round about."

"Least said soonest mended," commented Pinsent.

"Ess fay! 'Tis the chaps as have got to talk I be sorry for--the public warriors and Parliament men an' such like. They sweat o' nights, I reckon; for they be 'feared to talk now an' again, I'll wager, an' be still worse 'feared to hold theer peace."

"You're pretty right, Ash," said Mr. Endicott. "It takes a brave man to keep his mouth shut and not care whether he's misunderstood or no. But 'tis a bleating age--a drum-beating age o' clash and clatter. Why, the very members of Parliament get too jaded to follow their great business with sober minds. If a man don't pepper his speeches with mountebank fun, they call him a dull dog, and won't listen to him. All the world's dropping into play-acting--that's the truth of it."

"I didn't make no jokes howsoever when I turned my speech 'fore supper," declared Mr. Cramphorn; "an' I'm sure I'd never do no such ondacent thing in a set speech. Ban't respectful. Not but what I was surprised to find how pat the right word comed to me at the right moment wi'out any digging for un."

"'Tis a gert gift for a humble man," said Mr. Ash.

"A gift to be used wi' caution," confessed Jonah. "When you say 'tis a gift, last word's spoken," he added, "but a man's wise to keep close guard awver his tongue when it chances to be sharper'n common. Not as I ever go back on the spoken word, for 'tis a sign of weakness."

Myles Stapledon laughed and Mr. Cramphorn grew hot.

"Why for should I?" he asked.

"If you never had call to eat your words after fifty years o' talkin', Jonah, you're either uncommon fortunate or uncommon wise," declared the blind man. "Wise you are not particular, not to my knowledge, so we must say you're lucky."

The others laughed, and Jonah, despite his brag of a tongue more ready than most, found nothing to say at this rebuke. He made an inarticulate growl at the back of his throat and puffed vigorously, while Henry Collins came to the rescue.

"Can 'e tell us when the weddin's like to be, sir?" he inquired of Stapledon, and Myles waited for somebody else to reply; but none did so.

"I cannot tell," he answered at length. "I fancy nothing is settled. But we shall hear soon enough, no doubt."

"I suppose 'tis tu inquirin' to ax if you'll bide to Endicott's when missis do leave it?" said Samuel Pinsent.

"Well--yes, I think it is. Lord knows what I'm going to do. My home's here for the present--until--well, I really cannot tell myself. It depends on various things."

There was a silence. Even the most slow-witted perceived a new revelation of Stapledon in this speech. Presently Churdles Ash spoke.

"Best to bide here till the time-work chaps be through wi' theer job. Them time-work men! The holy text sez, 'Blessed be they as have not seed an' yet have believed'; but fegs! 'tis straining scripture to put that on time-work. I'd never believe no time-work man what I hadn't seed."

"Anybody's a fool to believe where he doesn't trust," said Mark Endicott. "You open a great question, Ash. I believed no more or less than any other chap of five-an'-twenty in my young days; but, come blindness, there was no more taking on trust for me. I had to find a reason for all I believed from that day forward."

"Was faith a flower that grew well in the dark with you, uncle?" inquired Myles, and there was a wave of sudden interest in his voice.

"Why, yes. Darkness is the time for making roots and 'stablishing plants, whether of the soil or of the mind. Faith grew but slowly. And the flower of it comes to no more than this: do your duty, and be gentle with your neighbour. Don't wax weak because you catch yourself all wrong so often. Don't let any man pity you but yourself; and don't let no other set of brains than your own settle the rights and wrongs of life for you. That's my road--a blind man's. But there's one thing more, my sons: to believe in the goodness of God through thick and thin."

"The hardest thing of all," said Stapledon.

Mr. Cramphorn here thought proper to join issue. He also had his own views, reached single-handed, and was by no means ashamed of them.

"As to the A'mighty," he said, "my rule's to treat Un same as He treats me--same as we'm taught to treat any other neighbour. That's fair, if you ax me."

"A blasphemous word to say it, whether or no," declared Ash uneasily. "We ban't teached to treat folks same as they treat us, but same as we wish they'd treat us. That's a very differ'nt thing. Gormed if I ban't mazed a bolt doan't strike 'e, Jonah."

"'Tis my way, an' who's gwaine to shaw me wheer it fails o' right an' justice?"

"A truculent attitude to the Everlasting, surely," ventured Myles, looking at the restless little man with his hang-dog forehead and big chin.