Part 10

David Bowden had chosen this spot for his home, and his reason was the shattered miner’s cottage of Tudor date that rose there. Four-square, crowned with heather and fretted with pennyworts and grasses, stone-crop, grey lichens and sky-blue jasione, the old house stood. Broken walls eight feet high surrounded it; an oven still gaped in one angle, and the wide chimney-shaft now made a green twilight of dewy ferns and mosses. Bowden crept into the ruin and looked about him, as he had already done many times before. At his feet lay old moulds hollowed out of the granite; and where molten tin once ran, now glittered water caught from the last shower.

Since first he found the place, David, with his scanty gift of imagination, had pictured a modern cottage rising on these venerable foundations. And soon the thing was actually to happen. He knew that the hearth whereon his feet now stood would presently glow again with fires lighted by Margaret’s hands; he thought of white wheaten loaves baking in the oven; he almost smelt them; and he saw above this loneliness the thin blue ringlets of peat smoke that soon would rise and curl on the west wind’s fingers and tell chance wanderers that a home lay hidden by water’s brink in the glen beneath. The place was very sequestered, very remote from all other habitations; and he liked it the better for that. Here was such privacy as the man desired. Margaret would do her shopping at Princetown; and since she knew scarcely anybody there, the chances of gossip and vain conversation were small. His ambition was a life far from trivial social obligations and the talk of idle tongues. He desired opportunity to pursue success without distractions and waste of time. Whether this home might suit the sociable Margaret, he did not pause to consider. As for Rhoda, she would certainly be of his mind.

The facts that most impressed Bowden at the moment were certain loads of lime and sand, together with granite boulders, water-worn, from the stream bed close at hand. Materials for his house were already collected and the building of it was to begin during the following week. It would need five or six months to finish, and Bowden proposed to be married and settled in his future home before another Christmas came.

While he sat here now, slowly, stolidly planning the future and waiting for Margaret to meet him, certain black-faced, horned sheep approached, drew up at a safe distance and lifted their yellow eyes to him inquiringly. David returned their regard with interest, for they were his own.

Presently came Margaret and he kissed her, then pointed with satisfaction to the preparations.

"They’ve kept their word, you see. Next week our house is to be started. There’s a good bit of pulling down to do first, however. And Sir Guy have given way about that ruined spot t’other side the stream. It’s going to be built again for a lew place for stock; and I’m to pay two pound a year more rent."

"’Twill be good for the kennel," said Madge. "Rhoda tells me as you’ll have five or six dogs at the least for her to watch over, not counting ’Silky’ here."

’Silky’ had grown from puppyhood into adolescence. He was now a beautiful but a spoiled spaniel, who never wandered far from his mistress.

Bowden looked down and shook his head at ’Silky,’ where he sat with his nose between his fore-paws at Margaret’s feet.

"A good dog ruined," he said. "If you was to do the proper thing, you’d let me shoot it. ’Twill never be any manner of use here."

"He’ll be of use to me, David. I should miss him cruel now."

"God send you don’t bring up the childer so, when they come, Madge."

"No childer of yours will ever be spoilt," she said.

"I hope not. And I hope they don’t prove of wayward nature; for that sort’s a thorn in the parent’s side. Take Dorcas now--so different to the rest of us as you can think. Light-minded and a chatterer--colour and mind both different. I hope as I’ll never have a red child, Madge."

"I’m very fond of Dorcas. She’s the happiest of you all, anyway--light-minded or not. Only her father sees her good points. I don’t think, David, that you rate her high enough."

"I know her very well--light-minded and a laugher," he repeated. "And now there’s that insolent chap, Screech, after her; and he had the cheek to talk to faither and mother about it, and offer to take her--a beggarly man, with none to say a good word for him--a man that have lived on his widowed mother all his days, and haven’t even got regular work, but picks up an uneven living where he can."

"What did your father answer?"

"Sent him away with a flea in his ear! There was a few high words, and then I seed my gentleman marching off across Ringmoor, and Dorcas with her apron to her eyes. ’Better bide single all your days than marry an out-at-elbows good-for-nought like that,’ I told her; but, of course, she knowed better, and said he was all he should be, and that her life would be gall and wormwood without him."

"Your father’s not one to be flouted."

"He is not; and Dorcas knows it very well. Us shan’t hear no more about the chap."

"She’ll tell me, however."

"Mind you speak sense to her then, Madge. Don’t go pitying her. You’re too prone to pity every mortal thing that’s in trouble, or thinks it is. You know as well as any one that Billy Screech is a bad and lazy man. You know that he’s not built to make any female a good husband. Therefore tell her so."

"I hope she’ll soon find a better to make her forget him."

"I hope she won’t then. She’ve got Sophia’s poor luck before her eyes. Better for a woman not to wed at all than wreck her life in it. Dorcas is better at home in my judgment. Nought but a tramp would fancy such a homely creature as her."

"You’re wrong there, David. A girl’s face isn’t everything. But no brother ever yet knew what his sisters were worth."

"’Tis you who are wrong to say that," answered David. "I know their virtues very well. Sophia was far too good for her husband, and Rhoda--well, never was a better than her--a marvel of a woman."

"She is--yet the men keep off. But her heart’s so warm and soft as any woman’s, I daresay."

"Men generally want something less fine and high-minded," said David. "Something weaker and wilfuller than Rhoda. They are frighted of her. She makes ’em see how small they are, if you can understand that."

"She does. So strong and fearless. Looks through men and women with those eyes of hers. Yet you wouldn’t have her bide a maiden into old age surely, David? There’s men good enough--even for Rhoda."

Not a spark of spite marked the speech, and Madge only meant what she said.

"We must find her a husband, David!"

He shook his head doubtfully.

"A kicklish business. She’s not the sort to let others do that work for her. She’ve got no use for a man in my opinion. There’s only one male as ever I saw her eye follow for a yard, and that, if you please, be the leat-keeper, Simon Snell."

Madge laughed.

"Poor Mr. Snell! I can’t picture him ever daring to lift his eyes to Rhoda."

"No more can’t I," agreed David. "And don’t you breathe what I’ve told you to Rhoda, for I may be wrong, and, right or wrong, she’d never forgive even me for saying it. She’ll be happy enough here with us, and if a husband comes--come he will. But I don’t want him to come in a hurry."

"Such a lover of the night as she is!" declared Margaret. "Never was a stranger girl in some ways, I think--to say it lovingly. Give her a dog or two and nightfall, and off she’ll tramp to meet the moonrise. Whatever do she do out in the dark, David?"

"Blest if I can answer that. She’ve got her secrets--like everything else that goeth in petticoats, no doubt. But few enough secrets from my ear, I reckon. ’Twas always a great desire in her to be out by night, and more’n once faither whipped her, when she was a dinky little maid, because she would go straying in the warrens when she ought to have been in bed, and fright her mother nigh to death. I’ve axed her many a time about it, but she can’t or won’t offer reasons. It pleases her to see the night creatures at their work, I suppose. She’ll tell you things that might much surprise you about the ways of the night, and what happens under it."

"She likes the moon better than the sun, I believe. Sometimes I’m tempted to think her blood’s cold instead of hot, David."

"You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen her kiss my smashed face after the fight last winter;--no, nor heard her when she spoke of Bartley Crocker kissing hers."

"I believe Bartley would marry her joyfully," said Margaret; but David doubted it.

"Not him--not after what she said to him in the Pixies’ House, and after what I said to him in the bull-ring. No man ever paid dearer for a kiss than him, I reckon. But very good friends now, thank God. But my brother-in-law--no. He’ll never come to be that. He don’t want Rhoda and Rhoda don’t want him."

"He told me that well he knew he’d have beat you, if Rhoda had been o’ his side."

"I daresay that’s true."

They sat together in the theatre of their future life, and Madge brushed David’s hair away from his right ear. The organ was slightly larger than the other and she shook her head discontentedly.

"’Twill never be just so beautiful as the left one," she said.

He laughed.

"What do it matter so long as I can hear with it?"

"And your dear eyelid will droop for ever."

"Yes, but the eye behind be all right. Bartley’s got his mark too--where I hit him that last time."

"He’s coming up one evening to see this place. Not but he knows it well enough already. He told me that the valley under Harter up along and beyond be nearly always good for a snipe at the season of the year."

"A pity he don’t come and lend a hand here, if ’twas only mixing mortar. ’Twould be something for him to do. How any living being can waste his life like that man is a mystery and a shame."

"Always happy too," said Madge. "He’ve got a very kind heart, David."

"I know that--else he’d have licked me instead of my licking him. Don’t think I bear the man any ill-will--far from it. We’re real good friends and he’s very clever by nature. I’m only sorry he can’t find man’s work. He’ve larned a trade now, then why don’t he use it?"

The conversation shifted to their house presently and Madge declared her longing to see it grow.

"And what be us to call the place?" she asked.

"I thought of ’Black Tor Cottage,’" he said, "since Black Tor’s just above us."

But Madge little liked the name.

"’Black’ ban’t a comely word for a home," she said. "Think again, David."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"’Tis only the name of the tor," he answered; "black or white be no more than words."

"Call it ’Meavy Cot,’" she said. "’Tis an easy name for folks to bring to mind, and I’d sooner my home was called after the river than they great stones up over, though I daresay I’ll get very fond of them too."

"So be it," he answered. "’Meavy Cot’ is the name! and I hope that a good few prosperous years be waiting for us in it. But if ever I come to be Moorman of this quarter, I might have to leave it."

"You’ll do greater things than that some day, David."

"I hope I shall," he answered; "but to be Moorman is a very good stepping-stone, mark you."

*CHAPTER II*

*BARTLEY DOUBTFUL.*

A great drake waddled out from the yard of Mrs. Crocker’s dwelling, and some white ducks followed him. The male bird was grey, but his head shone with the rich black-green of the fir trees behind him on the hill and the light of these metallic and glittering feathers made a fine setting for his brown eyes. He marched to the stream, put down his bill and tasted the water; he then threw up his bill again, quacked an order to set forth, and so floated away with the current, while his household followed after. Under the little bridge they went, and the drake, screwing round his head, cast an upward glance at the parapet as he passed by. There he might have marked a familiar figure, for Bartley Crocker, with his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth, sat and talked to a woman who stood beside him. Their position was public, but the subject of their discourse might have been considered confidential. For the woman the revelation he now made opened a desirable possibility. The man spoke half in jest, yet it seemed clear that he found himself perfectly serious and meant all that he said on the main question.

"Set down your basket, Madge, and listen. I’ll carry it along for you presently; but I can’t talk and walk together--not when the subject is so large. Where are you going?"

"Over to they old Elfords down at Good-a-Meavy. They be terrible poor, you know, and he’s fallen ill and the pair of ’em was pretty near starving last week. One of the Bowden boys--Wellington, I think it was--called there, and he told his father; and of course the matter was looked to. I’m just taking them a thing or two, till the old man can get out again."

"’Tis only putting off the workhouse."

"Maybe--yet a good thing to put it off. They’ll be too old to smart soon; and then it won’t matter."

"How’s Rhoda Bowden?" he asked suddenly.

"Very well, so far as I know."

"I’ve hardly seen a wink of her since I came back. Yet somehow, Madge, I find her terrible interesting."

"She’s a fine character, Bartley."

"Well, when I went up to Barnstaple for three months after the fight, I did two things: I learned a trade, as you know, and I thought a lot off and on of Rhoda Bowden."

"Yes."

"’Tis something to be anything at all. Now, if anybody asks what I am, I can say I am an upholsterer. My uncle was well pleased for me to learn the business, and a very nice girl helped me how to do it. But, somehow, while I looked at her clever hands I thought of Rhoda Bowden."

"You ought to tell Rhoda, then--not me."

"Why should I? It’s all ridiculous nonsense, of course; but you see I can’t forget the peculiar way we were flung together. If you’d seen her after I kissed her! A princess couldn’t have raged worse. Then--at the fight--time and again I tried to catch her eye; but never once she looked at me--always busy with David. Did you hear that she came down two nights after, all by herself, through the snow, to ask my mother how I was faring?"

"No!"

"She did; but nobody ever heard it--not even David, I believe. She told my mother not to mention it; and mother began to give her a piece of her mind; but she didn’t wait for that."

"’Tis just like her. Something got hold of her to do it, no doubt, while she was walking through the night. She feels kindly to all sorts of dumb things; but she don’t often show any interest in humans--except David, of course."

"If I was a dog now, she and me would be very good friends--eh?"

"Not a doubt of it. Anyway this is terrible interesting to me, Bartley--for more reasons than you’d guess. David and I were telling together only a week agone. I said that when we were married, we must set to and find Rhoda a husband; but David felt a bit doubtful about it."

"Well he may be!"

"You think that too?"

"I’m going to scrape acquaintance with her when you’re married. Mind I don’t say ’twill go very far. I’m a bit frightened of her yet, and ’twouldn’t be very clever to offer marriage to a female that makes you feel frightened. But a man must get a wife some day or other, I suppose, and my mother’s at me morning, noon and night to find one."

"You do tell me wonderful things!"

"But for the Lord’s sake keep ’em dark. I can trust you--and only you. You’ve been a rare brick where I was concerned all your life, and ’tis very hard we couldn’t have been married, as I shall always think whoever takes me. Still, you’ll have to go on wishing me well."

"Yes, indeed."

"Say no more about it then. ’Tis only a moonshiney fancy at best, and very like I’d hate the woman if I knew her better--hate her as much as she does me. You know what a fool I am about ’em. I always see her sponging the blood off David’s face and always catch myself wishing she’d been doing the same for mine. But I should have felt the same silly wish about any girl, no doubt."

"There’s not another girl that ever I heard about would have done it."

"I know--and I ask myself if that’s to praise her or to blame her. To hear my mother--"

"Better hear David. She didn’t do it for fun, I can tell you. Not to me--not to no woman--did she ever tell what she felt afterwards; but she did tell David; and he says that she didn’t know where she was for the first four rounds, and that once or twice after, when it looked like David being beat, that ’twas all she could do by sticking her nails into herself to keep herself from dashing out to help David against you."

Bartley nodded admiringly.

"I believe it," he said. "I saw it in her face."

"And now I must get on," declared Madge. "Can’t waste no more time along with you to-day."

"I’ll walk up over then and carry your basket," he answered. "When are you going to be married?"

"Not till the house is ready. They’ve started. There’s a lot of the old building will work very suent into our new cottage."

"Yes," he said. "I was over there watching ’em at it yesterday evening. And d’you know what I was wondering?--What I should give you and David for a wedding present."

"No need, I’m sure."

"Every need. You’m like your mother. You’d give your head away if you could; yet when people think to do you a turn, you always cry out against it. ’Twill be a joy to many more people than your humble thoughts will guess, to bring something to help you set up house."

"It ’mazes me, the kindness of the world."

"It might--if the world followed your example. ’Tis your due, and it oughtn’t to ’maze you. ’Twould be funny if anybody could be unkind to you."

"’Tis all very hopeful and beautiful, I’m sure--yet here and there I feel a doubt. Wouldn’t name it to none but you; but mother don’t seem at all hopeful--"

"Don’t let her fret you," urged Mr. Crocker. "I beg you won’t do that, Madge. There’s not a kinder, humbler-hearted woman on the Moor than Mrs. Stanbury; but she’s far too superstitious and given to the old stories--you know it."

Margaret looked troubled. These folk belonged to a time when still a few fine spirits from the middle place between man and angel haunted Dartmoor. The pixies were yet whispered of as frequenting this farmer’s threshing-floor, or that housewife’s dairy; the witch hare leapt from her lonely form; herbs and simples in wise hands acted for potions of might; and the little heath hounds were well known to hunt the Evil One through the darkness of winter nights and along the pathway of the storm. The toad still held a secret in its head; the tarn, in its heart; rivers hungered for their annual banquet of human life; the corpse candle burned in lonely churchyards; charms were whispered over sick children and sick beasts; the evil eye still shone malignant; the murmur of the mine goblins was often heard by the workers underground.

But the time of these mysteries has quite passed by. Back to the opal and ivory dream-palaces of fairy-land, back to the shores of old romance, have Dartmoor’s legendary spirits vanished; they are as dead as the folk whose ruined homes still glimmer grey on twilight heaths at sunset and at dawn. Knowledge has stricken our traditions hip and thigh; our lore is obsolete; and our Moor children of to-day, as they pass through the stages of learning’s dawn, see only an unlikeness to truth that stamps the faces of these far-off things. Yet who shall say that knowledge and wisdom are one? Who shall deny that not seldom the story loved in life’s dawn-light and rejected at noon, is welcomed again and only understood when evening shadows fall?

Mrs. Stanbury was saturated with the ancient myths, and they brought her more sorrow than joy.

"I could wish that dear mother didn’t believe so many things," admitted Margaret. "But there it is--father haven’t changed her in all these years, so it isn’t likely that ever he will. She was full of Crazywell Pool only yesterday. You know it--a wisht place, sure enough, and it tells about nothing but death and such-like dismal matters. But if you was to say to her ’twas all nonsense--not that I would go so far as that myself--she’d answer that you was courting your undoing and would surely come to harm."

"I know she would and you yourself are as bad, pretty near."

"Crazywell is harmless enough every night but Christmas Eve," explained Margaret. "Only then can you say that there’s aught out of the common hidden in the water. But then--well, you know what they say."

"Stuff and nonsense! Your mother believes that you hear a voice there after dark on Christmas Eve; and that it calls out the names of them that’ll die afore another year’s out. What can be sillier than that?"

"Strange things have happened, all the same," argued Margaret. "I don’t say I trust in all that dear mother does, though she can give chapter and verse for most of it; but Crazywell have spoken out the death year of more men than one. Why, only ten year agone you know how Joseph Westaway, being over-got by the fog, was along there on Christmas Eve and heard an awful voice saying, ’Nathan Snell! Nathan Snell!’ And didn’t Nathan Snell--Mr. Simon Snell’s own father--actually die the March afterwards, of a kick from his horse? You can’t deny that, Bartley, because Joseph Westaway heard it with his own ears--him being on the way to eat his Christmas dinner at Kingsett Farm, with the Pierces, and not so much as market merry."

"You’re as bad as your mother, Madge, and worse than Bart. You’ll believe in the pixies next, I doubt. But there’s one thing I do say where Mrs. Stanbury’s right, though I can’t be supposed to know much about such matters--a bachelor man like me. Your mother told mine how ’twas arranged that Rhoda joins you and David at ’Meavy Cot’ after you’m married; and Mrs. Stanbury said that somehow, though far be it from her to set her opinion over other people, she couldn’t think ’twas a wise plan; and my mother who never beats about no bush, and always sets up her opinion over everybody, said for her part ’twas flat foolishness, not to say madness, and would end in a rumpus. What d’you think of that?"

"’Tis taken out of my hands, Bartley. I wasn’t asked--no more was mother. Some might think that it wouldn’t suit Rhoda--living along with a young married couple; but I know, and you know, what Rhoda is to David. ’Tisn’t a common friendship of brother and sister, but a lot more than that. She’d be lost at the Warren House without him."

"But surely the man doesn’t want her now that he’s going to take a wife?"

"Yes, he does--to look after his dogs."

"Can’t you look after his dogs?"

"No," said Margaret, firmly, "I can’t. I don’t treat dogs right. I spoil ’em."

"Well, if the three of you are of one mind, I can’t see that it’s any other body’s business. Here’s the top of the hill, and I can’t go no farther, though I’d like to."

He put down her basket, and she thanked him for carrying it.

"And what you say is true, I’m sure! if we three--Rhoda and David and me--be well pleased at the thought of biding together, why shouldn’t we do so?"

"Of course. You can but try it. Perhaps she’ll marry afore long, and you’ll have the dogs on your hands yet afore you expect it."

"I’m sure I hope--at least--good-bye, for the present," said Margaret, and hurried off.